User talk:Cactus.man/Archive 2

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Archive 1 Archive 2 Archive 3 Archive 4 Archive 5

I removed {{cleanup}} from this page (to remove it from Category:Wikipedia_cleanup), which appears to be a copy of a Wikipedia article. You may of course do whatever you want with the copy, though if you no longer need it, I'll be happy to delete it for you. In my experience, such copies can easily get out of sync as other editors modify the source article. -- Beland 03:17, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for removing the {{cleanup}} tag. The article is a bit of a mess and I copied this over a few days ago with a view to doing a major rewrite (must engage brain next time when copying articles with tags to personal space). I haven't had the time to work on it yet, but I take your comments about articles becoming out of sync. I will check the latest version before I start work. If you could leave it in place just now thanks, that would be great. You could delete some other sub pages for me though if you have the time. I listed the following redundant pages on WP:SD, but they are still in place.
Many thanks. --Cactus.man 08:19, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
Okey, good luck with the article. Per your request, I deleted the above and the others listed on WP:SD. -- Beland 08:58, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
Thanks for that Beland. --Cactus.man 09:03, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
Thanks!
Thanks!

Thanks for starting the article. It was long overdue. You may also want to check Aristarkh Lentulov and other Cubist-related articles in Category:Russian painters and Category:The Russian avant garde --Ghirlandajo 12:44, 21 November 2005 (UTC)


Thanks for your message Ghirlandajo. I will certainly check out the links you suggest, looking forward to discovering new talent. Do you have any recommendations for the Russian Futurists? Best wishes. --Cactus.man 13:24, 21 November 2005 (UTC)
I'm not an expert in this area, but Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin, Pavel Filonov, Serge Sudeikin, David Burliuk have well established reputations. As an aside, I just spotted Fernand Léger, which definitely needs to be unstubbed. Keep up the good work, Ghirlandajo 13:47, 21 November 2005 (UTC)
Thanks for the Futurist suggestions. I will check them out once the new image servers are responding properly. Lets hope page loading times improve dramatically !! --Cactus.man 09:56, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

vandal?

Don't you think 216.185.69.97 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) ought to be blocked? He has a history of vandalism, I think test1 is way too lenient. Borisblue 17:20, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

You are probably right, but I am not an Admin and cannot block users, so well done to User:FireFox.--Cactus.man 17:25, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

Images on Commons

Hi, I notice that you've been uploading lots of photos of Scottish places from Geograph. Good work, there's some nice photos there. Just a suggestion: you might want to upload them to Wikimedia Commons instead. This means they can be used in other language Wikipedias, and they can be added to appropriate categories to allow them to found and used easily (see commons:Category:Scotland and its subcategories). They can still be linked to and used in Wikipedia articles in the same way. Thanks, Vclaw 14:19, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the advice re uploading images to Commons. I will check it out and transfer them over in time. Cheers. --Cactus.man 14:33, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
Hi Vclaw, is there a formal policy regarding duplicate images on Commons and en.Wikipedia - in other words, when I transfer the images to Commons do I leave the en.WP version intact or ask for it to be deleted? Thanks in advance. --Cactus.man 16:00, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
I think the policy is when images are moved to commons the duplicates are deleted. Category:NowCommons has instructions for tags to add to the image. Though there seems to be a lot of images in that category, so I'm not sure how quickly they will be deleted. Vclaw 17:28, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

I've added a template {{geograph}} to Wikipedia commons, to ease and standardise the labelling of Geograph images. For example, to identify Image:Inveraray Bridge - Loch Fyne.jpg as being geograph #3232, taken by Michael Parry, I added the tag {{geograph|3232|Michael Parry}} to the description page. The template code displays a link to the picture's page on geograph and a license compliant copyright message, and tags the image with the the Category:Geograph images. I already tagged some of your pictures using this - I hope you like it! - Crosbiesmith 15:26, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for letting me know about this, nice work. I do like it :) - it will make uploading speedier and also give more consistency. I'll work my way through all the old images I've uploaded previously. Cheers. --Cactus.man 15:40, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

License display in picture popups

Thanks for this great tool. I love the way the popups all 'minimise' to a set width that can be stacked nicely on the sidebar menu without obscuring the article text - brilliant piece of work. Only one small quibble though. Not all images with valid copyright status tags display the icon in the top left, which is very useful when there. Any chance that you could look into this? Thanks again. --Cactus.man 08:55, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the comment. It's quite hard to read the licensing information from picture pages, so I created a meta-template for standardization of license templates, so that they give the appropriate information in a standard way. It's at {{image-license}}. It needs to be substituted into all image license templates, as described on the template's talk page. It's been done for the most common licenses, but there are still dozens to go. Zocky 18:09, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
Thanks for the reply on this. I've had a look at the template and it looks like a good idea to me. I'll join in and try to substitute into some of the unfinished image license templates. Off to vote on the TfD page now :) --Cactus.man 15:42, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
Zocky, good to see the nomination to delete has been withdrawn. I have started working through some of the image licence templates, and have done the Creative Commons ones that are not protected. As these contain multiple images, you may wish to have a quick look to make sure these are still compatible with your script. It seems OK on my browser though. Cheers. --Cactus.man 19:18, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Vatersay

The photo you uploaded is stunning (as the bay is), but it's the wrong bay. I have been there and have taken a photo from just about the same spot grid reference NL633954 looking south. If you look at the OPS mapping you'll see that the sandy bay is Vatersay Bay rather than the rocky Cornaig Bay to the north. --JBellis 21:38, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the note about the photograph showing the wrong bay. I have not been to Vatersay (must go sometime!) and I took the description from the Geograph page. Having looked at the OS map, I think you are correct and I will amend the description accordingly. Thanks for spotting this error. --Cactus.man 07:49, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
To update, I have fixed the photograph and all affected links. I have also filed an error report for the original on Geograph. Regards. --Cactus.man 08:46, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
Thanks. I'm glad we agree. --JBellis 18:41, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
Woops, missed one ;)    --Cactus.man 19:42, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Crannog

Hi Rich, I am not quite sure where the contradiction is in the article that you refer to. All I can see is a slight ambiguity about the usual means of access to the crannog (canoe or causeway), but a one word change would fix this. Am I missing something? --Cactus.man 20:20, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes, you're right, but I don't know which version is correct so I didn't change it. Rich Farmbrough 20:58, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
Thanks for the reply, glad to know I am not losing my marbles. I will do some checking and fix things up. Regards. --Cactus.man 08:56, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

AFD Helper

Great script, very nice thanks. Saves lots of edit time :)  I also fixed some capitalisation problems on your AFD helper page. --Cactus.man 15:28, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm glad you like this script.

