User talk:Alice

This user is straight but not narrow.

This user loves Singapore.

My last 500 contributions to Wikipedia:
My Edit Count
A MUCH slower edit counter for me

"I am running out of patience for incivility at Wikipedia,... Some people simply should not be contributing to an encyclopedia.... and note that all editors should always endeavor to treat each other with kindness, or else find another hobby. When we put up with this kind of behavior, we enable a hostile environment that drives away good people. We should be gentle, but firm: this kind of behavior is not allowed at Wikipedia." --Jimbo Wales 21:01, 22 October 2007 (UTC) [1]

Welcome to my talk page!

The Status Bot has been blocked. See my last edit here. Please sign your posts using four tildes (~~~~). Please add all new threads at the bottom of this page. Please note that I do not respond to every comment. I only respond to the comments I feel I need to respond to. Personal attacks, uncivil comments, and comments which don't follow the conventions of this box may be either immediately archived or removed. Please post comments relating to the contents of our articles on the relevant page's discussion page, and not here. That way all interested parties (including you and I) can participate and reach consensus. (All articles I edit are automatically added to my Watchlist).

Messages (+)

Welcome Hello. Welcome to Wikipedia! I created this account for you. I hope you like it here and decide to stay. There are lots of ways you can help with the encyclopedia; check out Wikipedia:Contributing to Wikipedia to find out how. If you have any questions, you can ask on my talk page, check Wikipedia:Questions, or leave {{helpme|your question here}} on this page, and someone will be around to help shortly. Again, welcome, and happy editing! WODUP 03:46, 25 September 2007 (UTC) That was very thoughtful. Thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Alice.S (talk • contribs) You're welcome. It's absolutely okay to correct things now. Again, if you have any questions, feel free to contact me on my talk page, check Wikipedia:Questions, or leave {{helpme}} and your question on this page, and someone will be by to help. You might also want to take a look at the Wikipedia:Introduction, Wikipedia:Tutorial, and Wikipedia:Contributing to Wikipedia. Cheers, WODUP 04:17, 28 September 2007 (UTC) Wow! What a quick and helpful reply. I see that there is a very great deal to learn. I'll try and do a bit of reading before I bother you again. Thanks again. (signed Alice from Singapore). —Preceding unsigned comment added by Alice.S (talk • contribs) There is a lot to learn. It can be a bit overwhelming at times, but we do not require absolute perfection from our editors, so it's okay to make honest mistakes and learn from them. Also, to "sign" your posts on talk pages (like this one), you can type four tildes (~~~~) after your message, and to customize your signature, you can change what's in the "signature" box at Special:Preferences. Cheers, WODUP 04:26, 28 September 2007 (UTC) I'm glad to hear that since I'm nowhere near perfect (grin). I'll have to study my signature when I get some turnaround leave after this next flight. It's been a bit of a struggle finding the right keys to press to find the tilde. I guess your keyboard's a bit different. Thanks again for being so helpful and patient with me! Alice.S 04:32, 28 September 2007 (UTC) Welcome! (We can't say that loudly enough!) Hello Alice and Welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. If you decide that you need help, check out Wikipedia:Where to ask a question, ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. Please remember to sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. You may also push the signature button located above the edit window. Finally, please do your best to always fill in the edit summary field. This is considered an important guideline in Wikipedia. Even a short summary is better than no summary. Below are some recommended guidelines to facilitate your involvement. Happy Editing! -- Huaiwei 02:35, 9 October 2007 (UTC) Getting Started Wikipedia Tutorial How to edit a page The five pillars of Wikipedia Manual of Style What Wikipedia is not Be bold in editing How to write a great article WikiProjects Getting your info out there Cite your sources Neutral Point of View Point of View Verifiability Uploading images Image use policy Getting more Wikipedia rules Policy Library Getting Help New contributors' help page Where to ask a question Help Desk Frequently Asked Questions Getting along Wikiquette Civility Sign your posts Wikipedians Conflict