User talk:Doug Bell

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If you leave a comment on this page, I will respond on this page. I may also respond on your talk page, but in general, I will only respond here.

Howdy

As far as Ward Churchill goes..I think the guys a crack pot. I really think he has repeatedly made false and or insulting comments, but I also think the press has, for the most part, brought these controversial comments to the forefront. I'm sure most of us peons would have never heard of him if it werem't for (especially) his comments about 9/11 and the Little Eichmanns, etc. Regardless, I have zero vested interest in the article but will gladly do all I can to help you and Lulu work out the situation. We have to be careful top not let the notority of some of his comments become the focal point of the bio on the man...this will be no easy task.--MONGO 02:30, 28 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the comments, I completely agree. I suspect that we will be able to work it out, but I appreciate the offer of support if needed. The comment I left for you was basically defensive in that in my previous exchanges with Lulu, he has a rather unpleasant tendency to immediately start assuming bad faith and then follow that up with "campaigning" against people. Not that I think that has happened yet in this case, but based on my previous experience with him I just want to head off his usual politicing of other users before it does become an issue.

My concern with the latest changes to the Churchill article is that they have taken a step back from what seemed to be a good balance between discussing the various controversies on the main bio page, but not overwhelming the bio page with all the detail surrounding the controversies. While certainly not perfect, the page was a reasonable NPOV balance. I recently helped broker a similar improvement to the Kobe Bryant page. I don't know a lot about Bryant, and as with Churchill, don't have much vested interest in the subject other than trying to see that the article is balanced. The Bryant and Churchill pages are actually similar in several respects:

they each have a small core of dedicated apologists, who while they have a "pro" POV, can be reasoned with
each page also has its fair share of drive-by vandals, which seems to make the "pro" people watching over the article a little trigger happy when responding to any non-pro edits
each subject has been involved in some negative controversies that, while never reaching the point of proof of a final legal proceeding, certainly are credible

These factors seem to require careful mediation to make progress because you have to get the parties to realize that it is a good faith effort to improve the article and convince them to step back a bit from the control they are exerting over the article. I suppose it is a weakness of mine, but it just really irks me to have to deal with these POV-laden responses to any attempt to make changes to the articles, but I try. Lulu in particular has been able to get under my skin because he is often inappropriately condescending in his responses, tends to assume bad faith, and peppers his comments with, often inaccurate, WP:THIS and WP:THAT. I think you can see at least a hint of that in the comment he left on your talk page. Anyway, I'm taking it as a challenge of my mediation skills to wade in and try to improve the article. – Doug Bell ^{talk•contrib} 04:02, 28 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As I posted in the discussion page for Ward Churchill, have a look at the George W Bush article in the section titled "Sustance abuse controversy [1]. I worked hard to ensure that only absolute facts were presented there and the innuendo and rhetoric that was based on a lot of POV and opinions was put in a sub article that can be linked. I am on the fence between you and Lulu's version...but I prefer to keep as much controversial stuff out of the mainpages of Wiki bio articles and relegating such information to subarticles. I am not supporting a whitewashing but trying to find a way to both be informative and concise, but most of all, accurate. Let me know if there is anything I can do.--MONGO 11:41, 28 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Template:If defined (and others)

You recently voted "keep" in this deletion debate. Your vote, along with two others (my own included) were discounted on what I believe to be frivilous grounds. There is currently a deletion review ongoing that I would very much appreciate your input on. You can read (and comment) on the review here. Thanks! —Locke Cole • t • c 04:38, 28 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

unthreading?

Just curious... why do you unthread discussion on the Churchill talk page. It makes it more difficult to follow the discussion. I won't change what you just did, of course; but obviously in the future any comments I make (on any talk page), will follow Wikipedia's usual convention of using indentation and interspersing to indicate threads. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 21:28, 1 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I assume you mean "why did you unthread the discussion"...

