User talk:Dynaflow/Archive 1

Welcome!

Hello, Dynaflow, 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:

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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 need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question and then place {{helpme}} after the question on your talk page. Again, welcome!  - Darwinek 09:42, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Re. Dolores Park

Unprotected Had been protected for some time, the war is likely over now. Thanks for contacting me. Regards, Húsönd 13:29, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

SFPD

Trivia. I noticed you removed my DK's reference, but don't worry, there is enough trivia about the SFPD to last a wikiminute

Hank Chapot, wikipedian in Oakland

Your edit to 65.19.91.99

"When you eventually return, please note that "damn" is spelled D-A-M-N and not D-A-M-B, as in your recent vandal-edit to 1906 San Francisco earthquake. Have a nice vacation."
I understand your anger but please don't beat the people while they are blocked --St.daniel 17:51, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

It was less of a beating and more of a jovial poking with a sharp stick. Beatings actually cause injury, while goadings can often be funny and even productive. There's no better way to encourage a healthy disdain for vandals amongst the other students at that school, who will find themselves pre-emptively blocked ("What the hell is wrong with Wikipedia?! Teacher!") for the rest of the school year, than pointing out the common inability of many vandalizers to spell even simple curse words.

Well ... of course there are "better" ways, but few so likely to evoke a didactic chuckle. To show I'm not a completely heartless comedian, I've added the shared-school-IP template to the talk and user pages for that IP address. --Dynaflow 20:59, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

I understand the pleasure in it but to we can't really do that even though we really want to.

Sorry...--St.daniel 12:03, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

New toy

Hello, Me. I just thought you/I might find this fun. I/You will just store it here, because I/you am/are too lazy to create a separate page as a Wikipedia toybox and, besides, I/you really enjoy talking about myself/you in the third person. --Dynaflow 21:55, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

http://tools.wikimedia.de/~interiot/cgi-bin/Tool1/wannabe_kate

Thanks

TY for the welcome -- Rivernever 12:23, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Color-box spacing

Thanks for the heads up. You might want to make that clear on the Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Universities#Color boxes because I still do not see where it says that. --Jerm 01:43, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Section headings on Talk:Virginia Tech massacre

Please stop changing the section headings on Talk:Virginia Tech massacre. Adding things in parentheses does not improve readability, and only makes things more confusing. It can also be seen as disruption. --Coredesat 02:58, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

It would probably be better to either leave the headings alone and merge any duplicate postings into existing sections, or direct any editors posting duplicate sections to ongoing discussions (removing the duplicate ones). --Coredesat 03:03, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, you don't have to merge the sections that are already there. For example, if someone posts a new section about historical context, merge it into the most recent section on that subject. Some of the sections might need archiving, given that they are more in line with a Wikinews article, and not a Wikipedia one. --Coredesat 03:16, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Non-displaying messages

I noticed you took out my English-language non-displaying message from the VT massacre clusterfuck/article. I've been having to clean up a lot of British English, and things keep getting reverted from "canceled" to "cancelled," etc. How would you suggest putting in a reminder of WP's dialect conventions? This article is attracting many, many inexperienced editors who 1) apparently aren't aware that grammar and diction change when you cross the Pond, and 2) are really into copy-editing. --Dynaflow 19:43, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

I didn't mean to erase that--I was just trying to fix the references. Unfortunately, so many edits were happening at once that by the time my edit went through it must have overridden yours. I also understand your irritation with the article. People are continually messing up the references in it by deleting parts of the reference code. BEst, --Alabamaboy 19:50, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

BTW, now that the article is semi-protected, try fixing the language issues and inserting a notice about the dialect issues.--Alabamaboy 19:51, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Alrighty. It's back up, and I'll embark on an American English crusade once I get back from lunch. --Dynaflow 19:57, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

On second thought, copy editing a document whose beginning will have changed by the time you get to the end of it seems to be a futile task. I'll wait a few days and start editing for style after the edit rate starts to drop off a bit. --Dynaflow 20:32, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Wise move. --Alabamaboy 20:32, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

hi

I dont get it —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 201.230.6.61 (talk • contribs) 20:07, 17 April 2007.

