User talk:Rorybowman

"The Wrestlers" from Uffizi Gallery, Florence.

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Modus Operandi

One of my favorite Wikipedia techniques is to find and upload public-domain pictures to illustrate spatial things such as anatomy that are difficult to describe verbally. Any publication by the US federal government is an excellent source for these, which should then be uploaded to WikiMedia Commons. When possible I try to find a picture which (a) illustrates more than one thing, (b) can be clearly documented as public-domain and (c) is as small (in file size and pixels) as appropriate. Very few Wikipedia articles need more than one good thumbnail, and if a picture can be used in more than one place, this is efficient. I always try to explain enough about the source that others can jury my contributions or mine the same data. Someone who is good at finding and tracking down attributions for public-domain media can do a LOT to help Wikipedia in this way, especially if they assign keywords and categories within the Wikipeda Commons.

In one case I took a scan of a common-angle picture of a famous statue and then popped it into Photoshop where I altered it enough to void the original copyright, while still retaining the relevant parts Wikipedia purposes. It is very important when uploading pictures to be certain of copyrights as best you are able, and to provide "trackback" URLs so that others with more subject matter expertise can jury your decisions.

Other small things that can help are: alphabetizing longish lists; fixing redlines; fleshing out references and; currecint mizpellings (rampant on teh Internets).

Direct instruction article / education philosophy

Hi, Rorybowman.

I noticed some of your comments on the Direct Instruction: Talk page, and I'm curious as to what you've been experiencing WRT the DI partisans, and also regarding your negative view of the instructional approach. I have difficulty understanding why someone would consider any instructional method to be inherently "political."

My perception and experience is evidently quite different from yours, and I really would like to understand where you are coming from on this.

I'd very much like to discuss this with you. Incidentally, I'm a life-long Democrat, socially liberal and fiscally moderate. So I don't think my politics plays into this!  :-)

Best,

Rosmoran 02:11, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Apologies for not having noticed and responded to your comment sooner. The article in question is often a magnet for various commercial products (usually focussed around "phonics" in some form) and as a public-school teacher I have seen these issues addressed in various political ways, usually by "back to basics" parent-pressure groups, by textbook vendors or state representatives who generally try to "teacher-proof" the curriculum from a perception that teachers are all subversive Marxists who cannot be trusted. A good article that touches on the conflucence of these is http://www.thenation.com/doc/20020128/metcalf . School curriculum and textbook publishing is a HUGE market, especially if a group can get a large adoption in populous states such as Texas or California. The political aspects of this generally come down to a focus on an "empty vessel" theory of instruction (wherein the child is to be filled with the preapproved fluids of authority) or the more "meaning-centered" or "constructivist" theories. Ed-school shorthand for these two schools is often "sage on the stage" (mass indoctrination) versus "guide to the side" (adaptive coaching). Does that answer the question? If one imagines a triangle of authority/teacher, material/curriculum and citizen/student the political issue is clearer. Through micro-management of curriculum and immediate disregard of the student (except as a data point in high-stakes monitorging), programs such as DISTAR deify the curriculum makers in a way that is inherently authoritarian and anti-democratic: basic "my way or the highway" stuff. - Rorybowman 17:49, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Boxing Gloves

In the article on boxing gloves, you wrote that "professional fight gloves are specially packed to protect only the person who wears them." Where did you pull that piece of nonsense from, exactly? Holymolytree2 01:42, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

"Only the person who wears them" would be a poor way to state it, but the general point from John Brown's Ringside DVD on hand wraps was that professional gloves do not offer as much protection and the main goal in packing the gloves is to protect the hands of the fighter who wears them without as much regard for the safety of the opponent. Indeed, I have heard various ways in which the design of professional gloves creates more opportunity for cuts and such. The general point is that fighter safety is not as much of a concern for professional bouts. Do you fight? Rorybowman 04:05, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

I did boxing for two and a half years, but with breaks, so roughly a year and a half in continuous time, sparring, but never competed in the amateurs.

You're talking about handwraps now or gloves? Handwraps are solely used to protect the fighter. In manufacturing the gloves, they may have to focus on protecting the fighters hands, but that doesn't mean that the actual main purpose of the gloves is to protect the fighter's hands. It may just mean that the difficult aspect of designing and making them is in the protection of the fighter's hands.

