User talk:Tom/Archive1

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Test

Thanks for experimenting with Wikipedia. Your test worked, and has been reverted or removed. Please use the sandbox for any other tests you want to do. Take a look at the welcome page if you would like to learn more about contributing to our encyclopedia. Thanks.

Hi. I notice you are creating some articles. Welcome. You may want to wait until you have enough information, however, before you create articles you may want to have more than just a definition of the topic or a reference to a related item. Consider gathering more information about your subject before you create the article. Anti-Catholic has been tagged for speedy deletion. Is there more that you can add to the article? Is it possible that this information is covered in another article? - Tεxτurε 02:34, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Welcome!

Hello Tomf, and welcome to Wikipedia. Please mark uploaded images as PD (public domain), Fair Use (most images taken from another website), or GFDL (original images of your that you are adding to Wikipedia).

Questions? Help || Village pump(everyone gathers here) || Admin links: Deletion || Undeletion

Helpful links: Editing || Writing a great article || Naming || Style Manual || Policies || Reassigning old edits.

I hope you enjoy being a Wikipedian! Drop us a note at Wikipedia:New user log so we can meet you and help you get started. You can also leave me questions at my talk page. +sj+


You can help improve the articles listed below! This list updates frequently, so check back here for more tasks to try. (See Wikipedia:Maintenance or the Task Center for further information.)

Help counter systemic bias by creating new articles on important women.

Help improve popular pages, especially those of low quality.


Wikipedia conventions

Hello. In re offensive coordinator: please note that articles should begin with complete sentences rather than dictionary-style definitions, and the title word or title phrase should be highlighted at its first appearance like this. Also, it is usually better to write about the thing the term refers to, rather than about the term itself. Thus "A dog is an animal that barks" is better than "Dog is a term used to refer to an animal that barks. (Of course it is sometimes appropriate to write about the term, for example to explain that it has different meanings in different contexts, or it should not be confused with some other term, or it is considered offensive, etc.) Michael Hardy 23:55, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Could you please provide an image copyright tag for this image? Thanks!--Diberri | Talk 22:48, Aug 26, 2004 (UTC)

Ivan

I was wondering what was keeping everyone else from updating it :) -- Cyrius| 00:07, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)

On a related note, would you please include more informative image description pages? The one for Image:Ivan Sat Img Sept 7 2004.jpg isn't terribly informative, and doesn't even have a link to the image source. I tracked it back to the unskewed high resolution version of this image, and added a better description.
This message brought to you by the Association for the Advancement of Image Description Pages. -- Cyrius| 06:35, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Harry

Hi, I've placed a WP:CP notice on Harry W. Nice, but I'm hoping that you can either reword the article as described there, or sort out the status. While I'm not familiar with the Maryland State Archives and their policies, I'm assuming that they're not covered by the U.S.A. "no federal copyright" rule. --Zigger 15:30, 2004 Oct 26 (UTC)

I cannot access the "Temp" page you moved the article to to change it.
The procedure on WP:CP uses the "Temp" page to start from scratch when permission is not granted. Getting permission to use the Archives material is a far better result! Can you please get an email from them confirming that they release it either under GFDL or something less restrictive such as BSD-style or CC-by-Attribution, and hopefully covering more of their material? The WP:CP page has links to sample requests for permission. Please note that Wikipedia contributions are re-used, sometimes for commercial purposes. --Zigger 00:04, 2004 Oct 28 (UTC)
I personally contacted them via email and informed them that the content would be used on Wikipedia. They replied: "If [the information] is on non-password protected pages [of the Maryland State Archives website] it may be used, as long as credit is given to the Maryland State Archives." tomf688 01:10, Oct 28, 2004 (UTC)

University of Maryland, College Park

Hey, I just saw you increase the logo size on my update. Since I was demoing this for coworkers, it was well-timed. Anyway, I went to UMCP as well. What programs are you in?--Howardjp 19:12, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I'm an undeclared freshman, taking core classes... basically. :) --tomf688 23:26, Nov 17, 2004 (UTC)

