User talk:Postdlf/Archive3

Wikilaw

Someone told me you might be interested in the Wikilaw project i'm trying to get started. check it out on meta m:Wikilaw. Let me know what you think on my talk page. Soren9580 05:45, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I'm really not interested in a separate project, particularly because I think the concept is flawed—please see my explanation on the wikilaw project talk page. I think my contributions should remain focused on wikipedia. Postdlf 23:26, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Cantus

Cantus has long been a thorn in the side of the community. So long as his proposals get voted on, then there isn't much we can do, but if he doesn't have consensus to make his changes, then when he tries them, he will get reverted. RickK 00:01, Feb 5, 2005 (UTC)

Succession boxes

Thank you for doing a high quality job of updating some of the Associate Justices of the Supreme Court. — DLJessup 04:10, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)

added a comment to your vote

I added a comment to your vote at Talk:Autofellatio#Keep_image_inline, since you ended it with a question :-) -- Curps 23:30, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Your revert of my changes

I spent 10 minutes working hard to reorganize the discussion to separate delete from keep. If I moved something incorrectly, please don't just take it upon yourself to revert it, either fix the mistake or talk with me. I'm pretty annoyed at having all that work undone. Jliberty 01:01, Feb 10, 2005 (UTC)

I'm sorry that you feel that your time was wasted, but when the comments accompanying votes clearly form a chronological series of responses, reorganizing them in such a way has the effect of taking them out of the original context in which they were made. This isn't always the case, but it was with that particular VfD. Postdlf 02:08, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Election 2012

Did not realize that somebody else had created an article relating to elections 2012. I will remove the contents. -- (unsigned contribution by Boshtang)

Might it be worthwhile to create U.S. presidential election, 2012 as a redirect to Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/U.S. presidential election, 2012? This might help spike further attempts to create a full-blown page. — DLJessup 15:05, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

That's a damn good idea. I also protected it... We really should do this for every VfD. Postdlf 16:06, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Your Pics

My compliments on your beautiful pics, especially at Teddy-bear Cholla and Glyptodon. Maybe you could give me some photography tips sometime. --DanielCD 16:44, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

• Just get a really nice digital camera.  ; ) Postdlf 17:04, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Dnagod

I just wanted to thank you for blocking Dnagod. Those final comments of his regarding "Jewish infestation," and having faith that "history will repeat itself" (I hate to think what he meant by that) were stunning. Not to mention stupid, given that he shot himself in the foot. He has a long road to travel before reaching godhood, I'd say.  ;-) SlimVirgin 23:26, Feb 11, 2005 (UTC)

People can be scary. Or just plain mentally ill... He may be one of many of the Caucasian ethnocentrist cabal that is trying to infest wikipedia (or even worse, a Caucasian lackey), but we're more than able to deal with them.  ; ) Postdlf 02:15, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Wrongful_block. I think your block of User:Dnagod was in violation of Wikipedia:Blocking policy. (Sam Spade | talk | contributions) 14:31, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I respectfully disagree, but thank you for the heads up nonetheless. Postdlf 21:51, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Your more than welcome, and thank you for your respectful reply. I would ask you to reconsider the length of the block. For one thing I think indefinite blocks are generally a bad idea. In this specific case, if the user does decide to edit again, I think we'd all be best off if he did so under this account. I understand that he made some unfortunate comments, but I frankly feel an indefinite block is against both the letter and the spirit of the blocking policy. (Sam Spade | talk | contributions) 22:13, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Court cases template

Regarding your User:Postdlf/Template:Court cases and any similar tables you may have created: could you please consider top-aligning the labels and content? On Hamdi v. Rumsfeld the current alignment makes it difficult to see where, for example, Citations ends and Prior appellate history begins. - dcljr 00:09, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I should have said, "makes it difficult to see, on some browsers, where..." I notice there's no problem on this machine here at work, but on my home machine it looks quite different. - dcljr 20:55, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Categories for NYC

OK, I'll admit some of this confusion is based on my own inexperience, but let me just explain what was going on. Right now the NYC category needs some serious work (i.e.- the "Museums" sub cat is not even listed alphabetically. Also, the Bronx and Brooklyn are listed as "articles" in the NYC cat, but Queens and Staten Island are not.) Anyway, since I am the one who created about half of the articles for the NYC museums, I was going in to add all of them to the NYC cat, since it is rather underutilized. I can see now the benefit of subcategorization in this respect, but it is still a bit disorganized. The bottom line is that my intentions were in the right place, but perhaps slightly misguided. I'll be more careful in the future though.--Jleon 03:30, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

