User talk:CarolSpears/archive-01

It appears that no one has welcomed you here yet, so....

Welcome!

Hello, CarolSpears, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

• The five pillars of Wikipedia
• 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 Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question and then place {{helpme}} before the question on your talk page. Again, welcome! AKRadecki^Speaketh 14:46, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the welcome and the little bits of helpful information found around this wikipedia was an enlightening read this morning. I have one question, who is {{{art}}} and what did I do for him? -- Carol 18:59, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

That little bit of code allows the bestower of the welcome message to optionally include an article name (hence "art") which would then recognize a particular contribution. So, the basic template, as I typed it in, looks like this:

{{subst:welcome}} ~~~~

And, when I save the page, it expanded out to what you see above, along with my sig. However, I could have left one like this:

{{subst:welcome|art=1984}}, which would then become:

Welcome!

Hello, CarolSpears, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions, especially what you did for 1984. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

• The five pillars of Wikipedia
• 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 Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question and then place {{helpme}} before the question on your talk page. Again, welcome!

The kinds of code that can be programmed into these templates can get quite complex, and I don't pretend to know how to create it, but it's fun to use! AKRadecki^Speaketh 22:56, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Heheh, so in short, at least in my case, {{{art}}} was a few days ago "remembering the Reagan years" while today it would be more like linking "Raisin_bran to Bran". These templates are perhaps more fun than I first imagined. I think I get it! Thanks again! Carol 23:24, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

An article which you started, or significantly expanded, Agrostis gigantea, was selected for DYK!

On December 19, 2007, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Agrostis gigantea, which you created or substantially expanded. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

Thanks for your contributions! Nishkid64 (talk) 06:06, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Senecio congestus

On 1 March, 2008, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Senecio congestus, which you created or substantially expanded. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

--BorgQueen (talk) 05:59, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Your recent edits

Hi, there. In case you didn't know, when you add content to talk pages and Wikipedia pages that have open discussion, you should sign your posts by typing four tildes ( ~~~~ ) at the end of your comment. On many keyboards, the tilde is entered by holding the Shift key, and pressing the key with the tilde pictured. You may also click on the signature button located above the edit window. This will automatically insert a signature with your name and the time you posted the comment. This information is useful because other editors will be able to tell who said what, and when. Thank you! --SineBot 23:30, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

More Wikipedia hints

Hi, Carol! Thanks for adding pictures to Commons and to Wikipedia article -- you've got some good photos of less visited places, which are especially welcome.

A couple of ideas that may help you:

• You can use the {{commonscat}} template to link directly to a Commons category, instead of using {{commons|Category:Whatever}} so readers don't have to see "Category:" in the commons thingy.
• When you add new stuff to commons, you may wish to add new articles, instead of new categories. Don't worry, either is acceptable! You don't have to change what you've done. But, when you add an article, you can add your own informative captions to each photo using the <gallery> command, like this:

• 
  Larch Mountain with the Mount Hood National Forest
• 
  Mounument Rock Wilderness in the Malheur National Forest
• 
  Lower Strawberry Lake in the Malheur National Forest

• If you are interested in contributing to articles about Oregon, Montana, Arizona, or about Mountains in general, check out Wikipedia:WikiProject Oregon, Wikipedia:WikiProject Montana, Wikipedia:WikiProject Arizona, and Wikipedia:WikiProject Mountains, respectively. WikiProjects are voluntary groups of editors who are all interested in a particular subject, and discuss what needs to be done to improve articles on that subject.

Welcome again! hike395 14:33, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

The first thing that I read about how to show that there is an image collection available at the commons was Tip #13 which itself was confusing because it said to use one template via another template. As a user, I really dislike the gallery pages at the commons. As a contributer, I was told (warned or kindly reprimanded) that the commons is not for encyclopedic text. As a more seasoned contributer, I find the gallery pages very daunting. For example, if I take a very nice photograph of (for example) a flower I know to be a goldenrod, if I want to upload it properly to the commons, I seem to need the equivalence of a biology Phd to be able to put the image into the proper domain, class, fil-whatever and sub-genre there in the gallery. Probably there are enough biology Phd's with a lot of time on there hands to do this -- but all I wanted to do was to contribute a photograph that might have been good for use somewhere.

I was only briefly in Oregon and never in those other states. I wanted to move images from here to the commons. Possibly, the reason that no one had done that is because they now have their own wiki?

Personally, I find the Name_of_City_(State_Name) convention to be just plain wrong. While I will not make an effort to change it, I will probably not contribute much to it and definitely I appreciate this little space here to have my say about it. I can see no value to this other than giving a few hackers with regrex experience something to do once. It is awkward for computers and wrong syntax for language. Here is an example from my own life. When I was seventeen years old, I had a roommate in the college dorm from Yemen. She was just learning English and when she would leave, I would consider what it would be like to move through that little corner of the world without knowing much of the language. I would wish her "Good Luck" as she departed everyday and really really mean it. Then, 3 to 6 months later, she started to wish me the same thing when I would leave. I felt bad because I had presented something as a typical saying to her and it wasn't. Possibly through the lens of time, I can give her some credit and know that I probably needed some of the same luck that I was wishing for her -- but that is not the reason I write about it now. The point is that a wrong, awkward and stupid convention is being used here. I find it wrong, awkward and stupid.

Thanks for taking the time to help me work through it!

After all of that, I must say that shortly after I sign this and leave this page, there will be an example of perhaps the coolest thing that wikipedia has to offer a new user like me -- SineBot, my only friend here! SineBot a blessed companion who seems to understand and fixes my signature thingie! -- Carol 22:17, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

And then I am confused about which advice I am getting is for what wiki. I would type a smilie here if I knew in advance what it would do. I was definately confused between the template to mark for deletion and the template for the commons box and typing boldly while confused here. Sorry. -- Carol 04:59, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Image:NACA's Special Committee on Space Technology.jpg

Re: your upload of this picture to Commons. Good call. Dr.K. 23:04, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Heh, thanks and now I am nervous that I should leave word with people when I do these things. In an effort to not lose information, I am not mentioning the original uploader. Is this a problem? If it is, I might have a lot of problems.... -- Carol 00:46, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

No way. There is no obligation on your part to mention the original uploader. This is not an article that you edit and there is no requirement for crediting any previous uploader, except I would think if the picture was their own. I only commented because your idea to upload it to Commons was excellent, not because I wanted any credit. Uploading it to Commons helps many more people in various projects around the world and this happens to be a picture of great historical importance. Keep up the great work. Take care. Dr.K. 01:37, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Re:In need of another eye

Hello, CarolSpears.
Thank you for your message and for nice words about my writings. To tell you the truth I'm not sure what writings did you mean. I'm afraid I'm not exactly the right person to ask such questions. My English is very limitted. I think you've done a great job with the image and the article and I do not think it is April fool day. In my opinion FP mostly cares about quality while the value of the image falls much behind. Best regards.--Mbz1 22:35, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

They are kind of funny there, actually. Here, I got to think that I am the lady with the brochures. This one intertwined with the television and another 'strike' I have been on, and I actually considered that perhaps someone was fired for being a thoughtless anti-smoker where he/she shouldn't have been. Then on the day that I uploaded two images of grease pencils I was treated to two grease pencils and nested measuring spoons as well; most definately not Quality or Featured images and, by the definition there, very boring.

There was an earthquake here where I am staying. It was not big, 5.6 but it was close, about 15 miles away and it felt like a car hit the house I am in. There is a rumor I heard about animal behavior -- that the animals know before the earth quakes and leave the area and it certainly looked like the real photographers (those usually present at commons:Category:Zoology darn, that Category used to be where the Featured Pictures Candidates were 'filed') left before that day as well.

My question about the satellite -- NASA has several images that I am certain are fake beyond what was ever necessary and one that is just plain wrong. It is so very very wrong. About the satellite; I was searching for information when I found this APOD from an April Fools day. Look at this EPOD 2007-04-01, this EPOD 2006-04-01, this EPOD 2005-04-01, this EPOD 2004-04-01, etc.

In real life, people seem really nice and mostly honest. -- Carol 02:58, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Your recent edits

Hi there. In case you didn't know, when you add content to talk pages and Wikipedia pages that have open discussion, you should sign your posts by typing four tildes ( ~~~~ ) at the end of your comment. On many keyboards, the tilde is entered by holding the Shift key, and pressing the key with the tilde pictured. You may also click on the signature button located above the edit window. This will automatically insert a signature with your name and the time you posted the comment. This information is useful because other editors will be able to tell who said what, and when. Thank you! --SineBot 03:19, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Cape Perpetua

I did make it there once, but the lighting wasn't the greatest. I found a couple more on Commons:

• 
  Here is the best that I could do
• 
  Better light, but unfortunate crop
• 
  Another ok shot
• 
  Here is the bridge that is visible at the top of my photo.

Hope you enjoy. The next time that I am near there I will be sure to give it another go. Thanks, Cacophony 05:13, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for the photographs and the search. Such a beautiful collection, and an interesting destination for the year 2031 for a camera :) -- Carol 05:40, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

sock puppet

After seeing your note on my talk page I looked at your user page. I noticed a "sock puppet" template that appears to be used to address behavioral issues in users. I looked at the history of your page to see who added it and realized you put it there. Judging by your edit summary I assume the purpose of this addition was to let people know the account you used in another wiki in the project.

I would suggest that you replace it with a custom written note, because as it is it makes it appear that you have been labeled as someone who has violated the Wikipedia:Sock puppetry policy. I do not think this was your intention. Sam Barsoom (talk) 01:00, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

I think it is kind of fun though. Often a bot follows me around, telling me to use the four tilde and I did use the four tilde. I was thinking that they could fix the template so it doesn't break my signature. -- Carol 02:58, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Btw, I am a sockpuppet here. I could write with reliability about a 1973 Cheech and Chong album (I suspect that my parents would have bought it even if it had had the Parental Advisory label on it then) because I really am one of the probably rare people who saw the first edition of that album and is still young enough to keep at it on wikipedia. Other than that, even at commons, I am not so good with identifying image altering problems as I should be given my 10 years with GIMP. Sorting and categorizing images is good for me right now. -- Carol 03:08, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Also, I asked a philosophically oriented question of you on my talk page in response to your comment. Sam Barsoom (talk) 01:00, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

I really enjoyed those few moments spent on your talk page. Whenever I start thinking about red is red problems, I also think about Germans because after seeing only a few of their movies, my theory for the reason that there is no German comedy that the rest of the world considers comedy is because their language is so literal and the only thing that makes them laugh is reducing something to 'red is red' -- which others find disturbing and not funny by the time the evolution of the story takes you there. -- Carol 02:58, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Speedy deletion of Up His Nose

A tag has been placed on Up His Nose requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section A1 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because it is a very short article providing little or no context to the reader. Please see Wikipedia:Stub for our minimum information standards for short articles. Also please note that articles must be on notable subjects and should provide references to reliable sources that verify their content.

If you think that this notice was placed here in error, you may contest the deletion by adding {{hangon}} to the top of the article (just below the existing speedy deletion or "db" tag), coupled with adding a note on the article's talk page explaining your position, but be aware that once tagged for speedy deletion, if the article meets the criterion it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself, but don't hesitate to add information to the article that would would render it more in conformance with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. Merenta (talk) 20:20, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Lets take Mona Lisa out of the Louvre and off from wikipedia because the painting is so small also! -- Carol 20:36, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

You first! :) Seriously, I've addressed this on Talk:Up His Nose. There's nothing wrong with the subject matter - it just needs context. Merenta (talk) 20:54, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

I can't revert a delete, but an improved article would be fine.

"Up His Nose" is a short yet eloquent commentary on either the expense of putting drugs in ones nose, or observations made while babysitting. First appearing on the 1973 album Los Cochinos, the listener is allowed to infer their own experiences to enhance the comedic editorial of this track. “ Trains and planes and boats he put:

Up his nose. ”

That was the gist of the article. Happy editing.

