User talk:Merlinus

Welcome! but..

Don't BITE THE NEWBIES

Hello, Merlinus, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers:

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. Again, welcome! --HappyCamper 17:21, 5 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Welcome!

Hi there! I'm the editor helping you out on the page unenrolled voter. It seems like your first taste of Wikipedia hasn't been as smooth sailing as it should be - I'll do my best to rectify that.

First things first: If you need to contact me, just click on my name, and leave a message on my talk page. There's a little plus sign that looks like this (+) at the top of every talk page which you can click. When you do this, it automatically adds a message to the bottom of the page. At the same time, a nice orange bar will light up on my screen when I log on. That tells me there's a new message waiting for me. This is how Wikipedians communicate with one another.

In the article, you said you wanted to add a source for the article. It's best to do it through an external link at the moment. Take a look at the examples below for some ideas - I'm including a link to Wikipedia here in different ways.

I'm also an administrator here, so please, feel free to ask me any questions you might have about this site. I can see from your edit history that some other users might not have had the time to be so detailed with their explanations. It's probably because this site is extremely popular, and there are lots of other maintenance tasks that need attending to. I hope you understand that they weren't trying to be intentionally abrupt - Wikipedians are generally nice people :-) Anyway, I hope this helps you getting started on the right track to becoming a good editor.

By the way, you can also put the unenrolled voter page on your watchlist. Just click on the word "watch" at the top of your screen. Then, whenever you click on "watchlist", the article will show up at the top if there are any new edits to it, or its talk page. In this way, you don't have to visit the article all the time to see what's new. I hope this helps, and I'll see you around! --HappyCamper 17:21, 5 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you very much. I was indeed frustrated. I will work hard to understand how things work and make approprite editings. Thanks again —This unsigned comment was added by Merlinus (talk • contribs) .

No problem :-) I'll try my best to make you feel at home. I can't prevent the article from being considered for deletion, but what I can do is edit it so that hopefully the community feels that it is worthy of inclusion. It's sort of a wholistic method of determining encyclopedic value, but this strategy has worked for the large part since 2001, and will very likely not change anytime soon. Unfortunately, sometimes, the system can be a bit blind to newcomers.

Oh, please sign your comments by adding two hyphens and four tildes at the end of your posts, like this: --~~~~. It makes it easier to keep track of your posts that you make to Wikipedia. You can do this easily by clicking on the little "scribble" at the top of the edit window - it's the 3rd button from the right. I have to leave the computer for now, but will come back to check up on things. Feel free to edit other articles too, and take your time with the editing. It should be enjoyable and relaxing for you too. Have a good day! --HappyCamper 17:48, 5 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

thanks very much to the editor (happy camper) I was very frustrated by some very rude things and much worse. One editor wrote a note that I was a juvinal racist white voter. How wrong could they possibly be on that one... I'm an old semi reformed liberal from the seventies whose trying to become computer literate. I am Unenrolled as I said but I would give my life to defend our countries freedom our liberties and our civil liberties. I defend anyones political oppenents right to speak out to their hearts content. I welcome people to immigrate here as my family did as long as they do it legally. I think people from around the world aught to have equal opportunity to immigrate here with no favorites. We need to be in control to vigilantly screen out all prospective dangers to our national security before they enter our county. If this can best be done by giving more work visa's or whatever-fine. I am an average american from Massachusetts with moderate beliefs. I enjoy an unenrolled status because I do not fully agree with either Democrats or Republicans, but think they both have good and bad points. --merlinus 18:34, 5 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