British jurists category

You've set up category:British jurists. This is a useful category to have, but the problem is that the word jurist is rearely used in the UK. I suspect that a very large number of British readers won't know what it means, which will discourage them from visiting it. Others will confuse "jurist" with "juror", which is a common word in British English. I intend to move the four subcategories into a "British lawyers" category and list British jurists for deletion. British categories should be named in British English as it is supposed to have equal status in Wikipedia. If it means the British subcategory name is inconsistent with the parent category name, that's just how it has to be. For example, the British subcategory in Category:Auto racing is category:British motorsport. Nonetheless it's good that you initiated this. I've added numerous British people categories recently, but I missed this one. Any comments?Wincoote 23:37, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

• Is there a comparable word in British english to "jurist" that encompasses all legal professions? That's what was used on William Blackstone, which was what instigated me to create the set of categories. Postdlf 00:30, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Just lawyers, which doesn't mean quite the same thing, but it will have to do I think. It is quite understood in the UK that judges are a subclass of lawyers, rather than a distinct profession, so that won't confuse people. I don't think it will mislead anyone, but if you want it can be stated in the blurb that not everyone listed is necessarily qualified to practice law. Sir William Blackstone died 225 years ago, and the term was perhaps was current in the UK then, as America presumably inherited it from the UK. An analogous term is "antiquarian", which appears in a number of British people articles, but is no longer in everyday use. There is a category:British antiquarians, but everyone in it is long dead, and the word is no longer used for a profession. Wincoote 01:46, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Vfd templates

Please do not forget to use {{subst:vfd top}} instead of {{vfd top}}. Including the subst: includes the text into the VfD page and improves performance of the Wikipedia. -- AllyUnion (talk) 04:45, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Furthermore, do not forget to use subst: in {{vfd bottom}} as well. -- AllyUnion (talk) 04:46, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Also, the way that VfD has been changed, we archive the entire day to day page. As a result, please do not remove the subpage transinclude once you have closed the VfD discussion. This allows other administrators to review each day's VfD as is, and to double check over the debates. -- AllyUnion (talk) 04:47, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Okapi picture

You uploaded this, which I presume is an increased contrast version of this one from commons. Would you care to move it to commons and delete the one on en? →Raul654 00:36, Feb 27, 2005 (UTC)

Sorry, didn't quite know how it worked. It's taken care of now. Postdlf 00:53, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)

62.255.32.13

I see you blocked this IP address earlier this evening. Unfortunately, correct as your actions were from the POV of vandalism from anons at the IP address, it is the IP of one of the proxy servers of the large British ISP NTL. Given that I was caught up in the block. This has happened before, so there does seem to be a vandal who inhabits the bit of NTL that I post from. David Newton 22:36, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Reverting vandalism

Thanks for the save. I would have caught that n00b doing it, but wasn't around at the time. -- Riffsyphon1024 05:39, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Ireland

Welcome back! I hope you had a good time on your trip. --Neutrality^talk 03:26, Mar 14, 2005 (UTC)

• Thanks! I really did... And wikipedia will soon see some fruits of it, whenever I can sort through the 900+ pictures I took.  ; ) Postdlf 11:28, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Great job on Doolin! Hope you enjoyed your trip to our fine country! I look forward to seeing some more photos! (After all, us natives can't be taking photos - we have to leave that to the tourists :-) zoney ♣ talk 16:30, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Thank you... My girlfriend and I loved Doolin—we stayed there longer than any other place we visited. Perhaps you can help me with Doonagore Castle. The information online is a little sparse, and I can't find anything about the present owner/resident other than his name. Would you happen to know if John Gorman is notable for anything else? Is he perhaps one of the two that wikipedia has information about? Postdlf 16:38, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Karabakh khanate

Sounds good; I was just trying to put a stop to the vandalism. I've redirected it accordingly. — Dan | Talk 00:26, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Tairrdelbach Vs. Turlough, Ruaidri Vs. Roderic

Dear Postdlf. Can you please give me a good reason as to why on earth you have changed my recent edits on the Ua Conchobhair Kings of Connacht? It is immensely frustrating to work flat out on the likes of this and then find within minutes that someone has changed it without even the courtsey of saying why. I do not have a problem with editing, but please tell me why and thus demonstrate that you know what you are talking about. Otherwise I am at a loss to understand your motives and frankly very pissed off. Sincerely, Fergananim

Sorry—after taking a look at the article's edit history, I reinstated your changes. It appeared to be vandalism at first glace, because the most recent edit was the removal of information without comment—when this is done by an anon IP, it is almost always a bad sign. Postdlf 00:40, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Fair enough; I've had it done before and it is always depressing. Cheers. Fergananim