Civil war map and green states

I see you created a map at American_Civil_War with much of the west coast shaded green, and information on border states omitted. A couple of us have discussed reverting it to a legitimate version on the talk page -- maybe you'd like to weigh in? Ben 18:59, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

File:Uscivilwarmap.gif
I created a new image and put it on the talk page (for general approval). --tomf688 19:41, Nov 23, 2004 (UTC)
Sweet! Ben 18:14, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

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:

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)

Sounds fine. Added the template to the bottom of my userpage. --tomf688 23:08, Dec 10, 2004 (UTC)

Sig

Please go to your preferences and hit the "raw signatures" checkbox. The "nickname" field doesn't work the way you thought it did, and the repair of a rendering bug in MediaWiki has caused your mistake to be visible. Checking "raw signatures" will make it work the way you thought it did. -- Cyrius| 04:21, 26 Dec 2004 (UTC)

thanks :) --tomf688 (talk) 20:32, Dec 26, 2004 (UTC)

Cyclone Catarina

If you move a page, it's your job to fix double redirects and update links. Please do so. -- Cyrius| 01:10, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Kinsey Image

Heyas, I visited the Alfred Kinsey website today and noticed that you uploaded the excellent photo of him taking notes during an interview, but was hoping that I might be able to get you to provide some copyright/source data on where you got the picture. You can find the image at Image:Akintervw.jpg. Any information you could provide would be great. Thanks. -SocratesJedi | Talk 01:02, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I don't remember posting the picture, but since it was early in my wikipedia experience, I would question its copyright validity. It seems it came from this website [1], so they might hold a copyright to it. --tomf688 (talk) 03:56, Jan 29, 2005 (UTC)


Ownership of Washington Times

Tom, do you have a source for the oft-quoted claim that Moon owns the Washington Times? I keep hearing this, but I have also heard that he does not own it personally. Rather, he has the authority to appoint the publisher.

Kind of like the President of the United States doesn't "own" the FBI, but he can fire the Attorney General. Or the pope doesn't "own" St. Patrick's Cathedral but he can hire or fire the archbishop of NYC?

If you have any info, it would save me hours of googling! Thanks. -- Uncle Ed (talk) 20:48, Mar 11, 2005 (UTC)

I've interpretted it as common knowledge, and it says so on the main wikipedia article. However, I did google this myself and found his website. I did a search using his website search engine and found several articles implying ownership of the Times. Whether or not he currently owns it, he did found it, that is for certain.
Check out the search results below; maybe you can find a clearer answer:
[2] --tomf688 (talk) 21:23, Mar 11, 2005 (UTC)
Founding of the Washington Times
  • Father inspired the founding of The Washington Times [3]
  • Reverend Moon created The Washington Times. [4]
  • I established the newspaper of righteousness ... the Washington Times [5].
His personally, or what?
(Sounds like a church resource as opposed to his personal property, like the pope saying Catholics ought to sell the Vatican):
  • Father believes that if necessary we should sell East Garden, Belvedere, the Washington Times or anything we have here in order to help South America. [6]
Well, we all know he got the thing going; the question is does he own it personally? (Like, if he sold it, would the proceeds be personal income that he'd have to put on his income tax return? -- Uncle Ed (talk) 22:31, Mar 11, 2005 (UTC)
I really have no idea. This might be better discussed on the Washington Times talk page that has a larger audience. --tomf688 (talk) 23:00, Mar 11, 2005 (UTC)

Roscoe B

Tom, As I am already and regretfully engaged in a revert war (over Operation Biting), I am withdrawing my from any further hurly-burly over the Roscoe B article. Another poster deleted my contribution and I suppose it is possible I am wrong.

But (and of course there is always a but), I am concerned over the article as a whole. It reads like a press release from the guy's office. The business with the Moon Coronation is not in dispute, and I question why it should be deleted.

Further the article does not discuss RB's defeat of the century-old Byron dynasty, Bartlett's attempt to groom his son as a successor, his legislative achievements (in his first term he sponsored a bill to ban the sale of Playboy on military bases), his run in with the Clinton White House over VIP tour tickets.

Each of these might be sort of trivial, but the in totality they say something about the man and his place in Maryland history.

