Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 16:53, 11 October 2006

see Misplaced Pages:Citation templates Jimmy Wales: "Perhaps the easiest way to make your writing more encyclopedic is to write about what people believe, rather than what is so." quoted at talk page for Marilyn vos Savant.

To get administrative action:

• Page Protection Requests: Misplaced Pages:Requests for Page Protection.
• 3RR Violations: Report it at the Misplaced Pages:Administrators' Noticeboard for 3RR.
• Vandalism Reports:
  • If the vandalism is minor, Misplaced Pages:Vandalism in Progress.
  • If the vandalism is severe, Misplaced Pages:Administrator Intervention Against Vandalism. {copied from Flcelloguy/Policy (section), an administrator}

• Useful article: Special:Log/delete

• Useful site: http://tools.wikimedia.de/~leon/stats/wikicharts/?wiki=enwiki

Welcome!

Hello, Edison, and welcome to Misplaced Pages! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers:

• The five pillars of Misplaced Pages
• How to edit a page
• Help pages
• Tutorial
• How to write a great article
• Manual of Style

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, check out Misplaced Pages:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. Again, welcome!  _└/_talk 21:11, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Formatting

Hi there, Edison! I noticed that you left a question at Talk:List of years in television and apologized that your question showed up in a box. I have fixed the formatting. The "secret" is quite simple—if you insert a leading space before text, it will be enboxed. Remove the space—the box goes away too. Like this (see source for exact formatting):

This is in a box.

This is not.

Hope this helps. Please let me know if you need further assistance—I'll be only happy to provide it.—Ëzhiki (ërinacëus amurënsis) • (yo?); 12:09, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for help regarding System Accident

Edison, thank you for your very commonsensical defense of my article on System Accident. It made me feel good to have a reasonable person standing up and defending it. And I really liked the part where you said you would keep it in a Deleteopedia if necessary. But, please don't get in trouble on my behalf. Although much (most!) of the criticism is overblown and inaccurate, some of it is valid. My piece did become an essay. A factually based essay, a well-written essay, but an essay none the less. I just kept adding and adding to it. I kind of felt on a roll. And I'm not always that good a writer. And I'm not always that logical, certainly not!

Feel free to use the references and theories as you see best. Perhaps my favorite is that organizations shave uncomfortable truths. Now, I don't think I'm the first person to observe that, but I'm not citing sources, so I guess it is kind of original research. Perhaps I should have kept that in the discussion section and kept the whole piece much shorter. Perhaps. But I'm not real keen on rewriting it at this point.

And I really liked where you said that the conventional approach has been to blame the last person who touches something. Oh, how true!

Take care,

Cool Nerd

Your questions

We don't normally insert notes in the text (such as in your Smith example), although if you do so, it would be better than nothing and eventually someone will fix it for you. To do the things properly, you best starting point would be WP:CITE, which is a Misplaced Pages style guide that explains when and how to cite sources, and what kinds of sources are acceptable. The footnotes system is explained in detail at Misplaced Pages:Footnotes; you can use it if you like it, but there are also other acceptable citation methods. For an example of an article with footnotes (so you can see how the formatting works in practice) see Flag of Australia—it's as good of an article as any. All other featured articles are also extensively sourced, so you can use them as examples as well. And, of course, you can add the page numbers in the footnotes if you need to—that's perfectly acceptable.

If you are really unsure about how to add and/or format the sources you used, you can always dump your side file to the article's talk page or in the article's "References" section. This way you wouldn't have to keep them locally, and if someone has a question about sources used they can always see them on the talk page.

As for the copyrights, please see WP:COPY—it's an official policy that should answer your question. If it doesn't, you can ask a question on that policy's talk page, so people who are more knowledgeable in these matters could answer it.

All in all, as long as you provide references in some form (any form), it is better than having no references at all. Also, do try to format your contributions, but don't bother too much about fine formatting details while you are still new around here—it's the content that matters. There are plenty of volunteers who will fix formatting for you, and you will get it all after a while. Rome wasn't built in one day :)

Lastly, if you need a place to experiment, use the communal sandbox, or you can always create your own sandbox in your userspace (e.g., at User:Edison/Sandbox).