resolution Getting technical Cleaning up vandalism Pages needing attention Peer review Utilities Village pump Find the rest of the Singaporean community! Singapore portal SGpedians' notice board Singapore-related topics Complete to do list Wikipedia IRC channel There are two ways to indicate that you are a Singaporean editor on your user page: Add [[Category:Wikipedians in Singapore|Alice]], or If you like userboxes, add {{Template:User Singapore}}. Do leave your name at the notice board, and thanks again for making Wikipedia your online abode! ;) Wow! That's a really big welcome. Aren't I a lucky person? There's a lot to read there but I get some holiday soon and should be able to plough into it then. I don't know much about creating a user page - perhaps you could do that for me and put the template whatsits on the right place there? (I'm not much good with technical things like computers as you probably guessed...) Thanks everyone for making me feel welcome. Isn't Wikipedia a wonderful place? Alice.S 02:55, 9 October 2007 (UTC) How can I make my name appear in red again? {{helpme}}How can I make my name appear in red again? Before, when I didn't have a user page, my name appeared in red in my watchlist. Now, even though I've deleted my user page, it is still the same old boring blue. How can I get it back to red again?Alice.S 03:37, 20 October 2007 (UTC) And my signature has changed from red to blue as well!!!Alice.S 03:37, 20 October 2007 (UTC) Hello again. Links to pages that exist appear as blue and links to pages that do not exist are red. Blanking your userpage doesn't delete it. You can request that your uerpage be deleted by adding {{db-user}} to it. Alternatively, if you just want your signature on talk pages to appear red, you can add [[User:Alice.S|<font color="#CC2200">Alice.S</font>]] to the signature box in your preferences (remember to check the raw signature box. That code will make your signature look like this: Alice.S . Hope this helps. :) WODUP (?) 04:12, 20 October 2007 (UTC) Wow, you must be the most helpful person on Wikipedia, WODUP! That's done the trick for my signature (on this page at least) but how do I get my name to appear red in my Watchlist? Is the only way to do it the {{db-user}} trick? Alice.S 04:55, 20 October 2007 (UTC) Sadly, the only way to do that, short of possibly writing some CSS, is to delete your userpage. WODUP (?) 05:13, 20 October 2007 (UTC) Well, as you probably realise, that is beyond my capabilities, so I've placed the code you suggested on my user page, WODUP. Thanks again for your very prompt help and assistance! Alice.S 06:10, 20 October 2007 (UTC) Okay. I found something that may work: User:Ais523/highlightmyname2.js. This script highlights your username on pages (including your watchlist). If you want to try it, you can add importScript('User:Ais523/highlightmyname2.js'); to User:Alice.S/monobook.js. If you decide against it after you add that to your monobook.js, you can just remove it, and it'll be back to how it is now. WODUP 11:20, 30 October 2007 (UTC) That works wonderfully - I've changed the code to show my name with a background in a fetching shade of Coral Pink - you really are the cat's whiskers, WODUP! Alice.S 07:47, 31 October 2007 (UTC) recent edits at de facto Your recent edits at de facto appear to have changed many non-italic text bits to italics. This is in contradiction two principles. (1) If it's in an English dictionary, it's appropriated and should not be italicized (this is the Chicago manual of styles definition of appropriation, but Wikipedia does not have one to the best of my knowledge and it's a good rule of thumb), and (2) the exclusion for the topic of the article in WP:ITALICS#Foreign_terms. Would you mind fixing the article so that neither de facto, nor de jure is italicized? Pdbailey 13:54, 20 October 2007 (UTC) Thank you for taking the time to explain your point of view. My reasoning was as follows: 1) a) Is "de jure" a phrase or a word? I decided that it was a foreign phrase (in latin) that did not (yet) have everyday usage (other than in legal and constitutional, etc, circles) and, therefore, that "Wikipedia prefers italics for phrases in other languages...". Adding weight to this argument was that de jure is usually italicized in legal texts b) an additional consideration was that, throughout our article, de jure is contrasted with de facto and it is helpful to italicise to emphasise the distinction. 