User talk:Fredwerner

Welcome to my Talk page!

If you leave me a message here, I will reply on this page to avoid fragmenting the discussion.
If I leave you a message I will watch your Talk page, so you can reply there if you wish.

DC Meetup notice

Greetings. There is going to be a Washington DC Wikipedia meetup on next Saturday, July 21st at 5pm in DC. Since you are listed in Category:Wikipedians_in_Maryland, I thought I'd invite you to come. I'm sorry about the short notice for the meeting. Hopefully we'll do somewhat better in that regard next time. If you can't come but want to make sure that you are informed of future meetings be sure to list yourself under "but let me know about future events", and if you don't want to get any future direct notices \(like this one\), you can list yourself under "I'm not interested in attending any others either" on the DC meetup page.--Gmaxwell 00:27, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

I am from the Maryland subrubs of DC, but I do not live there right now. I visit when I can, and try to keep up on local MD/DC news, but I won't be attending any meetups. Fredwerner 06:14, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Bird collaboration of the month

As a member of WP:BIRD you are invited to this month's collaboration

Shyamal 02:14, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject Birds March 2008 Newsletter

The March 2008 issue of the Bird WikiProject newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you.
This has been an automated delivery by BrownBot (talk) 18:40, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

WikiProject Birds April 2008 Newsletter

The April 2008 issue of the Bird WikiProject newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you.
This has been an automated delivery by BrownBot (talk) 00:53, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

WikiProjet Birds May 2008 Newsletter

The May 2008 issue of the Bird WikiProject newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you.
This has been an automated delivery by BrownBot (talk) 00:37, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

WikiProject Birds June 2008 Newsletter

The June 2008 issue of the Bird WikiProject newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you.
This has been an automated delivery by BrownBot (talk) 13:08, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

July 2008 Birds Project Newsletter Link

The December 2024 issue of the Bird WikiProject newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you. --Addbot (talk) 16:18, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

WikiProject Birds August newsletter

The August 2008 issue of the Bird WikiProject newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you. MeegsC | Talk 00:59, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Sorry for the Inconvenience

Thank you for clarifying that for me. I am greatly obliged. I had no idea that thinking that there could be humans on another planet among one of the other 70 Sextillion (7x10^22) stars was childish. I guess I don’t have the intelligence you adults possess. I mean it was incredibly ridiculous of me to think that there could be one planet or one moon in just one solar system, besides ours, among , 70 sextillion other stars that could be inhabited by people. I mean I am sure that the fact that we cannot detect Earth-sized plantes around even nearby stars in just a coincidence to the fact that they don’t exist. I always thought we found Super Earth’s such as Gliese 876 D because we could not detect Earth-Sized planets, but I guess I was wrong. I am deeply sorry for disrupting the encyclopedic content on this page and I will cease to edit this page for the time being. I will take your advice and come back and edit this page in 14 years when I will be 18. As an adult I will have learned all of these things that I certainly do not know. In 14 years I will be an adult and I will have a greater perspective on life. At that time I will come back and edit this article. Once again I am extremely sorry for including my foolish thoughts into this article. Thank You once again for enlightening me. Your Dear Friend, Maldek.Maldek2 (talk) 08:11, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes, thinking there are PEOPLE on other planets is childish. Thinking there may be LIFE FORMS on other planets is not. Most scientists suspect there are other forms of life in perhaps many many places in the universe. But once you learn the complexity involved in evolution, and how there are more than 70 sextillion decision points selecting random mutations that have caused humans to exist as we are, you will realize that the chances of humans arising twice in independent corners of the universe is infinitesimally small. And theories of people being taken to other planets, or arriving here from other planets are not widely accepted as credible.

