User talk:Neil Conley

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 * User talk:Neoconned/April 2005-March 2007

Referencing systems
(cc of message on User talk:Artificial Intelligence)

Hi again AI,

Sheldon mentioned to me recently that you're not very happy with the new Cite.php referencing system. So I thought I'd drop you a line and get your take. I actually disliked it at first, too, but I've come round to it now. Here are the things I like about it:


 * References travel with the text. If someone splits an article in half, in most cases the references will still be fine in both new articles (although one has to be a little careful with citations that are referenced more than once in the same article).
 * The links to/from the citations actually work properly now.
 * Putting the citation text in the main body of the article is less ugly to edit than I expected, in fact I'm beginning to like it.
 * And having to do that forces people to provide citations along with their references (because the citation actually generates the ref link).
 * It's become the standard over at wikipedia (after a long period of controversy!)
 * And it means that references are now properly integrated into the mediawiki software - ie. the software "knows" they are refs.

There's still a place for the old-style citations in "Other external links". In the articles I've converted so far, this is where I put external links that don't directly serve to justify the article's content, but are good background reading.

So, what's your take on this? (Since you delete your talk page messages once you've replied, I'll cc this onto my talk page too...)

Regards, --Neoconned 07:56, 18 May 2007 (EDT)

Re front page tweak
No need to ask, go right ahead. cheers --Bob Burton 18:39, 14 June 2007 (EDT)

Curiosity .... satisfied the cat
Just took a Google satellite "peak" at Bob Sikes and there, ta da! sits a very, VERY black (as in almost disappears into the pavement) aircraft. No distinguishing marks visible from "above" in this view ! Too funny !

Another "peak" shows a neat little row of much smaller "white" aircraft, with a little "black sheep" in the midst. Artificial Intelligence 12:22, 9 July 2007 (EDT)


 * Sounds like fun... although remember that unlike some other airstrips featured in SW, most of the traffic at Bob Sikes is genuinely civilian. So those aircraft are likely to be commuter jets or suchlike. However if you can locate the actual Tepper hangar (which should be possible as it's specified in their postal address), it could be interesting to see what was parked outside the day the image was taken. :) --Neoconned 12:34, 9 July 2007 (EDT)

Page protection
If you would simply check, you will see that I unprotected to allow registered users to leave messages, which was a change from allowing only sysops to access my Talk page. What more do you think I should do? Artificial Intelligence 07:21, 10 July 2007 (EDT)


 * Doh! How stupid of me. My apologies, I had totally failed to grasp that. Although surely the page doesn't actually need to be protected to achieve that? Since these days only registered users can edit pages. Rgds --Neoconned 08:51, 10 July 2007 (EDT)

About M
Thank you, I do now, if I made wrong please help meFabrice10 04:04, 26 July 2007 (EDT)

SW: Talon Swords - weaponized battle robots deployed
Neoconned,

I don't know if this is relevant to you, but the US has now deployed the first weaponized robots onto the battlefield in Iraq

It is the Talon Swords manufactured by Foster-Miller

Some Links
 * youTube
 * Foster-Miller Talon home page
 * DoD Defense Link: Armed Robots to March into Battle
 * National Defense magazine
 * Wired Blog: First Armed Robots on Patrol in Iraq
 * and where I was clued in: Iraq Slogger

If you are unfamiliar with Iraq Slogger, here are two of their categories you ma yfind informative:


 * Iraq Contractors
 * Iraq Corruption

cheers,

--hugh_manateee 16:36, 4 August 2007 (EDT)

cc NC, BB, AI


 * Cheers for the heads-up about the robots, Hugh. For some unaccountable reason, I find the news deeply depressing. --Neoconned 19:34, 7 August 2007 (EDT)

Log upload
Hi NC, I've uploaded the log It's at http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Image:FlightAware_Live_Flight_Tracker_History_N611C.pdf

cheers --Bob Burton 05:49, 5 October 2007 (EDT)

Headline text
Joseph Lieberman

I have posted a newspaper article that demonstrates that John Orman is the chairman of the Connecticut for Lieberman party. If you can demonstrate otherwise, I will agree with your deletions. If not, please do not delete mine. (23:08, 12 October 2007 User:James T.)


 * Hi James T. As I explained previously, the problem with your previous edits to the Joseph Lieberman article was that they wiped out about a month's worth of good faith edits by other contributors, most of which had nothing to do with the problem you say you were trying to fix. That's why I reverted your previous edits. The edit you recently made, which you describe above, is fine. You've made one small change to the article without destroying other people's work. So I have no problem with letting that edit stand. Cheers, --Neil Conley 10:24, 16 October 2007 (EDT)


 * I just noticed this exchange and think there may have been some kind of misunderstanding here. It looks like James T. made an edit that he described in the summary as "revert to 20 August 2007 post by Artificial Intelligence":


 * http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Joseph_Lieberman&diff=263028&oldid=262096


 * If this edit had reverted to AI's August 20 version, it would indeed have "wiped out about a month's worth of good faith edits by other contributors." In fact, however, James T.'s edit only made a fairly small change to the page. I suspect that Neil relied on the edit summary as his basis for reverting James's change, without actually examining the diff. In the end, therefore, this seems to be a very minor disagreement based on a simple misunderstanding, in which both parties were acting in good faith. --Sheldon Rampton 15:49, 16 October 2007 (EDT)


 * Thanks for pointing that out Sheldon - you're right. I should have taken a look at the diff, instead of just the edit summary. Cheers, --Neil Conley 12:16, 22 October 2007 (EDT)