Do you not understand why I warned you for leaving the "I love this Tech! -Seung-hui Cho" message on the VT massacre discussion page, or why doing things like vandalizing the userpage memorial ribbon template with "gay shit" aren't considered all that funny? --Dynaflow 03:14, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

yes, it was 3RR, but....

I see no consensus on the talk page for the change you want, and I for one disagree with you. So please don't go forward as though there is a consensus yet. I've replied on the talk page. — coelacan — 05:55, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Consider your problem solved!

"ABC News renders his name in the Western order as Seung-hui Cho [5], while all other English-language outlets use Cho Seung-hui. [6] [7] [8]"

I inserted this to explain the naming issue to readers.

Face it - Everybody except ABC News uses Cho Seung-hui. WhisperToMe 06:01, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

"Hui" is not Cho's middle name. Hui is a part of his given name, Seung-hui. WhisperToMe 04:34, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Revamped Infobox for Colleges and Universities

[imported in part from lwalt's Talk page]:

I've had the day off and have been watching this all day, and I've seen just about everyone I've ever interacted with on a college article make some sort of edit or another to Virginia Tech or the massacre page. It's been just an orgy of vandalism and other assorted bullshit here too. Oh, take a look at UCSC's infobox that I revamped. Do you think it would be appropriate to redo AAU's infobox template in a similar manner, or is it too much? You can also take a look at VA Tech's infobox. I redid that one too, but less thoroughly. --Dynaflow 09:33, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Like what you've done for the university infobox. For the Academy of Art University, your version at least adds "art" to the article. Did you also do the artwork for the list of presidents? I saw the revamped infobox along with the parade of university presidents at two schools, and these additions really grab the reader's attention...at least from my view. lwalt 09:43, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

I did the Chancellors timeline for UCSC (it's about half way down the page) by reverse-engineering and improving upon the hard-coding I found when I went to make some quick improvements to VT's page. It was a total pain in the ass to figure out how some of that coding worked; my experience with that type of Wikicode was nil as of this morning.

Oh, speaking of pains in the ass, I had a run-in with a "James Dylan" of my own earlier. Perhaps you can weigh in and mediate before the discussion drifts off into dickery and vindictive rage. The link is here. Total clusterfuck, all the way. --Dynaflow 09:51, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

your own 3RR

My internet connection dropped last night right after I replied to you, before I could look into your own reverts. Now that I can check, I find that even while you were warning another user for 3RR, you were violating it yourself and escalating the revert war. Your version reverted to, first revert, second revert, third revert, fourth revert (now violating 3RR), and fifth revert. Edit warring is disruptive, and 3RR applies even if you're "right". So I hope you don't take this personally, because I have to block you for 24 hours, and have just done so. If you believe this block is unjustified, you may contest the block by adding the text {{unblock|your reason here}} below. — coelacan — 15:59, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

[e-mailed] While I don't take the block personally, I don't think it was quite a "fair" block, even if it was legal.

I had been watching the VT-related pages all day for vandalism and had been reverting large numbers of malicious edits. Trolls seem to be attracted by tragedy, and I, along with several other editors, took it upon myself to keep what was happening at those pages civil and structured. I sent out many warnings to vandals myself. After several hours of doing that on what, by all means, was an extraordinarily chaotic day in that section of the Wikipedia universe, a user constantly changing back a good-faith, summarized edit -- without summarizing why he or she was changing it back and not responding to repeated requests for clarification in my subsequent reversions' edit summaries, on the Talk page, and on his or her own discussion page (which already had other vandalism warnings and allegations of sock puppetry), looks a lot like a vandalizing troll.