Hopefully I was able to help. Please don't hesitate to contact me again if something is still unclear. Happy editing!—Ëzhiki (ërinacëus amurënsis) • (yo?); 14:37, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Footnote EVERYTHING

We have both edited the Skull and Bones article recently, and now the AP article on the 1918 letter has a number with a link to Common Dreams, but another listing as a reference. I am very new to Wiki editing, but I wonder if you agree that there should be a reference to what work and what page a fact comes from. If I find something in an old book which lacks an index, the reader or subsequent editor can't be expected to read through 500 pages to see where the fact is. Even worse, most articles just have some clickable links at the end with no indication of which fact is backed up by which link, On top of that the links may go dead or may change over time. So far I have kept notes offline as to what backup I have for what assertion, but that would require that I actively monitor each article I edit to jump in and defend any disputed edit. In controversial topics, that makes it likely that the truth will be edited back out. Thoughts?Edison 14:26, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

I am incredibly big into footnoting things, usually I would footnote the commondreams (acutally AP) article with the <ref> tags, but I was lazy. For examples of some of the articles which I have wrote or contributed heavily too, see Plan Colombia (43 footnotes), the Lodge committee(50 footnotes), or Business Plot (23 footnotes). I find that footnotes are the best way to avoid an edit war, especially since my views are very far left liberal and unpopular with most Americans. In an edit war I always win by out reference people.

I am very new to Wiki editing, but I wonder if you agree that there should be a reference to what work and what page a fact comes from. Absolutly, in fact on any edit, notice the verifiable in any edit you make. Everything that we write as wikipedians should be referenced.

Please see my user page. You are welcome to add this items to your page.

I always attempt first though to verify something myself. Through google print, amazon print,and my JSTOR/lexis nexis accout through my school.

If I can't find it there, I will add {{fact}} to the sentences which are unreferenced. {{unref}} for an entire section. If people object and attempt to erase the {{fact}} . I will remind them about verifiable.

I will then cut and paste the sentence/paragraph and explain on the talk page that if the sentence or paragraph is not referenced, I will erase it in one week. If no one verifies the information within a week, I erase it.

"On top of that the links may go dead or may change over time." The {{cite web}} found on my user page and Misplaced Pages:Template messages/Sources of articles allows a person to add an access date. If the link is dead, cut and paste the link and go to archives.org and paste the link. If the link is not on archive.org, delete the link and add a {{fact}}.

anyway, I could write more, but this is probably more than you asked for, any questions or comments, let me know. Most wikipedians--the majority are lazy and never add references. This should be required, and I am glad that you are doing this yourself.Travb 15:54, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Hey Edison, the converstaion at Business Plot has gone pretty cold, just to let you know if no one responds to you. Travb (talk) 01:51, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Citation needed

Just a note, instead of adding Citation needed to articles, add {{Citation needed}}. (using {{ }} calls upon a template) Thanks, AndyZ 01:59, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Henry and Lowe

Thank you very much for your note on Henry's article. This edit was done when I was first writing for wikipedia, and my exuberance did find me overwriting articles. There's obviously something more to Prof. Henry than his electrical work. He seemed to be a highly revered man of science with great influence around Washington. For the fact that he became very involved with Lowe prior to and during the war is of great significance, especially if he is an electrical scientist working with a gasman like Lowe. His letter to Cameron is of particular interest because he is a man of science and not just an "electrician." (I say with tongue in cheek.) He had a similar letter written to Capt Whipple of the Topographical Engineers, Lowe's first assignment, digging into the nuts and bolts of ballooning with the intent of influencing him to retain Lowe's services. He had the whole of the scientific community interested in Lowe's projects. But I am not so married to the article that I can't see the section edited. So feel free to truncate it.

By the way! Prof. Lowe was extremely proficient working around the volatile gas. Hydrogen has a rise rate of 400 feet per second, so with the envelope well over his head, he was not wafting around in a cloud of hydrogen gas where a telegraph spark might do a Hindenburg on him. He used to go up in the dark using his oxyhydrogen lamps to light his inflation procedures. That's alot of hydrogen gas, but Lowe's safety record was impeccable.

Thanks again! Magi Media 03:04, 13 June 2006 (UTC)Magi Media

Moses Gerrish Farmer

I want to somehow create links so that when one searches for "Moses Farmer" or "Moses G. Farmer" they will see this article, currently titled "Moses Gerrish Farmer." I would like to change the article title to "Moses G. Farmer" since I have seen many references to him where the middle name was not spelled out. He was not like Thomas Alva Edison or Franklin Delano Roosevelt in that sense. The man's middle name is in the title, and it was seldom used and little known, so searches for "Moses Farmer" just give articles mentioning "Moses" and/or "farmers". Likewise, a search for "Farmer, Moses" does not lead to the article. This is a general problem with article titles in Misplaced Pages.