By creating multiple threads within a fairly concise comment that was expressing a complete thought, you make the original comment hard to read. As people respond to the responses, it becomes nearly impossible to see what the original comment was, and certainly, it becomes difficult to respond to the comment as a whole because any attempt to do so will necessarily appear to be responding to the original comment plus all the response threads. So I did it to make it EASIER to follow the discussion, and so as not to have my original comment lost in a sea of threads.

As to Wikipedia's usual convention, I have seen both approaches used. As to changing what you did, you have refactored my comments on several occasions, including the present subsection you created from my original comment, so I don't understand your objection to my refactoring to make the discussion easier to follow. – Doug Bell ^{talk•contrib} 21:48, 1 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I find it easy to identify which comment is which if indentation level if preserved. Oh well, YMMV. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 21:55, 1 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Indentation level was preserved; I simply consolidated your short thread responses into a single comment to my comment. One of your threaded comments (re: Wikipedia:Summary style) was not even correctly placed as it applies to both the points I was recommending, yet was listed after only the first point.

Overall, I find your style of replying makes it hard to follow the discussion, especially after a couple rounds of responses. This is not how threaded discussions work on message boards nor in email, and for the most part I rather prefer to preserve the original comments and sequence of responses instead of mixing it all together. By breaking up people's comments into threads:

the original comment becomes obscured,
the sequence of comments and responses becomes obscured,
the signature of the original poster gets separated from the individual thread,
future responses to the original comment by other users are basically limited to responding to the individual threads created by the response instead of responding to the original comment as a whole.

So this may not be the last time I "unthread" your replies to one of my comments. – Doug Bell ^{talk•contrib} 22:17, 1 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

OK on the threading thing. I can see a certain logic in what you find more intuitive, even though I differ. And indeed I do try in talk pages to add subsections when threads become too far indented. Generally that refactoring lets one remove a bunch of indentation levels when what is effectively a new subthread is launched at a deep level. And also, your unthreading was quite meticulous in adding a word or two to establish context, which is exemplary.

I suppose I'm a bit too attached to a precision of formatting that matches my sense of order. When I look at source code, it usually drives me crazy when indentation and spacing is not done "right"... even when it is done consistently according to someone else's idea of "right". At times I cultivate my OCD tendencies, but at other times I need to try to check them. The great see-saw of life :-). Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 03:30, 2 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Page Break

Sorry Doug...I was just adding a page break to keep that huge discussion section from becoming unmanageable...you can of course delete it, move or or retitle it as you wish.--MONGO 04:23, 2 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No problem. I refactored it a bit so that it doesn't look like an independent section. Note that my signature from my original post (the one with the bullet points) is now separated from most of the content of the post. – Doug Bell ^{talk•contrib} 04:39, 2 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Karmafist's RfA

Right up there with 72/75/23 = 170! ;-) hydnjo talk 05:06, 2 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, it ended up that Karmafist missed a tie with BDA by only 2 votes (new list) NoSeptember ^talk 19:30, 6 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

My RfA

My request for adminship ended with a tally of 39/5/4, and I am now an admin. I hope that I can earn your trust with my future actions. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 05:16, 3 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Lulu

I'll post this here to keep it off the article page because it involves something aside from article content. I agree that Lulu has strong emotions and I will confess that he and I were almost at each others throats about 6 months ago over content in Wikipedia:WikiProject Wikipedians for encyclopedic merit and a look at the discussion page and the archives (if you're bored) will show just how hostile we were with each other. (I would have to say, that it was mostly me being bad...I think Lulu was just provoked by me) Politically, I am a conservative on many issues but not all, and needless to say, Lulu is not conservative on many issues, but I was surprised to find he actually has a few conservative notions. We kind of departed mad from that project but a few months ago eventually came together and I now consider him my friend. I asked him, due to his high educational level to join in on an article that I had started (Glacier retreat) mainly just looking for feedback, but he has contributed enormously there and the article is much better for it. Lulu may be somewhat protective of Churchill's image...but I can't blame him for being so. We have had some serious concerns about bio articles in Wikipedia being filled with absolute nonsense...and this has threatened us with potential lawsuits or at the very least, bad PR. I am not sure how to tell you, but I guess the best thing to do is recognize that the written word can appear really hostile, much more so than it really is intended. My guess is Lulu will see this note (sneaky:) and also chill out. Not sure if this puts anything in perspective, but the best thing to remember is the argument is about content, not each other. (I have to remind myself that every time I log in).--MONGO 09:19, 3 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

