User talk:MarkSweep/archive1

Hello MarkSweep, welcome to Wikipedia.

You might find these links helpful: How to edit a page, How to write a great article, Naming conventions, Manual of Style. You should read our policies at some point too.

If you have any questions, see the help pages, add a question to the village pump, or ask me on my talk page. I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian!

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Again, welcome! Chris Roy 19:19, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)

---

Hi Mark. The content at Gustatory urinalysis said nothing about the topic. Could you please see Wikipedia:Stub article for guidelines in creating a stub? Thanks Dysprosia 08:42, 25 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Thanks, I'm aware. Just being silly. MarkSweep 23:27, 2004 Apr 26 (UTC)

incomplete beta/Beta

Hello. It appears that you have moved incomplete beta function to incomplete Beta function, and also changed some instances of "beta" to "Beta" and "gamma" to "Gamma". I wonder how much need there is for this. The names are of course established only by convention, but from what I can tell writing the names in lowercase is substantially more common. Arfken and Mathworld agree on lowercase; "Numerical Recipes" writes the names in lowercase; a random sample of web pages shows lowercase is preferred except in titles; Abramowitz & Stegun isn't very helpful since most proper names appears in titles and therefore capitalized. My copy of Boyce & DiPrima does mention the "Gamma function" in passing. Would you care to explain your reasoning here? Regards, Wile E. Heresiarch 15:42, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Very simple: preserving case. If I see "Beta function", I know immediately which function is intended. If I see "beta function" out of context, I might have to guess whether Beta (B) or beta (β) was intended. Look at Beta function and beta-function. The symbol for the first is always a "B" (capital Beta), never a "β" (lower case beta), though sometimes it's given as "B" (Latin upper case B). The symbol for the second is always a "β" never a "B". If it weren't for the hyphen, the two pages about "beta functions" would be indistinguishable. Also see the notice on the top of each page about case. Similarly, you could distinguish an "incomplete Gamma function" Γ where the integral is taken from x to infinity from an "incomplete gamma function" γ where the integral is taken from 0 to x. Granted, the case distinction in the last case might be too subtle. Abramowitz and Stegun seem to treat all function names as proper names and So They Capitalize Everything, even things like "Riemann Zeta Function", which is never denoted by a "Z" (capital Zeta). If you're looking for precedent, portions of netlib[1] attempt (somewhat successfully) to use "Beta" and "Gamma" consistently. --MarkSweep 00:42, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I see your point, but we're not in a position to impose an unconventional name, even if it's more logical and consistent. If people who commonly work with these functions commonly write their names in lowercase, or upside down or backwards, Wikipedia has to follow suit. As to precedent, I have already made a brief survey which indicates the lowercase spelling is more common; it's up to you to show that in fact uppercase is more common. Wile E. Heresiarch 01:18, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Oh well, I thought we were in a position to strive for consistency, at least in the article title. It's not such an important matter, so move things back if you think. --MarkSweep 04:30, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I've moved incomplete Beta function back to incomplete beta function and substituted "beta" for "Beta" and "gamma" for "Gamma" in some articles. Thanks for all your excellent contributions, keep up the good work. Regards & happy editing, Wile E. Heresiarch 16:01, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia question

Hi MarkSweep. I am doing a small research project on Wikipedia and have a couple questions about your contribution to Hidden Markov models listed on my discussion page. If you have time, I'd really appreciated if you could send me answers. Great articles and thanks!

--Caromk 01:41, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Decision Analysis

Mark:

I notice that you are suggesting I merge a lot of my recent decision analysis stub articles into one grand decision model article. I won't at this stage, since it is my intention to flesh out the stubs, and to provide a separate decision model article, to create a really useful hypertexted Decision Analysis resource here. I hope that is okay.

DA is an area in which I have a professional interest. Additional suggestions and/or contributions would be most welcome!

