User:Koyaanis Qatsi
A few articles I've contributed to significantly: film noir, Dziga Vertov, color temperature, foley artist, Schizophrenia, Dave Brubeck, Ingmar Bergman, Joel and Ethan Coen, digital video, The Thin Blue Line, and Amazing Spider-Man
I've contributed pictures I shot to coleus, depth of field, color temperature, cattail, canna lily, kiwifruit, cumulus, sunflower, blueberry, spiderwort, dragonfly, and Moebius strip, and expect to contribute many more.
Mostly I play in film, though sometimes in literature, and sometimes just "Random Page" and canonize names or copy-edit. I've wandered over to the metawikipedia site to contribute a minor rant about how to write about and not write about film--partly to tell others, and partly to remind myself. :-) I've also done a lot of cut-and-paste work in Countries of the world.
All of these entries are of course completely open for revision, refactoring, removal, etc., and if you can improve them then please do so. Chat with me below or email to koyaanisqatsi at nupedia .dot. com if you'd like.
An English folk poem, circa 1764:
- They hang the man and flog the woman
- That steal the goose from off the common,
- But let the greater villain loose
- That steals the common from the goose.
| What Google Likes | What Nupedia Wants | Requested articles | brilliant prose |
| SandBox | R P Sandbox | Wiki special characters | |
| In progress: | Dept of State stuff | status here | |
| Joris Ivens | Dziga Vertov | ||
| big big undertaking for some time in the indeterminate future |
Ernest Hemingway and related subpages | ||
| film registry | add entries as you see them. :-) | ||
| punch up | As We May Think | ||
| eradicate non-META subpages | |||
| Countries of the world | through :Armenia at least | WikiProject Countries |
- Originally I responded on this page to comments people left on this page, but then I realized that people are more apt to watch their own pages--so I started responding there instead. Comments below that appear to have gone unanswered have (almost?) always been answered on the user's own page instead. Feel free to leave comments below, anyway. :-) --KQ
Through the fence I could see them hitting. --KQ You left this on talk:Gareth Owen. Can you explain it please?
I understand! -- GWO
Oh. I didn't see your request on the Recent Changes page. Sorry, I wasn't ignoring you. :-)
hello KQ. Remember a few months ago you suggested i write this? Miyazaki Hayao Its a begining :) - Asa
Hi, thanks for your comment on my Prokofiev article. It's not a paste, it's my translation of a paper I did once in school, so I think it's safe for me to use :) I'll get back to finishing it one of these days. - jofo
Curious. Millions of messages and not a mention of Philip Glass. --Dave McKee (Ditto --Archibald Fitzchesterfield)
Sorry I didn't get back to you sooner about that bad PNG. Here it is corrected:
http://www.piclab.com/images/caf.png
Whatever software created your original image put information into the PNG file about the brightness and color response curves, i.e., "Gamma" and "Chromaticity", that had illegal values (in particular, a gamma of 0.0, which is an exponent of the brightness response curve, making it flat). Internet Explorer 5 was the only browser correctly interpreting that, and rendering the blank image; less sophisticated browsers generally ignore gamma and chromaticity information because you can get a decent image ignoring them. I removed that information, because without it the defaults are fine--bad information is much worse than none. It also made the file smaller. It's also a grayscale image saved with a color palette, so it could be made smaller still with a bit more work. Please let the programmer who created that software know about his mistake so it can be fixed. --LDC
Here it is with the palette removed (about 23% smaller). --Zundark, 2001 Nov 14
http://www.zundark.btinternet.co.uk/caf.png
Thanks, both. :-) --KQ
Hi KQ, I had not "seen" you for a while, where were you? :-) AN And I don't think you are responsible for the problems on countries of the world, on the contrary, you worked hard on it. The problems with separatist movements would have appeared sooner or later anyway.
I've been in and out briefly, mostly anonymously from work. I'm back in school now--working on a Master's in mass communications--and working two jobs. So I've been pressed for time. There's a lot going on here; I'm glad to see it. We've gotten a lot of motivated people in the last few months.
