User talk:Sam Barsoom/Archive 01

Welcome!

Hello, Sam Barsoom, 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
• Tutorial
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• How to write a great article
• Manual of Style

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your messages on discussion pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically insert your username 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!

Your citation on Database

Is not a verifiable, reliable source -- see WP:V and WP:RS, and as such has been removed. Also, it didn't conform to the style guidelines in WP:CITE, though that's a minor issue and would have been easy enough to fix. But you should see the guidelines for future reference. If you can find a spot where the fact you're trying to cite is stated in a verifiable source, such as an article in a peer-reviewed journal, for instance, you can put that cite in instead. Yes, we do have to cite even the obvious here -- it keeps us honest, though it is sometimes restricting. And welcome, and happy editing! Gscshoyru 21:54, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for the welcome. Considering the claim I am trying to cite is that databases store information in a structured fashion, I am not sure how reliable a source is needed. It is a bit like saying birds go tweet or that cars have wheels. However, I will try to find a more reliable source for this information. Sam Barsoom 21:56, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

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This is not an example of birds go tweet or that cars have wheels. This is an example of red is red. Philosophers have a difficult time with this idea, scientists, mathematicians and Germans go with it.

1 = one. -- Carol 00:37, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Haha, this is true, I was being generous when describing how self-evidence this fact was. Still, I suppose someone who does not know what a database is would like to have confirmation of the definition. I have heard it said on the talk page that you are relatively new to Wikipedia. So am I. What do you think of the project?

I like wikipedia, but on the otherhand, it really does seem to be FunkyTown (o/~ talk about it, talk about it, talk about it, ooo oo ooo o/~). I also suffer from some delusions of grandeur here because I think that when I was playing on the Chaos Camp wiki in 2003, that it was the parent of this project. The article about GNU Image Manipulation Program. When I became involved in 1997 and more so in 2000, no one said anything about the acronym having anything to do with the word General -- yet this knowledge seems to exist here. I actually would not trust that information from anyone except the original two guys. I have started projects with people -- they never start out as if they are going to get a world-wide review. When they said that the software was named after a character from movie fiction at the time, *that* had the ring of truth to it. No way to cite anything though. Things can be written for the purpose of citing though -- that kind of sucks. Linux is full of things that were named in a way that a lot of people would not like to read. FVWM, a window manager -- the official word is that it stands for 'Fine Virtual Window Manager' but it doesn't really and if you are actually writing this stuff, I think that the real word would come to mind. When I was younger, I liked to write things. I had a friend who was around a lot and he liked to edit -- fix the spelling and grammar mistakes. He read a lot; I have no idea if he wrote much but he seemed to enjoy my writing and I didn't mind letting him edit my writing -- in fact, I appreciated it and miss the service now. It isn't the same having anonymous people edit your stuff and request citation when the real facts are (as given in my example) impossible to verify especially since so many things have very very humble and realistic and not approved for worldwide favor and scrutiny origins. -- Carol 04:33, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

My opinion on the project is that it if you accept the scope it is based on it is a fairly sound acedemic project. I like the idea have having the standard of claims already being published by a reliable source. I am a little confused by the ambiguity of what a reliable source is though. There seems the be a subjectiveness to what qualifies.

Perhaps it is a fault, or perhaps it is an intentional reliance on "common sense" that leaves such ambiguities in the policy. What do you think? Sam Barsoom (talk) 00:49, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

I think that I was chased out of my Logic class (offered through the philosophy department at my university) by the third day because I messed up the instructors whole semester by saying 'red is red' on the first or second day of classes. The fact that all of our stuff is based on one single self-definition is very difficult for a human brain to contend with. Well, I can only say this about my human brain.

Scientific research as inspired by the EMU Physics Department

I can tell you within the hour when 'reliable sources' ceased to be for me. For instance, I just wrote a wikipedia page about a person who was only a rumor to me; I should be a reliable source on this but I am so totally not one. The moment reliability ceased for me was when I was in Norway in 2004. The 'lead developer' of the software that I have associated myself with made a few clicks on a laptop and the web page that contained the photograph of this 'developer' disappeared at the publishers web site and more. The effect of that one thing spread backwards in time and has followed me, something like doppler said it would but without the colors (just a lot of people complaining about them).

I have heard rumors of data being changed purposely at a science laboratory I worked at. I have mistakes and typos when I was entering data into databases. As a cashier for a grocery store that undergoes yearly inventory checks, I made plenty of mistakes when I was learning how to do the task and some even when I understood what it took and was self-motivated to not have a bad effect on the inventory lists. People write things a certain way often which is truthful but the purpose is not to be truthful but to cover their asses.

If I could give one piece of advice to myself as a child right now -- whisper into her naive yet selfish little ear, it would be this "Try to remember what it was you thought you were doing and the reason that you thought to do it." -- Carol 02:44, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

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Okay, I have found something by a university saying the same thing. Thanks for helping me figure out reference syntax. Sam Barsoom 22:06, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

That should be good. Minor note -- when indenting when responding, use one more colon than the previous person to indent; don't indent the same. That way you can differentiate conversation -- not actually required, of course. Just convention. Happy editing! Gscshoyru 22:09, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

I like to stick to the indentation I originally used, so that the posts I made can be easily spotted. It works well if others do so as well as each person has their own level. There are usually less people than responses in a conversation so it is less confusing in my opinion. If I just add one more each time it gets very indented after a short while. Sam Barsoom 22:12, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

In that case we do something like: (unindent) blah... but ok. I actually did screw up the tabbing anyways, as those two were both said by you and should have stayed at the same level. I'll stick to your format on your talk page, though, but keep in mind it's usually different everywhere else. Gscshoyru 22:28, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

I am looking through the links you posted and I have to say Wikipedia is not exactly what I expected, but I like the gist of its philosophy. There seems to be much more of an academic standard than I expected. I was daunted by it at first but then I read the part about not worrying about messing up. I suppose the idea is that any mistake can easily be repaired via the history and a little discussion.

I will look through all of that before I continue editing despite the encouragement to be bold, I am a little timid. Sam Barsoom 22:31, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Heh. no worries. You only have to worry if what you're adding is contentious, as skimming the stuff will give you a basic understanding of 99% of the polices, and no one will blame you if you don't know the extra 1%. As long as you keep what you do NPOV and well-sourced, and discuss on talk after you've been reverted rather than re-reverting (see WP:BRD) you should be fine. If you do that no one should have any major problems with what you do. Have fun! Gscshoyru 22:44, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Am I wrong

Hi, you were the one who introduced me to the requirement of citation for a claim that has been challenged. Am I off base here: Talk:Sam#Primarily_a_male_given_name in thinking that the claim I have disputed should not be returned until it is sourced?

Am I wrong? Or am I just encountering stubbornness? I tried being bold, I got reverted, so I tried discussion and referring to policy and I got reverted. Well I don't want to edit war, but I do dispute the fact in question as being dubious at best. I really do not want the readers of Wikipedia to be misinformed. Sam Barsoom (talk) 16:10, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Well, you're not supposed to keep reverting during the discussion. But I do agree with your assessment, that unsourced content should be removed when disputed, and I don't see what could be lost from a disamb. page from removing it, since they're not supposed to be encyclopedia article themselves. It is a bit of a silly thing to argue about, though. The cite-needed tag is fine, and I suggest you continue to discuss it rather than reverting. Gscshoyru (talk) 16:34, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Well if I am correctly interpreting policy, and others don't care and just revert anyways and I am not supposed to revert them, then I guess the policy is not enforcible by me. I am still not sure what happens when policy and consensus contradict, but I guess I will just go with consensus. Sam Barsoom (talk) 19:37, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

It is nice to see that there was further discussion on the matter after I left though. Sam Barsoom (talk) 19:39, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Hmmm, it all turned out well without me, I guess I just need to be more patient. Sam Barsoom (talk) 19:42, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