We're all just volunteers here - me included. Sometimes, people can be unbelieveably rude and insensitive. It's simply inexcusable. We do have pages like Wikipedia:Assume good faith and Wikipedia:Wikilove, but sometimes people forget - maybe because we're all human? I've had my share of nastiness here too, and it can really eat at a person. The thing is to not let it get to you, and my rule of thumb is to simply walk away and do something else when that happens. There are over 1 million pages on Wikipedia, and many more to be created - you're bound to find that little niche here where you feel comfortable contributing. You don't need to feel obligated to reply to everything that is directed towards you, especially if it is something that amounts to a personal attack.--merlinus 20:23, 5 April 2006 (UTC)Merlinus--merlinus 20:23, 5 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Keep in mind that by editing here, you're exposing yourself to a fully international project - you will meet people from all over the world. Predominantly from North America, Europe, and Austrailia, but you'll come across other people as well. There is a bit of online "culture shock", but after a while it will feel better. Wikipedia is a really interesting project, and you'll learn a lot just by editing here. If the editing environment does become vicious, let me know - I will do my part to make sure that it stops.

Anyway, I know you have an interest in explaining what it means to be Unenrolled. When you edit to explain this, you have to be very careful that your particular political biases do not leak into the article. This simply means that you have to be prepared to compare and contrast. For example, for the article unenrolled voter, you need to explain why these groups of voters have their characteristic inclinations. What are past and current concerns of this group of voters? When did this movement become something important in the US? Think "big".

Here's how it typically works: you add something, and someone else comes along and fixes it up. So, don't worry if it may not entirely conform to Wikipedia standards of layout, organization, or whatnot. You'll pick up these best practises in no time. Add little bits and pieces to different articles and observe how other editors fix up your additions. As a tip, try adding something about mundane things, like apple and see what happens. There's also a welcoming and interactive place here at the reference desk: Wikipedia:Reference desk - feel free to contribute questions and answers, and just observe how collaborative and co-operative editing works when it's healthy and robust. --HappyCamper 18:38, 5 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thank You, You have both soothed my nerves, had the patience to give me a better understanding of how it all works. The first drafts indeed should have been put in the sandbox, but I did not understand how it worked yet. So now I hope I can be a resposible user and sometimes editor. I will not sweat the small stuff if people insult me personally like Zoe did. I had forgotten that anyone could read those old first rough drafts that were nothing but trash to me! A lesson here huh? Anyway, most of the time I just enjoy reading other peoples articles... I really think one can honestly learn quite a lot here if he takes the time. When I found it I was pleased to no end because I am disabled and have trouble getting out sometimes. Thanks again. --merlinus 20:23, 5 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sure you'll be a fine editor. Lots of people here enjoy editing sparingly, doing only minor fixups - fixing spelling mistakes, recategorizing articles, and the like. We call those "WikiGnomes" - they are generally very well respected on Wikipedia.

Yes, the old drafts are available - they're in the edit history. If you click on the "history" tab of every page, you can see all the editors that have contributed to the article, as well as the edit summaries that they have entered. If the article is deleted, then only administrators have access to them. They can be recovered on request. You are right to be cautious about what you submit to Wikipedia - every single edit becomes publically available on the internet.

You might find Wikipedia:How to edit a page useful - there's a table of how to do "wiki syntax" down the middle. You can make your own personal sandbox by making a subpage within your username - you can do this by clicking on this red link User:Merlinus/Sandbox. Be careful what you put in the sandbox though, because all the edits are available in the edit history! Generally, people write articles in their sandboxes, and them move them into the main article namespace when they are done. Also, check out the links on the left side of the screen. There's a "special pages" button which might be of interest to you. There's also a "recent changes" tab - you can see all the edits that are being made in real time. It can be quite addictive though, so be careful! --HappyCamper 23:00, 5 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree...