Many thanks. GJeffery 16:14, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I'm still worried that the set of articles is too disjointed with the contents spread out over many small stubs. However, if these stubs are an indication of bigger project you're envisioning, that would be Ok by me (not that my opinion matters anyway). --MarkSweep 16:29, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Probability distributions

I was wondering if it makes sense to aim for a common structure for all the articles on probability distributions. So far I've tried to imitate to some degree the presentation of normal distribution. What is a good place to discuss issues that are common to a set of articles like this? Category talk:Probability distributions?

There seems to be some respectable opinion or practice in the use of such a common structure, but it's never been something I've been able to get enthusiastic about. For example, for some probability distributions, the expected value may be one of the more important things to know about it; for others, perhaps not.

Maybe the category talk page would be the best place for such a discussion; I'm not sure. Michael Hardy 21:38, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I'm not in favor of a common structure either; just put whatever seems important for a particular distribution into that article. -- Btw Mark I see that you've been pointing redirects directly to naive Bayes classifier. Thanks for taking on this cleanup job, I appreciate your help a lot. Regards & happy editing, Wile E. Heresiarch 05:45, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)

New Zealand Photographers

Would you consider changing your vote on Wikipedia:Votes_for_deletion/New_Zealand_Photographers? I have deleted the original non-content and added some proper content. Cheers - Drstuey 12:01, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I've replied on the VfD page. --MarkSweep 13:11, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)

copyvios

You could leave a message on their talk page User talk:129.177.44.178. They'd see it there. I would do it.. but I'm not good with that kind of thing.. either that or I'm lazy. I really should do it. I don't know. - Evil saltine 00:25, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Vanity

Vanity isn't a criterion for speedy deletion, you'll have to go through the VfD cycle for vanity alas. See WP:CSD for more info. --fvw*† 00:55, 2004 Dec 2 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing out that blatant vanity is not a sufficient reason for speedy deletion. I read the policy again and noticed that it is a proposed reason. Is there a place to vote on this? --MarkSweep 01:03, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Nope, I'm afraid things haven't gotten that far yet. I suppose you could try a proper vote on talk: (you should announce it at the appropriate places though), but I don't actually think it's a good idea, alluring though it may be. Vanity is too subjective for a single editor to be allowed to decide whether something is or isn't. Deletion is still one of wikipedia's weak points I fear. --fvw*† 01:08, 2004 Dec 2 (UTC)

Mojomonkeycoding

Hey there. I noticed you marked Mojomonkeycoding as a copyvio, but didn't report it at Wikipedia:Copyright problems as is the usual practice. I went ahead and did it for you, but figured I should point out the way we usually go about it. Thanks! - Vague | Rant 04:06, Dec 2, 2004 (UTC)

Ah, great job! And yeah, you have a point about WP:CP being somewhat unnecessary thanks to the category, but I guess it just makes it easier on the sysops to have a link to the source on the page, too. *shrug* - Vague | Rant 07:41, Dec 2, 2004 (UTC)

Re: comment on copyright text in images

Copyright text in images Dkroll2 wrote: I put a .jpg of me on my page, User:Dkroll2 and I believe I did the copyright thing properly

Yup, it's properly tagged. Thanks. --MarkSweep 16:09, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Yup,...Thanks...that's it. No no no. this was your opportunity to praise, so you can yell at me when I do something bad. You lose the right to bitch at someone if you don't praise too. "Yup, thanks." well,..it just didn't make me dance a jig of pride this morning. That copyright stuff is confusing dammit. That darn "mojo" dude above got a "Ah, great job!" from you. I'm a bit hurt being a newbie and all.[[User:Dkroll2|Dkroll2]]

Article Licensing

Hi, I've started a drive to get users to multi-license all of their contributions that they've made to either (1) all U.S. state, county, and city articles or (2) all articles, using the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike (CC-by-sa) v1.0 and v2.0 Licenses or into the public domain if they prefer. The CC-by-sa license is a true free documentation license that is similar to Wikipedia's license, the GFDL, but it allows other projects, such as WikiTravel, to use our articles. Since you are among the top 1000 Wikipedians by edits, I was wondering if you would be willing to multi-license all of your contributions or at minimum those on the geographic articles. Over 90% of people asked have agreed. For More Information:

• Multi-Licensing FAQ - Lots of questions answered
• Multi-Licensing Guide
• Free the Rambot Articles Project

