text:
African refugees allege forced labour by Turkish police

December 9, 2006

A group of African refugees complained to the Helsinki Citizen's Assembly (HCA) Refugee Support Program that they were taken under custody and that they were forced to work for the Turkish police.

According to H.R.M., a 38 years old refugee from Democratic Republic of Congo who has been in Turkey for the last 16 months, on November 30th, when the Pope was visiting Hagia Sophia and Sultan Ahmed Mosque, he and his twelve roommates decided not to go outside because of the rumours that blacks were being taken under custody by the Turkish police. However, when he ended up having to go outside to buy food at 10pm, he was taken under custody and put on a police car. H.R.M. claims to find himself in Sultanahmet area, where There were two empty trucks and many safety fences. They told us 'we will not arrest you if you pick these up'. I started picking up fences and put them to the first truck. When the first truck was full, I lined up those that were picked up by other in the trunk of the second truck.

According to H.R.M.'s claims, this took about two hours, after which they were taken to a work site where they were made to empty the fences in the trucks. He tells: They told us to empty the fences there. I couldn't work because my hand was cut at Sultanahmet. They didn't force me to work. The work was done at 5am. They dropped us at Kumkapı. They gave us food once.

He complains that he was treated like a slave by the Turkish police. He says: At Sultanahmet, I asked the police officer why only blacks were taken, he didn't answer. I felt myself like a slave. This happened once before in İzmir, where I was fired from a job because I asked them to give me my money.

Özlem Dalkıran, a spokeswoman for HCA Refugees Support Program told that they were receiving many reports of collective false arrests and forced labor and that they will be reporting these to the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

The İstanbul Police Office released a press statement that said they "do not think any response to the allegations would be appropriate".

There are many illegal African immigrants in Istanbul seeking a way into Europe; which has led to conflicts with native Turks.


text:
Rice offers to talk with Iran and Syria

December 9, 2006

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told reporters that she would be prepared to meet the Iranian foreign secretary, at any time and anywhere. But Iran must stop its uranium enrichment activities "so that they can't keep improving those enrichment capabilities while we talk."

She said that, if it suited their interests, both Iran and Syria would stabilize Iraq without having to be asked to do so by the United States. If they wanted compensation to do so, that would be another matter and she would have to ask what it was they wanted.

She reiterated her commitment to trying to heal the rift in Arab/Israeli relations in Palestine.

Interviewed by David Frost for Al Jazeera television, James Baker, with Lee Hamilton, joint author of the Iraq Study Report said that the President had been positive about the Report and that he had indicated willingness to talk with both Iran and Syria.

Massoud Barzani leader of the Kurdish region of Iraq and Iraq's President, Jalal Talabani, also a Kurd, agreed in the opinion that US Iraq Study Group report is "unrealistic and inappropriate". Mr Barzani was unconvinced by the idea of involving Iran and Syria in discussions aimed at pacifying Iraq. He complained that the Study Group had ignored the Kurds in the Northern region in their investigations.

Source

USA tilbyr samtaler med Iran og Syria

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Rice offers to talk with Iran and Syria


text:
Talk:African refugees allege forced labour by Turkish police

Thinking to unpublish?
Rather than unpublishing, please add a comment here as to what to fix, or better yet, just drop a brief note to towsonu2003 at gmail dot com. If you can't help but unpublish it, you need to please add a reason here in the discussion page so we can fix it :) thanks
 * What is wrong with this article is that it does not have multiple sources (preferably in English) that can verify the substantial claims of abuse/slavery. English sources are preferred because any of our contributors can check them, I have software that makes an effort at translating Turkish into English, and what I get is not enough to reliably confirm the details given in our story.  This is the single source for the torture allegations so the article qualifies for the single source tag. --Brian McNeil / talk 14:38, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Please see the section below Towsonu2003 18:08, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Slavery is quite likely flat wrong. More likely, the Turkish police simply thretened to deport them if they didn't work.  Which, while not very nice, is simply not slavery.   Nyarlathotep 14:43, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Interesting :) Please see Slavery where it states:
 * "Historically, slavery has generally occurred as a means of securing the labour of the slave, without the right of the slave to refuse, leave or receive anything in return for their labour other than food, accommodation and clothing. As such slavery is one form of unfree labour."
 * The victim here is being forced to work for free by the police. Also see this news item where the term modern day slavery is used to refer to "shocking working conditions, denied rights, blackmail, fraud before deportation", which is what the victim faced here in this news item. Towsonu2003 18:06, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Its not forced if they are given a choice between deportation and labor, and can choose deportation at any time. And "fraud before deportation", i.e. lying about not deporting them to gain labor, *is* worth calling slavery.  Its actually quite common for police in any nation to negotiate with people they have caught.  Normally the public frowns upon this when the negotiation is for anything besides information on catching other criminals.  But it does still happen.  Don't devalue the word slavery.  Real slavery is a terrible practice which still exists today.  And its real victims don't end up finding their way to Finland in large numbers.  Nyarlathotep 10:06, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
 * "Its not forced if they are given a choice between deportation and labor" => is that a joke? seriously?
 * "its real victims don't end up finding their way to Finland in large numbers" => oh... now I get the underlying ideology you've got there... Towsonu2003 19:43, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Source and Title
The victim accuses the police and tells that "he feels he was treated like a slave". The title here is the translation of Radikal's title for the same item. Please check the wiki article on Radikal (a well-known Turkish newspaper) before thinking that this is pov. Towsonu2003 17:56, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
 * As per the "only one non-english source":
 * 1. The tag you put on the page tells you that local stories are exempt (click on "show")
 * 2. Also see this discussion where the following are documented:
 * a. Water_cooler/policy/Archive/12
 * b. Water_cooler/policy/Archive/4
 * by InfantGorilla