Perhaps more importantly, you will hopefully someday learn why wikipedia insists on only reporting information published in reliable sources, and does not allow you to simply make things up ("original research"), or repeat things that somebody else might have just made up, with no credible backing to it ("unreliable sources").Fredwerner (talk)

Just Wondering

Hey sorry to bother you. I was just wondering if the chances of humans developing on another planet is less than 1 in 70 Sextillion (7x10^22) then what exactly are the odds for humans developing on another planet. I was just wondering. What is taken into consideration. What I mean is for human beings to exist on a planet the creation of extremophiles probably hyperthermophiles have to exist and through evolutionary processes they must evolve and become more complex, but in order for them to become more complex the atmosphere and the environment must change to facilitate more complex life. Things such as water forming on the Earth between 3.8 and 4.2 billion years ago from commets in the Kuiper Belt. Also the moons formation from when Theia collided with Earth. As the moon was created and slowly drifted away from the Earth the Earth’s rotation slowed down giving complex life a chance to develop and thrive. Is something like this all there needs to be for humans to be created? I mean once extremophiles are created on Earth and the environment becomes more suitable for sustaining complex life does evolution eventually just play itself out for billions of years until eventually human beings develop or is this not true? I mean as long as you have an Earth-Sized planet 1 AU (93 Million Miles) from a G2 Star in a good region of a spiral galaxy is it safe to assume that with the above mentioned circumstances: the creation of liquid water, extremeophiles, and a more sutiable environment for complex life, humans would develop over billions of years due to the natural course of natural selection and evolution? Or is this incorrect? If you could please respond to my question because I would really like to know the odds of humans developing on other planets and what factors are taken into consideration to support these odds. The fact that there is not even a 1 in 70 Sextillion (7x10^22) chance of humans forming on another planet is amazing. If you could enlighten me I would be much obliged as to what the odds are and what factors are taken into consideration to support these odds. If our solar system could be used as a model solar system then we would have about 300 solar system objects (planets , dwarf planets, and moons) in our solar system, not counting the hypothetical Oort Cloud. Thank You once again. This would mean that there is less han 1 in 300 times 70 sextillion, or 2.1 Septillion of a chance that humans could develop on another planet in just our one Universe. So if there less than a 1 in 2.1 Septillion (2.1x 10^24) chance that humans could develop on another planet in our Universe what could be the odds of humans developing on another planet. Thank You once again. Please help me to understand what the odds of life developing on another object in our universe is. I know the odds are less than 1 in 2.1 Septillion (2.1x10^24) but I don’t know what the odds are or how I would arrive at calculating such odds. I mean I thought that as long as a planet was in its galactic habitable zone (Life supporting region in the galaxy) and its habitable zone, human life would develop over billions of years if the creation of water, extremophiles, and a more life-supporting environment were created. I guess I was wrong, but if you could enlighten me as to what the odds are and how you came up with them, I would appreciate it very much. Thank You Very Much!! Your Friend Maldek. Maldek2 (talk) 08:11, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

The chances are far less than 1 in 70 sextillion. First off, even the evolution of humans from our ape-related ancestors was the result of so many individual selection moments on random mutations, that even if you STARTED with that same ape-like ancestors on another planet, the odds of humans evolving from them would be something on the order of 1 in 24,000^(2^5,0000). That's the number of genes whose alleles can randomly mutate and are selected for with each generation raised to the power of 2 (each reproductive event is a squaring) raised to the power of 5,000 (roughly the number of generations since our most recent common ancestor with chimps). Alas, I am not in my office, and I do not have a calculator that can calcululate 2^5000, let alone 24,000^(2^5,000). But this is many many times smaller than 1 in 10^22. And that's just to get from apes to humans. To get from whatever the first prokaryotic single-celled life forms that emerged on Earth to apes was a result whose odds were many many orders of magnitude smaller. And even the odds of prokaryotes emerging with a lipid bilayer membrane, and a a protein-encased nucleic acid genetic base code on a planet with this particular mix of elements itself are extremely small. That alone was probably less than 10^22.

Evolution looks very straightforward and obvious when viewed in retrospect, the only way we CAN view it. But given the truly astronomical number of possible mutations and combinations of mutations and resulting life forms that could have arisen, you don't have to be religious to marvel that it's truly miraculous we exist at all.

