User talk:ddawson

Welcome!

[I've removed Ilyanep's very nice but lengthy welcome message, since I feel I've been here long enough. If you really want to see it, you can always look in the page history. Ddawson 01:07, 6 August 2005 (UTC)]

Thank you, Ilyanep. Very nice overview. I've already started to get the hang of things, though I didn't know there was a new user log. Ddawson 16:03, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

No problem...Hope to see you later! — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 01:07, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Anyway, comments go here: ↓

thanks

Thanks for the note on the Wikipedian musicians category; I would never have noticed otherwise! Oh, and welcome to Wikipedia: it's pretty much fun here.  :-) Happy editing, Antandrus 15:33, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

• Double thanks for the tip on the new category. Off to fix it now. Take care! - Lucky 6.9 04:15, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Category:Millennial Wikipedians

Category:Millennial Wikipedians has been listed on categories for deletion. Since you are using it on your user page please weigh in on the vote and that of the other generational categories here. Thanks. -JCarriker 20:10, August 26, 2005 (UTC)

On User instruments

You wrote the following on my talk page:

I see you've gone ahead and started working on the User instruments templates. I think most of them are okay (good catch boldfacing the skill words, instruments, etc., for instance). There are a couple of them that I disagree with, however.

• You changed the link on 'professional' in {{User instrument subcategory/4}} to link to the subcategory. However, there is a reason I linked it to the article professional; I would link the words in the other three templates to articles, if I knew what to link to (novice is inappropriate, for instance). {{User instrument/1}} is a redirect to {{User instrument subcategory/1}} and on through 3 (but not 4) because I realized after making the subcategory/n templates that I could reuse them; if in the future appropriate articles are found for 'novice', 'intermediate', and 'advanced', it will be necessary to un-redirect the user-page templates. But perhaps you feel 'professional' shouldn't be linked that way?
• You reverted my removal of 'the' from {{User instrument category}}. It's probably not apparent to you (it wasn't to me initially), but there is a slight problem if someone wants to use a mass noun (such as 'percussion'); in that case, putting 'the' before it is awkward ("These users play the percussion..." See?). In fact, someone does want 'percussion'. On the other hand, I don't think leaving it out makes the phrase awkward, so it's best to leave it out.

Ddawson 06:43, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

I totally disagree with your first point. Linking the levels with the level-specific subcategories conforms with the standard used for user language templates (e.g. {{User en-4}}). There should be at least this much uniformity in the various Babel templates. It is also much more useful for other Wikipedians to get a direct link to the relevant category in order to see which other users play the instrument at this level, rather than being told what a professional is (most users are familiar with the word's definition and would, I believe, rather have information that is more relevant and specific to the skills of the user in question).

When it comes to the definite article in the instrument categories, I do find sentences like "These users play clarinet" much less natural than "These users play the clarinet". In special cases like percussion, one could simply use the raw code for the little green box at the top of the category and subsequently add CategoryTOC below, as there won't be many such cases. (In fact, that of percussion may be the only one.)

Krun 15:25, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for letting me know about your changes to the User Instruments system. I got only very limited interest for a long while after I put up the first templates (along with some criticism from people who thought it unencyclopaedic and a waste of resources) so it kind of fell by the wayside at my end. It's nice to see someone's adopted the project and it seems to have taken off nicely now, so I'll see if I can be of any use. I've been away from Wikipedia for a while (on holiday from Uni) but I should be back (at least from time to time) soon. Good luck and keep up the good work. Yummifruitbat 11:31, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

wikimusic

Hi, Ddawson, I saw you're interested in (classical) music. Maybe you would like to talk about the possible creating of a Wikimusic? There are no real plans right now, but we would like your imput! Please add you comment at this page, and put your name on the list if you want to stay informed. If you would want to, you can add your email as well. In front of you reaction I thank you for your enthousiasm. If you know someone who might be interested, don't hesitate, and give him/her the link! (http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/gebruiker:Effeietsanders/project:Wikimusic), even if they are not active on wikipedia. Spread the word!!! effeietsanders 13:57, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

How do I set up this matter:Wikipedians who have had paranrmal experiences/interested in the paranormal ?

How ? Do appreciate your honesty? The reason I had wanted to set up the catagory:"Wikipedians who have had paranormal experiences and/or is interested in the paranormal" is that, besides myself, I have located another Wikipedian who also had some paranormal experiences. YOU may be a third. Imagine that you're in a diner, and you see a catsup bottle moving by itself, and you have NOT ordered any drinks yet, or that you're at home, in bed and some female voice calls you and you see your clothing being removed by itself, or better yet, you're driving and you get picked up by aliens, or you're out hunting for deer during deer season, and you smell something really nasty,then you spot what people call a Sasquatch, or that you pass by a old battlefield, and you see period military personnel battling each other,and they're NOT actors of any sort.

Again, I do appreciate your honesty. Hope this does'nt blacken my clean record. I do NOT often see honest people anymore.I am new to this whole Wikipedia concept. Are you a Administrator, one of the BIG bosses ? Be nice to have one as a guide.Martial Law 22:07, 28 October 2005 (UTC) :)

Note: I fixed the heading for this section. There are certain things you can't break over multiple lines, and headings are among them. Please, check the results of your code using the 'Show preview' button, before you submit something. (It's not a big deal on a talk page, but it's more important when you edit articles.) Have you looked at Wikipedia:Tutorial yet?