Thanks! Edison 20:01, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

I am in the process of making the changes that you requested. For future reference, if you wish to move a page, click Move at the top of the page that you wish to be moved. This will bring you to a screen where you woill enter the new name of the page and why you are omoving it. This will automatically create a redirect link on the old page to autpomatically bing you to the new page when you try to go to the old one. I am also removing the helpme from your page. Contact me if you have any more questions. --No1lakersfan 20:09, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Redirects. create a moses farmer page with the text #REDIRECT ]. Also, hit up the Moses (disambiguation) disambig and put in a reference too. -- ∞Wirelain 20:09, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Need assistance

I created a new article, Frederick De Cordova. But when doing TV he always used the name "Fred De Cordova". I need a search for either name to lead to the article "Frederick De Cordova" but I do not want to move or rename the article. How do I make the additional title lead to the article? ThanksEdison 18:57, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

You should always name the articles after the most common name that the person goes by. If he is creditted as "Frederick De Cordova" then the article should use that name. If he is creditted as "Fred De Cordova" then you can move the article to that name, and the old name will redirect to the new one. Ryūlóng 19:03, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

As you can see, IMDb uses Frederick De Cordova for his page, and you may want to link that name by using the {{imdb-name}} template. Ryūlóng 19:05, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

There's an easier way to avoid moving the article. Just go to Fred De Cordova and type #REDIRECT ]. That should fix it. Ryūlóng 19:35, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

• At some point he switched from "Frederick" to "Fred", but then went back to "Frederick" for his final movie circa 1966.Edison 00:02, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Listcruft

You can find info on listcruft here. It is a term employed quite often in the Articles for Deletion section of Misplaced Pages. In this particular case, I nominated the article because it was originally nothing more than a random list of songs. --cholmes75 15:15, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

One Finger Salute

Hey Edison, what would you think of moving that video to a separate section. It isnt a speech, and under the right section, I dont see any issue with the video itself. AuburnPilot 23:35, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure what the category would be, but the other videos you are referring to are all speeches. I guess I'm not too worried about it; I'll just leave it as it is. Thanks! AuburnPilot 00:06, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Like you say, to amend it to read "Speeches and other videos" would open up the section to videos covering anything. That would only make the situation worse. As far as a section labeled "Other Videos", that could work but the article is already fairly long. I say we just leave it as is. AuburnPilot 00:18, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Your accusation returned

I wish to answer the accusation you made against me in your post on my talk page. How about the ordination of women??? This is a patent violation of the mandate and institution of Christ. It casts in doubt the sacraments dispensed in the ELCA. As to the LCMS's faithfulness, well, with our present liberal administration that is withering away. You are "holier than thou" with less reason in the posture.--Drboisclair 15:16, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

We may have more common ground than you think

You raise important points. I wonder, though, that the ELCA concerns itself with Lutheranism. They should embrace generic Protestantism to make them more in line with the Episcopal Church. Why bother with Lutheranism anyway? Although, it does not further dialogue to declare that the ELCA is not Lutheran. I concur with your deploring the factionalism of those who think that Wisconsin and the CLC are not pure enough. As to women's ordination, those who oppose it as I do stand on the Scriptures (1 Cor. 14:34 and 1 Tim. 2:12). Just because it is not mentioned in the Lutheran Confessions does not mean that it is an adiaphoron (indifferent thing). The confessors were blessed that in their day and age they were not burdened with the error of women's ordination. Then, there is that horrible concordat that the ELCA made with the Reformed. This compromises the confessional Lutheran and biblical stance on the Sacramental Union. That having been said. I think that you raise some other good points about authoritarianism. The LCMS has problems with that. It is not a bright world for Christianity in our day and age.--Drboisclair 18:52, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

RfC Comair Flight 5191

I just wanted to say that there has been a RfC. regarding Comair Flight 5191 Since you have been a contributor to the article, I encourage you to add to the debate and to contribute to the article, in the future. Mytwocents 05:43, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