And that's why every serious scientist who discusses the possibilities of life forming elsewhere in the universe acknowledges that while the odds of their being other planets with suitable conditions for some form of life to arise are quite high, the odds of those life forms being identical to life forms on Earth are basically zero.

You would have better luck arguing that intelligent extraterrestrials came to Earth sometime within the past two million years, and took people back with them, and those people are now constructing buildings. But no serious scientists would believe that either. Cheers! Fredwerner (talk) 03:21, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

In Response to your questions

Thank you for responding to my question. I would be glad to answer any questions you have. (1) To answer your first question I am dissapointed that many of my edits are reverted and called Vandalism. The reason it upsets me is because in many cases I get my information from reliable sources. On my old account the orginal Maldek I used to edit many articles on Vedic Relgion, yet even though I gave accurate information it was constantly reverted and considered Vandalism. You would think that if the article was about someone like Krishna or Hinduism, that the Bhagavad-Gita would be a reliable source. The main problem though is that I guess Modern Science does not accept the traditional and authorative dates that are given in the Vedic Scriptures for the length and duration of yugas etc., so the source of the information is not a reliable source. It is like saying the architect of a building is not a reliable source for a building or an actor is not a reliable source for a page that is written about him or her. I have quoted Freeman Dyson and Adams and Laughlin when I edit articles such as the Future of an expanding Universe but my edits are considered vandalism. From my readings of The Five Ages of the Universe and Dyson’s Paper on Life in an endless universe all of the information specifically states that Stellar formation will cease in 100 trillion years yet for some reason writing this is considered Vandalism. I also had a section on the Hawking decay of black holes but that was also considered Vandalism because Consensus didn’t agree on it. The reason the Black Hole Disintigration table was very helpful to the article is because it explained how black holes of different sizes decay at much different times from small black holes decaying in 10^64 years to extremely large black holes decaying in 10^106 years. The size of the black hole and the time it took for it to disintegrate were listed in the Black Hole Era but Consensus is always against everything that I do and call it Vandalism. I find it dissapointing that people call it Vandalism because it is not Vandalism, it is just more information on the article. (2) For your second question I continue to edit Wikipedia because I try to improve articles. For example when I first started editing Heat Death of the Universe, the article was a mess. Nobody did anything about it. I asked many questions in discussion but nobody answered them so I read and researched on my own to constantly make the article better and better as I learned more. Becoming more interested I read the Five Ages of the Universe by Adams and Laughlin and with that I begin to edit the article but then people began calling several of my claims vandalsim. The first thing they call Vandalsim is Stellar formation ceasing in 100 trillion years even though is mentioned by official sources such as Adams, Laughlin, and Dyson. The next thing they called Vandalsim is 10^14 years for the deattachment of planets from white and black dwarfs and 10^15 years for the deattatctchment of white and black dwarfs from galaxies. They considered by black hole decay table to be vandalism too because it was “too much information” and when I added a new Stelliferous Era for the Poincare Reccurence Time of the Universe that was also called Vandalism although I had reliable sourcse backing it all up. I keep trying to explain myself and thrive for the article to be correct but over a period of time I actually do give up on an article and stop editing it like I have with many articles in the past that can probaly be found on my first account as Maldek. My old laptop automatically saved my password but it died, so I had to make a new account Maldek 2 when I bought my new laptop. After a while I stopped editing articles about Vedic Religon because I was tired off it being called Vandalsim even though my information is written from the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) I have also stopped editing articles that involve the future of the Universe too. I hope I have answered your questions, if you have any more please feel free to ask me and I would be more than happy to reply. Thank You for your cooperation. Your Friend Maldek.Maldek2 (talk) 20:02, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

I have read some of your edits on those pages, and the pattern I notice is that you don't seem to understand what is meant by a "reliable source," why that particular definition matters, and how they should be used. I strongly suggest you re-read wikipedia’s guidelines to them. So many of your edits either don’t provide reliable sources or don’t match what the reliable sources say.

