User talk:AManInBlack

From Conservapedia

Contents 1 The first section, in which all sorts of stuff is discussed 2 Scouting for Boys 3 Image requests 4 Universal health care 5 Stlphotog 6 The chink in my armor 7 90/10 rule 8 Legalities.... 9 User rights

The first section, in which all sorts of stuff is discussed

How does the below-ground fire hydrant work? How do fire fighters connect a hose to it? --Ed Poor ^Talk 23:49, 6 July 2007 (EDT)

It's set into the ground and typically covered, with signs pointing out where it is. AManInBlack 23:53, 6 July 2007 (EDT)

Your account is about to be blocked if you continue your pattern of editing. Let's see something encyclopedic in your edits, or please find another website. Thanks and Godspeed.--Aschlafly 00:02, 7 July 2007 (EDT)

My explanation for that is on User talk:Ed Poor. You might notice that my first edit to that page was to add the db tag, when I saw it on Recentchanges. Then it occured to me that there's a good way to deal with such unpleasantness in a long-term way. AManInBlack 00:05, 7 July 2007 (EDT)

Stop the silly edits like None and contribute something worthwhile, or we'll have to block your account. Thanks and Godspeed. Last warning.--Aschlafly 00:24, 7 July 2007 (EDT)

Um? None was on Special:Wantedpages. Nothing wasn't an article, nor was nothingness, so Zero seemed the closest bet. I'm not exactly sure why the presidential infobox links to none, admitedly; I'm a fair hand at templatecraft, so I might dive into that at some point.

I would appreciate a bit more guidance in what the problems with my edits are. I just want to make harmless, informative, largely neutral articles on basic things. Presumably, if Conservapedia is a resource for home schooling, home schooling doesn't start at high school, so I've ben flipping through an old copy of my Boy Scout Manual for things school-age kids might be interested in. AManInBlack 00:30, 7 July 2007 (EDT)

!!! Scouting for Boys is a redlink! And so is Robert Baden-Powell! I think I have a project. AManInBlack 00:33, 7 July 2007 (EDT)

OK, I look forward to reading your entries for those.--Aschlafly 00:34, 7 July 2007 (EDT)

I know this is gonna sound bad given the timing, but is there an entry for Mao's Little Red Book somewhere? Scouting for Boys is the fourth-best-selling book of the 20th century, behind that, the Bible, and the Koran, and I was planning to wikilink them. AManInBlack 00:41, 7 July 2007 (EDT)

Oop, found it. I finally remembered the proper spelling of Mao Zedong. AManInBlack 00:42, 7 July 2007 (EDT)

ManInBlack, I just gave you a second chance by undoing the block of your account. I look forward to more of your edits, and hopefully you won't prove me wrong in giving you the benefit of the doubt. Godspeed.--Aschlafly 01:22, 7 July 2007 (EDT)

I'm still unclear what I did wrong the first time, to be honest. Is the problem that I'm writing stubs? I've always subscribed to the philosophy that a short, informative stub, even a definition, is better than a redlink. I feel this doubly so here, since the target audience is homeschooled kids, where are going to trend much younger than your typical encyclopedia reader. I think it's good to try and match the coverage of consumer/school encyclopedias like World Books.

There's going to be some kid who types in "fire hydrant," and learns that European fire hydrants are underground, and think that's the neatest thing. That thought warms my heart. AManInBlack 01:30, 7 July 2007 (EDT)

It's not just for kids either. I learned that G-d is something Jews write instead of spelling out God. I would also recommend the Breaking News section of the Main Page for some great articles. BTW, I like most of your edits. --Crocoite 01:43, 7 July 2007 (EDT)

Oh, I understand that it's not just for kids. It's just that I think it's important to cover basic things that would otherwise get overlooked, for the sake of kids. AManInBlack 01:50, 7 July 2007 (EDT)

Unfortunately, we need to shut down for a few hours now, except for some editing by Sysops. Get some rest and I look forward to your edits tomorrow. Godspeed.--Aschlafly 02:08, 7 July 2007 (EDT)

Your subpages looked a bit suspicious. I would recommend one called "Sandbox" and leave it at that until you've been here awhile. --Crocoite 02:13, 7 July 2007 (EDT)