When you say "the design of professional gloves creates more opportunity for cuts and such," are you talking about in comparison to sparring gloves or in comparison to bare knuckles? If you're comparing to sparring gloves then obviously, but if you're comparing to bare knuckles then not a chance. You can get wobbled by a gloved punch without even getting a mark on your face. Think about it. Do you watch boxing? How many boxing matches have you seen where someone gets knocked out but doesn't really recieve any noticeable facial injury, or just some minor swelling? Now how many times have you seen someone who has been in a street fight in which he didn't get knocked out or wobbled or anything like that, but ended up with cuts, scratches or a black eye?

Have you ever seen a twelve round boxing match after which a fighter doesn't really have any major facial injuries? Do you honestly think that he'd look better than that if he was getting hit by his opponent's bare fists? Go watch Mayweather-De La Hoya or Trinidad-Hopkins and tell me.

Have you heard about the story of Billy Collins vs Luis Resto? Panama Luis, Resto's trainer, took padding out of Resto's glove. Collins ended up with eye damage and could never fight again, and Resto and Lewis both got sent to jail. If boxing gloves are designed to protect the wearer and not the opponent, why would Lewis have taken the padding out of the gloves? Holymolytree2 18:18, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Your statement of the case is absolutely correct and your revision is a good one. Thank you. Rorybowman 02:41, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Vancouver and Esther Short Park

Nice work so far on editing/expanding the Vancouver Washington article. It prompted me to start the long overdue Esther Short Park article. Are you a Vancouverite too? VanTucky ^(talk) 03:42, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Born and raised. Right now I am working on The Vancouver Food Co-op, where I learned a lot of this stuff while doing research for the business plan. Perhaps after the co-op is open I can write something abot the history of groceries and such in Vancouver. Did you know, for example, that there was a public market at Eighth and Main, founded approximately the same time as Pike Place Market? It might be an interesting article for The Vancouver Voice. Rorybowman 03:45, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

I think we've met. I'm a friend of Laurie Loranger's kids, and I came to one of the co-op meetings. VanTucky ^(talk) 04:09, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes. I recognized you from your picture. I think I suggested an ongoing column on food issues, but I certainly haven't had time to write it. Good job promoting "the Couv!" Rorybowman 04:11, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

You know, we just started a blog feature on the voice website, and my editor has been bugging everyone to post. I think a food series focused on vancouver would be something that is most welcome... VanTucky ^(talk) 04:13, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm. Send me an email as Rory (at) Vancouver Food and we can discuss this some more. Anything to make people more aware of local food systems would be terrific, and there are several good food writers in the region... Thanks for the heads-up! - Rorybowman 04:18, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Vancouver Lake

Hi Rory! Nice job expanding the Vancouver Lake article. Do you have any sources you can add to the article? Nice to see you're pecking away at WP and keepin' it real in Clark Cty - I'm surprised our paths haven't crossed more here! -Pete 08:23, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! The main one is the timeline which I bopped onto. The other stuff is pretty darn obscure, like county records on DDT and stuff, the assemblage of which places me perilously close to violating WP:NOR. I can back up each fact with a reference if needed, but as with Vancouver, Washington, a lot of this stuff isn't worth doing a ref for, espcially as convoluted as the new ref styles are. I'm sure I shall see you more as I procrastinate on Vancouver Food Cooperative stuff. - Rorybowman 08:31, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

People in my neighborhood assn are trying to set up some sort of bulk purchasing project. I'm not directly involved (too busy), but it seems like a great idea - so I'll definitely be interested in the progress of your coop! I'm sure you're accumulating some valuable infos.

Also FYI, one of my favorite procrastination techniques is finding unformatted citations, and formatting them with templates. So if you put in raw citations – like just a link – there's a reasonable chance I might come along and do the rest of the work. -Pete 16:44, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Your Casablanca class carriers edit

Appreciating the fact you're a lifelong Vancouverite and local historian, I thought I'd drop this note here instead of making the changes myself.

