User talk:DavidWBrooks/2009 archive

Hollow Earth

Hey, I'm not sure I understand why you took out some of the Hollow Earth-like references from the end of the article, but I wanted to get your perspective before I went and added that stuff back in. Lot 49a^talk 08:03, 8 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the reply! In retrospect I was clearly editing at too-late o'clock because I see that you had already mentioned considering cutting some of the fiction stuff in an earlier post on the talk page! Lot 49a^talk 17:08, 8 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Barnstar

		The RickK Anti-Vandalism Barnstar
		For tirelessly monitoring, editing, and reverting vandalism on List of unusual deaths. JeffJ (talk) 18:21, 11 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Cruise ship

Hi David,

Re-reverted on Seasteading. The cruise ship example is just that, an example to show that living at sea is not impossible. It's true that they are often in harbors but that's has more to do with passengers, it's not a necessity for "living at sea". Oil platforms don't visit harbors, for example. Cruise ships are a better example than oil platforms though, because they prove to be commercially viable without having a special purpose like drilling for oil. I hope you agree. Joepnl (talk) 01:04, 20 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Mills Brothers

Quick note: Nice job on the Mills Brothers edit. Wish I had your way with words. --Manway (talk) 19:33, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The Milkls Brothers have an incredibly extensive catalog. They were one of my dad's favorite singing groups. I developed a liking for them early in life, as Dad would always play their records. Don't quit if you like what you hear - keep exploring! Thanks for the note! --Manway (talk) 20:54, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

A centralised discussion which may interest you

Hi. You may be interested in a centralised discussion on the subject of "lists of unusual things" to be found here. SP-KP (talk) 17:36, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Quango

OK, no objection to using "s" rather than "z", but please be consistent. You've missed several in the article. Best wishes Millstream3 (talk) 14:43, 9 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Cheers! (I hate Zs). Millstream3 (talk) 17:20, 9 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Inherently funny word

Thanks for your opinion on that article. And thanks for saying "good faith" -- that meant a lot, honestly. Geĸrίtzl (talk) 00:46, 14 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

stop your hostile taunts

If you don't stop your hostile taunts, I am going to bring an RFC against you. 216.153.214.89 (talk) 01:28, 28 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

reminder to future self: this is the gambler's fallacy crank from this exchange, which he deleted [1]

Red cunt hair

Regarding the Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Red cunt hair and your delete vote; work has been done to address the issues and improve the article, and I ask that you might reconsider your vote. If concerns do still remain, please let me know what further development of the article would satisfy your criteria. Regards, --  Chzz  ►  13:55, 4 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Could I ask for assistance?

You have been helpful before and I still had your comments on my talk page, so you were the first admin who came to mind to ask. In the article on the family of fish Sparidae, I clicked on a red link for Lagodon rhomboides, for which there was no article, so I created an article. What I do not know, however, is how to make searches for the common name of this fish "pinfish" redirect to my article (it currently redirects to Sparidae. Thanks so much. Mmyers1976 (talk) 16:25, 11 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Nevermind, I figured it out on my own. Sorry to bother you. Mmyers1976 (talk) 16:51, 11 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

slut

Don't fuck with my edits. It's a good edit. If you don't like it. Talk about it first. Don't be a dick right off the bat. 69.196.166.186 (talk) 00:01, 20 March 2009 (UTC) [2][reply]

Merrimack School Board controversy

I have a favor to ask you. Lately an anonymous editor has been trying to remove a paragraph from Merrimack, New Hampshire article, about the school board controversy in the 1990s when Shakespeare was banned. You can read our discussion at Talk:Merrimack, New Hampshire#School board. Do you have any better newspaper sources for the topic? - I assume the Telegraph must have covered it thoroughly, but I wasn't able to bring up an article. Also, in general, do you think this editor's arguments about removing the info have any merit? Thanks, --Ken Gallager (talk) 12:36, 6 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the good links! I may actually have drawn the editor into contributing something, rather than just deleting. --Ken Gallager (talk) 12:54, 7 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

adding a word to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longest_word_in_English

Hi David, forgive me if this is not the correct way to do this, as I'm new to the Wikipedia editing culture. Back in 1994 I was a columnist for Call Center Magazine, and I wrote a column on horizontalization, the use of software applications across multiple vertical industries. As part of that column I played around with longer and longer words based on horizontalization, and eventually came up with "antidehorizontalizationistically", which, it turns out, is several letters longer than the longest non-coined nontechnical word in English.

I'd like to get a mention of this word in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longest_word_in_English, but the editing rules are quite complicated for this page and I don't even know where to begin.

Here's the entry that I'd suggest adding to the page:

=

In an article "Let's Get Horizontal" in the September 1994 issue of Call Center Magazine, columnist Jeff Pepper humorously used the term antidehorizontalizationistically to describe the behavior of someone who opposes the trend away from the use of technology applications across horizontal markets.

=

Would you please tell me how such a thing is done? Thanks!

