User talk:Dbtfz/Archive 1

This is an archive of inactive discussions. Please do not edit it. If you wish to revitalize an old topic, bring it up on the active talk page.

Welcome!

Hello, Dbtfz/Archive 1, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers:

• The five pillars of 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 have any questions, check out Wikipedia:Where to ask a question or ask me on my talk page. Again, welcome!  Tufflaw 04:43, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Converting html to TeX

Although TeX is usually better than other forms of mathematical notation when it is "displayed" rather than inline, I wonder if you're unjustifiably taking it to be axiomatic that it's better when inline? On my browser, all of this instances of inline TeX that you put into random variable and probability theory look comically gigantic -- maybe ten times the size of the letters preceeding and following them, whereas the html that was there before looks good. Michael Hardy 19:12, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Per the math style manual, one should not rush to convert html to TeX if html looks fine, per the reasons Michael wrote above. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 20:03, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the tip. I'll keep this in mind from now on. Dbtfz 20:47, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Collection

Thanks. I hate it when people say "collection," "group," "family" etc. when they mean "set." But that's probably just a quirky pet peeve of mine. Dbtfz 16:24, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Saying "set of sets" can be confusing to people. That's why they prefer to use a different word. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 16:27, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm a bit confused

Hello. I didn't quite understand it - have you labeled my editing of the article Fearson's floating cigarette as vandalism, or marked it for deletion as a bad joke? Please explain your reasoning, because I sincerely believe that I have done a good job, compared to the original texts. Now, at least, it is in agreement with the industry standards within magic technical litterature - see Wikipedia:Proposed policy for magic methods. --TStone 03:22, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

I did not label your editing as vandalism, nor did I flag the article for deletion. Indeed, the article is a fine piece of magic technical litterature. I just wanted to make sure it got preserved for posterity in its present state. Unfortunately, the only way I know of to do this is to save it on the "Bad Jokes and other Deleted Nonsense" page. Rest assured that I don't regard it as a bad joke, and certainly not as nonsense; I merely fear that it might be deleted or otherwise defaced by some thoughtless Wikipedia administrator with no appreciation for high quality magic technical litterature. If you don't like it being on the BJAODN page, you are welcome to remove it. Keep up the good work. Best wishes, Dbtfz 04:26, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Ah, then I understand! Sorry. The title of this joke page was a bit intimidating, especially when I didn't know the purpose of that page. I've saved the original texts on the talk page of Wikipedia:Proposed policy for magic methods, if that is useful. Thanks for the explanation! :-) --TStone 13:12, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Catholic schools/education

Please stop reverting the redirect. At least explain (here, or on my talk page) why there should be separate articles for Catholic school and Catholic education ... I don’t see why, especially when the "Catholic schools" article you keep redirecting to seems to offer no sign that its content warrants a separate article. Daniel Case 02:46, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

I really don't care about this incredibly trivial issue. Do whatever you want.  :) Dbtfz 02:50, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I guess I care a little bit. It seems like a no-brainer to redirect the newly created "Catholic schools" stub to the already existing and reasonably fleshed out article "Catholic school" (in which I have absolutely no vested interest). If you don't think the latter should exist, why not propose a merge? Anyway, that's really all I have to say about the subject. Dbtfz 04:58, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Friendly Reminder

Remember to always sign all of your posts on talk pages. Typing four tildes after your comment ( ~~~~ ) will insert a signature showing your username and a date/time stamp, which is very helpful. This reminder was sparked by your leaving your vote at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Stout Spider unsigned. -- Thesquire (talk - contribs) 04:54, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Oops, I forgot that one little time. Thanks for the reminder. Dbtfz 05:00, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Airplanechart

I believe I will have to buy or rent an airplane to bring all my friends from Wikipedia in order to spend Carnival in Rio de Janeiro. Imagine that: everybody having fun and a good time drinking caipirinhas (little country girls--a brazilian drink made with cachaça) and dancing samba and meeting beautifull women (or men-- I don´t care) and dancing until dawn... Please leave on the air the article about prof. Carlos Nemer, he is a great professional ! Carlos Vieira