Regarding your recent additions to the Casablanca class carriers' page, nicknames such as Baby Flat-Tops and Jeep Carriers were not exclusively used to describe any one class of escort carrier. In fact, you attempted to support each moniker with an explanation - such as: Baby Flat-Tops because the Casablancas were the smallest of all escort carriers. This is hardly the case. The Bogue class carriers were a few thousand tons lighter and over 20 feet shorter in length. The terms Jeep Carriers, Woolworth Carriers, Baby Flat-Tops and Two Torpedo Ships (among others) all refer to escort carriers in general - of all classes. If you would care to consult a book regarded as authoritative on escort carriers try Y'Blood's Little Giants, United States Naval Institute Press, which covers all classes of escort carriers built in the US. He discusses this very issue with great clarity.

I thought you might appreciate rephrasing your comments to suit yourself. five 01:44, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

I was working from local sources here in the library and county historical society, but if you have more authoritative sources, please feel free to rephrase it. I am absolutely NOT an expert on anything nautical and firmly believe that someone's willingness to be edited is in inverse proportion to their need to be edited. I had not heard the nicknames "Woolworth carriers" and "two torpedo ships" so will probably just hop in and undo the edit. Thanks for letting me know! Rorybowman 01:49, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Having studied the Kaisers for a few decades, and realizing you were from Vancouver, I had already put it together that you were working from a local source. Problem is, most of the local (to Vancouver) material was penned by Kaiser's PR people back in the day. And trust me, they didn't know anything nautical either.

You might enjoy a brief story about these carriers.

The second part of your edit concerned the aircraft assigned to these carriers. Avengers were the heaviest and largest dimensionally of any carrier based aircraft in WWII. This point about how the smallest and lightest carriers were assigned the smallest and lightest planes must have been just assumption. Avengers were very big planes that required a three-man onboard air crew. Avengers were so big that they couldn't get off the deck via "flyway" like the fighters and required to be shot off catapults. The 50 Kaiser carriers were equipped with the Navy's H2 high-pressure hydraulic catapult expressly for the bombers. The problem was: The Avenger wasn't the bomber the Navy intended to use aboard the Kaiser carriers. They had planned on using Wildcat fighters along with dive-bombers, whereas the Avenger is a torpedo-bomber. The reason this turned out not to be possible is where Edgar F. Kaiser comes in. Your local hero, Edgar F. Kaiser, who acted as overseer for the three local yards, OregonShip, Swan Island, and Vancouver, was a chip off the old block. There wasn't anything held sacred to a Kaiser, not even disciplines such as Naval Architecture which they knew little of. What they did know, with great expertise, was how to maximize profits.

Their contract with the Maritime Commission was structered such to pay them a set bonus amount for EACH day in which a ship was launched prior to its originally planned launch date. So Edgar started fiddling with the design of the ships. Why? Because less material meant fewer man-hours in the Plate Shop; fewer hours to pre-assemble the now smaller sub-asemblies; and finally fewer hours in "erection", or adding it to the ship itself.

Kaiser built the hangar decks with a clearance of 17'3". The dive-bombers required 17'6" minimum. This threw a nasty wrench into the government's Controlled Materials Plan which finitely orchestrated the materials required to match planes with carriers. The Navy's Bureaus of Ships and Aeronautic were livid when it was discovered the Kaisers had taken it upon themselves to build the hangar decks three inches too small in height. How did the Kaisers react? They offered the government a new contract that would then pay them to change it all back to original specs. Incredible, but true. You got to love those Kaiser boys. They were true pieces of Americana.

The Navy just went with Avengers instead, which featured folding wings which would clear the hangar decks. But it threw their production schedules for both Avengers and SB2C Dive-bombers out of whack for over a year to make the necessary adjustments on the fly out of necessity. five 02:40, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Interesting! And absolutely believable. I saw one passing reference to a few Corsair flights off of a Casablanca-class carrier, but most of the photos and models I could find seemed to show Avengers and Wildcats. Please, please make whatever edits you feel are appropriate, as you obviously know much more about this than I. I'm going to poke around for Little Giants in my local libraries. Great stuff to know! - Rorybowman 03:11, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

User IDs

Re: [1], it is a major violation of wiki policy to try to expose the offline identity of users. Please don't do it again. Rlevse 12:39, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

I've deleted the page because of privacy violations.Rlevse 12:43, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

