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We're so glad you're here! TheThingy Talk 00:28, 14 May 2007 (UTC)Reply

WikiProject Illinois 2007 Census edit

  The WikiProject Illinois 2007 membership census has concluded. If you did not add your name during the last week, you were declared "inactive" in the project, your name is still listed at The Participants Page. You can change your status by replacing {{member inactive}} with {{active}} in the table. Any members should also feel free to fill in any missing details on the list below.  

IvoShandor 11:05, 4 October 2007 (UTC)Reply

E-book edit

I'm concerned about your addition of links to your e-book on a number of spline-related articles. I glanced at the book, and while it appears to be a fairly decent treatment of splines, I'm concerned you may be violating Wikipedia's rules about citing yourself. Namely, you've just been adding your book as en external link, without adding other content to the article or using it as a citation for an uncited statement. If you believe your e-book should be an external link or a reference, could you maybe explain (in each article's talk page) why the link belongs in that specific article? Without distinct rationale for each page, it could easily be construed as spam. Thanks. 107.10.43.91 (talk) 22:22, 28 August 2011 (UTC)Reply

I too have noticed this and started removing them. Wikipedia's guidelines are clear. You should not link to a site of your own or that you represent, even if it is one that would normally be linked. Even more so as the link was added to multiple articles with a long promotional description making it link spam.--JohnBlackburnewordsdeeds 23:05, 28 August 2011 (UTC)Reply

Thanks. While my book was done with very serious intent and, I believe I gave a very good treatment as I state in it, I have moved on and am unable to add much to any of the Wiki pages considering other contributors are far more advance that I. I only want those who wish to understand more without the typical rigor found elsewhere the opportunity to benefit from my work which goes 'up to' the point of many of these articles. Sorry John, not trying to make work for you. If there is a better way to so this I'll follow recommendations. I'd appreciate it by CONTACT via my site http://home.comcast.net/~k9dci/site/ John, The "...long promotional description ..." was in response to the request for "distinct rationale " from user 107.10.43.91 -- Steve -- (talk) 23:16, 28 August 2011 (UTC)Reply

Yep, the "promotional description" may have been my fault - I did, after all, request it. I appreciate that you did add rationale, but I was hoping for individual explanations for each article, specifically stating why, for that article, your work should be linked. Something along the lines of an explanation of what the already-cited works missed that your book captured. In any case, I'm still leery about the self-citation, especially if it's just an external link. 107.10.43.91 (talk) 23:30, 28 August 2011 (UTC)Reply


OK, but Arrrg. I figured I made it applicable with the parts about "... for those new to the subject and aimed at graphics." and "...fundamentals for beginners as well as an extensive reference for many commonly used curve types". Reading all the cited references is much for me now. If you read the WHY on my site, you'll understand that for someone coming in from another area has quite a bit of difficulty getting up to speed in this subject.

Oh well... I'll just keep putting ocassional posts referencing it on NetNews comp.graphics.algorithms and some can benefit, but that's so...well ... old school, not to mention full of garbage. (;-) . -- Steve -- (talk) 23:43, 28 August 2011 (UTC)Reply

The promotional description was e.g. in this change: "A Study of Piecewise Polynomial Interpolation fundamentals for beginners as well as an extensive reference for many commonly used curve types.". You need only compare it to the other links on that page to see the problem with it. As for a better way the best way is to improve the articles directly. It is often harder and more work to improve an existing article within the constraints of Wikipedia, but the end result is much more beneficial.--JohnBlackburnewordsdeeds 23:52, 28 August 2011 (UTC)Reply

OK, I understand what you're after. I have contributed before, but just thought it would be a nice addition. Regards, Steve -- Steve -- (talk) 01:51, 29 August 2011 (UTC)Reply

thank you. edit

Dear EngineerSteve,

Thank you for putting online a rough draft of your book "Interpolation and Curves for Graphics".

