User talk:David D.

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Molecular and Cellular Biology Wikiproject Newsletter

The project main page has gotten a facelift!
When people visit the project, the very first thing that they see tends to be the project's main page, and with this in mind, the main page has been completely overhauled. To enhance readability the various "goals" sections have been merged, and a detailed "how you can help" section has been added. To increase accessibility for more established members, the links to any resources that were in the main body text have been moved onto the navigation bar on the right. Finally, the whole page has been nicely laid out and given a nice attractive look.
New project feature: peer review
I'm proud to announce the addition of out newest feature: peer review! The MCB peer review feature aims serve as a stepping stone to improve articles to featured article status by allowing editors to request the opinions of other members about articles that they might not otherwise see or contribute to.
Project progress
The article worklist
We’ve had quite a bit of progress on the worklist article in the past month. Not only has the list itself nearly doubled in size from 143 to 365 entries, but an amazing three articles have been advanced to FA status, thanks in great part to the efforts of our very own TimVickers! Remember, the state of the worklist is the closest thing we have to quantifying the progress of the project, so if you get the chance, please take a look at the list, pick a favorite article, and improve it!
Collaboration of the Month
Last month's Collaboration of the Month, cell nucleus, was a terrific success! In one month, the article went from a dismal stub to an A-class article. Many thanks to all of the collaborators who contributed, especially ShaiM, who took on the greatest part of the burden. This month's Collaboration of the Month, adenosine triphosphate, isn't getting nearly the attention of its predecessor, so if you can, please lend a hand!
Finally...
The project has a new coordinator, Clockwork Soul! The role - my role - of coordinator will be to harmonize the project's common efforts, in part by organizing the various tasks required to make the project run as smoothly and completely as possible. Many thanks to those who supported me and those participated in the selection process.
Clockwork Soul, project coordinator 18:16, 21 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
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Comment

After a good night's (or six hours, anyway) sleep, I would like to offer a summation of my thoughts on the matters that have been ongoing on my talk page and other such places. This might be a little long and rambly since I just got up and the coffee's still brewing, so stick with me.

I've been under a lot of stress lately. As my user page indicates, I'm not really at my best. The only reason I stick around id the Arbitration case - otherwise I'd probably be taking a long wikibreak to sort myself out.
Your comments have always been appreciated. If ever I have said anything to the contrary (other than honest disagreement), I apologise without hesitation.
Please realise that having what seems to be every single issue criticised is not very helpful, to my spirits or to my editing. I make occasional mistakes and am entirely willing to correct them, or have them corrected (such as the categories/interwiki link bungle), but having everything I do, or seemingly everything I do, questioned, well - it gets to one after a while.
Specific to Zoe/Pierce - while Zoe's reactions may have been exaggerated and uncalled for, so to was Jimbo and Badgerpatrol's reactions. Jimbo's condemnation, while it was withdrawn, will likely be a black mark on Zoe's reputation if she does choose to stay, and that's really unfair. Badgerpatrol hassling Elara, myself, and several other editors, for speaking up about this, was disrupting Wikipedia to prove a point, and his charged personal attacks against myself and Elara would do a good job of destroying any assumption of good faith. He comes off much as having an axe to grind, and I find it almost a little amusing that he reacted as if he were so greatly slighted when he found he picked on someone that would fight back. As I said to Anthony, when people start throwing accusations around of incivility, they should look at their own actions.

Just some food for thought. I had more but the brain's pettered out. Cheers, ✎ Peter M Dodge ( Talk to Me • Neutrality Project ) 19:47, 31 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Peter thanks for your thoughts. And I am glad you have appreciated some of my feedback. I apologise if it became viewed as pestering, that was not my intent and, in retrospect, I can see it from your perspective so was not offended by your request for some peace. From the start the comments were directed at you based on your obvious ability to be an admin in the future (I truely do hope you choose to come back after your break). Sometines they may not have been well thought out but they were meant to be helpful (or at least an outside view for you to tee off) based on my experiences here.