Thank you! -- Carol 01:47, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Fix your page

I saw that you needed help with your userpage and I would be happy to. Just tell me what you want in it. Bernstein2291 10:01, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

It was kind of a joke, actually. I put the sockpuppet template on it and that template broke my signature here -- or at least I thought it was that template. So I put the 'fix my page' template on it because it was the closest template I could find to say, 'can you please fix the templates because they break my signature?' Then, somebody removed the sockpuppet template and told me not to use the admins templates for personal use like that. I am a sockpuppet here of myself at the commons, and it wasn't clear when I was looking at the user templates that some were for admins and some weren't. Honestly, I have been reprimanded often in my life, but that was one of the more fun times of reprimand that I can remember.

I actually spent some time on the commons user page commons:User:Carol and I really don't want to spend a lot of time with stuff like that, so anything you want to do, feel free.

That is an interesting offer. Thanks. -- Carol 10:39, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Thank you

Hi carol, you're here too, I see. I like your user page, it made me laugh. Thank you for doing my work by the way on the "matrimonial" flower. -- Slaunger (talk) 14:12, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Your pretty little chickweed was very easy to find a place for here. Alves blue mosquito was a challenge, especially when reading about that one particular species. Thanks for noticing. -- Carol 14:17, 13 December 2007 (UTC) <-- I might be the only one here who enjoys the broken signature. Carol

Re: intro is no longer missing from redtop page

Re: User talk:Black Falcon#intro is no longer missing from redtop page

Wow! I didn't expect an immediate reply – it is usually several weeks to a few months from the time a cleanup/maintenance tag is placed on an article to the time the issues are addressed – and I am pleasantly surprised. :) Anyway, I've taken off the template and made some other minor changes, mostly with regard to text formatting. All in all, I commend you for a well-written article! Black Falcon ^(Talk) 17:38, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Your changes to the formating and text were beautiful. Also, the new templates there -- very very very nice. I have much to learn.

It is also good to know that when the time is taken to put a templated message on a new page, that time is also spent to remove it. -- carol 18:41, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

WP:PLANTS for Hieracium lachenalii and Agrostis gigantea

Thank you for looking those pages over and making them a part of the plant stuff here.

I have to assemble a lead section yet for Hieracium caespitosum but there are other more interesting problems with this one that I could possibly need some help with. It was written first, as an exercise in citation and second, as a reaction to Yellow Hawkweed. The more I became involved with assembling the information for that page, the more I became unhappy with Hawkweed.

As far as using common names go for this genus, I am quite certain that disambiguation pages will be needed. I actually can predict this from my own real life experiences. The scholars say that there are 10,000 or more species and subspecies, yet if you go to where they grow and ask one of the locals (which I was one) they will call theirs by one of those same few names.

I started to compile Hieracium caespitosum for two reasons. I did not like that only a single reference was used for Yellow Hawkweed and when I looked for other sources, I found (if I remember correctly) 15 synonyms for this species, which reduced the list of 880 to 866 and 1 other that hadn't been accepted yet. I made redirection pages for all of those synonyms as well. Then, I took advantage of the fact that Hawkweed was written with the common name as a title and started to compile Hieracium.

I tried to do things that made sense with the wiki software and what little I know about how the information all works together. If I could possibly find a photograph, a line drawing and a water color of every 'single species' (single species because I have a feeling about the synonyms after that first quick look) -- that would really be something. When I was playing in the open fields in which a few of these hawkweed grew, I found having these three different kinds of images to be extremely helpful for identification. This would be the honest word from an actual user and back then, it was a pain because to achieve the goal of the three different kinds of images, I had to use probably between 10 and 20 books and very few of them had photographs.

Also, in my mind and experience, the taxonomy stuff was not so useful as it is possibly being a point of contention. I don't even know if this is a subject that I should mention delicately or not, but I tried to quickly get my information from wikispecies and it did not work in the template here. I had a polite chuckle and put a quote from a great web site in finland about the taxonomy which is there. And here is what I am wondering about that: how can you even tell when you are following one school or another? To me, that is the rest of the quote there -- that it is so intricate now that one might not even know that they had 'jumped schools' or whatever.

The darkside of this for me is that this is an example of one of the big reasons I opted to study physics. Not too much memorization was required and in physics, there is Newton and Leibniz and the formula and the proofs were the same; Leibniz had prettier notation. That being said, when I was playing in the rural areas and I did not have health insurance, it was plant identification that seemed to matter more than taxo classification, Newton or Leibniz and I enjoyed that immensely!

But back to the wiki-stuff, it would be nice to know what to do before I make a bunch of pages that need a lot of fixing and any help would be appreciated.

Thanks for your time -- carol 15:39, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Hi Carol. First, apologies for it taking a couple days to get back to you. I had a nice reply all set out and of course the laptop decides that's the perfect time to encounter some sort of error and shut down. Anyway, on to the substance. First, thanks for taking the initiative to create these articles! As part of WP:PLANTS, we've got less than 10% of all species covered. So we appreciate any contribution to the goal! Especially the Asteraceae since they are so often neglected. Second, I quite agree with your assessment. Common names are difficult and most of our plant articles are at the scientific name. We got so frustrated with the disagreements between British and American English that we created the flora naming convention. So unless these species are widely cultivated under a single name or otherwise used extensively for industry or commercial purposes (that bit is mostly meant for things like the hardwoods, etc.), by all means move the pages to their scientific names and create disambiguation pages out of the common names. If you run into any trouble and need a page moved over a multiple-edit redirect, let me know. I have access to the sysop tools necessary to make such a move. You can also post such requests, citing WP:NC (flora), at WP:RM under uncontroversial proposals.

Re:Synonyms. Oh gosh! Another synonymy hell! I've been having quite a fun time creating stubs for Utricularia pages. The monograph I have sometimes lists several pages of synonyms, nom. ill. and so forth for the more common, worldwide species. It's absolutely nuts. I list as many as I can without driving myself insane.

tribus or tribae or tribii or tribium whatever the heck they call that. I don't like the word. In the simple a tribe had better not be smaller than a family -- but I think I mentioned that I am not big on memorization as a valid point for higher education. That being said, and also a quick reminder that I am very very new (like I started here, late this year to try to grasp this stuff) and I was really glad that they separated the chicory from the sunflowers. They just seem like completely different kinds of flowers to me and when I read the descriptions they seem even more to be different. So, that nomenclature did not work in the information box and it was probably at about that point that I wrote the first thing on your talk page.

More than the links to the project pages and the taxon stuff and everything -- more than all of that, your Bladderwort page will be the best reference for me, I think. I just finished whining and complaining later in this response and it (probably) is not directed at you personally. Thanks for all of the links here, thanks in particular for that one. :)

No worries. I just finished off another you might like to take a look at: Utricularia inflata. The bladderwort article needs quite a bit of work to be good, including in-line references. Rkitko ^(talk) 03:51, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Re:Taxonomy. Well, I honestly know very little about the Asteraceae taxonomy. User:Hardyplants seems to know a bit more than I. And as always, you could post a plea for help at WT:PLANTS (speaking of which, why don't you join us?) What, specifically, are you concerned about when it comes to taxonomy? The higher taxonomy? It's in a bit of flux. For flowering plants, the English Wikipedia currently uses a hybrid system of Cronquist higher taxonomy (kingdom, division, class) and then mixes in the changes from the cladistics studies from the APG II system (order and family). I don't think Asteraceae has moved around any. If you're interested in the lower taxonomy (genus, subgenus, sections, etc.), best idea is to look to the most recent revision of the genus you're interested in. Experts in the field know the most, so we trust them. I've been working on cobbling together the taxonomic relations of Stylidium here since the last monograph on the genus was in 1908! Still haven't placed quite a few species... The ever-present call for more references, you know... I digress. So, what information did you try to import from Wikispecies that didn't work? If you need any help, let me know.

Well, have I blabbered on long enough? Hope I haven't missed anything. And again, thanks for your contributions! :-) Cheers, Rkitko ^(talk) 01:29, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Oh, and regarding the quotes, unless they are directly related to the species, I'd do away with them. For example, the quote on Hieracium sabaudum is misplaced. It might be nice to include it in a section of the genus page regarding "in popular culture..." or something similar. Hope that helps! --Rkitko ^(talk) 02:46, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

I think the quotes are the coolest thing there. Checkout the one on Hieracium caespitosum. Taxonomy stuff is new to me, but I have read (and I know) a lot about plants. I was not picky about what I read, but I was very picky about what information I embraced. If this were a global wiki, I would agree, but it is English wikipedia. Plant science without lore is just incredibly boring wealthy people buying species names. -- carol 02:54, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

I really do think the quotes, unless directly related, should be removed. Readers of the page will wonder the same things I did: How is this quote related? Why is it relevant? Why is it here? This is an encyclopedia, and generally we like to keep articles on topic, which includes all the content on the page. I think that's just common sense. --Rkitko ^(talk) 03:51, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Yesterday, I found some stuff that looked like an immature hacker had cracked the database for these plant names. Today, the USDA Plant Profile page starts to dish out web pages from Madison, Wisconsin (the squarest city I have ever been in) and from Texas that have conflicting information, and this looks bigger like immature and like power mongering. The more that I look at this stuff, the massive amounts of 'named species' the more and more it looks to me like that scam they had in the 1980's for buying a star name. It stinks of the war between the economic classes of people, don't you think? I enjoy reducing that list. This 'science' seems so -- well, I want to say stupid but stupid can be fixed most of the time -- so it is so whatever and whether it was designed to be so easily abused or not, it is seemingly very very easy to do so. For hundreds and hundreds of years.

Why couldn't they have just bought a pet rock and given it their family name? Put it in a museum and enter its name into official records -- something where the dishonesty would not potentially be so wrong. I like that I am citing my sources. It is a simple, 'I did not do this but look what they did' feeling. One of the german sites has a great anti-wiki hack though. Do you know how to put urls into the citation templates so that the '=' in it doesn't break the templates?

I would have never let Yellow Hawkweed exist like that; single source referenced and crap content. I would like to see those college graduates show the health care plan I kept hearing about in the 1990's. Well, I am quite angry about the USDA and their 'credible' sources today. It is the same thing as the taxon system isn't it? Hacks built on hacks built on hacks built on hacks. Wrongs built on wrongs built on wrongs -- with several people in the meanwhile, honestly trying to do things the right way. "I bought myself a plant species" or "I bought myself a star name" or "I hacked the plant database and wrote in a name". Money gets to do it twice and clever gets only once. Why are either of them doing that?

Did you read Vonneguts Cat's Cradle? Or Brave New World? Did you know that sometimes the human body craves potassium and it knows the food to get it from? I really wanted to mention that now, not to you in particular, but just to have it on record here. I do not like where I have been relocated to. It has been a wrong that builds other wrongs that builds even more wrongs. When I was studying physics, there was a great tee shirt. It had the speed of light printed on it like a traffic sign and the tee shirt says "It's the law!" That is science. This taxon stuff is hackable and previously hacked name theory -- I like making a list of 10,000 into about 20, I am guessing. I meant that thank you earlier.... -- carol 02:47, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean by that first paragraph here. You think the USDA database was hacked - that the information is suspect? On citing sources, you might want to ask around at Wikipedia talk:Citing sources or Wikipedia talk:Citation templates for help on the equal sign problem. I, personally, don't care for the citation templates. While it does standardize everything, they make it considerably harder to edit the articles. Just my personal view and I work around them when I encounter them.

