User talk:Vicki Rosenzweig

Hi Vicki, I'm the one who wrote the article about el Cid. My name is Jorge Tamayo, from Madrid Spain. Even if I tried a free-style translation of the last sentence, I'm not native in english and it shows. Your version is better. Thank you for editing, the article needed it.

Oh, Vicki! Welcome to Wikipedia! We need your skills! I've already admired a submission or two (e.g., saint). --MichaelTinkler

Welcome aboard, Vicki! Polymaths and editors are the backbone of Wikipedia. -- Claudine

Hi Vicki --

There is in fact, some belief that Charlemagne caused Carloman's death, but I'd be kinda careful. There isn't a lot of evidence for it. We do know through extant sources that Carloman made very large grants to religious foundations and seems to have demonstrated sincere piety. Also, by entering a monastery, Carloman would have given up any right to inheritance (although he may have had some control over how lands he held were dispersed). Because of this, I tend to disregard those rumors. Now Grifo, the half-brother of Charles and Carloman ....

would you mind terribly if I removed the reference? J Hofmann Kemp

Sure, rephrase or remove. I based that on something that I think was written in the 1950s, so may well have been disproven by now.

Vicki,

Just put back Orange, the telecoms company. They are a major player in the UK, and are moving globally. They are probably worth an article in their own right once we get bracketed headings - their rise has been mercurial. sjc

Hi Vicki - just wanted to say welcome and hello. I never knew where "Bronx" came from - thanks for that. Regards Manning

--Wow! Great work on the senses. I'm a medical doctor by training and I'd never heard of "umami", so I went and looked it up. Re the spelling, "Nature Neuroscience" spells it "umami" and I couldn't find any medical references to "umame" (which only means that "I" couldn't find them) so I chose that spelling as the primary one. You also (properly) pointed out my humano-centricity so I went and looked up electroception and magnetoception. Cheers- MB

Hi Vicki, I've been admiring your work, and I wanted to give you a much-belated welcome to the project, and sorry it wasn't sooner. There are so many good people who have arrived in the last few months, it's hard to keep up! --Larry Sanger

Hi Vicki -- I listed the fat, stupid, ugly pages on TB deleted already... thanks for noticing them, too, because I thought i must have been hallucinating! JHK

hi Vicky I?m the starter of the wikipedia in basque. what can I do for you? I?m eager to contribute. Did I do something wrong? Not really, but I wanted something local and in English. Please check anything I write about Basque language or culture for accuracy

Thanks Vicki for your recent contribution to Masculism. It was a point essential to bring up and I hope I flushed it out OK. QIM

I would say "thank you," except that I don't think I've written anything there. VR

Oh, in case anyone is wondering, I did just update Aleutian Islands about five times; I ran into an edit conflict, so wound up putting my bits in a paragraph or two at a time, to avoid trouble. (The other person editing was working on a different chunk of the article, so it was a database conflict but not a disagreement.)

Hi Vicki - are you also a fan of Terry Pratchett? JHK

More or less--and my partner very much so--I've read most of his books, and we have some of the remainder (non-Discworld stuff). VR

actually, Now that you mention it, I am a little vague on what people can do, besides helping suggest areas where we can create valid methodology articles that the people in question won't read! Also, it would be good if more detached minds could look out for the debates, and perhaps re-voice them, because the messages don't get through the way we write them! Thanks! JHK

good luck with HJ, Vicki - someone's got to do it. MichaelTinkler

Vicki, could you have a look at the history for morphine and make sure my corrections to your recent copyedit were in fact corrections and not messing up what you did? Graham Chapman

Graham, thanks for catching my slip. Prescription is indeed correct there. Vicki Rosenzweig

To HJ: Wikipedia is not a dictionary. Not even a biographical dictionary. If you're going to create entries for obscure members of German royal families, please include enough that the reader will know why it matters. Not just a woman's parents, husband, and children: anyone looking it up will probably already know most of that. What did she do? If it was a dynastic marriage, how did it affect alliances? Vicki Rosenzweig

