User talk:Bbpen

Moved from Bbpen

I saw your action on Operation Praying Mantis. If you run into this problem again (a misspelled page), don't just cut-and-paste the copy into a newly created page, because that loses all the history and talk of the previous page. Right now, for example, on your new page there's no way to tell when/by who it was first written. Further, somebody coming to the misspelled page doesn't know it's misspelled because there's no direction to your page.

Better is to Move the page - a wikipedia action that sysops can perform (maybe everybody can do it now; I'm not sure). I'm going to do it now. - DavidWBrooks 20:52, 13 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for the cleanup, and the tip. Bbpen 13:44, 15 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Although the insect is a Preying mantis, the operation entered history as Praying mantis apparently due to a misspelling. (In much the same way as Operation Satellite morphed into Starlight. There is no doubt the original documents spelled it the right way, but other cite it in either way. Sorry to have taken so long to reply to your last. I have been on the WikiSourse. [[PaulinSaudi 10:16, 15 Jul 2004 (UTC)]]

Actually, the insect is a praying mantis, named for the way it folds its forelegs as if in devotion (cf. http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=praying%20mantis ). The fact that it also preys has no doubt caused the confusion. Bbpen 13:44, 15 Jul 2004 (UTC)

--- Re: Barry Bonds, glad to do my best in the cause of literacy.... Glad you liked it. Hayford Peirce 17:45, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)

--- Thanks for the tip about Edit summaries! Hadn't figured that one out yet. Veggiesattva 03:13, 5 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Gas Turbine

Hi Bbpen, About your recent edit to Gas turbine. You changed all the 'micro turbine' references to 'microturbine'. I had been using the former because 'microturbine' is a trademarked name.

However, 'microturbine' has a lot more google hits. I would still prefer 'micro turbine', especially for the section heading. Do you have your heart set on 'microturbine'?

Otherwise, welcome to Wikipedia and keep up the good work.

Duk 18:14, 9 Oct 2004 (UTC)

US Navy Munitions

Deleting the category link to U.S. Navy munitions was an error on my part. I'll rectify. Joshbaumgartner 20:23, 2004 Nov 15 (UTC)

Rectified ASROC, RUM-139, BGM-109, Mark 46/48/50, & AGM-84. Joshbaumgartner 20:47, 2004 Nov 15 (UTC)

Utilized/used

You seem to have a preference for the latter. Well, that's OK, but changing every instance of the former to the latter in the entire Wikipedia is really not kosher. There are a lot of more important things that need doing here, no? Noel (talk) 18:49, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Why do you believe it's not kosher? I believe that "utilized" is jargon, not clear speech; that it is used to lend a false sense of authority; and that "used" is almost always preferable. As for "more important things," one of Wikipedia's strengths is that each user contributes as he or she sees a need. Bbpen 19:17, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

And suppose someone else thinks that "used" sounds slangy, and goes around changing all instances of "used" to "utilized"? The two of you could spend your lifetime reverting each other. Not too useful, eh? That's why it's not kosher to simply blanket change instances of one word to another(any more than going around changing British spelling to American, or vice versa, is).

How can "utilize" be "jargon" when it's in the Webster's 1913 Edition? "Utilize", with its root in "utility", has a slightly different flavour than "use", and sometimes (as on the Egyptian chronology page) it is appropriate. If you see some cases where you think "use" is a better word, fine, but don't just do a blanket replace. Noel (talk) 05:40, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Alas, a word's existence in the dictionary hardly prevents people from using it incorrectly, inappropriately, or even deceptively. Certainly, no one's seeking to perpetrate linguistic fraud here; they're simply using a complicated (and usually somewhat pretentious) word where a simple one would suffice -- clear grounds for judicious editing. There are specific, and rare, times when "utilize" (whose flavor is more "to put to good use" than simply "to use") improves on "use"; the Egyptian chronology page may be one. But you've jumped to a conclusion about blanket replacement. The dozen or so places I've changed "utilized" in the Wikipedia leave hundreds of instances untouched. If I were really set on blind extermination, I'd simply fire up the old UtilizedBot. Bbpen 16:06, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)

