User talk:Tannin/030606

Archived at User_talk:Tannin/030301, User_talk:Tannin/030407, User_talk:Tannin/030430, User_talk:Tannin/030516



How do you get the IP & real address info etc you've put on vandal user pages lately? could we make a page to explain who this can be done & link it from the Vandalism in Progress page? -- Tarquin 16:16 17 May 2003 (UTC) (it certainly seems to put the wind up them...)



If you are soo keen on calling labor unions for unions, then who am I to question your judgement? -- Johan Magnus 23:08 17 May 2003 (UTC)



REAL COMPUTER??? I'll let you know I have a brilliant shiny white Mac!!! :-)) Actually they don't know what the problem is. But something is causing a problem and as it is under warrantee and I am away most of next week anyway at my sister's wedding I don't mind. (I'm more pre-occupied with dragging my hesitant brother along to pick up his morning suit. He is being so hesitant I am tempted to guy a top hat too so that he will have to wear one also. (The irony - here I am talking about morning suits while sitting here wearing bikers leathers!!!) lol FearÉÍREANN 04:38 18 May 2003 (UTC)

Hi, Tony. Just a simple question. Is it reasonable to put an MD-88 of Iberia pic in the Douglas DC-9 article? I don't have a DC-9 pic but I would like to illustrate the article. I need your opinion. Thanks, Adrian Pingstone 11:39 18 May 2003 (UTC)


I've taken offense at your reference to a paragraph I placed on anti-Psychiatry as "complete crap". I don't want to start an edit war or such nonsense over that. I knew it was non-encyclopedic when I placed it, and have chosen instead to remove the POV text which provoked my comments.

Thanks for the clarification of your remarks and the kind words for my editing of the anti-psychiatry page. Someone really butchered that paragraph of mine before someone else came along to remove it. I'm juggling so many Wiki-balls that I won't be indicting Nazi psychiatrists in the near future. Nuremburg indicted them plenty fine already. But I did put some citation on my user page. BobCMU76 03:30 19 May 2003 (UTC)

Hello Tannin: sorry to bother you, but maybe you could help me out. I am Andrew User:Vanderesch. I uploaded an image and got it to appear in my short article on Azadirachtin. I would like to have it of a smaller size and placed differently. You have any suggestions. Thanks

There's a 48 hour round trip on a large ferry from Portsmouth to Bilbao, Spain which I've done a couple of times which is good for cetaceans so I've seen a few species, and I'll add what I can.


This trip can be good for seabirds, but the summer trips are best for whales etc, while the autumn trips are best for birds. In practice our July trips produced hundreds of Cory's Shearwaters. and few other birds.


I hope you didn't feel you were being stalked when I was following you around the bears a couple of days ago! jimfbleak 15:50 19 May 2003 (UTC)


I've had a look around now. I won't do much now, since I've had a lomg day today, but I'll probably line up Beluga and Sperm Whale as first victims. jimfbleak


re: List of animal names Actually, troop wasn't "wrong", but neither is mob. See the note at the top of the page about different versions and check the web link on the talk page. --Dante Alighieri 00:33 20 May 2003 (UTC)


On second thoughts, I'll leave Sperm Whale, and do Fin Whale, which I've at least seen a few times. It may be a little while since I can't find my cetacean books. Might have leant them to a friend who's done the alternative Plymouth/Santander ferry run a couple of times. jimfbleak


BTW, I couldn't quite ID this slightly blurred image
 jimfbleak 12:48 20 May 2003 (UTC)


Hi tannin, it seems that lately the vandalism attacks on Wikipedia has become more and more frequent and annoying (OK, this is a nice project but it is impossible to babyseat the Recent changes all day). I have found an easy solution to make monitoring vandalism almost transparent:


  • Making a "white list" of users I trust, and the abillity to filter the recent changes page for articles that have last been last altered by trusted users. So, for example, if the article about Adolf Hitler has been last edited by a non-trusted user, it will show up. but if since then the article was edited by a "trusted user" -- that is a user who is in the white list (Most probably a revert, if it has been vandalised), it will not show up.


  • Adding and removing a user to the white list should be easy, and done with a click of a mouse in the "Recent Changes" page.


This is better than the feature of sorting the Recent Changes by users (you can know if changes have been reverted), that is currently on SourceForge feature requests. (since july 2002, as it seems) -- Rotem Dan 15:24 20 May 2003 (UTC)

Well, If you decided to add user X to your white list, it doesn't mean that another user did also so (and so the opposite). This could make a list of some 200 suspicious changes (with the filter), for example, for a span of a whole day, that will be very easy to monitor. I didn't mean that it would be a replacement for the full recent changes, just an addition to spot some sneaky vandals (IP changes as well) or all sorts of newbie tests. This is by no means a replacement for peer-review! using your judgement is always useful-- Rotem Dan 15:43 20 May 2003 (UTC)


Some notes:

  • This is exactly the method successfully used for filtering Junk-Mail e.g. hotmail (In this case, the opposite, attempting to locate junk edits and entries)
  • It builds a form of trust between users, and as you noted, it is possible that one of the users will break this system of trust (irresponsible edits) but that is exactly the idea of the whole thing.
  • It encourages users to register because the username provides some sort of "certificate" or "credential", and also to stick to 1 name (though not necessarily)
  • A variant of this system is that a user will be able to give some rating (0..10) for other users, and to filter the recent changes accordingly (e.g. all changes by users <5). Anonymous users will always get 0. This is somewhat similar to Slashdot's method (though it is a personal choice), I am currently against this, cause I think it is too complicated and creates a sort of hierarchy (In the eyes of each user).