Olá, Carlos! I was just in Brazil (Florianópolis) last year. I had a great time and enjoyed (too) many caipirinhas. I would love to visit again, but sorry, I won't retract my vote.  :) Dbtfz 04:18, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Gleeking and Shakespeare

The Shakespeare quotes are verifiable but they're not about gleeking in the sense of this article. See here. I'm not trying to vandalize the article, but I am trying to make it encyclopedic, which means it should make sense. The Shakespeare quotes are either a joke or just irrelevant. —rodii 22:23, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

I can see how the Shakespeare reference could look like a joke. I have modified the article so as to better explain the relevance of the Shakespeare passages to the etymology of the term. Dbtfz (talk - contribs) 22:56, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

OK... I'm skeptical, but I'm no expert. I appreciate your putting work in on this. —rodii 23:13, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Paraconsistent logic and dialetheism

My objection to your edits was really (i) that your text suggested that relevance logic was not paraconsistent and (ii) two minor quibbles with your edit: "the" is the right determiner to relate Graham priest to proposer of dialetheism, but, by now, not proponent of dialethism, and it's as wrong to talk of relevance logics as to talk of classical logics). I'm pleased to see you tackling the article, though. Do take a look at Dean Buckner's proposed changes. --- Charles Stewart^(talk) 05:07, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree with your point about Priest and "the", and that it should not be suggested that relevance logics (sic) are not paraconsistent. I don't agree, however, that it's wrong to speak of "relevance logics" (plural). After all, there are many different logics that satisfy the relevance condition, and each of these is referred to as a "relevance" (or "relevant") logic in the literature. The most famous system is Anderson and Belnap's R, but many other relevance logics exist. I don't even agree that it is wrong to speak of "classical logics" (plural). Consider propositional classical logic, first order classical logic without identity, first order classical logic with identity, second order classical logic, various classically-based modal logics, etc. Each of these different logics is a classical logic. At least, that's how I (and many others) regard and speak of them. On the other hand, I think it is perfectly acceptable in many cases to use "relevance logic," "classical logic," etc. as mass nouns, referring in a vague way to whole families of logics. Anyway, thanks for your civility, and maybe I'll try to edit the "relevant" parts of the logic article in a way that we can both agree on. Best, Dbtfz (talk - contribs) 05:26, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

I talked of classical logic precisely because of this variety, but I don't say each is a classical logic, rather I talk of the systems of classical logic. The benefit of this is that the core concept of logic is not identified with the particular grammar . There is the issue with relevantism that the informal philosophical theses can lead to genuinely conflicting axiomatisations (in a way one pretty much does not get with classical logic), but I would say that the systems compatible with the best justified account win the title of relevance logic: we can call the others relevantist logics, I suppose.

All of these conventions are disputable, and I'm happy to bash out these issues. There is an issue of consistency, however: I've applied the above scheme in the logic article and in some other articles, and I would rather not have the status quo changed unless there is a clear reason to.

Okay, that makes sense. Deciding on a consistent way of using the term "logic" is precisely one of the things that the logic wikiproject would be good for. Dbtfz (talk - contribs) 15:50, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

You can sign up for the wikiproject on the prelaunch list User talk:Chalst/WikiProject Logic proposal#Folk who have expressed an interest in this project. I'm going to launch the project soon, hopefully I will find time this week. --- Charles Stewart^(talk) 05:57, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. I signed up. Dbtfz (talk - contribs) 15:50, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Kudos

For staring the Dov Gabbay article, which I had been meaning to do. And the Quasi-quotation article, which I'm surprised we didn't have already. --- Charles Stewart^(talk) 06:05, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. I too was surprised that the quasi-quotation article didn't already exist. I was even more surprised that there was no article for logical consequence until I created it. Dbtfz (talk - contribs) 15:53, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Note to self

