User talk:Knowledge Seeker

Taking a partial Wikibreak again…I'll pop in periodically but don't expect any serious editing. — Knowledge Seeker দ 07:53, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Hi, and welcome. Please add a new section when starting a new topic, and please use ~~~~ to sign your comments.

I may add section headers and attribution for comments, and I may adjust margins and alignment for clarity.

DYK

Did you know? has been updated. A fact from the article prostate cancer staging, which you recently created, has been featured in that section on the Main Page. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the "Did you know?" talk page.

[Petaholmes (talk · contribs)]

Thank you, and thanks for letting me know! — Knowledge Seeker দ 06:31, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Please add David Hager to your watch list

Hello! Could you do me a BIG favor and put David Hager on your watch list. A few weeks ago, during a bout of Insomnia-Induced Insanity, I did a major expansion of the article about David Hager. Hager is the controversial physician that Bush appointed to the FDA committee on Reproductive Health Drugs. (Self-disclosure: We both live in central Kentucky and our paths crossed through our professions from mid 80's - mid 90's.) Being a controversial figure, I was prepared to deal with POV crap. However, I never thought anyone would put him in Category:Rapists, a list of convicted rapists. Of course, I immediately took his name off the list. He was on the list for less than five hours, from Dec. 1 00:58 to 05:19. Hopefully, Answers.com or another web site didn't download during this time. But now I’m paranoid that it will happen again and I'll miss it.--FloNight 03:36, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

I added it to my watchlist yesterday, but haven't seen any activity so far. Don't worry too much about the vandalism—it's just a part of the way Wikipedia is. It's always a risk that a mirror will access an article while it's vandalized, but the chances are small and at worst, it'll be fixed at the next update. Not much else you can do! In any case, I'll keep it on my watchlist—another pair of eyes always helps! — Knowledge Seeker দ 09:27, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Hello KnoledgeSeeker

You may not be aware of the three-revert rule at Wikipedia. If you revert an article more than three times in a 24-hour period, you may be blocked. Please feel free to ask me if you have any questions. Also, when adding new sections to a talk page, please add them at the bottom where they are more likely to be seen. You may use the "+" tab at the top of the screen for this purpose. Thanks! — Knowledge Seeker দ 07:02, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for showing me the three-revert rule, and correcting my grammor. My whole point or revision to the Evolution article will forever be made not known. [65.115.141.10 (talk · contribs)]

You're very welcome; I'm glad to help. I'm sorry that your edit was reverted, although I agree with the editors who removed it. If your goal on Wikipedia is to make a lasting edit somewhere, then perhaps editing the first sentence of the introductory paragraph of a prominent and controversial article is not the best place to start. Sticking to subjects you are familiar with is always beneficial, too. Finally, from your comments, it would appear you have not actually read the article in question. If you wish to pursue further edits, I'd advise you to take a look at the rest of the article before you continue. I'd be happy to assist you if you so desire. Also, please sign your talk page posts using four tildes, like this: ~~~~. — Knowledge Seeker দ 07:57, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

DYK

Did you know? has been updated. A fact from the article flutamide, which you recently created, has been featured in that section on the Main Page. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the "Did you know?" talk page.

[Petaholmes (talk · contribs)]

And thank you again. Flutamide's exposure on the Main Page was indeed useful, with several improvements including a molecular illustration by User:GeeJo. — Knowledge Seeker দ 06:07, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the welcome back, mate!

Glad to see you back! — Knowledge Seeker দ 07:21, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Jesus, how on earth did you know I was back? Thanks for the welcome, makes me feel wanted, like. Seems like you blokes have survived in my absence... good, good. Well, I won't be editing much, but a nip here and there won't hurt anything. Man, I needed that break. Well, take care, laddie, I'll see you around! Blackcap (talk) 07:25, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Let's just say I have my ways...anyway, yes, we're barely getting by, but I'm glad you're back, in whatever capacity. I've been staying relatively low-key, myself. — Knowledge Seeker দ 07:43, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Regarding Ed Poor's comments

May I ask why you moved User:Ed Poor's comments to the talk page? Just curious. Thanks! — Knowledge Seeker দ 07:20, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

It appears, from viewing the previous revision of the AFD, that Ed's comments were not part of the discussion, and thus would more appropriately exist on the talk page.

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

If in fact his comments are supposed to be part of the discussion, they should be placed inside the light blue div box with the section header removed. — FREAK OF NUR_xTURE (TALK) 07:26, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

You're right. As Ben mentioned (thanks!), the editor placing the closing templates accidentally excluded Ed's comments, but Ben fixed it before I had a chance. Thanks for being on top of this. — Knowledge Seeker দ 07:46, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm an admin now!!