Thank you -Towsonu2003 17:56, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Regarding new title by Doldrums: nice :-) thank you -Towsonu2003 18:55, 9 December 2006 (UTC)


text:
British computer scientist's new "nullity" idea provokes reaction from mathematicians

December 11, 2006

On December 7, BBC News reported a story about Dr James Anderson, a teacher in the Computer Science department at the University of Reading in the United Kingdom. In the report it was stated that Anderson had "solved a very important problem" that was 1200 years old, the problem of division by zero. According to the BBC, Anderson had created a new number, that he had named "nullity", that lay outside of the real number line. Anderson terms this number a "transreal number", and denotes it with the Greek letter $$\Phi$$. He had taught this number to pupils at Highdown School, in Emmer Green, Reading.

Dr James A.D.W. Anderson is a member of the British Computer Society and a teacher in the Computer Science department (School of Systems Engineering) at the University of Reading. He was a psychology graduate who worked in the Electrical and Electronic Engineering departments at the University of Sussex and Plymouth Polytechnic (now the University of Plymouth). His doctorate is from the University of Reading for (in Anderson's words) "developing a canonical description of the perspective transformations in whole numbered dimensions".

Reactions
The BBC report provoked many reactions from mathematicians and others.

In reaction to the story, Mark C. Chu-Carroll, a computer scientist and researcher, posted a web log entry describing Anderson as an "idiot math teacher", and describing the BBC's story as "absolutely infuriating" and a story that "does an excellent job of demonstrating what total innumerate idiots reporters are". Chu-Carroll stated that there was, in fact, no actual problem to be solved in the first place. "There is no number that meaningfully expresses the concept of what it means to divide by zero.", he wrote, stating that all that Anderson had done was "assign a name to the concept of 'not a number'", something which was "not new" in that the IEEE floating-point standard, which describes how computers represent floating-point numbers, had included a concept of "not a number", termed "NaN", since 1985. Chu-Carroll further continued:
 * "Basically, he's defined a non-solution to a non-problem. And by teaching it to his students, he's doing them a great disservice. They're going to leave his class believing that he's a great genius who's solved a supposed fundamental problem of math, and believing in this silly nullity thing as a valid mathematical concept.
 * "It's not like there isn't already enough stuff in basic math for kids to learn; there's no excuse for taking advantage of a passive audience to shove this nonsense down their throats as an exercise in self-aggrandizement.
 * "To make matters worse, this idiot is a computer science professor! No one who's studied CS should be able to get away with believing that re-inventing the concept of NaN is something noteworthy or profound; and no one who's studied CS should think that defining meaningless values can somehow magically make invalid computations produce meaningful results. I'm ashamed for my field."

There have been a wide range of other reactions from other people to the BBC news story. Comments range from the humorous and the ironic, such as the B1FF-style observation that "DIVIDION [sic] BY ZERO IS IMPOSSIBLE BECAUSE MY CALCULATOR SAYS SO AND IT IS THE TRUTH" and the Chuck Norris Fact that "Only Chuck Norris can divide by zero." (to which another reader replied "Chuck Norris just looks at zero, and it divides itself."); through vigourous defences of Dr Anderson, with several people quoting the lyrics to Ira Gershwin's song "They All Laughed (At Christopher Columbus)"; to detailed mathematical discussions of Anderson's proposed axioms of transfinite numbers.

The reputation of the University of Reading
Several readers have commented that they consider this to have damaged the reputation of the Computer Science department, and even the reputation of the University of Reading as a whole. "By publishing his childish nonsense the BBC actively harms the reputation of Reading University." wrote one reader. "Looking forward to seeing Reading University maths application plummit." wrote another. "Ignore all research papers from the University of Reading." wrote a third. "I'm not sure why you refer to Reading as a 'university'. This is a place the BBC reports as closing down its physics department because it's too hard. Lecturers at Reading should stick to folk dancing and knitting, leaving academic subjects to grown ups." wrote a fourth. Steve Kramarsky lamented that Dr Anderson is not from the "University of 'Rithmetic".

BBC journalism
The proof that Anderson presented to the BBC, which BBC journalist Ollie Williams presented as Anderson's proof that one can divide by zero ("written [...] on the back of an envelope for added authenticity"), is the following: \begin{align} 0^0 & = 0^{1-1} \\ & = 0^1 \times 0^{-1} \\ & = \frac{0^1}{1} \times \frac{0^{-1}}{1} \\ & = \frac{0}{1} \times \frac{1}{0} \\ & = \frac{0}{0} \end{align} $$ In fact, this does not prove that one can divide by zero. Read from the top it is a syllogism that proves that, in Anderson's system of transreal numbers, since $$\frac{0}{0} = \Phi$$ (an axiom in Anderson's system) and $$0^0 = \frac{0}{0}$$ (a theorem in Anderson's system that Anderson proves as a lemma), therefore $$0^0 = \Phi$$ (in Anderson's system). This is not a proof that one can divide by zero. That is assumed axiomatically right at the start. It is a proof that if one can divide by zero to yield a single defined value, then zero raised to the zeroth power will have the same value.
 * $$\Phi = \frac{0}{0}$$
 * $$\therefore 0^0 = \frac{0}{0} = \Phi$$

