Hello, Spawn Man, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions; I hope you like the place and decide to stay. We're glad to have you in our community! Here are a few good links for newcomers:
If you haven't already, drop by the New user log and tell others a bit about yourself.
If you're ready for the complete list of Wikipedia documentation, there's also the Topical index.
I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Though we all make goofy mistakes, here is what Wikipedia is not. If you have any questions or concerns, don't hesitate to see the help pages or add a question to the village pump. The Community Portal can also be very useful.
P.S. Feel free to leave a message on my talk page if you need help with anything or simply wish to say hello. :)
Your question
Signatures are allowed on Wikipedia, but you cannot do them in the article space. In talk pages, you are allowed to use signatures here. There are exceptions to the rule, such as when you are placing a vote at WP:VFD. Welcome to Wikipedia, if you need anything else, come see me. Zscout370(Sound Off)05:55, 11 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
WikiProject: Battles
Welcome to Wikipedia, and to the battles/history community! Much like anything else on Wikipedia, the Battles WikiProject is open to anyone who wishes to help; no need to ask permission. Simply add your name to the list of participants, and start editing! Thanks for your contributions, and I hope to see you around. LordAmeth12:00, 7 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Aluminium
Thanks for your comments in the aluminium article. When you post a comment, it would be appreciated if you don't start a new topic unless necessary. When you do that it is added to the table of contents, and when it gets very long it can make the discussion difficult to follow. Of course, you are welcome to start a new topic; just try not to do it every time you make a comment. Thanks.
Just so you know—the current discussion (very long and heated, I agree) is about whether to include information from Google or other search engines that suggests 'aluminum' is more common than 'aluminium' on the Internet. This is what was removed from the article:
As of August 2005, a Google search on the two spellings shows about 13,500,000 results for the "aluminum" spelling and about 5,000,000 results for "aluminium", a ratio of about 2.7 to 1. Although such a test does not represent a completely unbiased picture of English usage, it shows that official support of "aluminium" by IUPAC and usage in other languages has not had an overwhelming influence on support of the spelling "aluminium" in English language usage.
Oh. Another thing--if you click "edit this page" or "edit" (next to the headline), instead of the "+" button, you can choose where to put your comment on the page. It works the same as editing an article. This way is best if you are responding to someone, especially in a longer discussion, or to make sure your comment goes in the right place. For example, on my talk page, you wrote under the heading for Flatbread.
Great job on the new articles you've started! As you asked here, I took a look at them and did some minor cleanup of the battleboxes and categories; you should try to fill in "Unknown" for commanders/strength/casualties in the battleboxes rather than leaving them blank, since blank fields can sometimes cause the template to break in funny ways. Other than that, the articles are off to a good start.
If you have any other questions, don't hesitate to ask! Kirill Lokshin 02:39, September 8, 2005 (UTC)
Cat Question
hi. a recent comment seems to imply that others who happen by your question have a responsibility to know the answer, or otherwise respond. the question might be better posed though at a cat forum, or maybe google answers. article talk pages, by wikipedia guideline, tend to stay directly related to the articles, not just the general subjects of the articles. that may be why nobody's answering, but i dunno; questions can sometimes sit for days before somebody answers, since many wikipedians visit infrequently. SaltyPig15:01, 9 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Article Improvement Drive
I assume your question regarding featured articles refers to the Article Improvement Drive (and not to the actual Featured Article selection process). The voting isn't automatic - the numbers in the section headings are all updated manually. In general, you can increase the number by one when you put your name on the page. If you forget to do it, the next person voting in that section will usually fix it up for you.
