User talk:Cprompt/Archive1

Hello there Cprompt, welcome to the 'pedia! I hope you like the place and decide to stay. If you ever need editing help visit Wikipedia:How does one edit a page and experiment at Wikipedia:Sandbox. If you need pointers on how we title pages visit Wikipedia:Naming conventions or how to format them visit our manual of style. If you have any other questions about the project then check out Wikipedia:Help or add a question to the Village pump. Cheers! --maveric149

I'm looking forward to the dir/p of your cranial hard drive. ;-) --KQ

Thanks for the welcome, and for the useful links! =) I do plan on submitting some more articles when I have the time. I've submitted an article already on the band Jimmy Eat World, Peyronie disease, and I've added some more information to others. Once again, thanks for the welcome, and I look forward to entrenching myself (in a good way!) in the Wikipedia community. --cprompt

I'm very glad to hear that. Also, don't forget to have fun! :-) --mav

As an afternote, I definately feel entrenched.

--cprompt

You wanted to read this: --Brandon Vedas-- Vera Cruz

Regarding osteopathy: "Wholistic" is an alternate spelling -- I've seen it popping up around the place a bit. It's a recent invention, not in any dictionary AFAIK. I find it amusing -- a kind of redundant added connotation, just in case you don't know what "holistic" means. I agree with your alteration of this silly, recently made-up word. -- Tim Starling 02:27 Mar 18, 2003 (UTC)

Seems to be listed by Merriam-Webster's as a variant of holistic. (M-W is a fairly liberal dictionary.) Just added it to Wiktionary. Thanks for the heads up! -- cprompt

It appears that The Cunctator has done some changes (yet again) to the naming conventions on slogans page, which Ed Poor is not happy over. I might be worth revisiting the page to recast your vote so that there is no doubt. The basic issue is dealt with near the bottom of the issue, though yet again The Cunctator is disputing something or other, as he is becoming famous for. STÓD/ÉÍRE 23:31 Mar 27, 2003 (UTC)

You are now a sysop. Please add yourself to the wikipedia:Administrators page. --Uncle Ed

Lir/Vera/Dietary/Susan/Adam, like terrorists, cannot be negotiated with. This twice-banned user probably knows that he’s trying to add historically incorrect information. He/she’s just trying to engage in edit wars and endless deliberation over these incorrect changes for the sake of annoying people. Don’t be naïve; his attempts at seeming reasonable are just his/her trap. 172

We all fell for it one by one and were conned. You could fill this page with a list of people with bad experiences from this twice banned troll. Believe me, you don't want that experience. This troll is a vandalistic head wrecker who just screws up articles. Now that he admitted inadvertently to what he all know (that Susan is Dietary), and we all know that she is Adam/Vera/bridget everything he touches is being reverted, pending a ban, preferably a permanent one. STÓD/ÉÍRE 04:38 Apr 13, 2003 (UTC)

Well, it seems you all learned your lesson by being trapped. I'll let myself be trapped. If this is bait, I'll bite. Thus far, on the articles I've seen involving a conflict between you and this user, they haven't done anything wrong. You've heard the phrase "once bitten, twice shy"? I've been following this user around since VeraCruz was banned, and I started reading the mailing list. Some people noted that there was a clear progression to a more agreeable, reasonable user. If they are intentionally adding inaccurate information, please outline it in the Talk page. Prove it to me and anyone else who reads the article, so that they will know, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that this is a malicious user. The fact-checking that I have done, looking at the various revisions and edit wars show that Susan Mason is so far in the clear. The information they have is solid, and the conflicts seem mostly to arise over semantics and word usage. Surely disagreements of that magnitude are not trolling. Users like User:Michael who add obviously false information (after checking) or who add offensive and unencyclopedic content (George Washington's sex life) are clearly trolls, and their behavior is clearly marked as such. Mark Susan Mason's behavior by outling their faults, and you will have a solid case towards permanent banning.

Or, perhaps, maybe this incarnation of the "Adam family" is actually a reasonable user who follows the rules. Some users HAVE said that VeraCruz was an improvement over Lir...

--cprompt

We don't need to try to reason with Adam, we only need to discourage him from returning. He has been banned twice and Jimbo Wales, who owns this site, has told him to stay away. -- Zoe

Well, you don't need to, but if you did it'd be all for the better. You would remove any remaining controversy of the banning. Some others on the mailing list have stated that Lir would be welcome to stay in newer incarnations if they would stop making personal attacks and followed Wikipedia policies. Their most recent behavior seems to be just this. Susan Mason (by my count) has not called people fascists or racists, and he/she has been willing to compromise.