In any case, I will leave this to your attention, frankly you are better informed and more interested in this than am I.

I would encourage you to continue to work on this one however.

warmest regards, [[Paul, in Saudi 16:42, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)]]

I agree the biography is very "official", most likely because it is just a beginning that I have tried to introduce to it (and other political articles I've started... see my main user page for more), and because I have incorporated the text from the bioguide and his own website, so of course it is likely very positive about him.
In terms of the Byron Dynasty, I have not heard about it, but it sounds interesting. That, unlike the Moon text, is much more appropriate for an encyclopedia article because it is noteworthy, not a seemingly random comment.
Please feel free to add it to the article, but just be aware that the Moon reference seemed quite obscure and inappropriate, which is why I initially reverted it. If you check out any "official" encyclopedia staffed by professional writers, you would never see such a reference because it is just not that significant compared with other events in his life.
I'm sorry if I came off a bit hostile in the reversion. I hope we can have better interaction in the future.
Btw: your signature seems a bit screwy, probably because you need to check the "raw" box underneath where you input your sig in Special:preferences. --tomf688 (talk) 19:11, Mar 15, 2005 (UTC)
The Byron Dynasty? Well Roscoe defeated Beverly Byron, who followed he husband Goodloe into office when he died while jogging on the C&O Canal. Goodloe followed his father and grandfather into Congress. In fact, there were Byrons in Congress from Maryland in the Civil War era, I presume from the same family. This would seem to make the Byrons one of the great American political families. IIRC Beverly went on to be an IRS Commissioner and served on the Base Closing and Realignment Commission. Paul, in Saudi 02:29, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Removal of images

I do agree that the unnecessary images need to be removed from the NFL pages (that which needn't be there, needn't be there..) Overall, which ones are you removing? (I'd rather ask here than on every talk page why they're missing..) Club logos? If so, I'd be glad to lend a hand to make the job twice as fast.. (PS. I'm sorry for making the PM subject sound so serious..) Bobo192 04:40, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I'm removing them from the player pages, since they really don't belong there. Many of the images were added by one user, so I'm just going from article to article based on which articles link to certain images/templates: [7] and [8]
I'm working down from the top, so you can work from the bottom. --tomf688 (talk) 04:43, Apr 2, 2005 (UTC)
Doing so. Cool. Thanks. Bobo192 04:48, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Done, done, and done. Bobo192 04:54, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Stubbing

just thought that I'd mention that it's best to watch for vandalism on articles whose stubs you're sorting; Pat Corcoran had been vandalised, and it would have been easy for someone to have inadvertently reverted your edit when reverting the vandalism. Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 10:20, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Yea, didn't see it. I usually skim the articles but it was late last night when I was doing that, so I wasn't as "alert" as I would have been. :) --tomf688(talk) 15:16, Apr 9, 2005 (UTC)

Ha, i was just look at a similar map my self from census, but that leads me to a question, i dont think the map it right. I don't get how they have Winchester in the metro area, when they group Berkley Jefferson, Mineral, Hampshire, and Washington counties with Winchester as a statisitical area? --Boothy443 | comhrÚ 03:29, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Upon further examination, it would appear that they exclude one of the West Virginia counties now included, and add another (examine the map, not sure of their names). This is on their website, so I'm not quite sure what to make of it. Could it be that the current information in the article is inaccurate? --tomf688(talk) 03:43, Apr 11, 2005 (UTC)
Okay, I checked this page on the census site, and it says this for the metropolitan area:
548         Washington-Baltimore-Northern Virginia, DC-MD-VA-WV Combined Statistical Area
548  12580     Baltimore-Towson, MD Metropolitan Statistical Area
548  19020     Culpeper, VA Micropolitan Statistical Area
548  30500     Lexington Park, MD Micropolitan Statistical Area
548  47900     Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV Metropolitan Statistical Area
548  49020     Winchester, VA-WV Metropolitan Statistical Area

So whatever is located in those metro/micropolitan regions is what is located in this "combined statistical area." Here's a full list of micro/metropolitan areas: http://www.census.gov/population/estimates/metro-city/List1.txt --tomf688(talk) 04:12, Apr 11, 2005 (UTC)