2) I did not italicise de jure in the title of the article as per WP:ITALICS#Foreign_terms but think that in the body of the article the italicisation is clearer and thus trumps any style preference but realise that this is a fine point. I have, therefore, copied this passage to our article's discussion page for further input from other editors. That being the case, I would prefer not to self-revert until consensus has been achieved but do feel free to revert me if you are utterly convinced I am wrong since I am very new here! I also think it might be worth you starting a discussion on the Chicago manual of style's definition of appropriation at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (text formatting) which, I'm sure, would benefit from your erudite input? Alice.S 21:35, 20 October 2007 (UTC) Alics.S, in your post regarding this same topic on the talk page you mentioned interest in WP:IAR. You may find that the WP:IAR? an interesting read. My interpretation is that there is no reason for a rule to make Wikipedia not all that it can be. I hope you enjoy editing Wikipedia. BTW, I generally put comments not about a article on the talk page, and comments to an editor, or unrelated to a specific article on the user's talk page. However, I generally request what I consider to be clear candidates for reversion on the talk page if the edit appears to have been made in good faith--but with a misunderstanding of the rule or policy in question. I'll admit right off the bat that i don't always know the policy as well as I think, so it's fine to challenge me, and it was fine but not necessary (in my opinion) to move that challenge to the talk page of the article. Finally, thanks for being courteous throughout this conversation.Pdbailey 02:34, 21 October 2007 (UTC) I'm very sorry if I did something wrong by trying to discuss things on the article's talk page - I really don't wish to challenge you in any shape or form and please forgive me as a newbie if that's how it appeared. I just assumed it would be OK to have a public discussion since I didn't think it right that just some of the occurrences of de jure should be italicized but not others. I really don't wish to fall out with anyone on Wikipedia and, as I said before, feel free to just make the changes without further discussion if you feel The Economist`s Style Guide is clearly wrong at http://www.economist.com/research/styleGuide/index.cfm?page=805685 Alice.S 02:51, 21 October 2007 (UTC) I think we are poking at the underbelly of this particular policy. Usually when I do this I get one short response from one other editor over at the guideline page and it's often not all that well thought out--but sometimes I get a gem. BTW, you are far from falling out with me (quite the opposite), I was trying to say thank you and give you a tip as to how things usually proceed because you appear to be new and curious about how Wikipedia works. Pdbailey 06:07, 21 October 2007 (UTC) I do really apologise for the misunderstanding - it may be a gender thing or the fact that I am very new to online argumentation - it's quite difficult when there are no smiles or tones of voice to give you a clue. Thank you very much for being patient, tolerant and understanding with me. Please feel free to correct my howlers - I'm trying to learn as much as I can as quickly as I can. Alice.S 06:17, 21 October 2007 (UTC) Vanuatu Sorry, it's easy to forget that jargon and abbreviations are not easy to recognize by the new. "rv" just means revert, which I did because I think "European ethnic groups" is not an appropriate place to direct readers to. Ethnic groups did not colonize Vanuatu, it was European nations, and "Europe" is what most readers will expect to find when they click that link. If there's anything else you need, feel free to ask.--Cúchullain t/c 21:05, 21 October 2007 (UTC) Thanks for clarifying both the abbreviation and the reason for the revert that I queried at your user talk page. I would slightly disagree with you that these were all national government sponsored and organised expeditions - some of the very first landings were by privateers that would have been executed by their respective (European) governments if they had been caught- but no matter. There was also a distinct feeling of ethnic superiority and solidarity amongst the colonisers which many Vanuatuans feel is still relevant. Alice.S 21:21, 21 October 2007 (UTC) Replied... to you here NoSeptember 01:31, 29 October 2007 (UTC)]] Re:Thanks again for the good advice You are most welcome, and please do feel free to do modifications as you please. This is your talk page afterall, and a beautiful one at that! Meanwhile, I notice you still appear to have some problems with the signature part. You only need to insert --~~~~ behind your comments. No need to manually type in your name and timestamp. Hope this helps!