Religious texts ARE considered reliable sources for specific quotes, to document what they say. But they are not considered reliable sources for the history they claim to present. For example, the Bible is a reliable source for articles on the Bible, and for any other article that quotes the Bible. But only as a source for those quotes. The Bible is not a reliable source for saying how old Abraham was or for how the Earth was created, nor even for when the Bible was written. See also:Wikipedia:Reliable_source_examples#Religious_sources

Another pattern is you sometimes don't accurately present what your source actually says. In the Future of an expanding universe edits, it seems like you get into arguments with people who have read the sources, and they all seem to think that you are mis-representing what Dyson and others wrote. Do you really think that they are all wrong, and only you are right? I suggest you re-read the discussion page for that article, there is a very long and clear explanation of what was wrong with your edits, specifically written to you Talk:Future_of_an_expanding_universe#Explantation_for_Maldek.E2.80.99s_edits_once_again

But this only explain why people revert your edits so often. Your mistakes alone don’t explain why people accuse you of vandalism and threaten to block you. They do that because you revert their reverts or their corrections to your edits, and even when they try to explain why your edits were wrong, you either don’t understand or don’t listen. Given that so many people revert your edits so often, have you ever considered that your edits might be wrong? Maybe the next time someone reverts you, instead of just reverting back, try for a change to consider the possibility that maybe your edit was wrong. When you post a message on the talk page, or even better yet message them, like you have me, and ask them to explain why your edit was wrong, read their responses VERY carefully. If there is any part of their explanation that does not make sense, or that you still disagree with, ask them SPECIFICALLY about that part of their explanation.

For example, several different people explained several times on the talk:Burj Dubai page why burjdubaiskyscraper.com is not a reliable source. But then you kept trying to use it as a source. People (myself included) get angry because they assume that you are not listening to them, or you don’t care what they say. And they think you are just putting wrong or unsupported info into wikipedia, messing up the article on purpose. Do you see why people would revert you and call it vandalism when you do that? Why not instead ask for clarification about it? For example, I posted a request on the Reliable Sources Noticeboard about burjdubaiskyscraper.com and got a reply agreeing that it’s not a reliable source. If others had argued convincingly that it could be a reliable sources, I would've said, "Gee, I guess I was wrong about that." Look at my talk page, or the talk page of any of the folks who reverts your edits, and ask yourself why your talk pages fill up with vandalism accusations and block warning, while most people on wikipedia never get any of those.

Wikipedia is somewhat democratic. If you cannot convince other folks that your edit is right, then your edit is probably wrong. When you find yourself arguing back and forth, especially if no one else is agreeing with you, give it a break. There is even a rule, called the 3 Revert rule. Stop editing that article for at least a month or two, and go do something else. Good luck!Fredwerner (talk) 18:24, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

In Response to your answers: WOW! The probability of life developing on another planet and eventually becoming human.