Hope that helps! Kirill Lokshin 01:35, September 11, 2005 (UTC)
Maubeuge
I threw the page together from the one reference I gave at the bottom of the page. On most of the facts I could cross check the information in Wikipedia or on the web from the names. But you will note that I did not put in a link to Fournier because I could not find his full name in any of the searches I did. If you have his full name then please let me know. As I only used one source for the article it may be wrong on that point. If you have two other sources which say so then your two trump my one. I do not suggest that you expunge Maubeuge completely from the retreat but you can reduce it to a sentence. eg "After a two week [siege of Maubeuge|siege the French fortress Maubeuge], now far behind the German front lines, surrendered on 7 September". BTW which part of NZ are you in? Philip Baird Shearer10:16, 11 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Oh yes one other thing, you will find as you read senior military biographys that firing someone over such a thing as defeatism is par for the course. As a new labour politician one said on sitting in the House of Commons for the first time "It is good to see the enemy at last" to which the old hand who was tasked with showing him around said "They are only the opposition, the enemy are all around you". Philip Baird Shearer10:21, 11 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Hello, Spawn Man. May I introduce you to the {{inuse}} tag ? Don't put up the tag and leave the article unattended for days, though. Next time, you may want to make drafts in your personal sandbox (e.g. User:Spawn Man/Sandbox), and then move the article out when it is ready. This way, you can write at your own pace, and won't have to worry about edit conflicts with other wikipedians while your work is still in progress. Hope this helps. Happy editing. -- PFHLai20:36, 15 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Hey, Spawn Man, I was merely making suggestions. I just thought template:inuse is useful to you, and wanted to let you know about it. No need to apologise for anything. Certainly no need to cry ! Wipe those tears off your face ! .... Hmmm, not that you've done anything evil, but I'll "forgive" you if you, say, from now on, always submit an edit summary with your contributions to Wikipedia. Okay ? How is this as a "punishment" ? :-) Haha. .... Anyway, hope you are feeling better. Take care. -- PFHLai14:45, 16 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Did you know? has been updated. A fact from the article Maurice Tillet, which you recently created, has been featured in that section on the Main Page. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the "Did you know?" talk page.
Are you checking this out Spawn my man? The article YOU started and brought me in to edit made "DID YOU KNOW?" That's one step removed from featured status. Well done! High 5! and Cheers M8;) --R.D.H. (Ghost In The Machine)02:45, 26 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Did you know? has been updated. A fact from the article Nivelle Offensive, which you recently created, has been featured in that section on the Main Page. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the "Did you know?" talk page.
I'll keep an eye on it and archive when it gets too large; I'm going to be mostly without a computer until Sunday, so I'll apologize in advance if it seems like I'm not responding :)
Amazing job on getting so many DYK entries in such a short time; I haven't gotten any yet (maybe because I don't usually create new articles...). I'll take a look at some of them after I get back to see if I can help out. In the meantime, keep up the great work! Kirill Lokshin13:22, 30 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Hello, and welcome to Wikipedia! We welcome and appreciate your contributions, such as François Anthoine, but we regretfully cannot accept copyrighted text or images borrowed from either web sites or printed material. For more information about Wikipedia's policies and guidelines, take a look at our Five Pillars. Happy editing!
It's tough to work on articles on obscure people. If you were to look at my talk page, you would notice that someone expressed concern about some of my articles being too close to copyrighted information for comfort. That said, François Anthoine was a direct cut-and-paste from a copyrighted source. That's really not okay. So, what does one do when one has only one source as a reference? Obviously, my standards for paraphrasing are different than the concerned user who warned me, and "rewriting in one's own words" as a guideline is not very precise. The best solution is to find additional sources (where did firstworldwar.com get their information?). I didn't find any additional sources online, but M. Anthoine may be mentioned in books on WWI. Failing that, one could create a very short stub and give a link to the one source. That way, a reader can find out more, there is no infringement, and we can hope that in the future some Wikipedian will come across some other avenue for research and expand it. Best of luck. Jkelly23:38, 1 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks Kelly. However I did not simply cut & paste. I still don't know how it ended up exactly like firstworldwar.com, but somehow it did. I must have stuffed my rewriting up somehow. I will be more careful next time on copyright stuff though. I am still only finding out about new laws etc. This honest mistake won't happen again. Spawn Man03:09, 2 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks!