For more info see WP:HA#Posting_of_personal_information and Wikipedia:Privacy (especially the last line).Rlevse 13:17, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

I would argue that (1) it was reasonable conjecture, (2) not specific enough to be actionable and (3) relevant to the NPOV content of edits. A city is not an address and is listed on the public records of the organization's web page. No "real-world" action other than critical thought was intended and this does not violate WP:NOR because it is not article content, nor is it fundamentally different than WikiScanner. I have made my primary point and I encourage you to esalate to a cabal if you seriously believe this in any way endangers Rick Ross (consultant) or personally harasses him in violation of WP policy. Rorybowman 17:38, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

You tied an IP to a name and that is a violation and blockable, but I'd prefer to avoid that if possible. If you cabal, you mean to include ArbCom, you are correct that these cases often end up there. At this point, I strongly encourage you not to reveal any more personal info, name to IP or otherwise, about any user without their consent. Rlevse 01:06, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Altering a user page of someone else is not appropriate, esp not something like WP:COI. If a user is involved in COI, it should go on their talk page. This is your last warning on this. See [2], Rlevse 13:14, 9 October 2007 (UTC)...I've deleted the page again, but the diff here will show an admin how to find it. Rlevse 13:16, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Just a quick note

Hey Rory, when you revert this nut who keeps vandalizing the Vancouver article (or any article), please make sure to give him the proper warning (i.e. {{subst:uw-vandalism}} with the appropriate number between 1-4 added after vandalism. Once he's vandalized after the fourth warning, he can be blocked again. Without warnings, another block may be denied, and we'll have to waste more time on this annoyance. Happy editing, VanTucky ^Talk 18:54, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I haven't had cause to use these templates before and am not certain of the proper syntax, but we'll take a look at it later. Cheers! Rorybowman 19:02, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Mankind Project

Please see this section of the Talk page before making further edits to Mankind Project. I have given thorough explanation for removing the material: for instance, some of it is repeated word-for-word elsewhere in the article. Whistling42 (talk) 12:12, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Little context in Stalking (disambiguation)

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Culture

This article used to be a trainwreck and I have been trying to rewrite it to cover all academic approaqches to "culture". The section on "cultural studies" is weak, and one topic that perhaps could be better explored is the idea of "anti-essentialism" as an important theme of or infuence on cultural studies' approaches to "culture." Could you look at the section and see how you could develop it? Thanks Slrubenstein | Talk 15:42, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

I'll try to take a look over the next week, but don't have any particular expertise and so am wary to be too bold. If valor trumps discretion, I'll wade in. Thanks for the complement of asking. Rorybowman (talk) 16:43, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks - it seemed to me that you had some informed thoughts about debates about "ssentialism" - anything that bears on how people in "cultural studies" either conceptualize or study culture, even if it is a small contribution, would really be welcome. Slrubenstein | Talk 23:54, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Franklin Planner

The article Franklin Planner has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

Non-notable software. I can't find any reliable source about it on Google.

While all contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, content or articles may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{dated prod}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Removing {{dated prod}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. The speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. Laurent (talk) 08:12, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, WikiLaurent, for notifying me of this concern. I have made a few changes to the article which I hope clarify that this is a PHYSICAL product, not software, and remove some advertising-like, promotional language that could reasonably be seen as objectionable in tone. Although the parent company Franklin Covey had briefly introduced a variety of software products in the late 90's that sought to make them less irrelevant with the transition from paper-based planning toward electronics, the flagship product has always been their physical binder. I'd have to check if they even had a software product called Franklin Planner but this article is about the physical item, which may be viewed at FranklinPlanner.com. Rorybowman (talk) 14:58, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

You are now a Reviewer

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Forgiveness

Thanks for adding the info on Luskin. His work is very important and a real benefit to the article. Makana Chai (talk) 18:46, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Very welcome. I think that very brief summaries of work can help a lot of people when gently folded into articles. I assume that you were involved in the section on Ho'oponopono, yes? I had never heard of that and was delighted to learn of it just this morning. All the best! Rorybowman (talk) 02:06, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I agree that summaries of work help. And I was one of two people who worked long and hard on ho'oponopono. Thanks for noticing! With warm aloha, Makana Chai (talk) 07:43, 15 August 2010 (UTC)