If all you were doing was occasionally switching to a more euphonious word, that would be OK with me, but you seem to be on a hunt for "utilize", and in looking at some of your recent edits, although some were good, e.g. Mongols, I really don't agree with some of them, e.g. Anderida, where the usage is exactly the "put to good use" you mentioned above (although I still prefer the Webster's edition). And that doesn't count the Egyptian one I already fixed. And I don't have time to review all your edits to check them, but so far your batting average (not sure which side of the Big Pond you are on) is not good. Noel (talk) 22:17, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Of course I'm on a hunt for "utilize." I find it, review the context in which it's used, and change it when "used" would be better. (It's a fancy that will pass, I assure you.) As for reviewing my edits, there are a lot of more important things that need doing here, no? Bbpen 22:42, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)

After you, Alphonse. Noel (talk) 23:29, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Heh. I see you have somehow found the time to review and revert most of my edits. Well, I can't deny I've learned a certain lesson from this little episode. :) Bbpen 05:02, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Well, being a Wiki cuts both ways, right? You have your opinion, and I have mine. And I did first try asking for you to back off. Anyway, I hope I get credit for i) not simply blanket reverting the lot, but picking with some discretion the individual cases where I felt the original was better (and actually, I changed less than half of the ones you replaced before I first mentioned it to you) and ii) fixing a bunch of other mistakes at the same time (and even added a "used" at one point, that should please you :-). Noel (talk) 11:57, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I'm new to Wikipedia, and I like the idea of being able to correct spelling, grammatical, punctuation, and factual errors. What I need to keep my hands tied behind my back regarding are certain word preferences. These include (my preference comes first):

1. use vs. utilize

2. difference vs. differential, in a non-technical sense. For example, what I would want to change is "The wage differential between men and women is..." to "The wage difference between men and women is..." (but not "The wage gap between men and women is..." because that sounds too informal).

3. humans/people vs. man - To describe the species, not a specific male member of the species.

4. he/she (him/her) (his/hers) vs. male pronouns only - I would probably try to recast such sentences, as in "The reader should note as he studies this..." to "Readers should note as they study this..." (or if it won't make an intended formal item too informal, "You should note as you study this...").

5. New Jersey vs. Jersey - In reference to the U.S. state, not the Channel Island.

6. North Carolina/South Carolina vs. Carolina - In reference to the U.S. states, especially to the sports teams of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. However, I find the plural form, "The Carolinas", acceptable. (And did you notice, I put the comma outside the quotes? That's a self-developed preference of mine, putting a comma or other punctuation outside a title that's enclosed in parentheses, although this does not pertain to quoted speech or writing. I wouldn't dare go through Wikipedia and change the placement of punctuation within quotes, except to change back an original entry of my own with the punctuation outside of the quotes that someone had changed to contain the punctuation within the quotes.) Since the Carolina name is institutionalized in the name of two professional sports teams, the Carolina Panthers of the National Football League and the Carolina Hurricanes of the National Hockey League, the use of this name in referencing to them is unavoidable.

7. Rolling Stones vs. Stones - In reference to the rock group. I've never just called them "The Stones", and I don't like other people to do this either.

RSLitman 00:27, 14 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

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 2000 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:

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:

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)

Firefox reversion

Your edits, unfortunately, all didn't seem helpful to me. They including adding what I perceived as POV (putting in "Firefox boosters," implying that Firefox hasn't really been targeted to gain a 10% share by unbiased news sources like CNET), incorrectly capitalizing a word after a dash ("Detractors," which didn't begin a new sentence), changing the pronoun "it" to the IE abbreviation for no reason, changing the % symbol to the word "percent" for no reason, and changing "for its part, has responded that" to the less specific and less eloquent "says." Also, you changed "by 2005" to "in 2005," thus changing the meaning - it's really neither, it's "by the end of 2005" - I changed it since to reflect that. Sorry if I offended you by my revert or didn't explain myself properly. Andre (talk) 00:20, Dec 17, 2004 (UTC)