I can't promise I'm going to be much general help (my history of knowledge being neither broad nor deep), but enough WProj:Battle tags have ended up on my articles that I figured I may as well officially join up. I'm not sure how well some of the medieval Africa battle articles are going to fit in, though, as it's difficult to get even good estimates for force strength, divisions, etc. Still I'd be thrilled if some battle-minded editors took a look at them and expanded/revised/touched up/totally rewrote more intelligently... See you around! --Dvyost17:20, 3 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
DYK
Did you know? has been updated. A fact from the article Moronvilliers, which you recently created, has been featured in that section on the Main Page. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the "Did you know?" talk page.
Hi
Hi Spawn man. My friendship with Shauri is not your business to comment on. I am sure that she has read your three messages and that she will respond to you if she wants to :-).--Wiglaf11:57, 4 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Gosh, who stole the diamond from your doughnut?!? Was just making a comment, which, however stuck up you may be, most get as a JOKE! I bet you have heard of that yet, you should get to know what a joke is, see here 1. It really helps to dislodge certain vegetables from gluteus maximuses in some sircumstances. I don't like being critisised for my jokes, & that was an obvious joke. Anyway.... Goodbye...Spawn Man21:33, 4 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
P.S. If you wish to continue our discussion, to so, I mean do so here:
P.P.S. Someone vandalised my user page, and you're at the top of my list, I'm watching you closely, veeeeeeerry closely...
Please stop it, both of you. No need to make a fuss out of this, joke or not. This isn't that serious. Come on you two, shake your hands... let's have peace... or I'll be forced to give this lovely little dove a horrible and gruesome death, and make you eat the feathers afterwards! Shaurismile!22:48, 3 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Mmmmm, dove pie...My favourite... (Not really) Just one question, how does a dentist know all those languages?? I only know 1 & a half.... Spawn Man
Studying languages has always been a passion of mine, but Italian and French, I merely learned (if I can truly say I know either) by myself. Catalan and Spanish are both my native languages, so that leaves English and Russian as the only ones I ever actually studied. Add ten years of not practising Russian at all, and - voila! you have an En-4 and a Ru-1 dentist :)
Just one more thing, my dear Spawn - I'm positive Wiglaf didn't vandalize anything. He's a very serious user and admin, and not one who would go making such a childish thing. He meant well to protect his friend, but I'm sure this is nothing but a minor misunderstanding. Trust me. Take care! Shaurismile!23:26, 4 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I guessed that, I was joking after all. BTW, I'm part Russian.
Hi Spawman. Since Shauri asks me to be nice to you, I will overlook the edit[1] you did to my post, this time. As for the vandalism of your userpage, I politely ask you to be realistic in your accusations. First of all, I would never sink so low so as to vandalise your user page. Secondly, I fail to see why I would go to New Zealand (where you live) in order to do so, as you can see on the location of the vandal's IP-address: [2].--Wiglaf07:13, 5 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Gosh Wigwam, you're too serious. Take a vacation or something. Plus, I was talking about the first vandal to my page, the second vandal, (the one in New Zealand) was me testing how fast vandalism would be removed. But the first vandal, it could quite possibly be you.... We just don't know....Muahahahaa.... Secondly, it was a joke!! Thirdly, I don't need you to pretend to be nice to me. Fourthly, just cause you have a Phd, & I'm 14 & in a wheel chair, don't think you can talk down to me & act all superior. Gosh, as I've said before: Joke! Spawn Man07:24, 5 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I don't treat you worse or better because of your age or your condition. If you feel that I have treated you worse than I would treat other users, I apologize for that. Take care.--Wiglaf08:00, 5 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Apology accepted mate. (I don't know what you mean by "condition" though, I don't have a "condition").