... I hadn't realised, or had otherwise forgotten, that I changed afd->AFD. It was a problem in more places than you fixed; thanks for having a go at that. jnothman talk 22:20, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Due to this same problem, you have included in your monobook.js [[User:Jnothman/AFD_helper/script.js]]. This should be [[User:Jnothman/afd_helper/script.js]]. jnothman talk 22:22, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
Thanks, I had left the "AFD" in my monobook because it was inside the comment, but probably best to change it which I'll do now. Cheers. --Cactus.man 08:52, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
You said you left it AFD because it was inside a comment. All that line does is act as a link to user:jnothman/afd helper/script.js, so that I can then go to special:whatlinkshere/user:jnothman/afd helper/script.js and get a rough idea of who's using the script, and can then tell them all if they need to change something. So because it's a wikilink, the javascript commenting makes no difference. jnothman talk 10:12, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
The link is now changed so my monobook should now show up on your 'what links here' check. --Cactus.man 16:35, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Bishop's Palace, Kirkwall

Hi Dave, I just noticed that you were the original author of this article. I hope you don't mind me "wikifying the shit out of it". I've been adding quite a few images to Scottish related articles recently and came across this one today. After adding the image, I saw that it needed a few links, so I let rip :)  --Cactus.man 16:02, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Woops, sorry, wrong page, ignore the above - I was referring to Crookston Castle instead :)  --Cactus.man 16:35, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
No problem, improvements to articles I start are always welcome. These are good photos, and the one of the Bishop's Palace, Kirkwall is particularly excellent. By the way, got any of Newark Castle, Port Glasgow? ...dave souza 18:39, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Not the greatest of photos, but it does the job I think. I have added it to the article. --Cactus.man 09:09, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Excellent, thanks a lot. I'll try to find a better pic or get along there and take something showing the wider view, but this is grand for now..dave souza 13:26, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Counter-Vandalism

I award you this barnstar for persistent anti-vandalism

I'd like to say nice work on the unblanking. Faster than me at some places. Good work. And thanks for the anti-van on my user page. Sceptre 12:57, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the barnstar :)    Glad to help keep things in shape, particularly user pages which is usually pretty nasty stuff. --Cactus.man 13:04, 13 December 2005 (UTC)


Easdsale

Hi Brookie, I have reformatted the photo's into the above article, rather than having a gallery. I think this is much more user friendly for articles with only one or two photos. Nice photo you added BTW, have you been there? Cheers. --Cactus.man 18:09, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the note - no probs; been there loads of time - my favourite place in the UK - we always used to stay at the Easdale Inn (now Inshaig Park Hotel)- not been there though since our kids were young - missing it! Brookie :) - a collector of little round things! (Talk!) 20:16, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
Ah, the liberating qualities of having young kids :)   --Cactus.man 10:33, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
Indeed! Brookie :) - a collector of little round things! (Talk!) 10:44, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Hi Andrey, I see that you added Lennoxlove House to DYK. Just letting you know I expanded your nomination a bit to include the death mask of Mary Queen of Scots. Cheers. --Cactus.man 10:01, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

I would like to nominate Boris Grigoriev as well, but unfortunately they regard the articles less than 10 sentence long as stubs. Thanks for the article, nevertheless. --Ghirla | talk 10:15, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
Yep, there was not too much material out there to create a bigger article on Boris Grigoriev. I'll try to make the next Russian artist a bit bigger :) --Cactus.man 12:29, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

DYK

Updated DYK query Did you know? has been updated. A fact from the article Dunmore Pineapple, 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.

--Gurubrahma 14:09, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Did you know...


And it's absolutely fantastic. Great work on an awesome topic. A perfect DYK. jengod 14:34, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
Thanks for your kind message, it's always nice to get a little praise now and again :) Seasons greetings. --Cactus.man 14:45, 27 December 2005 (UTC)


DYK

Updated DYK query Did you know? has been updated. A fact from the article Lennoxlove House, 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.

Did you know...

Lennoxlove House


DYK

Updated DYK query Did you know? has been updated. A fact from the article Kellie Castle, 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.

--Gurubrahma 14:49, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Did you know...

Possible RfA nomination

Greetings! I came across you recently and noticed that you are fast approaching 3,000 edits. I have a number of metrics for deciding wether to nominate someone for adminship, and 3,000 edits is one of the metrics. I think you'll pass that mark on January 9th. I've taken a look at your contributions, and like what I've seen so far; 432 reverts, 75 edits in AfD/VfD, some edits in TfD, punctuation project, and a bunch of work in images. When I conduct reviews of people that I might nominate, it takes about two hours worth of effort to do so. Before proceeding any further on this, I'd like to ask you if you'd be interested in becoming an admin and if so would you be willing to accept an RfA nomination from me? All the best, --Durin 21:53, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Greetings also, and Happy New Year!
Thanks for your kind offer to consider nominating me for Adminship. Can I get back to you on this in a few days, as I would like some time to consider whether I would accept a nomination. I have become somewhat disillusioned with Wikipedia over this whole Userbox / Kelly Martin fiasco in the past few days. On the other hand, being an Admin would allow my voice on matters to be heard a bit better, and it would certainly help with the vandal fighting - something I've not done much of since Sam Hocevar's godmode script appears to be broken at the moment :( Time to test it out again!!
Not sure if I'll make the 3,000 mark by January 9th, but I'll let you know once I've considered matters for a bit. Cheers. --Cactus.man 11:06, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
Just noticed your Admin related subpages - lots of useful reading there to help!! And, no, I am not going to read the section with the advisory health warning about falling asleep and whacking your forehead on the keyboard. Looks like good advice to me :) --Cactus.man 11:41, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
Regardless of any disputes happening (and they are always happening) having a diverse admin base is important to the success of the project. As I related to another individual, if there is a problem with the project we can't solve it by walking away. Thus, the question becomes...is the project worth it to solve the problem? I think the answer is yes. Considering your activity level, I think your answer is yes too. Ref User_talk:Durin#Thanks_very_much.2C_but... for more on this. Take your time; like I found in Xoloz, one of the things I like to see in someone is to not actively be seeking adminship. As for advisory health warnings; *laugh* :) (or is that maniacal laughter? ;)) --Durin 15:32, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Hello again Durin.

Your assessment is correct. My recent disillusionment left me feeling particularly uncreative, so I have been working away on drudge tasks instead. The only possible conclusion is that I obviously do believe that the project is worthwhile, which is why I am still here. I have been reading your admin pages and looking at the various reading materials for prospective and actual admins, and doing a fair bit of thinking about your original question.