All my reversions were made in good faith, and I believed that they were in the clear in regards to the 3RR policy because the majority of the reversions seemed to be dealing with vandalism (please see here for a full accounting of what I was up to yesterday). Once I knew that I was dealing with a consensus issue and not (necessarily only) a vandal, I immediately stopped all further reversions, took the issue back to the talk page, and took it upon myself to hunt down every user in both the VT massacre talk page and its archives and Seung-hui Cho/Cho Seung-hui's own talk page and archives who had expressed an opinion on either side of the issue in contention to ask them to weigh in at the straw poll.

I am involved in several other projects unrelated to the VT massacre and had intended to use my day off to make contributions to them (specifically in regards to my role in template design and revamping for Wikiproject Universities -- my cleanup of VT's Infobox was what sucked me into this morass in the first place) -- and if it would be okay with you, I would like to contribute to those other projects and informally agree with you not to participate in discussion or page-editing at Virginia Tech massacre and Cho Seung-hui until my block would have expired tomorrow morning. Otherwise, this would be a waste of a perfectly good rainy day with nothing better to do.

Let me know if this is an agreeable compromise for you. Thanks. --Dynaflow

I got your email. I have a couple of questions. Why did you place this comment in the article? I looked at the talk page at that moment and I see plenty of discussion and opinions from both sides but no consensus. Am I missing something? Also, which part of WP:3RR#Exceptions do you believe allowed for your reversions? It wouldn't be "simple and obvious vandalism" since the other user wasn't changing the name to "Cock Song Ho" or whatever. You can reply here, I will watch this page. — coelacan — 23:40, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Hmm? If you're asking for someone else to review your block, that's fine, but I am considering it right now which is why I just asked those questions, above. — coelacan — 23:49, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Sorry about putting up the big, purple template. I thought you might be asleep or out or something, and I must have been in the process of copy-editing it when you posted your above response. The first comment was one I made based on the naming conversation under the Talk-page topic heading regarding Cho's name which I had initially seen and participated in (I can't remember whether it was on the VT massacre page or Cho's page, but I can find it if you'd like me to). It was only after I realized people other than the person making apparently malicious edits were also in favor of the re-reversions I was re-reverting that I started to wade through the huge number of topic headings, many duplicated, and realized that the issue was not (and is apparently still not) settled. I tried to engage in dispute resolution with the editor I perceived to be making malicious edits, but got no response whatsoever other than more summaryless reversions on his or her part. Then I went to you for administrative help, as the guidelines say I should, and I got this.

I'm not saying that I didn't break the 3RR rule by the letter, but I did so with no mens rea -- I was acting as a Good Samaritan in good faith, believing that the (also currently blocked) constant reverter was simply trying to disrupt the editorial process on that page in the same way so many other vandals were, there and then. Once I knew I was making a mistake, I stopped and immediately took steps to fix the problem. I attempted to act constructively at all times, and in large part succeeded. Now all I ask is to be allowed to work on my other projects so that the day I was willing to dedicate to improving Wikipedia will not be completely wasted. --Dynaflow 00:07, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Okay, but most 3RR violations are made in good faith, and we block anyway. The rule cares not for the intent of the user, but for the effect upon others. (Peruse WP:AN3 sometime and you'll see what I mean). This was essentially a content dispute with an editor who was simply not as communicative as they should have been, but a content dispute nevertheless. Last question: do you agree that your own reversions contributed to disruption of the page? — coelacan — 00:18, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Not in terms of net effect. Of all my reversions on the three major VT-related pages since the chaos related to them started, I have restored blankings, reverted out ridiculously NPOV statements, reverted faulty copy-editing, and reverted seemingly every form of vandalism under the sun many, many times; more than I can remember. That two of those reversions took me unknowingly into 3RR territory -- yet at the same time led to the centralizing of the discussion on a contentious subject, bringing it closer to resolution -- should not justify throwing away time I was willing to donate to making Wikipedia better today. It is unnecessarily punitive because it punishes someone who attempted to adhere to the rules, it wastes my time and yours, and makes Wikipedia poorer by way of the contributions both you and I could be making right now were we not engaged in legal wrangling. Perhaps I could plead guilty in return for a pardon (with the caveat that I won't go near anything having to do with Virginia Tech until tomorrow) and we could get on with our respective Wikipedian contributions. If this is acceptable, I will agree. --Dynaflow 00:41, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

