User talk:Antaeus Feldspar/Archive 02

Gravity, Molecular Reaction Rates, Relativistic Fields and the Hulk: a Beginners Guide

You claim this article is "a handwritten text dump from a Marvel Comics fan guide." That's a lie, no its not! Removing that page is vandalism. -- 68.49.181.138 01:16, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Please see my response at your user talk page. -- Antaeus Feldspar 01:51, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Karma

Well, golly! Is this some sort of new-age curse, or what? Mellow out man, it wasn't just you I reverted. I understand reverts are rude, but I found all the edits (not just yours, but the protest warriors attempts to misuse the term "liberal" as well) unhelpful. We don't need to take an editorial stance, if you can find someone to quote criticizing protest warriors for abu grahib, or whatever, cite it, and it can stay. Otherwise it?s just a wiki editor spouting off, which is what NPOV is ment to prevent. As far as my Karma, I imagine my copious volunteering here earns me a bit of favor in God's eyes, but not nearly so much as... say how I treat my cat, or my kids, or the Jehovah?s witnesses which keep dropping in on me ;) Good luck, and God be with you, Sam [Spade] 11:46, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Sam, the reason I removed the article from my watchlist was because I was disgusted with your double standards. You claim you are trying to keep things NPOV. That is not correct. Otherwise you would be allowing all sides of the debate to be represented fairly. Instead, you are advocating that the Protest Warriors' opinion that they administer their forums in a fair and open manner be allowed into the article as fact, while insisting that moderate leftists who are being unfairly lumped in with radical leftists must cite an authority simply in order to get their view that they're being misrepresented represented? No, Sam. No New Age curses here. Just saying that I had a choice of giving up the battle, or of continuing to fight it at the cost of sinking to your level. I chose the former and I'm not sorry I did. -- Antaeus Feldspar 16:59, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Rex, you are not welcome to post on my user talk page. Not now, not ever. Not under your registered name; not under your sock puppet. I do not care for your excuses, your denials, your justifications, or any of your baloney. You are unwelcome here. That is the bottom line. -- Antaeus Feldspar 06:16, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

David Vetter

cleanup tag; highly suspect copyvio for obvious reasons User:Antaeus Feldspar

What are those obvious reasons? --Alexandre Van de Sande 03:08, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

The style it's written in makes it read like materials from a reading comprehension course, the sort of thing a teacher would give a class after they'd watched a movie or read a story, to check if they were paying attention and understood everything they were supposed to. It's things like "David's parents, Mr. ____ and Mrs. ____" and "clothes all were (select which: pasteurized | boiled | chemicals)" that give that impression: questions visibly left unanswered in cases where it would have been easier, and would have made a better article, to leave them out until they were answered (I mean, the article is all about David Vetter; if you simply call his parents "David's parents", is anyone going to even notice?)

I see that you were the one who posted the original and called it an "experimental article". I'm sorry if you were offended, but I have to say in all honesty: I don't think the experiment was successful, and I don't think it's a good idea to write articles in this fashion, with blanks and multiple choice questions. It would be different if MediaWiki had some sort of settable flag that allowed you to say "This article isn't ready yet; don't mirror this one" but, well, it doesn't. What you might want to try is using the comment tags,  Anything you put between those will stay in the wikisource but won't show up in the rendered article. -- Antaeus Feldspar 16:38, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Accuracy dispute on Canon (fiction)

Before you put an accuracy dispute on any article it's a very good idea to triple-check your own accuracy. Your changes to the article relegated the definition of "canon" in fiction to a rather ironic "Some say", while you replaced it with the definition of "canon" as it would apply to Biblical canon. But that is why we have one page for Canon (fiction), one for Biblical canon, and a disambiguation page that tells you which is which. Your dismissive comment that what was there before your changes "looks as if it was written by popular-fiction types who know ONLY popular fiction" really begs the question of why they should not be trusted to write the article on canon in fiction. Who are you proposing as a better authority on the subject? -- Antaeus Feldspar 02:12, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)