Yes, I have read Brave New World, 1984, We, and many other dystopias. I love them. ... I'm not sure what you mean by "hackable". Sure, all websites are able to be hacked, but established paper sources are where those sites get their taxonomy from. You can always refer to those publications. I usually don't get my taxonomy info from the USDA PLANTS or GRIN website. Practically everyone is using a different system of taxonomy. Botanical taxonomy is currently in an state of flux as new genetics information challenges old ideas (see Cronquist system) about which orders and families consist of which genera and species. Wait ten years or so and the dust might settle back to something reasonable. Even now there can be rather rough disagreements between taxonomists and people were especially attached to their favorite taxonomic system, such as the controversial taxonomic assessments used by the APG II system, which completely reordered many large plant families. See Campanulales, Scrophulariaceae, etc. Heh, controversial botany. What a concept! Anyway, I hope all that rambling helps. Cheers, Rkitko ^(talk) 03:51, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

WA Post Lunar Landing Image

Hey carol,

I can certainly appreciate that you feel very strongly about this image and its poignant connotations; there are indeed few events in history that approach the magnitude of that accomplishment. However from a strictly objective standpoint, this image at FPC will be treated just like any other nomination. That is to say that nominating an image at FPC is an open invitation for criticism, and English wikipedia emphasizes encyclopedicity over emotions and aesthetics. This picture is far from a snowball (the quality, in fact, is really good and artifact-less for a scan, and a degree of enc. exists), but if you have strong sentiments attached, be aware of the possibility of opposition and criticism. Regards, --Malachirality (talk) 20:59, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

No matter what I say or do, me negotiating that image will be like yet another rerun of The Series Has Landed. I think I can rotate it and end up with a good image. Also, I put it where it can be seen. Perhaps I would rather battle for a FP place where there is an rss feed....

Thanks for the help and the comments and the interesting snowball link and letting me write about my severe disappointment with images from JPL on your talk page. -- carol 21:22, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

• Hmm, I'm not sure what you mean by battling "for a FP place where there is an rss feed", but I like the image the more I think about it. It's placement in "Apollo 11 in popular culture" I would say is its strongest enc. point (it does almost nothing in "WA Post" and "Apollo 11"). Might I also suggest the "legacy" section ("cultural legacy" specifically) in the Apollo program article? Not that is means anything substantial, since Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy, but I've seconded on peer review as well. With the rotation and the second placement in Apollo program, you could nominate it at FPC. Regards, --Malachirality (talk) 03:24, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Heh, you used a '*' here which is something you requested not be done on your talk page. Regardless, I appreciate that the image is being thought about by more than just me. I will look at apollo program before my day is done here. About the rss feed -- I see the daily FP from the commons because I get it via rss feed with a bunch of other things I try to look at everyday. -- carol 03:51, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Hieracium longiscapum

A tag has been placed on Hieracium longiscapum, requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under the criteria for speedy deletion, because it is a very short article providing little or no context to the reader. Please see Wikipedia:Stub for our minimum information standards for short articles. Also please note that articles must be on notable subjects and should provide references to reliable sources that verify their content.

Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself. If you plan to expand the article, you can request that administrators wait a while for you to add contextual material. To do this, affix the template {{hangon}} to the article and state your intention on the article's talk page. Feel free to leave a note on my talk page if you have any questions about this. brewcrewer (yada, yada) 23:03, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Tags here mean nothing. do see Up His Nose for the level of respect I have for such things here. If you would like to apologize for tagging an article that is just a few minutes old, I will read it. -- Carol 23:21, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

I have removed the speedy-delete tag and replaced it with a tag that requests its context be explained. I am not a botanist ... I suspect that this article is about a plant. It would help if you could add some text to the beginning of the article to explain what this thing is so that non-technical persons (like me) can understand and appreciate its importance. Thanks and Happy Holidays. Truthanado (talk) 23:16, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Holidays --> {{context}} If having a happy holiday for you is putting tags on pages that are a few minutes old and have referenced context -- please celebrate your holiday elsewhere. -- Carol 23:21, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Hello Carol, it has been my experience that Brewcrewer acts in the best interest of wikipedia, and generally follows concensus. Everyone makes mistakes, so please consider that this user may have legitamately thought the right thing was being done. Your tone sounds like an admonishment when your mind is made up that somebody was up to no good, which certainly isn't assuming good faith.

As well, the person you just bit was not the person who tagged the article, but somebody who removed the tag and asked you nicely to improve the article for a legitamate concern. You may consider apologizing to Truthnado.

No biting here. I am not deleting things within minutes. I asked about concensus. I expanded a sentence that Truthnado wrote and I would really appreciate that the three of you go play somewhere else for a while. I am thinking that the road would be a good place but that is rude and I would never actually write that. -- Carol 00:14, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Now for what I really came here for... you left me a note on my talk page under the header "deletion", I must apologize but I do not understand what you were asking me. Did I delete something that you think I shouldn't have? Please let me know. I DO make mistakes, and I would like to correct them if I know about them. JERRY ^talk _contribs 00:02, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

I had two wiki users delete pages. One deleted it within 2 or 3 minutes after it was created. Concensus? I just saw once again the movie Blade Runner where there is that one character who "makes new friends" genetically instead of finding actual existing people. I mention this now because I am curious where the 'concensus' you mention here is? Sorry about my broken signature. I tried to quickly put a couple of things on my user page and that is what happened. -- Carol 00:12, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

You might want to take a look at Wikipedia:About the Sandbox, in particular the section about user sandbox. I use a sandbox whenever I create an article. I can make as many changes as I want in it and no one bothers it (those are the Wiki rules), until I am satisfied that it is ready for release. Then I create the article with its actual title and copy/paste from my sandbox to the article. You see, once an article is in main Wikispace, it belongs to the Wiki community and the several hundred Wiki patrolers will do their jobs and check that it complies with Wiki policy. Using a sandbox avoids the kinds of problems you recently had. Your sandbox would be User:CarolSpears/Sandbox which you can easily create by clicking on the red link in this sentence. Truthanado (talk) 14:19, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the tip. Interesting admin task -- deleting pages that are less than a few minutes old. I am not interested in sorting through 'policy' about that. I am interested in how that is considered a useful admin task though. My government teacher imparted this one thought to me -- just because you can do something doesn't mean that you should. -- Carol 17:06, 24 December 2007 (UTC) (I'm going to go ahead and use the broken signature here since it already is the talk page for my user page.

Your government teacher makes a good point. Let me explain why new articles are reviewed quickly. Hundreds of articles are created every day by Wiki users. Although most of them are worthwhile, some are not ... spam, nonsense, personal attacks, advertisements, and other scruff that has no place on Wikipedia. Most of the junk gets caught quickly by the dedicated patrolers, using Wiki guidelines. We try to do our best so that junk articles are not part of Wikipedia. Sometimes a mistake is made (this article). That is why there is a procedure for handling that. Note that the patroler does not delete the article (in fact, most patrolers don't have the privilege to delete articles, only admins can do that); patrolers tag articles that they think are candidates for deletion, and at least one admin then reviews it before deleting it. In this case, I (as a patroler) caught the error and removed the tag. If I hadn't done that, you could have added the {{hangon}} tag. The system worked in this case ... this article did not get deleted. You might want to take a look at WP:OWN ... remember that no one owns articles, we all work on them together in a collaboration. Truthanado (talk) 18:12, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

The {{hangon}} tag seemed to be a placebo, or perhaps snake oil when I tried to use it. The {{hangon}} tag, the first and only time that I attempted to use this to determine what the problem was or to provoke a discussion which would help me to understand, I learned that it is an ineffective tag. The education I could and did glean from that experience is that this tag does not do what is promised.

About the mechanics of wiki. If a page says it is no longer there and asks if I would like to read the logs of the discussion that prompted its deletion then it is no longer there? It has been deleted? And, completely without sarcasm and also because I believe that you believe in the tags you are suggesting and I was glad to see that you had added a 'description' to the page I had written, I really appreciate that you are taking this time to tell me how the wiki experience works from your POV and experience. That is honest from me. There was the suggestion that I apologize to you, but I did not remember causing the need to do this. I remember being glad that you were being non-aggressive and productive in that weird few moments out of several quiet ones here at the english wikipedia. Not the kind of thing I usually apologize for. Gratitude though, a lot of gratitude. -- Carol 18:56, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

(tab reset) I am still confused. What do you expect from me? How am I involved in this at all, except being dragged in and (not) told to go play in the street? Do you want me to do or undo anything? Or can I just safely archive your comment on my user page and ignore it? JERRY ^talk _contribs 19:00, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

I used the link in the history of one of the tagged for deletion pages to get to User Talk:Jerry to leave that message. I have no evidence that anything that I would like or want matters. 'Go play in the road' was in my life one of those funny things that adults and then people used to say to me affectionately when I was bothering them -- it is difficult to impart that affection via text. You know the safety much better than I do and it is your talk page. I think you should go play in the road. And be a good person while you use Jerry as a name. I once told a great Jerry not to buy a little red sports car unless he also added to the cost of driving it one speeding ticket per week or so because he would have been a ticket magnet like that. Perhaps, depending on your mentality at the moment, 'go get a frisbee' would be a better suggestion than to go play in the road, but I am only suggesting this because I really miss my family. Thanks for the attention? -- Carol 19:25, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Aha, I get it now. btw, my sportscar was blue. Thanks, JERRY ^talk _contribs 05:44, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Hieracium albertinum

Looks good but what is that quote? I moved it. How is it related to the article? michfan2123 (talk) 02:10, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Aw, don't move the quote! As soon as I figure more things out here -- I think there is a need for a WP:NAFG (Not a Field Guide) and the quotes are WP:NAFG#elements. I had to defend that the information I was putting on these plant project articles were not because I thought that wikipedia is a field guide and intend to make articles which are like those. It is related to the article. The state of Washington has put the whole genus on a list of noxious weeds yet some of them are endangered or could be because of the way they propagate themselves. Well, and the fact that the best information that I can find about some of these is from a field guide.... -- Carol 02:16, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

As noted above, I don't think the quotes belong. Yes, Wikipedia is not a field guide. But it is an encyclopedia. And every encyclopedia I've looked at doesn't have unrelated quotes in the articles it contains. A quote about dead puppies on Hieracium albertinum will only confuse our readers, especially when it's not explained as to why it's there. I could understand it if the common name for this plant was "dead puppy" and the quote was commenting on that, but there's no apparent relationship between the quote and the species and there'd be no way to link the two without potentially violating WP:OR. Just as a note, I've removed the quote on that page. Cheers, --Rkitko ^(talk) 04:05, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

You sell your readers quite short. I know some fairly intelligent and articulate readers of wikipedia. I am sorry that I am guessing that you do not have much of a mathematics background to understand that the quote was related. There are some wikipedia articles which are way over my head. I don't change them because of this -- should I? -- Carol 04:23, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

We are an encyclopedia first and foremost. One of the goals of such an encyclopedia is accesability. Our guidelines encourage us to explain the jargon. While quotes aren't necessarily jargon, how they related to the page at hand could have been seen as unexplained jargon. I don't think I'm selling the users of this encyclopedia short, I just think it's one of our better practices to keep things related and explained. And, while this isn't a guideline, common practice on the taxa-related pages on Wikipedia has been to keep them rather descriptive. I just don't see the quotes as adding anything outstanding to the pages. Occasionally some pages will quote the original Latin or English description of a particular species, as some of the Nepenthes species pages do. And no, I really don't have a mathematics background. Calc I was as far as I needed to go and about as much as I could tolerate. I do have an affinity for statistics, though, and I consider myself fairly well educated, but I still don't understand how the quote related. Care to clue me in? :-) Anyway, I'm not sure if I can convince you that the quotes are necessary. I've cited some guidelines that support me, but as always, ignore all rules if you think you're improving the 'pedia. Others might also question the content and remove it as I have, though, since it is a fairly unusual thing to find on a taxon article. Cheers, Rkitko ^(talk) 05:05, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Oh, you know what? I hadn't realized the quote on Hieracium laevigatum came from diff. I really don't think it's appropriate to quote an IP user from their contribution to another page on Wikipedia. That is highly unusual. I'm going to remove it again as I feel it's really inappropriate. Quotes about the species are certainly acceptable and encouraged (plenty of pages will have a "in culture" section or something like it); famous quotes tangentially related to the topic might be tolerated, but the quote from the IP user is really odd for this page. And as a quick response to your edit summary in this diff, there's nothing wrong with the article being mostly a field guide, even though I disagree with that assessment. That's how most taxa articles begin, with a description etc. Also, per Wikipedia's style guidelines on lead sections, the quotes should at the very least be moved away from the top of the article. Cheers, Rkitko ^(talk) 05:18, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