But, like you said, this user is SUPPOSED to be banned, and you can engage in edit wars, perpetually reverting until Jimbo bans him/her again. I would much rather make a friend of an enemy, and make a good contributor out of a bad one.

If edit wars do persist, I will protect the pages until a compromise is worked out, or a user is banned. I have made no edits to those articles, and I remain unbiased over their actual content.

--cprompt

I don't have any vested interest in those pages, either, and I could protect the pages, but that wouldn't solve our Adam problem, he'd just move on elsewhere. He has been asked in the past to modify his behavior, and has said, ON the mailing list, that he has no interest in doing so. -- Zoe

Could you show me that particular post?

--cprompt

(this was written before Zoe or Cprompt's latest additions here) Lir's original incarnation joined up about the same time as me, though I've mostly been an observer with little actual interaction with her (and I do refer to her as her, since that is the gender she chooses to present herself as, for whatever reason). She has been improving, but only in fits and starts. I say be strict and ban her under every user name she uses until she evolves into a useful member of the community. Once that happens, we won't have any way of knowing that she is Liretal and she can contribute to her heart's content. As far as Dietary Fiber is concerned, I pointed out several days ago, mere moments after the edit war at James I of England, that both his parents were Scottish and so it is logical to assume that he is also Scottish (these things tend to be hereditary, I've heard). She never responded to me and apparently let the matter drop. Possibly, the fact that his mother was Mary, Queen of Scots and his father was also Scottish (a fact obvious by clicking on the link, which is how I guessed) never occurred to Dietary Fiber. A user who acknowledged my statement in any way might not be a troll -- Dietary Fiber never acknowledged it and simply ignored the article. In my mind, this makes her a troll (I know nothing about history of any sort, so if I was able to deduce that he was ethnically Scottish, so should any reasonably literate person) because she did not care enough for her beliefs to let them stand up to scrutiny. Once the fun of annoying people was over because I had proved her wrong, she went away -- this is a troll who is steadily evolving into a useful person. I think tough love is appropriate here. Ban her, but don't search out her new incarnations Inquisition-style, and let her eventually become the responsible contributor she could have always been (I'm not directing this imperative at you, Cprompt, because I know you can't ban a logged-in user, I'm just venting on your talk page). Tuf-Kat

(This was written just after I had read Tuf-Kat's post.)

Much sense is made of you, Tuf-Kat. Wise beyond years, you are. You are right, once he/she becomes a "useful member of the community", we should not be able to distinguish him/her from Lir. You also make a good point at saying we shouldn't be hunting out new incarnations "Inquisition-style", which was one of my concerns. If your comments were ignored, then perhaps that is some trollish behavior. However, if this were a totally new user who was doing this, would we examine that action with the same scrutiny? I am feeling that this incarnation is much more willing to follow Wikipedia guidelines and cooperate, but they are still not an ideal contributor. You've cast some doubt on my stance, so I'm not sure where to go from here, but let's see what happens.

--cprompt

Im aware James was Scottish. At the time I was under attack by Jtdirl and 172 and uanble to fix the problem. Jtdirl and 172 are to blame for that, I was trying to work on the article. Dietary Fiber

oh the classic SM/DF response. That was only one of a range of clumsy stupid errors added into the article. For example, we put the first title held by a monarch first. James was James VI of Scotland long before he became James I of England. So everyone agreed that that was the order they should be in. But in typical SM/DF style it was decided, 'screw everyone else's agreement, I am going to unilaterally change it. (Like Adam tried to screw up naming conventions, and even when voted down still ignored the decision and did it Adam's way, leaving everyone else to rename articles and clear up the mess by returning things to the agreed formula.

Second, there was a long long long debate about when to describe a modern monarch as British. It was agreed to apply it to after 1707. But Adam decided to ignore the long debate and do it his way, his way on the naming of election pages (who cares if everyone else uses a totally different system and votes down his suggestion!), his way on referring to peers, his way on using the word British, on how to describe James VI/I, his way now on the History of the Soviet Union, his way on how names on a list should appear (the different way to everyone else's, he unilaterally changing lists to suit what he wanted, even when everyone else screamed 'what the hell are you doing'. Other people put a lot of work into getting a consensus. Adam ignores the consensus and does it the way he wants. And gets miffed when people end up undoing his garbled stuff and return things to the agreed way.