To allow us to track those users who muli-license their contributions, many users copy and paste the "{{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}}" template into their user page, but there are other options at Template messages/User namespace. The following examples could also copied and pasted into your user page:

Option 1

I agree to [[Wikipedia:Multi-licensing|multi-license]] all my contributions, with the exception of my user pages, as described below:

{{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}}

OR

Option 2

I agree to [[Wikipedia:Multi-licensing|multi-license]] all my contributions to any [[U.S. state]], county, or city article as described below:

{{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}}

Or if you wanted to place your work into the public domain, you could replace "{{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}}" with "{{MultiLicensePD}}". If you only prefer using the GFDL, I would like to know that too. Please let me know what you think at my talk page. It's important to know either way so no one keeps asking. -- Ram-Man (comment| talk)

{{inuse}}

I noticed you are busy on Talk:Sollog. Are you aware of the {{inuse}} template to mark major edits with? This is a useful "standard" way of asking people to stay out of it for a while. (I haven't seen it used for talk pages yet, but it would work). JRM 01:26, 2004 Dec 11 (UTC)

Thanks, that's exactly what I needed to put on that page. --MarkSweep 01:31, 11 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Sollog

I'm way uncomfortable with any comments (mine or anyone else's) having been removed from the talk page, and in principle don't agree with the idea of reorganizing the flow of posts on such a page. However positive the motive, aside from offering an opportunity to snip commentary according to standards others might not really agree with, most of the writing has been removed from its original context. Yes, if someone's really curious, they can browse the page history, but most people won't bother. Of course I could have reverted the page, but felt that would be rude. Wyss 04:45, 11 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I know what you mean. I was extremely hesitant to edit someone else's comments. In fact, I first started creating a proposal for a refactored page over at Talk:Sollog/Refactored, but then decided that that would be an unnecessary distraction: everybody would be forced to compare the proposed page to the original page, a lot of discussion would ensue, meanwhile Sollog's followers would continue editing the main talk page, etc. I thought it would be a nightmare to keep these two versions consistent. So I decided to "be bold" and just make the changes at the main talk page. Yes, it chops up individual comments, but I've tried to thread them back together. I realize that coherence was lost in the process and apologize for that. However, I would claim that in the end it was an improvement over the preceding discussion, which was heavily fragmented -- not your fault, it's just some people decided to add comments all over the place. Now, what should be done? If you think your comments have been misrepresented, or there are some that I forgot, why not merge in some changes from the snapshot before the refactoring? Keep in mind that I'm not saying that only the comments I copied during the refactoring should be present. If you think some strands of the conversation were lost, please do restore them. If you think the situation cannot be salvaged at all -- and especially if others agree -- I'm not opposed to reverting. Also, keep in mind that there was precedent for such a refactoring, e.g., User:Rlandmann had already done a (much less radical) reorganization before. Cheers, --MarkSweep 04:56, 11 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Sollog's followers? He has no followers, it's all Ennis. He buys domains and spams his way across the internet hoping to attract enough attention to at least generate some hits on his websites so he can sell stuff. Anything will do, e-books, CDs, various flavours of porn (he'll say that's his publisher's doing, not his, but it's all him), anything he can think of. His forums are a wasteland of scattered posts to himself... the "timestamped" USENET avalanche is all Ennis as well. I could go on, but I'm sure you get the idea. There's no notability here, no followers, nothing even approaching an acceptable publisher, positive review or sponsor, no art, no substance. Someone on Tim MacVeigh's legal team dismissed him, in effect, as a complete nut. A wiki article on this topic is about as appropriate as a separate feature on a Rolex watch spammer. All the best, Wyss 05:28, 11 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I only speak of "Sollog's followers" for the sake of NPOV. I did some lookups of domain records and traceroutes on the IP addresses that the various anonymous posts came from, and most of them point to southern Florida, and northeastern Broward county in particular. He may deny these things all he wants -- I fully agree with you that it's most likely one or two people and their various sock puppets posting here. However, for the sake of not providing him with more fodder for his repetitive comments, I decided to stop calling him on this after every single of his anonymous posts on the talk page. Still, I'm keeping track of who our special friends are here. Call me naive, but I also share User:JRM and User:Rlandmann's hope that perhaps this could be made into a decent NPOV article that provides sufficient information for readers to make up their own minds. You have to admit that there is some entertainment value here: the guy has spammed himself into some dubious notoriety, posts an advertising/vanity page, vigorously defends it against deletion, then changes his mind once he realizes that he won't get the publicity he wants. --MarkSweep 06:21, 11 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I think you should indeed keep calling him on it. This isn't one or two people... it's one. The writing's the same. Ennis owns hundreds of domain names, so I'm sure he knows how to keep more than one ISP account handy for serial logons. As I do more reading up on this person, I have yet to find one positive comment (or a hint of any fan existing other than himself). Even the psychic sites I've seen openly call him a fraud and a sockpuppet (and worse). Wyss 07:24, 11 Dec 2004 (UTC)