I needed two, because I needed to transclude one into the other. I wanted to make sure parser functions worked the way I thought here, in order to fix up a design flaw that automatically links to none in Template:President. I'm done with them, incidentally, so if they're a problem feel free to delete them. AManInBlack 02:16, 7 July 2007 (EDT)

Ok, thanks for the explanation. I will delete one of those and rename the other. We just have a serious problem with trolls and vandals here, and new editors are watched very closely, if you know what I mean. Based on what I've seen today, I still think you have great potential on this site. I would also recommend explaining the meaning of your username of your main page and reviewing the Useful Links above. Take care. --Crocoite 02:27, 7 July 2007 (EDT)

Welcome back! Glad to see you updated your user page and I would still like to see an explanation of your username. --Crocoite 15:33, 11 July 2007 (EDT)

I'm glad to be back. No sense getting in a huff over something that doesn't really matter.

While I am a fan of Johnny Cash (who is THE Man in Black), I've used this name for aaaaaaaages, stemming from a long-neglected interest in conspiracy fiction. I've always been fascinated with conspiracy theories regarding One World Governments and Insidious Secret Societies and such.

While I don't really do much reading in that area any more, I've kept the name out of a general sense of continuity (and a bit of bloodymindedness, I imagine). AManInBlack 15:42, 11 July 2007 (EDT)

Great. I look forward to seeing your contributions to this site. --Crocoite 15:55, 11 July 2007 (EDT)

Scouting for Boys

Ref Scouting For Boys being the 4th best selling book of the 20th century, the Guardian appear to have either got that wrong (not entirely unusual for the Grauniad) or not included a qualifier (eg in England/Hampshire or similar). Excluding fiction and pre- and post-20th century publications, "Xinhua Zidian", "The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care", "The Late, Great Planet Earth", "Your Erroneous Zones", "Think and Grow Rich", "Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary", and "My Utmost for His Highest", among others, appear to have all outsold it. In a list of children's only titles, again just limiting to 20th century publications, it still wouldn't hit the top 10 I don't think. File:User Fox.png Fox (talk|contribs) 10:55, 7 July 2007 (EDT)

I'm not terribly worried about it; it seemed like an iffy source for that claim, but I was just starting in on a stub.

By the by, what source are you using? It's still up there overall, I'm fairly sure, and I'd like to source that claim. AManInBlack 12:37, 7 July 2007 (EDT)

See these sites [1], [2] File:User Fox.png Fox (talk|contribs) 13:02, 7 July 2007 (EDT)

Hm. The Publishers' Weekly list is publisher-supplied and by its own admission excludes books in the public domain (as Scouting for Boys is). It would have to, since anyone who cares to publish a book in the public domain can do so.

The lists on IPL provoke some thought, but are inconclusive. The first is a list of best-sellers of all time, many of which achieved their fame from the 18th or 19th century. The list looks a bit dubious (there are more copies out there of Valley of the Dolls than the Koran?), to boot, but no moreso than an offhand reference in an article. The other two lists aren't relevant, covering unrelated topics.

Meh. Not a big deal either way, but those sources don't seem very conclusive. AManInBlack 13:25, 7 July 2007 (EDT)

Certainly more conclusive than the Guardian, nonetheless. File:User Fox.png Fox (talk|contribs) 15:06, 7 July 2007 (EDT)

No disagreement here. It's just that it wasn't demonstrated to the conclusively false, and it's certainly a fact worth mentioning if I can confirm it, so I need to keep looking. AManInBlack 22:13, 8 July 2007 (EDT)

I for one don't care whether you're a liberal or not: just please try to fit in and do the sort of writing that we want - not the sort we have to undo. Your redirect of none didn't help.

Next time, try using the "What links here" function to see what pages use a red link before redirecting it. If you have any experiences on other wikis (like Wikipedia), then you ought to know about this. If not, ask!

Choosing my favorite blues-country-rock singer for a username got my attention, but you only get a free ride for a few days. Then ya gotta knuckle down and start being productive, okay? --Ed Poor ^Talk 19:57, 7 July 2007 (EDT)

Wow, this is a lot of hostility. I signed up here because I was sick of hostility on Wikipedia, and was hoping a smaller project might be a bit more personal. So far I've been sternly warned in vague terms and blocked for unspecified reasons, and all for a single good-faith mistaken edit. Now this.