I would really enjoy seeing an article that you have written. Thanks -- Carol 05:47, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Sure, take your pick. A couple of the larger ones include Utricularia inflata, Stylidium (which I really need to update), protocarnivorous plant, and a rare non-plant one: Sussex Railroad. There are also, of course, the almost 90 pages on Stylidiaceae species and other taxa. Rkitko ^(talk) 06:02, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

I see you've re-reverted back to your preferred version of all the pages. Please be advised of WP:OWN and the three-revert rule. The quote from the IP contributor is completely inappropriate. Per WP:LEAD the other quotes related to the articles should be moved away from the top of the article (articles should start with an opening sentence). I know it takes some time to get used to all the guidelines here, but I think I've given you ample reasons why some of those quotes don't belong and why the others should be moved. Please read through the links I provided, remain civil (careful of the edit summaries, too, diff), and let's continue to discuss before it devolves into an edit war. A good starting point would be telling me why you disagree with the guidelines I've listed. Cheers, Rkitko ^(talk) 06:14, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Not sure I should butt in here, but I'm not sure which article talk page I'd put this on. As for Hieracium laevigatum, I don't understand how a quote about analytic functions helps out a plant article. The presence of the word "smooth" in both seems like a pretty tenuous connection (the word smooth in math and in plants don't even mean the same thing). And Hieracium albertinum - "dead puppies"? I'm even more confused by that one. Some of the other quotes probably enhance the articles, but there are still issues about where they go, whether to use Template:cquote or Template:quote, and probably other things. Including lore in plant articles is generally a good thing (see for example the mention of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn in the Ailanthus altissima article), and I'm neutral to positive about some kind of hawkweed quote in Hieracium sabaudum or Hieracium. But the start of an article is not the place for quotes (think of people who are browsing, rather than reading, and read WP:LEAD). Rkitko, you are right to bring up the WP:3RR but that applies to both of you. If we don't get enough of a "third opinion" here or on the article's talk page, we can take it to WT:PLANTS. Kingdon (talk) 20:21, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the additional voice here, Kingdon. We might need to take it to WT:PLANTS for further opinions. Agreed on WP:3RR - don't think I've violated it or the spirit of it and I don't intend to. Carol is new here and I don't want to bite the newcomers so I've been hoping Carol would engage in the dialog with me here. Rkitko ^(talk) 21:48, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Now there is a great idea. Take it to the plants project and discuss it there. That is the best thing I have read yet here from there. -- Carol 10:57, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

(Indent reset - copied from User talk:Rkitko)Sorry to take so long to get back to you. I was juggling some (a very very few) real life things and I also started to make a big mess of things at the commons and unmessing it was somewhat productive and I did not want to interrupt that until it was completed.

I appreciate that you have taken the time to express opinions and tell to me all of the various reasons that you were changing articles that I was writing (while I was writing them) on my talk page. I am actually disappointed to see that some discussion has begun since I figured that this was an indication of what it was like to get that whatever those things are from the Plant Project.

Within in the next couple of days, I intend to communicate (lead, if you will) in the same fashion and I will be very interested to see how it is that I should have responded from your response.

Much of this is not my personal style, but neither is wikipedia -- so it should be interesting.

You have messages used to be kind of neat -- like that I might learn something. I also found some of the tags that were applied to be funny and in a weird way, encouraging -- like the tag that I got on a word free but nicely outline article that said that it did not contain enough information. It was sick and funny because I needed sleep and I enjoyed it for the polite sarcasm. Those days seem to be over and the You have messages notification is ... is ... well, you tell me.

So, again, thank you and I will be giving it a try soon enough. And let you know on your talk page. -- Carol 12:29, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

I appreciate the heads up, Carol. It is a busy time of year, indeed, so I patiently await your responses! I did take a look at Talk:Hieracium caespitosum and replied there. I also reassessed all of the talk pages where you removed the {{WikiProject Plants}} template. I hope you understand why I replaced the WikiProject Plants template on the Hieracium talk pages where you had removed them. Anything that is within the project's scope will receive a template banner. It helps us track our articles through assessing them. Anyway, I also wanted to apologize to you. I shouldn't have jumped the gun and continued to remove the quote on the Hieracium laevigatum page, though I still disagree with its placement there. I fear I may have given you the wrong impression of how content disputes are resolved here, since you have followed suit and done similar edit warring over the quotes on pages like Hieracium caespitosum. Let's keep our cool; I will wait for your responses and we'll discuss further. As an aid to discussion, some of the things I'm looking for are why you think the quotes should remain at the top of the articles (why WP:LEAD should be ignored, in this case) and why unrelated quotes should be included in the articles. Hope you have a happy new year! Cheers, Rkitko ^(talk) 15:44, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Clementine

My understanding is that rewritten articles don't qualify, but you may want to check with one of the regular DYK admins. Regards, Gatoclass (talk) 07:07, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, I know that the article is better than it was and I at least have the feeling that I put an end to the oppose all my images stuff at the commons by opposing the image of mine that is there twice myself (and then fixing the few problems anyway) and that was fun. And, to be perfectly honest, I don't remember ever clicking through on one of those DYK articles ever -- so perhaps I have no business putting anything there or trying to read all of the rules and guidelines -- after some facts. Thank you for taking the time to think about it and to guess with me what the rules are there. I never could read documentation very well. I am working on a theory that for every guideline written by now there is an equal and opposite guideline nearby. Yawn -- yours in retrospect Carol 11:54, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Russian maps

Hi, Carol! Thanks for attempting to replace the Russian maps with the svg versions, but please note that the articles on Russian federal subjects will need to be updated with new maps on January 1, 2008, as two of the federal subjects merge effective then. Hopefully you have not yet invested too much effort into this, because it'll all have to be re-done soon. Just thought this note may save you unnecessary work. And yes, the new maps are svgs too (they are available on Commons in each federal subject's category). Happy New Year!—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 16:05, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

And oh, please do not change them to the 2008 versions ahead of time—we do not normally do that. Thanks.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 19:47, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, I was cleaning up a really big mess at the commons. Some of those maps had four of the same version there. I know this because I made the fourth some of them. It is just business as usual to make sure that the images are not being used on any wiki -- I think that the tool I used checked more than 400 wiki for instances of them. There are three or four of those ugly pink pngs there as well, at what time does your project usually check into getting rid of redundant png that are there?

Oh, and heh. You are the person who (I think) scripted inkscape to generate those SVG? Dude, they are beautiful. I also noticed that you generated many of those little pink png as well. Sorry to call them ugly but compared to the SVG they are. I was having some problems communicating with the Plant Project people and avoiding messages here from that. Please forgive me. I felt like there was a reward or something for pissing me off and I really did not want to read the polite yet abusive crapola here again. -- Carol 10:55, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

btw, I am not quite certain that you are using the word 'attempt' correctly. You might want to look that up. -- Carol 11:13, 30 December 2007 (UTC) yo

Hi, Carol! No, you did not mess up any of my plans; in fact, I am glad I won't have to do the tedious task of updating all the maps myself! I do, however, feel a bit uneasy about the fact that the new maps were added to articles before the changes they show went into effect—this is one of those case when it is better to add the maps a little later than in advance. Anyway, what's done is done; I just want to ask you not to do it in advance when the next update comes (which will occur on March 1, 2008, when Agin-Buryat Autonomous Okrug will be merged into Chita Oblast).

Now, as for your other questions and concerns: first, I believe that it is a Commons policy to keep both svg and png versions of the same file. I don't frequent the Commons too often, and I don't have a good grasp of that project's policies and procedures, but I am sure there is a perfectly good reason behind this particular approach (svg images, after all, are still not all that widely supported, and the Commons images are intended for use not only by the Wikipedias, but for any other imaginable purposes).

Second, I do not believe that adding these maps to the Commons category:Maps of Russia is a good idea. Adding just the most recent maps to that category would leave readers believing that no additional maps are available and would require recategorizing the whole set every time there is a change (such as the 3/1/8 one I mentioned above), and listing all of the maps in that cat makes having the Category:Maps of Russian federal subjects pretty much pointless. In my opinion, Category:Maps of Russia should only contain the maps of, well, Russia, and not of its constituent parts. What do you think?

Anyway, I don't generally do much cleanup on Commons (mainly due to a lack of time), so as long as the maps can be found, I'm cool :)

Finally, regarding the federal subjects you listed which do not have svg maps. Most of them, as you correctly noted, are historical (although I am not sure why you included the Sakha Republic—its map is available under Image:Russia - Sakha Republic (2008-01).svg), but you are probably right—they should have svg versions if only for presentation consistency. I'll try to put aside some time (probably well into New Year) to generate them, but if you want to do it yourself, I sure won't object :)

Also, could you clarify what you mean by "template problem" in Kamchatka Krai? I don't see any apparent problems in that article.

Again, thanks for your help with this cleanup project! It is much appreciated. Have a great New Year!—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 18:09, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

P.S. Haven't noticed your other message here, sorry. No, I am not the person who scripted the svg; that was, if I am not mistaken, User:Hardscarf. I merely took his map, made a bunch of locator maps out of it, and removed the federal subjects that merged. Before that, "ugly pngs" was the best we could do (to be completely fair, though, those pngs were generated and used well before Wikipedia even supported svgs).

As for "unused" maps (the January 2007 and the July 2007 versions, for example)—they may be unused now, but they would sure come in handy when articles on the subject of mergers of Russian federal subjects are created, and they provide a historic perspective as well. In other words, those maps may be unused, but they are hardly useless.

Finally, I used the "attempt" word because I was originally going to revert your changes (there were just a few of them at the time the note above was written), but then re-considered when I saw that you already updated more articles than I at first thought :)—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 18:09, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Apparent vandalism

Welcome to Wikipedia. Although everyone is welcome to make constructive contributions to Wikipedia, at least one of your recent edits, such as the one you made to Wikipedia:WikiProject Plants, did not appear to be constructive and has been reverted or removed. Please use the sandbox for any test edits you would like to make, and take a look at the welcome page to learn more about contributing to this encyclopedia. Thank you. --EncycloPetey (talk) 23:39, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Warning

On reviewing your contributions, I see you are hell bent on playing some silly game. I also see that others have tried to engage you in discussion; I don't know why they thought that would help, as it simply beggers belief that your edit warring over ludicrous and disruptive edits like this and this could be done in good faith. It seems these attempts at discussion have served only to give you another forum for disruption, as edits like this one can only be interpreted as disruption to make a point.

As an uninvolved administrator, I'm now advising you that your editing has become disruptive, and if it continues, I will act to protect the encyclopedia by blocking you.

Hesperian 11:34, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

I am sorry for the inconvenience, but this edit makes it clear that you intend to carry on in the same disruptive vein, so in order to protect the encyclopedia I have blocked you from editing for 24 hours. I hope you can use that time to "chill", as Curtis says below, and return in a more constructive frame of mind. Hesperian 00:05, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

---

I'm not going to get into a revert war over your quote on Pilosella aurantiaca (is it the Tony Hawk Weed, perhaps), but I think you need to chill.--Curtis Clark (talk) 16:39, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

It has been one of those honors to have been blocked for trying to author articles while majority of the rest of the plant projects articles sit waiting -- uncited, unedited, and with images that are somewhat racially placed. What comes to my mind are over reactions, abuse of power and a problem where there are perhaps 25 editors for every 1 author. The articles that I started with there were pathetic paste and run gibberish.

