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Revision as of 03:43, 10 March 2006

My RfA

Thank you Hello John Reid, and thank you for your support in my request for adminship! It passed with a final count of 63/4/3. I am honoured by the community support and pledge to serve the project as best as I can. CanadianCaesar The Republic Restored 16:49, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Eek! A mouse! EEEK! Get-the-broom-hit-it-hit-it-hit-it-eeeeeeek!

Oh. Sorry. Congratulations. Don't make any cheesy rollbacks. John Reid 05:44, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Panoramas

Hi, John. Thanks for taking a crack at it. The images aren't low quality, I just made a low quality snapshot of the bad panorama, so that you could see the problem. I took them with an 8MP camera, so I think they're pretty good. They're not tiffs, just jpgs at the highest setting. I uploaded some different images for you to try. The problem is more severe with them, but it would be a far more useful panorama to have. If it doesn't work, I can find some pictures that are not very bad but would still be good to have. I'm going offline in a minute, so I might not get back to you right away. Thank you very much, Kjkolb 10:20, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

• Image:DavisDam1.jpg
• Image:DSCN0172.JPG (forgot to rename it)

Okay; this took me about 20 min of Photoshop time, not counting wrench-twiddling. Not much point investing real effort in it but you can see what can be done.

Problems with these images include color balance and rotate; you may also have chosen the incorrect focal length leading to geometric distortion. All these errors are slight and mostly correctable or unnoticeable. Next time you shoot, use a tripod with a smooth pan head and be absolutely sure it's level and firmly seated before starting the series. Use a cable release; go full manual on all controls and don't reset them between shots for any reason. (Unless you're going to try to pan around from a distant scene to a foreground, you madman.) The lens issue is something else; at bottom there is no perfect resolution to the problem, just as the round Earth can never be mapped properly on flat paper. Stick to distant subjects and a long lens; keep the number of degrees of pan between images low.

Much more serious is the problem of excessive overlap. You did not pan sufficiently between the two images, so they contain largely the same scene. It's probably better to aim for a 20-30% overlap instead of the 70% you have here. Any amount of effort welding the panorama is wasted for the small payoff.

Another issue is the water in the scene. I ran the seam down a wide stretch of foreground water rather than through the rocks to the left. The water moves; but the rocks are in the foreground and the relative pincushion distortion is extreme. Everything considered, the test is not too bad. But water in motion is never going to match up very well; it's different in every shot. Key to this kind of work is to run the seam through less-detailed areas. Note that I've avoided entirely the complex control structure and gone through the dam proper; where the weld is nearly invisible. (By the way, what look like very obvious welds are actually reflections of the control structure; the actual seam runs between them.)

If you're not going to reshoot, you need to select pairs or triples of shots that maintain proper overlap of about 20%; with that overlap avoiding as much as possible complex detail, including water and absolutely all motion (such as the bobbing warning buoy line in the middleground). Assuming the color balance, skew, pincushion, and rotate errors aren't any worse than in the test sources, welding should work out fine.

One problem you may have with my work is that you seem to have even larger images on hand. I don't quite understand all your comment, but that's what I read from it. I can manipulate large images but I have trouble compressing them to HVS ProJPEG. We might want to drag another party into this end of the job; or you can try your hand yourself. Please remember that you'll get fairly fine quality from reasonable compression ratios. Each of your source files weighs in at over 5 Mb; that's probably excessive for upload to WP. If I hadn't scaled it down, the test file might have come to about 350K. If you're giving me the best possible starting file, that's fine; I don't mind. But when the work is done and ready to convert, best we keep the file size within sane bounds. John Reid 08:37, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Sorry for the confusion. Those are the best images I have. The confusion started when I said my example panorama was lower quality so it would upload fast, and you thought I meant that the source pictures were low quality. I tried to explain that the source images were pretty good quality, but I guess I just confused you more. Anyway, thanks for all of your work and I'll try your suggestions. -- Kjkolb 09:58, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Now I'm completely baffled. Let's just leave this file size issue aside for the moment. I don't know why you gave me DavisDam1 and DSCN0172 to work with; poor choices, sorry. Upload the components of Badpanorama; I can do nothing with the botched output. I see no reason why this cannot be improved. John Reid 16:35, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Thank you

Hello John Reid, thank you for you support in my RfA. I was promoted with a final count of 48/1/0! If you see me making any mistakes, let me know ASAP. -- WB 02:29, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

You're wasting time thanking me instead of working that broom. That's one. Now get back to work. John Reid 06:42, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

My RfA

Hi John,

Just a quick (belated) note to express my thanks for your support in my RfA. You are right about images in sigs - WP:SIG makes this quite clear and I have altered my sig accordingly.