MarkSweep, while I might quibble with some details, I think that if the article is worth inclusion it was a much needed job admirably done. What I fear is that Ennis is going to continue more or less the same behavior patterns, so the whole talk page is either going to become chaotic again or need another radical reworking every week or so -- which seems to me to be vastly more work than is warranted by a soi-disant deity beneath the attention of either www.rickross.com/sg_alpha.html or Skepdic. What a pain. Yet I'm with Wyss -- I voted against inclusion of any article on Ennis and I'd do so again if the question were to come up again (and I don't immediately see how it could). -- Hoary 05:46, 11 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Thanks. If Ennis continues as before, I'd be in favor of taking a more active role in shaping the discussion. The name calling, the profanity, the various threats, the UPPER CASE writing style, the invitations to "shut up" (a dead giveaway, by the way), the vandalism, the childish retorts, etc. all have to stop. --MarkSweep 06:21, 11 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Barnstars are awarded on the "Be bold!" principle... Wikipedia:Barnstars on Wikipedia ...I gave Rlandmann, JRM, Hoary and Jimbo Wales barnstars too, I was way impressed with how this was handled, having voted to delete the article and then watching the process (along with the offline personal attacks- ghastly) produce an article even I thought reflected the facts and, amazingly, without once having made an edit to the article myself. I learned something about the wiki way. Wyss 05:40, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for your kind words. I'm so glad we don't have to be NPOV in edit summaries -- it helps to blow off a little steam now and then. JamesMLane 21:52, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Image:Texas state capitol.jpg

Image:Texas state capitol.jpg is not a thumb of itself, as you write as reason for speedy delete :). Thue | talk 12:03, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Ah, but isn't any picture this small necessarily a thumb of itself? Seriously, my mistake. I also replied on your talk page. --MarkSweep 19:01, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)

You are of course right that the picture is a thumb of itself :P. I have deleted it. Thue | talk 21:49, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)

IFD

FYI, AFAIK, IFD's should be listed by hand on Wikipedia:Images and media for deletion ...cf. [2]. --Tagishsimon (talk)

Right, I meant to list a whole batch that I flagged in one go, but got sidetracked. It's just too inconvenient to list every IFD candidate individually (on the other hand, longer additions usually result in edit conflicts). --MarkSweep 06:14, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Diff two articles

(From Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/List of words having different meanings in British and American English, including minority usages)

• Is there a way to diff two distinct articles, short of pasting one into the other, diffing the two revisions, and then reverting?) --MarkSweep 09:35, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)
  • I never thought of this before, but most likely there's a webdiff program for comparing two web pages, which could be adapted for the purpose. Just give it two URLs and it'll diff them. If not, you could easily write a suitable script in perl. --[[User:Tony Sidaway|Tony Sidaway|Talk]] 09:42, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)
    • Yeah, I guess the other solution would have been to save the wiki code for both pages in text files and then simply run diff on those files. Though it's simple, it's still too much work. --MarkSweep 09:47, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Template:NASA

(moved from Wikipedia:Template messages)