I was willing to put up with it at first as a misunderstanding, but forget it. You've successfully convinced me to knuckle down and be productive. Elsewhere. AManInBlack 22:13, 8 July 2007 (EDT)

I assume that means you're leaving, though I can't tell for sure. Your comment apparently qualifies as a Parthian Shot. I can say this: you're the first person I have ever seen in over 200,000 edits here to be unable to get along with Ed Poor after just a few exchanges. Godspeed in your productivity elsewhere. We'll get along just fine here.--Aschlafly 23:14, 8 July 2007 (EDT)

Meh, I got over my fit of pique. I suppose I should be more realistic.

I was offended by the paranoia, not because Ed was impolitely paranoid. I've noticed that image upload rights are fairly closely held. Is there an image request page somewhere? I need a bunch of images for US Flag Code, and I have some particular ones in mind. AManInBlack 20:53, 10 July 2007 (EDT)

While I'm thinking of it, is there an equivalent to the Administrator's Noticeboard or Village Pump on Wikipedia? There has to be a better way to get administrator attention than trying to guess which admin is on and hitting their talk page. AManInBlack 21:04, 10 July 2007 (EDT)

I haven't found a page like that yet. You can usually hunt down an admin by looking at the block log since that seems to be a fairly active space. They have a link for it in recentchanges page. U2 21:11, 10 July 2007 (EDT)

I think the best way to find an Administrator on line in a hurry, but only if you recognise their user names, is to look in the Recent Changes list itself. Philip J. Rayment 23:23, 10 July 2007 (EDT)

Image requests

Mm. Okay then. Is there an image request page? I made a template for it, and I still think that template would be useful, but it's best to connect related tools as much as possible. AManInBlack 21:13, 10 July 2007 (EDT)

The page is here File:User Fox.png Fox (talk|contribs) 21:15, 10 July 2007 (EDT)

I think that page is mainly for asking for an image that you already have, to be uploaded, rather than for asking if someone has a suitable image, although I guess it could be used for both.

But I altered the instructions for the template. Thanks for including it in the list of templates, by the way, although it should have been listed alphabetically within its section (I've fixed that). Also, our requirements are to use some standard documentation. Your template was a bit unusual, in requiring parameters that are not used(!), but that didn't prevent it being done in the normal way. If you aren't happy with my alterations, feel free to modify the wording, although the standard stuff at the top should stay.

Philip J. Rayment 23:20, 10 July 2007 (EDT)

No problems with that at all; I appreciate the help. I do like the documentation style here. AManInBlack 23:32, 10 July 2007 (EDT)

Universal health care

I'm done with version 1. Go ahead and blast a way at it; I wouldn't mind a section on countries who currently have some form of universal health care, and you seem to know what you're talking about :) Jazzman831 16:43, 11 July 2007 (EDT)

Problem is I don't, really. I'm currently living on essentially the American system, given my current status in Canada. AManInBlack 16:48, 11 July 2007 (EDT)

Ah, ok. Well I'll leave it then and hopefully it won't get deleted again... Jazzman831 17:15, 11 July 2007 (EDT)

Stlphotog

He is currently blocked for WP copying on several other articles. Geo.^Complain! 15:17, 12 July 2007 (EDT)

He wasn't when I posted that, even the second post. Fox took care of it. Thank you, though. AManInBlack 15:19, 12 July 2007 (EDT)

The chink in my armor

Excellent rephrase. [3] Thanks! :-) --Ed Poor ^Talk 10:52, 13 July 2007 (EDT)

No sweat. I always write these godawful tortured sentences, but I can almost always see a way to tighten someone else's prose. AManInBlack 10:55, 13 July 2007 (EDT)

90/10 rule

Ideally, 90% of your edits should be to article - and only 10% on discussion pages. But the minimum standard is:

• No more than 90% of edits on discussion pages
• At least 10% of edits to articles.

If more than 9 out of 10 edits are bothersome blather, we pull the plug. So if you have a lot to say, leave it in NotePad for a while and go write some articles! When your percentage is up again, you can copy and paste your comments . . .