The jumping from the common name tree of articles to the scientific names tree was also impressive (read sad and depraved) by people who should know better and by people whose blocking privileges should be in review.

What were you really doing? -- carol 00:48, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

You are free to request a review of the above block at WP:AN/I. Hesperian 04:09, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Your recent edits

Hi there. In case you didn't know, when you add content to talk pages and Wikipedia pages that have open discussion, you should sign your posts by typing four tildes ( ~~~~ ) at the end of your comment. On many keyboards, the tilde is entered by holding the Shift key, and pressing the key with the tilde pictured. You may also click on the signature button located above the edit window. This will automatically insert a signature with your name and the time you posted the comment. This information is useful because other editors will be able to tell who said what, and when. Thank you! --SineBot (talk) 20:32, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Your recent edits

Hi there. In case you didn't know, when you add content to talk pages and Wikipedia pages that have open discussion, you should sign your posts by typing four tildes ( ~~~~ ) at the end of your comment. On many keyboards, the tilde is entered by holding the Shift key, and pressing the key with the tilde pictured. You may also click on the signature button located above the edit window. This will automatically insert a signature with your name and the time you posted the comment. This information is useful because other editors will be able to tell who said what, and when. Thank you! --SineBot (talk) 06:11, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Your recent edits

Hi there. In case you didn't know, when you add content to talk pages and Wikipedia pages that have open discussion, you should sign your posts by typing four tildes ( ~~~~ ) at the end of your comment. On many keyboards, the tilde is entered by holding the Shift key, and pressing the key with the tilde pictured. You may also click on the signature button located above the edit window. This will automatically insert a signature with your name and the time you posted the comment. This information is useful because other editors will be able to tell who said what, and when. Thank you! --SineBot (talk) 13:17, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Pilosella vs. Hieracium

I'm extremely puzzled by your treatment of Pilosella. Your acceptance of the redirect from Pilosella to Hieracium would suggest that you don't regard Pilosella as worthy of recognition as a segregate of Hieracium. And yet you are a major editor of Pilosella aurantiaca, but you have never restored it from Pilosella aurantiaca (L.) F.W.Schultz & Schultz-Bip. to Hieracium aurantiacum L., and in fact you most recently redirected the genus name in the taxobox.

Either it's Pilosella aurantiaca or it's Hieracium aurantiacum. Opinions among botanists may differ, but to any one botanist (who accepts the rules of the ICBN), it can't be both. If there is a disagreement among botanist editors on Wikipedia, it can easily be accounted for (Pilosella could be its own article, explaining that some botanists segregate it from Hieracium, and listing the species that it includes, and the article on Pilosella aurantiaca could list its nomenclatural synonym). But as it stands, someone visiting Pilosella aurantiaca and clicking on the genus in the taxobox ends up at a different genus, with no explanation.--Curtis Clark (talk) 17:21, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

I seem to remember changing the redirection of Pilosella from Hawkweed to Hieracium. My goal has been to redirect from common names to scientific names. I have no real strong feelings about which scientific name, I do have some very strong feelings about how unscientific the scientific names can be.

Do you want Pilosella to redirect to Hawkweed? -- carol 00:39, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps I gave you greater credit for understanding of the rules of botanical nomenclature that is warranted. What I would like to know is this: Do you think Pilosella is a separate genus from Hieracium? I would like Pilosella to point to an article about Pilosella, or else I'd like the article on Pilosella aurantiaca to be renamed Hieracium aurantiacum. It's all a matter of consistency.--Curtis Clark (talk) 04:43, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

I think that they are all Hieracium. I am not sure if they were trying to divide the species by color or what. The more that I read about Hieracium it seemed to me to be that the most important differences between them were in the way they propagated themselves, like some can reproduce with seeds and via what as a gardener I used to call runners (from the roots) and others propagate only via seeds. The important differences were not due to the color of the flower.

When I first started to sort through the information about this species my goal was to reduce the number of them and it was easy due to the great number of synonyms. After I noticed that species synonyms seemed to be growing as I was searching for them, it was easy to figure out not to add new names to the list of species but to restrict this to the single species. My problem with stopping the searching is that this is perhaps how the biological 'scientists' have been working for several hundreds of years now and technology has only made it easier for a different kind of person to follow the behavior pattern that was set by the 'respectable scientists' who came before them.

You happened to pick a genus that is "problematic". There was a time in the late 19th and early 20th centuries when the philosophy of many botanists was to give names to all the variation they observed. There were several reasons for this, but the result was lots of species names. A genus I have worked on, Eschscholzia, is generally regarded today to have about a dozen species, but there are well over a hundred published species names. And it's important to remember that the bulk of the botanists who proliferated these names are dead.--Curtis Clark (talk) 16:50, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

After working on translating the descriptions from the nature walkers and also the extreme biologists and everyone in between into something more like reading a wikipedia article, I started to have some strong feelings about how these flowers were hardly at all like sunflowers and daisies but a lot like chicory and dandelions. So now, what little that I understand about the battle of the trees of plant classification ideology, I think that perhaps this puts me with one foot in one way of thinking and the other foot in the other way of thinking. I was also just starting to determine a consistent way to put the information into the layout and I was also just starting to develop a language to use for this.

They are indeed more like chicory and dandelion, all being in the tribe Cichorieae of the Asteraceae. People (especially non-botanists) often call the Asteraceae the "sunflower family" or "daisy family", but it could as easily be called the "dandelion family" because all are members. (Asteraceae is based on the genus Aster, which is a daisy.)--Curtis Clark (talk) 16:50, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

While I was attempting to author those articles, making them all Hieracium just made it easier. I really thought that I would reduce the species from +800 to perhaps something between 20 and 30 and that felt good. After that, it would probably be easier to see what the differences between pilosella and hieracium were supposed to be. There is not an article written for Pilosella, (I am going on memory here even if I could check this) so the link to Pilosella redirected to Hawkweed and I was and have been trying to have things not go to the common name. I just helped to sort out all of the wikilinks to Oxeye daisy, Oxeye Daisy, Ox-eye daisy and Ox-eye Daisy (and I might have made this seem worse than it was with too many combination of the word morphings) and for consistency, that is the place that the plant articles need to start if consistency is to be a goal for plant articles.

Is there any particular reason that the articles in which I was authoring need to be more consistent than the rest of the articles that the Plant Project pastes their 'importance' doodads onto?

It seems like you'd want them to be consistent, just through pride of authorship.

Perhaps no one has explained it yet, but the 'importance' doodads are for supporting automated processes that keep track of the large number of plant articles, so that the editors that care about such things can get an idea of the completeness of coverage.--Curtis Clark (talk) 16:50, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Also, did you poll the users here who were helping me to edit those pages to determine what I was thinking and what my goal was? I might not agree with what they say, but I would most certainly be interested to know what that concensus was. The experience has been much like my gardening experience but at least in the garden, when I tilled up new ground, the weeds that grew there were plants and not editors. And even the most aggressive of the weeds were easier to deal with than the people who were behaving like them -- the reason being (of course) that people are people and plants are plants.

Your point is a good one about consensus, since that's an important working rule for Wikipedia (one that backfires occasionally when consensus turns out to be wrong). But in this specific case, I was basing my query on your specific actions; I wanted to find out your intent (for which, btw, thank you). The next task is to find out whether there are any Wikipedia editors who strongly believe that Pilosella is a genus separate from Hieracium; this will help determine whether it's better to move the Pilosella species articles to Hieracium, or else create a separate article for the genus Pilosella.--Curtis Clark (talk) 16:50, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

In this world of share-alike, I recently tormented one photographer and in a mostly non-destructive way. If I had the sense that the photographer was being tormented often, I would not have done this even once. Possibly it is because I can author some articles about invasive plants and not become one myself.

I really miss classic physics. The speed limit there is the speed of light and it is an actual and real limit, not something that you have to restrain yourself to maintain or stay below -- a suggestion.

Many years ago, a student told me that studying plant systematics was like "walking through mud". Plants are complex and diverse. So are botanists. Put the two together and it gets really complicated. --Curtis Clark (talk) 16:50, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Can I ask you a question? What does it matter about consistency in scientific names if Magnoliophyta is a redirection to flowering plant? There can be two different trees of information so much more easily than to demand a consistency from a person new at authoring articles about plants as she is working through the insane information there is about them and being blocked not for writing profanity or interfering with others while they author articles -- but because she just wanted to finish working in the abandoned corner of the wiki she found.

The difference between the Pilosella example and the Magnoliophyta example is important. The relationship between Magnoliophyta and flowering plants is like the relationship between "California" and "The Golden State": they are names for the same thing. The relationship between Hieracium and Pilosella is like the relationship between "California" and "Los Angeles": the latter is a subset of the former. No one could get away with calling Los Angeles a state, but in the case of plant genera, that is always a possibility.--Curtis Clark (talk) 16:50, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

One more analogy and then I will quit this rant. The musical 'A Chorus Line'. It was about a girl who was used to being a star trying to fit into the supportive background. I have made web pages that seem to get read and also seem to entertain and sometimes contain information. I say that not because people have told me that they have read my writing on my web pages or because it has done anything to improve my life but because I looked at the logs for the visits to the site once on a slow week and I was really surprised by the traffic there. Having people change my articles as I am writing them is not a starlet having problems fitting into a chorus line who are all doing the same dance. This chorus line is doing different dances so much that they are kicking each other and not even making good comedy (if that is the goal).

Welcome to Wikipedia! A chorus line has a director (dance master? I'm not sure what the position is called). Wikipedia is a group of scholars, amateurs (in the best sense of the word), posers, and vandals all trying to build and occasionally destroy an encyclopedia. Just as in an undirected chorus line, you have to watch your feet, the Wikipedia equivalent is assume good faith. Another way to look at it is: (1) be nicer to people than they deserve (because they may actually deserve it and you didn't notice), (2) don't expect people to be nice to you in return, and (3) smile when they are anyway.--Curtis Clark (talk) 16:50, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Don't start at the species level and ask for consistency is my suggestion. Ask the plant project if they really want flowering plant to be where Magnoliophyta redirects to and ask the new authors what they think after they have finished sorting through their little branch of this hundreds and hundreds of years of mess. And not before.

And, thank you for asking. For not telling me, for not citing wikipedia stuff and for honestly seeming to be polite while asking (not the other polite which is so rude). I apologize for the rant and thank you for the opportunity to author it. -- carol 10:21, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Utricularia warmingii

Hi, Carol. Your additions of the templates to Utricularia warmingii here are appreciated, but the templates are unnecessary. {{expand}} is only to be used on pages large enough not to be considered stubs, {{refimprove}} and {{citations missing}} were completely incorrectly placed (it has one of the most authoritative sources on the genus cited), but I will add page numbers if you think it's that important.

Three reverts and you get blocked? -- carol 19:17, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Not necessarily. See WP:3RR for the exceptions. I have only reverted your revisions once on that page. User:Mgiganteus1 removed the templates you added for similar reasons above. Cheers, Rkitko ^(talk) 19:23, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Cool, I see you appreciate the help. Thanks for getting right back with me on this. -- carol 19:26, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

I really do think you can do better than that, especially if you have a book. Are there any online references, for example. It should be possible to get more than one credible (or even incredible -- as my experience with Hieracium showed me) reference for your good starts to species articles. -- carol 19:30, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

diff Please cease. Edits with summaries like that can be viewed as disruption to prove a point. Indeed, the page can be expanded, but the usage of {{expand}} as noted on the template's page is not to exist along with any of the {{stub}} templates. It is possible to find other sources and be my guest! My goal at the moment is to create all of the Utricularia stubs first, then get on to expanding them, which is why I've been creating a bunch of two-sentence stubs. --Rkitko ^(talk) 19:34, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

I am just trying to work the wikipedian way here -- lets see, as author you ask me to stop several times and as helpful person, I continue to help you and then get someone with blocking authority to help you to cool off and accept the help? If you leave the templates on, then perhaps someone who has another reference will provide it. I did learn that the politics of botany are too political to ever rely on one source for information about any particular name of any species.