Several readers criticised the journalists at the BBC who ran the story for not apparently contacting any mathematicians about Dr Anderson's idea. "Journalists are meant to check facts, not just accept whatever they are told by a self-interested third party and publish it without question." wrote one reader on the BBC's web site. However, on Slashdot another reader countered "The report is from Berkshire local news. Berkshire! Do you really expect a local news team to have a maths specialist? Finding a newsworthy story in Berkshire probably isn't that easy, so local journalists have to cover any piece of fluff that comes up. Your attitude to the journalist should be sympathy, not scorn."

Ben Goldacre, author of the Bad Science column in The Guardian, wrote on his web log that "what is odd is a reporter, editor, producer, newsroom, team, cameraman, soundman, TV channel, web editor, web copy writer, and so on, all thinking it’s a good idea to cover a brilliant new scientific breakthrough whilst clearly knowing nothing about the context. Maths isn’t that hard, you could even make a call to a mathematician about it.", continuing that "it’s all very well for the BBC to think they’re being balanced and clever getting Dr Anderson back in to answer queries about his theory on Tuesday, but that rather skips the issue, and shines the spotlight quite unfairly on him (he looks like a very alright bloke to me).".

From reading comments on his own web log as well as elsewhere, Goldacre concluded that he thought that "a lot of people might feel it’s reporter Ben Moore, and the rest of his doubtless extensive team, the people who drove the story, who we’d want to see answering the questions from the mathematicians.".

Andrej Bauer, a professional mathematician from Slovenia writing on the Bad Science web log, stated that "whoever reported on this failed to call a university professor to check whether it was really new. Any university professor would have told this reporter that there are many ways of dealing with division by zero, and that Mr. Anderson’s was just one of known ones."

Ollie Williams, one of the BBC Radio Berkshire reporters who wrote the BBC story, initially stated that "It seems odd to me that his theory would get as far as television if it's so easily blown out of the water by visitors to our site, so there must be something more to it." and directly responded to criticisms of BBC journalism on several points on his web log.

He pointed out that people should remember that his target audience was local people in Berkshire with no mathematical knowledge, and that he was "not writing for a global audience of mathematicians". "Some people have had a go at Dr Anderson for using simplified terminology too," he continued, "but he knows we're playing to a mainstream audience, and at the time we filmed him, he was showing his theory to a class of schoolchildren. Those circumstances were never going to breed an in-depth half-hour scientific discussion, and none of our regular readers would want that.".

On the matter of fact checking, he replied that "if you only want us to report scientific news once it's appeared, peer-reviewed, in a recognised journal, it's going to be very dry, and it probably won't be news.", adding that "It's not for the BBC to become a journal of mathematics — that's the job of journals of mathematics. It's for the BBC to provide lively science reporting that engages and involves people. And if you look at the original page, you'll find a list as long as your arm of engaged and involved people.".

Williams pointed out that "We did not present Dr Anderson's theory as gospel, although with hindsight it could have been made clearer that this is very much a theory and by no means universally accepted. But we certainly weren't shouting a mathematical revolution from the rooftops. Dr Anderson has, in one or two places, been chastised for coming to the media with his theory instead of his peers — a sure sign of a quack, boffin and/or crank according to one blogger. Actually, one of our reporters happened to meet him during a demonstration against the closure of the university's physics department a couple of weeks ago, got chatting, and discovered Dr Anderson reckoned he was onto something. He certainly didn't break the door down looking for media coverage.".

Mathematical analysis
Much of the debate has been muddied by people confusing Anderson's "transreal numbers" with the real numbers, and applying theorems from the latter to the former.

Mathematically, Anderson's "transreal numbers" are an entirely separate system from the real numbers, and the theorems that hold in the real numbers (many of which people take for granted) do not necessarily hold in the transreal numbers (and vice versa), because they cannot be deduced from the different set of initial axioms.

One example of this is the following: In the real number system, one would then proceed to cancel the left-hand side, yielding the contradictory result that $$1 = \Phi^2$$, and many commentators' arguments have proceeded along just such lines. Anderson's axioms, however, explicitly disallow the cancellation of something and its reciprocal when the something happens to be $$\Phi$$. By definition $$x \times x^{-1}$$ does not equal $$1$$ when $$x = \Phi$$.
 * $$\Phi^{-1} = \Phi$$ (axiomatically)
 * $$\Phi \times \Phi^{-1} = \Phi^2$$ (multiply both sides)

Anderson's axioms contain several such differences from those of the real numbers. Mark C. Chu-Carroll notes that, for example, the transreal numbers do not contain a single, unique, additive identity. In the transreal numbers, $$0 + x = x$$ only holds when $$x \neq \Phi$$. For $$\Phi$$, $$\Phi + \Phi = \Phi$$. Chu-Carroll explains that there is thus no single unique additive identity in the transreal numbers, with $$\Phi$$ being its own additive identity, and thus the requirements for a mathematical field are not met by Anderson's transreal numbers.