WP:TWINKLE

Hi Sam. TW is Twinkle, and I'm really glad I installed it. I was hesitant at first too, but it is incredibly useful and the instructions are easy to follow if you've ever worked with any code. FWIW, I use it in Firefox. I think it is supposed to work in IE as well. SchmuckyTheCat (talk)

Great. No worries about IE, I don't have a byte of microsoft on this computer. I will give it a go and see what happens. Thanks for the fast response. Sam Barsoom (talk) 20:41, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Wow, lots of new buttons. Neat. I will have to be careful with these. Sam Barsoom (talk) 20:47, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

I really like how there are different buttons for reverting vandalism, and honest mistakes. Sam Barsoom (talk) 21:12, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

I like the generic revert on it, because it offers an edit summary which is always a good idea. SchmuckyTheCat (talk)

Less (band)

Hello, and thanks for your message. There are agreed guidelines for notability regarding musicians and bands that can be found at WP:MUSIC. In this case, although the Less article did not include much evidence of significant coverage, the pages for their 2 albums include links to reviews that would probably be sufficient to indicate notability for both the albums and the band. In general, if a band or artist has released 2 or more albums, there's a good chance that they may meet notability criteria. If in doubt in such cases, you may want to take them to WP:AFD - I would recommend using speedy deletion only when there is no chance whatsoever that the subject of an article would meet notability criteria. If evidence of significant coverage is provided via references or external links, again I would suggest that tagging for speedy deletion be avoided. Hope that helps.--Michig (talk) 20:32, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, I think that an article needs to both meet notability requirements and make an assertion of significance, I could be wrong about that. I don't think releasing 2 albums means much unless it was through a major label, the company that release those albums was itself deleted for lack of significance, and reported it had only ever released 3 albums by 2 bands. But I will think it over, look at the links and consider AfD. Thanks for your fast reply. Sam Barsoom 20:35, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Request for Rollback

Hiya. I've granted your request. If you have any queries about the tool please feel free to ask me. Pedro :  Chat  21:08, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Thank you. Sam Barsoom 00:42, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Blocked

I have been blocked for these reasons:

Editing from 75.101.128.0/17 (your account, IP address, or IP address range) has been disabled by Spellcast for the following reason(s): This IP address has been blocked because it is believed to be an open proxy or zombie computer.

{{unblock|This is certainly not an open proxy, a quick port scan on my IP(75.101.202.133) will show the only open port is port 22 which is SSH. This system is locked down and is not an open proxy. I think my editing history shows I am not here to cause trouble. Our company keeps its employee workstations on virtual computers that are hosted by a professional server hosting company. This way wherever we go we have secure access to our workstation. I need to be editing from this range of IPs because we are not allowed to access the internet any other way for security purposes. Can this range be set to block only anonymous users?}}

Does the blocking admin realise that by using a /17 that he is blocking 32768 ips? That is excessive to assume a major internet provider for companies is going to be all open proxies and zombies. Sam Barsoom 21:16, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps this account could be exempt from IP blocks if the IP range is really a problem? I am going to be editing from this range often. Sam Barsoom 21:24, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

I just ran a port scan, and while I'm seeing a lot more open ports than just 22, I'm not seeing any that look to be immediately problematic. As for your concern, administrators are required to have a complete understanding of CIDR suffixes before placing rangeblocks; we make an effort to keep them as small as possible, however in certain cases blocks of this sort are necessary to prevent disruption. Generally these rangeblocks are not lifted, as they aren't placed without very good reason. Fortunately, there are alternatives, which I am now going to contact the blocking administrator about. Depending on the situation, we may be able to grant you an exemption to this block which would allow you to edit. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 21:28, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. This is a bit frustrating but I know there must be good reason for it. I looked at the contribs of the blocking admin and it does not look like he has edited on a few weeks so I am not sure he will be responsive. Sam Barsoom 21:30, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

You're right - I'll email him as well. If I don't hear back for a couple days, I'll go ahead and grant the exemption myself. Your explanation does seem reasonable, and I don't see you've had any issues in the past. I do need to at least try and check with Spellcast, not only out of courtesy, but also to make sure there aren't any underlying issues that make this a non-option. Sorry for the delay, but we can all use a wikibreak from time to time. :-) Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 21:36, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Fair enough. Would you be so kind as to post the following message at the bottom of Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_adminship#NOTNOW on my behalf(that is mostly why I logged in today)?