SmackBot

I am looking at the book 'Edison a Biography' referenced in the Thomas Edison article. Smackbot says the ISBN is wrong, but I am looking right at the book, and it is correct. Please turn off this demented bot, or perhaps rename it "Vandalbot" because that appears to be a better description. Thanks Edison 21:35, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

ISBNs are 10 digits long, that one only has 9 digits hence the bot is flagging it. Since the date of that book predates the adoption of ISBNs, it is quite likely an SBN. An SBN can be converted to an ISBN by prefixing it with a zero. So a search like this one with the zero added to the front works, without the zero it doesn't. --pgk 21:46, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Well I can't claim to be an expert but my understanding is that ISBNs have 10 digits, SBNs had 9. If something has changed or the book has a printing error (which is certainly not unheard of) I can't say with any degree of certainty. But on a basic level the reason for quoting the ISBN is so that people can find it, if the ISBN as listed in the book is not the one under which it is listed in a search by ISBN, then it's not much use. This is I guess why they are being tagged so that we do double check them. --pgk 21:59, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

According to Amazon it is 0-7033-0468-2 Looks like a typo, possibly the person filing the 1 or 2 off the impression number koncked a digit off the ISBN? Rgds, Rich Farmbrough, 22:17 8 September 2006 (GMT).

Incidentally you might be better off quoting a more recent ISBN Carbon microphone, Telephone and Invention of the telephone all cite Edison: A Biography, 1992, Wiley, ISBN 0-471-54806-5.

It is very unusual to find the number on the book is wrong, EdJohnston has so far found about 4, plus this one makes 5 on WP. This is out of many many thousands on WP. The use of ISBN's is debateable. They really stand out when either a book has one edition, or is old and has one hardback edition that can be obtained from libraries. (For example I once ordered and bought a book called "The book of the Dun Cow" - it wasn't what I wanted at all - had I had an ISBN, that couldn't have happened) Still there are sites that will give you all the ISBNs of a book, given one ISBN, and I suppose this might be built into other engines. And I have been trying to make sure as many ISBNs are useful as possible, especially as they will be changing soon, and we will not be able to use all the internal checks if we convert them to the new format. Regards, Rich Farmbrough, 22:30 8 September 2006 (GMT).

Pgk/Edison, the 0-07-033046-8 number that pgk found is probably the correct one. Reasons:

1. The layout is consistent with the book
2. (Most importantly) 0-07- is McGraw Hill's publisher ID
3. The checksum is correct

I suspect that somewhere someone added a number on the end (as I did), and the data got "borged" - after all the purpose of ISBN searches is to enable people to find a book, so it makes sense to allow as many possible variants.

Good detective work pgk! Rich Farmbrough, 08:40 9 September 2006 (GMT).

Your reply to my question about Sinusitis

Thanks for the quick and efficient reply to my question at the Reference Desk. I've talked to my physician about it; a few years ago I went to a specialist and they couldn't find anything wrong, except for my adnoids, which were removed. That didn't help and I was reexamined when the problem continued, but they can't really figure it out; they think it may be a bad case of hay fever that keeps leading into more and more complications. Anyway, thank you for your time! :) Srose (talk) 22:14, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Run-on or sentence frag on AAR network, you have my blessing

Please edit, remove if you feel it now reads like a silly piece of tripe now that 9/15/2006 came and went. I didn't want to remove silly rumors before 9/15 for fear of being called a censor but I believe that it should not have been in the article in the first place. I just wanted to move the ball a little... and not offend otters editors :( Chivista 13:23, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Citations

Hi, I just noticed you experimenting with citations in the sandbox. The proper way to do them is use cite templates such as {{cite news}} or {{cite web}} in between your <ref> tags. See Steve Irwin for examples. Cheers,  Netsnipe  ►  17:50, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

sneaky uses

I think it's the first one, but I'll check to make sure. Ilikefood 18:23, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

It's the first one. Ilikefood 00:06, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks

Hi,

In Reply to your response:

Thanks for your correction to the Emmanuel Milingo article. My edit of 19:58, 1 October 2006 changed the photo caption to say he was an archbishop rather than the previous caption which said he was a priest, and my previous edit had said he was a retired archbishop rather than an ex-archbishop. But in the edit summary I left out "not" and reversed the intent of my edit.