Some commentators, at the BBC web page and at Slashdot, have attempted serious mathematical descriptions of what Anderson has done, and subjected it to analysis. One description was that Anderson has taken the field of real numbers and given it complete closure so that all six of the common arithmetic operators were surjective functions, resulting in "an object which is barely a commutative ring (with operators with tons of funky corner cases)" and no actual gain "in terms of new theorems or strong relation statements from the extra axioms he has to tack on".

Jamie Sawyer, a mathematics undergraduate at the University of Warwick writing in the Warwick Maths Society discussion forum, describes what Anderson has done as deciding that $$\mathbb{R} \cup \lbrace -\infty, +\infty \rbrace$$, the so-called extended real number line, is "not good enough [...] because of the wonderful issue of what $$\frac{0}{0}$$ is equal to" and therefore creating a number system $$\mathbb{R} \cup \lbrace -\infty, \Phi, +\infty \rbrace$$.

Andrej Bauer stated that Anderson's axioms of transreal arithmetic "are far from being original. First, you can adjoin $$+\infty$$ and $$-\infty$$ to obtain something called the extended real line. Then you can adjoin a bottom element to represent an undefined value. This is all standard and quite old. In fact, it is well known in domain theory, which deals with how to represent things we compute with, that adjoining just bottom to the reals is not a good idea. It is better to adjoin many so-called partial elements, which denote approximations to reals. Bottom is then just the trivial approximation which means something like 'any real' or 'undefined real'."

Commentators have pointed out that in the field of mathematical analysis, $$\frac{0}{0}$$ (which Anderson has defined axiomatically to be $$\Phi$$) is the limit of several functions, each of which tends to a different value at its limit:
 * $$\lim_{x \to 0}\frac{x}{0}$$ has two different limits, depending from whether $$x$$ approaches zero from a positive or from a negative direction.
 * $$\lim_{x \to 0}\frac{0}{x}$$ also has two different limits. (This is the argument that commentators gave.  In fact, $$\frac{0}{x}$$ has the value $$0$$ for all $$x \neq 0$$, and thus only one limit.  It is simply discontinuous for $$x = 0$$.  However, that limit is different to the two limits for $$\lim_{x \to 0}\frac{x}{0}$$, supporting the commentators' main point that the values of the various limits are all different.)
 * Whilst $$\sin 0 = 0$$, the limit $$\lim_{x \to 0}\frac{\sin x}{x}$$ can be shown to be 1, by expanding the sine function as an infinite Taylor series, dividing the series by $$x$$, and then taking the limit of the result, which is 1.
 * Whilst $$1 - \cos 0 = 0$$, the limit $$\lim_{x \to 0}\frac{1 - \cos x}{x}$$ can be shown to be 0, by expanding the cosine function as an infinite Taylor series, dividing the series subtracted from 1 by $$x$$, and then taking the limit of the result, which is 0.

Commentators have also noted l'Hôpital's rule.

It has been pointed out that Anderson's set of transreal numbers is not, unlike the set of real numbers, a mathematical field. Simon Tatham, author of PuTTY, stated that Anderson's system "doesn't even think about the field axioms: addition is no longer invertible, multiplication isn't invertible on nullity or infinity (or zero, but that's expected!). So if you're working in the transreals or transrationals, you can't do simple algebraic transformations such as cancelling $$x$$ and $$-x$$ when both occur in the same expression, because that transformation becomes invalid if $$x$$ is nullity or infinity. So even the simplest exercises of ordinary algebra spew off a constant stream of 'unless x is nullity' special cases which you have to deal with separately — in much the same way that the occasional division spews off an 'unless x is zero' special case, only much more often."

Tatham stated that "It's telling that this monstrosity has been dreamed up by a computer scientist: persistent error indicators and universal absorbing states can often be good computer science, but he's stepped way outside his field of competence if he thinks that that also makes them good maths.", continuing that Anderson has "also totally missed the point when he tries to compute things like $$0^0$$ using his arithmetic. The reason why things like that are generally considered to be ill-defined is not because of a lack of facile 'proofs' showing them to have one value or another; it's because of a surfeit of such 'proofs' all of which disagree! Adding another one does not (as he appears to believe) solve any problem at all." (In other words: $$0^0$$ is what is known in mathematical analysis as an indeterminate form.)

Not a Not a Number
To many observers, it appears that Anderson has done nothing more than re-invent the idea of "NaN", a special value that computers have been using in floating-point calculations to represent undefined results for over two decades. In the various international standards for computing, including the IEEE floating-point standard and IBM's standard for decimal arithmetic, a division of any non-zero number by zero results in one of two special infinity values, "+Inf" or "-Inf", the sign of the infinity determined by the signs of the two operands (Negative zero exists in floating-point representations.); and a division of zero by zero results in NaN.

Anderson himself denies that he has re-invented NaN, and in fact claims that there are problems with NaN that are not shared by nullity. According to Anderson, "mathematical arithmetic is sociologically invalid" and IEEE floating-point arithmetic, with NaN, is also faulty. In one of his papers on a "perspex machine" dealing with "The Axioms of Transreal Arithmetic" (Jamie Sawyer writes that he has "worries about something which appears to be named after a plastic" — "Perspex" being a trade name for polymethyl methacrylate in the U.K..) Anderson writes:
 * We cannot accept an arithmetic in which a number is not equal to itself (NaN != NaN), or in which there are three kinds of numbers: plain numbers, silent numbers, and signalling numbers; because, on writing such a number down, in daily discourse, we can not always distinguish which kind of number it is and, even if we adopt some notational convention to make the distinction clear, we cannot know how the signalling numbers are to be used in the absence of having the whole program and computer that computed them available. So whilst IEEE floating-point arithmetic is an improvement on real arithmetic, in so far as it is total, not partial, both arithmetics are invalid models of arithmetic.

In fact, the standard convention for distinguishing the two types of NaNs when writing them down can be seen in ISO/IEC 10967, another international standard for how computers deal with numbers, which uses "qNaN" for non-signalling ("quiet") NaNs and "sNaN" for signalling NaNs. Anderson continues:
 * [NaN's] semantics are not defined, except by a long list of special cases in the IEEE standard.

"In other words," writes Scott Lamb, a BSc. in Computer Science from the University of Idaho, "they are defined, but he doesn't like the definition.".

The main difference between nullity and NaN, according to both Anderson and commentators, is that nullity compares equal to nullity, whereas NaN does not compare equal to NaN. Commentators have pointed out that in very short order this difference leads to contradictory results. They stated that it requires only a few lines of proof, for example, to demonstrate that in Anderson's system of "transreal arithmetic" both $$1 = 2$$ and $$1 \neq 2$$, after which, in one commentator's words, one can "prove anything that you like". In aiming to provide a complete system of arithmetic, by adding extra axioms defining the results of the division of zero by zero and of the consequent operations on that result, half as many again as the number of axioms of real-number arithmetic, Anderson has produced a self-contradictory system of arithmetic, in accordance with Gödel's incompleteness theorems.

"Step 3: Profit!"
When one thinks of supercomputers made of Perspex, one might think of Orac. However, the "Perspex" in Dr Anderson's proposed "Perspex machine" is a contraction of "perspective simplex". Dr Anderson states that it is a hypercomputer capable of solving the halting problem.

According to Anderson's company presentation to investors, his proposed Perspex machine will have:
 * "No circuitry for handling arithmetical exceptions, because there are no arithmetical exceptions."
 * "No circuitry to choose instructions because there is only one instruction."
 * "No circuitry to decode an instruction because an instruction is itself."

Perspex machines, according to Anderson, implement computer programs as geometrical structures, rather than as a series of instructions. A "perspex" is, in Anderson's words, "a new geometrical computer instruction that looks like an artificial neuron. Any existing computer program can be compiled into a network of these neurons.".

Commentators have noted that any machine that disproved the Church–Turing thesis would be a significant development in computer science. Anderson does not claim to have done this, and has not yet created a perspex machine. He states that he has demonstrated, in computer simulations, all of the "Turing computable subsets of all the properties [of a perspex machine]".

Students at the University of Reading have been working on projects involving Anderson's perspex machines over the past few years. In 2005, student Matthew Spanner, as his fourth year project towards an MEng in Computer Science & Cybernetics from Reading, created a "compiler, written and implemented in the AI language Pop11, which is capable of compiling C programs into perspex programs that can be executed on the computer, either in Pop11 or using the perspex machine GUI".

One reader-submitted comment appended to the BBC news article read "Step 1. Create solution 2. Create problem 3. PROFIT!", an allusion to the business plan employed by the underpants gnomes of the comedy television series South Park. In fact, Anderson does plan to profit from nullity, having registered on the 27th of July, 2006 a private limited company named Transreal Computing Ltd, whose mission statement is "to develop hardware and software to bring you fast and safe computation that does not fail on division by zero" and to "promote education and training in transreal computing". The company is currently "in the research and development phase prior to trading in hardware and software".

In a presentation given to potential investors in his company at the ANGLE plc showcase on the 28th of November, 2006, held at the University of Reading, Anderson stated his aims for the company as being: To investors, Anderson makes the following promises: He asks potential investors:
 * To build a transreal computer.
 * To derive Maxwell's equations and classical gravitation in transreal numbers so that they have no naked singularities (infinities affecting a neighbourhood of space).
 * To collaborate with anyone who wants to unify Quantum Electro-Dynamics with gravitation.
 * "I will help you develop a curriculum for transreal arithmetic if you want me to."
 * "I will help you unify QED and gravitation if you want me to."
 * "I will build a transreal supercomputer."
 * "How much would you pay to know that the engine in your ship, car, aeroplane, or heart pacemaker won't just stop dead?"
 * "How much would you pay to know that your Government’s computer controlled military hardware won’t just stop or misfire?"

The current models of computer arithmetic are, in fact, already designed to allow programmers to write programs that will continue in the event of a division by zero. The IEEE's Frequently Asked Questions document for the floating-point standard gives this reply to the question "Why doesn't division by zero (or overflow, or underflow) stop the program or trigger an error?":
 * "The [IEEE] 754 model encourages robust programs. It is intended not only for numerical analysts but also for spreadsheet users, database systems, or even coffee pots. The propagation rules for NaNs and infinities allow inconsequential exceptions to vanish. Similarly, gradual underflow maintains error properties over a precision's range.
 * "When exceptional situations need attention, they can be examined immediately via traps or at a convenient time via status flags. Traps can be used to stop a program, but unrecoverable situations are extremely rare. Simply stopping a program is not an option for embedded systems or network agents. More often, traps log diagnostic information or substitute valid results."

Simon Tatham stated that there is a basic problem with Anderson's ideas, and thus with the idea of building a transreal supercomputer: "It's a category error. The Anderson transrationals and transreals are theoretical algebraic structures, capable of representing arbitrarily big and arbitrarily precise numbers. So the question of their error-propagation semantics is totally meaningless: you don't use them for down-and-dirty error-prone real computation, you use them for proving theorems.  If you want to use this sort of thing in a computer, you have to think up some concrete representation of Anderson transfoos in bits and bytes, which will (if only by the limits of available memory) be unable to encompass the entire range of the structure. And the point at which you make this transition from theoretical abstract algebra to concrete bits and bytes is precisely where you should also be putting in error handling, because it's where errors start to become possible. We define our theoretical algebraic structures to obey lots of axioms (like the field axioms, and total ordering) which make it possible to reason about them efficiently in the proving of theorems. We define our practical number representations in a computer to make it easy to detect errors. The Anderson transfoos are a consequence of fundamentally confusing the one with the other, and that by itself ought to be sufficient reason to hurl them aside with great force."

Geomerics, a start-up company specializing in simulation software for physics and lighting and funded by ANGLE plc, had been asked to look into Anderson's work by an unnamed client. Rich Wareham, a Senior Research and Development Engineer at Geomerics and a MEng. from the University of Cambridge, stated that Anderson's system "might be a more interesting set of axioms for dealing with arithmetic exceptions but it isn't the first attempt at just defining away the problem. Indeed it doesn't fundamentally change anything. The reason computer programs crash when they divide by zero is not that the hardware can produce no result, merely that the programmer has not dealt with NaNs as they propagate through. Not dealing with nullities will similarly lead to program crashes."

"Do the Anderson transrational semantics give any advantage over the IEEE ones?", Wareham asked, answering "Well one assumes they have been thought out to be useful in themselves rather than to just propagate errors but I'm not sure that seeing a nullity pop out of your code would lead you to do anything other than what would happen if a NaN or Inf popped out, namely signal an error.".


text:
Talk:British computer scientist's new "nullity" idea provokes reaction from mathematicians

Original reporting
I have a further communication from Mark C. Chu-Carroll that has yet to be used. I also have a communication from a Professor of Mathematics at the University of Warwick, which I have asked for permission to quote from. I have also requested comments from various other people. Jonathan de Boyne Pollard 02:05, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

There is a reader comment below the BBC news story that purports to have been written by Dr Roy Johnstone, lecturer in the Mathematics department at the University of Reading. It should not be used unless authenticated. I have sent electronic mail to Dr Johnstone, asking whether he did in fact write that comment, but have not yet received any reply. Jonathan de Boyne Pollard 02:35, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Mathematical analysis
I'm not sure exactly what it is that commentators have said, but the explanation that 0/x and x/0 have different left/right hand limits is sloppy at best. A more correct summary is that the limit as (x,y)->(0,0) of x/y depends on the angle of approach. 75.6.254.27 12:06, 10 December 2006 (UTC) JB
 * I suggest that you read the cited sources and find out what the commentators have said, then. If what they have said is wrong, your argument is with them, not with Wikinews.  Your only argument with Wikinews is if this article misrepresents their commentary.  Jonathan de Boyne Pollard 12:31, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

The page claims the system is inconsistant. As per the discussion on the Wikipedia talk page, this does not appear to be the case. Rather, the system has changed enough rules from regular algebra to make trivial disproofs invalid. 129.44.17.11 04:50, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
 * The commentators claimed that the system is inconsistent. The story is reporting this.  Wikinews is a news service. Jonathan de Boyne Pollard 11:17, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Deadline
There are three further things that I'd like to add to the piece: However, this is a news service, not an encyclopaedia. We cannot afford to wait indefinitely before publication. Therefore I'm setting a deadline of 16:00 UTC today, at which point I'm going to submit the story to "ready" status. I don't have the time to do the necessary legwork to research the history of Anderson writing about the "Perspex machine" in depth. (Anyone else willing to collaborate by doing the backgrounder, please feel free.) I've contacted the Mathematics department, and I really want to include its opinion on Anderson's work, as a counterpoint in the section on Reading's reputation. But I'm simply getting no responses to my enquiries. I think that I can write up the BBC's defence by that deadline. Jonathan de Boyne Pollard 11:22, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
 * a BBC Berkshire journalist's reaction to criticism and his defence of the BBC's choice to run the original BBC story.
 * a backgrounder on the "Perspex machine", which Anderson appears to have been hawking around (with no takers) for over 4 years, now, in an infobox
 * the reaction from the University of Reading Department of Mathematics, to flesh out the section on the university's reputation

Attribution
I've just written to Dr Roy Johnstone, of the University of Reading's Department of Mathematics, again, stressing that I really need confirmation that it really was him that wrote the comment signed with his name on the BBC's web site, and asking for any further comment from the Department of Mathematics because without any comment the Computer Science department is the representative to the world of mathematics at the university, as exemplified by this Reading University press release from this morning.

Perhaps some explanation is in order, as Nyarlathotep appears to be confused.

I've employed a pretty strict policy on what I've selected from web logs here. There are two sets of quotations used, those that specifically analyse the issue and those that merely exemplify the reactions. For the analyses, I've been strict about only selecting postings where, by following hyperlinks from pseudonyms, I've been able to track down people's real names and their (claimed) credentials. (I've cited the curricula vitae used.) I've been less strict about the quotations that simply exemplify reactions, such as the quotations that show the views about the university's reputation, since they are used merely to represent the opinions that people hold in their own words. In contrast, you'll note that the only views about Anderson, specifically, that are quoted are attributed to named people.

Unfortunately, the BBC's web site doesn't provide handy hyperlink-to-the-author features on its postings. (Notice that none of the analyses are sourced from comments on the BBC web site.) So the only way to know that Dr Roy Johnstone wrote what is attributed to him there (rather than someone else just using his name) is to ask him for confirmation that he wrote it. Jonathan de Boyne Pollard 12:32, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

'Proof' is not a proof of anything
Although the article correctly explains that Anderson's 'proof' is in fact not a proof that one can divide by zero, it incorrectly claims that it 'proves' that 0^0 = 0/0. In fact, it is not a proof at all. The line 0/1 * 1/0 = 0/0 is meaningless since even in Anderson's 'new system of numbers' 1/0 is undefined. 130.126.108.68 21:06, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for the very entertaining article and enjoy. 130.126.108.67 2006-12-13 00:36:22

 * the second infobox title and first sentence uses the wor 'proof' without any qualification, while noting later that the 'proof' is in fact, not one. i think the title and lead sentence shld be modified to reflect the "proof"'s status. one not-so-good (which is why i didn't do it already) way is using scare quotes. perhaps some rephrasing will help? — Doldrums(talk) 04:36, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
 * If you look at the second cited source by Ollie Williams, you'll see that Williams describes it as a proof. I did think of a minor clarification yesterday, but hesitated about adding it.  You've persuaded me to do so. Jonathan de Boyne Pollard 11:06, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

1/0 is still undefined, even if 0/0 is defined. Of course if 1/0 is defined then 0/0 is because '0*1/0 = 0/0', assuming the system isn't too broken. I took about five minutes to prove to myself that in fact all numbers in this system degenerate into zero, which you can easily verify from the axioms. This is precisely why division by zero is not allowed in general, because it only even begins to make sense in the ring with a single element: {0}. [To see this, consider 0*a = 0 for all a in our system, which is easily provable from say the ring axioms for a ring, such as the integers, or from the field axioms of the reals, or of any field. Then if we can divide by zero we have that a=0/0 for all a in the system, so all numbers are equal to 0/0. Since we already have zero, it must be the case that 0/0=0, as well as every other number in the system.]

So, the 'proof' does nothing but say that 0*0 = 0 repeatedly, and it uses many assumptions that are not initially justified, such as the existence of 1/0. Calling it a proof of anything is ludicrous. 130.126.108.68 21:06, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
 * The article points out in a sidebar that many people's mathematical analyses of Anderson's system are fallacious. Several commentators on the various web logs pointed out that a lot of people criticizing Anderson have got their own mathematics wrong. Ironically, the above is a prime example of such a completely fallacious analysis by someone who has their own mathematics wrong.  It conflates the real numbers with the transreal numbers when in fact they are based upon quite different axioms; it assumes that the transreal numbers are a field, when (as this article points out twice) they are not; and it substitutes the wrong value when cancelling zero with its reciprocal when dividing both sides of $$a\times 0=0$$ by zero.  If anything is in fact "ludicrous", it is the above. In the field $$\mathbb{R}, \frac{1}{0}$$ is undefined.  But in Anderson's transreal arithmetic, where Anderson's given proof applies, $$\frac{1}{0}=\infty$$ is well defined and is a simple consequence of axioms #14, #17, and #20.  Similarly, dividing both sides of $$a\times 0=0$$ by zero yields $$\frac{a\times 0}{0}=\frac{0}{0}$$ which by axioms #16, #17 and #20 becomes $$a\times 0 \times 0^{-1}=\Phi$$, $$a\times 0 \times \infty=\Phi$$, and hence $$a\times \Phi=\Phi$$ (which is axiom #15, incidentally).  And the theorem that  $$\forall x \neq -\infty: \frac{0}{x}\times\frac{x}{0}=0\times x^{-1}\times x\times0^{-1}=0\times 1\times0^{-1}=0\times 0^{-1}=\frac{0}{0}$$ is in fact a straightforward application of axioms #14, #17, and #18. Fortunately, I worked hard, and took more than 130.126.108.68's "five minutes", on the analyses in this article that aren't sourced to a third party, so that they don't contain fallacies such as 130.126.108.68's. Jonathan de Boyne Pollard 10:42, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Good work
Enjoyable read. Bawolff ☺☻ 01:52, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
 * second that. has this been on lead yet? — Doldrums(talk) 04:19, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Not to my knowledge. Jonathan de Boyne Pollard 11:01, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
 * is this synopsis ok: "Reading university teacher Dr. James Anderson's claim that he has devised a number system that handles the "divide by zero" problem has been challenged by academics and bloggers, who have also criticised the BBC for its reporting on the claim." ? any ideas for what image to be used on the lead? — Doldrums(talk) 11:10, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
 * That synopsis seems all right to me. It doesn't take sides.  As for an image, I don't have any.  We cannot use any of the BBC images, as that would not be fair use, and those are the only images that exist.  I suggest putting $$0^0 = \frac{0}{0} = \Phi$$ where you would normally have an image. Jonathan de Boyne Pollard 11:27, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
 * ! and a laugh... really laughing now after reading more closely! :}

 * Second the motion. Someone really did some work and it shows. My compliments for making a rather abstract feeling mathematical story quite readable! 68.39.174.238 21:53, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Quotes
Well, to be honest, when I got to the quote about the "idiot math teacher" I had to wonder if this article is about a crank, or if the crank was the one being quoted, because the phrase "idiot math teacher" sounds so much like the juvenile spouting-off one can hardly avoid in forums and blogs all over the net. No offense intended, but I think this kind of thing detracts from the credibility of the article. Calling someone an idiot is an exersize in juvenile bad behavior, and in my personal opinion the fact that the article quotes extensively from this man, who later is quoted as calling reporters "innumerative idiots," gives the opening passages of the article a rather tabloid flavor. This is compounded by later passages quoting "readers" who say, among other things, that the lecturers at the University of Reading should "stick to folk dancing and knitting." My apologies if I'm out of line, but when I clicked on the link for Wikinews I did not expect "Chuck Norris Facts."
 * It only does so if one cannot tell the difference between an article itself saying that someone is an "idiot math teacher" and an article reporting Mark C. Chu-Carroll writing that someone is "idiot math teacher". Quotation marks indicate reported speech, you know. Jonathan de Boyne Pollard 21:05, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
 * You are out of line. This is not "tabloid flavour".  This is balance, in accordance with the Neutral point of view.  To report only the mathematical analyses would have been to ignore by far the largest group of responses, and to not properly report the actual discussions that occured, which, as the article says, quoting examples, included all of humour, criticism, insults, and defence. Jonathan de Boyne Pollard 13:30, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Proof commentary

 * It is not even a proof that $$0^0 = \Phi$$. To justify the equation $$0^0 = 0^{1-1} = 0^1 \times 0^{-1}$$ in his system you need first to DEFINE $$0^0 = \Phi$$ so that what it states is that $$\Phi = 0 \times \infty$$. His other proof that $$0^0 = \Phi$$ again is not a proof for the same reason.

I removed the above from the commentary on the proof because, like so much of the commentary that there has been, it is wrong. The first two lines of Anderson's proof are, as far as I can tell, in accordance with Anderson's axioms, and don't require $$0^0$$ to be defined. $$1-1=0$$, required for the first equation, is a straightforward deduction from one of the transreal number axioms, for example. Jonathan de Boyne Pollard 20:05, 15 December 2006 (UTC) Why is the equation $$0^{1-1} = 0^1 \times 0^{-1}$$ a consequence of Anderson's axioms? Can anyone please supply a proof?

I don't know another place to mention this thought, but if i is interval, i:-1->1 !< i: x->(x+2) -> = !0 >= 0 theoretically. Also i feel you can't explain 0, using negative numbers, since without a definition of 0 (smallest unmeasurable amount) you will never be sure of the distance between 1 and it's theoretical negative counterpart.That is because 0 is a filosofical nr. x=0 x=1-1 not (some)0/0=0/0. although with positive numbers they are i think.80.57.243.100 09:48, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Similar theory?
The nullity idea is incomplete. It seems a, primitive, reinvention of Non_standard_analysis. Or, possibly an attempt an providing a finite encoding of one manifestation of NSA's infinitesimal.

Typo
editprotected

'humourous' => 'humorous' ('humourous' is always incorrect, even in British English) Van der Hoorn (talk) 14:03, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

 * [[Image:Yes_check.svg|16px]] Done — Gopher65talk 21:29, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Mark Chu Carroll is a fool who knows nothing about anything.

Mark Chu Carroll is the King of Cranks


title: File:09December2006.pdf


title: File:09December2006.sxw


text:
Fiji loses rights to host World Netball Championships next year

December 9, 2006

The International Federation of Netball Associations (IFNA) has stripped the rights from Fiji to host the World Netball Championships in 2007 because of the military coup that took place on December 5.

The Netball Championships were to take place between 10 July and 21 July, 2007 at Fiji's capital, Suva.

IFNA president, Molly Rhone, said: "It is deeply regretted that we have had to take this decision, recognising the hard work that has been done by the Organising Committee in preparing to host their first senior World Championships."

"We know that many supporters around the world were looking forward to this great sporting event in Fiji," Ms Rhone said.

Alisi Tabete, president of Fijian netball, said that today is a very sad day for sports and that they had wasted many years preparing to host the championships. "We had been working on this event from 1999 and right now I am trying to reason with myself as to why the championships has been lost and just thinking 'what if'."

"We have to think positive and am still thankful that we had been given a chance for the champs," Ms Tabete said.

The IFNA is yet to announce a replacement venue for the games. Ms Rhone said: "IFNA will now be working assiduously to find a new venue to host the Championships."


text:
User talk:Jonathan de Boyne Pollard

Welcome
, welcome to Wikinews! I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers:

Our key policies - if you read anything, read these! Here a few pointers to help you get to know Wikinews: There are always things to do on Wikinews: By the way, you can sign your name on Talk pages using four tildes ( ~~~~ ), which produces your name and the current date. If you have any questions, you can ask them at the water cooler or to anyone on the Welcommittee, or ask me on my Talk page. Again, welcome! — Doldrums(talk) 07:11, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Neutral point of view - tell every side to a story in a fair and balanced way
 * Cite sources - everything in a Wikinews article must be sourced
 * Introduction - overview of the site
 * Writing an article - how to write and publish a complete article
 * Content guide - what's suitable for Wikinews
 * