User talk:Smalljim/Archive 1

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

→

Archive 5

Welcome!

Hello, 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:

• How to edit a page
• Editing, policy, conduct, and structure tutorial
• Picture tutorial
• How to write a great article
• Naming conventions
• Manual of Style
• The Five Pillars of Wikipedia
• Merging, redirecting, and renaming pages
• If you're ready for the complete list of Wikipedia documentation, there's also Wikipedia:Topical index.

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! By the way, you can sign your name on Talk and vote pages using three tildes, like this: ~~~. Four tildes (~~~~) produces your name and the current date. If you have any questions, see the help pages, add a question to the village pump or ask me on my Talk page. Again, welcome! --Wikiacc (talk) 20:37, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)

Haytor

Hello. Thanks - Yes, you are quite correct. I took it from a spelling HIGHTOR in one of the old guides I listed in the references. I have now looked at my copy of Gover, Mawer & Stenton. I was really 'surfing' Wiki sites looking for ways to enhance my articles & came across the 'Etymology Box'. I am more practiced at the Scots language of late. Rosser.

Thanks!

Thanks for trying to revert the vandalism to my user page. -- Chrislk02 (Chris Kreider) 18:58, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Bwamba virus

I would like to point out that both ways of spelling dependent/dependant are correct. Wikipedia rules say that once an article not specifically linked to one place, eg New York, has been started in one laguage, eg American english, then the same method of spelling should be used. I don't like this rule as I am british, and everywhere I go I come across american spelling, but a rule it is nethertheless.

Thanks in general for correcting spelling, but make sure its not just justifiable American english first.

Bacteria boy

---

Hi Bacteria boy, and welcome to Wikipedia.

Thanks for your message on my talk page about the spelling of dependent/dependant in the Bwamba Fever article. Well, I don't want to make a big thing of this, but according to The Columbia Guide to Standard American English. 1993 the adjective is always spelt with an e. The Guide also says (though not relevant here) that the noun - usually spelt with an a in British English - is nearly always spelt with an e too. Only a minority of sources disagree with this opinion.

I should say that the corrections were made using Lupin's Live spellcheck tool, which uses Wikipedia:Lists of common misspellings/For machines. If you think that the entry in that list is incorrect you can (in the spirit of Wikipedia) remove it.

By the way, I'm British too (see my User page). Every time I see or have to write Wikipedia, it hurts, but I do it :-)

--Smalljim 16:59, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

---

This is dreadfully embarressing for me. I've only just looked where the spelling change occured in the document. Its part of the phrase "RNA dependant RNA polymerase". This is actually a recognised biological term (I'm a final year Microbiology student) and the spelling is with an "A".

This really isn't a big deal to me I feel I should point out - I have no intention of reversing the change as that would just be really petty/pointless. Incidently, my Collins dictionary has it as -ant, and the Oxford Dictionary as either, so I don't think that either version is more correct than the other.

BB

(I appologise for any spelling mistakes above!)

---

Good point, BB! I hadn't considered that it might be part of a recognised biological term. In that case I must bow to your specialist knowledge. But I do also have to point out that on Google:

"RNA dependant RNA polymerase" gives about 398 hits

whereas

"RNA dependent RNA polymerase" gives about 294,000 hits.

And I've just discovered that there is an entry in this very encyclopedia for RNA dependent RNA polymerase (we should both have checked for that first!).

Anyway, as you say, enough of such trivia - let's get back to doing some "useful" work on the encyclopædia!

Good luck --Smalljim 20:13, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for removing

the "wrong link" in the Angel of Grief [1] picture . Actually it was not so much a wrong link as an attempt at humor on my part to clarify that I did not know exactly where I had taken this picture. A dear friend of mine, when referring to my sense of humor once said that I frequently mistake obscurity for subtlety. This is likely a good example. In any case, better is better, Carptrash 14:43, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Hope I didn't cause you any concern. As you may have guessed, it was part of my tidying up of the Somewhere article - according to unbiased observers, that's a foolish name to give an organisation anyway (or is it actually very clever?) --Smalljim 16:26, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the link

Thanks for linking to Maya (illusion), a very interesting article I had missed till I hit your link. Cheers! Hoverfish Talk 23:03, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

My pleasure - it's always good to know that wikignoming (in this case doing a spot of WP:DPL) is actually useful. Smalljim 09:27, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Proprietary colleges