I have done some editing as 207.207.8.145. Dbtfz (talk - contribs) 20:59, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Chris Eichenseer

I changed the tag to an AfD. I checked him out and it's possible that he could be deserving of an article. Please comment at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Chris Eichenseer. Thanks. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 06:56, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Already did!  : ) Dbtfz (talk - contribs) 06:59, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Death by 1000 cuts

Unfortunately, the death by 1,000 cuts is being mirrored against wikipedia's rules of mirroring, and, more importantly, supercedes wikipedia on a google search. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.210.112.76 (talk • contribs)

Jared Samuels thing

Sorry, was having some fun. Peace. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Robbed (talk • contribs) .

No worries, mate. Just don't let it happen again. Or if you do, try to make it funnier. : ) dbtfz^talk 07:05, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, it would only be funny to two or three people. Sort of an inside joke. Later! Robbed 07:12, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Talk:Tao Te Ching

Hi, the user (A bird in the hand) has been identified as a sockpuppet of a banned user (Zephram Stark). I am going to remove his contributions to this talk page. I will probably go ahead and delete the entire section. If you have any major objection to this, let me know. I didn't want you to be suprised to find your posts deleted. --JW1805 (Talk) 21:42, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

I have no objection. dbtfz^talk 21:47, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks

for reassuring me that I haven't entered the Twilight Zone here. Cheers, Melchoir 03:46, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Economists

Yeah, by last name. I'll do it. And I'll look in on micro. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Radeksz (talk • contribs)

Ugh. Microeconomics is a mess. This one will take some serious re-writing. radek 08:30, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Three forms of mathematical induction

This article was intended to be comprehensible to all mathematicians.

It was not intended to teach mathematical induction. It was not intended to explain what mathematical induction is, nor how to use it.

What I see is (mostly) a bunch of non-mathematicians looking at the stub form in which the article appeared when it was nominated from deletion, and seeing that

• It was not comprehensible to ordinary non-mathematicians who know what mathematical induction is, and

• The article titled mathematical induction is comprehensible to ordinary non-mathematicians, even those who know --- say --- secondary-school algebra, but have never heard of mathematical induction.

And so I have now expanded the article far beyond the stub stage, including

• Substantial expansion and organization of the introductory section.

• Two examples of part of the article that is probably hardest to understand to those who haven't seen these ideas.

• An prefatory statement right at the top, saying that this article is NOT the appropriate place to try to learn what mathematical induction is or how to use it, with a link to the appropriate article for that. It explains that you need to know mathematical induction before you can read this article.

Therefore, I invite those who voted to delete before I did these recent de-stubbing edits, to reconsider their votes in light of the current form of the article.

(Nothing like nomination for deletion to get you to work on a long-neglected stub article!) Michael Hardy 23:29, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Two unsigned messages

Encyclopedias should be truthful. Your very biased opinion violates that truth —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 64.136.49.229 (talk • contribs) .

As in the article "World Wide Fellowship" sure is cozy; where is the proof of that? I hardly think a bunch of force DUIIs, forced treatment program participant, and predatory sex offenders qualify as a fellowship. Anyways you're an idiot as represented by your "home page" on Wiki... You need to quit vandalizing the article and go do some step work! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 64.136.49.229 (talk • contribs) .

All this because I reverted some obvious bad faith edits to Alcoholics Anonymous describing the organization as a "religious cult". Shame on me. :-) dbtfz^talk 03:32, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Your note about Alcoholics Anonymous

Wow, that is a lot of edit warring. Unfortunately I don't have time to look into it tonight. Sorry. FreplySpang (talk) 03:02, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

No worries. Thanks, anyway. dbtfz^talk 03:09, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

thanks

I came here to thank you for fixing my user page, but I leave here thanking you for Ceiling Cat. :-) --Allen 02:41, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Hee hee. Wish I could take credit for that picture (and more importantly, the caption), but I found it at BJAODN. dbtfz^talk 02:44, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

blatent copyvios

For blatent copyvios that are new you can use {{db-copyvio}} - save some time. Hpuppet 22:44, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, I made the switch. dbtfz^talk 22:53, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