I haven't noticed you around much, either. How have you been? --Koyaanis Qatsi
Busy, my daughter was born about a month and a half ago, and I still don't get back on track....not sure if I ever will :) So, I have not been working in new articles, just checking what appears, specially in my area, repairing vandalism and asking questions...more like editor that writer....and for as little time as I'm able to (just one more edit....:))--AN
Hello, Perry here, your comment is appreciated. It was a mistake. On some other sites I'm registered on, you can enter your email as a log in, then enter your name seperately to be displayed, but the email address is kept private. I just did the same here without thinking. Now I realise my mistake and I cannot see how to change it. Can you help? Preferences does not seem to have an option for changing username. Also, am I OK leaveing you messeges here like this? Is this the proper way to communicate with you? Thanks, Perry.
Hi KQ, appreciate the quick reply. err, sorry to sound completely stupid: Do you mean create a new username? If you mean I should edit my existing username, please tell me exactly how, as I cannot find any page that will let me edit the username. Please tell me which page to go to, and which field to edit. Sorry, but I just cannot see it. Maybe when I've done it, I'll add an entry to the help file to help the next person with the same problem. Thanks, Perry.
Hello again, I've created a new accoun, user:Perry Bebbington. Thanks for the help.
Hi KQ, Phew. I've checked FAQ, where it tells me how to change my username, except that I tried and it cannot be done. I looked in the help/user preferences section attached to preferences and there was no mention of changing usernames. I've added a comment saying it cannot be done and I've put a request into the feature requests page. I think that covers changes to usernames. Bye for now,user:Perry Bebbington
Good Morning / afternoon etc, I'm content now on changing user names, at least until I see some comment in the FAQ or change requests. I may add something to the help warning that once a username has been created, it cannot be changed, then others will not make our mistake. user:Perry Bebbington
Thanks for your comments. I see your point and I must admit that you are right. When I wrote 'masterful', what I really meant was what you changed it into. I am glad that you did. Same is true of other adjectives I used. I tried not to repeat 'successful' too many times and I may (must) have gone over the top in some cases, like with Grace Kelly and 'unforgettable'. When I reread it now, I was really ashamed of how stupid it sounded.
Anyway, did I put this letter to the right place? I saw other messages here...
Vaganyik
Re: Your comment on my talk page about protecting Reciprocal System of Theory
I agree that, in general, arguments about content should not be solved by a sysop using sysop powers to trump another person who disagrees with the sysop's view. This particular case is special though: There was no real editing going on - it was an all out version war. There are about a half dozen users who have explained ad infinitum why the shorter NPOV version is the correct one and one person who insists on replacing that version with a treatment that goes beyond the merit of the topic and is therefore inherently non-NPOV (especially since this is an non-falsifiable piece of pseudoscience that is definitely on the fringe of human knowledge). Just read the current and old talk of the article to learn more. BTW, I have been contributing to the Homosexuality article for several months now and haven't encountered anything on this level of an editing dispute. I've encountered numerous disagreements, but not an edit war and certainly not a version war. This is one of the reasons why we have the ability to protect pages. My hope was that by stopping the version war some additional thoughts can be expressed on what to do next.
PS: Changing the protection status of a page is easy. Just hit "Protect this page" on the side navigation bar, delete "is_sysop" from the "Current protection" field and hit save. However, if you do so please leave a note on the talk page to let everyone know you did so and why. Cheers! --maveric149 --maveric149
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
Using the administrative move feature is easy: On your side bar you should see "Edit this page", "Delete this page", and "Move this page". Simply click on the obvious choice and follow the on-screen instructions. As soon as this feature is fixed, the complete history and the times edits were made will be moved to the new page name as if the page always existed at that page name. The old page title will be turned into a redirect and appear to be a completly new page (which in reality it is). However, talk pages are not moved automatically (at least with the current implementation of the move feature) and redirects to the old page name will be broken and will have to be redirected to the new page name by hand. It is also not possible to overwrite an existing page title through a move -- even when that title is just a redirect (hopefully this will be changed and allow for overwriting of redirects). Hope this helps. --maveric149
thanx for your help on Wu Hu. Ktsquare
A real gent! Ortolan88
Koyaanis Qatsi, I appologies for uploading my message on your sunflower image please forgive me. I saved your image in my drive incase you didn't have a backup if you want tell me and I Will upload it again. Sorry man that was stupid idea and I regret it. Kadandaly
If you're changing my inputs just because YOU think the format is wrong, then there's no point in my contributing anything at all, is there? -- Zoe
I'm not sure if you saw my comment at User_talk:Zoe or were keying off my floundering efforts as shown in "Recent Changes", but, yeah, I walked into the disambiguation duplicator the other day and it can be disconcerting. Why not have a section at the bottom of a
article labelled Other places named Paris? If there have been two movies, a tv show, a novel, a comic book, and a bobblehead doll all on one subject, then that is news in and of itself and reason enough for them all the be discussed in one place. Ortolan88, Thursday, July 11, 2002 PS -- My spiderworts are blooming right now, where's that article?