The simplest way to avoid it is to a) always log in or b) always leave an edit summary; I'd recommend doing both. Postdlf 22:43, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

IfD vote

Hi Postdlf, I remember you favored having the autofellatio image inline back in the beginning of February. Well, it's up for deletion now (again!) - I thought you might want to voice your opinion at WP:IFD. Thanks, TIMBO (T A L K) 15:28, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Court case infobox

Would it be possible to make a shortcut for listing the judges on the court at the time of the decision? --BD2412 22:29, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure I know what you mean by a "shortcut". Later reported cases always list every justice involved; it's only a bit tricky in the earlier ones to figure out who joined what. All that needs to be done when the opinion isn't clear is to check the list of justices and their terms on the bench against the date given for when the case was decided, and then list them in order of seniority. Postdlf 22:39, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

• • I was thinking of something along the lines of a template... {{Court-Year}} ...which would allow any user to put in the complete list of justices serving during the term in question. --BD2412 18:56, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)
    • That won't work because the terms don't correspond to calendar years. There are years, obviously, that have not had a change in court membership (we're currently in the 11th consecutive such year, I believe), but then people would have to know of which years that was true to know if they could use a template in a given court case. Postdlf 00:12, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Quick question

Hi, sorry to bother you, but I was just wondering why my IP address, 195.93.21.72. has been blocked? Which of my contributions was perceived as vandalism? Thanks.

That IP was blocked for vandalizing my user page. See [1]. The block expires expires 06:25, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC). Any further vandalism from that IP will result in further blocks. Postdlf 00:12, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Is it possible that my IP adress is shared with another person, as I've never seen or seen your page until a few hours before writing this?

You're in a better position to answer that than I am. But that IP's contribution history is clear.[2] Postdlf 01:19, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Happy Birthday

Happy birthday, Postdlf, whenever it is, was, or will be. I got you a new State Supreme Court seal for your collection. -- 8^D BD2412^gab 11:48, 2005 Mar 24 (UTC)

Thanks! It's already passed, but I'm sure the seal will stay fresh for next year. As a Floridian, any opinion on the Schiavo case? I've been keeping pretty close tabs on it, and documenting it in the context of the federal judge, James D. Whittemore. I think we should eventually have an article just for the legal history of the case, separate from the bio at Terri Schiavo, that focuses on detailing the court proceedings and legal arguments. Postdlf 22:50, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

• • The seal is relatively new, only dating to 1996, so they should keep it for a good while to come now. My personal feeling on the Schiavo case is that she's already dead, but her body hasn't caught up with her soul yet. I don't see the harm in letting her parents keep the blood flowing through the corpse as long as it makes them happy, but no court is going to touch it now. We actually covered the Schiavo case wherein the Fla. Sup. Ct. struck down 'Terri's Law' in my Florida Con. Law class last semester. It was really a run-of-the-mill separation of powers case, saying the legislature couldn't pass a law just to undo a final judgment handed down by a court. -- 8^D BD2412^gab 23:50, 2005 Mar 24 (UTC)

Potential nominees to the Supreme Court of the United States

I was wondering if you'd like to weigh in on this VfD. -- 8^D BD2412^gab 03:44, 2005 Mar 28 (UTC)

Heh. You caught me in an edit conflict creating 1937 in law. Now I'll buy precious seconds while you check your user talk: page to pull back ahead in the categorization race! :) Bryan 00:02, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Australian cases

It is convention in Australia not to put a "." after the v Xtra 01:23, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The external links cited to in those articles did include a period. Can you show me a source for this, establishing it as the rule? Postdlf 01:24, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

http://mulr.law.unimelb.edu.au/PDFs/aglc_dl.pdf see page 27 Xtra 01:27, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

also see Wikipedia:WikiProject Australian law/Policy where this was discussed and no conclusion was reached. Xtra 01:31, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The citation manual is rather conclusive for me—I'm currently moving them back sans period ("full stop" in Australian English, I presume?). Postdlf 01:32, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Category:1692 in law

I didn't know that was worthy of an article let alone a category. 4.250.177.6 21:19, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Bluebook

Actually, that was me, not Fuzheado, who messed up your redirects. I didn't realize you were trying to enforce Bluebook style for article names. --Michael Snow 06:07, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