Hi Vicki, I would like to answer more in detail, but you are not asking about anyone specific. Are you referring to the lists I started on the German kings and emperors, or the Hohenzollern or the Saxon dukes, kings, emperors or the Habsburg or the Wettin or Wittelsbach or the Jagiello's or the Vasa's ? Or perhaps all of them ? You may know all these dynasties and all their family members, but the majority of the readers of wikipedia don't or did not until they were listed here.Those "obscure members",women and children, who are mostly "overlooked" or "discarded as irrelevant" by the historians interested in battles, were in fact a most vital part of the whole story. Unless you specifically mention those obscure first name people, such as Adelaide, Theophanu, Oda, Rixa (Richeza), Gisela, Judith, Gunhilda, Christina, etc etc you are not getting a comprehensive history. It were not only the father's of the land (see reference George Washington but just as important the mother's of the land that governed European countries for many centuries.That is why I have been inputting all these lists and people. I start with the basic genealogy and add to it as well as other wikipedians who have been busily adding to these lists also.I have been spending way too much time , even though I would like to put all the details in, as you would like to see it done. I would like that too.Unfortunately a large part of my time has been spent having to argue. Like I said, I cannot spent that much time. H. Jonat

It's not a question of fathers vs. mothers of the land. It's that we read these pages, and still know almost nothing. Battles aren't the whole story, agreed, but neither is genealogy. Don't just mention Theophanu or Christina--tell us their stories. Better ten interesting, informative articles than a hundred names with no context or story. Vicki Rosenzweig

Yay, Vicki! I hope this wonderful attentiveness to our needs doesn't mean you're home sick, or something? MichaelTinkler

Job hunting, actually. And in certain moods, editing is easier than writing, or even than playing computer games. Thanks for the kind wishes, Michael. (And if anyone needs an editor, either in the NYC area or to work remotely, let me know.) Vicki Rosenzweig

To Space Cadet: You have succeeded in making me far more sympathetic with H. Jonat than anything she has written has yet managed. I was really hoping Godwin's Law didn't apply to wikipedia. Vicki Rosenzweig

I'm actually, also very sympathetic with H. Jonat, but that remark about communism was very offensive and without any reason. Godwin's Law does not cover remarks about communism or Stalinism, only because the western world did not have enough experience with both phenomena. The spirit of the law, however, applies to this situation perfectly and being as intelligent, as I think you are, you know it very well. All I did, was share my knowledge about the area and time, which Ms. Jonat likes to be so judgemental about. In response, instead of intelectual polemic, that I was expecting, I was treated with some immature name calling and ridiculing. If this made you even MORE sympathetic with her, than you were before, well... that's nice. Also makes me very sympathetic with you. Space Cadet.

Vicki, you bring a ray of sunshine to an often gloomy world. Thanks ! H. Jonat

Yes, I think we're all better people, now! Space Cadet.

Vicki asked, "at what point do we remove 1911 annotation?"

My two cents: when both language and content are fully modernized. As long as anachronisms or ou-of-date information remain, I'd keep that annotation as a "warning flag" that more work is needed.

By the way, my thanks and admiration go out to your constant editorial labors. As an indifferent speller and careless typist, I for one am in your debt. -- April

Hi Vicki,
Thanks for the welcome message! I'm trying to update some of the information related to my home country, Romania, but I have all sorts of other interests as well. My greatest problem though is that I'm really not satisfied with my lack of English vocabulary and aproximate knowledge of grammar, and I would appreciate it very much if you would consider throwing a critical eye every once in a while on some of the stuff I've been writing.
Thanks again, Daniel _____ Hi Vicki,
I just noticed at April 18 your deletion of the death years at birth entries, and ages at death entries. I didn't originate this practice, but it did seem like a good idea so I followed it without much consideration when the information was at hand. It seems that you have stronger views on this than I, and I would appreciate reading them. Eclecticology