Hi there. I edited the Virginia College site. I cut out all links to Proprietary schools, and changed it all to Proprietary colleges. I made a few other edits. I wish to create NPOV articles on such colleges. How much more work is needed to take off the tag for reads like an advertisement? Bearian 13:30, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Hi! My only interest in that article was when I whizzed past it and dabbed the word Maya as part of the WP:DPL fixup project, so I am actually less familiar with it than you are. It's not a subject that I know anything about. However, now you've brought it to my attention I can see there's quite a lot wrong with the article, even without considering its advertorial nature. So I'm going to be bold and have a go at cleaning it up too. I'll put explanatory comments in the edit summary so you can see what I've done. Maybe between us we can get it into decent shape? Smalljim 20:47, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Later... I've done some edits and put a comment on the article's talk page: Talk:Virginia College, where I think any further discussion on it should go. Smalljim 22:39, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Walter Dean Myers

Thanks for fixing the vandalism. I've had to revert the page about fifty times myself. I requested it be semi-protected and was denied. Czolgolz 20:29, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Ah, so I see. By the look of the vandalism, I'd guess that some school has set one of his books as a standard text (do they do that in America?). Keep up the good work! Smalljim 20:39, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the Hard Work

		The RickK Anti-Vandalism Barnstar
		Smalljim, for his continuing selfless work in beating the vandals back. Gillyweed 14:29, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Most expensive comic books

Smalljim, those were the best sources I could find for most expensive comic books.If you know any better links, then I'de want to know them, because otherwise it isn't my fault the sources are from a page like that. Rodrigue 12:27, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Hi! I don't want to get into a deep discussion about this issue - I expressed a couple of opinions on the "most valuable" list when I came across it while browsing the AfDs for 5 May, and then when I saw the AfD for the "most expensive" list I thought I'd better clarify what I said earlier because I felt my comments may have had an influence on your decision to create it. I have no interest in comic books beyond that, and I'm certainly not going to put any more time into finding sources for prices - that's your job if you want the list to be kept!

To me Wikipedia is a fascinating source of all kinds of information - I spend more time wikisurfing than I do editing - but I also enjoy the ability we all have to edit that information, and that we're able to keep the encyclopedia running smoothly too (have you tried vandal-fighting?). Since I started editing here a few months ago, I've spent much time reading up on the rules (policies/guidelines etc.) that make WP work. I'm not sure if you've done the same - if not I'd recommend it. At least have a read of Wikipedia:Verifiability and think about what it says, in relation to your list (especially the "most expensive" claim), then you'll see why people are commenting as they are on the AfD. Hope this helps, Smalljim 14:28, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Brailsford

Timely - adding two photos. I created an Ednaston redirect page .... but wonder if this could have its own page if you had a photo and could copy out your Brailsford bit .... only an idea. Victuallers 16:51, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Well I was really just passing through the village, so to speak, and I only copyedited the existing text - but for what it's worth I think that unless anything else could be said about Ednaston, the small amount of text relating to it would be best kept where it is. I don't have any photos - those I added for Brailsford came from geograph: it's a useful source of reusable photos of UK locations. Hope this helps. Smalljim 20:33, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Bamboozle

On 23 March you added to the Bamboozle article that it was now available on digital teletext. I haven't been able to find it on Freeview (Channel 4). If I key in page 690 a message appears saying there is a no such page, and there is no mention of it in any of the menus. Could you confirm or amend this please? Thanks.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 11:30, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Sorry - wasn't me that added it. I just wikified the existing text as part of the Wikification Project. Looking through the article's history it appears that the bit about digital teletext was added by User:Matthew Matic in January 2006 (see his revision here) but he hasn't made any edits since last December, so it's probably no use asking him. I suggest you be bold and remove the apparently erroneous info. If anyone's got the article in their watchlist they should pop up and correct it if you're wrong. Best, Smalljim 19:48, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. There were some other edits that mentioned digital, so possibly it was available then but it got dropped (seems unlikely) or it is available on satellite or cable but not on Freeview (also unlikely). Anyway I've removed it for now and will try to find out more.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 08:37, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Anon on Lake Inari

I gave him a 31 hour block. Cheers, Carlossuarez46 23:04, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Vandalism warnings

Hi there; perhaps you have not been told that, except in the case of flagrant attacks or obscenity, it is usual to give vandals 3 or 4 warnings before blocking them. Giving a final warning after only one previous comment puts admins in a difficult position. --Anthony.bradbury^"talk" 23:09, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

As you can see, it leads to disagreement among admins! I would not have blocked without a furthewr vandalism. --Anthony.bradbury^"talk" 23:11, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Hi Anthony, thanks for the notes. I've done a fair bit of AV work in the past so am familiar with the policies and I think I'm usually pretty tolerant. So I take your point, but if you look back at this evening's edit history of the Lake Inari article, I think it's clear that it was a special case: there has been a sustained low-level attack by several different IP addresses - they know what they're doing! In giving the first warn3, I took my lead from OwenX's warning to 87.178.234.242 just a few minutes earlier. Smalljim 23:45, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Terje Hauge