but the best thing to remember is the argument is about content, not each other – this is exactly what I have been trying so hard to do and would dearly like to do. If you see something in the exchanges between Lulu and I where I failed in my attempt, please tell me. That comment cuts both ways, and I really feel that Lulu has been the one that has made it personal. – Doug Bell ^{talk•contrib} 09:27, 3 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Doug, I'll mention it to him. He has strong viewpoints and that translates into arguments at times...I know I'm hardly one to talk as I spent my first 4 months here arguing about one specific area of the George W Bush article...substance abuse.--MONGO 10:02, 3 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sneaky me

Or maybe MONGO was calling himself sneaky, since he also put a helpful rejoinder to chill out on my talk page (which you might even have seen too :-)).

Anyway, neither of us is going to be convinced by forensic examination of who is "truly at fault" for our past page conflicts. But I'd like to try to make a peace offering. Both to assure you that what I have at heart is the page quality of an article I latched onto for whatever reason, and to promise you I will try my very best to assume good faith of you, going forward. I know that, at heart, you likewise want to make Wikipedia a better resource. For better or worse, my latching onto Churchill's article is as close to accidental as anything can be; and while I feel protective, it's really exactly the same way I feel about, e.g. the Glacier retreat article MONGO mentions. I'm not anything remotely close to a glaciologist or climatologist, but once I edited a little, I felt increasing investment in making it as good as possible, even a protective sentiment. That's not necessarily good ego, but it's how things go with me (and, I believe, with many editors). Of course, the nature of cooperation and conflict (such as it is), is much different on those scientific, and less politicized topics; but the emotional investment is the same.

I have no idea what moral to draw from this, but I also watched and edited the Bob Dylan article for a while. But ultimately I just took it off my watchlist and let it go. I found the attitudes of one particular editor there simply too rancorous to try to work on it any more. So in the end, I just let it go, and realized it didn't ultimately matter if an article on a popular songwriter is a little bit worse for my non-involvement. As far as "politicization" goes, the Dylan article was oddly worse than the Churchill one. It pops up in odd places. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 18:35, 3 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As a gesture of good faith

Though I think you went way overboard with the forensic bête noir thing, hopefully it's a done deal. I don't think I should have played along long enough to do the highlighting game, but c'est la vie. Hey... despite my two phrases, I've exhausted my knowledge of French :-).

It is a done deal. If you think I went overboard, just keep in mind that it was the repeated ad hominim attacks on your part that created the bête noire thing. The only way I know to deal with innuendo is to shine a glaring light on it, and I won't hesitate to do it again if needed. (Hopefully you won't find my edit comment for this post insulting, even though I do mention your user name.)

If you want to see some genuinely scandalous and vicious personal attacks, you might take a look at Pokey5945's comments at Ward Churchill#How things should be. Doesn't take much forensics to see how nasty it is. And maybe you'll start to get a sense of why I'm a bit defensive about the article. Or look not too much farther back at some even more disruptive and insulting editors than Pokey5945 (talk page archive, edit history, whatever... or massive vandalism of both the article and my user talk page by the same editors).

Yes, well being defensive doesn't mean you can't be civil.

Btw. Great work with the glacier articles; and I want to commend you again on the nice new ref template you created. I probably wouldn't have thought of doing that, though it doesn't look too hard once I look at the source code.

After you get your feet wet with templates, look at Template:Javadoc:SE that I created.