...for newcomers to Wikipedia, you should have been treated with respect from the onset. Simply put, that altercation you had with the other user was not something that Wikipedia should be proud of. I can't do much about how other users behave on Wikipedia, but I do want you to know that you're welcome to come to my talk page whenever you feel like it - you're always welcome there. --HappyCamper 14:18, 7 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hold on

I just read your post...I'll look into it right now and get back to you. --HappyCamper 02:24, 10 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I checked the block logs, and there was no block applied to your account. You can see that it is completely blank here [2]. What I suspect happened, was that CambridgeBayWeather blocked an IP address which happened to be what is called a "roaming" IP address. As a result, when you logged on to your computer, you saw a message that was intended for the IP, but not for you. It's nothing to worry about - the fact that you were able to edit my talk page means that your account was not blocked - if it was, you would only be able to edit your own talk page. I hope this helps clear up some things! I looked at your contributions to Jack Whyte, and it would definitely not warrant a block. At first, one Wikipedian kept on removing your contributions because it probably sounded too editorial. If you notice, some of the later edits simply neutralized the presentation of your facts. This is what makes the editing dynamic and interesting. --HappyCamper 02:38, 10 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Cambridge Bay Weather

Sorry about you getting blocked. That's two legitimate people I hit today with a single IP block. I guess that you are editing through AOL (152.163.100.204) and I was careful to only block for 3 hours. I can assure you that I was not trying to block you because as far as I know and from what I see here you are not a vandal and you are working in the best interests of Wikipedia.

I wasn't born in Concepción, Chile. It was just me tring to be clever. I was born on the day that they had an earthquake, February 20th. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 05:44, 10 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I was aming at blocking a persistant Barney & Friends vandal who makes major changes and refuses to discuss it. Of course you've not edited any of those pages so it wasn't you. Cheers. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 09:27, 10 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, so much for my guessing...Thanks for clearing that up, Cambridge. --HappyCamper 19:55, 10 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

English and French history

Re: your request on Wikipedia talk:France-related topics notice board for pages relating to English and French history, you might find the following categories interesting: Category:History of France and Category:History of Britain. I hope this is useful. Regards, --BillC 01:05, 11 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Dark Is The Sun

Hi, I Wikified your Dark Is the Sun article. Remember to keep POV out of the articles. You could however start a 'Pick Of the Week' section on your user page to recommend book you have read. That would be a great place for your original text. Have fun. Orangutan 16:29, 12 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It was deleted becaus it was a recreation of Unenrolled whic was deleted because of the Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Unenrolled. You need to read through Wikipedia:Deletion review and if you want it can be listed on there but don't recreate it. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 02:19, 13 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

'UNENROLLED' Someone Keeps Vandalizing This Article and Deleting it from its long standing place.

Unenrolled voter

Unenrolled voter From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia You have new messages (last change). Jump to: navigation, search The word unenrolled is not just a word used in the United States of America to refer to an indifference towards the two main political parties in that country. Typically Unenrolled Voters do vote for a Democrat or a Republican after weighing on issues. In some states like Massachusetts, citizens can choose to refer to themselves as unenrolled voters. This group should not be confused with preference towards the American Independent Party or other Independent Politcal Parties. Party Politics in the USA is divierse and confusing, in some circles people (mistakenly) refer to Unenrolled voters, synonmously with Independent (voter).

Unenrolled voters can be referred to as the "non party" of the country, as they do not susbscribe to any particular political polarizations. These unenrolled voters may be listed on a Unenrolled list in their state. Subscribers of this list tend to hold moderated views, and support voting for whichever party or philosophy they feel best represent them. Some consider this to be a form of empowerment, as it permits a more utilitarian viewpoint towards politics. One of the recent issues that Unenrolled voters have gathered around is universal health care, as led by Massachusetts Republican Governor Mitt Romney.

One of the most recent uses of the terminology of "unenrolled voters" appeared in the Boston Globe in March 27th, 2006. The article was associated with John McCain. There are political chapters of unenrolled voters in various states, such as Massachusetts.

Contents [show] 1 Unenrolled voting in Maine 2 Protocols for unenrolled voting in Massachusetts 3 Presidential primaries 4 State primaries

[edit] Unenrolled voting in Maine One operational definition considered for "unenrolled voter" is an individual who is registered to vote but has not enrolled in a political party. [www.mainelegislature.org/legis/bills_119th/billdocs/LD018801.doc]

[edit] Protocols for unenrolled voting in Massachusetts Some jurisdictions on Massachusetts do not explicitly distinguish between an "unenrolled" voter, and an independent. See for example [1].