I also completely understand the feeling of needing to clean things -- I suggest that flowering plants would be such a better place for a respected and powerful member of the plant project to begin to clean. And the helpful templates are simply helpful templates -- it is a curiosity that you should find such things to be worthy of reverting and also worth perhaps getting yourself blocked for. It is difficult for me to not be as helpful as the help I received and also, I would rather have had a different example to follow as this seems to be so so very aggressive for being a helpful stance; but that is the precedent I was given. Others have used these templates to communicate with me that a better article can be written -- can the templates be worded in a better way for you? -- Salut! carol 19:48, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

The reference templates you placed on the page called for additional references to verify the article's content. Do remember that the criteria for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth. The information in Utricularia warmingii is verifiable, regardless of your view on the politics of botany.

Indeed, flowering plant could use a thorough, concerted effort to clean up, but that's not my interest. --Rkitko ^(talk) 20:10, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

I have asked for help finding policy to prevent a situation that I am having a difficult time with here. You might be interested in it. -- carol 10:21, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

flowering plant

Okay, I'm going to call you out. What are the issues with Flowering plant that you find in need of attention? It's not entirely clear from your posts to its talk page.--Curtis Clark (talk) 23:54, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

I have looked at a lot of textbooks in my life -- and other non-fiction books, pamphlets and documents. I think that I am probably typical in that if I am looking the page over for quality of information, I check the image and diagrams first. When I used to have to complete a homework assignment, my review of the information on the page was similar (like I would check the diagram and image areas first and then look for highlighted or italisized text second -- my opinion of the document was not a part of the perusal of those pages). Working from memory here - two of the 4 flower photographs were called 'Hyacinth' and the first one in the description was a Hyacinth Tree and it links to that disambiguation page in which there is no tree. The description page for the grape hyacinth image there was perhaps written by a third grader -- which is fine, I guess -- but even in the third grade, I was expected to at least consider using some kind of correct syntax when writing and they started to encourage learning the difficult english pluralization conventions. Scroll down a little and see the image used for the Economic heading there. Wheat fields in Israel. Is this bigotry or even bigoted ass-kissing? I admit that I am a little bit of a bigot. I try to make my bigotry a little more fluid though and not so set into the format of the base of a tree of documents in which a project wants to be taken seriously with.

There is an exception to this on my web site. It is not in an area or subject heading in which anyone is being asked to take anything seriously though. -- carol 10:27, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

So, I did not get past those image areas to review the text of the article. It failed to convince me that it would contain useful information before I got to the text. The project that is managing that page is one that I probably don't want to be a part of and the participants have demonstrated more desire in cleaning articles that I have written than cleaning up articles that exist and stay there untouched and making them look not so good.

If I am seeing a different article than the one you are seeing, that would be interesting to me. If the way I look at documents for quality of information is unusual, I would like to know about that also. I do not mind being 'called out'; it is difficult for others? -- carol 10:21, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Hmmm, let me see if I have this straight. Based on the photos, you've decided an entire article can be ignored. And yet you seem to object to the idea that other editors look at your disruptive edits and ignore the rest of your work.

There is a difference between looking at a stagnated work which is at the base of the experienced authority which is 'helping' while a new user they are swallowing is working? Nobody even asked me if I liked the changes or had planned on something like this.

There is a difference between articles that are being created by a new author and articles that are left by the people who are dictating style and ranking importance and claiming authority? If you were a skilled yet unranked flautist -- how would you feel about being swallowed by a group of 5th grade flutophonists[1]? Ranked important by the project and sitting there as evidence of their goals and ability. I gave it the same perusal that I gave other documentation which was presented by people who claimed to know what they were doing in similar venues. If you would like me to look at the document as if it was one of my astronomy students lab assignments, I will do that. The astronomy students never rewrote the lab assignments though and listened politely to my lecture so it would mean a complete change in the relationship for me to conduct this whatever it is as you are suggesting. I never claimed authority over Plant Project -- it is their claim over my articles. My suggestion is that I was writing a not so bad article while a bunch of 10 year olds were demonstrating how they play kick the can or something like this.

I was one day trying to communicate with a 'pedian who is non-native to English and found it very helpful that the definition that I needed was included in the history of the disambiguation page for the acronym (PITA, in case you care to know this). One of the software strengths of this method of making html is that history stack. Nobody asked me if I agreed to the changes and there is a good chance that I did and had put that into my plans for the whole species that I was working on. We will never know though because a consensus of two determined everything and I considered starting a new user name here called User:Consensus since this seems to be used as a proper name. That would make me Consensus, then -- wouldn't it?

There seems to have been some hurt feelings over comparing the attention I got to an amorous dog making use of a human leg -- I had no idea of such sensitivity among the administration here. -- carol 10:42, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

And I'm puzzled by your reaction to the wheat field. Would you feel better about it if it was from Kazakhstan or France? Would you feel better about it if its location were not identified? What if its grain were not identified: "Agricultural field"?--Curtis Clark (talk) 15:05, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

How about from an English speaking country? When You Wish Upon a Weinstein. -- carol 15:10, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

I wasn't aware that flowering plants were anglophones. But you could find an appropriate image in Wikimedia Commons, or shoot your own, and substitute it.--Curtis Clark (talk) 17:13, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Interesting idea, and I have considered this. It is more interesting to see how the plant project manages this page that has been ranked by them to be 'Important'. Whatever rank is assigned, I think it is up to the group with the rank assigning ideas and also who have enough skills to manage themselves into a little group of knowledge based authority -- these skilled people should be allowed to do whatever it is to give themselves the credibility they are displaying. That was complicated, let me try again -- it is more interesting to see what those ranking tags really mean -- do you agree? -- carol 18:29, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Your recent edits

Hi there. In case you didn't know, when you add content to talk pages and Wikipedia pages that have open discussion, you should sign your posts by typing four tildes ( ~~~~ ) at the end of your comment. On many keyboards, the tilde is entered by holding the Shift key, and pressing the key with the tilde pictured. You may also click on the signature button located above the edit window. This will automatically insert a signature with your name and the time you posted the comment. This information is useful because other editors will be able to tell who said what, and when. Thank you! --SineBot (talk) 06:49, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Another warning

In case you missed it at Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)/Archive 54#Question about the three reverts rule, I am warning you that I perceive your edits still to be disruptive, and if it continues, I will once again act to protect the encyclopedia against them.

As a specific example of what I consider to be disruptive, take your characterization of another editor by analogy to a dog who is trying to hump your leg.

Hesperian 11:39, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

I said 'be amorous with'.

You are protecting the encyclopedia? -- carol 14:48, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Your signature

While I've got you, Wikipedia:Signature#Internal links states:

"It is common practice to include a link to your user page or user talk page (often both); the default signature links to the user page. At least one of those two pages must be linked from your signature, to allow other editors simple access to your talk page and contributions log." (my emphasis)

Please adjust your signature in accordance with that guideline, as I (and presumably others) are finding it very annoying trying to navigate from your comments to your talk page. Once you have done so, I believe SineBot may start to recognise your current signature as a legitimate signature, and stop harassing you.

Hesperian 11:39, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

What is the policy about interlinking and I find the language to be interesting. I never once felt like I was being harassed by SineBot -- should I have? Software is stupid. People are _____ ?

Also, today I only asked questions. I did not edit nor did I make any reverts nor did I change the anyones words. You have changed my words between here and the pump. How many chances do you get? -- carol 14:51, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Carol, the guideline is quite clear. Please fix your signature as requested. —Moondyne 14:16, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

GIMP

Hi Carol. Thanks for the nice words! Remember that the article must have been edited by hundreds of different people, not all of them inexperienced with GIMP. That said, there really was (is?) some ugly errors in there... Zarniwoot (talk) 02:14, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Unhelpful comments on WP:FPC

Thank you, Carol, for your thoughtful reply. Somehow you managed to be unhelpful, insulting, and sarcastic all at the same time. If this is indicative of your usual contributions, I would like to invite you to get lost. Thanks again! Matt Deres (talk) 22:58, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

That is an interesting version of what I said. I thought I was talking about how I hadn't seen that before you pointed it out even though I worked with it. Unless you are Dori or Derek, I don't think you should have been offended, I think you should have felt complimented. But don't let me tell you what you should feel or should have felt. I actually felt a little like an idiot when you pointed out something so obvious. Thank you for letting me feel less like an idiot. -- carol 23:21, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Blocked

this is another passive-aggressive, provocational edit by you. It is also harassment and Wiki-stalking, in retaliation to Matt's message above. I am sorry for the inconvenience, but I feel obliged to prevent this going any further. Consider it protection of the community, rather than the encyclopedia. You have been blocked for 48 hours.

Hesperian 00:43, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Moving pages

Hi, Carol. You're right in moving articles titled at common names to their scientific names per WP:NC (flora), but please do use the "move" tab at the top of the page or post a request for the move at WP:RM instead of copying and pasting the article. Thanks! --Rkitko ^(talk) 05:56, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

I did that the first time -- the second time was confusing though. -- carol 06:49, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, I thought you were talking about Ragwort which had a weird second move today.... -- carol 06:52, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Well, yes, I noticed the other editor also moving pages by copying and pasting. I also noticed you performed a move with the tab later in the day. It was just one or two that I noticed you did a copy and paste move. Just a friendly reminder of the proper way to do things! Oh, and while I'm here, do you mind taking the advice above fixing your signature? I assume you know how to alter it in your preferences. Something like: [[User:CarolSpears|carol]] _{[[Commons:User talk:CarolSpears|Commons]]} would be fine (carol _commons). Thanks! --Rkitko ^(talk) 16:17, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

In the reconstruction in my memory of the events that led to that unfortunate paste instead of move, I think that I selected the move option but there was a message that the page existed. I appreciate that you were able to and did move the history and the talk page and anything else that was important to tidy up after this unfortunate sequence of events.

Also, I like the signature you constructed. As much as I like it, (in memory of some of my favorite managers) I have also found that it is really productive to have something for people to complain about -- something like this that is only a little bit annoying. Something that allows people to have that sense of worth that can be gained while complaining about something which is mildly annoying like that. I need some time to consider everything -- the signature you made seems to be nice enough to have an equal weight to the niceness of the annoyingness of the existing sig. -- carol 20:00, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Cleanup of Senecio vulgaris

Since you moved the images from the left to the right, little [[edit]] links cover the text. Can you move the images to the other side again? -- carol 06:57, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Well, I moved them because I noticed the section [edit] links in the text when they were on the left. Thought I had fixed it, but I guess I hadn't. I've got it now... It happens any time you have a series of images that go beyond several section headers. Or when you place an image in the code directly below the taxobox but have a section header appear above the image. It's just one bit of annoying code that we have to be mindful of. Cheers, Rkitko ^(talk) 16:17, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

That recent edit cleaned up those stacked and obstructive edit links, but the one image was taken and uploaded specifically to illustrate the introduction to the description. Page placement now makes this not so obvious. -- carol 20:02, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Addition of {{citation needed}} to my opinion at Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Japanese weaver

Hi CarolSpears,

I just wanted to stop by and see if you would explain this edit, where you added a {{citation needed}} template to my opinion. I've since reverted it, but I wanted to check and see if perhaps you meant to put the tag on another page. Thanks! --jonny-mt 03:51, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Nope, I really question the use of the word 'encyclopedic' at FPC -- not just your use of the word; sorry that you were first to get it. I honestly would like to know what non-selflinking sources the consensus uses to determine what is an encyclopedic image or not. -- carol (talk) 03:55, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

My understanding of the use of the word 'encyclopedic' is based on the featured picture criteria. Unlike Commons, which focuses on artistic merit as part of the criteria for selecting featured pictures, Wikipedia featured pictures are selected largely based on the value they add to a given article. In this, case, I think the image is very informative in illustrating that particular style of loom--while I would certainly prefer to see the picture used in an article of more substantial quality, I don't think that the shortcomings of an associated article can affect the inherent value of a candidate image.