Ok, fair enough. Here's why I changed what I changed, last to first: "by 2005" can mean "by the end of 2005," but it can also mean "by the beginning of 2005"; "in 2005," on the other hand, unambiguously means "within 2005." (Changing it to say "by the end of 2005" is more precise than my formulation or your reversion; good job.) "Microsoft says," coming directly after an accusation, is easily read as "Microsoft, for its part, has responded that" -- and does so more swiftly. Similarly, "by far" is equivalent to and cleaner than "by a large margin," as both are used here. The % sign rarely occurs in formal prose, and while Wikipedia is far from following AP style, the mathematical symbol leaps out from an otherwise conventionally punctuated block of text. "It" was grammatically ambiguous as used in the sentence; "IE" cleared that up. As for the capital D in "detractors," I meant to change the preceding em-dash to a period to break up an unwieldy sentence -- and forgot; my bad. These are all modest improvements on serviceable prose. But there is real fogginess in the "targeted to" sentence. The verb causes the problem -- passive voice, a verbed noun, and a transitive verbed noun to boot; it is not precise enough to communicate the thought. Who, for example, is doing the targeting? I understood the makers of Firefox to have set that goal; you say it was disinterested observers. That's something that ought to be cleared up. Moreover, the verb should be changed. These observers aren't "targeting" Firefox to do anything (they're unbiased!) but rather are predicting (or expecting, or some such). And while we're working on that sentence: exactly what market share are we talking about here? The predictions are that 10 percent of browser users will use Firefox by end 2005, right? Not merely -- as the sentence now says -- that 10 percent of IE users will switch to Firefox? If I've got that correct, may I suggest: "By the end of 2005, observers believe, about 10 percent of browser users will use Firefox, taking a bite from the dominant market share of Microsoft Internet Explorer and potentially reigniting the browser wars." Bbpen 05:02, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Good work on your latest edits. Andre (talk) 19:53, Dec 18, 2004 (UTC)

Yale endowment

Hi, Bbphen. I was wondering if you saw the question I left you on the Talk:Yale University page. It's not a huge deal, but I was hoping you could clear up my question, which I'm repeating here:

I'm not going to delete the sentence, but I do have concerns about the "undergraduate endowment" business. What does it mean? Yale has many, many funds within the endowment, but only one endowment, which is for the entire university. (This is in contrast to Harvard's "every pot in its own bottom" system, in which each school has a distinct endowment, although I believe at Harvard the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences is technically part of the College when it comes to money.) When you say that Yale has the largest undergrad endowment, do you mean that the funds within the endowment that are earmarked for the College are greater than at any school? Because I've never seen numbers that break it down like that. Or do you just mean that because in theory all of the endowment can serve the College (since it's not divided), it's larger than Harvard College's endowment. If it's the latter, I think it's misleading

Remes 19:39, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Hi, Remes. I believe you have a good point. Kindly go ahead and get rid of "undergrad endowment." Bbpen 19:46, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Firefox reversion

Hi, Bbpen. I thought I left a note on the talk page, but apparently I didn't. Sorry. Anyway, I reverted because you removed information and didn't say why, and smoothed the sentence structure to a point where it didn't read as well. Andre (talk) 21:49, Dec 29, 2004 (UTC)

You're right about the insecurity thing, but the way to solve that is not to remove the term insecurity entirely. It's a salient aspect of Firefox's popularity, and should be mentioned. I added in "poor program design" to cover the web standards. As for Microsoft's actions, they are extremely central to Firefox's history and status, and the responses from Microsoft were exactly that - responses, in regard to Firefox. Andre (talk) 01:12, Dec 30, 2004 (UTC)

"Poor program design" is redundant; all of IE's flaws noted here are poor program design. Similarly, "insecurity" is covered for the purposes of the intro by citing the ActiveX and malware examples. The topic is delved into in much more detail below -- as is the Microsoft history. Moreover, the sentence "Microsoft, for its part, has said that..." does not makes your point, which (I gather) is that MS' lackluster response to consumer demand opened a crucial opportunity for Firefox. If you want to say that, go ahead; it sounds like a valuable addition. But the text doesn't say that now -- and it says what it does say more clunkily than necessary. Bbpen 05:38, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)

casting, welding

Thanks for your edits to Riser (casting) and Casting – you're amazing at turning my verbose prose into something more manageable and readable. I'm not sure if you would like to help me out in another metalworking topic, but in the past month or so I've pretty much written the entire welding article, and there's alot of text there that I think you might be able to condense. So if you get a chance, I'd love it if you could help me out. Thanks! --Spangineer ∞ 18:06, May 3, 2005 (UTC)

You're welcome for the edits; happy to help. Wow, that's an impressive lot of work you've done on the Welding piece; I'll see if I can't give it some attention. Bbpen 19:57, 3 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Many thanks for your kind comments on my Drapier's Letters piece -- much appreciated. I don't know if replying like this is the done thing but I was much cheered by your message. AxS 21:11, 18 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Edits

Be carefull when you edit compound sentence, otherwise you will create sentence fragrments. I spotted two on the USS Missouri page just now.