Terje doesn't deserve to be a football referee! He is an ass-lickin UEFA assassin! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cro ed (talk • contribs) 12:18, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

The RickK Anti-Vandalism Barnstar

		The RickK Anti-Vandalism Barnstar
		I'm awarding you this RickK Anti-Vandalism Barnstar for your great contributions to protecting and reverting attacks of vandalism on Wikipedia. Wikidudeman (talk) 16:22, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Sorry

Sorry about the vandalism, i was tryin to get the anti-vandalism tools to work on myself, but they dont seem to be working --Graffiti-Unit 18:38, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Your small.lol --Graffiti-Unit 16:23, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Gweek

Thanks for your work on the Gweek article. Vernon White ^{. . . Talk} 22:21, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

My pleasure - just passing through the village, as it were! Smalljim 07:46, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Jacko1712 (talk · contribs)

FYI - CobaltBlueTony 13:59, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

DRAKE CIRCUS

You made an edit suggesting a legal threat was made. If you re-read that edit you will see no threat was contained therein. It was a statement of fact. The prolonged and sustained misrepresentation of facts pertaining to Drake Circus will not be tolerated any further and irrespective of whatever the rules and procedures of Wikipedia may be you cannot escape the jurisdiction of the UK courts who are the only arbitrators that can determine the issues raised in this matter.

Drake Circus The obvious impression given to anyone reading this dispute is that you are desperate to keep in links to selected shops in which presumably you have a commercial interest. I have seen 7 reliable references swiftly removed by you. Drake Circus is NOT just a shopping centre it’s an area which among other things includes the University of Plymouth. Any moron can see the administrators are desperate to hide the truth. YOU ARE A SPAMMER of the lowest breed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.146.137.148 (talk) 11:43, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Re: Drake Circus

No problem... Things like that though make me realise just how bad the articles relating to the city are (sigh).--Nilfanion (talk) 00:32, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

It's just a matter of time... how long has WP been running as a percentage of its useful lifespan? We're really still pioneers, I think. Smalljim 00:40, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Well it seems the AfD result was "delete", but in line with your request once the admin deleted the page I recreated it with a redirect to DCSC. No doubt it'll bring accusations of corruption and commercial interests but what the hell, I know the truth :). As it happens I haven't been to Plymouth since I finished basic training at Raleigh in 1977! There is one minor question that remains though. Nicole50dc has created a copy of the last revision it edited on its user page. I'm wondering if an MfD is in order, but given recent history I shouldn't be the one to do it. What do you think? ---- WebHamster 20:16, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Thank goodness it's all over! It's the first time I've got involved in such an interesting discussion on here; I normally try to avoid confrontation. At least it's been a valuable exercise in editing and diplomacy. // Thanks for adding the redirect - there's a bit more tidying up I'd like to do, and I want to move some of the more significant bits (the bomb shelter, the reservoirs - and my lovely panorama, of course) into the appropriate articles. There's more to say about Drake's Leat too. // As far as the copy in user-space goes, I'm not going to worry about it; as long as the cats stay remmed it won't do any harm and it's only a minor infraction, isn't it? // Thanks for your support, and sorry I changed my mind right at the end, subverting some of your comments; but I think it was the right thing to do. // You should have a holiday down here and revisit your old haunts! Cheers, Smalljim 22:42, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Alas, it looks like it isn't all over: Drake-circus, it's been tagged for speedy (yet another attempt at ignoring the rules by Nichole I see!) by someone who wasn't in the original fracas, but the same old excuses are being trotted out. ---- WebHamster 14:00, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I noticed. Not a surprise, really. I suggest we let him waste his time on editing it for a while, because he won't find anything notable and verifiable (unless my research is right up the spout!), and the CSD will eventually take effect. That's better than starting all that arguing again, isn't it? However, I'll keep my eye open for vandalism, as I always do. --Smalljim 14:25, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

User:Nicole 50dc

You should put this up at MFD. --Coredesat 23:25, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the advice, I've just completed the submission. --Smalljim 08:59, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

A.J.Bowman

The sentence is a little busy - I'm not sure whether it's good to merge it. I have in mind that there's other material to cover, too. Another point that would be nice to expand on: the tract of land was originally large - some 7000 acres in two chunks (3000, 4000). Also - I couldn't find a useful reference - I seem to recall that there was a related building by the W&OD trail which was knocked down around the time the building was submitted for historical status. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tedickey (talk • contribs) 23:32, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

