User:Loadmaster: Difference between revisions

Loadmaster
Loadmaster
Born	David R. Tribble
Nationality	American
Citizenship	American
Education	B.S. in Mathematics,; minor in Computer Science
Occupation	Software Engineer
Known for	Software Engineer; Photography (amateur); Wikipedian
Political party	Conservative Libertarian /; Liberal conservative
Children	2
Website	david.tribble.com

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Latest revision as of 01:24, 5 December 2024

Loadmaster — David R. Tribble

My Wikimedia Commons account → User:Loadmaster
My Wikimedia account → User:Loadmaster
My Wiktionary account → User:Loadmaster
My Wikibooks account → User:Loadmaster
My Wikiquote account → User:Loadmaster
My Simple English Wikipedia account → User:Loadmaster
My Wikinews account → User:Loadmaster
My Conservapedia account → Loadmaster
My Wikimedia Bugzilla account → david@tribble.com
My Google Picasa → portfolios
My PGP public key → User:Loadmaster/PGP public key
My web page → david.tribble.com

→ Current date and time: 12:59, Monday, January 6, 2025 (UTC)
→ Leave me a message at my user talk page
→ Yes, I am a fan of the original Star Trek TV series
→ More tribbles
→ No, I am not actually a loadmaster

This is a Wikipedia user page.
This is not an encyclopedia article or the talk page for an encyclopedia article. If you find this page on any site other than Wikipedia, you are viewing a mirror site. Be aware that the page may be outdated and that the user whom this page is about may have no personal affiliation with any site other than Wikipedia. The original page is located at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Loadmaster.

Articles of interest

See: User:Loadmaster/Articles of interest
See: Wikipedia:Unusual articles
See: Wikipedia:Lamest edit wars

Projects

Projects of which I am a member

Contributions

This user is one of an infinite number of monkeys editing Wikipedia right now.

13,000+

This user has made more than 13,000 contributions to Wikipedia.

This user has been on Wikipedia for 18 years, 11 months and 11 days.

→ My current edit count
→ 13,000th edit (2018-08-10): The Few
→ 12,000th edit (2015-12-30): System time
→ 11,501st edit (2014-07-22): American Dream
→ 11,000th edit (2013-12-18): Binary-coded decimal
→ 10,500th edit (2013-06-06): Intel 4040
→ 10,000th edit (2013-01-15): USS Wyandot (AKA-92)
→ 9,500th edit (2012-06-04): S. E. Cupp
→ 9,000th edit (2011-08-29): Brian Clark (September 11 attacks survivor)
→ 8,500th edit (2011-01-12): COT
→ 8,000th edit (2010-05-24): Talk:COBOL
→ 7,500th edit (2009-08-28): User:Loadmaster
→ 7,000th edit (2009-08-28): Eiffel (programming language)
→ 6,000th edit (2009-05-12): Mystery Science Theater 3000
→ 5,000th edit (2008-10-25): Pink noise
→ 4,000th edit (2008-01-17): Template:Chset-tableformat
→ First edit (as user Loadmaster): Controversy over Cantor's theory (2006-04-11)

Using my work

If you wish to use any of the photographs or images created or uploaded by me, see the "Licensing" section for each image. Also refer to Commons:User:Loadmaster/permissions for more details.

Articles Started by Me

4294967295
9223372036854775807
Abby Hornacek
Antarctica Cup Yacht Race
Balls and vase problem
Charles W. Eisemann Center for Performing Arts
Chris Muir (pic)
Composite odontoma
Concatenation (mathematics)
Control-Z
Curiosity Shop
EBCDIC 1047
EBCDIC 500
Edward P. Felt
— deleted [1], Jun 2008
Eight Ones
Exit (operating system)
fg (Unix)

Roy Kurban
Sleep (operating system)
Smith (programming language)
— deleted, Jan 2010
strtol
System time
Tequila Party
time_t
— moved to C date and time functions, Nov 2011
Tribbles (game)
Usenet celebrity
— see Category:Usenet people
User exit
Voluntary Content Rating
— moved to User:ArneBab/Voluntary Content Rating, Dec 2010
Wait (operating system)
Won Chik Park

Other Pages Added by me

Hendecatope (redirect)
Ketcham (disambig)
Killjoy (disambig)
Latitude (disambig)
Pennies from Heaven (film)
Shatner (disambig)
Sheetal (disambig)
Shive (disambig)
sin(x) (redirect), et al
Stubroutine (redirect)

Time share (disambig)
Topal (disambig)
Topal (surname)
Transcendental (disambig)
Tribble (disambig)
See also: Tribble (surname)
Triblade (disambig)
Wait (disambig)
WfMC (redirect)
Wild Flower Festival (disambig)

Images Uploaded

Picture of the Day

5 October 2017

Categories added by me

Templates added by me

Template:Brown (example)
Template:Cyan (example)
Template:Inverse (example)
Template:Magenta (example)