I will unblock you, although this is controversial and I would not reverse the same block if another admin had made it and you were responding the same way. I understand that you think your efforts were those of a "good samaritan", but revert warring is disruptive to other users around you, and I'm hesitant to do this because you don't seem to understand this. I urge you to read Wikipedia:Revert only when necessary, Wikipedia:Edit war, and especially Wikipedia:There is no deadline. You didn't need to have it your way immediately, you could have waited for other editors who agreed with you to do the same kind of reversions you were doing. Then the other editor would have ended up blocked and you would not. If no one else showed up to do the same kind of reversions, then you would hopefully take that as a sign that there isn't as much support for it as you think. Since I am unblocking you, please stay away from Virginia Tech articles until at least 15:58, 19 April 2007 (UTC) when your block would have worn off. As WP:3RR demands that "in the cases where multiple editors violate the rule, administrators should treat all sides equally", I will also unblock User:Che829. Please note that the kind of reversions you made are not viewed as reversions of "obvious vandalism", and the same or similar will result in 3RR blocks in the future, by almost any admin's reading of the situation. Thank you for your other contributions. You're still a good editor in my vies. — coelacan — 01:01, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, and sorry for the trouble. --Dynaflow 01:05, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Did that work? — coelacan — 01:35, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes, thanks. --Dynaflow 01:38, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

UC Davis Template

[imported from Vince's Talk page] Hi, I see you've retrofitted my template design (originally for UCSC) for Davis. I'm quite flattered. However, there's one thing I have to warn you about. The UCs' official seals are copyrighted by the Regents, and it is only compliant with Wikipedia's fair use policies to use the seals in the main, "mother" articles fo each of the UCs. The image slot on my design initially held UCSC's "Fiat Slug" unofficial logo (which I love) -- until I got this same warning that I'm now passing on to you.

If you would like any help in making this template Davis-specific (e.g., changing the blue-and-gold coloring from Santa Cruz's official shades to Davis's, etc.), just drop me a line on my user page. --Dynaflow 11:53, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Dynaflow- Thanks for the warning, I'll take an image of campus and use that instead. I really like your design for the UCSC template, I'm glad you're not upset I used it! I found later that there is a UC Davis template, but it's less attractive that the one I made based on yours, so I'm trying to contact the original's creator. Thanks again! --Vince ^|Talk| 19:38, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your contributions to the UCD template... I tried editing it but I kept making it look worse. Thanks a ton! --Vince ^|Talk| 01:11, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

No problem, and thanks for doing the ititial legwork in porting the navbox to Davis. You spurred me to get off my ass and redo all the other UCs' navboxes other than Berkeley and UCLA's, which were the only ones that were in decent shape when I started on my UC navbox crusade. There is now an entire series: User:Dynaflow/Crap-I-Made. --Dynaflow 01:16, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

No, go ahead and delete it. Actually should we just copy the new one to that page and keep both? A few other templates use the full university name instead of the UC abbreviation. Just a thought. --Vince ^|Talk| 17:38, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

UC Davis Fire Department

I'll drop by some time in the next week and grab a photo of the outside of the fire department. Will that work, or does the fire department template typically only allow logos? --Vince ^|Talk| 23:07, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

It's just the custom for that type of infobox. If you could get a photo that frames the logo on the side of one of their trucks, or maybe ask them to let you photograph a patch or something, that would work too. --Dynaflow 23:15, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Till either a respectable America paper or one on par with the BBC..