[edit] Presidential primaries An unenrolled voter who votes in a presidential primary automatically becomes enrolled in the party that the ballot was cast for. A change of enrollment form must be filled out in order for the voter to regain their "unenrolled" status.

[edit] State primaries When voting in a state primary, unenrolled voters retain the status of unenrolled. That is to say, the unenrolled voter does not become enrolled in a particular political party as a result of the ballot that they have chosen during the vote. An unenrolled voter does not need to fill out a party change form after voting.

This politics-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

New Hampshire (Unenrolled/ Undeclared)

Rhode Island (Unenrolled/Unaffiliated) [2]

Many states officially accomidate thier Unenrolled Voters by having what is called an "Open Caucus" and then an "Open Primary"

Speedy tags

Do not remove speedy deletion tags from articles you create; this violates Wikipedia policy. If you have a valid reason for keeping an article that has been speedied, add a {{hangon}} template. Thanks. ~ PseudoSudo 12:46, 13 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. Unenrolled voter was originally deleted after going through Wikipedia's deletion process at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Unenrolled. The article was deleted because its subject seemed to contain original research. In order to re-create an article on the same subject after it has gone through Wikipedia:Articles for Deletion, it is necessary to submit a claim to Wikipedia:Deletion review, regardless of the person the article was originally written by. I understand you are new to the encyclopedia; please take the time to familiarize yourself with Wikipedia:Deletion policy. Thanks! ~ PseudoSudo 13:13, 13 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hi; again, please do not remove speedy deletion tags from articles you create. This is for a reason; the speedy template automatically lists the article on a page that administrators watch so they can be notified to take a look at the issue. If you believe you have a valid reason for keeping an article that has been tagged as a speedy, add a {{hangon}} template right below the speedy template so the administrator can take a look at all sides of the issue. Please be patient; thanks. ~ PseudoSudo 13:30, 13 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It's saved!

What a day this has been! Anyway, the article Unenrolled voter is still here. I've added some extra notices to various pages, so hopefully it would not be speedily deleted again. If it happens again, leave a note on my talk page and let the deletion go through. I can uncover the article for you afterwards. An administrator normally does not do this, but at the moment, I am probably the most familiar with your edit history on Wikipedia to know that this would be the appropriate action to take on your behalf. If someone asks you about it, tell them that they can come to my talk page for some clarification.

In the meantime, I've made Unenrolled redirect to Unenrolled voter. It is probably best to add more material about these voters to the latter page, because the former is somewhat confusing for other readers. Once we have more material for the article, we can expand it. --HappyCamper 14:08, 13 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Unenrolled voter

Hi, Merlinus. I'm not an administrator so I can't do anything about deleting or undeleting pages. I think the problem here is that an official procedure was gone through to delete the original page 'unenrolled' and that simply creating another page called 'unenrolled voter' is seen as being against the official procedure for reviewing a deletion. I can see that you and HappyCamper have been working away on this article and I think it could be a useful one. However, I can't do much to help you with the Wikipedia protocols involved although PseudoSudo and CambridgeBayWeather have both left suggestions above about how things should be done. I think the best thing to do is to try to get help from the admins rather than unnecessarily agravating them by deleting templates etc. Just a suggestion. Mazzy 14:45, 13 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Merlinus...I've taken a quick look at altering the grammar etc of the article to improve the way that it reads. Hope that helps and I haven't thrown away anything important in the process. Mazzy 13:03, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Unenrolled

I'm not too sure what you ment here but I didn't delete it. Here's my deletion log and as you can see it's not listed in there. Cheers. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 17:31, 13 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No problem. Just wanted to clear up any misunderstanding. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 18:40, 13 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Flying Spaghetti Monster