• Template:NASA duplicates Template:PD-USGov-NASA. One should be substituted for the other, preferrably by a robot, and the unused templated deleted. --MarkSweep 04:12, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)
  • I have NetBot running to make this switch on the images. I moved your request to Template talk:NASA, so follow-up there. Basically, the Wikipedia:Template messages section you added to is only for handling templates after they've been voted on. Since this didn't go through a vote (that I saw), I thought it better to move the discussion. -- Netoholic @ 06:05, 2004 Dec 20 (UTC)
    • Thanks. That's exactly what I meant, replacing the template on the image pages. Sorry for posting the request on the wrong page. --MarkSweep 05:15, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Changing 20 December to December 20 in Sollog

Hi MarkSweep,

I noticed you changed dates like 20 December to December 20. I just wanted to point out that the change has no effect whatsoever on the output, since your date order is set as a preference.

--Dbenbenn 19:59, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I knew about the user preferences, but I was under the impression that it's either [[December 20]], [[2004]] or [[20 December]] [[2004]] (no comma in the latter form). --MarkSweep 20:10, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)

User:MarkSweep/thumb

My apologies, I deleted this template because it was on the Category:Candidates for speedy deletion page. I've restored it; no harm done, I hope.-gadfium (talk) 02:45, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I'm using it to quickly list image thumbnails on CAT:CSD. How do I stop the template page from showing up there? --MarkSweep 02:56, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Place a message at Category:Candidates for speedy deletion asking for it to stay or, preferably, create a completely new template in [[Temaple:]] namespace (rather than your user namespace) so other people can use it too. -- Graham ☺ | Talk 03:05, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Can we do something with this user page now, because it's still showing up on csd (obviously) and may get deleted again at any time by another unsuspecting admin. -- Graham ☺ | Talk 03:41, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I made a new Template:isd that replaces the user page. However, if you delete the user page before deleting all of the images that I used it on, you might risk delisting those images from CSD. If you clear out all image files currently listed on CAT:CSD, I'll blank the user template and list it on CSD for good. --MarkSweep 03:44, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Er... I'll do it tomorrow (just saw the amount of images - it's 3.49am here!) -- Graham ☺ | Talk 03:46, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)

ISD

Hi there,

I love the images for speedy deletion template you made. Could you also link to a category especially for images? Category:Candidates for speedy deletion always gets swamped with images and it would be nice to have them apart. Mgm|^(talk) 12:04, Dec 24, 2004 (UTC)

I created Category:Redundant images as a subcategory of CAT:CSD. Don't know if that's a good idea. I guess I'll find out soon enough. --MarkSweep 12:27, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)

User:MarkSweep/thumb

I've turned this into a redirect to Template:Isd; this appears to work as normal and it won't then appear in CAT:CSD. Dunc|☺ 11:27, 25 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Thanks, good idea. --MarkSweep 12:13, 25 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Vandelism on Admin page Dkroll2 not true

Whilst sufing about I found an unsigned accusation of vandalism. Please explain.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:List_of_administrators#Vandalism --[[User:Dkroll2|Dkroll2]] 17:30, Dec 25, 2004 (UTC) On Christmas, no less.

Signature not working on Dkroll2

Does this work?

--[[User:Dkroll2|Dkroll2]] 00:41, Dec 26, 2004 (UTC)

crap, I just checked. it doesn't. yeah, I picked the button at the top, second from the right. ~~~~ Waz up? I'm a mess.

Why does mine have all the [[]] [ [ ] ] around it too?

Here's the difference betwween yours and mine:

[[User:MarkSweep|MarkSweep]] 02:56, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)

--[[User:Dkroll2|[[Dkroll2]]]] 00:41, Dec 26, 2004 (UTC)

I found it! it was some brackets in my prefs page--Dkroll2 01:08, Dec 26, 2004 (UTC)

I need your support

This is the fastest manner I found to get to a apage...the URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Votes_for_deletion/Subtractive_color_space

I cannot write the article until I get this crazy man who keeps destroying my work away. I tried rediret, then he did too and on and on. He followed my every move for days and messed up every word I wrote. I wish his info was correct but it was wrong and just bad. I emailed him with references. No reply.