Thank you for responding to my question. I am sure 24,000^(2^5,000) is a relatively large number compared to 2.1x 10^24 (2.1 Septillion). It was able to convert 24,000^(2^5,000) to 10^(10^1506.18). I think I did the calculations right but I am not 100 percent sure. I had always thought that if simple life such as the Stromatolites that formed on Earth 3.56 billion years ago, were to form on other planets than natural selection would slowly facilitate more complex forms of life. Extremophiles can live in almost any condition. Strain 121 was capable of thriving in 250 degrees Fahrenheit, hence its name. Life has been found in the hydrothermal vents in the darkness of the ocean. Amazingly enough sunlight is not even needed for life to exist. There are places on this Earth where life is created in the most hostile conditions such as superheated 750 degree Fahrenheit water. I had always assumed that if life was so tenacious it could evolve into human life in many different places. As long as there were extremophiles which are easily created, I thought natural selection would have driven species to gradually become more complex since the fittest would survive. I don’t think the same direct path of evolution has to be followed but there could human-like creatures with different bio-chemistry that resemble humans. What I mean to say is that when I use “human” I don’t mean to say a species that is exactly like modern day humans on Earth but maybe another form of intelligent life that resembles humans. For example if the dinosaurs were not killed off 65 million years ago by an asteroid then mammals would not have become the dominant species on Earth. Without the rise of mammals, the Dinosaurs would continue to rule the Earth. As the oxygen in the atmosphere decreased the dinosaurs would slowly decrease in size as oxygen levels reached current conditions. Over the next 65 million years it could have been possible that these dinosaurs could have further evolved, shrank in size and over millions of years formed intelligent life resembling humans. Something of a “Lizard Man”. This might seem far-fetched but if the dinosaurs did not die out, mammals would not have taken over and we might have not evolved from primates. Not all of the same genes have to be passed on the same way it happened on Earth for intelligent life to form. Is it possible that apes could become humans if a different set of genes were passed on, or must they be only one kind of genes? After converting that number I was astounded as the number is relatively large. This made me wonder what the probability of life developing on a planet and then over a long period of time becoming human is? I mean is it possible to know what the probability is of simple life developing on a planet and eventually leading to humans? That chances of this must be astounding. Is there anyway to find out the odds of simple life forming on a random planet and then the odds of that life slowly evolving into humans? Please answer my question if you know how to find the answer. I would appreciate it so much. Thank You very much for all your time, effort, and for your cooperation. Your Friend Maldek

You are still making many false assumptions about what would easily or likely happen, based on what we know DID happen. Again, the specific path that evolution takes, and the specific life forms that arise, only appear obvious in retrospect. The range of possibilities for natural selection to work with are so large, that it is virtually impossible to predict future changes, and the odds of any specific life form arising in any "what-if" scenario are functionally 1 in infinity. As I said, even the odds of life arising on another planet that is like life on earth (based on cells with lipid bilayer membranes protecting a genetic code comprised of nucleic acids wrapped in proteins) are also functionally 1 in infinity. Yes, the odds are high that something fitting our definition of "life" could have arisen on other planets, but how would that life work? Perhaps it is silicon-based, or something else utterly unfamiliar to us. Yes the odds are high that the universal process of evolution (which governs HOW choices are made, not WHAT choices are made), could result in something we would call intelligence on another planet. But the odds of it having a body with two arms and two legs, or otherwise being close enough to us for us to call it humanoid are basically zero. Even your hypothetical "lizard-man" would still not be called "human" by any definition, even if it did exist, and the odds of dinosaurs evolving in precisely that direction are astronomically low for the same reasons I just stated, even if they had survived.

For a better understanding, I suggest you read The Blind Watchmaker or The Selfish Geneby Richard Dawkins, The Pony Fish's Glow by George Winston, or any other of the many, many good books available that help explain evolution, and how simple choices of random mutations give rise to unpredictable and miraculous diversity.Fredwerner (talk) 17:29, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

WikiProject Birds October newsletter

The October 2008 issue of the Bird WikiProject newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you.
This has been an automated delivery by BrownBot (talk) 00:20, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

WikiProject Birds November newsletter

The December 2024 issue of the Bird WikiProject newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you. This has been an automated delivery by TinucherianBot (talk) 07:44, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Kirsten Gillibrand

I semi-protected this article to prevent vandalism due to rumors. The semi-protection is for six hours (overnight) and the move protect is for one day. Bearian (talk) 02:24, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

WikiProject Birds February newsletter

The February 2009 issue of the Bird WikiProject newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you. MeegsC | Talk 21:54, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

WikiProject Birds March newsletter

The March 2009 issue of the Bird WikiProject newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you.
This has been an automated delivery by BrownBot (talk) 21:36, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Francis Lucille

Hi, I have found your usernames on articles related to advaita. I need your help and suggestion. I am trying to add an article on one of the Living spiritual teacher. but,I am facing an problem.