That is correct. Thanks for your thanks! ;-)

I understand that Roman Catholic canon law says a sacrament cannot be revomed by excommunication, so if he ordains someone a priest or bishop, the ordination is effective, and all that the penalty of excommunication can do is prevent them from serving a parish or diocese, and similarly excommunicate anyone who receives sacraments from them.

It prevents them from serving the Church and from being part of the Church, but it does not automatically excommunicate others receiving the Sacraments from them. Only those receiving episcopal ordination from these excommunicated, are excommunicated definitely. Laymen can receive their sacraments if the excommunicated are not declared "vitandus" ("to be avoided"), e.g. in case of heresies.

The Roman Catholic Pope was excommunicated by the eastern church in 1054, and his successors have gotten along nicely since then, and contrariwise for the eastern church. The Pope in the late 18th century claimed that Anglican bishop ordinations were not valid because some forms were omitted, but the Anglican bishops responded that the Popes predecessors had not usede those forms either, so that would make him not a bishop either.

The Anglican case is complex, but the Anglican response to Apostolicae Curae is wholly insufficient. The ancient rites they refer to, clearly express a high priesthood, an offering priesthood, offering a sacrifice and ordaining clergy. Those references lack in the 1547 until 1979 anglican ordination rituals. Presently the question is debated, as new rites were introduced by the Anglicans and Old Catholic bishops co-consecrated with the Anglicans. But as a ROman Catholic I agree with Pope Leo XIII's Apostolicae Curae of course. Kind regards,Smith2006 22:32, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Tesla

The whole thing is beginning to get pathetic, but here goes... Tesla was not a Serbian-American, as "Serbian" refers to people from Serbia, regardless of whether they are Serbs, Hungarians etc. Serb-American may sound wrong to your ears, but I don't see how it's any different from Greek-American, for example. I'll change it back, and if you feel strongly about it we can continue the discussion while having your formulation as the temporary solution. --estavisti 03:38, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Just noticed you didn't change it. Still recovering from the shock of someone showing a willingness to discuss something on WP being editing. --estavisti 03:40, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Perfectly aware that he was born in the Military Frontier, and not in Serbia. So Serbian is not correct, and Serb is - which was my point. It is confusing, I know. --estavisti 04:10, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

"Would that make him "an Austro-Hungarian-American Serb"?" Maybe you see know why I'm of the opinion that the whole thing should be shunted out of the intro? --estavisti 04:30, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Re: Eisenhower

Hello! As long as the addition is verifiable, NPOV, sourced, and adheres to our policies, of course I would have no objections. :-) If people feel that the section needs to be modified, then we can go from there, but as long as all policies are followed, go ahead and be bold. Thanks for asking! Flcelloguy (A note?) 14:18, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Notability of ministers and churches

• CommentPlease note that I have started a discussion topic at Misplaced Pages talk:Notability (people) to create a standard for notability of religious leaders. Some should have articles, if, for instance they are an official of their denomination churchwide, or they started some important movement, wrote widely used hymns, or were notable in ways special to religion. They probably should not have an article if they were just a typical priest, rabbi, or mullah serving a local group. We have such standards for Porn actors and sports figures, and it would save a lot of argumentation. Edison 23:42, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

• CommentPlease note that I have started a discussion topic at Misplaced Pages talk:Notability to create a standard for notability of churches. I have also started a discussion for standards of notability for individual churches, We have a standard for schools, so why not for churches. Edison 23:42, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Pastor Don

Hey Edision!!!! This is in reply to the talk.... What I got was an article from my friend which he got from a magzine......probably some personal sites too can be found as you had put it on. Will that won't be enough. And one more thing can we update our own sites( personal)???thanks for your care...God bless you....rencin24

Afrika paprika

I'm afraid that you cannot convince him. He strongly belives that the Serbo-Croatian languages have two dialects "Serbian" and "Croatian" - whereas one should (I even suggest to you) check out dialect, he/she will see (East Herzegovinian, Zeta-Kosovar, etc..); the political linguistical map has absolutly nothing to do with linguistics, but strictly with politics and nationalism. I for instance, speak the East-Herzegovinian language. --PaxEquilibrium 15:02, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

I do not "believe", I know. Refer to the "Serbo-Croat language" page and Croatian and Serbian languages pages and you will see that everything I talk is true. "Serbo-Croatian" is a diasystem...not a language. afrika Paprika 16:53, 11 October 2006 (UTC)