I agree with you that a diverse admin base is a good thing. I have followed discussions on WP:AN and related pages for some time now, and think some of the behaviour and decisions made there are questionable. I have rarely contributed because I felt that either it was more in the realm that admins only should comment on or, as a "little person", my opinion would be unheard or ignored. I realise now how wrong that view is, and everybody's voice should be heard if they have something valid to say. After the New Year "Wikipedia riots" I determined to become more active in these areas, and also matters like voting in RfA and the upcoming ArbCom elections. Ironically, your message arrived out of the blue as I was reading through the RfA pages, considering starting to vote. I have avoided this for the time being until I resolved whether I would accept your potential nomination or not.

I have decided that I will accept a nomination, if I meet your various criteria for potential nominees. I am probably a bit light in some contribution areas, but that is something that I have already determined to address. I leave that evaluation up to you. So, I will leave you to do whatever it is you do for 2 hours, whenever that may happen, and thanks again for considering me for nomination. Cheers. --Cactus.man 11:37, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Your thoughtful words above prove all the more to me your worthiness as a person, wikipedian and potential admin. I have another nomination review in the que that I am working on, so it might be a little bit before I can begin yours. Also, as I predicted, you cleared 3,000 edits on January 9th :) I would like to note something to you regarding speaking up regarding questionable actions of admins: I've attempted to do this myself, and have met with mixed results. It is possible that if you take similar action, that you will incite the wrath of some particularly defensive admins. I believe too many admins view adminship as a permission slip to behave in very nasty ways with impunity. This is counter to the project, but from this chair it appears ArbCom is unwilling and/or incapable of intervening. I'd like to see this change, but until it does be very careful and polite in how you address admins that you feel are behaving improperly. It can lead to a great deal of stress and wikihardship for you. --Durin 16:01, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for getting back to me. Yes, your prediction on my edit count was spot on and I hereby unilaterally promote you to the post of Head of WikiPrediction. Looks like all the drudge work dragged me up to 3000 after all :) And thanks for the advice, it's pretty much the conclusion I had come to over my time watching WP:AN. I am sure you understand that I was being diplomatic with my language above. As I said earlier, I intend to refrain from voting in any RfA until such time as I am either not nominated, or any nomination for me is over. It would be too much like trying to win friends and influence people for my taste, given that I know I may be in that very position soon. I would appreciate your thoughts on whether I should apply the same policy on voting for the ArbCom candidates. I change my mind on this almost hourly, but my voting finger is twitching madly!! What is the accepted ettiquette on such things? Any advice gratefully accepted, thanks. --Cactus.man 10:51, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Inveraray

Hello Paddy, and Happy New Year to you.

Thanks for removing the full Bennett quote from the article, it just seemed unnecessary and completely unbalanced the article. Sadly, it is a situation that is all too familiar on our shores - I have had the "beans on toast" discussion many times. I also apologise if my edit summary was a bit harsh, bit of a long day. Best wishes. --Cactus.man 14:43, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

No worries at all. You are quite right it wasn't what you'd expect to find in a serious reference book. Great story though! PaddyBriggs 15:11, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
Great story indeed, perhaps something to stick into WP:BEANS, or the sadly absent WP:TOAST, not that these relate specifically to beans or toast. --Cactus.man 17:10, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Top Gear video link

Hi. You reinstated the link on the Jeremy Clarkson article, which I disagree with. The link contains the full episode of Top Gear which is a clear copyright violation. In regards to linking to copyright material, WP:Copyright states that: Linking to copyrighted works is usually not a problem, as long as you have made a reasonable effort to determine that the page in question is not violating someone else's copyright. If it is, please do not link to the page. Whether such a link is contributory infringement is currently being debated in the courts, but in any case, linking to a site that illegally distributes someone else's work sheds a bad light on us.While it may not violate copyright to link to it. So even though in most countries it may not be illegal to link to copyrighted material, I tend to agree with the Official Policy on that page in that it looks very unprofessional. If you still disagree with me, feel free to leave me a message on my talk page and we can debate this further. --PS2pcGAMER 18:19, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your message pointing out the relevant part of the copyright policy. I agree that if the google video content is a copyright violation, then the link should go. It was inserted by an anon user a while back and I moved it down to it's own section, because it gives some useful context to the controversy section. I won't object if you want to remove the link. --Cactus.man ? 07:22, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for your support. --PS2pcGAMER (talk) 07:43, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Hello again Paddy. I think your compromise wording is good, but I have made some further tweaking to the lead section which you may care to review. Having looked at the history of the article, I think there will be some opposition! Cheers. --Cactus.man 16:07, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Looks good to me !! PaddyBriggs 16:12, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Re: AFD Helper

Hi Joe, the script seems to be no longer working for me. When I click the vote button it just takes me to the regular edit page. I have purged the server cache (including for automod.js), cleared my browser cache and refreshed everything, but to no avail. Any ideas or help would be appreciated. Thanks. --Cactus.man 13:31, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

I was afraid some recent changes might have broken cross-browser compliance, but I have failed to confirm this in Opera, Firefox and IE. Do tell me if you have problems in other browsers, or if you manage to diagnose this and sort it out. You may be able to fix this by including a revision number in how you import the script, ie add &oldid=31893036 to the relevant place in importing the afd helper script. This means you won't get any updates, but hopefully will force your browser to load a working version of the script. I will be going on a Wikibreak tomorrow, and it is already early morning, so I'll have to say I can't help you any further on this one at the moment. Many apologies =( jnothman talk 14:37, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for your quick reply. I'm using Firefox 1.6 Deer Park Alpha 2, which may be the cause of the problem (couldnt get Firefox 1.5 to load ANY extensions !!). Sorry, I should have mentioned the browser I use. Anyway, thanks for the suggestion, I'll try to determine which revision of your script I last used that worked and load that up. Enjoy your wikibreak :) --Cactus.man 14:50, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
While I remember, a quick update FYI and use after your wikibreak. The last good version which works for me is &oldid=28407464 (16:06, 15 November 2005). In the next version the vote link is missing completely. In the current version it is back, but broken. I haven't tested anything in between. Hope this info is of some help. Cheers. --Cactus.man 15:40, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for updating the Scottish inventions page, must engage brain next time. --Cactus.man 17:35, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

It's a pleasure. That is a damn fine example of a good stub article.--Mais oui! 17:41, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
No problem, your maintenance of the NoticeBoard is very useful, and also much appreciated. --Cactus.man 18:00, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your help with this!Notjim 15:01, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

No problem. I came across the article a couple of days ago while working on some other artists. It is one of my things that artists articles really ought to have illustrative material, so if I find one without images I try to find some. If there are any others you need images for I would be happy to help out. Cheers. --Cactus.man 15:14, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Re: vandal at 64.235.102.130

I was about to leave a warning on this user's talk page and I saw your warning. This user is continuing to vandalise, and I see you are an admin. Could you do the necessary please. Thanks. --Cactus.man 17:23, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

He's blocked for a week. –Abe Dashiell (t/c) 17:26, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the prompt action :-) --Cactus.man 17:29, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Reverts

Thanks for your reverts last night to image deletions done to Lupin's page. It seems some users aren't taking the legally binding fact that they can't just upload anything to their user pages lightly. -- user:zanimum

Thanks for your message. I use Lupin's popups tool, so his pages are on my watchlist and I saw the deletions. Checking it out there was clearly a problem, so I reverted. I looked through some of the contribs of User:Kooorooo and it seems that he actually caught some valid fair-use vio's, but seeing your talk page and the discussions on WP:AN / WP:ANI I see that he and his cohorts seem to be up to no good. I will probably do a bit more checking I think. --Cactus.man 14:06, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
Some of the uploads he made were definitely valid fair use, he just doesn't seem to ever upload them for the articles, only for his userpage. -- user:zanimum

Just spotted your update to the DYK section, it made me chuckle and left my gob smacked - Guinness Book of Records no less. God bless Arthur, "up go the heads", Montford :-) --Cactus.man 11:31, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

It beggars belief, but if Wikipedia says it, it must be true! I've come across tons and tons of things while working on the Scottish articles that ought to get put up on the portal, but I keep getting distracted and forgetting. All sections of the portal need periodic refreshing (except perhaps the intro, although a new photo/image now and again wouldn't hurt), and new sections created. If you see anything particularly noteworthy or topical, bung it on the portal (eg if you see a cracking image, put it up on Featured picture). If a suitable section doesn't exist, create one. We'll also have to start archiving some stuff to stop it getting clogged up. Eg. I have been meaning to create a new section for Wiki articles regarding Scotland-related current and future events.--Mais oui! 11:38, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
It's also true if the Sunday Post says so!!! Correct me if I'm wrong, but is there not some sort of policy / guideline that indicates Featured Article / Featured Picture / DYK entries on Portals should all be actual Wikipedia equivalents - i.e. actually have been Featured or DYK on the main pages? I seem to recall some sort of discussion somewhere or other but am not sure. I personally have no problem with a regular refreshing of this content and would be glad to help out. Like you, I regularly find brilliant stuff that could be placed here. --Cactus.man 12:02, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

did you change the bethlehem campus thing??!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.96.107.4 (talkcontribs)

Yes, reply on your talk page. --Cactus.man 12:56, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks!

My own page was vandalized, and you reverted for me. That was very nice of you! Out of curiosity, how did you know it was vandalized? Sholom 03:57, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Hi Sholom, thanks for your message. To answer your question, there are a number of ways of monitoring pages for vandalism, and one of the easiest is to use a tool such as CryptoDerk's Vandal Fighter. This monitors changes to pages in real time via IRC, and it is very easy to configure and use. Different types of edits can be monitored and colour coded. Included in the edits that I monitor are edits to user pages not made by the user in question. Your page flashed up with an edit by an anonymous user - usually very suspicious - so I checked it out :-)
I see that you are a fairly new editor and I hope that you continue to contribute. If you catch the bug and stay, there are plenty of other tools out there to make editing easier and more productive. You might like to check out Wikipedia:Tools, Wikipedia:WikiProject User scripts/Scripts and the tool I find most valuable of all Wikipedia:Tools/Navigation popups. Hope that helps, all the best. --Cactus.man 09:53, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Sweet!!!

After chasing around godmode.js all around the net (wikipedia), I found yours and put it in my monobook.js and it works for me! Thanks for your help! The original one never worked for me.--Adam (talk) 05:12, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Glad you got it working, the original version has a conflict with popups that stops it working. Can I ask which browser you are using as it stoped working for me completely in late December when I upgraded to firefox 1.5. Haven't been able to get it to work since :-( --Cactus.man 08:10, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
I am using latest version of Firefox. That must have been my problem too.--Adam (talk) 12:13, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
All very strange, based on what you said I tried it out again and it's working now ??? But I have a very odd behaviour when I check contributions pages - all last edit entries are appended with [User&token=88f0aa6317bf273db3d0b25f83a72e65">rollback] instead of the usual name and rollback links. Do you get this problem? Thanks. --Cactus.man 14:20, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
I don't have any problems with that. Look at my contributions. --Adam (talk) 14:30, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

monobook.js

Hello Quarl, I took the liberty of "borrowing" your nice function winc(s) from your monobook.js a while back with a view to cleaning up my own monobook. I also added some of your useful scripts from your sub pages and they all work beautifully except for User:Quarl/toolbox_edit_count.js. For some reason, the link just does not show up on my toolbox, although it did for a spell while I was rebuilding the monobook.js. I just wondered if the script itself is still functioning or if I have implemented something incorrectly? Thanks. --Cactus.man 08:19, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Hi Cactus.man, can you see if there are any Javascript errors? Quarl (talk) 2006-02-09 08:33Z

Hi Quarl, thanks for replying. I am running Firefox 1.5.0.1 and there are a gazillion javascript errors reported in the console. Most seem to be related to extensions or Greasemonkey scripts. The only one I can see that appears to be relevant is:

Error: [JavaScript Error: "illegal character" {file: "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Quarl/summary.js&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript&dontcountme=s" line: 1 column: 0 source: "#REDIRECT [[User:Quarl/auto summary.js]]"}]
Source File: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Quarl/summary.js&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript&dontcountme=s
Line: 1
Source Code:
#REDIRECT [[User:Quarl/auto summary.js]]

My javascript understanding is rudimentary at best and I belong to the copy, paste, offer a human sacrifice and pray to the Gods school of programming. Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks. --Cactus.man 12:13, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Update: I have fixed the redirect in my monobook.js to point directly at User:Quarl/auto_summary.js. Still no editcount link in the toolbox :( There are now no javascript errors that relate to any of your scripts. HTH. --Cactus.man 12:24, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
Yes, the redirect was the problem (I shouldn't have renamed so liberally back then). Also, if there are any javascript errors, even if they are not from my scripts, anything after the error won't work. If you could identify which script it is from (if you are using Firefox, just click on the link in the Javascript console), then you could remove that one or move the edit count script above it. Quarl (talk) 2006-02-12 13:01Z
I have too many javascript errors being generated by extensions at the moment to fix this properly. I have tried positioning your edit count script at the head of the queue, but to no effect. The strange thing is that the extension errors don't seem to affect the functioning of any of the other Wikipedia scripts. Oh well, never mind, it's not really that big a deal so I can live without it :( Thanks for your help nonetheless. --Cactus.man 15:21, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Godmode Lite contrib page problems

Hello Encephalon, I couldn't help but notice your message on User:Sam Hocevar's talk page about the above. I have been following discussions there since the script stopped working for me in December. Well, today I got it going again and encountered the same problem as you with contribs pages. I seem to have managed a fix:

In the function AddRevertButtons(), alter the following below the comment // Add 'revert' links to a contributions page. You need to change

if (a.length == 2) {

to

if (a.length >= 2) {

It certainly works for me :-) Hope that helps. --Cactus.man 16:23, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Cactus.man, you are indeed da MAN! Thanks buddy :-) ENCEPHALON 04:07, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Need a quick hand

today you marked my picture for deletion. yes it was just a prank i didnt realise it would be made accesible as i have not addedthings to wikipedia before. i was plannin to delte the picture anyway but i now dont know how to do it. could you explain how to delete this whole picture and page without having to wait for it to be deleted? im sorry about posting and would appreciate you help. thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jay231104 (talkcontribs)

Thanks for your message. Unfortunately, now that you have uploaded these images to the Wikipedia servers, there is no way that you can delete them yourself. There are a few options - leave them on Images for deletion for 5 days and an administrator will then delete them if there is no concensus not to - list them yourself on Speedy deletions giving a valid reason (I will help you do this if this is the route you wish to choose) - or I could ask an administrator to speedy delete them directly if you confirm on my talk page that this is what you want to do.
And thanks for "coming clean" - you are welcome to contribute constructively here in the future. Here are some links to help:
Let me know if you need any further help. --Cactus.man 19:53, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
thanks for getting back to me, if you could ask an administrator that would be great, i would like the image deleted asap rather than having to wait. if this could be arranged that would be great. thanks for being so helpful and sorry again —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jay231104 (talkcontribs)
OK, I'll see what I can do. BTW, if you plan to hang around here, it's best to 'sign' your messages by appending four tildes (~~~~) - that leaves a name and timestamp. --Cactus.man 20:15, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
  • The pictures are now deleted. Cactus.man 13:46, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Help with a newbie

Hi Durin, could you help me out in deleting a couple of prank images uploaded by a (schoolboy?) newbie, User:Jay231104. They are Image:Maurice.JPG and Image:Maurice Proctor.jpg. I flagged them up on WP:IFD, and notified him as the uploader. He has now responded to me, somewhat apologetically, and asked if they could be deleted ASAP (discussion here). Could you do the necessary, thanks. BTW, any progress on the review, not pressing you but just wondered? All the best. --Cactus.man 13:27, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

I've deleted the images, and removed the entry from IFD. Review; you're #1 on the list. I've been active here doing a number of things, but nothing that requires considerable time, such as a review. So, please do not take my activity and lack of a review of you as having forgotten you; I haven't. You are #1 on the list of "big" things to do. There's three others in line behind you, too :) --Durin 13:34, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
Thanks, that was mighty quick, and explains why I couldnt find them on IFD when I went to add a comment for "speedy at user request" in case you were not on-line :-) No worries about the review, I'm not in any desperate rush, particularly with the politically charged atmosphere around the place right now. Just keeping my head down and plugging away. Whenever you get the chance will be just fine. --Cactus.man 13:42, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the welcome

Hey dude — I've been around here a good while, I just lost the password to my old account & didn't want to give up on it (I like the username). I think I found WP some time in 2004. So, yeah, thanks for the welcome :)

SirPavlova 16:34, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Kilcreggan

You've uploaded Image:Kilcreggan in winter.jpg which makes a fine illustration to the Kilcreggan article, but as it shows the western suburbs of the village, so to speak, it would be really good to also have the Geograph image for NS:2480 showing Kilcreggan Pier [1]. I've been completely unable to find instructions on how to download this file for uploading to the Commons, and will be most grateful if you can do so. By the way, you also obtained a picture of Newark Castle, Port Glasgow which I've been able to replace, but Kilcreggan's a bit harder to get to. ...dave souza, talk 13:31, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Hi Dave, Kilcreggan now has a pier! Also, that's a nice range of photos you've supplied for the Newark Castle, Port Glasgow article. BTW, to save an image from Geograph to your HD, just right click on it and select "save image as" or whatever equivalent your browser calls the command. Cheers. --Cactus.man 14:13, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
Many thanks, it looks good! Any new photos you want around Inverclyde, let me know. Silly me not to have remembered contextual menus, us one button mice people: right enough the method works with ctrl-click. ....dave souza, talk 15:24, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
Will do, thanks for the offer. And I have to say "Good Grief !", a one-button mouse? Surely worthy of an article due to notability as the first mouse in history to qualify for a bus pass :-) --Cactus.man 15:42, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the Jenny Saville picture

Hey Cactus.man, thanks a lot for the picture you put in the Jenny Saville article. I am a newbie and have 1) no idea about copyright and 2) no idea how to even put in an image when it is copyright free. (Even though I read the appropriate Wikipedia pages, they just made me feel more stupid. I have the same problems putting pictures on forums that I am a member of.) So much appreciated, because I was trying to do it myself and no joy at all. Excellent choice of image too. How did you get it to be free of copyright? I have also edited a page for Yinka Shonibare and would like to have an image there too, preferably Maxa. Could you give me tips? THANKS! Penguin2006 09:15, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Hi Penguin, thanks for your message. The image is being used in the article under "Fair Use" terms, because it is still under copyright. The whole copyright issue is very complex, and I am not a lawyer, but it is US copyright law that governs content on Wikipedia. As I understand it, art works published before 1923 are Public Domain in the US and can be freely used on Wikipedia, those published afterwards are still under copyright and images used in articles will have to rely on a fair use justification unless the copyright holder agrees to license it under the GFDL (or other non commercially restricted acceptable license). See Fair use and Template:art for the reasoning behind fair use of artwork images. Another handy copyright link I use, which is written pretty clearly, can be found here.
Nice work on Yinka Shonibare as well. If you have the image you want to upload, great. As long as it is reasonably small compared to the original work, a fair use justification is probably OK. You can upload it by clicking on the Upload file link in the toolbox at the left of the page. Enter a description in the edit box and mark it with the correct copyright tag (in this case it will be {{art}}). The template contains the fair use justification. If you are not sure what to do, edit the Jenny Saville picture, copy the text from there and modify it as needed.
See Wikipedia:Uploading images and Wikipedia:Picture tutorial for more help on uploading and using images. If you need any further help, let me know. --Cactus.man 09:55, 13 February 2006 (UTC)
I meant to say, if you want me to upload the image for you I would be happy to do that. Cheers. --Cactus.man 10:35, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for current event coverage of abuse