...makes the same claim we shouldn't cat. him. Mayorcheese 02:24, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

AAU logo

Unfortunately, I don't know where on the AAU site to find a better .jpg clip of its stylized logo. The banner in the infobox for the AAU article was apparently clipped by another editor some time ago from the page header at the AAU site. I'm not aware of a corporate site maintained by AAU to get a better image clip for the logo. lwalt 06:22, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Welcome

Hi, Dynaflow, and welcome to WikiProject San Francisco Bay Area! We are a growing community of Wikipedia editors dedicated to identifying, categorizing, and improving articles relevant to the Bay Area. Here are some points that may be helpful: Our main aim is to help improve Bay Area-related articles, so if people ask for help with an article, please try your hardest to help them if you are able. Most important discussions take place on the project's main discussion page. It is highly recommended that you watchlist it. The project has several ongoing and developing activities, such as article quality assessment, which you are welcome to participate. Our system for improving lower-quality articles is Jumpaclass. If you'll be editing stub, start, or B-class articles, consider using Jumpaclass to track your progress. If you have another language besides English, please consider adding yourself to our translation section, to help us improve our foreign Bay Area topics. If you have any questions, feel free to ask on the talk page, and we will be happy to help you. Again, welcome! We hope you enjoy working on this project.

Peter G Werner 20:50, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Cho's e-mail and eBay info

I feel that, due to the media reports and the fact that Cho is dead, Cho's account details are no longer personal. WhisperToMe 22:47, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

But are they useful and germane to an encyclopedia. We're not conducting a police or news-media investigation; we're putting together an encyclopedia. --Dynaflow 22:49, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Of the three ID's, we must include the Hotmail and eBay ID since Cho purchased weapons using them. You may drop the school e-mail address. WhisperToMe 23:47, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

What possible benefit does listing a dead mass murderer's e-mail address on Wikipedia give us? Is this in case some Wikipedian just needs to look up information that allows him or her to e-mail Seung-Hui Cho beyond the grave? C'mon, it's useless for the article; totally useless. --Dynaflow 02:25, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

User talk: Technion

Sorry, I just noticed your comment on my talk page (I’m kind of new to Wikipedia). I’m always reluctant to do a page move by myself, but Virginia Tech’s legal name was Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, and a fact was a fact. What convinced me in the end to go ahead and undo that guy’s move (even if it risked stepping on some editors’ toes) was your careful comments on Virginia Tech’s talk page.

Also, I’m sorry to keep undoing your template substitution citing the main Virginia Tech massacre article; it’s just that the big blurb about SEE MAIN ARTICLE: VIRGINIA TECH MASSACRE somehow comes across as too sensational, set off like that, drawing unnecessary attention, too CNN-like. To me, a simple q.v., as you would see in printed encyclopedias, seemed more appropriate. Please don’t take it personally. Anyway, thanks for taking the time to write me a note. —Technion 03:41, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Re your response on my talk page, you’ve done a good job convincing me of your argument. I’ll definitely defer to your judgment. Feel free to be bold and restore your original template, or undo any edits I may have/may ever make. You’re the man. —Technion 03:56, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Cho's nationality

Dynaflow,

Why did you revert my deletion of the links on Cho's page (Korean American, American killers)? As is now well known, Cho was a South Korean, not an American (he only held permanent residence status). Logically, if you're not an American, you can't be Korean American, nor can you be an American killer.

Penser 05:44, 23 April 2007 (UTC)penser

I reverted your edit for two reasons:

1. You seemed to be edit-warring with other editors over the issue (see WP:3RR). You seem to be the only one excising the categories in question, while several others are putting them back in. You should not be taking unilateral action on this.
2. I see now that you are trying to be consistent with the nationality business in this and other cases, but sometimes nationality is a fuzzy thing, and I think the other editors are correct to re-revert your reversions. For example, as a permanent US resident, Cho was a de jure US national (not citizen, but national) who would have to have registered with the Selective Service and would be eligible for conscription should the US find itself in heavy enough warfare to justify reinstating the draft. As a permanent resident, he could do just about anything a citizen could do but vote and get a high-level security clearance. He was, by all means, a "Korean American" by the deliberately-fuzzy definition Americans tend to go by, and since he killed a whole bunch of people in Virginia -- in America -- I don't see why the "American Criminals" category or whatever it was would even be disputed.