Jeffpepper (talk) 16:35, 8 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

longest word

David, thanks for the quick response, and yes, I will follow the links you suggest and learn the ropes.

Apparently I need to get some Wikipedia credentials under my belt before making changes to pages like Longest Word. I'll start with some easier stuff and work my way up.

        Jeff

Jeffpepper (talk) 19:36, 8 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

de-redundantify

It's not so much a word as an agglutinative construction, but feel free to use it as much as you like. John Darrow (talk) 19:38, 29 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yup

Your rewording on "The Luggage" sounds much better. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cozret (talk • contribs) 16:00, 6 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Backpacking (travel)

Thanks for reverting the person who was citing just some blog abot a new trend in travel guides or whatever. The same account made a similar edit to Guide book, which I cannot revert thanks to a 1RR I follow. If you don't get it I'll revert it later, but thought you might want to know. DreamGuy (talk) 02:00, 23 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds like my edit was read carefully "about a new trend in travel guides or whatever" (-:

This is the response I left on your friend Dream Guy's page:

"Take that cite out as I said (it's not my website). Would you find acceptable Publisher's Weekly: http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6302533.html which claims annual English language sales of travel guides at 24 million? Or use of the citations from the original article I found which identify electronic gadgets now carried by backpackers?

In short, is there any way of expressing what I would consider as fairly uncontroversial and important points (about the role of Guides in delivering large volumes of tourists or guides and associated electronic gadgets like iPod based commentaries as a way of mediating people's experiences in foreign countries) which you would find acceptable?"

I probably should create a user id for myself - this was my way of getting a flavour of what goes on in my first edit.

Monkey's Paw

I understand the necessity to keep articles "clean," but one of the major aspects of Wikipedia I enjoy is learning and becoming aware of random information like other adaptations. Since the article is already terse, why do you feel the need to keep editing it for brevity when the information being added is interesting, relevant, and not superfluous? —Preceding unsigned comment added by JeezBreeze (talk • contribs) 09:52, 3 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Eeny, meeny, miny, moe

Thanks for the support on this one. There is a limit even to trivia, as you clearly articulated.--Sabrebd (talk) 22:01, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Where's Cashflow 202?!?

Who died and made you king?! I wanted to know about Cashflow 202 and you deleted it... What if I want in to your house and removed all your reference books and wiped your computer? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.183.126.26 (talk) 13:00, 17 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

note to future self: I have no idea what this anon is talking about.

* 03:46, 19 March 2005 DavidWBrooks (talk | contribs) deleted "Cashflow 202" ‎ (redundant, advertisement) - Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 18:46, 17 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

2005 ... goodness. Are you aware of Cashflow 101? - DavidWBrooks (talk) 20:36, 17 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Just to make this clear here, I'm not the IP above; just happened to be passing through and thought I'd help out with what looks to be said IP's beef. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 22:16, 17 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

America's Stonehenge

I've got some stuff I could email you, you can email me from my talk page, it should be possible to produce a much better version of the article. Dougweller (talk) 07:50, 23 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

DWC and NMA

Thanks for the edits over at DWC. I also wanted to give you a heads-up that I tagged the Nashua Municipal Airport article as needing more references. The lack of citations and other issues with DWC and ITT and such made me curious to check it out, and most of the stuff about DWC is uncited, along with several other things. I added one ref. about the DWC history but I thought you might have some more on-hand. --inquietudeofcharacter (talk) 14:36, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There once was a man from Nantucket

Thank you for your continued vigilance over the article about this literary gem. 23:13, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

KT Colon

Hello DWB - No problem with the colon since it's a matter of style - it's just that it's in a slightly gray area in terms of rules of usage. I can certainly support your reasoning there, and the colon works -- it's just that colons usually precede block quotes and not quotes that run as part of a sentence. But I have always appreciated the work that you've done on this article and others that I've read and/or worked on that you've improved as well. Regards, Sensei48 (talk) 14:14, 27 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure the edit you reverted in Dihydrogen Monoxide hoax...

...was vandalism, it fit what the list was talking about. Cite needed maybe.----occono (talk) 18:25, 28 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

No, you didn't call it vandalism, but I assumed you thought that as there was no edit reason for the RV. Nevermind then, thanks for replying.----occono (talk) 19:39, 28 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Zebra Puzzle

The sic was placed there because that line leads to a contradiction. If you read in the Discussion section below the puzzle it reads:

Rule 12 leads to a contradiction. It should have read "Kools are smoked in a house next to the house where the horse is kept." (Note "a" instead of "the.") The text above has been kept as it is, as it is meant to be a presentation of the text of the puzzle as originally published.

And thus the usage of the [Sic] tag. I'm sure you being a journalist, you know what the Sic tag is for; however, for the sake of reference i will quote it:

Sic is a Latin word meaning "thus", "so", "as such", or "in such a manner". In writing, it is placed within square brackets and usually italicized – [sic] – to indicate that an incorrect or unusual spelling, phrase, punctuation, and/or other preceding quoted material has been reproduced verbatim from the quoted original and is not a transcription error

Thanks Dillard421♂♂ ^(talk to me) 18:16, 3 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sandboarding inZA

why did you kill the info on the status of sandboarding in South Africa?