Following the format given on the example page, basically. Also, it seems to clutter things; we're providing very sketchy info here (year of birth, and a word or two about what a person did), and pointing to separate articles for each. Vicki Rosenzweig

Thanks for confirming my labelling of 194.117.133.xxx as a vandal. I just got sysophood yesterday and I'm in one of those silly nervous states where I feel obligated to work hard for Wikipedia and at the same time am paranoid about screwing up. Considering that I had an actual dream about editing Wikipedia last night, perhaps I should consider taking a walk to smell some flowers for a while today. :) Bryan Derksen, Sunday, April 21, 2002

To Ed Poor: This is an encyclopedia, not an anthology of religious poetry. I don't know whether we're legally in the clear on the Sun Myung Moon poem, or the poem cited as found on a wall at Mother Teresa's, but even if we are, they don't belong here, any more than a sermon written by a noted poety when she was a teen would. (I'm putting this note in your talk and mine, and will wait a little while before deleting these items.) Vicki Rosenzweig

Lacking any response from Ed, or anyone else, I have deleted the Moon poem. Vicki Rosenzweig

ITIS stands for Integrated Taxonomic Information System. It started as US government based inter-agency which included the Dept. of Agriculture and the Smithsonian Institute among its partners. In its own words "The goal is to create an easily accessible database with reliable information on species names and their hierarchical classification." This consortium has since added the corresponding Canadian and Mexican agencies, and it has further links to the "Global Biodiversity Information Facility. For more about the agency see http://www.itis.usda.gov/index.html
I admit that these taxonomic pages do have a skeletal look to them. At the risk of seeming apologetic, this venture was undertaken with a view to suggesting a taxonomic structure to link related articles. The approach suggest a common template for these articles, and I've been hoping to set these up for the level of orders and up, beginning with flowering plants. Anyone can add to these pages especially when it comes to adding more descriptive materials. There is also plenty of room for development at the family level and below. There do remain serious differences about which is the correct way of placing life forms in a taxonomic tree. Thus, using ITIS should no imply that I consider it correct in every respect, but I would hope that using a fairly comprehensive structure as a starting point could lead to a synthesis that could be accepted by a significant group of participants. --Eclecticology, Saturday, June 1, 2002

Take a look at Artiodactyla. I taxonomized it, putting the previous content in the "Text" section. Also gambier. -phma

"Pilot programming language" was moved to "PILOT programming language" leaving a blank instead of a redirect. -phma

Important note for all sysops: There is a bug in the administrative move feature that truncates the moved history and changes the edit times. Please do not use this feature until this bug is fixed. More information can be found in the talk of Brion VIBBER and maveric149. Thank you. --maveric149

Thanks for cleaning up my "August, Maine" mistake. -- Zoe

Hey Vicki, I saw your "azby" question on a userpage and since the user didn't answer, I will: the azby he's referring to means to take the first letter of a word, then the last, then the second, then the second-to-last, etc. until you meet at the middle. Hence "rhinoceros" in azby would be "rshoirneoc". It's a substitution s/he used to avoid having his email picked up by spambots. Cheers, Koyaanis Qatsi

Fixed EB1911 scan garbles in Susan B. Anthony as requested. I have print edition and will be glad to do this any time. Tom P. Ortolan88

I cannot reach your cited Web page, http://www.panix.com/~vr . David 16:15 Aug 11, 2002 (PDT)

Fixed - since the introduction of the new software, URLs with a full stop directly after them no longer work. Enchanter

Thanks much for your help on the supernova remnant page! It's wonderful to have a pro to ask these things. :) Of whom to ask these things...? Well, anyhow, thanks. :) -- April

You're welcome. (I caught that by chance; leaving notes here is probably a more reliable way of getting my attention, though I was pleased to be there so soon.) Vicki Rosenzweig