KKT/Larson

How is "novice" a POV statement? You are either a political rookie or not!WillC

Seemed a bit excessive at the time, guess its not that bad. --tomf688(talk) 00:56, Apr 15, 2005 (UTC)

Hi, I noticed you changed the category this category is in from Category:Mayors of Utah to Category:Mayors of Utah cities. I am confused why you did that, since these people are mayors of a county, which is a larger political division than a city. I reverted the change, as well as others related to Utah until I can understand the reasoning. --[[User:JonMoore|—JonMoore 20:24, 29 May 2006 (UTC)]] 20:27, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I was unaware that this term was used outside of cities, and the term "Mayors of [State]" is quite confusing to me and a few others I asked as it would imply that this person serves in the "Mayor" position for the entire state. If you check other categories of the same nature, you can see that I did a large move of names from Category:Mayors of [State] to Category:Mayors of [State] cities.
I did not notice nor was I aware that counties had mayors, since the term, in my experience, has only been used in cities. Not quite sure what to make of it now. --tomf688(talk) 20:34, Apr 15, 2005 (UTC)
"Mayors of state" wasn't confusing to me, as mayors are *always* the political head of a locality, usually a city. This renaming was a worthless change, in my view. But, I also won't fight it. — Stevie is the man! Talk | Work 20:37, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I tried to look at it from the perspective of someone unfamiliar with the term, namely those from countries that don't use the term "mayor". If someone sees that a person is a "Mayor of California", for example, they would likely be inclined to believe that they have served in the Mayor position for the whole state, like Governors of California or Attorney General of California, for example.
As for the county/city thing, I believe the previous category was too ambiguous, now that I think about it further. If anything, it should be renamed to "City Executives of the United States", etc, to serve ALL city leaders, and for counties a "County Executives of the United States", etc, category for ALL county leaders. --tomf688(talk) 20:46, Apr 15, 2005 (UTC)
Most counties have councils, a few counties have mayors or something similar, Utah is unique in this respect. Salt Lake County is probably one of the few counties that uses the term "mayor" in this sense, though there may be a few others. Your above suggestion might be a good compromise. --[[User:JonMoore|—JonMoore 20:24, 29 May 2006 (UTC)]] 10:57, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I'm trying to ponder a good word choice in this case. County Executive is what many county leaders are called, so it might be a bit biased in their favor, though it does indicated that these people, be they mayors, commissioners, etc, are indeed the "executive" of their county. The same goes for cities. Perhaps Category:Utah city leaders and Category:Utah county leaders would be a good choice as well.
The advantage here is that this categorization is in the early stages, so it isn't very difficult to change these categories manually while there are still only a relatvely few people in them. --tomf688(talk) 14:55, Apr 16, 2005 (UTC)

Further thoughts: How does Category:County leaders in the United States and Category:City leaders in the United States (replace "the United States" for each state subcategory) sound? Each one would be much more flexible, IMO. --tomf688(talk) 15:12, Apr 16, 2005 (UTC)

Another thought: You may want to have all the old-named categories that you're leaving as orphans be speedy-deleted. Just place a {{db|delete reason}} on each category page. This will alert admins to delete them out of the system. Thanks. — Stevie is the man! Talk | Work 11:29, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Sure thing. --tomf688(talk) 14:07, Apr 22, 2005 (UTC)

Just a few thoughts:

  • The "executive" of a city or county is pretty unambiguous. However, I could see, for example, the Rev. Al Sharpton, who has never held office in his life, referred to as a "leader" of New York City.
  • If "MyState city executives" isn't liked, how about "heads of MyState city government"?
  • You could also replace city and county with "municipal"

DLJessup 18:52, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I made it Category:Leaders of cities in the United States and Category:Leaders of counties in the United States --tomf688(talk) 19:55, Apr 22, 2005 (UTC)

Help with signature

My signature looks like --DuKot 05:59, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

And your signature looks like

tomf688(talk) 00:06, Apr 16, 2005 (UTC)

How did you customize your signature? Is there anywhere in Wikipedia where you can set the signature. Thanks --DuKot 05:59, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Yep. Go to Special:Preferences, "User Data", and fill in (using HTML) what you want your sig to look like in the "Nickname" box. Also, be sure to check the box "Raw Signatures". --tomf688(talk) 14:18, Apr 18, 2005 (UTC)

To be determined

The "To be determined" with the subnote "as of april 12, 2005" for each current U.S. Supreme Court Justice is unnecessary and excessive. Unless you are willing to update that notice daily, it serves absolutely no purpose, and the successor does not have "to be determined" because the person is still serving in their position.