Strange some try to oppress this. Get-back-world-respect 18:12, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Hi GBWR, this came up on my radar because I monitor the current events section. I watched the video footage with horror, disgust and shame. It seems to me that the wording you inserted was perhaps slightly inflammatory, but broadly correct. It also seems to me that Dbiv's edit sought to sanitise the events. I was seeking a middle ground that represented the facts. Of course, none of us who weren't actually present will actually know the true position until much later, if ever. --Cactus.man 18:30, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
What do you think was inflammatory? Get-back-world-respect 18:33, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Belated reply here, as your talk page seems to have been deleted. I said your language was "perhaps slightly inflammatory" only in reference to your phrase of being "kicked in the genitals". From the footage I observed there was only one clear incidence of this, the rest being kicks aimed elsewhere. I was merely seeking to achieve a more balanced wording. BTW, if you have left the project as it seems you may have, I hope you reconsider. --Cactus.man 13:27, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
Dbiv deleted it for a fifth time even after getting reported for 3RR: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/3RR#User:Dbiv. Quite stubborn. Get-back-world-respect 18:58, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
Now you messed up the current events page 8^p Get-back-world-respect 19:03, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
Even when warned by an administrador Dbiv reverted for a sixth time. Get-back-world-respect 00:31, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Leaving the project

As you seem to be a reasonable person I would like to explain. I do not like the general tendency here that interests groups are allowed to dominate pages. Some continuously delete all content related to the fact that some people regard area bombing a war crime or crime against humanity. One user has been dominating all related pages for a long time and even insisted for several months that Bomber Harris should not be portrayed as a controversial figure. I once saw a similar phenomenon at pages related to pedophilia, where outspoken pedophiles insisted that sex with minors was shown to do no harm to them. It got so ugly I just decided to stop editing anything connected to that. If I stop editing everything connected to politics I do not regard this as an encyclopedia any longer. The 2003 invasion of Iraq was dominated by three guys from the US military, and ever since I saw the point of someone complaining and asked some others if they might want to have a look at the page - I did not even interfere myself - Swatjester follows me wherever I go, makes unfounded accusations and even listed me for vandalism - consisting of deleting comments from my talk page, as many users frequently do. He was told by several others that I have the right to delete comments, however, some mud always sticks. Just look what they have done to my talk page. Policy clearly says users can leave and have their pages deleted. Mine is now "blocked for vandalism". Mediation refused, arbitration seems to get rejected. People should not be allowed to shoo others away. 84.59.114.156 17:02, 17 February 2006 (UTC) (formerly get-back-world-respect)

Replying here as your original user page, although now restored, is protected and you seem not to be using the IP pages. Editing in the political areas that you seem to is always likely to be contentious and open to conflict. Interest groups dominating pages is wrong of course, but I have not researched the specifics of your particular claims on this, nor regarding Swatjester following you and making unfounded accusations.
I think it is unfortunate that you have decided to leave over breaking 3RR once and being blocked as a result, because you seem to be a solid and valuable contributor, but thats your prerogative to do so. AFIK it is pretty uncommon for talk pages to be deleted and they are commonly blanked instead. However, as the guideline says: As a matter of practice User talk pages are generally not deleted ... however exceptions to this can and are made occasionally. I would have thought your case was appropriate at the time you 1st flagged up your request. [2] The only negative history was the 3RR block, and that would still remain in the block log, so no big deal to deletion I would argue.
There seems to be too much opposition to deletion now from some quarters though, so maybe it's best to just accept the blanking and move on. The louder you shout, the more entrenched the opponents will become. Take a break from WP, and I hope you do decide to come back at some point in the future. Best wishes. --Cactus.man 10:50, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Nice polite man!

Thank you for your kind email, cactus man. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.12.97.196 (talkcontribs)

Whidden Hall

Why did you revert the page back. He gave no explaination why it must be re-directed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.138.29.49 (talkcontribs)

Hello User:72.138.29.49, I reverted the Whidden Hall article because the edit summary of your revert read: revert for no reason whatsoever. That gives the impression of wilful vandalism. It is best to discuss major changes like this on the article talk page with the parties involved. I hope that helps. --Cactus.man 17:59, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
Hi Moe Epsilon, and thanks for trying to clean up my talk page by removing the message from this user. I don't think it was necessary in this case, so I have restored it. I would normally only remove the most offensive or obscene personal attacks, but thanks again for your good intentions. Cheers. --Cactus.man 18:11, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
No Problem Moe ε 18:13, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks (remove after reading)

Thank you for properly reverting Scrubber article. I am reading the instructions the guidelines now. :) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Emre D. (talkcontribs)

Hi Emre D, thanks for your message which prompted me to check the article history again. All the vandalism by 163.153.84.22 (talk · contribs) had not been reverted. Check out this diff. It is easy to miss things like this when there is a rapid spree of vandalism and reverts. But thanks for your efforts and keep up the good work. BTW, when posting messages on talk pages it is good practice to sign your name using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically insert your user name plus a date and timestamp after your message. Best wishes. --Cactus.man 16:10, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
Forgot to Sign again. :((( Thanks for the advice. I will try. Thanks again. --Emre D. 16:18, 27 February 2006 (UTC)


Thanks

thanks for reverting vandalism to the Boroughmuir RFC page --Philbarker 22:37, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

No problem at all :-) --Cactus.man 11:37, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Crawford Castle