--Huaiwei 01:48, 30 October 2007 (UTC) That's exactly what I do, Huawei, but because I do not (and do not want a user page) a bug in Sinebot thinks I haven't signed. Sinebot's owner was kind enough to respond to my concerns here: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Slakr&oldid=167995998#Sinebot_signs_after_my_signature Please keep up your mentorship - it's much appreciated! Alice.S 08:42, 30 October 2007 (UTC) Tokelau Hi, and thanks for your message. I agree with you on the issue of dates and spellings, although I sympathise with User:Perspicacite as it can be very difficult to keep that rule in mind. Two suggestions for you; next time there would be no harm in dropping the other editor a polite and friendly note reminding them about ENGVAR, and also by reverting all Perspicacite's changes out you may have lost a number that were good. Rather than reverting, consider a compromise version which uses the best of both versions. I may have a look at doing this if I have time, or else you might want to. Best wishes to you --John 17:51, 3 November 2007 (UTC) Thanks for your interest and whatever assistance you can offer, John. Perspicacite has now reverted to his earlier version (for the third time, but over an interval of several days) and reintroduced the US-English spellings and date formats in our article about a Commonwealth territory. (The dates do matter a little since the majority of our readers are folks who either do not have a user account or who are not logged in). I was intrigued by User:Perspicacite's last (reverting) edit summary: where he stated "Bots will take care of national-spelling issues." Was he correct? There are also the matters of losing the picture by changing [[Image:Bowditch Tokelau.png|right|250px|thumb|Fakaofo islanders, drawn in 1841 by the [[United States Exploring Expedition]].]] to [[Image:Bowditch.png|right|250px|thumb|Fakaofo islanders, drawn in 1841 by the [[United States Exploring Expedition]].]] : Fakaofo islanders, drawn in 1841 by the United States Exploring Expedition. losing conversion templates such as {{convert|500|km|mi|0|lk=on|abbr=on}} - paradoxically meaning that the non-metric measurements which most Americans are most comfortable with now do not appear in our article. These two concerns are in addition to my concerns about changing (without consensus or discussion) to spellings and date formats to those prevalent in the USA, whereas Tokelau is a non self-governing colonial territory of the Commonwealth country of New Zealand and, therefore, the article has a strong connection to an WP:ENGVAR in addition to non US-English being the current variant. I have tried to assume good faith here but the other changes that Perspicacite made did not, in my opinion, improve the article and, consequently, are not really susceptible of incorporation. Indeed it could be said that some of the changes he made were contrary to the sources. The conclusion I have drawn after this third revert is that either these reverts are entirely careless of the efforts of other editors or that he is staking ownership of our Tokelau article. I really do not feel that I have enough experience as an editor to reprimand him effectively if it turns out his edit summary is also mendacious. Alice.S 03:09, 4 November 2007 (UTC) Alice.S you have now violated a number of policies. Your talkpage posts violate WP:CIVIL and WP:STALK. Following me onto the Frank Gaffney article and WP:AN/I qualifies as stalking and is a blockable offense. You have also violated WP:OWN through your persistent reverting on Tokelau without discussion. If you continue to violate Wikipedia's policies so blatantly I will have to contact administrators for assistance. Perspicacite 05:30, 4 November 2007 (UTC) Perspicacite, you were wrong about the Engvar issue. No big deal and it has been fixed. Can we all just leave it there? This issue was never very important in the first place, has become unduly personalised, and is now over, resolved, finished. Please don't start throwing alphabet soup around; I can't see any evidence of anything but misunderstanding between two good-faith editors here. These things happen. I suggest letting things cool off a little and addressing any further stylistic disagreements at Talk:Tokelau after a few days have passed. Let it be, and get on with something useful, please.