Anyway, as it stands I have around 70%, so I'll need a few more supports in order to get admin status. I have been quite disappointed that most of those in opposition seem to have disregarded the sentiments on my user page - but hey, that's life.

Thank you again for your support! DJR (Talk) 11:45, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

We need admins of all kinds, not just nice guys. You're confrontational, which makes some enemies. If you do make admin I hope you'll moderate; if you don't, you may not be effective. Try to remember that adminship doesn't actually give anyone more power; it only gives an admin a broom and a slightly amplified voice. Everything you do is still subject to consensus, which you cannot form alone.

If you do fail this RfA, please let me suggest you be extremely patient before self-renominating. If you have merit somebody else will recognize it. Meanwhile, you needn't moderate your position on any issue -- but you might try moderating your tone. It's wonderfully effective to do so. John Reid 18:34, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Overgrow (website).com

The following unsigned comment by 24.228.38.130 (talk · contribs) was top-posted.

Hi John, you recently reverted my edits which I feel was in error.... You listed noted that my revisions were done without any citations.... This is incorrect and the information i had posted is verifiable. http://en.wikipedia.org/Overgrow_%28website%29

You can see that here: Overgrow was launched in 1999 on Vbulletin 1.1 by a group of dedicated individuals inspired to help spread knowledge through the internet medium. Among those was ~shabang~ aka Overgrow at Vbulletin.org

If you follow the link you can see that Overgrow is the creator and that system has been around since Vbulletin 1.1

The GrowFAQ are considered an invaluable resource, offering a wealth of knowledge, as well as a place to chat and socialize. Articles have been contributed by users from around the world covering all topics from germination to harvest and beyond. GrowFAQ v1.2 includes 152 topics & 1417 questions with over 10,616,381 answers served since 11-04-2000.The Overgrow GrowFAQ is the premier source for Cannabis cultivation information today. This is the largest online marijuana FAQ and is the default document people refer to when someone asks "How do I grow marijuana?" It is a living document, entirely written by the users, staff, and owners of Overgrow.com. If you have questions about growing Cannabis, this is the place to find the answers -- hundreds of thousands of people have accessed the FAQ and learned how to grow since November, 2000.

My claims about the GrowFAQ can be verified towards the bottome of the page at: My claims about the strainguide can be seen at: http://64.233.179.104/search?q=cache:Hu0Y6ktt3qoJ:www.overgrow.com/strainguide/+site:overgrow.com+strainguide&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1 And the Pic of the Week and Gallery claims can be verified at: http://64.233.179.104/search?q=cache:gcJTgZGJwzEJ:www.overgrow.com/edge/gallery.php+site:overgrow.com+gallery&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1 And my claims about Team Overgrow: http://64.233.179.104/search?q=cache:Z_cjlgigx8YJ:www.overgrow.com/edge/showgroups.php+site:overgrow.com+Forum+Leaders&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1

Please revert the page to include my changes, what exists now was mostly posted by one of our competitors from CannabisCulture.com and includes no sources and has no verifiable information whatsoever... You've even left the link to their false article about the status of overgrow on the page...

Sorry if you're not happy. I probably can't do anything to improve that; again, sorry. Nothing you have said so far has convinced me that I've edited badly -- indeed, you've reinforced my first feelings. I'm nobody special here -- just another editor, less special than most perhaps. I don't have any special investment in this page. I edit at random -- improve what I can -- and move on. You don't need my approval to do anything.

If you want to discuss my conduct, then this is the right place to do so. If you want to discuss the article, then you want to bring your concerns to Talk:Overgrow (website) -- which you did. I believe the latter is the correct choice in your case. The proper place for me to discuss the way you have commented is on your talk page; but until you register, you don't have one of your own. I have commented on User talk:24.228.38.130. Insofar as your comment may have merit relevant to the page in question, you should look to Talk:Overgrow (website) for replies. Thank you. John Reid 03:28, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