The persistent deletion of the categories also makes me somewhat suspicious of a possible political motivation that would breach WP:NPOV, but I'll try to assume good faith as well as I can. --Dynaflow 06:11, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Whether under some fuzzy definition of Korean American he could be included is at best highly controversial. Wikipedia's standard operating procedure is to look to credible outside sources for confirmation. As has been pointed out, Cho is not referred to as a "Korean American" in any major news reports, and the standard definition of a (FILL IN THE BLANK ETHNIC BACKGROUND) American is an American citizen of (FILL IN THE BLANK ETHNIC BACKGROUND) descent.

I would argue that continually adding categories that are not supported by mainstream news accounts or definitions is the sign of political motivation.Penser 06:47, 23 April 2007 (UTC)penser

Question: This is a very international encyclopedia, so I'm wondering if we might be arguing past each other with differing local definitions of how to label nationality. Are you in the US? --Dynaflow 06:52, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

I am an (US) American, though I am currently living in Hong Kong, and have lived in Japan in the past (despite this I would never be classified as an American Japanese  ;-) ). I understand that Wikipedia is international, but even if you look at articles from Canada, the UK, Australia etc., they don't describe him as an American. The discussions about how much he was influenced by spending most of youth in the US versus being from South Korea and raised by South Korean parents is an interesting discussion (perhaps), but when it comes to labeling for nationality, hard facts that are easily verifiable should be preferred.Penser 07:37, 23 April 2007 (UTC)penser

Clacket Lane

The band already has had a first album out - Destination. The second album; Man who fell from the moon is going to be released this Summer....IndieRobLB 06:43, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

See my entry on the band's Talk page. --Dynaflow 06:46, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm no connection to the band - the old talk page was deleted. I've just put this together myself. I spoke to another administrator on Wikipedia and the article had the "mark for deletion" tag removed. Clacket Lane has supported major UK bands and I think is notable because of this too.... IndieRobLB 06:49, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

What, precisely, did the admin say? --Dynaflow 06:53, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

This is my first ever article for wikipedia - it probably shows too. I thought I had deleted it, and after speaking with the contact - they agreed that CLacket Lane were not "just another garage band" that Wikipedia seems to get filled with. The drummer has supported for the undertones. The band has a single out. They have also had an album commercially released and they are due a second album this year. I can't exactly remember what was said - but the article was not re-marked for deletion.IndieRobLB 06:57, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

The thing is, that doesn't necessarily confer notability, as per WP:N, the main notability standard. Read through some AfD entries and you'll see what kind of standards are kept, in practice, for notability-based deletions. These are some of the ones I've been involved with today:

• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Max Karson (my vote, delete)
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Michael Sneed (my vote, strong merge)
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sun-Kyung Cho (my vote, delete)
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Blondi (my -- semi-facetious -- vote, weak keep)

I would support putting the article through an AfD process, rather than speedydelete, if I could be convinced this band is notable at all. --Dynaflow 07:04, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Sup.

A little late on the ball, no? Days after the change was made you followed up with backseat Wikipolicing of my, granted, sour joke. Do you routinely run about frantically making sure to threaten everybody who has ever had a revision revoked? Get a life.

Oh, and restricting of my editing abilities? Oh, goodness me, what would I do without my precious trivial acerbic jokes on Wikipedia? My house of cards is surely on the brink of collapse! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.109.94.208 (talk • contribs)

I sent you a warning last week (check the date) for vandalizing the article Virginia Tech massacre by adding it to the video game category First Person Shooters (a change which I reverted). Neither I nor anyone else has (yet) blocked your editing privileges since November, when you were blocked twice in succession, including once for what one administrator memorably summed up as "vandalism, stupidity." --Dynaflow 16:49, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, I sincerely apologize for the overtly rude nature of my comment on your talk page then. I only received a notification of your warning a week after it had transpired and immediately assumed it to have been just posted. My mistake. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.109.94.208 (talk • contribs)

An intelligent and well-reasoned note from the peanut gallery on "Teh Banz"

OH NOEZ!!! NOT TEH BANZ!!! DO YOU KNOW WHO MANY MINUTES IT TAKES FOR ME TO GET A NEW IP???? LESS THEN I NEED TO CUM ALL OVER YO MOMMA'S FAT FACE!! HAR HAR HAR —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.119.10.232 (talk • contribs)

UCSC good article nom

Hi again, Dynaflow! Thanks for all the awesome work you've done on the UCSC article. Before you came along, I was more or less the only one keeping it in decent shape.