Thanks a ton for your support on my rfa, the final tally was 50-0-0; I'll try and live up to the expectations of others and do my best in maintaining the integrity of Wikipedia. Looking at your talkpage, i guess you must be the guy behind lot of medicine related FAs these days. Great work!! --Gurubrahma 14:28, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

You're welcome; it was my pleasure to support you. As for the medicine articles, I'm doing my best to do my part, but I've had little time to work much on articles these days. Several other editors, especially User:InvictaHOG and User:Rewster, have really taken the lead in bringing medical articles to featured status. Enjoy your new role! — Knowledge Seeker দ 03:56, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Chiropractic (disambiguation)

Hi, Doctor. Would you mind taking a look at this when you have a chance? Thanks! Edwardian 21:52, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for asking, Edwardian. I agree with its deletion and have voted accordingly. — Knowledge Seeker দ 04:07, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

I just want to say...

I love the name :-D lol KnowledgeOfSelf | talk 05:49, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Hehe yes—I remember when you joined Wikipedia (a few months ago, right?) and I saw your name start to pop up more and more frequently on my watchlist...I keep seeing it and wondering "wait, did I edit that page?" Great minds and all that... — Knowledge Seeker দ 07:55, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes I do believe it was September 24th of this year that I officially signed up. I just keep seeing your name while on RC patrol and I keep thinking there's a man that has good taste! :-D Cheers. KnowledgeOfSelf | talk 17:15, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

• P.S. Enjoy your wikibreak!

Admin

Do you have any advice for becomming an admin? I want to eventually become one. Any comments or hints would be greatly appreciated. RENTASTRAWBERRY ^{FOR LET?} röck 03:20, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Hey buddy, good to hear from you. Well, of course all the stuff I wrote you in March when you asked me before still applies. However, I assume you want more specific comments and that's why you're writing again. I think the biggest key is getting involved. Why do you want to be an administrator? If you can't demonstrate the benefit you'll derive (and the community will derive) from your adminship, you probably won't get much support. Even nice, highly prolific editors may not get adminship if they don't participate much in the "janitorial" side of Wikipedia. They'll want to see things like vandalism reversion, participation in policy and such (grossly manifested by edits to the Wikipedia: namespace, such as AfD participation and so on), perhaps dealing with conflicts, and such. I've only taken a cursory glance at your recent contributions, but people might object that you don't really do too much that needs admin tools, you know? Also, more article editing and writing might help—right now, a high proportion of your edits seem to be to things like Mind Benders, your subpages, and to people requesting they vote in your poll. All of these are good community activities, but they are peripheral to the purpose of building an encyclopedia. You can and should keep doing all these things, but voters would probably like to see you put some more time into keeping Wikipedia clean, and working to improve it. Finally, there are a few relatively minor aspects that people often oppose over. One is that you rarely use edit summaries. These are considered at the least a courtesy to others, so that they can at a glance see what you've done when they're viewing their watchlists, and especially to RC patrollers so they know what you've done. As most administrator candidates are expected to be active in fighting vandalism or somehow demonstrating their need for administrative tools, courtesy to your fellow patrollers is often expected. Secondly, using images in signatures, and especially using an unsubstituted template for one's signature, is frowned upon (see WP:SIG for more information). And consider using the "show preview" button more frequently; perhaps you can avoid taking so many edits to accomplish a task (for instance, your recent work on Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Flamethrower). This is all just off the top of my head. Please don't interpret any of this as criticism—you're doing a great job, and fulfilling an important role. It's just that serving as an administrator is a different role, so you may have to adapt. Also, take my suggestions with a grain or two of salt—I never intended to run for adminship but was offered a nomination out of the blue, so I never really did anything special to prepare for nomination. My suggestions are a combination of how I work and what I use when evaluating administrator candidates, plus observations of what others use. Finally, realize that WP:RFA seems to have gotten quite a bit more stringent since March when I became an administrator, and it can be quite upsetting to receive criticism or to be carefully scrutinized. Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Standards has rough standards contributed by many Wikipedians; that may prove helpful to you. You'll also have to be familiar with Wikipedia policy and what administrators do before running. Hope this isn't overwhelming, and I hope it helps. Let me know if I can be of further help. — Knowledge Seeker দ 08:29, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