Yes there has been an improvement, cp. DF was actually nice to work with for about 4 days, then suddenly became an ogre on idolatory and various other pages. The immediate reaction was 'oh God, here we go again'. Even Mav let out a sigh about DF's behaviour, and Mav doesn't normally do that. Most of us are fed up trying to explain to SM/DF where they are wrong, only to be ignored and blatently untrue rubbish dumped into articles. So we aren't been called rascists and nazis, big deal! SM/DF's behaviour is still way of the mark. It is as if Adam goes onto wiki with the basic approach of 'now where can I cause grief today?'. And we have all had enough of it. STÓD/ÉÍRE 05:15 Apr 13, 2003 (UTC)

I wish I could. The best I can do is to point you to this -- http://www.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2003-February/009040.html -- Zoe

The above link presented by Zoe ends this debate. 172

I was literally cracking up when Lir/Vera posted this comment: "Its a good thing the above link has nothing to do with me. Dietary Fiber"

The comedic timing made for very good irony.

172

Hah. Between them sometimes, DF/SM are like a perverted Laurel and Hardy.

Thanks for starting banana slug!!Kingturtle 09:26 Apr 17, 2003 (UTC)

No problem! Saw it on your userpage. :-)

--cprompt

Hi. Thanks for putting me right on user 203. I wouldn't want to accuse anyone falsely. It's just that they seemed to be picking up where the other person left off, on matters relating to the English Civil War. Deb 19:14 Apr 18, 2003 (UTC)

You're welcome. It COULD be Susan Mason using a New Zealand proxy, but I doubt it. I'll have a look at the English Civil War and see what's going on there. Thanks for the heads up!

--cprompt

Thanks for the info on the user thought to be Adam/Bridget/Vera Cruz/Susan Mason/Dietary Fiber. One thing about Adam is that he uses any means he can to get onto wiki. If he could access a New Zealand IP I have no doubt he would use it. Usually Adam's work can usually be recognised by the pages he visits and the nature of the edits he does; anything by 172 is usually his target. It is also recognisable by his approach; start small rows that erupt into fullscale edit wars, with Adam putting on the act of looking for consensus, then when voted down ignoring the views of everyone else and rewriting things his way anyway. With some of his earlier identities it was generally found that the only way to deal with this behaviour was for a policy of automatic reversion. Usually that policy is not followed for a period to see if this time he has changed his behaviour. So far, though later members of Adam's family weren't as offensive as before, they still by about the third week hit levels that were way beyond what is generally acceptable and practiced by other people. Eventually, if he continues triggering off pointless edit wars, adding in dodgy information alongside good stuff and trying unilaterally to change agreed naming conventions worked out by many wikipedians over a long debate (a standard Adam action) a policy of immediate reversion is followed, with anything he does being instantly reverted no matter how good the edit. In my six months on wiki, I've only seen immediate reversions applied on a handful of people; Michael and his later creations, DW and his creations, and Adam's various versions. All are multiple banned users, with a history of causing chaos and of repeating the worst elements of their behaviour each time they come on pretending to be another person.

Hopefully Adam will have learned his lesson or will come back as a completely reformed character. But then that was the hope after Lir, after Bridget, after Vera, but so far Adam has come back only marginally less destructive than the last time each time. And usually, after a period of reasonably good behaviour (at least by his standards) he then gets progressively worse and worse, as the Dietary Fiber experience showed. People immediately recognised DF as Adam R, but for a couple of days were elated with the thought "finally he has changed". Then he went back to his old ways, leading to a collective sigh of "oh shit. No he hasn't", hence the major battle a few of us had with him under his DF and SM personas. It probably looked very strange to someone who had not had the Adam experience for months, but it has been found to be the only way to deal with him. When a wholescale policy of automatic reversion happens, Adam usually makes some mistake that gives the game away. This time it was SM claiming to have started a page DF actually did. Once he is caught out, Jimbo then bans him. It is like a ritual at this stage. We all tried the 'be constructive' route, the 'be nice' route, the 'offer advice' route, the 'we want to listen to you' route and got burned again and again. In the last six months there has been only 3 cases like that; Michael, who adds in garbage, DW who ignores naming conventions, deletes important information and threatens legal action, and Adam. Hopefully we have seen the last of Adam R, but going by past experiences that is unlikely. BTW, that is why Zoe, 172 and I were so rude to him. We don't act that way 99% of the time. But with Adam's people and DW's creations (Black Widow and Olga Bityerkokoff) the rudeness is a deliberate policy and generally recognised as such, to force the issue and get them to break cover by making a mistake, which once they do that establishes in black and white what people are already 99.9% sure of, that they are a multiple banned user, who can then be banned again. If they are left alone, they simply make life hell for a lot of people and drive away new people over a longer period, before eventually slipping up and getting banned anyway. ÉÍREman