It is certainly not true that the definition I gave would apply only to the Biblical canon. Michael Hardy 02:33, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)

No, and I didn't say that you wrote it such that it would only apply to the Biblical canon. But the change that you made to the definition made it more applicable to the "which books are genuine gospel and which are apocrypha" sense of the word, and less applicable to canon in fiction -- which is, again, the subject of the article. Moreover, your edit summary was an unsubtle insult to those who had been working on the article before you, implying that they don't have the knowledge to write about the term "canon" as applied to fiction because they haven't read.... what? You've made it clear that you look down on them for not having read something you have, but you fail to make it clear what that something is and why it makes you so much more authoritative on the subject. -- Antaeus Feldspar 04:01, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Dedham, Massachusetts

I doubt there'll be any surprises for you at User talk:Jerzy#Dedham, Massachusetts, but the less that goes on behind your back the better. I think you'll understand everything there, w/o further commentary ... in probable contrast to neo-Rex. --Jerzy (t) 22:09, 2004 Nov 5 (UTC)

I appreciate the heads-up. No, it's not in any way a surprise, though I must say I'd have thought neo-Rex had more tactical sense than to announce, in effect, "I will spam your user page until you give in." Thanks for the warning. -- Antaeus Feldspar 22:38, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)

well-spoken on the arbcom page. Wolfman 18:49, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Thank you. I hope Rex gets some help, soon; he's clearly got serious emotional problems and the more energy he pours futilely into his hopeless quest to make everyone admit he's "right", the deeper he'll plunge... these ArbCom cases dragging on isn't good for anyone, even for Rex! He thinks it means he can still "win", winning in his troubled mind meaning driving away or otherwise silencing everyone who disagrees with him. I'd pity the poor schmuck except that he wore out any patience I had for him long ago. -- Antaeus Feldspar 00:20, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Extraneous line breaks

Antaeus, for some reason your edits occasionally introduce an extra line break into the text. The latest example is here but I've noticed it several other times. Not a big deal, obviously, because it doesn't show up in the version most people see -- only in the "Edit this page" version. JamesMLane 06:15, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Yeah, I know about the problem. I really don't know why my browser does that. It actually can be a big deal, since sometimes it puts the break in the middle of wiki markup and breaks a link or something similar. Unfortunately, there's not much I can do about it except try to look over the article in both preview mode and in the edit box very carefully and look for anything unkosher. Even that doesn't always work: I usually spot a browser-added break in the edit box if it cuts off a line towards the beginning or in the middle, but if the break falls towards the end of a line and it doesn't break up a word or markup, there's almost nothing there to spot. I'd upgrade to a new browser if I could (I've tried) but until I can completely overhaul this computer, it's not likely to happen. -- Antaeus Feldspar 06:24, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)

comment from the person prohibited to post on this user page removed

One of the times it happened, it affected a comment of mine on one of the arbitration pages. So is it your theory that Antaeus Feldspar intentionally messed up something I wrote? And here I thought he was supposed to be one of my sockpuppets. Damn, you just can't get good help these days. JamesMLane 06:55, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Red-link recovery

Howdy and many thanks for your work on that list of mis-punctuated links. The list's pretty much completed now - I'll be generating a new version of it in due course, taking all the lessons learned from the last one into account. In the meantime, if you enjoyed working through the list (or at least found it a worthwhile distraction), you may want to have a look at the similar list of plural discrepancies which highlights red-links that might be red because they (or the article they are aiming for) are improperly pluralised. Again, thanks for your efforts - award yourself a wikimedal for janitorial services if you haven't already got one! - TB 11:29, 2004 Nov 8 (UTC)

Thank you! -- Antaeus Feldspar 15:05, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Thank you

Thank you, for the congratulations and for your vote of confidence. It seems congratulations are due you, as well. If Topbanana awards you a WikiMedal for Janitorial Services, you know you've been doing well. Happy editing! SWAdair | Talk 04:13, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)

