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Z | This user prefers to side with the Zerg. |
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This user has a website, which can be found here.
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About me
![](//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/11/Towel_blue_decorativepattern_closeup.jpg/60px-Towel_blue_decorativepattern_closeup.jpg) | This user is a hoopy frood who really knows where their towel is. |
![](//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8a/Greek_lc_pi_icon.svg/45px-Greek_lc_pi_icon.svg.png) | This user knows by heart the first 33 digits in the decimal representation of pi. |
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1337-4 | 7]-[!$ |_|$312 (/~\|\| 123/~\[> /~\|\|[> \/\/12!73 1337 /~\7 /~\ |\|3/~\12-|\|/~\7!\/3 |_3\/3|_. |
pig-5 | Isthay userway ancay ontributecay Igpay Atinlay atway away ofessionalpray evellay. |
AIM-Able | This user understands AIM talk perfectly well, but does not seriously use it. Ever. |
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Current Tasks (requests for help)
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Why is it that no one can tell me how I'm misunderstanding policy, but they always tell me that I don't understand it?
If someone wants to help explain one or more of these things to me, I'd love to have a nice little discussion with them.
I've heavily defended a couple articles up at AFD, and usually, people think differently than I do about the "trivial" portion of the Primary notability criterion. Admittedly, the policy is intentionally little ambiguous, but I think everyone else misunderstands the policy. If a news article article is about X and Y together, Is "Y" trivial? I say no. I'd say that Y is one of the primary subjects of the article. What about an article about how X affected Y. I'd say that in that case, it is clear that X and Y are subjects of the article. sure, An article about X that mentions Y in it, even for a few paragraphs is a grey area. The canonical example of trivial, is a one sentence mentioning in an entire book. Only on that scale can someone say something is clearly trivial. A single sentence in a news article? probably trivial. A paragraph? Definite grey area, deletionists will say "trivial", inclusionists will say "non-trivial". That's where I stand on the matter. Apparently, an article has to be about only Y to be considered a non-trivial mentioning by many.
James Earl Salisbury
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James Earl Salisbury is my father (Archived at User:mckaysalisbury/James Earl Salisbury).
- When I was WikiYoung, I created the article, I used "google hits" as criterion for inclusion. (version). Someone asked about notability, and I was able to satisfy questions then (see Talk:James Earl Salisbury for discussion).
- Eventually the article was nominated for deletion. (Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/James Earl Salisbury. I thought that the outcome of the article was obviously "keep", but the end result was that User:Cuchullain, the closing administrator, thought that the result of the debate was "merge", so he merged it. So, today, I put a note on his talk page with my reasoning of why I think he was mistaken. (my post to his talk page).
I think that he's mistaken in his decision on a couple of levels:
- He executed his vote, rather than consensus
- His vote wasn't something I think is in line with policy, but I kinda see where he's coming from
So am I crazy? Am I missing some crucial piece of Wikipedia policy?
collecting sources about him, not just mentioning him
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History has shown that I'm not understanding what consensus means. I've read the article, and I think I understand it, but according to others, I don't understand it. I've asked for help specifically to administrators about this, but I don't ever get a response.
Some have hinted that Creation of an article means that AFD votes shouldn't count, so does that mean I shouldn't ever be allowed to delete or redirect my own article (e.g. Canyonlands Desert)? Or am I only biased when it's in favor of keep?
What do I do with my life?
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I'm a computer scientist. Mainly that means I'm a programmer, software engineer, and software architect. I currently work in databases and computer security. I've worked a lot with Relational Databases. I'm rather familiar with the theory, and I've built 5 DBMSs, but most of the time I end up implementing database systems, or building systems on top of them. I really enjoy math and physics programming. Also, I'm doing some real computer science research in my spare time, and I've written a few indie video games, some by myself, some with teams.
I love playing video games (and board games). I don't spend as much time doing this as I like. I might like to work in video games in the future.
My hobbies include: Literature and movies, mainly Science Fiction. (Post)Cyberpunk and Time Travel are probably my favorite sub genres. I enjoy reading about the latest discoveries in math (like Rational Trigonometry) and science (sorry Pluto, you're not a planet). From a non-geek perspective, I like social dance, and rock climbing.
My activity in Wikipedia comes and goes.
my webpage can be found at https://www.mckaysalisbury.com/
I've watched about a bajillion pages. Many of them have so infrequent changes, that I forget I have them in my watchlist. I have several topics that I try to keep the articles pure, mostly in the database industry. I don't watch my watchlist as much as I have in the past:
Some other computer science topics:
I watch a few math related topics:
Some science topics:
Some Science-Fiction topics:
- Cardassian I had a question about spoonheads, and I'm awaiting a response. Maybe I'll eventually see the episode again
- Star Trek
And, finally, from nowhere, a couple of people topics:
Yeah, there are other pages in my watchlist, but these are the important ones.
Update: 04:08, 20 October 2007 (UTC) My watchlist isn't helpful anymore because I have too much on it. ("539 pages watched not counting talk pages.") My wikitime is far less than what it used to be, so I'm going on a watchlist purge. I'm removing topics I don't care about as much. If you'd like me to help out with something, let me know on my talk page, and I'll be glad to help out. McKay 04:08, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
My wife has had insomnia. We discovered that one of the best things I can do to help her sleep is to read Wikipedia articles aloud. Why not help other people fall asleep by reading it for all on the Internet to listen to.
- Randy Pausch is my hero of the day (7 Oct 2009). Did good work, as a computer science professor, and even made an appearance in Star Trek!
- Liviu Librescu is my hero of the day. (11 June 2007). I guess the Virginia Tech massacre article and his sums it up nicely. Though his life of Holocaust survivor -> education -> hero is a pretty impressive resume.
- Jiang Yanyong is my hero of the day. (8 Feb 2006) I found him while researching SARS for the article on my father James Earl Salisbury (another hero).
- Saul Bass is my hero of the day. (23 Aug 2015). He isn't heroic per se, but he changed credits in cinema. We need more people innovating in credits.
- Arland D. Williams, Jr. is my hero of the day. (31 Aug 2015). Very heroic. He was a bank examiner (and I've done work for the FDIC, so that's interesting too. I discovered this article looking up his story which was found in a religious classroom manual I was reading where they compared his heroics to the Crucifixion of Jesus.
- Isaac Allerton is not quite a hero of the day, but he's my Great13 Grandfather, and a Plymouth Colony settler who came on the Mayflower. His son Isaac Allerton Jr. is also an ancestor.
- Charles Joseph Minard Is someone I've been thinking about for a while, but he's my "hero" of the day (6 Oct 2020). His One image of the map of Napoleon's Russian campaign single-handedly gave me the understanding of the fall of Napoleon's empire.
- Elephants tripling: [2]
- Off by one error: [3]
- Jeremy Renner the Velociraptor: [4]
I feel my block log is very clean, but yet, there are entries. I feel a bit of a need to explain myself in these cases. Yes, I've got the final edit on this page, but feel free to take a look at the page histories (the ones I provide or others)
- June 6, 2007, I was blocked for making a single edit to a page. I felt very justified in the edit, as it seemed like it was in full compliance with all of the policies particularly because I was sourcing my material. I had discussed how the enforcement of BLP wasn't correct policy. I discussed the block with a friend of mine, and he suggested I email some admins, so I did. A large discussion with several admins got involved, and I eventually got unblocked before the 3 hours was up. Since, several admins have said they disagreed with the block, and one (via email) even said "PS. Being punished by a tyrant is generally considered an honour."