But...I'm a bit of a newbie at featured pictures. I hope you don't mind, but I've asked User:Durova to come and add her two cents. She's extremely prolific in that area, so I imagine she can explain this better than I. --jonny-mt 04:20, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Oh, the pet of the FPCs probably is too busy with her renovations, workshop and running around talk pages asking for a break to lower herself to explain things to me. I do know that citing wikipedia is not a valid citation. If you can find where you learned about this word and what it means from a non-wikipedia source, then everyone (especially wikipedia's own standards) should be happy. -- carol (talk) 04:29, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

That...was extremely uncivil, both to her and to myself. I assumed good faith when you tagged my comment, did my best to respond to your question, and asked Durova here because I thought you had a genuine concern and wanted to help put it to rest. I do not appreciate your using a response to me to take a dig at another editor, nor do I appreciate the inherent implication that tagging my comment was part of some larger argument rather than a genuine request for clarification.—This is part of a comment by jonny-mt , which was interrupted by the following:

If you see a person demeaning themselves in contests and begging for a break, what would you do? It is interesting how the assume good faith always stops some place before it gets to me. I think it is very very very wrong that a girl runs around begging for approval any place especially here in this century. My offer to 'give the girl a break' and to rally to free her from contests so she can work more with her workshop and the contribution of my renovations -- how is this ugly? Ugly would be the person who doesn't want the charitable gift and would prefer to beg for the approval of (in particular) the other gender. One must wonder at what is really going on to fill in what the perception of ugliness would be. I am sorry for both of you. -- carol (talk) 05:12, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Now, to answer your question, my independent understanding of the word "encyclopedic" comes from my status as a native English speaker. If you would like some off-site resources to confirm its meaning, may I suggest any of the freely available online dictionaries? --jonny-mt 05:02, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

As a native speaker myself I have found on so many occasions (especially lately) misusing a word. When a word is used in judgement, the user should be particularly careful to understand the meaning. That is my opinion and one that I have gotten with my own experience. -- carol (talk) 05:12, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

As far as the question of whether good faith has been extended to you, I think you need look no further than my initial comments above. As for your question as to "what I think"...the answer is simply that I don't know and I don't care. All I know is that your incivility is now bordering on personal attacks, and I strongly suggest that you calm down. There's an encylopedia to build and work to be done.

That being said, I sympathize with your point about words--I live and work in a non-English speaking country, and I can tell you flat out that my English was a lot worse before I started really contributing to Wikipedia. That being said, we all have our own interpretations of what individual words mean, but that's what discussion is for. If you're looking to change the criteria for featured pictures, may I suggest the talk page as a starting point? It certainly won't get changed here. --jonny-mt 05:45, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

The citation needed template said it all and works fine where I put it -- isn't that the purpose of the template? -- carol (talk) 06:42, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

The {{citation needed}} template is actually intended for use in articles only--adding it to a page categorizes that page as needing attention. Since WP:V and WP:NOR don't apply to the Wikipedia project namespace, it's actually not appropriate for discussions.

At any rate, my point about the talk page is this: if you want to disagree with my opinion on the picture nomination page, you are welcome to present your opposing view there. If you want to disagree with the way the whole process is run, then you should go to a broader forum in an attempt to foster new consensus. --jonny-mt 06:57, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Hi, Carol? If you don't like me would you please take it out on me, rather than biting a newcomer? I haven't wanted to say anything, but I got invited to this discussion. And yes I've seen your recent Commons posts. I hope this is intended as humor, but it doesn't come across as very funny. There's room for both of us and I've got nothing against you. Durova^Charge! 04:28, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

I am actually another female who has decided to help all of the males you have been asking to give you a break. Take it out on you? I offered to allow you to upload my work and call it your own. I have called you a success story here. You want to be responsible for the use of the word 'encyclopedic' as well? Where do you find the time? -- carol (talk) 04:31, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Carol, if I've ever done something to offend you it was entirely unintentional. All I'm trying to do is help Commons and Wikipedia, and I'm sure you are too. Really, I've got nothing against you. Durova^Charge! 05:42, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Durova, there is some blur between here and commons. The application of the needs citation template was to a word that is used often here -- it just happened to be on another one of your nominated images (what are the chances of that?) The help that I am trying to be for you on the commons is unrelated. Do you honestly think that everyone who uses that word 'encyclopedic' here really really knows what it means or perhaps they might be just typing things there because everyone else does. I wonder if there are any mathematicians here who could calculate the odds of me picking one of your images in FPC here. 1 to 5 or perhaps it is even 1 out of 3 nominations. When you nominate so many of your own images -- I can see where you might think that it is all about you there. The applying of that template was about that word. Please forgive me for your misunderstanding and any part I had in it. -- carol (talk) 09:02, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

As an outsider to this discussion, I'm quite confused as to why you have some issues with Durova's work on Commons and WP:FPC. Could you explain, Carol? Nishkid64 (talk) 07:06, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

I am not sure about the reason that Durova is here. The citation needed was put on use of a word -- I think it has become one of those words that people use and they don't really know what it means. Did you ask Durova the reason she thinks it had anything to do with her? -- carol (talk) 08:30, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

See this to find out what it is that make Durova think that it is about her. -- carol (talk) 08:32, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

As I explained in my comments above, I asked Durova here because I thought she could shed some additional light on your question. I had no reason to suspect that this would turn into such a contentious matter. --jonny-mt 09:00, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Yeah weird, isn't it? Maybe FPC is all about Durova and I am totally out of line in thinking that it is a community thing. -- carol (talk) 09:05, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Since you seem so intent on using my remarks as springboards for personal attacks, it seems I will simply have to refrain from giving you the pleasure. My reasons for selecting Durova are outlined at the start of this thread and on my request on her talk page. Please watch your civility--I don't think anyone wants to see this taken to ANI. --jonny-mt 09:21, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

You don't know anything about making comprehensible tables? Did Durova explain what {{citation needed}} means? I am very confused here -- if it helps for me to consider all FPC everywhere to be The Generals hallowed ground, I will do this. Help with an example of a table like the one I mentioned earlier -- this is what I am in need of. Does your knowledge of what wikipedia is and encyclopedic is include an example like I asked for? My problem right now is about the presentation of factual material (at least material presented as facts -- I have a problem in that one of the researchers names in this list is pronounced "Show and tell") and not about people problems and where to take them after potentially instigating them. Is all FPC all about Durova and not ever about the potential misuse and abuse of a word? If you and I can settle on that, I think there should be no reason to take this to wherever. -- carol (talk) 09:40, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

BTW, anyone reading this -- I need to make a big huge-ass table. Any hints or clues as to the best way to do this? I collected (I think) +200 papers that were written and published about a genus of plant between the years 1948 and 1970. I don't even know where to look for an example of what this should look like here in wikiland! -- carol (talk) 09:10, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

DAB dangit!

Can you move the stuff you mentioned here? I would do it but I forsee that I would screw up the history of the pages again.

I am in great need of a terminology article -- list of words and definitions. For me, somewhat new to botany -- for example, I never saw the word forb before in any of the plant literature I read. And, I am just rambling now... -- carol (talk) 04:12, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Sure I can, but part of the reason I was posting was that I'm not sure where to move it to. Any ideas? Garland (decoration) might be the appropriate place for quite a bit of the info. As for plant terms, I know a couple users were working on a list of plant morphology terms. Not sure on their progress. I studied the subject in college and I'm constantly bumping into words I don't know! I'm sent running to my botanical dictionary frequently. --Rkitko ^(talk) 04:16, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Oh! I was talking about Corolla (Disambiguation) to Corolla! That stuff I wrote there was lifted from where Pliny was defining 'corolla' (diminutive of corona) -- I am quite certain it is how we started to use the word for flowers the way that we do now. Etymology.

If you move the pages, I will do what I can to clean up and define Corolla on that page. -- carol (talk) 04:33, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Ah, I see now. I guess the consensus reached at Talk:Corolla was that all pertinent info on corollas, the botanical term, should probably be kept under Petal#Corolla. I, for one, would be happy with an article on corollas at corolla (with your etymology info included) and separate dab page (Corolla (disambiguation)), my case being that many, many more pages link to corolla for description of the botanical term than for the link to the car. I'm happy with whatever, though, as long as the links and pages are consistent. --Rkitko ^(talk) 04:46, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Terminology for Asteraceae is what I have been working on in the last few minutes. I would be interested to know your opinion.... -- carol (talk) 04:53, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

It's a good start on a reference for yourself. Do you intend to make it into an article? If so, it might be recreating some of the work at list of plant morphology terms. Eventually, the idea is that our "glossary" on botanical terms will be linkable via the <span id="name"> tags. e.g., linking to List of plant morphology terms#Crenulate would hop right down the page to that term. And if possible and necessary, linking directly to crenulate would be a redirect to the list of plant morphology terms article. I just created that example now to see if it all works and indeed it does. --Rkitko ^(talk) 05:15, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

That is a cool link thing! I had a heck of a time with that list when I tried to use it. For one thing, I didn't know that the words could be linked to directly like that. The other thing, I ended up using the browsers 'find in page' option and that is its own separate PIA. This linked example that you provided is cool with a few exceptions. The fact that the link jumped right to the word was obscured (visually) by the subheading Epidermis and periderm texture right below it. There are good reasons to have a terminology page with the terms separated by the location or area on or of the plant but none of those reasons seem good (to me) for an inline reference for other articles to use. If the words are not bulleted, then the length of the entry is not limited (pictures/diagrams might be helpful for some of the words, for instance). In that list that I just made, there was a definition for spatulate that was also for Kelp and I did not put it on that list because that list so far is specific for Asteraceae. What do you think of each family having a terminology list and the Morphology list be a meshing of all of those lists? -- carol (talk) 05:44, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Here is another thing -- it is interesting to me who started to first use the word. Like the word forb is not found in Webster 1913 and the word phyllary, is that only and first used (instead of the word bract) in the Flora of North America species definitions? </questioning my own paste now> -- carol (talk) 05:44, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

This seems like a good proposal to discuss over at WT:PLANTS. There are pros and cons to it that I can see but other editor's opinions could be beneficial. I'll start a thread over there. Cheers, Rkitko ^(talk) 15:05, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

I had an article that was longer than some of the pages whose content I am basically duplicating on that page deleted twice because it wasn't big enough to be an article. tomentose is what I just looked at. Let me know when you start there! -- carol (talk) 23:13, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean by this. We're just discussing the best way to present the information in question. Yes, some of the smaller botany term stubs like tomentose may not be the best way to present the information. Consider introducing that point into the discussion at WT:PLANTS. Without knowing exactly which articles you're talking about that got deleted, I can't comment. If it established notability and presented enough context, short articles shouldn't be a problem. --Rkitko ^(talk) 23:41, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Los Cochinos

I wonder how to cite the statements about the LP version of that record? I have the old LP someplace but I can't find it just now. I think the white inner sleeve was the consistency of rolling paper and had the "Zig Zag" emblem on it, as if one were to roll a gigantic cigarette, but it has been a long time since I saw that record. I wouldn't be surprised if it's illustrated somewhere on the internet, though. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 04:41, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

A bunch of them are for sales on e-Bay they show the insides of the "door", but I'm not seeing the inner sleeve anywhere. [2] Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 04:43, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