It's honestly very nice to have that work recognized, which I did not expect at all... -- Antaeus Feldspar 17:11, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Concerning admins

I have every right to suggest that he may not be NPOV in this matter. He was heavily involved in the disputed article and used his abilities as an administrator on that article without good reason and as a weapon against other users (to the point that a request for de-adminship would not be outlandish). Therefore I don't think merely asking him to promise he'll leave his newly-gained adminship at the door on this issue, at least for awhile, is unreasonable at all. Reene (リニ) 01:00, Nov 13, 2004 (UTC)

What adminship powers did he use inappropriately? I've seen the accusation being thrown at him that he could never be NPOV in this matter but this is the first time anyone has mentioned any misdeeds he supposedly committed on the article. I cannot claim that I've been following all the back and forth on the article in extreme detail (I can barely follow the VfD in extreme detail, with all the churning) but, see, when Ta says that Netoholic has manipulated and abused the process, he provides links to the diffs in question so that people can for themselves see exactly what Netoholic did. So far, all we've been told is that Ta will do bad things with his adminship; so far from being able to see for ourselves what he's done, we haven't even been told what he's supposed to have done -- only that he will.

Merely asking him to promise he'll leave his adminship at the door on this issue is not unreasonable at all. But what you did, as far as I can see, is accuse him of future breaches of integrity after you had already received that promise. If you want me or anyone else to believe otherwise, you would do best for your cause to actually cite the misdeeds you've seen, so that others can see what you're talking about. -- Antaeus Feldspar 01:16, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I hardly did that, and it seems to be reaching. Frankly...I don't care enough about the issue right now (there is that pesky surgery I'm still recovering from) to go digging through a massive edit history to find the instances of him (as well as others users) removing "disputed" and "pov" tags, his protecting the page when people were trying to edit it to remove some of the factual inaccuracies and POVness (and I remember looking at what was being removed and agreeing wholeheartedly with its removal- I recall one of them was centered around screenshots hosted on someone's personal webspace). I'm not saying he "will" do something especially now that he said he wouldn't do anything. I said he did. If you dig through yourself you'll notice the page was protected at least once without good reason. Reene (リニ) 02:20, Nov 13, 2004 (UTC)

Hello... what's this? Is Reene accusing me of something? I wish she would accuse me directly on my talk page so I could respond! I would like to note, in my own defense, that I have never done any administration tasks on votes or articles I was personally involved in (except for rollbacks, and only then infrequently!). Also, for the record, I also agree with Netoholic about those screenshots. They do seem dubious. However, removing the sections without discussion is the problem here, because we run a consensus based website. Oh, incidently, I didn't protect that page, and I never have (it seems Reene is implying I protected it, I could be wrong here). - Ta bu shi da yu 22:04, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Well, that's the way I read it, too, an accusation that you were behind the page being protected. But I for one will not be taking Reene's accusations very seriously until she gives some better reason to believe something happened than the bare assertion that it did. If she's reading this I wish her all the best in recovering from her surgery and add that if it leaves her too tired to substantiate her allegations, not making accusations in the first place would leave her with even more energy. -- Antaeus Feldspar 22:56, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Long Stand

You might wish to take a look at Grindersparks also. I'm one of the few who bothers to clear out the old debates that go through vfd, and I often roll my eyes in wonderment at what gets kept... -- Graham ☺ | Talk 01:05, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Poll

I'm not offended by your response or rejection of the poll, but is it really fair to put my name into a poll option? Any chance you can change the option to something a little less confrontational? Thanks. -- Netoholic @ 08:14, 2004 Nov 15 (UTC)

I honestly wonder what your standard of fairness is, where it's fair for you to construct and conduct this poll but not fair for your name to appear in it. Zen-master's name appears in it, Kevin baas's name appears in it, FT2's name appears in it, and RyanFreisling's name appears in it; exactly how does it seem not "really fair" that people can choose a poll option which attaches disapproval to your name when you constructed the proposal to attach disapproval to theirs?