Ideas for Wikipedia proposed by me

Village pump (idea lab) – English variants (dialects)

Character codes and code set articles

Articles Needing Improvement

Other Sections

9/11 memorial page for Ed Felt

Articles in progress

See: User:Loadmaster/Proposed articles

Articles that reference my other works

Canonical LR parser — Practical LR(k) Parser Construction (Dec 2004)
Compatibility of C and C++ — Incompatibilities Between ISO C and ISO C++ (Aug 2001)
Considered harmful — Go To Statement Considered Harmful: A Retrospective (Feb 2005)
Infinite monkey theorem — Chance and Probability (Jan 1998)
LR Parser — The Honalee LR(k) Algorithm (Apr 2006)
LR Parser — Practical LR(k) Parser Construction (Dec 2004)

Helpful links

Secure Wikipedia — HTTPS (SSL) connection to Wikipedia
Wikipedia:Sandbox — Wikipedia sandbox for test edits
Special:Newpages — List of Wikipedia's newest articles
Special:RecentChanges — List of Wikipedia's most recent change edits
Special:PendingChanges — List of edits pending review
Help:Archiving a talk page — How to archive a talk page
Wikipedia:Requested moves — How to request a page to be moved
Wikipedia:Verifiability, not truth — Wikipedia operates on verifiable facts, not truth
Wikipedia:Requesting copyright permission
Wikipedia:Moving images to the Commons
Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion (WP:CSD)
Wikipedia:Requests for page protection
Wikipedia:Administrator intervention against vandalism
Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents — Bringing the attention of admins to to sensitive issues
Wikipedia:Reference desk — User questions answered
Wikipedia:Village pump — Discuss the technical issues, policies, and operations of Wikipedia
Help:ParserFunctions – Includes expressions, if-tests, formatting, etc.
Wikipedia:Graphic Lab — Image editing requests and tools
Table of mathematical symbols — Symbols for cut-and-paste editing

Better screenshot images

To get the best screenshot images from DVDs, I use a technique of sampling two or more consecutive frames from the source film and then combining them together into a single image. Most graphics editing programs (I use Paintshop Pro) allow two (or sometimes more) images to be averaged together into a single image. The averaging smooths out the pixel noise of each individual image, making the result much cleaner than any of the source frames. The only trick to using this technique is getting two or more consecutive images that are alike enough so that the resulting combined image does not appear blurred. Non-moving subjects are usually the best to work from.

Example images created using this technique:

File:DeathSeventhSeal.png

Fighting Wikipedia Vandalism

The approach I take to fighting vandalism on Wikipedia is pretty simple. I check "my watchlist" page periodically, looking for edits made by unregistered users (i.e., users with IP addresses instead of user names). For each one of those edits, I click on the "diff" link for it. This displays the changes made by that user. If it's obviously vandalism, I then click on the user's name or the "contribs" link on the "diff" page, which shows a page listing all the contributions made by that user.

I can then check many edits made from the same IP address. Typically, several edits are made by the same vandal within the span of an hour or so. Reverting the edits is then a straightforward thing to do.

If a user looks like he is vandalizing pages, add a {{test1}} tag to his Talk page. If the vandalism continues, add {{test2}}, {{test3}}, and finally {{test4}} tags. As a last resort, ask for administrator intervention against vandalism.

Another item to check is the inclusion of image Example.jpg within articles, which is a favorite target of vandals.

As an example of vandalism idiocy, see that 98 edits were made to the article on Pythagoras, none of which contributed anything of value.

Example of a blocked abusive vandal: User:Lookaroundyou (Oct 2007).

I am of the opinion that vandalism could be greatly reduced by simply limiting editing access to Wikipedia articles to only registered users, but apparently this goes against the current policy.

Marking bad new articles for deletion

A small percentage of new articles are simply nonsense or vandalism. These articles should be tagged with {{db}} tags so that they can be deleted:

{{db}} — Generic deletion tag
{{db-bio}} — Person or organization of questionable importance
{{db-spam}} — Advertising for an organization or website
{{db-nocontent}} — Little or no content
{{db-nonsense}} — Patent nonsense

See also

Cool signatures

Interesting, but typically HTML-intensive, signature graphics by some Wikipedia users that I've collected:

Red Pooka (Nov 2006)

Meteroid Meteoroid » (Mar 2007)

>Radiant< (Mar 2007)

~Step trip (Apr 2007)

G o a r a n y talk (Apr 2007)

Phaedriel (Apr 2007)

Starblind (May 2007)

« hippi ippi » (May 2007)

∴ Therefore talk (Apr 2007)

sumnjim (Jun 2007)

daniel folsom (Jun 2007)

THEPROMENADER (Jul 2007)

†Bloodpack† (Aug 2007)

ALLSTAR ECHO (Oct 2007)

SQL ^{Query me!} (Dec 2007)

JoshHuzzuh Talk (Dec 2007)

Anonymous Dissident (Jan 2008)