Here's a little favor I'd ask of you... maybe as a gesture of good faith on your part. How'd you like to cleanup the references on David Mertz to use the various {cite book}, {cite web}, {cite journal} templates? It was a nice exercise doing so for the Churchill article, and I think it looks a lot nicer for the effort. But I've gotten bitten before for editing the article on my, so think the better part of valor is not to do so myself. I confess a modest trepidation here, since clearly I don't want any anti-Mertz POV stuff added. But basically the information for the citation templates is already there... or at most it might require following a couple of the links for complete details on a cite.

I have no problem with that (and absolutely no interest in adding POV stuff to your article, although the temptation to poke fun will be hard to resist :-) I don't promise when I'll get to it, but it will probably be sooner rather than later. – Doug Bell ^{talk•contrib} 05:58, 6 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. It's totally non-urgent, but I just don't want to be the one doing it, for the obvious reasons. I'll poke around at the template you mention, and maybe get a feel for templates. I really haven't played with any WP internals of any sort... templates are the very simplest type of this, but I've been thinking of looking at the Python API tools to maybe write some sort of bots. I reckon you'd use Java instead, but it looks like lots of such APIs are available. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 06:07, 6 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe in return you can do whatever verification is needed to get that ugly template off the Doug Bell page. There isn't any claim there that should be difficult at all to verify as I only put the most basic, unadorned information on the page. – Doug Bell ^{talk•contrib} 06:12, 6 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

All the best, Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 05:36, 6 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Singapore public gay parties

Regarding your participation in the aforementioned AfD (which resulted in no consensus) I would appreciate your opinions in the following AfD discussions. Thank you for your time. -- Krash (Talk) 15:39, 4 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Churchill

Thanks for the greeting. I edited the Churchill page extensively last fall, after Lulu got Keetowah kicked off. I stepped in to counter Lulu's pro-Churchill bias which was taking over the article at that time. Keetowah was definitely anti-Churchill in POV, but no more than Lulu is pro-Churchill. The annoying thing to me is not so much that Lulu is pro-Churchill. I can deal with anyone with any viewpoint as long as they are honest debaters. What annoys me is Lulu's constant use of ad hominem, his refusal to negotiate in good faith, his refusal to provided substantiation when he is caught out making an error, and his disingenuous charges of POV when he himself is unabashedly pro-Churchill in many of his edits. The other thing that amazes me is that he is astonishingly ignorant about the topic. For example, Lulu doesn't know that Churchil habitually claims to be a member of the Keetowah tribe--even since they made it clear that he is not, Churchill still persists in this. That's only one of many factual errors by Lulu. I only edit articles on topics about which I have a lot of knowledge. How presumptuous it is to edit on a topic that one is not expert in. Still, I think the various Churchill articles are in a reasonably good place today, although the McCarthyism page is filled with nonsensical conspiracy theory, as loony as the treason charges against Churchill. But there seems now way to edit out all the nonsense as long as Lulu is determined to maintain the pro-Churchill journalistic tone instead of trying for a more intellectual and neutral article. I would really like to cut down all the proliferation, and I think that most of the McCarthy page should go.Pokey5945 07:50, 6 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

RfA/Christopherlin

Thanks for your support and comment on my recent RfA. I tend to agree that admins don't have to be horribly involved in policy, but also see that I am less experienced in some of the other namespaces. Anyway, thanks again! --Christopherlin 17:12, 6 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Glacier retreat article comments on FAC