BJAODN

Thank you for adding the Bert and Ernie bit to BJAODN. I think it was the hardest I'd laughed at something I read on there in quite some time. BJAODN seems to have been somewhat stale the past few issues, but this one was pure gold! :P Again, thanks, and keep up the good recent changes patrolling. --Kinu ^t/_c 07:56, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, one of the fun things about patrolling is you occasionally come across gems like that.  :-) dbtfz^talk 08:01, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

That was hilarious!! That Ronald was such a perv. Cheers -- Samir ∙ (the scope) 10:04, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

let it be

ramosity is under the urban dictionary and has been since 2002. leave it be. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Citanes (talk • contribs) .

SATANS MØGKØTER

DU SKAL SATME IKKE, DIT GAMLE RØVHUL! —This unsigned comment was added by 217.60.3.230 (talk • contribs) .

If you want to flame me, please do it in English. Thanks. dbtfz^talk 07:30, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Helen Keller vandal

Please feel free to block User:209.122.160.124, as they continue to vandalize Helen Keller. - CobaltBlueTony 16:17, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Reverted the "Helen Keller Vandal" edits on Venus Williams and Mukden Incident

Dennis Miller

It's superfluous, yet you liked it. You are a bundle of contrary contradictions. I think it was in one of his "rant" books, but I would have to look for it. Wahkeenah 03:28, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

I didn't find the quote superfluous, just the commentary on it.  :-) I think I recall coming across it in one of his "rant" books, too. I own three of those books, so I'll see if I can track it down myself. dbtfz^talk 03:33, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

What commentary? You mean the background explanation? It seems like that would help. Although in theory it could apply to any moron. It's from the original The Rants, p.112. Wahkeenah 05:02, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

I just meant "A typically obscure metaphor:". It's a simile, not a metaphor. Plus, I think it's better to just let the quote speak for itself. Speaking of that, I changed the quote so that it reflects exactly what's in the text (my version, anyway!). I added a wikilink so that people can check out who Shawn Eckhardt is. Thanks for providing the source information. I know I'm kind of nitpicky about this article, but that's just because I've put a lot of work into it, as you'll see if you check the edit history.  :-) dbtfz^talk 05:19, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

At least you've apparently fended off that one character from last summer or so that kept adding slanderous comments. I can appreciate this page being your "pet", as I have a few of my own. It looks good. :) It is funny, though, to look back at his stuff from 10 years ago and try to figure out where he took a "right" turn. It's kind of like Al Capp, who drew Li'l Abner, who used to make fun of the establishment, and as he got older, made fun of the anti-establishment. Human nature, I reckon. Wahkeenah 05:24, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, thankfully there's been very little vandalism to the article lately. I don't know why Miller's conservatism is so upsetting to some people. As the article now mentions, Elton John even went as far as to say that Dennis Miller is the reason "they" (presumably "the terrorists") hate us. That seems just a tad melodramatic to me. dbtfz^talk 05:43, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Right. I'm sure Dennis Miller is of greater concern to al-Qaeda than Bush and Cheney are. And I could see the politically incorrect Miller saying that Elton John is the reason Americans think all Brits are... well, let's just say "unmanly". 0:) Wahkeenah 06:19, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Paglia

Explanation given for irrelevant material removed. —This unsigned comment was added by 161.253.46.102 (talk • contribs) .