No, wheel chair, as in office chair with wheels. I must have missed out on the 'y' after wheel, (wheely chair). Sorry if you got confused. (Laughs heartily). Spawn Man09:12, 5 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I see. I hope that you will be more careful with your jokes, spelling and with the copying of barnstars[3] in the future. That would save both of us unnecessary misunderstandings. Cheers,--Wiglaf10:34, 5 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
PS, the next time, you change my post[4] (this is the second time), I will be forced to give you a temporary block for vandalism.--Wiglaf11:00, 5 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
1, The barn star was an accident as I mentioned. 2, I don't expect you to get my jokes. 3, I don't really care if you get my jokes. 4, When did you become my mother & start recording everything I do. 5, It's my user talk page, & I will edit things the way I want to, as many other people have done, & as I have done in the past. I would expect you to edit my posts on your talk page. So unless you want to ban me, & everyone else who's done this, I would suggest you leave it alone. I may chose to delete my entire talk page. It's not really your choice. Show me the rules that say a user isn't allowed to edit his own user page & I will apologise. 6, I reverted my mistake on the barnstar. 7, Notice how you were much nicer when you thought I was disabled? 8, I would leave me alone now, before I make a complaint about harrassment of a 14 year old. I feel that you are very threatening, & that you have gone too far over a stupid joke. If it makes you feel any better, fine, I retract my joke. Make you feel better? Mr. Phd man? Picking on a 14 year old? I don't care if I lose friends over arguing with you, but my two word joke was harmless & I deserve the right of freedom of speech. Now please just leave me alone... ALONE!!!!.... Spawn Man12:06, 5 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Check out this link Wikipedia:Vandalism, and you will see that you are only allowed to modify messages containing personal attacks. I will leave you alone now. I am sorry for this last message, but I need to clarify the rules as an admin.--Wiglaf12:15, 5 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Enough
Spawn, please calm down. I feel responsible in part for this, since it all started in my Talk Page, but I feel compelled to make you a couple of remarks. First, I honestly don't like that you selectively edited the messages that Wiglaf posted here with undoubted good intention. Indeed, this is you Talk Page, but it is also a place to be used by other to communicate, so it's not right to retouch others' messages at will in order to make them appear as something their author did not intend to. I, for once, did not notice the fact at first because I really didn't think someone would do that. From my point of view, it's like counterfeiting a letter. Look at it with objective eyes, Spawn. Second, I'm sure the wheel chair thing might be considered as a joke by some, but believe me, it's not. There may well be users who suffer a physical disability who stumble with it, and I can't help but to think how they would feel by reading it. Making a joke out of a personal condition is distasteful, to say the least.
I friendly suggest you to calm down, consider the facts properly, and see that Wiglaf is not overreacting in the least; furthermore, I'm fully by him on this. I'm more than willing to forget the wheel chair thing and the distortion of Wiglaf's message (although I feel somewhat cheated) if you offer him an apollogy. I don't think that would mean to humiliate yourself; on the contrary, it would honor you to recognise that you simply made a mistake, something none of us is above. You'll lose nothing, and you'll gain much: the knowledge of a few WP rules, our respect, and our friendship. Take good care, Shaurismile!19:45, 5 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Omifreakingosh!! Does no one get jokes around here? I could get a better response from a mortuary!! You know what your problems are? You're all stuck up. The earth is like a rice bar. Except everyone has 2 metre long chopsticks. Instead of feeding each other with the chopsticks, everyone tries to feed themselves. Of course no one eats anything cause we're all too selfish & stuck up. Basically the world sucks. See my post below which will round off this arguement fully... Spawn Man12:33, 6 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
The information shown on the two battle pages were linked and used with raw information from the website shown. You say you have used other sites for the information - in future, please cite your sources Wikiphreak 23:50, 4 October 2005 (UTC)
I did not use the source, firstworldwar.com for the articles. I used both another site & my own books to gather the information from. I looked at the pages which you referenced & compared them with the articles. They have absolutely nothing in common other than the subject & a few stats, such as how many people died in the battle. Spawn Man23:59, 4 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I have reverted to the two copyvio notices. Wikiphreak has provided no specific pages that this is a copyvio of and I can't find any myself. Evil Monkey∴Hello00:28, 5 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Well, it seems that this has already been resolved :) I've left Wikiphreak a note explaining that facts are not covered by copyright; he seems to be under the impression that using the same numbers is infringement.
In any case, firstworldwar.com looks to be a reputable source; perhaps it should be listed as a reference, and further information from it added to the articles. Kirill Lokshin01:22, 5 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Did you know? has been updated. A fact from the article Charles Mangin, which you recently created, has been featured in that section on the Main Page. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the "Did you know?" talk page.