WP:OBVIOUS- Adding USA to Virginia articles

I just wonder if it is really necessary to add USA to every article relating to Virginia and other American states. I don't know that this is what WP:OBVIOUS is supposed to deal with. Most articles on Devon and other counties in England don't tell us that the place is in the UK. Should they? I can understand people outside the USA not understanding the postal abbreviations for state names. Many Americans don't even understand them all. I admit that using MA instead of Massachusetts in the name of an article is more common than it should be. That is something that really needs to be corrected. clariosophic (talk) 02:27, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your comment. I do think it's better if I get a few more opinions on this before I consider continuing, so I've listed it at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#How obvious is OBVIOUS?. Let's see what the community thinks. Smalljim (talk) 11:46, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Wow

We do have some taste in common - few people can have heard of Helen Harris I guess :). Offline now but I'll get back to you on Commons tomorrow I guess --Herby ^{talk thyme} 18:25, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

(Discussion continued over there.)  —SMALLJIM  16:27, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Teignmouth

Hello. As you say, the site needs to be re-organised. Good of you to 'ask' first - not many do :-) I must look up Helen Harris! Rosser (talk) 19:58, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Sorry if I didn't give much notice before I dived in. Feel free to add/change anything; now that I've made those basic changes I'm not going to be working on it exclusively.  —SMALLJIM  16:27, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

NOR

Nice to have your calm voice on the NOR issues. Regarding dispute or discussion tags on policy pages, I feel it is bad policy to place such tags on official policy pages. To my mind, such tagging undermines the effectiveness and the official status of any policy page a tag is on. I wrote more detail on this issue here, if you'd like to check it out. Dreadstar † 03:21, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments. I probably agree with you about the inadvisability of flagging policy pages as being under dispute, though I am still working towards a fuller understanding of the exact role of these pages in WP. Anyway, I certainly wouldn't add any templates to a policy page myself - the reasoning behind my suggestion was that since there are already "dispute" and "conflict" tags in existence for those pages, the availability of a more conciliatory "discussion" tag would at least give potential taggers a less drastic alternative to use. If Cogden doesn't take up my offer, I'm not going to do anything else about it. Maybe it would be better to put the Disputedtag template up for deletion instead - that would create some discussion, I guess!  —SMALLJIM  12:35, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Merlin Entertainments

That's much better :). Granted, most of their attractions are theme parks, but attractions such as the London Eye, London Dungeons, Madame Tusauds etc. definitely aren't. Your latest edit is great, though. _TheIslander 17:32, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, happy to help. I think that lead paras not meeting WP:OBVIOUS are becoming one of my bêtes noires!  —SMALLJIM  18:24, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

NOR Request for arbitration

Because of your participation in discussions relating to the "PSTS" model in the No original research article, I am notifying you that a request for arbitration has been opened here. I invite you to provide a statement encouraging the Arbcom to review this matter, so that we can settle it once and for all. COGDEN 00:07, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

NOR

Hi Smalljim. Just to let you know. Somehow an edit was made to the NOR talk page that somehow duplicated the entire page before the new comment. As an attempt to 'fix' this, I removed the first (original) set of discussions, as I 'think' the subsequent edits were probably made to the end of the page. I would ask that you please double-check to see if I may have dropped your edits, and to please add them back if so. Thanks. wbfergus ^Talk 12:07, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Noted, thanks - I think I just beat you to a reply on the talk page.[2]  —SMALLJIM  12:45, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Brought to trial

Thanks for your typo fixing. I seem to have made quite a few. Oy! Bearian (talk) 15:32, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Don't worry about it. That's why there are tools like AWB and people like me happy to use them. If there were no spelling mistakes to correct or vandals to fight I'd have to get up and do something else for my leisure :)  —SMALLJIM  16:09, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

"Gordon Rollings"

A tag has been placed on "Gordon Rollings", requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under the criteria for speedy deletion, because it is a redirect from an implausible typo.

Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself. If you believe that there is a reason to keep the redirect, you can request that administrators wait a while before deleting it. To do this, affix the template {{hangon}} to the page 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.

I have moved the article to its proper location, that is, Gordon Rollings (no quotes). Blanchardb-^{Me•MyEars•MyMouth}-timed 17:23, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for fixing that. What a dork I am for not noticing! It happened because I put quotes round the text when searching for an entry for him, and they got propagated through the "Create the page" link. Oops, I replied on your talk page before I noticed you also subscribe to the unfragmented discussions theory. Best,  —SMALLJIM  17:31, 30 December 2007 (UTC)