In the GA entry, I removed the "long" note. The GA process goes by article length as outlined in WP:SIZE, in which only "readable prose" is counted, without references, lists or tables. Because the 34K total size is so close to 32K, I went ahead and tested the page's size. All I had to do was remove the references, and the "long page" warning didn't even show up.

BTW: In response to the message I didn't reply to last week... it looks like someone had removed the English usage note on Virginia Tech massacre by the time I got your message! I hadn't even though of the message being on other VT-related pages, and had no plans to make any changes. szyslak (t, c) 08:27, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Come to think of it, I've been intending to put a new chunk of delicious informational goodness into the History section about the ups and downs of the school's reputation, specifically its transformations from the University of California's liberal-arts honors/magnet campus in the '60s and '70s, to oft-derided ass-end of the UC by the 1980s, to its current status as a niche specialized-research powerhouse. The problem has been that I'm going to need to spend a Saturday at McHenry Special Collections to put all the citations together in a way that makes it airtight against accusations of NPOVsmanship, and it may be a while before I get back down to Santa Cruz (I'm up doing "stuff" at the University of Oregon in Eugene temporarily, and a 600 mile drive to write a Wikipedia article seems a bit excessive). Do you think it would be best to wait on putting the new material in until after the GA review, or should I just say damn the torpedoes and drop it in? --Dynaflow 15:44, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

It sounds like a trip to McHenry would provide enough research opportunities for a feature-quality history section, plus a new History of the University of California, Santa Cruz article (c.f. History of the University of California, Riverside). I had plans to do the same thing back in September 2005, just before I moved out of Santa Cruz (I'd graduated that June). But the transit strike made it hard to get on and off campus, so I decided against it. I now live in Ventura, about 300 miles away, and I hope to visit SC within the next couple months or so. But even if I do, who knows if I'll have time to go to McHenry for Wikipedia work; I'll be visiting friends I haven't seen in years.

Either way, I don't think the article will fail GA if you don't do the work on the history section. If it were up for FA status, however, that would be a different story. Someone would have to do significant work on the history section before we reach that point. szyslak (t, c) 17:45, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Academy of Art University article

I noted with interest a comment about "doctorate" (as in Ph.D or Ed.D) that I saw in your edit summary for AAU. During my initial research some time ago, I did not find a doctorate degree that was awarded (earned) for Elisa Stephens, but did find that she has a law (Juris Doctor) degree. She was once the General Counsel of AAU before becoming head of the school.

Because I could not reconcile why Stephens customarily used the title "Dr." before her name (virtually every reference to her name includes the title "Dr."), I looked up the practice at the ABA (American Bar Association) site to find an opinion on this use. According to an article that appeared in the Ethics section of the ABA Journal, lawyers can use the Dr. title, and that's why Elisa Stephens uses this title as the head of a college ("the ethics committee reversed course in light of the newly adopted ABA Model Code of Professional Responsibility. Disciplinary Rule 2-102 permitted a J.D. or LL.M. (master of law) recipient to use doctor with his or her name, the committee concluded in ABA Informal Opinion 1152 (1970).") . Here's the reference to the article:

Maher, K. (2006, November). Lawyers are doctors, too. ABA Journal. Retrieved on April 27, 2007. lwalt 19:07, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

I was trying to keep it consistent with other schools. It is de rigeur for a university president to hold a doctorate, and tacking the formal title onto the name of the head of a university in that school's infobox seems redundant and somewhat gauche. Almost none of the major universities' infoboxes list their chief executives' credentials, and I think the AAU article should follow suit on that. I'll leave it to your call, though. --Dynaflow 19:16, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