My RFA

Hi there Knowledge Seeker, I havent heard from you in a while. I was wondering if you could vote on my RFA here. Thanks in advance! SWD316 21:29, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Hey, SWD, sorry I didn't respond earlier—I've been on a bit of a Wikibreak. And I'm sorry to see that your nomination did not succeed. RfA can be quite a harsh place, but I'm glad you were able to take criticism well; we all benefit from feedback and hopefully you can pick up a few tips for next time. I'll send you a more detailed message later, but I just wanted to say you're a good editor and I'm glad you're still contributing to Wikipedia. — Knowledge Seeker দ 21:13, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Thank you for your kind words, they are always appriciated from you. SWD316 ^{talk to me} 21:18, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

AOL Block

It appears User:Pathoschild unblocked your IP address. Are you still having difficulties? By the way, you may wish to reconsider the tone of the message you leave administrators. Your message seems to imply that you got blocked out of carelessness or that an AOL IP address was deliberately blocked. Merovingian is a longtime administrator and the suggestion that he desires to punish all AOL users isn't very nice, especially since it is just speculation. Please assume good faith. Perhaps you don't realize, but if you look at the block message you received, you will be able to see that Merovingian did not directly block the IP address, but rather blocked User:Kkkboi. He would not be able to know that Kkkboi was using AOL, as administrators do not have access to registered users' IP addresses, for privacy's sake. The way MediaWiki is configured, when someone is blocked, the IP address they are using is also automatically blocked. For instance, if someone were to block me right now, I would not be able to circumvent the block by logging out of Wikipedia and editing as an anonymous user or using a sockpuppet account. If the blocking administrator (or anyone else) examines the Special:Ipblocklist later, he may see autoblock entries (under his name!) although a code number is displayed instead of the IP address. So in short, we have no way of knowing what the IP number is unless the user tells us. When Merovingian blocked Kkkboi, he would not be able to know that Kkkboi was using AOL, and if he were to later examine the blocklist and notice the autoblocked entries, he would still have no way of knowing what the IP addresses were, much less determine their origin. Rather than suggest that the blocking administrator is incompetent or out to get AOL editors, you might consider leaving a polite message thanking them for helping to fight vandalism, but that you are using AOL and were caught by one of their autoblocks; would they mind unblocking the address? A similar message would suffice for a different administrator. Not only might this produce faster results, it will also help keep Wikipedia a pleasant place to edit. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask me. — Knowledge Seeker দ 07:17, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

I'll take your note of chastisement under advisement -- be aware that the note you piggybacked on (whether on my talk page or a friendly admin's page) is less "polite" than the note I left the admin who initiated the block. Keep in mind that this is not a new experience for me. Also I have an entire archive of AOL blocking problems, none of them directed at me. See User:WBardwin/AOL Block Collection. The IP address I am most often assigned has been included, at my request, on "the list" that should not be blocked for any length of time. I have had several helpful adminstrators intervene for me as we have tried to make the system/AOL interaction more efficient. However, vandalism gets more attention than regular editing and so AOL users are punished, no matter what polite wording we want to use. A couple of admins tell me the training they received in this area is minimal and that they only learn from interacting with users with problems -- like me. But, thanking them for using up the time I can allocate to Wiki?? -- well, I'll think about it. Thanks for your willingness to respond, at any rate. WBardwin 07:31, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Thank you for your response. I realize this must be frustrating for you. Several months ago, while I was temporarily using dial-up before my cable modem was installed, I kept getting hit with a block intended for a problem user who also sometimes used my IP address—of course, since I am in administrator, the only incovenience to me was that I had to unblock the IP and report my actions on WP:AN/I, whereas you have to find someone to unblock you. I'm sorry you have to deal with this. That being said, I'd like to ask you not to take your frustrations out on well-meaning users. It's good that you got the IP address listed on the block page, and of course new ways of dealing with vandalism from AOL users will always be welcome, due to the unusual way AOL assigns IP addresses. But that's not really relevant here—I'm not sure you fully understood my message. Merovingian did not block an IP address, AOL or otherwise. He blocked User:Kkkboi. Unbeknownst to him, Kkkboi was using AOL—indeed, there would be no way for Merovingian to know this; administrators do not have access to registered users' IP addresses. Later, Kkkboi or someone else (possibly you) tried to edit from the same IP address (logged in or anonymous). The software recognized the IP address as one used by a recently blocked user and so it automatically blocked the IP address. There is currently no way to disable this. So at this point Merovingian has no idea that an IP address has been autoblocked under his name. Even if he for some reason visits the IP blocklist, he will see something like (for example) "07:49, December 15, 2005, RoyBoy blocked #68550 (expires 07:49, December 16, 2005) (Unblock) (Autoblocked because your IP address has been recently used by "Hiveman". The reason given for Hiveman's block is: "Spam".)". Note that the IP address is not visible. At this point, aside from the blocked users, no one has any idea that an AOL IP address was involved. There is no way for them to know. Even if Merovingian was wondering "Hmm, I hope Kkkboi wasn't using AOL to edit and I hope the software didn't then autoblock an AOL IP address", it would not be possible for him to find out. This has nothing to do with punishing AOL users. The point is, Merovingian acted absolutely appropriately. A user was creating problems and he blocked him. We can't stop blocking people because there is a possibility they are using AOL. Unfortunately, the only recourse is for you to ask to be unblocked. There is no easy solution to this, and it will happen again. It might happen the next time I block a registered user. And you'll have to go through the same thing again. But it's not the blocking administrator's fault. As Bishonen remarked, it is the fault of the software for not letting us disable autoblocking and the fault of AOL for continually reassigning IP addresses. You can thank the administrator for doing his job properly. It's not his fault you got autoblocked. Accusing people of ignorance or deliberate overblocking is counterproductive, since there is no behavior the administrator can modify for next time. And again, it does little to promote a productive atmosphere on Wikipedia. I realize the concept of autoblocking, and that administrators aren't necessarily deliberately blocking your IP address, might be difficult to understand. Please let me know if you have any questions. — Knowledge Seeker দ 08:02, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