--John 05:42, 4 November 2007 (UTC) That seems like good advice! See you over on the discussion page of Talk:Tokelau, Perspicacite? Alice.S 06:03, 4 November 2007 (UTC) No. I suggest you do a thorough reading of WP:OWN and WP:STALK. You do not follow users to other pages. You do not "own" Tokelau. Perspicacite 07:28, 4 November 2007 (UTC) I see that stalking "does not include checking up on an editor to fix errors or violations of Wikipedia policy, nor does it mean reading a user's contribution log; those logs are public for good reason. Using the edit history of users to correct related problems on multiple articles is part of the recommended practices both for Recent changes patrol (RCP) and WikiProject Spam. The important part is the disruption - disruption is considered harmful. Wikistalking is the act of following another user around in order to harass them." I also note that, at the time of writing, there does not seem to be support for your position at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents, Perspicacite: Stalking and Perspicacite/Frank Gaffney However, I shall try and draw something positive from this unpleasant little exchange; at least I got to read some interesting policies about civility and ownership and stalking and no personal attacks that I might have missed otherwise. I will continue to follow Wikipedia policy in editing articles that Perspicacite might have edited before since, judging by his history, he seems to spurn all efforts at reconciliation and I formally withdraw my offer not to edit articles which Perspicacite has previously edited. Alice.S 18:54, 4 November 2007 (UTC) UPDATE: Our perspicacious friend is now trying to get me blocked for two weeks!!!???!!! Alice.S 09:22, 8 November 2007 (UTC) Re:Category:New Zealand-Pacific relations Hm... good question. To be honest, I didn't have a specific definition of Pacific in mind when I made the category. I initially used it for articles relating to the history of NZ in the Pacific islands, but articles on NZ's relationship with countries like Japan do make some sense being in there (but not - as Gadfium says - articles like Japan itself). Thanks for the comments on the paintings - I should take that banner off my talk page, the exhibition finished a couple of weeks ago! It went well, though with fewer sales than I would have liked. Lots of good comments and a couple of good reviews, though. I have quite a few on my paintings up at my website here and follow the links to the "by year" pages :) Grutness...wha? 23:43, 4 November 2007 (UTC) I do like Liz and the reiteration of the Sydney Harbour Bridge is wonderful, James. "Life's a long song" is really poignant, too. Have you ever shown any stuff in Singapore - there's lot's of folk with high disposable income here now... I'm going to try and make the category description a bit more explicit - just correct me if I do anything you don't like. I'm also going to take a look at some articles (beginning with Samoa) to see if they can be appropriately added to your category (which looks a bit on the sparse side...). Best wishes! Alice.S 07:07, 5 November 2007 (UTC) Sounds fair. As far as I'm concerned, any articles directly connected to NZ's links with Pacific Island or Pacific Rim countries are probably suitable. Any articles on Samoan links are definitely woith putting in there, since Samoa was a New Zealand territory at one time, though again, the category would be more for things like History of Samoa than for Samoa itself. I'm glad you like my art - no, I haven't exhibited outside New Zealand yet, though several people from other countries have bought my work either through my website or through seeing it in galleries while visiting New Zealand. Oh, and it's "Kia ora", BTW, though it's normally used more as a greeting than at the end of a message :) Grutness...wha? 23:51, 5 November 2007 (UTC) Thanks very much for your prompt and helpful reply, James. I've already added the History of Samoa to your category (that article seems like it could really do with some knowledgeable editors - I'm certainly not one) and I'll watch out for any others. Sorry about the "Kia ora" (maybe now you understand the "Bimbo" stereotype about beauty pageant queens...) What would be a good thing to say at the end of a message to someone from New Zealand? Alice.S 23:57, 5 November 2007 (UTC) For maintaining civility under stress NeilN has smiled at you! Smiles promote WikiLove and hopefully this one has made your day better. Spread the WikiLove by smiling at someone else, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past or a good friend. Happy editing! Smile at others by adding {{subst:Smile}} to their talk page with a friendly message. WP:3RR You are on the verge of violating WP:3RR, making more than three reversions to an article in a 24-hour period. A fourth reversion will result in a 24 hour block. Perspicacite 10:06, 8 November 2007 (UTC)