As the number of contributors is getting bigger and bigger, it is geting harder (and boring) to tediously look for the usual junk entries/edits/vandalism. (The same way it's annoying to find legitimate e-mail in the heaps of junk-mail often directed to our e-mail accounts), so a time-saving filter like this seems very useful to me.


If you think this is worth anything, can you please forward this whole thing above to the mailing list for me? (just copy and paste), I am avoiding posting there for a number of reasons. Thanks. --Rotem Dan 19:16 20 May 2003 (UTC)

Tannin, thanks for letting me know about Stupidmoron. He's ok, he knows what he's talking about, he just hasn't quite absorbed all the style issues yet. Cheers, AxelBoldt 15:56 20 May 2003 (UTC)

Tannin, you made a brief comment on the Talk page of the genetic drift article. I think it is about to shift from an edit war to a revert war, and I'd welcome your comments on the two most recent compeeting versions, Slrubenstein

Anglo-centrism indeed!. We can't help it if the rest of the world is out of step. And we're not as bad as the Americans. I derive a certain wicked pleasure from finding articles where it is just assumed that the country is America, and I can add a mordant comment. And our bath water empties the right way. jimfbleak

Thanks for getting back to me. I don't mean to be impatient, but 168 and I have mostly been reverting between two versions, and engaging in what I believe is the most tedious and meaningless debate -- I do not think he understands the basic science, nor does he know how to work with others. Of course, I am sure he sincerely believes the same of me. At this point, I think there will be no progress until other people intervene in some way. Well, I am sure I will appreciate any comment or edit you make, whenever you have the time (my version: http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Genetic_drift&oldid=947916 , Slrubenstein


Thanks for your support on the Michael issue. -- Zoe

No problems with storm-petrel, even I can see the logic of this. I didn't actually realise that Wilson's was southern hemisphere. Since they are a rare but regular visitor to the southwest approaches in our summer (you normally have to take a boat trip to see them) I'd always assumed they where the American equivalent of our storm petrel.


Hobbies are good value aren't they? Mind you, a needletail would be even better (it's a super-rarity here). We have another bird man: see Short-toed Eagle, but another Old-worlder. I've done a couple of American ducks, but only because they have virtually identical European equivalents. Could you look at mallard? As the most widespread of ducks, I wouldn't be surprised if they occurred in Oz (as an introduced pest species?), but I don't know. jimfbleak 05:50 22 May 2003 (UTC)


Hi - Glad to see your comments on my page re flautist, which really should be the term for a flute player - in my opinion! Perhaps we should try to put the word back in - though on previous occasions others have reformatted - redirected to make flutist the "correct" form! I don't see why we can't work out a way of having both, actually. -- David Martland 07:54 22 May 2003 (UTC)

Tannin, could you have a look at Dolphin, and see if you agree with my tentative ID of the imaged species? Thanks, jimfbleak


I've got a slim but very good cetacean guide called, surprisingly, "Whales, Dolphins and Porpoises" by Mark Carwardine, which is excellent for ID in particular (but doesn't have Pygmy Bryde's) It's surprising how difficult something as big as a whale can be be to identify in the field (not the most appropriate word). A huge back rising from the sea at two miles distance doesn't give you much chance before it disappears again.


I recently sold my wife and children into slavery to buy a Leica 77 Apovid, and it's brilliant (the telescope, not the sale). My old Kowa was like looking through bottle glass in comparison. Unfortunately, I know nothing about digiscoping, although many Brits use the Nikon Coolpix with an Eagle Eye adaptor.


I've never seen needletail. Although there are several swifts on the British list, only Common (common) and Alpine (a few each year) are other than extreme rarities. I didn't even see them in Goa, they had presumably left for Oz by January.


Interestingly the dreaded Mallard interbreeds with American Black Duck as well, so it and the two Black Ducks must be pretty closely related. jimfbleak 15:06 22 May 2003 (UTC)

Regarding Zen, it's all right. I just saw a comment you moved Zen to Zen Buddishm, so I just responded. Just go ahead. -- Taku 15:07 22 May 2003 (UTC)


BTW, enjoy your holiday when you go. I've been fairly busy recently, but work is running out now, so perhaps I'll get some birding in soon. jimfbleak 15:16 22 May 2003 (UTC)

You do realize that, from my POV, your bathwater does indeed go up, right? Now we have to find a NPOV for water drains. ;) -- John Owens 18:19 22 May 2003 (UTC)


I went to see a White-throated Sparrow, an American Emberizid, today. Inspired by our exchange of messages, I took my first ever digiscoped image (see bunting). As you can see, it falls someway short of perfect, but since I was just pointing my Fuji 4700 through the 'scope (hand held, no adapter), it at least shows the potential (and there is no public domain pic of this species). My other mistake was to do it on automatic-I think manual is recommended-but it was a last-minute thought, and I just grabbed the camera as I went out. I don't think I've got Uwe Kils worried yet (see albatross if you haven't done so). jimfbleak 16:25 23 May 2003 (UTC)

Kapesh, as in "Go wack Jonny the Snitch, Kapesh?" It may be Italian. It's used all the time in gangster files (like the God Father). It may be english slang. I dunno, maybe it's worht some research if you really care. MB 17:44 23 May 2003 (UTC)

sorry to give the wrong impression with my poorly worded citation. Best. Koyaanis Qatsi

you mentioned you were going to write a fresh article for Hawker Hunter. if you have time, great! if you don't have time, please delete hawker hunter Kingturtle 20:51 24 May 2003 (UTC)


I suggest you read the article List of French monarchs first before you revcert it to something that does not conform to Wikipedia policy that requires NPOV and facts. Jacques Delson 23:06 25 May 2003 (UTC)


Hm. The more I think about it the more I'm convinced that page titles should be case-insensitive by default and whatever case is used to link to an article is the case displayed as the H1 title of the article. So for example