In general terms, I do understand this process. Programmers (one on wiki, two elsewhere) tell me that the "bug" would not be that difficult to fix. But it would require time and attention, and is so "unseen" that it is unlikely to occur. I'm probably reflecting both personal frustration (its a very busy time of year for me) and the frustration that comes from seeing vandalism, in its many forms, get more attention on Wikipedia than productive work. Fighting vandals is worthwhile, but the encyclopedia grows from other activities. So any action that punishes productive editors and has relatively no effect on vandalism (Kkkboi has long ago moved on to another set of proxy numbers) should be a source of frustration to us all. I, in general, do not take the blocking personally, but it does take rewarding and relaxing editing time away from me. So, I'll apologize for my tone, if it offends, but not for my frustration. These blocking problems come in waves, so it is likely I'll have an easier stretch in the future. Best wishes. WBardwin 08:26, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Thank you for your well-thought-out message. You're absolutely right; there are many of us who wish we could disable the autoblocker, especially for specific blocks, and if there is some way I can assist in promoting that change, I would like to. You have every right to be frustrated by being hit with blocks not intended for you. And it may very well be that some of those are by administrators blocking an AOL IP address for too long. I just wanted to make sure you realized that not all of these blocks are of AOL IP addresses, that an any administrator, including those you contacted for assistance, might be the one inadvertantly blocking you next time—and calling them a "dingbat" likely won't be productive. Incidentally, regarding your comments on User talk:Bishonen#AOL Blocks, you are correct: when I checked my watchlist and noticed a user leaving comments with the edit summary "Release me!" on multiple administrators' talk pages, naturally I stopped by to see if I could help. The problem had been solved by that point, but I hoped I could help clear up some misconceptions—Merovingian's an easy-going guy, but there are many users who might get upset at being insulted or criticized at something they have no control over. Incidentally, it is quite difficult to get on my bad side: I am certainly not angry or upset with you, and I apologize if my tone was overly censorious. The next time you get inadvertantly blocked, you may contact me as well, if you wish. A couple other options: check recent changes and leave a message for an administrator you recognize, or perhaps better would be the block log (or the IP block list, although you should of course ignore the autoblock entries, since there is no guarantee that administrator has been on Wikipedia recently). Another option is the IRC channel, although I've never used IRC and am not familiar with how it works. I hope you don't encounter this problem too often, and please leave me a message if you run into any trouble. — Knowledge Seeker দ 21:43, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Template:Test

Should we use the test template if there is a user without a user page that has just added a article or done an edit that would be considered vandilism? RENTASTRAWBERRY ^{FOR LET?} röck

Yeah, you should go ahead and use it. Looks like you're doing a good job, by the way. Regardless if the user has a user page and/or has a talk page, you should add the (substituted) template to the talk page, just as you're doing. Also, I don't know if you're familiar with it, but User:CryptoDerk's Vandal Fighter is a great program to help patrol. There's also the Conter Vandalism Unit, although I am not familiar with their work. Let me know if you have any more questions; I should be around a bit more now. — Knowledge Seeker দ 22:49, 20 December 2005 (UTC)