LOL. Don't worry I'm a happy guy, how could I not be. But I'll talk here thanks! If you think my edits were my first on Misplaced Pages you are mistaken. I've contributed numerous articles here perhaps not with the same IP, setup my own WIKI and performed customizations to the MediaWiki system. When visitors click on an unauthored page link in my WIKI it goes out and hits the export pages on several other wiki's including wikipedia to import and merge the available GNU information from across the net. The end product from that is a custom encyclopedia based on the interests of my visitors. It's nice to see that Misplaced Pages's editors take things way to seriously to not accept contributions from those in the know even when they provide verifiable information. Nobody is special, but you seem to think you are, then say you are not. Whatever. :)

Though you may look at my edits and think of my intent - being so close to the website I was posting about, you've ignored my statements that the information in the article listed in the external link section is from one of our competitors and contains false information. The same article has been used as the source for numerous other articles and is nothing more than the internet rumor mill running free. You may say how can I tell it is false, but then again how can you say it is true?

Here have a real source - OverGrow.com alone claims to have 126,000 registered members, and there are usually more than a thousand of them online at any given time. The site's mission is to "fight for the legalization of marijuana by teaching people to grow." Is that good enough to start lending some credibility to what I've said??? I think that's enough to bring back at least 2 of my paragraphs... Why not accept what I've contributed at face value and remove anything you can debunk rather than your silly random edits on things which you know nothing about?

As you can see we've been pretty stable over time: A little bit of downtime and suddenly overgrow.com 'was'....

What I provided was a much better representation of overgrow.com than what is published now. If you prefer inferior content and disinformation posted by our competitors then go for it! Actually don't do anything because that is what you have now.

Google's cache is what I would consider a good enough source for the statistics that I noted in my edits... I don't know what you think, but go ahead and tell me why it is not a good source. Do you think the American Heart Association or some professional journal has the numbers I posted? I don't think so... The subject matter is such that the sources you'd like me to cite simply won't touch it...

After being online for 7 years - which is longer than wikipedia I might add - you think being down for 3 weeks is reason enough to refer to our website in the past tense? Let me remind you that Misplaced Pages has also experience downtime in it's history... I'll be back to update the article again when our site is back up and you can no longer dispute what I've said all along.

Good day! - The same anonymous Team Overgrow member

Look; I'm sorry to say it, but you're stoned! I know you think your comments are coherent and to the point; but they just ramble off in all directions. You don't seem to understand that I have no continuing involvement with the page in question; I edited it and I've moved on.

You can do anything you like with the page in question; I won't endorse it, but I won't revert it, either. Somebody else probably will revert you; but that's between you and him. I can't help you there, man. John Reid 16:44, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

My RFA

Thank you for supporting me in my successful RFA. Please drop a note on my talk page, should you need assistance with anything, or have questions about any of my actions. -Kmf164 (talk | contribs) 00:55, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Cool. Work hard, do good; don't be evil. John Reid 04:09, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

My RfA

With apologies for the impersonal AWB-ness of the message... Thanks for your support on my recent request for adminship. It passed at 91/1/0, and I hope I can continue to deserve the community's trust. Let me know if there's anything I can do to help you, and if I make a mistake be sure to tell me. My talk page is always open. (ESkog) 02:32, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Well, I do prefer personal messages; but right now the important thing is for you to grab your broom and start sweeping. Congrats! John Reid 05:11, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Extra-objectionable vandalism

John Reid wrote : I can think of many utterances more objectionable than the display of a swastika or declaration of the superiority of the so-called Aryan.

You may, but are you decended form someone who suffered under the Nazis/ at face with Neo-Nazism in Germany today.Myrtone (the strict Australian wikipedian)(talk)

Your comment invites the general response that we are all threatened by such. However as it happens, I did at one time live in Germany and was directly threatened -- both by Neo-Nazis and by Greens. Fanatics of all stripes are dangerous -- none more so than those who are fanatic in their opposition to another group of fanatics. John Reid 22:39, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

The Walrus article

Why did you put the Walrus article up for deletion right after it was speedy kept? And then you didn't even create a discussion for the deletion.--Ssj4android 02:38, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Speedy keep does not make any sense to me. Speedy deletion doesn't make too much sense to me, either. I don't see any justification for bypassing normal process -- and no, redefining normal to include end-runs around group concensus doesn't work for me, either.

When I restored the AfD tag there was already an open discussion on the article in question (with two comments to delete, none to keep); should I have created another? I agree that Walrus should probably not be deleted; but I trust my fellow Wikipedians to so state. Subverting process sets bad preceedent.

That said, I've weighed in and I'm out, so do what you like. John Reid 03:43, 10 March 2006 (UTC)