216.63.175.29, I don't see the fragments you mention. Bbpen 23:09, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The other fragment was corrected, but this one still remains: The United States intervened in the name of the United Nations. There is no explanation as to why the united states interviened, or what they intervined in. 216.63.175.29

That's hardly a sentence fragment. Bbpen 03:08, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Maybe its not a sentence fragment, but it does disrupt from the overall flow of the article. Some of the information edited out of the Missouri article was need for leading up to other parts. I do apreciate your edits to the page, but I reinstated some sentences and a paragraph that I think need to remain intact. TomStar81 23:16, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Thanks. But WP's not meant to be a history book, and in an overlong piece like USS Missouri (BB-63), this is really peripheral:

"Demands were made that Turkey grant the Soviets a base of seapower in the Dodecanese Islands and joint control of the Turkish Straits leading from the Black Sea into the Mediterranean."

Moreover, the Greek welcome was not "overwhelming"; it was merely effusive. Bbpen 23:37, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

It is true than an encyclopedia is not a history book; however encyclopedias do contain more information on given topics than you would otherwise find in history books. Furthermore, the demands made of Turkery and Greece would be lost in an article on the Cold War, and it seems aproprite to mention what exactly the USSR was asking for. As for the "overwhelming" welcome, I (unfortunatly) wasn't their, so I have to take the words of others who were thier at face value. Everything I have read suggests that the welcome was at the vary least appreciated. If you have a better word, please feel free to add it in place of overwhelming. TomStar81 01:59, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Yep, that's why I had "effusive" in the section you reverted. Bbpen 2 July 2005 03:19 (UTC)

RE: John D. Bulkeley

Guess you didn't like my plaque? :( WikiDon 28 June 2005 05:39 (UTC)

Hi, WikiDon. Sorry, I could have been a little less peremptory about that. But I do think it's unnecessary. Even if one were to argue that a Medal of Honor citation deserves superspecial formatting, putting black type in bold italic on a brown background is less a way to highlight it than to render it illegible on a computer screen. :) Bbpen 28 June 2005 06:52 (UTC)

Reversion and further edits

Thanks for your work on Flying Spaghetti Monsterism. Just a quick request - if you want to revert a page and make further edits, it's best I think to do it in two separate edit actions, to make it easier for other people to see what you've done. Just revert, save, and then start editing.

As it is it looks like that page has worked out quite well. I was sure that SPAM wasn't notable enough for its own Wikipedia article, which was why I merged it with FSM; now its prominence is reduced still further, which is fine by me. — ciphergoth 19:18, September 5, 2005 (UTC)

Good point on reversion two-step. Thanks. Bbpen 19:22, 5 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

User talk

Comments to user's about tagging images and such need to go on the User's Talk Page not the User Page. I just noticed that the comments from you to User:Sean123123 were that way. This was probably an accident (I've caught myself a couple of times) but I wanted to let you know. I moved the comments to his talk page

Also, thanks for leaving comments for the tagging violators and trying to rectify their behavior. It is appreciated. --Nv8200p (talk) 17:34, 15 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

USS Blakely (FF-1072)

I was glad to help out and fix up that article as best as I could. Thanks for starting that page. I noticed you seem to have an interest in Navy ships. Perhaps you should check out Wikipedia:WikiProject Ships. There are lots and lots of ships that don't have articles yet. And since you seem to have already found the DANFS, don't be afraid to contribute more. -- malo ^(talk)/_(contribs) 07:43, 1 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Very odd edit at Michael Jordan

01:37, 6 December 2005 (hist) (diff) Michael Jordan (→External links - dissenting link)

Your edit (above) is very puzzling considering your edit history. Why did you add a link talking about Apple's Airport to an article on Michael Jordan? - Tεx τ urε 21:04, 6 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, oops. Accidentally had the Airport link on the clipboard when I hit paste. I just fixed it. Bbpen 21:16, 6 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