Hi Cactus Man. Thanks for wikifying the article on Crawford Castle (is it inappropriate to say "my article"?). My surname is Crawford, I live in the USA (Cleveland, Ohio), am married with 4 children, and am a real estate lawyer. I am hoping to visit Scotland and Crawford Castle sometime within the next 5-10 years. My girls are in Irish dance - perhaps we'll visit when they go to Irish dance competitions in Ireland. I am telling my children that someday we (as a family) will rebuild Crawford Castle. Really, I want to get permission from the authorities to search for artifacts there. I have read that many bloody battles have occurred there and that the site dates as far back as the 12th century. It is told that William Wallace fought there and his family (uncles) were hold up there. I KNOW there are swords, shields, coins etc. there. I spoke to the farmer who owns the land - Castle Mains. He is quite old and his son raises sheep there - Robert Haddow Patton. Can you visit the site and take pictures? Especially I read that there are 4 foundation stones as the castle ruins - I would really like pictures of those. They have crests, dates, etc. on them. Can you get me permission to use a metal detector at the site - I will share all the glory (and the $ and pounds) with you! Best regards, Lawnmowerman

Hi Lawnmowerman, thanks for your message. It's entirely natural to have an attachment to articles that you have started, but once you upload it be prepared for it to be edited and altered by anybody and everybody. Normally this is a positive process and results in articles gradually expanding and improving (though not always, so be prepared to discuss things with other users on the talk page if necessary !!).
As to searching for buried antiquities at the castle, the site is a Scheduled Ancient Monument, so that is prohibited by statute. There will be a delineation of the boundaries in the scheduled listing however, and anything outwith those boundaries should be searchable with the permission of the relevant landowner. It would be best to check with the relevant bodies closer to the time however. Your first port of call should be The Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland.
If I'm ever passing by the site I would be happy to stop and take some photographs for you. Good luck in your endeavours if and when you make it to Scotland, and I hope you have a great time. Best wishes. --Cactus.man 15:51, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for replying Cactus Man. I understand that the necessary permissions would be required to even search the site using a non-invasive method such as a metal detector. That's what I'm hoping someone can help with - it would take me some time. I do not know how to add a reply to existing messages on your talk page or to put an edit link next to the Crawford Castle topic, perhaps you can help. I want to start a broader duscussion about Crawford Castle, how can I do that? I need people on the ground to help :-) I would like to expand the article but need to add footnotes, bibliography, etc. and don't know how to do that. So much to know! I see you are interested in art. Have you read "The Lost Painting" about the Italian painting recently found in an abbey in Ireland. You might like that. --Lawnmowerman 16:15, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
Hi Lawnmowerman. Most of your editing questions will be answered in the various links in my welcome message above. It's a fair bit of reading, but the information is there, and it does take time. To continue a discussion in an existing section, just click on the edit link to the right immediately above the section heading. (You may need to edit your preferences to turn this on. Preferences -> Editing Tab ->check the Enable section editing via [edit] links checkbox).
It is normal to indent replies one step further from the last by prefixing your message with one or more colons. (Check the code here in the editing window to see how it's done)
This is indented further for example.
I very much doubt that you will get permission to use a detector within the boundaries of the Scheduled Monument. But be aware that even if you do get permission to search on private land outside of those boundaries, anything you find will not necessarily be your property. Scots law is fairly prescriptive in relation to archaeological finds. Check out these links: [3] and [4]. Financial compensation is normally given for anything claimed by the Crown however.
Thanks also for the suggestion about "The Lost Painting", but no I haven't read it. There's a good article for you to create !! --Cactus.man 17:08, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
Hi Cactus Man. Can you help me fix a redirect you put on page Crawford Castle for Tower Lindsay. I want to write a separate article for Lindsay Tower aka Tower Lindsay but you put a redirect on and I don't know how to take it off. This was my fault all along but I just discovered that the castle was built on the site of the former tower, so each really needs a separate article. Thanks
Just continue editing the Lindsay Tower page as normal, which I see you've now done :-) --Cactus.man 09:05, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for adding the photo to Inchmahome Priory. I have been trying to source a decent freely available image for this article for ages, without success !! Cheers. --Cactus.man 17:44, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Glad to help. My wife (the actual photographer, who OK'd the use and public licensing) and I had a great visit to Scotland last summer, and I'm using some of our photos and the literature we collected to add to Wikipedia's Scottish articles. (See, e.g. Cawdor Castle, Balloch Castle, and Balloch Country Park.) I'm working my way through our itinerary as I have the time, but if there are other Scottish historical tourist sites for which you're seeking images, let me know, and I'll see if we can oblige. --JohnPomeranz 17:54, 5 March 2006 (UTC)
Thanks, great work on these articles. I have taken the liberty of adding notice of your article contributions and image uploads to Wikipedia:Scottish Wikipedians' notice board/New articles and Wikipedia:Scottish Wikipedians' notice board/New images. Feel free to add any further relevant things you do there to keep us up to date. As for image requests, all I have at the moment is anything related to the architect Robert Lorimer, in particular photographs of the chapel for the Knights of the Thistle in St Giles Cathedral, Edinburgh. I know it's a long shot, but hey, you never know. Best wishes. --Cactus.man 18:51, 5 March 2006 (UTC)
Alas, no help on the Lorimer sites. Sorry and good luck. (But I do appreciate having ANOTHER excuse to want to visit Scotland again...not that I needed any more.) Thanks also for the kind words and the notice board pointers. I never would have known that those pages existed! Best wishes! --JohnPomeranz 19:13, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Rough Castle Fort

Updated DYK query Did you know? has been updated. A fact from the article Rough Castle Fort, 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.

--PFHLai 00:59, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Did you know...

Question for you

Hi Cactus.man. I'm working on your RfA now, developing data and etc. I got curious...are you a highlander or of that stock? (and if so, are you proud of it? :)) --Durin 17:41, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Hi Durin, thanks for your question, not sure where it came from, other than work on castles maybe ??. Anyway, no, I am not a Highlander .... stereotyping aside, I would probably have bright orange hair and a bushy beard if that was the case. Alas, I have neither :-) I am a Sassenach, a Lowland Scot. Nonetheless I am a still a Scotsman, and naturaly proud of that fact. Hopefully that satisfies your curiosity. Cheers. --Cactus.man 18:24, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Do you use IRC? Can you hop on to #wikipedia at the moment? --Durin 18:29, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
I'm a bit of an IRC virgin, I installed it a while back but haven't done anything with it. Give me a couple of minutes to see what I can do.--Cactus.man 18:35, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Thanks. I'd like to briefly chat with you. I'm short on time though, so if you can hurry up it would help :) I'm assuming you'll login in as Cactus.man? --Durin 18:39, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
I am on #wikipedia but I don't see you there. Maybe I have stuffed up, but I think I am on the right channel. --Cactus.man 18:50, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Please go to #wikipedia-cactus on IRC. Thanks. --Durin 18:50, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
LOL, what a hoot of an IRC learning curve :-) How did you learn to type so fast? --Cactus.man 19:24, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
  • I took a typing class some years before I finished grade school. I never used the lessons. When I finally needed to learn to type, I invented a method for typing. To this day, I can't tell you how I type. It isn't home row. Whatever it is, it works for me. I've been timed at >90 words per minute before. I suspect I've settled in around 70 words per minute. I think part of it is I am impatient, and want my fingers to work as fast as my brain is thinking...which is impossible of course, but my fingers try to keep up :) Having played musical instruments most of my life has probably helped create and maintain strength and dexterity in my fingers. Likewise, the typing helps my playing. --Durin 18:46, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Your RfA