Inside the Beltway

"Inside this Beltway" originated as a geographicle term and was later used politicly. "Inside the Beltway" is still used as a geographicle term to refer to the close in DC area. If you could check your "facts" before editing pages i would greatly apresheate it.

~Eric

What is your problem? its only a few sentences. Every one can still see the political term. If you knew anything about DC then you would know that Inside the beltway is used in a geographical contexts all the time. Only outsiders use the term politically. what I added is in no way controversial, offensive, or detrimental to any one or anything. Infact not including a short blurb about the geographical meaning (witch was were the term originated) is offensive to those people from the DC area. ~Eric

updated sandboarding

Ok, that looks much better now and the information is relevant.

Inside the Beltway

Why is it so bad to quickly mention that there is another use for the term "inside the Beltway"? Infact since the term was originally used solely as a geographical term, it is actually irresponsible not to have this in the article.

~Eric

Muckraking article reference on the introduction of the FSP article

Corporate personhood and other corporate privileges are inconsistent with libertarian philosophy. The charge comes from a writer unacquainted with libertarian thought and ignores the fact that many movers quit their corporate jobs and moved to start their own businesses in New Hampshire. You are welcome to repost it in the appropriate spot in the article and to add a more objective sentence when referring the reader.

~SorrryCharlie

Interwiki hell

Hello. Regarding the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World article, do you know if there is anything we can do to keep the various interwiki linking bots from adding [3] a bunch of links that should actually go to Wonders of the World? I updated the respective interwiki lists ([4], [5]) then went through all the foreign language articles and updated their interwiki links to match. Unfortunately this attempted solution has a few issues (in addition to the fact that it was like three hours of my life that I will never get back):

• some would not let me update the articles for reasons I do not understand because I cannot read those languages: als:Weltwunda and another I cannot remember
• in others my changes were reverted by local bots or editors: de:Weltwunder, he:שבעת פלאי תבל, pt:Sete maravilhas do mundo, etc. (you have no idea how many "vandalism warnings" I got across various projects last night).
• and in a few the bot has already been back to re-assert its will: sv:Världens sju underverk, ar:عجائب الدنيا السبع, etc.

Do you have any suggestions for a better way to fix this? — Kralizec! (talk) 12:08, 1 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Murder of Roger Ackroyd

Hi Mr. Brooks! I noticed your revert of an anonymous editor’s addition to The Murder of Roger Ackroyd article. I don’t quite see how the edit was not appropriate since the essay is about the novel. I think that that editor’s mistake was that he put it in the wrong section. His/her section heading was inappropriate in that it suggested that it was Christie that had the alternate ending, and this might be why you found the edit objectionable. Perhaps a better place would be in the critical reception section since that is (partly) what Bayard was, a literary critic. The anon’s edit was not badly written, it is on topic, and it is cited (although it needs to be put in the <ref></ref> WP:CITE format). I’d like to revamp his/her edit, into a more correct section. Then, if you still disagree, we can take it to the article’s talk page for consensus. Anyway, I think it added to the article and was certainly interesting. Have I — he asks shyly — in any way changed your mind? Thanks! (P.S. Please respond here to keep the thread all in one place. I’ll have your page watchlisted. Thanks!) — SpikeToronto (talk) 20:06, 9 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, please, go ahead and return it and we can discuss it there.

The idea of proposing an alternative ending to a fictional murder is silly - does he think that Christie was misled by her own characters? - and it sounded like nothing more than an academic version of a fan fiction alternative-universe tale, and god knows those are a dime a dozen. Perhaps I am missing something, though; if the article has a point other than dreaming up another result that can be squeezed from the same clues, I think we would need to make that clear.- DavidWBrooks (talk) 20:39, 9 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

 Done   With this edit. Please see here and here. Thanks! — SpikeToronto (talk) 21:33, 9 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

XYZ

Hi David.

You deleated my 2009 entry for unusual deaths. I happen to think this is very unusual. A woman who WAS NOT drunk (please read the article which I referenced!) got up and fell into a glass which severed a major vein. Hmmm. Doesn't happen everyday. Infact, if you can show me where it's happened EXACTLY like that then I'll take your point. Until then, I won't. 81.141.73.230 (talk) 14:51, 20 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Check out the talk page for that article; you'll see considerable discussion about what should go into the article. "EXACTLY like" isn't really the point: Somebody falling and cutting themselves on glass and bleeding to death doesn't even come close to being unusual, I'm afraid. If you'd like to debate this more, you should take it to the Talk page of the article, so that other people can participate. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 15:01, 20 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Erdos number revision

Why was the Erdos number article reverted to a revision in which page links are embedded in an image caption and clearly do not work?

Good point - I screwed up. I have undone my revision. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 15:24, 20 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]