I only know that first edition with the cardboard sleeve. It didn't have a paper liner. I was only 11 years old, but it always used to really bother me putting the album back in the cardboard sleeve because it felt like it would scatch the vinyl. If subsequent releases had that liner then that's fine -- it is notable enough that someone would have written about it, I am pretty sure. For citation purposes, they have {{Cite album-notes}} which leaves me wondering if they printed on it. It really seems like I would have heard about that before today. -- carol (talk) 04:55, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

It's risky to put stuff in an article that "I think I remember", because if they ask for a citation you're sunk. I'm wondering if it was Big Bambu. In fact, I bet that was the one. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 05:07, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Yep, it was BIg Bambu. [3] Which stands to reason, given the album's cover. That doesn't prove that Cochinos didn't have one, but I think it was strictly Big Bambu. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 05:09, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Now that starts to make some sense. I don't remember seeing that album but I might remember hearing about it. It was a long time ago. Recently, I acquired the CD for Los Cochinos and I was surprised at some of the things that had been stripped from my memory about tracks from that album. Up His Nose is the example for this. I stripped the jewish doctor from my memory and only had cheech explaining the kids problem left in there (there being my brain, not my nose). I was eleven years old when that album came out. Through the 80s and without the Jewish doctor, I made Up His Nose to be a warning about cocaine usage. Did they even have cocaine in 1973? The parental advisory warning. Does that mean not to let your parents hear it? I am not certain, but I don't think that listening to that in my pre-puberty years hurt me that much. Friends and family -- they hurt much more ;) -- carol (talk) 05:32, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

The early 70s were perhaps the most free-wheeling time there ever was in this country for pop culture. It was post-60s and pre-political-correctness. You get a hint of that on the early episodes of Saturday Night Live if you've seen those. They talked about drugs openly, like it was no big deal. That's a forbidden topic now, unless you're putting them down. FYI, I never touched the stuff. You see, there is also this notion that the whole world was smoking dope. That was way much exaggerated. Anyway, Cheech and Chong's humor touched all kinds of topics and without a trace of P.C. You're right, the "Up His Nose" deal seemed to be a protracted Jewish joke. I recall somewhere in some movie or something, a mother pointing to a Jew and saying to her son, "Wouldn't you like to have a nose like that, full of nickels?" I don't know where that came from, but I'm pretty sure it was pre-Cheech and Chong. There was also cocaine around, and heroine, because I recall them talking to us about that stuff in school in the early 60s. But I don't think it got so much publicity overall. Regarding your final comment, I understand. I don't think we could say that C & C were advocating drugs, they were just making fun of them. Oh, and regarding cocaine, maybe you've heard about the brouhaha in the 60s over "Puff, the Magic Dragon", who "lived by the sea", which people who didn't know much about Peter, Paul and Mary, tried to say really meant "lived by the C", meaning cocaine. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 05:42, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

The early 70s were perhaps the most free-wheeling time there ever was in this country for pop culture. It was post-60s and pre-political-correctness. You get a hint of that on the early episodes of Saturday Night Live if you've seen those. They talked about drugs openly, like it was no big deal. That's a forbidden topic now, unless you're putting them down. FYI, I never touched the stuff. You see, there is also this notion that the whole world was smoking dope. That was way much exaggerated. Anyway, Cheech and Chong's humor touched all kinds of topics and without a trace of P.C. You're right, the "Up His Nose" deal seemed to be a protracted Jewish joke. I recall somewhere in some movie or something, a mother pointing to a Jew and saying to her son, "Wouldn't you like to have a nose like that, full of nickels?" I don't know where that came from, but I'm pretty sure it was pre-Cheech and Chong. There was also cocaine around, and heroine, because I recall them talking to us about that stuff in school in the early 60s. But I don't think it got so much publicity overall. Regarding your final comment, I understand. I don't think we could say that C & C were advocating drugs, they were just making fun of them. Oh, and regarding cocaine, maybe you've heard about the brouhaha in the 60s over "Puff, the Magic Dragon", who "lived by the sea", which people who didn't know much about Peter, Paul and Mary, tried to say really meant "lived by the C", meaning cocaine. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 05:42, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

You mean Laugh In? I did not see the first season of SNL, but the second season onward with bass-o-matic and kin were of the late seventies. There is a big difference between early seventies (most people seem to refer to them as the sixties) and late seventies. SNL was not a part of Woodstock culture; Laugh-In and The Smothers Brothers were. My very very very limited experience with cocaine (by choice I think) I just cannot imagine doing some cocaine and writing folk music -- Puff was about pot. Perhaps cocaine usage explains how people were able to listen to Dylan sing, although, I think they would have killed him instead -- it is a drug about fearlessness & appearences and not feelings & ecology? I didn't like it. -- carol (talk) 06:02, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't think drugs were much of a theme in Laugh-In, although I'm sure it came up sometimes. That show was mostly recycled vaudeville jokes along with the goofy characterizations of Arte Johnson, JoAnne Worley, etc. You're right, the so-called 60s really ran from about 1964 or 1965 to, I would say, just about the start of the Disco era. P P & M always denied there was any drug message intended in that song, but who knows? "How people were able to listen to Dylan sing." Interesting comment. This guy wrote some great songs, but they were better when someone else was singing them. I always found his voice to be like fingernails on a chalkboard. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 06:11, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

I heard on the radio (uncitable) that acid was legal in either (or both) 1968 and 1969. When I was a child watching H.R. Pufnstuf I just enjoyed it. As an adult, I look back on the themes and my memories of it and it was a years long acid trip that my parents generation took on my generation. I am really just about sick with this country now -- so much "We had fun but you can't" goes on now. But "the sixties" started with acid in 1969. I am quoting a Detroit DJ when I say that "the sixties" were in the 1970s, btw. Given credit as a writer on PP&Ms "I Dig Rock and Roll Music", Dave Dixon; fat guy with a beater instead of a car and the originator of 90% of the total snark that could be found in the Detroit airwaves in the 1980s -- dead now. Killed by Tom Waits for $250.

Hmm, I just read the quote about Marty Kroft not doing drugs. Drugs are not something that a person is always under the influence of. The discussion is always like that though -- do them or not. It is much more gray than the discussions allow. Like, no one ever says "I smoked pot on the weekends" or "we dropped some acid and came up with the story and the characters". It is always, "I was doing drugs" or "I wasn't" which makes it sound as if all illegal drugs are unmanageable and implies that like many of the legal drugs, they are ingested on a schedule to maintain them in the users system. People -- the whole group of us together -- so stupid. I get embarrassed about how ignorant our discussions and 'findings' are and the things that are acceptable to admit to or not. -- carol (talk) 06:33, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

The reason most people of the 60s (despite what the pop media want us to believe) did NOT do drugs is that they were illegal and risky in many ways. The dirty little secret, so to speak, of the Prohibition Era of the 1920s ,is that Prohibition actually caused a significant reduction in alcohol consumption, because most people were inclined to obey the law. The law-abiding citizens aren't very "colorful", though. Alcohol, all in all, is a much more harmful drug than anything, although the others could get there if they were legalized. But I maintain, as a philosophy, that the government has no constitutional authority to tell you what you can ingest or not. That argument doesn't carry much weight in court, though. I tend to agree with what Drew Carey said, as a theory if not a practice: "I don't think the government has the right to limit the ways I can hurt myself!" Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 06:42, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Heh, I could claim "The government doesn't want you to understand and enjoy 3 dimensional calculus". The industry of managing what the population ingests -- the cops and robbers game, the scientists and the politicians game, the lawyers and the corporations. It seems to be all about "you can't have fun like we did" and an industry of it.

I showed the picture of C&C in drag that is on the Los Cochinos CD (thank whoever that they put almost everything from the LP in there -- same with Coopers Go To Hell LP) to a friend who was born in 1979 and grew up in LA and asked him if he remembers seeing that LA. I believed him when he said no, not at all. 1979 was SNLs first year, I think. In my life, I can use the start of SNL to mark the beginning of my generation in television and in the movies -- I am not sure where disco came from -- something to war against that was not another country perhaps. My step kid, her generation starts with Kevin Neelon (I saw him live recently -- it mangled my brains) on Weekend Update. By then, I was kind of tired of the SNL formula (about 14 or 15 years of it!)-- if my attention span is one that can measure everyone else my age with. Also, I had my high school years interfered with by my mom -- so a little distancing from the child and her world, I thought it was best. There are time divisions, like years that can be evenly divided by ten -- then there are other divisions that are more difficult to define. I guess pop culture and the legality of drugs is as good as any. I got to see an example of how land was divided when I was a child. What television and radio could be seen due to location and time. When I was working in the center of Michigan, the waitress who had grown up more east of there (like me) had a little something extra that I could connect with when talking. Canadian broadcasts and in the Detroit televison, there was Kimba an Speed Racer and more things that Lansing broadcasts just didn't show. More radio, a wealthier public television station (at least I think that was what the difference was between channel 56 and channel 23). Then the time lines -- there are some kids shows that I didn't see because I wasn't watching kids shows late in my high school years and early college years. Cable and satellite change all of this. The memories! I am to the point that I don't think that anyone should even be allowed to run for public office unless they did try drugs and have some honest opinions and experience with them. Like, Bill Clinton would not even be allowed to run because he wasted his try. Call it the 'if you don't know what you are talking about shut up and go home rule.' -- carol (talk) 07:16, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Wow, thank you for sharing all those personal insights. Life is complex, isn't it? I want to mention that the first broadcast of Saturday Night Live] was October 11, 1975. That was around the start of the Disco era. Disco came from the cultural fringes, I think, as music genres often do. For those too young to remember, it's hard to describe how huge Disco was in its day. I would say it ran from roughly sometime in 1974 to sometime in 1981. Of course, it's still being played as oldies, but those years pretty well define its peak of creative energy. And I admit to liking that music quite a lot. It's kind of a nostalgia trip. It lacks the "meaning" of the great 1960s music, but there was plenty of junk music in the 1960s also. And we were mostly at peace then, having dumped Vietnam and before we started to get ourselves mired in the Middle East. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 12:07, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Heh, not that personal. There were a lot of us alive back then and similar situations -- living somewhere between some real and unreal lines in the airwaves and otherwise. I was in a store the other day. The music in there jumped from the Rolling Stones to Tom Jones. The part of my soul that connects the ears to the brain laughed and was happy. That sort of diversity was not to be found before disco and definitely not found after. That is what I don't like about what disco did. At least in Detroit, the radio stations each started to play just one kind of music or just another kind of music (disco, dino-rock, light, etc). Then, the damn disco station in Detroit - WDRQ - they only had about 2 hours worth of music, so every two hours they would play the same stuff over again. 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 2 hours at a time. Back then, it was not disco music that I did not like, it was the lack of it and the way it changed the way all of radio sounded. The Vietnam war was all people older than me, the music was good but like you said, there was a lot of crap too. Even the crap is pretty good several decades later though. The best laugh I had this year so far was when Family Guy played just one little piece of Dylans Rubin Carter song. Actually I didn't laugh, it was too much to laugh at. The laugh this would have required from me would have hurt me very much. I found it also to be impossible to explain the depth and breadth of funny that song was; "you really had to be there and have been there for a few years before that" I think is the best I could do. I like Dylan -- I wrote a funny web page about him recently. I think it is funny that I have Dylans greatest electic hits and also the Ramones greatest hits. Look what commercial airwaves did to me! This has been fun. You have given me reason to talk about days in which I felt alive in. I thank you for that. When I saw Cheech in the latest Robert Rodriguze movie, I laughed and said "daddy!" He was playing an ordained type father; it was kind of funny -- and kind of true as well. Earache my eye came out before I graduated and all this stuff had some kind of meaning in high school then.

Devo. On Saturday Night Live. They were on a show the same season and near to the same show in which the Blues Brothers performed. I thought they were a joke and a pretty good one. Were they? -- carol (talk) 13:55, 1 March 2008 (UTC)