I'll be reverting it back to incumbent unless you can provide me some insight as to why this is necessary... --tomf688(talk) 02:03, Apr 19, 2005 (UTC) (copied from User talk:DLJessup)

Let me go through this in order.
First of all, I am using the as of mechanism because a current Supreme Court justice isn't going to a current Supreme Court justice forever. (Heck, the smart money says Rehnquist won't be a current Supreme Court justice in six months.) Wikipedia discourages the use of statements that date quickly.
Second, I don't see why I have to update that notice daily. As far as I'm concerned, that notice can stay fixed at a given date for a year at a time, which is the granularity of the as of mechanism. I like the additional precision, and it gives the user some idea of how old that statement is. However, if it really annoys you, feel free to eliminate the "April 12" portion of the footnote.
Third, I detest the use of "incumbent" in the successor column. If I see that Rehnquist's successor is "incumbent", it appears that Rehnquist is not the current justice, but the predecessor to some unnamed current justice. I prefer "unknown" or "to be determined".
Fourth, a current justice's successor does have to be determined, just not now. Rehnquist will almost certainly have a successor — if he doesn't, then we will fill in the successor with "none" when the time comes — and we don't know who that is now; hence, that person is still "to be determined".
DLJessup 03:05, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)
continued on user talk:DLJessup

High and Low

Sorry, it took awhile to respond...

I hear what you're saying, but I think that with the proper links to other pages, such as adiabatic, although the article is maybe a bit technical, it can expand and inform beyond a laypersons current knowledge. You may have a point, and I will reconsider what I wrote.

Roodog2k 20:04, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

A while? Only a month... ;) --tomf688(talk) 21:13, Apr 22, 2005 (UTC)

Beltway Sniper

I just wanted to compliment your work in creating the map for this article. Yours in Richmond, Mark. Vaoverland 06:05, Apr 26, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks. :) --tomf688(talk) 22:26, Apr 26, 2005 (UTC)


Season Statistics

You told me that it was hard to find reliable casualty and damage statistics for the hurricane seasons from 1995-2002 to put in the new infobox. Not true: I have your figures right here, straight from the NHC.

  • 1995-115 dead, $7.227 billion in damage
  • 1996-179 dead, $3.6 billion in damage
  • 1997-11 dead, $100 million in damage
  • 1998-18,907 dead, $12.249 billion in damage (thanks to the deadliest hurricane in 200 years)
  • 1999-88 dead, $5.862 billion in damage
  • 2000-57 dead, $930 million in damage
  • 2001-105 dead, $2.772 billion in damage
  • 2002-23 dead, $1.21 billion in damage

-E. Brown, Hurricane enthusiast (Squawk Box) 2 May, 2005

Oh cool, could you link me to where you found that? Thanks. --tomf688(talk) 00:41, May 3, 2005 (UTC)
BTW: are those numbers international or just the U.S.? --tomf688(talk) 00:42, May 3, 2005 (UTC)
N/m; I doubt 18000 people died in the US for 1998. --tomf688(talk) 00:43, May 3, 2005 (UTC)

You're right, they didn't die in the US. Hurricane Mitch stalled as a category 5 off Honduras. 9,086 people were confirmed dead and as many (9191) were listed as missing and this number has not been revised. These numbers are international figures (1996 damage estimate may be higher because there were a few storms for which damage figures were not listed). It is impossible to give an exact figure but these are pretty darn close. These come from the National Hurricane Center's Tropical Cyclone Reports, which they publish after each season. For each storm, there is a whole section on casualty and damage statistics.

  • [9] here's the link

-E. Brown, Hurricane enthusiast Squawk Box 3 May 2005

Thanks. BTW: you dont have to manually add the date and your talk page link, etc; you can just hit type in ~~~~ and it will insert a signature that you can customize in your preferences. In your case, you would want to type [[User: E. Brown|E. Brown, Hurricane enthusiast]] - [[User talk: E. Brown|Squawk Box]] in the signature box and check the "raw" box underneath it. --tomf688(talk) 21:50, May 3, 2005 (UTC)

Oh. Thanks. That saves me a lot of trouble. By the way, I'm a hurricane enthusiast. It's what I do. If you have a question involving hurricanes, I usually know the answer. And if I don't know the answer, I probably know where to find it. I'd love to help with statistics and records and set the facts straight. This will be the last time I manually type in my signature.

-E. Brown, Hurricane enthusiast (Squawk Box) 14 May 2005

Hey, Tom. The Hurricane Center has some black-and-white track maps that go back all the way to 1921. You could use those to standardize the infobox for all seasons.

E. Brown, Hurricane enthusiast - Squawk Box 14:09, 25 May 2005 (UTC)

Yea I noticed those, but its a lot of work to put maps up. Thanks for the note, though.  :) --tomf688(talk) 14:13, May 25, 2005 (UTC)

I'd help, but I can't get the picture to show up. Everytime I've tried it didn't work. Perhaps some of the other hurricane junkies could help.

E. Brown, Hurricane enthusiast - Squawk Box 21:30, 25 May 2005 (UTC)

They seem to load for me, but unfortunately they are a bit small, so you can't read the text. It's better than nothing I suppose. --tomf688(talk) 00:53, May 26, 2005 (UTC)

As long as you can see the tracks ok, I think it will be fine. I don't see why it's not a good idea. I could provide the casualty and damage info, and you could set up the infobox.

E. Brown, Hurricane enthusiast - Squawk Box 21:53, 26 May 2005 (UTC)

Governor of Maryland

I apologize for not leaving a note to explain my action (that's an area I need to work on). I split List of Governors of Maryland from Governor of Maryland because I intended to significantly expand the article on the office. (I have been working slowly on creating and improving articles on the Government of Maryland, and on the state in general.) You'll see that Governor of Maryland is now much longer (and, I hope, better--though still not excellent). I think that it now stands on it's own without tacking on the list, which matches up nicely with the lists that all of the other states have. I think that the list and article on the office ought to remain separate now. By contrast, I agree with combining the list and the article on Lt. Governor of Maryland, since both of them are so much shorter. I hope that this sufficiently explains my action and that you will agree with it. if not, please let me know and I'm sure we can find a way to work it out and to improve the article(s) further. Jacob1207 04:36, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

History of Maryland

I have just started the History of Maryland article (largely from material taken from other articles). Since you like both History and Maryland, I thought you might be interested in helping out with the article. It's definitely too big a job for one person if said one person is me. I've you've got the time and inclination, check it out! Jacob1207 23:43, 22 May 2005 (UTC)

Thank you

Thank you, Tomf688, for cleaning up my talk page. I didn't even know there was so much duplication. Thanks ! -- PFHLai 21:04, 2005 May 23 (UTC)

I thought it seemed a little long. ;) --tomf688(talk) 21:06, May 23, 2005 (UTC)

Leader in Infobox

I am going to remove your addation of leader from the county infobox. I left it out for thr reason that many counties in the US do not have an established leadership position within their goverment structure, and that the leader position only rellay applies to the those the mainly have executive/council for would only realy be included in the leader situation. --Boothy443 | comhrÚ 20:39, 27 May 2005 (UTC)

fair 'nuff --tomf688(talk) 21:06, May 27, 2005 (UTC)

Can you confirm the source on this image? Burgundavia (✈ take a flight?) 09:35, May 31, 2005 (UTC)

Someone holds the copyright to the traditional soccer ball design? --tomf688(talk) 22:05, May 31, 2005 (UTC)
No, but they hold the copyright to that image of a soccerball. I doubt anymore is going to sue us over it, but it is a non-sourced image. Burgundavia (✈ take a flight?) 06:12, Jun 1, 2005 (UTC)