Vicki, thanks for rescuing the Eastern Prussians in Old Prussian language. I'm sure Helga will be happy about that, too. :-) --Ed Poor

Vicki, any entry in the Library of Congress Subject Index is either a search term someone is likely to use or a subject upon which books have been written. What was interesting is that although I spent a few minutes doing those few entries; making them was the entrepot for a bunch of related stuff like converting all the Australian Aborigine entries to being capitalized, so a lot of useful work did get done. User:Fredbauder

See answer on Fred's page. Vicki Rosenzweig

Hi Vicki -- Just wanted to let you know that I'll help fight the good fight for as long as it takes. Sorry Helga is such a prat. J Hofmann Kemp

You asked The Cunctator the use of the Wail Ashehri page. My fault, it should be Wail Alshehri. Please, either remove your comment (if the question has now been answered) or update it (if not). Andre Engels

Hi, and purely for purposes of furthering my education, why do you say "Redirect" has to be in capitals for the command to work? It redirected as soon as I put it on Ellis Peters, and that's how I got to Edith Pargeter to upload it before you capitalized the command. So it may not be supposed to work if it's not all capitalized, but it does. -- isis

Never mind. I figured it out -- you're right, it didn't redirect: It created a link I followed to the new page. Thanks for teaching me the command has to be in caps. -- isis

Vicki, I think of you as my conscience (but you need not think of yourself that way, the job is overwhelming). Anyway, thanks for picking up on Arts and Crafts Movement, now one of us or both is going to have to learn something about it (!). In the meantime, make free with the Unun* family. Tom Parmenter. Ortolan88

PS -- Your unun changes look fine. It wasn't really boilerplate, just a paste buffer that I had to keep changing on the fly as I got into it. Fun of wikipedia is learning new stuff. Thanks again. Sounds like you should do a piece on the Berkeley scientists who went off half-cocked in 1999 (note that I removed the relative date, "two years ago", where I noticed it). Ortolan88

blush* Between us, we'll get this in shape. I had something on the Berkeley scientists; if it's not still in the history, I'll have to re-research this, since I threw that newspaper clipping away. Vicki Rosenzweig

Thanks for looking at global warming. I'm going to leave it alone until after Labor Day, to give Axel a chance to review it (he hates stealthy changes). --Ed Poor

Vicki, re majority/plurality. Although you are technically absolutely right, I believe we do not make the distinction here in the UK. And the winning candidate's majority would be his/her vote margin over the next candidate, not the gross number or percentage of votes received. A winning candidate has a majority even when receiving less than 50% of votes cast. In British parlance anyhow. I expect we're using the language incorrectly, but how else does language get meaning other than through use? Heck, I even heard a flight attendant ask us to "deplane the aircraft" one time... be seeing you --Nairobiny

As far as I know, while Americans are more likely to make the distinction, everyone will understand the term "plurality". If so, I think it would have been worth doing (if the numbers had been right) for those who do make the distinction. If "plurality" will confuse a UK audience, I will sigh regretfully over the loss of a useful distinction, and leave this alone in writing on British matters. Can someone clarify this? Vicki Rosenzweig

I think it's safe to say not everyone will understand the term "plurality", at least in the UK. I have only heard it used in technical contexts in the study of voting systems. So I think when we use terms like plurality and majority, we should generally make it clear from the context what is meant and not assume readers know the technical meanings of the terms. Enchanter (a Brit)

Hi Vicky, I just did some adding to the telescope article, as well as created the spectrograph one. Probably more people will have already done some editing, but I would appreciate some professional copyediting when you have the time. Thanks AstroNomer 17:12 Sep 5, 2002 (PDT)

Thanks. I had to revert back the part about diffraction limited. Its physical-astronomical jargon I'll have to explain somewhere.--AN

Thanks for correcting me. Still learning Wikipedia and appriceate your support. -- Jim