Now, if you don't mind me answering your questions out of order... Sorry to disappoint, but I do not fit your proposed category. But I can give some technical advice. The first thing I recommend is that you dramatically shorten the category's name; it's just too long, as demonstrated by your own difficulty in naming it consistently. You must be able to remember the exact name (including the case of every letter, as Wikipedia is case-sensitive (except on English Wikipedia, an initial letter is forced to uppercase)). If you can't name it consistently, you can end up with multiple pages with similar names, which is not what you want. Maybe something like "Wikipedians interested in the paranormal"; notice I dropped the mention of experience, as I suspect anyone with such experience will also have interest and thus fit in the category. In any case, it's important to use as few words as you can in the name.

As for how to start a category in general, I thought I already addressed that on your talk page, but I'll summarize here. It's very simple:

1. Place a link to the category, on the page you want in that category; this conventionally goes at the very end of the page (though it can go anywhere). So if I put the code [[Category:Foobar]] on this page, then in Category:Foobar, there would be a link to User talk:Ddawson.
2. Highly recommended: create the category page itself. The way to create any page is very simple. Just enter the name you want in the search box. Assuming the page doesn't exist, you'll see a search results page with a link that allows you to create the page. Click on that, and you can start editing the new page. For a category, you can simply leave the page blank; the reason for creating a category page despite having nothing to put on it is to avoid red links.

Does this help you? Ddawson 22:16, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

Appreciate the help. Are there any Wikipedians who are Prospectors, besides myself ? I need the article:Gold Prospectors Association of America examined for any problems. This is about a association of people who go all over the country prospecting for gold, other metals,fuels and the like, including meteorites.Martial Law 01:08, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia has a search feature. Unfortunately, it's not very good for finding things in the bodies of pages. Instead, try using Google. If you include the term "site:en.wikipedia.org" (no quotes necessary), Google will search only the English Wikipedia; you can also restrict search to any subdomain and/or path prefix that way. I suggest the query "site:en.wikipedia.org wikipedians prospectors" or something similar. Hmm, that one only returns 1 result. But I'm sure you'll come up with better queries. Ddawson 06:19, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

Appreciate the info.Martial Law 07:48, 1 November 2005 (UTC) :)

Article in need of cleanup - please assist if you can

(Subst'ed above template so it will stay the same here, as it should.) Well, looks like I missed this one; just logged in today and found the cleanup tag is already gone. Don't let that stop you in the future, though. Ddawson 18:57, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Help me please

Hello there!! I am a Mexican student (at Tec de Monterrey) and also a new wikipedian. Can you help me please? I would like to ask you some questions. - I need to know about your college major or degree and also in which school did you studied. - I also need to know if you think it would be difficult for me to study there, as I am not a native English speaker. Thank you. --Flea 1100962 20:10, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Sorry for the slow response. Haven't logged in here for a while.

To your first request, look at my user page. If you would like to see where my university is located, go to the EWU article, and note the coordinates link above the infobox; click on the numbers, then choose one of the "Find this location" links under "Global systems" (the first one goes to Google maps, which I recommend).

As for difficulty, I really couldn't judge, even if I knew anything about your language comprehension. If you are not confident, I think english as a second language is offered here.

Something else to consider is that tuition is much higher for non-residents.

Anyway, I'm not really the person to ask, but I hope that was helpful. Ddawson 19:42, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

A response

Sorry I haven't responded to your earlier request. I had a lot of things going on and didn't have time to do so.

As for revising your edit of the Zip's Drive-In article, it was because the list provided in the chain's web site is not up-to-date. It doesn't mention the Ritzville, Washington franchise, and I have doubts it mentioned their newest Spokane, Washington store. Elwin Blaine Coldiron (talk) 04:15, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Invitation to Meetup/Seattle6, a focus group

Hello. I know you are all the way in Spokane, but if you are in the area and can join us that would be great.

I'm part of a research group at the University of Washington (Seattle campus), and my group is reaching out to Wikipedians in the Puget Sound area. We're hosting a focus group designed to gather information on what Wikipedians would like to know about each other when interacting on Wikipedia. Our end goal is to create an embedded application that helps people quickly know more about others' history and activity on Wikipedia, and we feel our design will be much more useful if it's based on insights of users like you.

I'm hoping that the chance to help out local researchers, to engage in lively face-to-face discussion with other Seattle Wikipedians, and to contribute to Wikipedia in a new way will entice you to join us. The session lasts 2 hours and snacks are provided. Sessions will be held on UW Seattle campus - directions will be sent after registration. Your contribution will be greatly appreciated!

Willing and able to help us out? RSVP here. Want to know more? Visit our user talk page . Please help us contact other local Wikipedians, too! Commprac01 (talk) 01:37, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

NEW CATEGORY PAGE

Hello Washington-user!! What do you think of this category?
Either on a scale of 1-10 or with commentary.
Let me know through the "Special:EmailUser/" section. #TTiT# 10:42, 14 August 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by The-Traveller-in-Tacoma (talk • contribs)

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Hello, Ddawson. Voting in the 2018 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23.59 on Sunday, 3 December. All users who registered an account before Sunday, 28 October 2018, made at least 150 mainspace edits before Thursday, 1 November 2018 and are not currently blocked are eligible to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.

The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority 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.

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