X S G (Sep 2008)

←Σc o Phreek→ (Nov 2008)

WORM MЯOW (Dec 2008)

–_⊥^{¡ɐɔıʇǝo}Noetica!^T– (Dec 2008)

DoubleBlue (talk) (Dec 2008)

لenna vecia (Dec 2008)

Possible signatures that I could use:

Loadmaster ^‡

L_oad m_aster

Selected articles/categories nominated for deletion (AfD)

Articles

Archimedes Plutonium (AfD discussion) (1st, Sep 2006) → Keep

Archimedes Plutonium (AfD discussion) (2nd, Mar 2007) → Keep
Archimedes Plutonium (AfD discussion) (3rd, Jun 2007) → Delete, merged into Notable Usenet personalities
Archimedes Plutonium (AfD discussion) (4th, Oct 2007) → Delete

List of Usenet personalities (AfD discussion) (1st, Sep 2007) → No consensus (Keep)

renamed, was → Notable Usenet personalities

List of Usenet personalities (AfD discussion) (2nd, Apr 2009) → Keep

AP has edited pages such as Talk:Archimedes Plutonium‎ from IP addresses in the range 216.16.55.* (PrairieWave.com)

renamed to → Usenet celebrity

Ctime (AfD discussion) (Apr 2007) → Convert
Film and television clichés (AfD discussion) (May 2007) → Delete
List of clichés found in science fiction literature (AfD discussion) (Jun 2007) → Delete
Entries in Category:United Airlines Flight 93 victims:

Edward P. Felt (AfD discussion) (Jun 2007) → Keep

Edward P. Felt (AfD discussion) (Jun 2008) → Delete, redirected to United Airlines Flight 93

Richard Guadagno (AfD discussion) (Jun 2007) → Delete, redirected to United Airlines Flight 93
Jeremy Glick (September 11, 2001 attack victim) (AfD discussion) (Jun 2007) → Delete
Lauren Grandcolas (AfD discussion) (Jun 2007) → No consensus (Keep)
Waleska Martínez (AfD discussion) (Jun 2007) → Redirect to United Airlines Flight 93

Infinite monkey theorem in popular culture (AfD discussion) (Jul 2007) → Delete

Infinite monkey theorem in popular culture (AfD discussion) (2nd) (Aug 2007) → No consensus (Keep)

Nappily Ever After (film) (AfD discussion) (Oct 2007) → Delete
Alt.usenet.kooks (AfD discussion) (Feb 2008) → Delete
Tribbles (game) (AfD discussion) (May 2008) → Keep
Sagan's Identity (Sep 2008) → Delete
Hadley's theorem (AfD discussion) (Sep 2010)
Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Likebox/Archimedes Plutonium (Jan 2011) → Delete
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Imaginary unit (1 Apr 2012), an attempt at April Fools' Day (AfD?) humor → Keep

Categories

Category:Black rock musicians (CfD discussion) (Jun 2009) → Delete

Notable People I Have Met or Interacted with

(Who have articles on Wikipedia)

Made contact

Exchanged emails

Other Stuff

The Bicholim conflict article, a well-done hoax. Probably perpetrated by user A-b-a-a-a-a-a-a-b-a.

Steven Colbert's infamous Wiki edit of the George Washington article: diff.

User:AndrewDavis and User:24.107.41.241, who is (was) Bill Amend.

My attempt to solve the infinite monkey theorem at this web page, but which was removed from the article (Mar 2007) with no explanation.

The defacing of the Scooter Libby wiki article as reported by Wonkette (wonkette.com article and image) is a fake. No such revision exists between 2007-02-21T03:42:49 (when the caption on his picture was changed) and 2007-03-06 23:57:56 (past the date of the defacing "discovery" on 2007-03-06), purportedly done by User:12.182.129.106. — 18:43, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

I predicted (on 2007-04-02) that Wikipedia would reach 5,000,000 articles on 2011-09-14 at Wikipedia:Five-million pool (Image); it reached 5m around Aug 2015. Selected historical article counts are here.

→ Current number of articles: 6,936,016 (stats) (old stats)

The Seigenthaler controversy [2], which details the problems of editable biographical information on Wikipedia.

I proposed the possible inclusion of a new "certificate (serial) number" field to Template:Infobox Film. For example, the film Lost Horizon (1937) has MPAA certificate no. 2006, and 300 (2007) has certificate no. 42864.

Archimedes Plutonium resorted to legal threats after a long series of incendiary posts against WP editors over his displeasure at being categorized in List of Usenet personalities as an "eccentric" newsgroup poster, and after being blocked for a vandalizing edit. (May 2009)

Embedded wiki tags:

{{CURRENTMONTHNAME}} → January

{{CURRENTDAY}} → 6

{{CURRENTYEAR}} → 2025

Buglarian football player Vasil Panayotov, and Portuguese player José Fonte, in case anyone thinks that Wikipedia contains too much useless information.