Please vote.--Dkroll2 07:46, Dec 27, 2004 (UTC)

Done. And by the way, you could have also linked to the vote page like this: Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Subtractive color space. --MarkSweep 00:18, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Speedily deletions

Thanks for tagging all those thumbs for speedy delete! I'm hoping we'll soon be rid of them. – Quadell ^{(talk) (help)} 21:41, Dec 27, 2004 (UTC)

No problem. Unfortunately, there are plenty more left. --MarkSweep 00:19, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Also, remember to check Category:Redundant images from now on. --MarkSweep 09:03, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Where did the extra == come from?

Could it be you used the new section (+) link at the top of the page, and put the =='s in the subject/headline box out of habit? Happens to me all the time. --fvw* 09:36, 2004 Dec 28 (UTC)

You're right. Thanks. --MarkSweep 19:55, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Image discussion at User_talk:Tillea

After discussion with you I updated my talk page at commons in this way that I removed mages I uploaded in a quality which I considered fine. I left other images on the talk page if I was unsure whether they should be fixed in one or the other way. Just have a look if you will find the time.

Moreover I wonder how the WikiPedia project should cope with all these funny images for instance if you look at collections like Alopex lagopus. I uploaded "just another fox" but I think half of these images should be removed again - but who decides which one without making the uploader angry?

Tillea 06:36, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

commons:Image:HausdorffSpace.png

I've reverted what you did here, but you may want to re-revert somewhat. There are two separate points:

• Regarding the image itself, the circles are grey (not black), to indicate the boundary of an open set.
• Regarding the description, my work is not (usually) public domain; there's a lot about this on User talk:Toby Bartels#Public Domain.

-- Toby Bartels 01:46, 2005 Jan 11 (UTC)

OK, I made the circles sRGB 50% gray and added a CopyrightedFreeUse tag, as well as tags for compatible free licenses. Maybe you could consider using {{CopyrightedFreeUse}} in addition to your own license text, which would place the image into an appropriate category. Cheers, --MarkSweep 05:20, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

That looks fine; thanks for your care. (Well, I don't know why the image needs to be so big; but since it can be made smaller again when I use it, then who am I to complain if you want it? ^_^) (And I don't really like the form of the CopyrightedFreeUse tag, but that just means that I need to design a better version! ^_^) Also, I added you to the list of modifiers in the credits. -- Toby Bartels 22:28, 2005 Jan 24 (UTC)

Re: Instant revert

Thanks for the note. Wikipedia was loading very slowly for me this morning, and by the time I got the final version in I'd realised my comments were somewhat out of date in letter, if not in spirit. I had also already decided by that point not to engage with him any longer (I have enough evidence now to be relatively sure of his pattern), but rather to address my comments to the other editors. To avoid any more rounds of defensiveness, I will continue to operate that way for now. Regards, Fire Star 23:25, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Image:Alabamastateseal.png

Hi Mark,

I guess you have either WP:PUI or Image:Alabamastateseal.png on your watchlist! After listing it at PUI, I found a PD version, uploaded it to commons:Image:Alabama state seal.png, and orphaned the CV version. By the time I was done, you had replaced that version with the same PD seal I had used! Anyway, I've listed Alabamastateseal.png at WP:IFD, because 1) it's orphaned, and 2) it still has the CV version in the history.

Cheers, dbenbenn | talk 03:58, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Actually I was going through every single state seal via Special:File list, searching for "stateseal". I just left a related message on your talk page. --MarkSweep 04:05, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I tried using "pngcrush" on the first version of Image:Alabama state seal.png, but I couldn't get it as small as your version. I'm just curious; could you indicate what you did exactly, and what options you used? Thanks, dbenbenn | talk 01:37, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I used the -brute option – a brute-force search for the optimal compression setting. "When in doubt, use brute force." (commonly attributed to Ken Thompson) Cheers, --MarkSweep 01:43, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, I tried