Here's my view, and I don't mean this to be insulting. I think your disagreements with Lulu over Ward Churchill have carried over a bit in the Glacier retreat article. He is one of many editors there, and while you have definitely had some very useful comments, I honestly find a few of the items you have brought up to be somewhat nit picky. I may be entirely wrong. Now you have been extensively editing the article over the past few days, so why not just make the edits that you think it needs, rather than listing and relisting those areas you have trouble with on the FAC page...as an active participant now, why not be bold and just edit it? At this point, I am a lot less concerned about it ever being a featured article than I am about it being accurate, so if you see inaccuracies, change them...as an active editor to the page, why spend the time commenting when you can do it...I don't make a good secretary, and I don't agree with all the changes you describe. Lastly, it is a work in progress, and I don't have but so much time to devote to this one article. Many of the points you brought up have been addressed, and I worked on them last night, but not all, so as we have time, we can all edit the article a little each day.--MONGO 01:49, 7 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Just to chime in, since I happened across this. I do not have any impression that any of Doug's edits or comments to the glacier articles have anything to do with the conflicts he and I have had on the Churchill article. I assume that the fact MONGO and I have mentioned the articles as examples for some formal stuff like percentages of URLs is what first got Doug interested, but that's neither here nor there. That said, I think MONGO is kinda right about the little changes: a lot of the stuff you've mentioned, Doug, on the FAC or on Talk:Glacier retreat are probably easier just to fix than to analyze or complain about. I'm sure all of us have made typos, or worded something imperfectly, but we are all more than happy to have you just make those fixes. Obviously, broader organizational issues might need discussion, but only some of your comments are in the bucket.... of course, you also have made lots of those little fixes to the article, so this is no particular complaint by me. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 03:12, 7 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have to admit to being somewhat surprised by this post. I'm going to just assume this is an example of written communication being subject to misinterpretation.

First, let me be clear: my edits on Glacial retreat have been done in the sincerest interpretation of good faith. Let me go even further to tell you that part of my motivation for helping with the article was to return a favor in appreciation for your assistence mediating the disagreements I had with Lulu. There simply could not have been any purer attempt to edit in good faith—I am trying to help this article achieve featured article status. However, now I am just confused and wondering "why bother?"

If you look at my last round of edits to the article, you'll see that I fixed many issues. I spent quite a while editing it and writing those comments. However, as one who has not done any of the research, and one who does not know the history of the article or who the participants (other than you and Lulu) are, there are many changes I'm not comfortable making. These issues I recorded in the notes that I posted regarding the article. I actually recorded all of the notes in the Glacial retreat talk page, but before saving decided that because of several references to my previous comments, that I should add the comments to the FAC page instead. This, I can only assume, is what has led to your comment here. If somehow I have erred in my judgement, then I apologize, but if you think that this is some sort of bad faith on my part, then I can only shake my head in wonder.

As far as "rather than listing and relisting," in your comments about the refactoring you said that you had addressed all of the issues. So having only that as feedback, I had to assume the previous things I'd noted that were unaddressed in the article were either because you had missed them (what I thought likely given the scope of the refactoring) or because you didn't think they were issues (what I thought possible). I relisted them not knowing which it was. If they had been missed, then relisting them allowed them to be addressed; if they had been determined not an issue, then relisting would provide an opportunity to discuss them. Apparently you would have preferred me to handle this by just making the changes to the article, but see my comment above. Certainly if the decision not to include them had been a conscious decision, I did not want to get into any type of edit dispute and would rather have a discussion first.

As to being nit picky, ABSOLUTELY YES! I thought that's what becoming a featured article was all about—attention to detail and trying to make it an example of the best work possible. Excuse me for trying too hard. I'm really beginning to wonder if Wikipedia is worth all the grief.