Counterfactual Conditional

Hey, thanks for cleaning up Counterfactual conditional. I had meant to get back to it someday (ever since I cleaned up material conditional), but I never got around to it. KSchutte 03:35, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

• No problem. Thanks for noticing! Still could use expansion, though. dbtfz^talk 03:45, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Ontology article

Hi, I've done some major surgery on the ontology (computer science) article. It was horribly written and confusing, and I think I've started on the road to cleaning it up. I thought your comments on the talk page were particularly perceptive (thanks for the reply to my reply), so I wanted to bring this to your attention as I'm sure you'll have some good thoughts about how to further improve it. All the best, Gwernol 16:14, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

It looks great! Nice work. I made a few very minor edits, and will give it some more attention when I have time. dbtfz^talk 01:37, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Robert Stalnaker

Hello, an article of the name Robert stalnaker already existed so I have merged the two together. Your version is in the page history. It's difficult for me to know which version is "best", so I'm just dropping you a note so you can merge them (or restore your version but adding the photo) if necessary. No reply needed unless there's a problem. Cheers. --kingboyk 14:16, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Good work! --kingboyk 11:23, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks (and thanks for merging the articles in the first place). dbtfz^talk 16:06, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

click the link please

Raghead 132.241.246.111 03:11, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

I appreciate the thanks

Thanks for the kind message you left on my user page. Glad you liked the changes to the Ontology article - it seemed like it needed some work, and its an area I've been working in professionally for some years. I've seen a lot of your good work on Wikipedia too - keep it up. Best Gwernol 05:51, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Thank you

Hope my edit meets your approval

jamonboJamonbo 04:09, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

question

Want to know about disputed pages ...

... disputing pages

JB —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jamonbo (talk • contribs)

See Wikipedia:Resolving disputes for general guidelines and links to other helpful pages. Let me know if you have a more specific question. dbtfz^talk 01:38, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Message from a stupid bot

Thanks for experimenting with Wikipedia. Your test worked, and has been reverted or removed by an automated bot. Please use the sandbox for any other tests you want to do. Take a look at the welcome page if you would like to learn more about contributing to our encyclopedia. Thanks. If you feel you have received this notice in error, please contact the bot owner // Tawkerbot2 20:36, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

• WTF? You could at least tell me which constructive edit you reverted. (Stupid bot.) dbtfz^talk 20:44, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Oh, wait, I get it. April Fools!  :-) dbtfz^talk 20:46, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
    • Here's the edit Blankerbot—I mean, Tawkerbot2—reverted. Way to go! dbtfz^talk 20:51, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Ok, what happened is the edit contained (within a word) a word on its "swear word" list, and that filter was giving me some problems hence it was disabled. It's a bot, its not perfect but its pretty good IMHO, please let me know what happens in the future though, the bot can't get better unless people let me know if it makes mistakes :) -- Tawker 21:10, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Actually, an IP caught some vandalism in there and it tagged it, the word PENIS (in caps) was in the ISBN near the bottom, thats what triggered the bot -- Tawker 21:40, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Understandable. I'm sure the bot does far more good than harm. dbtfz^talk 21:57, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Vandalism - REO Speedwagon

Please feel free to block anonymous user 128.226.226.179 for repeated vandal edits (unexplained changes, including deletions of most interwiki links and albums). —This unsigned comment was added by REO157 (talk • contribs) .

Thanks, but I think I'll look the other way on this one.  ;-) dbtfz^talk 01:19, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Edits to George Soros

And just why did you delete my edit to the Soros article, I explained my reasoning behind my additions, why did you not think they were correct? Incorrect 06:23, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

I explained the edit on the talk page. dbtfz^talk 06:31, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Hi, if you had discussed you revert before reverting (instead of after) I wouldn't have bothered posting here - I have now provided my source, feel free to delete or not, I have made my last edit to that page Incorrect 06:46, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, I should have explained my edit earlier. Your new edit is fine, as it makes it clear that it's something Soros has announced publicily, and provides a reputable source that people can check. Before it looked like mere speculation. dbtfz^talk 14:55, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

My remark above was made somewhat hastily. Upon closer inspection, I don't care much for the new edit either, for reasons given here. I'm not going to change it, though. dbtfz^talk 01:55, 7 April 2006 (UTC)