I am certain that Zoe will bounce back, we have many many users who are worse than Zoe. As I said before I do not condone either sides actions and have tried to keep clear. But seeing Elara's response made me think it is getting out of hand (too personal). We all need to start forgetting the whole incident for the future health of the project. We are all here for the same reason and should be able to get a long with that common goal in mind. Different factions are usually not too far apart (obviously trolls and vandals excepted). And you're probably not as far as you think from Badgerpatrol and Anthony. David D. (Talk) 20:39, 31 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

With respect, please point out where I have "hassled" anyone about this, and in particular please point out where I have hassled anyone for speaking up about Zoe's treatment. That is, again. a straw man. My only point was to defend someone else from being hassled for speaking their mind in a reasonable, considerate and good faith manner. Criticism should not be stifled just because we don't like it, so long as it is constructive and to the point. I'd also like to see your evidence that anything I have done in this entire debate was exagerated or uncalled for (with the exception of one edit, below), and certainly evidence that anything done was comensurate in scale to Zoe's actions. I object in the strongest possible terms to your accusations of "picking on" people or having "an axe to grind"- I don't. As for personal attacks- I regret this edit. Everything else, I stand by as being reasonable. NPA does not mean "no criticism of any kind". Please let's all try and be more adult in future. Badgerpatrol 03:40, 1 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

RNA interference peer review

Well, I have finally gotten a round tuit and done some extensive work on RNA interference, which is now up for peer review here if you want to take a look. IIRC, you are considerably more knowledgeable about the history and specifically earlier plant work than I am; any comments or fixes would be great. Thanks! Opabinia regalis 02:23, 7 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Do Not Remove Sources

On the article Cactus cat, you removed a link in a Sources section. Don't do that. You claimed it was "self-promotion"; it probably was. Nevertheless, the article was based on it; (in fact, the article was a dangerously close paraphrase of a single source, which we really shouldn't do. In any case, removing items listed as sources is a big no-no; if the source is spam, get the article deleted, or sourced from somewhere else; don't just remove the link. Thanks for your attention. 71.128.189.190 (really User:JesseW/not logged in) 00:43, 9 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Whoa, don't shoot the messenger. I may have felt bothered to do something about it if you had come here voicing a pleasant concern. However, your chiding and patronizing message here makes me wash my hands of it. David D. (Talk) 01:49, 9 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I applogize for the tone; I was in the middle of fighting with someone on the phone, and I guess it leaked into my comments here, as it shouldn't have. Regarding the page, I marked it as copyvio; it'll be deleted eventually. Glancing over a google search for the term, I didn't immediately see further sources. I think the copyvio template is sufficient for now. Again, I'm sorry about my tone in the previous message. JesseW, the juggling janitor 04:51, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

I accept the gracious apology and likewise apologise for snapping. Since I have not come across you much on wikipedia I was not sure if this was your normal voice but obviously not. Thanks for sorting out the copyright issue. I just saw you added that to the article immediately so my fix it yourself type comment was OTT. David D. (Talk) 05:28, 9 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Cellular respiration

Didn't mean to revert this, somehow I got a blank page, thought it was empty and needed a stub. Sorry about that, never had that happen before. Must have been a wiki error of some sort! Thanks for fixing it. Isoxyl 03:12, 11 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No problem, i noticed what you had done and understood why. I had not considered it vandalism at the time. David D. (Talk) 17:35, 11 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

RNAi FAC

FYI, I moved RNA interference to FAC here, so please continue with any further comments/criticisms/glowing praise there ;) Opabinia regalis 06:19, 14 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Amazing and enlightening gift! :)

Thank you so much for your most excellent gift; I'm just delighted! It's really a double gift, since it makes the page beautiful, and opened a window in my little brain through which I can glimpse how all that stuff works. I'd always wondered about everyone else's page, but it always seemed so daunting. So you're getting more than a double helping of thanks from me :) Willow 22:09, 23 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Peppers?

Cute ;) What made you think of peppers? Opabinia regalis 03:59, 28 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It reminded me of "hot papers", I know, corny! I did not search too hard for a good image. I just wanted to see if it was possible and to see if others liked the concept. David D. (Talk) 04:07, 28 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Ahhh, I get it now... that, sir, is an impressively bad pun ;) I do think it stands out better with an image rather than just bold text; I know it's the thing to do these days, but those highly formatted citation templates drive me nuts, and make the whole list hard to read. There are probably other heavily-cited articles that could use a similar treatment - I don't know why I hadn't thought of it till now, but I like the idea of highlighting the major works in a field - but I don't have time to go looking right now; can you think of any? Opabinia regalis 07:40, 28 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Antioxidant FAC

Hi there. I wondered if you had time to review this article? The FAC nomination is here. Thank you. TimVickers 05:14, 1 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]