The way you have the name now is fine by me. lwalt 19:23, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Exhaustive lists of surviving victims and their injuries are encyclopedic

Exhaustive lists of surviving victims and their injuries may also be straying into areas of questionable taste and utility. --Dynaflow 22:22, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Questionable taste? You mean Columbine_High_School_massacre? That article has lists of injuries. So, then, why can't V-Tech? By the way, the claims of original research are false; I have provided extensive press sources from various newspapers. WhisperToMe 01:02, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Someone else made the call on original research, not me. The Columbine list also strains the rubrics of good taste and encyclopedic merit. See the talk page for a more-complete response. I will have that page on my watchlist. --Dynaflow 01:30, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

You mean this: WP:NOT#Wikipedia_is_not_censored

If the bullet hits were not relevant - if what I posted there was posted to an article about sunflowers and kittens, you would have every right to remove it. For instance, Wikipedia:Content disclaimer has "Wikipedia may contain triggers for people with post-traumatic stress disorder."—Preceding unsigned comment added by WhisperToMe (talk • contribs)

Note that the disclaimer does not say "Wikipedians will try to trigger your post-traumatic stress disorder whenever possible." Anyway, that's not my objection (and note that it's not a "true" objection because I haven't suggested the article be taken to AfD). All I'm saying is that the "annotated list" is tasteless and useless, on top of being voyeuristic and exploitationist, and it doesn't merit the time and effort that's being poured into it. --Dynaflow 02:52, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

I will continue this conversation on the Talk page where it started

University of California, Los Angeles

I apologize if I caused any consternation over my removal of the <br> break, which you reverted. In my Firefox browser, the article looks and operates exactly the same with our without it. I removed it because I believed it was unnecessary and that extraneous html codes can eventually lead to formatting problems. As a learning experience for me, would you please explain why the break really is needed. In particular, what happens when it is not there? Thanks. Truthanado 06:27, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

My general rule of thumb is that, if someone is putting in HTML code, and the code isn't redirecting me to weird porn sites or making my computer explode, the person who put it in probably knows what he or she is doing and has benign intentions. In such cases, I just leave well enough alone unless what they've done is obviously stupid and/or breaks whatever aspect of the page they seem to have been trying to fix.

For some reason, the lower edge of the UCLA navbox and the upper edge of the UC navbox occur at the same place if there isn't a break in between them, at least in my browser (Opera -- the bestest browser in the whole, wide world, yessiree). The end result is that it looks like there's some sort of huge, Leviathan-like UC box dominating the bottom of the page, which is contrary to my aesthetic intentions. I'm not sure why this happens. It's probably due to some sort of clumsiness in my template coding (both navboxes are my creations), but a quick, HTML-based fix on the page where the boxes are transcluded is better than nothing, keeping the things from conjoining with each other while I figure out what's wrong with their inner workings. I just (re)made the UCLA box the day before yesterday, and so it still has some kinks that need to be worked out. --Dynaflow 08:25, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

UC Berkeley Template

Just wanted to say thanks for using my photograph on the Berkeley template, it does look pretty good there! Thanks also for your other work there, the temp. looks very good now, along with the other UC system template you also improved. Nice work! trisweb (Talk) 17:57, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

IPvandal

Isn't it typical for the person who spots and reverts the vandalism to issue the warning? The warning I left was for the first revert, and I assumed that your warning was for my second revert. At this point, I have him cued up in AIV waiting to his "Save Page". HokieRNB 18:11, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Oh, now I see, there was an edit conflict and you were actually leaving your warning while I was leaving mine, so yours has an earlier timestamp. My bad. HokieRNB 18:13, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Technically, my warning was for his or her edits to Saint Louis University, and I was going to squash the dumb bastard the moment s/he made another edit to the VT article. If you're on it, though, it's all good. Thanks for your diligence. --Dynaflow 18:15, 30 April 2007 (UTC)