I'll tell you the compromise I'm willing to make. If you will insert into the poll text the information that you, Netoholic, are the author of this poll, then I will change the poll option text to read "the author of this poll" instead of "Netoholic". That way you'll be on an even footing; no name will be in the poll options but it will be in the poll text, just like the four others whose names and good reputations you decided should go up for a public vote. -- Antaeus Feldspar 16:23, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I have written words to that effect into my vote, and offered to myself join the four in voluntarily discontinuing direct edits of the article. -- Netoholic @ 17:38, 2004 Nov 15 (UTC)

Diane Duane copyvio

That's been there since July Can you hear my teeth grinding? Oh…bugger! --Phil | Talk 18:27, Nov 17, 2004 (UTC)

the other day

hi, ok, maybe i'll learn more about wikipedia first before doing anything..

Rune mysteries

To be honest, unless someone points out quite clearly at the top that the other two pages are up for deletion, I don't count them in with the consensus because if I can miss them, so can other people who are voting. Sorry I didn't delete those, I feel though that you have to list them separately. -- Graham ☺ | Talk 00:18, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Just relist them, there's not a lot we can do about the previous listing. -- Graham ☺ | Talk 03:13, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Thanks

For guidelines left at User_talk:Gtabary. ( no speedy delete, check "link there",...) --Gtabary 14:36, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

adminship

Have you considered adminship? I'll nominate you if you are interested. Gamaliel 21:43, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I'm flattered, but I'm not sure I'm actually that suited for the job. In particular I'm going through some tough times personally, and I don't have the patience that it seems the job requires. -- Antaeus Feldspar 21:58, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Sorry to hear that.:( Hope things get better for you. Let me know if you change your mind, I think this place could use some more impatient admins. Gamaliel 20:53, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

patent nonsense

Heya, could you please be careful what you mark CSD? Patent nonsense is stuff that is either syntacticly or semanticly incomprehensible; Vanity articles are not patent nonsense, nor candidates for speedy deletion. --fvw *† 05:56, 2004 Dec 3 (UTC)

"Kaanon MacFarlane is the current Earl of MacFarlane." Now, if there was such a thing as the "Earl of MacFarlane", you'd think a Google search would turn up at least one hit. Forgive me for thinking that someone claiming a title that does not exist was nonsense. -- Antaeus Feldspar 06:01, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Universism

Hello Antaeus! I'm not involved in that particular VfD discussion, but I would like to remind you that WP's civility policy applies in edit summaries. Summaries like this one aren't appreciated by everyone and don't help heated discussions. Thanks! --Whosyourjudas (talk) 03:39, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

You're right, it probably would have been better if I hadn't said that. I was not attempting to be uncivil; I was trying to impress upon our newcomers once again that we are not discounting their votes because we don't like their religious stance, and we are not discounting their votes because we assign newbies lower status -- both of those being personal attacks that have been made upon us in this VfD -- but because in order to cast a vote responsibly in VfD, you need to consider it in the light of Wikipedia's established policies, and most of the newbies aren't even getting right simple policies stated directly on the page, like "sign your vote". I feel sorry for them, that they were falsely told "All you have to do is show up and you get a vote that's counted just as much as anybody's" but I'm also frustrated that instead of chastising Vox for telling them something that was false they're yelling at and insulting us for not making it true, for not turning over our decision-making process to them just because they showed up. -- Antaeus Feldspar 03:53, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I understand your concerns, and was not accusing you of anything purposeful; we all get frustrated at times. This VfD has problems, and I think whichever admin cleans it up will have quite a challenge. I don't want to get involved because I don't know enough about the topic, but best of luck - VfD can get bloody. Cheers, Whosyourjudas (talk) 04:05, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I just wanted to comment on your excellent timing. Just as the Wikipedia article was being deleted for not being "notable" enough, an article and illustration on Universism takes up about half of the Sunday New York Times Op-Ed. I think the Sunday NY Times is the most read paper in the world, second to something in India no doubt. I have my suspicions based on the amount of email today. When an article about Universism starts again, just tell BM not to let his opinion bleed through and everything will be A-OK. He an probably get away with a quote or two from Mr. Horgan. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/12/opinion/12horgan.html --Deist 21:29, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Hey whats going on?