History of MD, pt II

Thanks! I think that History of Maryland is coming together fairly well. There's just the 20th century to do now and then a couple holes to go back and patch. (I'm saving the intro section for last). I think that we can get this up to featured article quality, in maybe another week or so. Oh, and I've taken care of those many spelling errors, lol. Jacob1207 00:33, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

There are over 600 featured articles presently (See WP:FA), and not all of them have been featured on the main page. Being a "Featured Article" means that an article is really good and has been vetted by others. They just pick one featured article each day to show on the main page. But I agree, they definitely wouldn't put this on the main page for a while. I think it'd be cool if it is chosen for March 25th (date first colonists landed) or April 28th (date Maryland ratified the constitution) next year. Of course, there is more work yet to be done before these things can come to pass. Jacob1207 01:06, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Assistance with Wiki Procedures

For the life of me, I can not figure out how to properly add a category for deletion. The directions simply say place at the top under the date. When I do that and hit page preview, nothing happens. Thanks for the help. --Noitall 03:52, Jun 19, 2005 (UTC)

Question and Comment: Q: How did that other editor know immediately that I added the new category?: I was not editing an article he had done, as far as I know (maybe I did). C: Did you read the history section I wrote on Cardin? I have been waiting to write that for a long time. I have nothing against people having a huge family advantage in politics (e.g., Bush, Taft), but it also ought to be written about and publicly known. Cardin's is a fine political history, but the effortless ease that he entered politics is far different from most other candidates. --Noitall 16:34, Jun 19, 2005 (UTC)

lots of edits, not an admin

Hi - I made a list of users who've been around long enough to have made lots of edits but aren't admins. If you're at all interested in becoming an admin, can you please add an '*' immediately before your name in this list? I've suggested folks nominating someone might want to puruse this list, although there is certainly no guarantee anyone will ever look at it. Thanks. -- Rick Block (talk) 17:39, Jun 26, 2005 (UTC)

Mayors of Nashville

Thanks for cleaning up the succession boxes for the Mayors of Nashville. I'm afraid you listed the wrong years for most of them though. You may want to go back through and correct any that haven't been corrected yet. Thanks. Kaldari 30 June 2005 19:59 (UTC)

Actually, only 2 of them were wrong. They just happened to be the first 2 I checked :) Both are fixed now. Kaldari 30 June 2005 19:59 (UTC)

As the result of a dispute over its previous TFD, the template showing Spielberg's films has been folded into a discussion of similar templates and renominated for deletion. I am contacting everyone who voted on the original TFD so that they will have another chance to make sure their opinion is heard.

The new vote is here.

Dragons flight 01:36, July 11, 2005 (UTC)

politician box

Nice box. I think the most recent job should be up top, so that it reads in reverse order. That way the current job will be beneath the picture. What say you? --Noitall 14:19, July 22, 2005 (UTC)

Richmond Times-Dispatch Article

"Tomf,"

My name is Jeff Kelley, and I'm a reporter at the Times-Dispatch in Richmond. I'm purusing a story on some Wiki-writers that write about Richmond and Virginia-related topics. If you can email me at jkelley@timesdispatch.com, or phone at 804-649-6348, I'd appreciate it.

Thanks, Jeff Kelley Richmond Times-Dispatch

I can say that I knew Tomf before he became famous :) --Noitall 03:31, July 26, 2005 (UTC)
Just call me Tom. ;) --tomf688<TALK> 16:10, July 26, 2005 (UTC)

Images

Any possibility you could tag these images:

  1. Image:Governor austin crothers of maryland.jpg
  2. Image:Governor edwin warfield of maryland.jpg
  3. Image:Governor elihu emory jackson of maryland.jpg
  4. Image:Governor emerson harrington of maryland.jpg
  5. Image:Governor frank brown of maryland.jpg
  6. Image:Governor harry nice of maryland.gif
  7. Image:Governor henry lloyd of maryland.jpg
  8. Image:Governor herbet oconor of maryland.jpg
  9. Image:Governor John Hindmarsh.jpg
  10. Image:Governor john lee carroll of maryland.jpg
  11. Image:Governor lloyd lowndes of maryland.jpg
  12. Image:Governor parris glendening of maryland.jpg
  13. Image:Governor phillips goldborough of maryland.jpg
  14. Image:Governor robert mclane of maryland.jpg
  15. Image:Governor thomas swann of maryland.jpg
  16. Image:Governor william t hamilton of maryland.jpg

thanks --Tagishsimon (talk)