The editors who have visited this page don't understand spirituality and they have tagged it for deletion. i need your help urgently. so they are trying to compare it with other biographies in the field of sports etc. As you know,the field the spirituality is not very commercial. so I am having a hard time convincing them. could you please help and and take a look at article. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Lucille http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Francis_Lucille.

Appreciate all your help.

Thanks Amarhindustani (talk) 18:21, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Response to your question about the Dalai Lama

I was repeating something stated by an official. I found it interesting that he was questioning the Dalai Lama's murky dual role of politician and spiritual leader. I have personally witnessed that this theocratic role has caused a great deal of trouble and pain for Tibetans who used to trust him but who do not agree with his politico-religio ban of Buddha Dorje Shugden. They have no recourse whatsoever, nowhere to turn, it is agony for them. I have also found that to dare speak a word in criticism of him is, as the South African official pointed out, regarded by many Westerners as unfavorably as shooting Bambi. This might be because they are holding onto an idealized view of the Dalai Lama and have not seen his dark side. I find this degree of slavish, even cultish, devotion very unusual and amazing in our modern age and it means the Dalai Lama gets away with far more than he should. It would be great if he could be one or the other -- either religious or political leader -- but both doesn't work.(Truthbody (talk) 01:20, 1 April 2009 (UTC))

Thanks for your honest and clear response. You make a valid point about the universally one-sided favorable view Westerners maintain of the Dalai Lama, but he is not unique in that. Many other non-violent political underdogs receive similarly devotional portrayals (including most other Nobel Peace Prize winners). I don't understand the Dorje Shugden thing, so it's hard for me to get the root cause of your antagonism. But given you have that axe to grind, I understand your desire to put in something negative about the Dalai Lama. Even so, what you added didn't fit and set off bias-alert bells, which is why I toned it down and balanced it.

As an aside, do you recognize that you are playing into the hands of a common threat? The Chinese government and its apologists have been trying and waiting for decades to do anything to take the Dalai Lama down a notch, because they know that weakening the Dalai Lama means weakening opposition to their oppressive control over Tibet. They are thrilled to exploit the split in the Tibetan community that you describe. Just because you see the Dalai Lama as causing the split doesn't mean you have to help Tibet's enemies use it. Fredwerner (talk) 06:02, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

It is the Dalai Lama who is playing into the hands of the Chinese, no one else. He alone has caused the split and weakness in the Tibetan community that the Chinese are now able to exploit. There was no split before his actions, the Tibetans in exile were united. The Tibetans he is segregating were (and many still are) devoted Tibetans who love their motherland as much as any other Tibetan. Moreover, if the Dalai Lama wanted to solve this problem, he could do so in one speech. (When people find out more about the other actions of the Dalai Lama, the ones hidden from view, they might not be so inclined to shoot the messenger.) (Truthbody (talk) 17:12, 1 April 2009 (UTC))

BTW, sorry to repeat the discussion here! I only just saw your note at the top of this page suggesting to stick to one talk page or the other, which makes sense. I'm happy to continue with the discussion here if you would like. Thanks. (Truthbody (talk) 17:15, 1 April 2009 (UTC))

WikiProject Birds April newsletter

The April 2009 issue of the Bird WikiProject newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you. MeegsC | Talk 15:35, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

WikiProject Birds May newsletter

The May 2009 issue of the Bird WikiProject newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you.

• Newsletter delivery by xenobot 06:07, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

WikiProject Birds June newsletter

The June 2009 issue of the Bird WikiProject newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you.

• Newsletter delivery by xenobot 13:51, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

WikiProject Birds August newsletter

The August 2009 issue of the Bird WikiProject newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you.