History of Science Fiction rewrite

I notice you recently edited History of science fiction. I have been working on an overhaul of that article, which I just placed at History of science fiction/rewrite. Please comment on my rewrite and whether it should replace the current article at History of Science Fiction's Talk page. Ferret-aaron 18:59, 11 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The Game (college football)

Hi. As somebody who has edited that article before, would you help me deal with the persistent vandalism of an anonymous user from an aol IP? Thanks. Doops | talk 19:39, 11 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

MJ's vertical jump

Oi. I knew I should have put an inline citation for the vertical leap. When it was added originally by Ocean, I reverted it a few times and he told me that it was from Jump Attack by Tim Grover...but since I don't have that book I assumed good faith and restored it (with an edit summary with that attribution). It was more recently removed by Hippo43, who restored it when I explained the source. I'd like to put it to bed one way or the other, you don't happen to have the book do you? --Syrthiss 14:08, 20 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Oops. I must have missed all that. I own and will check "Michael Jordan and the World He Made" by David Halberstam, but it's in my office and I'm on holiday. 53 inches, even for MJ, seems a bit fantastic, doesn't it? Washington Post reporter Joel Achenbach reported it as 42 ("when he entered the league").[1] Bbpen 15:19, 20 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

DAB (Tedernst comment)

How do you know it's worthy of an article? I won't take it off again. Just wondering, that's all. Tedernst | talk 16:04, 21 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The DAB reviews the U.S. military's major weapons program and writes reports to advise the defense undersecretary for acquisition. [2] Bbpen 18:40, 21 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds like it needs an article! :-) Tedernst | talk 18:59, 21 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Sago Mine

Thanks! I was not the original creator, but I was doing newpage patrol when I stumbled across the beginnings of the article a couple of nights ago. I dropped what I was doing and spent the next hour Googling the news up ... I felt we had a responsibility to put as good an article in front of the public as possible.

We need some standing policy on naming current-events articles to avoid all this. I have never seen a current-events article get moved so much. This was not fair to readers. Daniel Case 17:15, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Uh, I didn't put it under 2005, Freak of Nurture did. I'd tell you to leave the message on his page, but I think he's already caught enough grief for it. Daniel Case 19:52, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yah, I knew it was his mistake, not yours; just wanted to put the comment in the relevant discussion. Bbpen 19:56, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Aircraft designations

Good Hello. I was just doing a little wikilinking here and there and stumbled across Operation Prime Chance. The article mentions 2 aircraft the AH-6 and the MH-6. I'm not familiar with either of these designations and was wondering if you might be able to help me out, that I may link to them in the article. Cheers. L0b0t 19:40, 2 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Unreferenced BLPs

Hello Bbpen! Thank you for your contributions. I am a bot alerting you that 1 of the articles that you created is tagged as an Unreferenced Biography of a Living Person. The biographies of living persons policy requires that all personal or potentially controversial information be sourced. In addition, to ensure verifiability, all biographies should be based on reliable sources. If you were to bring this article up to standards, it would greatly help us with the current 230 article backlog. Once the article is adequately referenced, please remove the {{unreferencedBLP}} tag. Here is the article:

Robert Reimann (US Navy officer) - Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

Thanks!--DASHBot (talk) 23:10, 17 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You're invited to Wikipedia Takes St. Louis!

Dust off your Polaroid camera and pack your best lenses. The first-ever Wikipedia Takes St. Louis photo hunt kicks off Sat, Sept. 15, around noon in downtown St. Louis. Tour the streets of the Rome of the West with other Wikipedians and even learn a little St. Louis history. This event is a fun and collaborative way to enhance St. Louis articles with visual content. Novice photographers welcome! Marcus Qwertyus (talk) 06:53, 1 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

File:Bulkeley.jpg listed for deletion

A file that you uploaded or altered, File:Bulkeley.jpg, has been listed at Wikipedia:Files for deletion. Please see the discussion to see why it has been listed (you may have to search for the title of the image to find its entry). Feel free to add your opinion on the matter below the nomination. Thank you. Magog the Ogre (t • c) 20:29, 23 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

ArbCom elections are now open!

Hi,
You appear to be eligible to vote in the current Arbitration Committee election. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to enact binding solutions for disputes between editors, primarily related to serious behavioural issues that the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the ability to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate, you are welcome to review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. For the Election committee, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:16, 30 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]