I'm on fire!! Not literally, but poetically if you must. That's like 50 billion DYK contributions in a week already!! Spawn Man
Please review the civility pages again
Hi, Spawn Man. This is about your exchange with Wiglaf above. Please be civil to other users; that is, as the welcome message on this page states, one of the Five Pillars of Wikipedia. Your talk page is for communication with others, it is not your personal weblog, and all the usual rules of Wikipedia:Civility apply to it. I notice that when you got crosswise with Wikipedia civlity here, you did say (after a lot of beefing about people criticizing you) "I have read your civilty etc pages now & will follow them closely." Please review the civility pages again. Don't edit another person's signed comment, whether on your own talk page or elsewhere. As you can see if you follow the link to Wikipedia:Vandalism that Wiglaf posted above, doing that counts as vandalism. You are likely to find your behaviour on WP:AN/I again, or the subject of a request for comment, if you carry on commenting on other users the way I see you doing above, it is completely inappropriate. I suggest you apologize to Wiglaf. Best wishes, Bishonen | talk14:30, 5 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Wont need to worry about that anymore... Spawn Man
Looks like Spawn Man is annoyed at the admins. Uh oh. Wikiphreak 01:45, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
Please respond to the comments
Please respond to the comments and stop removing other people's posts, if they are not personal attacks. The comments you have received are too serious for that.--Wiglaf07:52, 6 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Well, what a gruelling argument. I call myself a top knotch debater, but I had a tough time dealing with all of you. This all started when I wrote a comment on Shauri's talk page:
Wiglaf said: "Nice pics on your user page Shauri". (Or along those lines)
I say : "A bit creepy...".
Obviously a joke, obviously meant in a good light-hearted fun way. Not taken that way. Apparently, to my extent of knowledge, Wiglaf & Shauri had a Thing going. So of course Wiglaf took offense. After all he didn't get a Phd for telling jokes all day.
I was under the impression that I could delete or edit whatever part of my user talk I wished to. Obviously not, & I admit I was wrong on that, even though I'd seen many other user conduct this, including R.D.H (Ghost In The Machine).
Although the start of the arguement was meaningless to me, it was not so for Wiglaf. Add a couple of vandalisms, including one of a placement of Helen Clark on my user page, (good joke, but I still dislike her), & a bad week, plus my articles being wrongly blocked plus what I thought was Wiglaf talking down to me, (you can't argue with how I feel), & of course it didn't go down well. I particularly disliked the way no one saw that half of what I was saying was a joke?!? For example, I knew it wasn't Wiglaf who vandalised my talk page, but I accused him in a joking manner, as I did practically everyone who I came into contact with that day.
My joke on me being in a wheel chair was not actually a true joke, but rather a test to see if Wiglaf would treat me any different if he thought I was disabled. In fact, it worked so well, I even got an apology out of Wiglaf at that point!! After I told him I was being more literal about being in a wheel chair (office chair with wheels on it) he went back to being what I thought was mean.
On top of all this, I particularly despised the way Wiglaf pointed out every mistake I had made during the course of the argument. An example is the accidental barn star deletion. Although he mentioned that I accidentally deleted one of Shauri's barnstars, (in an attempt to copy it in order to give to a user who had helped me), he did not however state that I reverted my edit a few seconds later.
In an argument between two parties, I don't think we need a third, or fourth, (Shauri/R.D.H.) trapsing through the conflict. Because although Wiglaf potentially started the conflict by taking things as I saw, out of perportion, these parties made numerous attempts to make me apologise first & back down. Some even stated that I needed to do some growing up, which I particularly hated.
Spawn man, thanks for the nomination. I'm glad that you found my help useful, and that you seem to be really delving in headfirst into the 'pedia and enjoying it. I'm excited to get to make this little step up in the Wiki hierarchy - and if there's ever something else you need help with, please feel free to ask. LordAmeth14:54, 6 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks a lot! Hopefully the WWI/WWII tags will bring in some editors that only work in those areas. Kirill Lokshin 05:29, September 13, 2005 (UTC)
smile! 22:48, 3 October 2005 (UTC)
smile! 19:45, 5 October 2005 (UTC)