"Thank you for the informative comments. It has really put the whole thing in perspective. I will look into the various links that have been posted here while I take a short wiki-break. Sam Barsoom 21:39, 22 February 2009 (UTC)"

Sure thing. In the meantime, if you wouldn't mind doing a bit of reading for me: since I am considering giving an IP block exemption, please read through (in detail) WP:IPBE, especially the conditions for granting one. IP Block Exemption is an administrative right that can be granted to users who find themselves unable to edit due to a hard IP block. This flag is only intended to help you edit through the block you are currently experiencing; if the flag is granted, your account may be periodically checkusered to confirm that you are not abusing the flag to edit via other blocked proxies (by the way, you are on a proxy; see Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud). If there is evidence of abuse, your flag will be removed without further warning, will not be regranted, and your account may be subject to additional blocks. Also, this flag will be removed as soon as the block currently affecting you either expires or it becomes clear it would no longer cause you any interference (you could become an admin, or your IP could shift out of the range, for example). In order for the flag to be granted, you are required to understand and acknowledge these conditions on this page. Doing this now will save time later on. Thanks. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 21:52, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

I will read up on the policies related to both IP block exemptions, and the use of check users. Sam Barsoom 22:06, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Also the Amazon Compute Cloud is not a proxy but an internet service provider. They provide virtual machines on the internet for commercial use. While I am connecting to a virtual machine to connect to Wikipedia, that virtual machine is the machine I am using, the real machine is just a surrogate. I am basically using the computer I am on to act as a dumb terminal and simply relay the input/output from the virtual machine.

I am a bit surprised to see so much stock being put in the IP range I edit from, especially considering it is a reputable internet provider that prohibits the use of open proxies or abuse(this is not bullet proof hosting). Surely an IP block exemption would not allow me to do anything nefarious, it would only allow me to continue editing as I have been from this one account. Now if it gave me the ability to create unblocked accounts in this range it would be a problem, but it does not give me that ability. The only question should be "should this user be blocked. What network path I make my edits from should have less importance than the substance of my edits.

That being said "Process is important". We gotta do what we gotta do. I will do my homework. Sam Barsoom 22:12, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

While I am reading I will look into Wikipedia:Open proxies, which I am noticing refers to open proxies. Once again there is nothing open about my system or the cast majority of IPs in that range(They are mostly companies doing honest business). Sam Barsoom 22:15, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Results of my research

Abuse investigations, check user, blocked if I use the wrong IP. No thanks. I will just not edit Wikipedia while I am at work.

I don't think the Amazon computer cloud should be blocked as an open proxy. It is no such animal. It is an Internet Service Provider, like AOL. Its nature means that you IP often changes, like AOL. The terms of service for the computer cloud specifically disallow open proxies. Machines on the cloud use ssh to secure connections, even if they could be viewed as a proxy they are certainly not open. The wording of Wikipedia:Open proxies does not allow for this block, perhaps another policy does and I would like to know what it is.

I want to edit here, but this is all too much. I will still edit from elsewhere, and also when my IP on the cloud is not blocked. Sam Barsoom 02:04, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

I just became aware of this by email. Firstly, I found out about this service when one IP range was blocked in response to a banned user who frequently uses open proxies and anonymizers.[1] To use the service, you can use a web browser like Firefox to gain access to another computer's resources from your own PC. This acts as an anonymizer because it masks the original IP. In principle, it's no different than blocking IPs from anonymizer.com or hide-my-ip.com, but instead of paying dozens of dollars, you only have to pay a few cents per hour. Unfortunately, there's no way to distinguish between addresses directly assigned to work places and those that hide the original IP connections. But since you're a legitimate user and your work place offers no alternative connection, I've given you IPBE. Spellcast (talk) 15:02, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Oh, thank you. I am glad there was not too much procedure involved. Sam Barsoom 20:56, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

• Note: See here for a follow up on this matter