BTW, I don't think your own user subpages count, so you can post /here without affecting your tally. Happy editing! --Ed Poor ^Talk 13:36, 13 July 2007 (EDT)

Oh. Huh, well, okay. Well, the majority of my edits are to in articlespace, so I don't forsee any problems. AManInBlack 13:40, 13 July 2007 (EDT)

His figures are almost exactly 50% in mainspace and 50% in all other namespaces, not just talk, so without analysing the edits, he's nowhere near breaching Commandment 7. Philip J. Rayment 19:41, 13 July 2007 (EDT)

Legalities....

Please refrain from emailing individual Administrators, and if you feel something isn't licensed or up to legal snuff, please contact the site owner, Andy about it, okay? Thanks. --Sysop-TK _/MyTalk 06:45, 16 July 2007 (EDT)

Um? The e-mail in question began with "I'd bring this up on your talk page, but I can't, since it's locked."

It would be really helpful if there were some centralized place for this sort of thing, or some guide to dealing with these issues. I just used the only route of communication available to me, to mention what seemed to be a possible problem.

There's no reason CP needs to adopt WP's standards for copyright, since it's not trying to be free in the free-content sense, but some of its lessons are relevant. It should be trivial to ask for permission for this sort of thing, but the fact is that states (and most national governments other than the US, for that matter) tend to retain copyright on most or all of their publications. The US federal gov't's outlook is enlightened but sadly uncommon.

It shouldn't be hard to craft a simple form letter for asking permission, though, since CP only needs specific permission for educational use (as opposed to the very, very high bar WP sets).

Speaking from miserable experience, it's much easier to start with good practices than change bad ones. AManInBlack 14:49, 16 July 2007 (EDT)

There is no need for a form letter, unless you can cite one instance of some State or the Governor thereof, objecting to, and instituting legal procedures against, an educational site for using the picture of their Chief Executive. Can you do this? --Sysop-TK _/MyTalk 15:28, 16 July 2007 (EDT)

Better safe than sorry. It's a trivial matter to send off a request for permission, and it wouldn't at all be unsafe to just send that off at the same time as the upload.

I'm looking more at potential for embarassment, to be honest. Think of if a teacher uses an image that CP erroneously labeled as "public domain" in a way that would be okay for a PD image but not for a by-permission image, and there's a big kerfluffle in the press when the state gets involved. (I'm thinking derivative works, here.) I don't think there's a significant lawsuit risk.

There's no reason to do things the wrong way when we can do things the right way and still get what we want. I'd be happy to do the footwork, if you need a volunteer (as long as someone can fix the image pages for me). AManInBlack 15:35, 16 July 2007 (EDT)

My suggestion would be for you to stop posting about this, stop contacting Sysops about such matters, and do as I suggested, email Andy. If you don't have his email address, email me, and I will provide it. But to use your oft-stated WP credentials to start needless work and distraction, based upon your "credentials" isn't acceptable. Are we completely, finally clear on this? --Sysop-TK _/MyTalk 15:39, 16 July 2007 (EDT)

Is there a reason e-mail is preferable to talk pages? I was planning on dealing with the matter at User talk:Aschlafly.

I wasn't meaning to refer to my work at WP as though it were credentials of some kind. It's not. It's just miserable experience with shortsightedness. I thought one of CP's essential goals was not to repeat WP's mistakes, and I have all too much experience with WP's mistakes. AManInBlack 15:44, 16 July 2007 (EDT)

• Andy, I was speaking of several cross-postings about this matter, on several pages, including direct emails to at least one sysop. Of course I don't have objection to sorting it out on talk pages, unless it becomes contentious, or involves something (policy-wise) that is complex. --Sysop-TK _/MyTalk 15:54, 16 July 2007 (EDT)

For the record, I e-mailed Crocoite when I thought it was just Crocoite's misunderstanding, because I couldn't bring it up on Crocoite's talk page. (For one, Crocoite's talk page was locked at the time, and for another, I noticed it after the db was closed for the night.) When TK brought it to my attention that this wasn't the way to deal with things, I brought it up on Andy's talk page, and brought this discussion to Crocoite's attention since I previous involved him/her. (I accidentally bothered Fox, since I misremembered who I e-mailed].) AManInBlack 16:08, 16 July 2007 (EDT)

User rights

On TK's talk page you asked about the rights to block, protect, etc. User rights should answer all your questions in that regard. Philip J. Rayment 01:34, 17 July 2007 (EDT)