– Doug Bell ^{talk•contrib} 03:03, 7 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Okay Doug...I just wanted clarification as you didn't show up until after you and Lulu had some entanglements...don't think for one minute that I have found your contributions to be anything other than excellent to the glacier retreat article. I'm a bold editor so I usually keep my discussions to points that fall below my boldness threshold...in other words, comments about sentence structure or minor wording are well below that threshold...hence the perhaps snide (unintentional) comment that I found things to be nit picky. By all means, if a sentence strucure or a reference is off, then change it...I can always revert you!!! Just joking of course.--MONGO 03:41, 7 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Just as a side note, and again, not to be rude, but I didn't address every one of your comments because I didn't agree with them...I did address a large number of your comments and made substantive changes and I thank you for that.--MONGO 03:45, 7 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Lastly, I'm sorry man. Don't wikibreak because of me...I'm well known as a jerk at times, so get a good night's sleep and I'll work on more of your points overnight...have a look tomorrow at them and let us know what you think. Later.--MONGO 04:07, 7 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There are some of your points that I have yet to address, but if you could take a look at the article now and let me know how it stands in your opinion, I'd appreciate it. I'll be carefully examining the details you and others have made on the comment pages to ensure each point is addressed and I will work on that tonight. Thanks again.--MONGO 04:58, 8 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I really don't know what more I can do to help the article. As I've pointed out, I've only participated in the role of reviewer and copy editor—I haven't made a single semantic edit to the article. I've picked all the nits I could identify...you may make whatever use of the comments I've left that you want. I'm sure the article is in fine hands and it's probably better at this point to leave it to people familiar with the subject matter and comfortable with being bold. I don't want to be a distraction by causing time that could be spent editing the article to be spent replying to comments, and I apologize if my past comments have created noise on the FAC page. I think I'll spend my time here attending to some other areas of interest where hopefully I can be more useful. – Doug Bell ^{talk•contrib} 16:51, 8 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not an expert by any means either. If you look at the comments you made, and compare them to adjustments made in the article, you'll see that virtually every one of your suggestions has been implemented. There may be a few I didn't either because I didn't know how to reword it or I simply removed the objectionable passage from the article space. The article needs to be understandbale to laypaople, not just those familiar with the subject matter. I was merely asking a question and in no way did I mean to insult or to actually suggest that your contributions had other motivations. Happy editing.--MONGO 22:26, 8 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hmmm. I'm not mad; I'm not insulted; I am somewhat deflated by your comments, but I understand that my reaction to them is probably not what you had intended. I'm glad if my comments have been useful, as that was the sole purpose in making them. I'm not sure I can reconcile your statements "I think your disagreements with Lulu over Ward Churchill have carried over a bit in the Glacier retreat article" and "in no way did I mean to...actually suggest that your contributions had other motivations," but that is really neither here nor there at this point. I'm not skulking away, it's mostly just that I really don't know what more I can do other than what I have been doing and how I have been doing it. I'll admit that there is a part of my walking away from the article caused by the enjoyment I was getting out of the collegial editing environment being sucked out of the process, but at this point, I would simply be doing more of the same—making grammar, punctuation and wording fixes, and generating comments on where I think the semantic content needs to be adjusted. However, since I'm assuming there haven't been that many new additions (I could be wrong here since I haven't looked at the article since your initial comment in this thread), there wouldn't be much new content for me to comment on, and thus it gets back to the fact that I really don't know what more I can do to help the article.

I appreciate your comments here asking me to look at the changes to the article—and perhaps here I'm guilty of assuming the wrong motivation—but given your previous comments here I figured it was more as a gesture to smooth over this issue than a real desire for more input from me. If I've gotten this wrong, I apologize. I do consider the issue smoothed over, although I'm still somewhat saddened by it. – Doug Bell ^{talk•contrib} 02:43, 9 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Just wanted for you to examine and see that the vast majority of your comments made to the FAC process have been addressed in the article itself. I don't think there is much more to say on the matter. I was talking to a collegue and he reminded me that face to face is the best form of communication and that the written word is probably the worst. With that said, and again, I recognize I was wrong to say it, but I just wanted to be clear about the comments...I simply didn't know...and if that makes me an idiot, then I can accept that. Thanks again.--MONGO 03:09, 9 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

To demonstrate that there are no hard feelings, I copy edited and reviewed the latest article~~, although with somewhat less enthusiasm~~. I left the comments on the talk page, hopefully this is acceptable. – Doug Bell ^{talk•contrib} 23:23, 9 March 2006 (UTC) (Strike previous statement that's not helpful to mending this. 02:34, 10 March 2006 (UTC))[reply]

Thanks

Actually, this user thinks it is quite ironic that thanks for supporting Cyde's successful RFA came in the form of a userbox, since this user opposed the RFA on the basis of Cyde's involvement in the userbox war.