- There is actually a link to such a list at the top of Paris, France (since Paris redirects there in order not to break several hundred links). I see no need to have a discussion about all the Paris' in the world anywhere. All that is needed is a list, and one is provide at Paris (disambiguation). I agree, that eventually, summaries of specific uses (for your non-Paris examples) should be in one place (I would suggest the article on the originating work) but there is also nothing wrong with going into detail in an article on a derivative work -- even when that detail comes before a summary at the originating work. All will be worked out in time (wikipedia is still very much a work in progress, pardon the mess). --maveric149
- Geez, Koyaanis Qatsi, you've been busy changing all those subpages. What a chore! Now I have to go find all of the new pages. :-) -- Zoe
Opps! Thanks for fixing my typo. --maveric149
I noticed your no links comment at Costume Design, but I suspect that there are still a few broken links around, especially for those categories that had several links but no articles. It would probably take a lot of luck to find them all since they're likely buried in articles for individual movies, or even in personal talk pages. I was thinking of integrating the discontinued awards with the main list, but was waiting until your changes were finished to avoid edit conflicts or confusion. Putting award years after the category years already lets us know when something has been discontinued. Eclecticology, Sunday, July 14, 2002
To some extent I was proceeding as you suggested, but tended to forget to do it when it was an empty link. Before reading your message I had already searche under "Academy Awards" (plural) and got 177 hits mostly with the format "X won n Academy Awards". Still I was able to fix a few with strangely formatted links. Good work! Now, about Epopt and transnational issues ... " Eclecticology, Sunday, July 14, 2002
RE: Institutional Mode of Representation
I always check before moving -- the rule is that the title must be lowercase unless it is always capitalized in English (that is the term is a proper noun or has a legal definition). You already noted that the term is lowercased 1/3 of the time and most of the remaining capitalizations can easily be explained as titles or headings and also the tendency of many people to Improperly Capitalize Terms When They Are First Introduced. No biggie, a redirect now exists for those using proper English style. --mav 19:28 Jul 27, 2002 (PDT)
Hi Koyaanis, my camera's a Casio QV-3000EX (3.3 megapixel). I bought it for my wife, who likes to take pictures of our daughter Clara, and also plants & flowers. I manage to steal it sometimes! Ramin Nakisa
Opps! Sorry I missed your previous comment. I don't know what to do with the lilly article you mention -- that part of the plant kingdom has so few entries so far...
I'm glad you asked about the heading fill color of the table. The reason why you saw different colors was because the green ones are for plants and the pink ones are for animals (bacteria are gray, fungi are blue and protists are khaki -- see kingdom (biology)). And the reason why not all of these articles have tables yet is because we have got to everything yet -- but there are five or six of us working on it (some are consentrating on certain plant groups). I personally don't even want to touch the taxotables of some of the ornamental plants that come from inter-genetic crosses! I'm more oriented toward animals and microbes though. I don't see why we shouldn't do the edibles. --mav
- It looks like I'm a couple days late getting your message too. The way that the Recent Changes page has been behaving since the new system started working has made it tougher than ever to notice that I have a message.