pngcrush -reduce -cc -brute -l 9 Alabama_state_seal.png Alabama_state_seal2.png

It went from 16321 to 16269 bytes (whereas your version is 15099), only saved 52. I'm using pngcrush version 1.5.10 with libpng 1.2.7 and zlib 1.2.2. dbenbenn | talk 02:00, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Strange, that's the same version I was using (whatever is the latest version on Debian unstable), though it's linked against libpng 1.2.8. Are you sure we both started with the exact same unoptimized image? --MarkSweep 02:04, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I started with the original version of Image:Alabama state seal.png, of size 16321 bytes. What did you start with? dbenbenn | talk 03:12, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I started by downloading what was indicated as the source image on one of the pages and converted that from GIF to PNG. It turns out that the two resulting images are different. (*smack*) --MarkSweep 04:59, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I used gif2png to convert that same image. How did you convert it? dbenbenn | talk 18:21, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The Gimp. --MarkSweep 05:31, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Houbara

I’m no expert on images, so I don’t know how to change the compression – it may be that the compression problems occurred prior to download, and this is, of course, a painting, not a photo, so I don’t know if that has any relevance.

The source is 1905 German encyclopedia, so you may want to try yourself. It has been confirmed that the use of the images from this site are still in the PD, although in practice many of them are too poor a representation of the species concerned to use in articles. jimfbleak 07:46, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Yosemite Valley photo as featured picture candidate

Do you have any info on the better resolution photo from pdphoto.org for consideration at Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Yosemite Valley ? - Bevo 22:58, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I sent you a reply. --MarkSweep 23:45, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I don't see it, yet. - Bevo 01:32, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Using the "E-mail this user" link. It took forever to send, but when the page finally loaded it did say "message sent". Ping me here in a couple of hours if haven't received it. --MarkSweep 01:59, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I still don't see it. I checked my preferences and the correct email address is there. I'll try emailing you to see if that works. - Bevo 16:04, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I finally received a high-rez version of the image voted on a while ago. It's now on the Commons as Commons:Image:Yosemite meadows 2004-09-04.jpg. The composition is actually a bit different from Image:Yosemite 2 bg 090404.jpg. Do you think it's worth renominating it as an FPC here? Alternatively, I could nominate it on the Commons. --MarkSweep 06:57, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I feel it should be nominated on its own merits for FPC status (since it is a different image). The image quality of the new one is fantastic, although I do like the exact camera position of the original better. If you do nominate it, I'm voting support! - Bevo 19:36, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Image sleuthing

There's a new project in town called Wikipedia:Image sleuthing, and you are hereby invited to become an official image sleuth. – Quadell ^{(talk) (sleuth)} 00:47, Jan 25, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the pointer. I've added my name to the list of contributors (even though I haven't contributed anything yet). --MarkSweep 05:09, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

ROC map

Hi Mark: sorry, but I don't have any information on the copyright status of the image. I added the English names, that's all. I think you'll have to ask the original uploader about this.

Cheers! -- ran (talk) 06:47, Jan 26, 2005 (UTC)

Thank you

Thanks, Mark! dbenbenn | talk 06:19, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Nickel metal hydride battery photo

Thanks for the image! It looks like everybody's happy with it. Are you still planning on uploading a higher-quality version to the Commons, or can I close the request on Wikipedia:Image sleuthing? – Quadell ^{(talk) (sleuth)} 18:53, Feb 9, 2005 (UTC)

Go ahead and close the request. I won't get around to it during the next couple of days. If everyone is happy with the current version, there is no strong incentive to do another version right away. --MarkSweep 23:13, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Message to Mark

Please delete as required....

I have tried to put your policy into effect on the Talk Sollog page but I fear the bemused Editors will simply delete my message and thus ignore what you wrote. This message here is simply posted as a matter of record in that I have tried to bring the attention of the unruly to the rules.

Thank you

The Number 23:23, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Urban Legend

Now that you mention it, it was one of those voluminous forwards everyone always gets, with no clear provenance. I could read your rearranged version, but that could be because I knew the text already. I guess I'll have to edit it! Cheers, Fire Star 14:32, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

It's just...

... that I saw them in the English Wikipedia. Should they be deleted from there too?--Fito 07:33, Feb 13, 2005 (UTC)