Hi! Just a note: Please make comments about articles on their talk pages, not within the articles themselves (in this case, Talk:Flying Spaghetti Monster would have been correct). Happy Editing! Radio Kirk talk to me 19:04, 13 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure if you got the comment I was trying to leave. My computer froze up. To make a long story short I do not see the Wiki Value of the Spaghetti Story, but I see it is a valid entry. I made an entry explaining so to the author on its discussion page... --merlinus 20:15, 13 April 2006 (UTC)Merlinus--merlinus 20:15, 13 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This was the only note I received. It's good that you're questioning the validity of articles; there are plenty on Wiki that, frankly, shouldn't be here. Now you know to leave comments on the article's talk page or even the author's talk page. Be bold, both in editiing and in using what you learn along the way. :) Radio Kirk talk to me 20:20, 13 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Stub sorting/Proposals Stop restoring your edit about a topic which has absolutely no relevance to the stub sorting page. Such edits are considered vandalism and not allowed by Wikipedia rules. Valentinian ^(talk) 22:47, 13 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This was an attempt to use feature to get help in editing that was new to me... --merlinus 02:26, 14 April 2006 (UTC)Merlinus--merlinus 02:26, 14 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Massachusetts

I live in Massachusetts and I've heard "masshole" and "bay stater." [3] for state donut. As for derogatory references to gay marriage, I agree that they're not necessary but I don't see any.

DrIdiot 03:23, 14 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Feel free to add that information to the page in its appropriate location if it's not already there. I haven't been actively editing the Massachusetts page - I'm mostly checking it for vandalism. "masshole" and "bay stater" aren't in use in common language but they exist as terms and could be noted.

DrIdiot 19:31, 14 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Mitt Romney

Hi Merlinus.

Thanks for the message, now I can see what you were trying to do.

The first thing to do it to check if the person / topic already has an article. In this case, the relevant article is Mitt Romney. Second, read the article, and add all information which seems relevant and which can be backed up by other sources. Please remember to write the information in you own words (i.e. avoid copy-paste) in order to avoid copyright problems.

If you wish to create an article on a topic where you're sure no article exists, simply type the shortest correct name you can think of in the URL bar, e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poul Weber and press enter. The system will say that the page doesn't exist. Then press "edit this page" and begin typing. If the article is very short (less than 10 sentences or so) you should list it as a stub, i.e. add {{stub}} to the bottom of the article or - if possible- a more specific code, in this case {{Massachusetts-politician-stub}} . Finish by pressing "save page". We only add the "stub" codes as long as the article is very very short. Regards, and happy editing. Valentinian ^(talk) 08:09, 14 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Signing talk pages and posts

Hi there - I think you can sign your posts by appending --~~~~ to the end of your posts. You can do this easily by clicking on the little scribble at the top of the edit window. This way, you'll end up with exactly one signature at the end of your posts. Hope this helps! --HappyCamper 20:38, 14 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You might find Wikipedia:WikiProject Massachusetts an interesting place to browse. Also, if you add a new section to an article, it is recommended that you not use the horizontal line ---- - this makes it more difficult for others to edit the page because it does not create a new editable subsection. Also, I see that you are making periodic copies of the article on your talk page - this is not necessary, because there is a history of the article already stored. You can access them by clicking on the "history" tab at the top. --HappyCamper 23:27, 14 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Massachusetts

Hey, you left a comment on my talk page. It may have been an accident. Anyway, I didn't write the Massachusetts article. You should try leaving that comment on the talk page for the article itself. --jenlight 15:22, 17 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Welcome!

More helpful links

I agree...

Hold on

Cambridge Bay Weather

English and French history

Dark Is The Sun

Unenrolled voter

Speedy tags

It's saved!

Unenrolled voter

Unenrolled

Flying Spaghetti Monster

Massachusetts

Mitt Romney

Signing talk pages and posts

Massachusetts