PS - sorry for taking up so much space, but it is worth you knowing the background to all of this. ÉÍREman

At the moment, I still think that Adam has good intentions but engages in some unacceptable behaviors. I don't think it is fair to group him with Michael (who has made threats and refuses to cooperate) or DW/Olga who makes a lot of threats and doesn't contribute too much. But that's just my knee-jerk response. I'll give some thought to what you've said, and I'll let you know how I feel about it.

--cprompt

Yes, I agree with that assessment. The Children of Lir are merely ignorant, whereas the DW family is intelligent, but actively malicious. Deb 19:38 Apr 19, 2003 (UTC)

You’re taking my comments out of context. I wasn’t objecting to the criticism, but the nature and tone of the criticism. I was also objecting to being blamed for all of the article’s shortcomings. If it’s not concise, I shouldn’t be faulted since I was weaving new content with content that was already there. Some redundancy is inevitable whenever new content is being combined with old content. And it’s usually corrected over time.

It would’ve been better to reword some sentences rather than making a blanket criticism of my writing style, research quality, and quality of analysis (which is pretty much reflective of the consensus of most Soviet specialists). It was also problematic that only content pertaining to the NEP was criticized as a basis for an offhand criticism of the entire article. As you can see, the article is much improved after I began making substantial contributions to it, being really the first to write a detailed chronicle and analysis of the ACS system and its fall (critical of any understanding of Soviet history). So why should my contributions be faulted as sub par?

It’s also quite evident in the talk pages that I was despertaly begging for collaboration from the beginning. I haven’t really been able to find it. I’ve just been encountering blanket critisms for problems for which I’m not really responsible. How about collaboration in editing and adding content, not just in the form of criticism? 172

I'm not very knowledgable on the history of the Soviet Union, but I do plan to try some copyediting and refactoring, just as soon as I can get a nice block of spare time. I was trying to say on the talk page that you should not feel offended at the criticism; other people had made contributions, and while yours were substantial, you should not feel that your contributions are being faulted. I'm assuming that Slrubenstein didn't check out the page history, and was analyzing the article at its current stage. He probably didn't realize that there were few users working on the article, and that one person in particular would take offense from his comments.

--cprompt

Maybe, but I was mentioned by name. 172

Hmmm...I didn't see you mentioned specifically by Slrubenstein. Perhaps your name was edited out, or maybe I just overlooked it?

--cprompt

You referred to the Summer Triangle as a right triangle but the drawings I am looking at show more of an isoceles triangle. Pizza Puzzle

I was quoting another source. Deneb, Vega, and Altair seem to form something CLOSE to a right triangle. In any case, some photos I check make it seem more scalene than isoceles. Let the viewer decide, I suppose. In any case, I will be looking for a photo to accompany the article. (After writing this comment, I took a look at some more images. In many sketches and drawings, it DOES look isoceles, and it looks scalene in many photos. Interesting.)

--cprompt

The xyzzy feature in minesweeper was removed in Win98 but reappeared in Win2k according to The Jargon File. -- Paddu 14:50 11 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Hi! Thanks for your endorsement! I really appreciate it! Poor Yorick 22:52 22 Jun 2003 (UTC)

No problem! Just remember to use your powers for good and not evil. 8-D Oh, and congratulations.

--cprompt

When RK comes back I want to nominate him for sysop (again) I dont ask for much, but I ask that you support his nomination. Sincerely-戴&#30505sv 23:24, Aug 16, 2003 (UTC)

I'm a tad bit concerned that RK may not be judicious in his use of sysop powers, but I'd like to give him a chance. Other sysops that I have had doubts about have turned out fine, and it is clear that RK does not have malicious intent. Remind me when he comes back, and I'll support him.

cprompt 00:24, 17 Aug 2003 (UTC)