- Your Canna lily picture looks great! With this kind of article, a detailed knowledge of biology is not necessary for presenting a good picture. So far yours is the only user name to appear on the history page, which suggests to me that everybody is satisfied with the article. If you happen to put something goofy into an article, somebody here will notice and make the correction. Believe me! Keep it up with the pictures; that makes Wikipedia a lot more attractive than a bunch of boring text. Eclecticology 18:14 Aug 1, 2002 (PDT)
Added a bit to Spiderwort. Your picture is much better than the one in my plant book. Ortolan88 20:51 Aug 1, 2002 (PDT)
I am sorry you misunderstood what I wrote on the Graduate/talk page. When I wrote that I did not think Wikipedia was not an appropriate place for movie reviews, I thought -- given what I wrote next -- that it was clear that articles on films are certainly appropriate and welcome. All I meant was that articles shouldn't be about how much the contributor liked the movie. And I was not responding to the article, in this case, but to the discussion on the talk page. I do not think of the article (and whatever you wrote) as a "review," and I was not criticizing the article as such. Slrubenstein
- you are welcome -- I am glad I was clearer this time, and you really needn't compliment me on being gracious (not that I don't appreciate it!) I re-read what I wrote and realized that I really did invite misunderstanding. As you say, given the relatively open nature of the talk-pages, it is too easy for someone to write unclearly. Fortunately, it is just as easy to clear it up and I am glad I was able to do that, Slrubenstein
KQ -- you weren't rude and you definitely did not run me off. I have been contributing to the list more than to Wikipedia itself lately and have also cut down the huge amount of time I previously spent on Wikipedia. Don't worry I have wiki in my blood now and I appreciate your comments on my talk page. Power to the wiki! --mav
Quote from your comment on User talk:Mazzy: "A lot of people have questions about the italics/quotes bit; I really should find a page to put it on" -- done. It's in the tree on Meta for now. -- Tarquin 01:22 Aug 3, 2002 (PDT)
Funny you should mention Radiohead. I finally bought "Amnesiac" yesterday. It's no OK Computer, but a fine album nonetheless. ;-) Danny
RE film/movie thing: Wikipedia:naming conventions says to go with movie. I'm not 100% jazzed about the choice but if followed will lead to consistency. --mav
The italics/quotes list on Meta-Tree looks fine. My University of Chicago Manual of Style agrees on all except TV shows, but I'll bet they may have changed that in later editions (mine's the 12th of 1969). Other places I have been using italics, words as words: "sans-serif is derived from ... " and I have sometimes used quotes around names of characters in movies, but not consistently. I've been thinking of putting together a simple style sheet, try to keep it small, with the most common rules. They seem to be all over the place.
- University of Chicago, 12th, rule 7.143 says motion pictures italicized, --the movie Blow-up-- and TV program titles in quotes, --NBC's "Bonanza". As I say, I think that is outdated. As for sculptures, I don't buy it -- Rodin's "The Kiss", "The Thinker" seems right, but U of Chgo says works of art should be italicized -- Rodins The Thinker -- but then gives the confusing exception, "Traditional or descriptive titles of works of art are given in Roman: Victory of Samothrace, Apollo Belvedere, Mona Lisa.
- I guess I need a newer U of Chgo, but I don't agree. If there was a "Wikipedia Style Sheet" it would probably say something like "Use University of Chicago except where it differs from this list." Actually, there's the Microsoft Manual of Style for computer terms, etc., etc.
- It is a traditially vexed question. The purpose of a style sheet or style book is not to be "correct", but simply to be consistent. Ortolan88 10:02 Aug 6, 2002 (PDT)
Two other short pieces would be "checklist for writing articles" and "how to use the 1911 encyclopedia", not to mention all the other stuff I want to do. Ortolan88 09:21 Aug 6, 2002 (PDT)
I expect I'll tweak that list a bit (no Hank Williams) but Leadbelly was a major figure in the folk and blues revival in the US, subject of wide coverage, wrote one of the biggest hits of all time in "Goodnight, Irene", still popular and well-known, and recorded hundreds of times from Library of Congress to pop labels, while Robert Johnson had only one (two) recording sessions and was hardly known at all until the 60s when his single album was released and became popular with roots-minded rockers. Johnson may be better known now, but Leadbelly was much more influential. Most people had never even heard of blues, 12-string guitar, singing your way out of prison until he came along. Ortolan88
If you know the genus or family name, you can look it up on Delta, and then write a page about the family. Delta doesn't list species names, so you'll have to look elsewhere for the species in a genus. -phma