This user thinks it is ironic that thanks for supporting Cyde's successful RFA came in the form of a userbox.

Here's a userbox for you. --Cyde Weys 04:51, 9 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Re: Redirect to subsection

No, and for the time being, it's not going to happen. However, there is an open feature request, and one feasible method has been proposed. Just a question of whether or not our release manager likes it enough. Rob Church (talk) 20:59, 10 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Image:SigmundFreud2.jpg

Please refrain from removing categories from images in the future without asking about this policy. We over in Wikipedia:WikiProject Neuroscience are rather meticulous (anal) about keeping track of all neuroscience-related materials, as images are often used repeatedly in new articles. Please read [[Meta:Help:Image_page#Categorizing_images]] for more information on Wikipedia policy on image categorization. Thanks. :) S e miconscious • talk 21:38, 10 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Uhh, well, it was the only image in most of those categories, so you may be being meticulous, but it doesn't appear as if you are being comprehensive—and I thought that was part of being anal. Why not create a category, or better yet, a list in the WikiProject for keeping track of these instead of including single images in categories? – Doug Bell ^{talk•contrib} 22:20, 10 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Drafts

I noticed that you tagged an article for deletion, saying "This draft should not be in the article space." I just wanted to let you know that drafts are welcome in the article space. You can read about it as one of the "allowed uses" at Wikipedia:Subpages. Thanks for working to make the Wikipedia better! -- Reinyday, 05:12, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

OK, thanks for pointing that out. However, the page should still be deleted for the other reason noted: it appears to be an old version of the current article. – Doug Bell ^{talk•contrib} 06:25, 13 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

cGML

Hi Doug. Per this earlier edit, I also reverted the suggestion to merge CGML into Geography Markup Language. I am not an expert on the topic, though, so feel free to explain your proposal on Talk:Geography Markup Language. I also reverted the strange self-referential merge proposal you added (where you suggested that Geography Markup Language merge with itself). FYI, you also changed section headers to a non-standard format. The standard seems to be not to surround the section headers with spaces. The Rod (☎ Smith) 21:48, 17 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The self-referential merge proposal was a cut-and-paste error. I intended for it to be a mergefrom GML Application Schemas, which is where the original mergeto proposal for Cgml was directed. The reason (which I will add to the talk pages) for the proposal is the stub nature of the Cgml and GML Application Schemas articles. As far as I can tell, both these articles would be better discussed within the context of the Geography Markup Language article.

As to the section headers, there is no standard (see Wikipedia:Manual of Style (headings)#Spaces), but if I wanted to argue that there was a preferred format, I would point out that the only way the Wiki software generates these is when you click on the "+" link in a talk page, in which case it includes the spaces. Also, the bots that fixed the "See Also" and "External Links" section headings (to change to "See also" and "External links") included the spaces. – Doug Bell ^{talk•contrib} 22:15, 17 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Dr Shorthair rejected the previous suggestion to merge Cgml into Geography Markup Language with the comment Remove reference to CGML - more relevant to GML App Schema - but more info needed, so perhaps discussion on a talk page is in order. Regardless, thanks for the section heading space update. I never noticed the automatic spaces from the talk "+" feature and had not previously seen Wikipedia:Manual of Style (headings)#Spaces. Now that I have, I will stop imitating the section heading space changes I have seen other editors make. Cheers! The Rod (☎ Smith) 23:43, 17 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Candice Forword

Hi Doug! I saw that you put Candice Forword on {{prod}}. International sportspeople do tend to have a lot of support as notable simply through international competition; however, this particular hockey player does seem to approach the bottom edges of that criterion. Therefore, I've put it on AfD, at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Candice Forword. Please do comment there. Happy editing! -- Jonel | Speak 05:36, 18 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

My RFA

Thanks Doug Bell

Thanks for your recent support on my RfA which passed 91/0/0. If you ever need anything, feel free to leave me a message! Gflores ^Talk 05:51, 19 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]