Tagged most of them as {{mdarchives}}. --tomf688<TALK> 14:30, August 6, 2005 (UTC)
  • Great pics. Question1: how could these be copyrighted since they are old, really old? Question 2:If someone has a password to get into the archives, should it matter for copyrighting, since it is age that is one of the determinative factors? Good find, anyhow. --Noitall 14:35, August 6, 2005 (UTC)
Re: Question 1: Here is a useful checklist for determining whether something is in the PD: [10]
1) Everything published in the United States before 1923 is in the public domain.
2) Works published 1923-1963 in the United States whose copyright was not renewed are in the public domain.
3) Foreign works published before 1909 are in the public domain.
4) Foreign works published 1909-1923 with copyright notices are in the public domain.
5) Works created by a U.S. federal government officer or employee as part of the person's official duties are public domain. This would include items published by the U.S. Government Printing Office; IRS publications; supreme court decisions; official speeches, letters and documents by the President among many other items.
However, since a lot of images are reproductions or were created well after 1923 (even images of governors from the 17th century, for example), they likely cannot be placed into the public domain or used without the author's consent. Thus, I emailed the Maryland Archives people a while ago (scroll up on this talk page to the entry about "Harry"), and they said that images and materials on the non-password protected sections of the website are copyrighted and are free to be reused as long as credit was given to the archives.
Re: Question 2: The password protected sections have a lot of good information in them, but are protected to try to reduce information being taken and reprinted without permission. You can get access by emailing the people at the archives and they will give you the username and password to get into the protected areas. Materials older than 1923 on their website, even if it is in the passworded section, cannot be copyrighted by the archives.
Some other good sites: Just in case you are curious, the Library of Congress has a prints and photographs division which has a ton of photographs online (mostly older ones, but still really useful). It's located here: http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/catalog.html Furthermore, most U.S. Gov websites have good photo libraries (White House Website, DOD website, etc). --tomf688<TALK> 15:00, August 6, 2005 (UTC)
Very good reference. I am storing this conversation on a Public Records page of mine. --Noitall 14:52, August 9, 2005 (UTC)

Please Check the Roscoe Bartlett Page

Did he really recently host a meeting about Martians causing the drought? I think not, but then again the guy is goofy so whose to say? Also, it is Terrapin you must fear, not a turtle. Regards. Paul, in Saudi 03:24, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

Thank you Tom. The fellow is out of control (He deletes warnings off his Talk page, BTW). You back at UMCP now? Paul, in Saudi 04:29, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

Yea he frustrates me at times. Anyways, I'll be back there in three weeks (and btw, it is "fear the turtle"; I've only been there one year, but that's something I'm sure of ;) ). --tomf688<TALK> 11:16, August 9, 2005 (UTC)

Idea for Infobox Hurricane

I just had a lightbulb come to life: I think it would be interesting if we added an entry on the infobox for the strongest storm of the season. I'll use 1995 as an example: Pressure: Opal-919 mb (27.13 inches)

Wind Speed : Opal-130 knots (149 mph) What do you think?

By the way, you might want to archive some of your talk page, it's getting kind of long (41 kilobytes).

E. Brown, Hurricane enthusiast - Squawk Box 00:11, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

I agree. I will use the same format I used in the example I gave you.

E. Brown, Hurricane enthusiast - Squawk Box 00:22, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

Re: Politician Infobox

I've always felt it lacked in some respects, such as a list of prior and following offices held, amongst other things. If your new idea would apply to all politicians including senators, why not alter Infobox Senator then rename it to Infobox Politician, that way it'd save quite a bit of tedious wikiwork. Just contact an admin; you have my full support in the change. Shem(talk) 01:42, 17 August 2005 (UTC)