Newsletter delivery by –xeno ^talk 02:20, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Please remove autoblock

This is the IP address for The Bentley School, where I am a teacher. I teach the student who committed this vandalism. In fact, I have him in class in less than 5 minutes. We are currently doing a project that requires students to use and edit wikipedia pages, and I have been teaching wikipedia policies. This student will be disciplined for his actions, and the whole class can learn from this. Please un-block our IP address. Thank you. Fredwerner (talk) 20:38, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

 Done —  Tivedshambo  (t/c) 20:54, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

{{unblock-auto|1=71.202.31.5|2=Autoblocked because your IP address was recently used by "Snowdude1492". The reason given for Snowdude1492's block is: "Vandalism-only account".|3=Rklawton|4=1600234}}

This IP address and one particular user have both been blocked on a faulty determination of vandalism, on the basis of what seems to be a failure to assume good faith.

Reviewing the block log, and user:snowdud1492 contribs, it is not clear why the user was determined "vandalism only" and blocked indefinitely. The user was attempting to make constructive edits to the page oxyhydrogen. The last edit on his contrib page was an honest effort at a legitimate edit, adding substantive, relevant, appropriate info to the page. In an honest, if misguided, attempt to provide a reliable source, he cited a youtube video of an NBC news broadcast. The edit was identified (improperly) as vandalism, and reverted. A comment made on his talk page noted that he had violated wikipedia's policy on external links. He had thought a newscast would be a reliable source, and hadn't understood that youtube would not be considered reliable. But after receiving the comment, he understood the revert, and was actively seeking a legitimate reliable source for the same info.

If there were other, later edits made by this user that were clearly vandalism, they have been deleted from his contribs page and are not visible to me, as I am not an administrator.

Please unblock both user:Snowdude1492 and this IP address, or explain to me what additional info justifies the blocks. Thank you. Fredwerner (talk) 16:55, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Rather than lift the auto-block again, I've granted you IP block exemption, which will mean you should no longer be affected by blocks on the IP address. I haven't looked at Snowdud's contributions - I suggest they should leave an unblock request on their own page if they feel the block is unjustified. —  Tivedshambo  (t/c) 17:46, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Test edit?

Hi, I'm not sure what you meant to do here, I've reverted it. Message me if you need help with anything. Smartse (talk) 17:30, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Whoops!! I thought I was working in a sandbox copy of the Air pollution page. I certainly didn't mean to insert the test edit into the actual page. How embarrassing. Thanks for catching it. :) Fredwerner (talk) 19:43, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Larisa Blum

The article Larisa Blum has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

No indication this individual meets WP:BIO

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. Jayjg ^(talk) 06:47, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Science lovers wanted!

Science lovers wanted!

Hi! I'm serving as the wikipedian-in-residence at the Smithsonian Institution Archives until June! One of my goals as resident, is to work with Wikipedians and staff to improve content on Wikipedia about people who have collections held in the Archives - most of these are scientists who held roles within the Smithsonian and/or federal government. I thought you might like to participate since you are interested in the sciences! Sign up to participate here and dive into articles needing expansion and creation on our to-do list. Feel free to make a request for images or materials at the request page, and of course, if you share your successes at the outcomes page you will receive the SIA barnstar! Thanks for your interest, and I look forward to your participation! Sarah (talk) 02:04, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

Quechua help needed

Hello Carwil, I'm contacting you because we need some Quechuan translators to help with the deployment of the new VisualEditor on qu.wikipedia. It is important that we get the User Guide and the User Interface translated before VisualEditor is deployed to users (to translate the User Interface, you need to start an account at translatewiki.net). More information on the translating work is available MediaWiki: Translation Central. I also need help with a personal message about the rollout for the Quechuan Wikipedians. If you are able to help in any way, either reply here, or head over to TranslationCentral. Thanks for your time, PEarley (WMF) (talk) 19:56, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Hi, PEarley (WMF). Sorry for the delayed reply. I don't check Wikipedia messages often. If you'd like to contact me directly, email is best: fredwernerAThotmailDOTcom. I'd be happy to help out with the Quechua project, I'll look over Translation Central when I have some time tomorrow. Fredwerner (talk) 20:33, 12 January 2014 (UTC)