Whats with the recent edit to your user page? Is there something I can help you with? I hope your just exagerating some article related dispute, but regardless of if your stress is personal, or article related, I sincerely offer my assistance. You can contact me on or off the wiki, but please let me know whats going on. God be with you, Sam Spade

Aye, a second. My door/AIM (whosyourjudas)/email/etc. is always open if you need something. --Whosyourjudas (talk) 22:02, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The Humungous Image Tagging Project

Hi. You've helped with the Wikipedia:WikiProject Wiki Syntax, so I thought it worth alerting you to the latest and greatest of Wikipedia fixing project, User:Yann/Untagged Images, which is seeking to put copyright tags on all of the untagged images. There are probably, oh, thirty thousand or so to do (he said, reaching into the air for a large figure). But hey: they're images ... you'll get to see lots of random pretty pictures. That must be better than looking for at at and the the, non? You know you'll love it. best wishes --Tagishsimon (talk)

re: Hoaxes

Good evening, Antaeus. In the VfD discussion thread for Thishdin, you said that you had two examples of articles tagged as speedy which were at least potentially encyclopedic though obscure. I'm making a collection of those examples to support some eventual recommendations to tweak our processes. Can you please shoot me the specifics? Thanks. Rossami (talk)

Article Licensing

Hi, I've started a drive to get users to multi-license all of their contributions that they've made to either (1) all U.S. state, county, and city articles or (2) all articles, using the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike (CC-by-sa) v1.0 and v2.0 Licenses or into the public domain if they prefer. The CC-by-sa license is a true free documentation license that is similar to Wikipedia's license, the GFDL, but it allows other projects, such as WikiTravel, to use our articles. Since you are among the top 1000 Wikipedians by edits, I was wondering if you would be willing to multi-license all of your contributions or at minimum those on the geographic articles. Over 90% of people asked have agreed. For More Information:

Multi-Licensing FAQ - Lots of questions answered
Multi-Licensing Guide
Free the Rambot Articles Project

To allow us to track those users who muli-license their contributions, many users copy and paste the "{{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}}" template into their user page, but there are other options at Template messages/User namespace. The following examples could also copied and pasted into your user page:

Option 1

I agree to [[Wikipedia:Multi-licensing|multi-license]] all my contributions, with the exception of my user pages, as described below:

OR

Option 2

I agree to [[Wikipedia:Multi-licensing|multi-license]] all my contributions to any [[U.S. state]], county, or city article as described below:

Or if you wanted to place your work into the public domain, you could replace "{{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}}" with "{{MultiLicensePD}}". If you only prefer using the GFDL, I would like to know that too. Please let me know what you think at my talk page. It's important to know either way so no one keeps asking. -- Ram-Man (comment| talk)

"Impersonal attack"

Personally, I don't care whether you were thinking of me (how's that for irony?), but I hadn't even considered it, as I can't recall having given so much offense to anyone (if I have, they should have taken it to my talk page). The problem with these things is that not only you know very well who you're talking about, the "other side" knows it as well. It's just an indirect invitation for more hostile comments, and, well, that's no good to anyone else but you and the unnamed ones, is it? :-) OK, so this was just a mild ribbing, and no harm has been done. I thought my comment was light-hearted enough to serve as a gentle prod, but now, of course, you make me come here and spell it out, which makes me look like a clod. I hate to sound like the "play nice now, children" type, but sometimes I just can't help it. Feel free to ignore it if it gets on your nerves at anytime; I don't want to presume to tell other people what to do. JRM 00:52, 2004 Dec 11 (UTC)

Hate Groups and NRMs

Your removal of disputed text in the Hate_group#Hate_groups_and_new_religious_movements is innapropriate and unilateral. We went through two RfCs with no further comments by other editors. My understanding is that in this case the text in dispute stays. If you want to challenge this, please use other methods available in Wikipedia:Dispute resolution. Thanks. --Zappaz 20:47, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for the help

Thanks Antaeus for the help on names.