For the most part, yes. Federal courts do follow it, and at least as far as the short forms of case names go, I don't believe there really is much variation within the U.S. from what the Bluebook states (the variation is more among citation format—where the year goes, that sort of thing). No American court document or judicial opinion is ever going to leave the "Inc."s and "Ltd."s off of a party name in the caption header, or in subsequent citations to the case. I wouldn't recommend strictly following the Bluebook on abbreviations, however, as many would simply be confusing—we should spell out most words in article titles that aren't commonly abbreviated outside of legal discourse. Postdlf 17:02, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Oh, I agree, the Bluebook is very much standard for the U.S. Although it does provide for dropping redundant corporate identifiers in some situations (e.g., X Widget Corporation, Ltd.), but that doesn't apply here. Anyway, sorry for screwing things up. --Michael Snow 17:55, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

1555 in law

Hi, I see you've removed some of the members, which I for the most part do not dispute. However, the description days the category includes "court cases decided". Presumably this would include John Rogers/the other "Marian martyrs"? Or is it only for certain types of court cases?--Pharos 20:40, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Because John Rogers (religious) was not a legal event in 1555, but an individual involved in one. The category structure is for articles about court cases, etc., not articles that refer to them in a series of other events. Write an article that is solely about his prosecution and it would be entirely appropriate to include. Postdlf 20:47, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Blocking user:80.242.32.51

Hi, thanks for blocking that IP, I'm having a problem with two others doing similar things. User:143.239.7.1 and User:143.239.7.2 (probably the same person given the similarity in edit style and topics), they use the wrong name for pages and insert large chunks of copyrighted text, usually on biochemists/geneticists. I'd appreciate it if you'd take a look. Thanks--nixie 00:09, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Category overlap

I strongly disagree that articles should be overlapped in categories: Primate is in Category:Primates which is in Category:Mammals. There is no reason that would insist on Primate being in Category:Mammals which would exclude Prosimian or Lemur (for instance) to also be in Category:Mammals. (Lemur is in Category:Prosimians which is in Category:Primates.) - UtherSRG 17:52, Apr 5, 2005 (UTC)

Having all matching subcategory/article names duplicated in both sections makes searching through either section more difficult. An article should always be in its eponymous subcategory, but never in the categories above it. - UtherSRG 18:02, Apr 5, 2005 (UTC)

This issue has been discussed repeatedly in many other subject matter contexts since categories were introduced, and consensus and the better reasoning has always been on the side of placing articles in all categories that their self-defined categories would go in for classificatory and navigational purposes. See for example any of the U.S. place categories; every county is in a "(state) counties" category as well as in its own.

The article primate has the same relationship to Category:Mammals that Category:Primates does—primates are one of the orders of mammals. Placing it in merely its eponymous category classifies the article as merely defining its own series, instead of being itself a member in another group: it says that primates are sui generis—primates are primates, period—instead of being also a subgroup of mammals. It also hinders navigation, because it means that anyone reading primate has to click through Category:Primates to get to other mammalian orders (ignoring the template for purposes of this issue), and how is an uninitiated reader to know that?

Regarding your lemur example, simply put, lemur is not to mammal as primate is to mammal, nor is lemur to primate as prosimian is to primate. Primate is to mammal as sirenia is to mammal, or artiodactyl is to mammal—they are orders of mammals. Articles follow the same hierarchies that categories follow, and articles that define categories are logically in the exact same classificatory relationship to the category structure as their eponymous categories. Postdlf 18:09, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Then I would argue that articles should not be placed in their own eponymous categories. Primate does not relate to Category:Mammals the way Mammal relates to Category:Mammals. Articles should not be placed in any more categories than are minimally needed to categorize them. When dealing with taxonomy, there will always be a tension between the number of articles in a category, and the number of categories needed to maintain an even classification of articles. Many categories will contain articles that are not of the same inherent classification level due to the sparcity (or density) of those articles.

However, I won't. By putting Primate in Category:Primates only and at the top of the article list, it gets separated as special. The subcategory list shows thenext level of classification. The article list show everything else that can't be further divided, starting with the broadest article, the eponym. Everything else is either unique and would be its own subcategory, or there are too few to create a new subcategory for.

I know it's been discussed before, and I backed down then. I was wrong. Not all category schemas can be treated equally. Geographic places are not animals, and categories dealing with each can't be painted with one global paintbrush.

Also, your methodology has a larger degree of maintenance required. Cattle has its own Category:Cattle, which is in Category:Bovines which is in Category:Bovids, which is in Category:Even-toed ungulates, etc.... What if some intermediary Category:Bosines is created which is in Category:Bovines and contains Category:Cattle? By your methodology, Cattle needs to be modified to fit the new structure since it would have to be in Category:Cattle and in Category:Bosines but not in Category:Bovines. By my methodology it does not. Either way, Category:Cattle gets modified to drop down a level in classification. The same problem does not occur in geography, at least not nearly as often. - UtherSRG 18:28, Apr 5, 2005 (UTC)

PS. Your talk is over 38k. - UtherSRG 18:28, Apr 5, 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, I've been meaning to archive for awhile.