I found it more useful than most of the stuff on spline curves I've seen online. (I'm looking for information on splines because currently, all RepRaps always move in straight lines. Printing a part with smooth curves requires sending thousands of tiny little short straight lines through the serial port. Sometimes "little blobs" show up on printed parts. There is speculation that those blobs happen when the Arduino or maybe the USB driver can't keep up with that firehose of little short lines, and the print head keeps oozing plastic while it's waiting for the next command. I'm thinking about tweaking the software to send a handful of longer spline curves instead. I don't know yet if that will make any observable difference).

I agree that too many of Wikipedia articles seem to be written in ways that are difficult for beginners to understand. And it seems to be taking a long time for people to understand that WP:TECHNICAL requires that articles be accessible to beginners as well as experts.

I felt the same way about data compression algorithms, so I'm writing the book on data compression that I've given up on hoping that someone else would write, at Wikibooks: Data Compression.

Have you considered posting a rough draft of your book at Wikibooks? There's already a few brief mentions of splines there, such as Wikibooks: Floating Point/Fixed-Point Numbers#sine table.

I think the easiest way to get started at Wikibooks is to post somewhere on your web site, perhaps on page http://home.comcast.net/~k9dci/site/?/page/Piecewise_Polynomial_Interpolation/ , something like the license at the bottom of every http://xkcd.com/ comic, something like "This draft of the book "Interpolation and Curves for Graphics" is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. Feel free to post it on Wikibooks."

How can I help? --DavidCary (talk) 21:26, 12 February 2013 (UTC)Reply

→This is just an email test...Me 71.201.108.65 (talk) 17:26, 21 February 2013 (UTC)Reply

→ Repeat with email turned on... This is just an email test...Me -- Steve -- (talk) 17:40, 21 February 2013 (UTC)Reply

Perfect fifth edit

Hi there,

I've joined in a discussion that was started by you, as I'm interested in improving the lead section of the Perfect Fifth article. If you're able to help out, Here's a link to the relevant discussion:

Talk:Perfect_fifth#Clarification

InternetMeme (talk) 16:20, 23 March 2014 (UTC)Reply

April 2019 edit

  Hello, and thank you for your contributions to Wikipedia. I noticed that you recently added commentary to an article, Garden-path sentence. While Wikipedia welcomes editors' opinions on an article and how it could be changed, these comments are more appropriate for the article's accompanying talk page. If you post your comments there, other editors working on the same article will notice and respond to them, and your comments will not disrupt the flow of the article. However, keep in mind that even on the talk page of an article, you should limit your discussion to improving the article. Article talk pages are not the place to discuss opinions of the subject of articles, nor are such pages a forum. Thank you. Nardog (talk) 18:22, 10 April 2019 (UTC)Reply

I know that. I mistakenly thought I WAS on the Talk page and rectified the error. I also saw no 4-tilde button there, but it is here. I don't post often enough to remember just how many... -- Steve -- (talk) 19:54, 10 April 2019 (UTC)Reply

All caps edit

Steve, writing in all caps is interpreted as shouting here (and generally on the internet) and is considered rude. SpinningSpark 16:02, 18 June 2019 (UTC)Reply

I'm well aware, Spinning, but don't see where I wrote in _all_ caps? -- Steve -- (talk) 12:38, 19 June 2019 (UTC)Reply
You all-capped multiple words at Talk:Characteristic impedance/Archive 1#Opening sentence. SpinningSpark 15:43, 19 June 2019 (UTC)Reply
I frequently like to emphasize a *single* word, similar to when we are speaking. At times I have just first-capped words to Emphasize them. It that more PC? -- Steve -- (talk) 17:30, 19 June 2019 (UTC)Reply

No answer as of 9 Aug 2020... -- Steve -- (talk) 17:09, 9 August 2020 (UTC)Reply

Thank you :) edit

Thank you for trying to talk sense into me some months ago, regarding renaming the dBm article :) · · · Omnissiahs hierophant (talk) 21:20, 26 June 2021 (UTC)Reply