Cheapy 00:47, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Mihir

You appear to have added a piece of blatant advertising for an uncompleted product. Please don't.DJ Clayworth 05:42, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

On reflection you may have accidentally re-created a deleted page while altering it. If that was the case my apologies. DJ Clayworth 05:44, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

merry christmas

to you antaeus, or whatever happy holiday is your preference. i'm on a wikivacation, but just popped in to see what's happening -- can't break an addiction in one day i guess. happened by your user page and got the impression that you might be a bit discouraged (or maybe i'm missing an inside joke, in which case nevermind me). anyway, i've been through some very rough times myself, so i've definitely got a sympathetic ear if you'd like to bend it a while. things do get better, it just seems unlikely in the moment. Wolfman 02:51, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)

yep, frustrating as hell. i remember the feeling well from those fun times with our dear friend Rex. back then, khaosworks had an observation that i've found very useful. now i look at being hypercivil to the idiots and trolls as a way to piss them off or keep them off balance. sort of a wiki-aikido ("designed to control an attacker by controlling and redirecting their energy instead of blocking the energy"). of course, it doesn't always work, but it's very satisfying when it does. JML is a master of this, though I don't know if it's a conscious strategy for him. and i've noticed that he wins just about every battle he fights.

another strategy i've found useful is to leave an article alone for a while, and let the trolls have at it. they tend to guard it jealously for a week or so, then wander off. after a couple weeks, i pop back in and fix it right up.

you can always drop by my page if you need a little wiki-backup. (though i'm taking a break for a few weeeks). i'm sure there are plenty of others who've worked with you and feel the same way. don't let the bastards get you down. and have a great holidays. Wolfman 19:08, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Me as well, if you need to talk to anyone i'm a good listener as well. It's been real nice editing with you and collaborating, don't let some idiots ruin your outlook on life.--kizzle 21:56, Dec 27, 2004 (UTC)

And by the way, Rex's comment is priceless... you have to know everytime I read something from him I literally laugh out loud. I'll tell you one thing, if he truly "won" I don't think he would be as palpably bitter as he is, he'd just shut up and enjoy Bush being president. Just my two cents... and happy holidays bro :) --kizzle 22:07, Dec 27, 2004 (UTC)

Your statement

I want to die. What's the use of any of it? you do the best you can and all you get is a kick in the crotch. There is no way to win.

I just saw your comment at top of your user page. That is an extraordinary statement to make. I don't know if you are serious about it or just trying to make a point. Regardless of our differences and antagonisms, I value life (in me and in others) too much to let this pass without commenting:

The need to do the best we can is inherently human. It is our nature. Kicks in the crotch are just are part and parcel of the fact that that we care and care enough to do our best regardless of outcome. Life is not about winining, but about playing. --Zappaz 03:54, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Alternatively, you could reason that living, when it's bad, is generally still more agreeable than nothing. There is, by the way, a way of winning, but it involves drawing up the rules yourself. That's something most people are not willing to do, or not capable of doing. And if I may, one quote: "there's nothing you can do that can't be done" (look up the rest); and one short poem that's always cracked me up:

Razors pain you;

Rivers are damp;

Acids stain you;

And drugs cause cramp.

Guns aren't lawful;

Nooses give;

Gas smells awful;

You might as well live.

—Dorothy Parker, Résumé

JRM 01:45, 2004 Dec 25 (UTC)