Re: your maintenance issue, I don't think it's too hard to do a minor edit to the defining article of a category whenever that category is reassigned to new parents. Regardless, that problem is solved by applying {{Category:CATEGORYNAME}} to articles, which automatically places them in any category that the named category belongs to.

I'll address your other points when I have a little more time... Postdlf 19:21, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Michael Powell

Here is the source for the "graphic" description, The Great Deregulator. -- Old Right 01:12, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Thanks... What's funny is that I had misread "penis" instead of "pelvis" in the article and didn't realize that until I read the Post story. Hence my doubts...  ; ) Postdlf 02:31, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Devil's Lake

There is an article naming dispute over Devil's Lake. I am of the opinion that Devil's Lake should redirect to Devil's Lake (North Dakota), while another editor, DreamGuy, prefers to have Devil's Lake point to a disambiguation page. Since you have edited the article, I would appreciate your comments on this matter at Talk:Devil's Lake (North Dakota). Thank you. --Alexwcovington (talk) 05:33, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Joint tenancy

• Postdf, how well do you remember your 1L property? I did a joint tenancy article, and would appreciate a second set of legal eyes to verify that I haven't skipped any important twists. -- 8^D BD2412^gab 05:37, 2005 Apr 11 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Potential nominees to the Supreme Court of the United States

Our policy is "when in doubt keep" so a vote that is exactly two thirds in favour of deletion, which could be interpreted either way, should not be deleted. Moreover there is no "two thirds rule." What we are looking for is consensus, which I did not see. As to your other issues merge and delete votes have always been considered invalid as they violate the GFDL. See Wikipedia:Guide to Votes for deletion#Incompatible votes. As to whether the page should be merged that is an issue independent of VfD. There were only 2 out of 26 voters who thought some form of merger as a good idea so it seems odd to go with by far the least popular option. I also personally feel it is deeply illogical to believe that those who believe the content should be deleted as unverifiable speculation, which was the reason given by most of the delete voters, would be pleased to see this same content integrated into a higher profile and more important article. - SimonP 23:42, Apr 11, 2005 (UTC)

The "least popular option" is exactly what you went with—more than a 2/3 majority did not want it to survive as an independent article. A vote to merge is a vote that the article should not remain as an independent topic. Additionally, that listing of "merge and delete" under "incompatible votes" does not make any sense; otherwise, the most inapplicable and inappropriate titles would have to be kept as redirects if some, however little, of the original content was deemed worthy enough to survive integrated elsewhere. Merges happen all the time. And redirects are deleted all the time. And new articles are created all the time by unmerging sections. And parts of articles are copied all the time into other articles that have overlapping topics. None of this preserves or replicates the edit history of the original smidgen of text, so I can't see how that would per se make a merge and delete vote invalid. Furthermore, even under that policy, it nowhere says such votes are to be disregarded—it instead gives suggestions on how to otherwise interpret them. Postdlf 17:26, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Req. for your work on Sony v Universal

I think Sony Corp. v. Universal City Studios could make a great featured article. It doesn't quite meet the requirements yet, but it could with a little work. In light of the debates and cases about digital piracy and the obligations of hardware/software creators, the affirmation/modification/elimination of the Sony precedent is a key issue for the future of information technology.

Since you've worked on the article in the past, feel free to take another look to bring it "up to code" for a nomination. Feco 21:06, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I think it needs quite a lot more than a little work—it's currently little more a collage of paragraphs pasted directly out of the Court opinions. I'm all for working to improve it, however, and I've already made some small changes. Just don't be expecting featured article without substantial changes. The article needs more context on the technology, the fears of the entertainment industry, the development of the market for video recorders in the '70's prior to the filing of the lawsuit, a lot more explanation of the lower court rulings, and full summaries of the Supreme Court majority and dissent opinions rather than block quotes. After that, some info on the further development of the home video market, subsequent legal developments, and a more illuminative comparison with the Grokster case. After that, it will be good.  ; ) Postdlf 03:35, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification on Diagnosis: Murder

Ah, you're right. Indeed, I just wanted to change the main page to include the colon after the word "Diagnosis" (since the official title of the show did include the colon), so I indeed just copied and pasted all of the text just as it was from the old page without the colon and re-directed that old page to my new one. (Was just being something of an accuracy stickler there about he colon--LOL.) I genuintely had no idea the content on the page was improperly copied. Thanks for being alert about such things, though.