Finally, it's done :) Thank you very much for your patience during the two month long wait! After a careful review of your contributions to Wikipedia, you've passed my standards for admin nomination. Your RfA now exists at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Cactus.man. In moving this nomination forward, please follow these instructions I crafted for nominees I have nominated, as this will help ensure a smooth RfA process for you and success as an admin. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask me. I'll be happy to help in any way that I can. Do not forget to update the time/date of the ending of the RfA to match when the RfA is posted to WP:RFA and answer the questions on the RfA prior to posting it to WP:RFA. --Durin 21:15, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

  • Your answers to the questions were very nicely done! Good work! You're off to a 10-0 start. --Durin 18:01, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Godmode-light

Sorry to bother you, but do you know why am I getting a "bad authentication token" error while using the script in FF 1.5.0.1? I've already tried Sam's original version, the zopatista one and your one and I always get this error. Help! Fetofs Hello! 23:58, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Hi Fetofs. I can rollback with the script from a diffs page, but get the same "bad authentication token" error if trying to rollback from a user contribs page. Can you at least rollback from a diffs page? I am no javascript expert so I haven't figured out the problem with the contribs page problem, but there's been a bit of discussion on Sam's talk page about this. Unfortunately nobody's come up with a solution yet. Sorry if that doesn't help too much. --Cactus.man 07:36, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
Well, I can't rollback from the diff page, so my problem must be different. Some kind of server lag, perhaps? I'm starting to think this is not a code problem. (It's working now...) Fetofs Hello! 12:35, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
Update: it seems to be another conflict with one of User:Lupin's tools (User:Lupin/recent2.js). The problem appeared when I turned it on and simply disappeared when turned off. Fetofs Hello! 12:52, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
Note: As I saw you won't need godmode-light soon, I wish you good luck! Fetofs Hello! 00:46, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
Hi fetofs, thanks for the update. If you can get the script working from the diffs page it's still very usable. Try changing the order in which the scripts are loaded in your monobook.js. Sometimes this can solve odd conflicts between scripts. BTW, I discovered User:Haza-w/Interiot2.js from looking at your monobook script. What a great find, thanks :-) --Cactus.man 08:40, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

DYK

Updated DYK query Did you know? has been updated. A fact from the article Bonnybridge, 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.

--Gurubrahma 03:47, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Did you know...

  • ...that Bonnybridge, forming part of the "Falkirk Triangle" in Scotland, is considered by many UFO enthusiasts to be world's number one UFO hotspot, with around 300 sightings every year?

Hi Angus, where did you find the dates for Gray's birth and death? I couldn't find anything on the net at all. Well done. I also agree that short excerpts from significant works are legitimate fair use, which is why I put in the excerpt from Scotland. Cheers. --Cactus.man 14:52, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Ha ! Just lucky. Thanks for the great work on the page. It looks a lot better. The dates are in the list of all fellows (a big pdf) accessible from this page of The Royal Society of Edinburgh website. Unfortunately they only have obituaries from the 90s onwards, otherwise we'd have really been in luck. Angus McLellan 15:01, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
Well found indeed! I guess that his fellowship of the RSE should be added into the article. I'll leave that honour to you as the article originator and finder of the source. I see you've done it already, just shoot me. --Cactus.man 15:24, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
No bother, but only half done. I'll update Royal Society of Edinburgh. A copy of Gray's Four and Forty was in my letter box today. Hurrah ! Angus McLellan 15:32, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
Hi Angus, I have nominated the article at DYK. Good luck. --Cactus.man 09:59, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Lochs/Lakes

Hello Cactus Man. Should category Cat:Lakes of Scotland be merged into Cat:Lochs of Scotland? What is the difference between "lake" and "loch" in Scotland. Thank you. - Darwinek 09:32, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Hi Darwinek, thanks for your question. Lochs in scotland ("Loughs" in Ireland) generally fall into two categories - freshwater and saltwater. A lake, by definition is an inland body of water surrounded by land, and the freshwater lochs are indeed lakes. The saltwater lochs are open to the sea and are therefore not lakes. This is often confusing to non Scots, but the main Loch article explains it better than I do :-) Although Cat:Lakes of Scotland contains only a few entries, it is an important subset of Cat:Lochs of Scotland and should be kept separate I think. I hope that helps. BTW, thanks for your vote on my RfA, and may the snows clear up soon. --Cactus.man 09:55, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks!

Thanks for the quick reverts on my talk page in response to vandal 195.93.21.8 ! Monkeyman(talk) 18:04, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

No problem, happy to help :-) --Cactus.man 18:23, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

You are welcome!Dlohcierekim 14:16, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the reverT!Dlohcierekim 14:45, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

vandalfighter

you said that vandalfighter 3.0 didn't work at all for you. Could you try the newest version (3.2)and tell me if it still doesnt work for you? Henna 19:42, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Hi Henna, v3.0 didn't work, but I'm now running 3.1.1 which works perfectly. All the bugs I reported have been fixed (for me at least) and I have struck out my reports on the VF page. I'll get round to trying v3.2 at some point and will let you know of any problems. Thanks for all your work on this, keep it up. Cheers. --Cactus.man 06:11, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
Update: I think the problem with VF3.0 was an incompatible JRE version. I was running 1.4.2.09 but updated to 1.5.0.06 before running VF3.1.1. I just tried VF3.0 again and it worked without problems. I presume you are using some new classes / methods that are not available in older JRE versions? I have added a Troubleshooting section to the VF page regarding the JRE version - please modify it as necessary. --Cactus.man 07:50, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
ok, no clue what the problem was then :) Henna 16:14, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
I'm pretty sure the problem was the incompatible JRE version. All working well now though, so that's good. --Cactus.man 16:19, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
Found the problem here as well, i switched to java 1.5 without realising it. thx for the troubleshooting section :)Henna 17:25, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

regarding Thanks

Sorry to come back to you so late...but you're very welcome indeed. :)) Lectonar 17:07, 15 March 2006 (UTC)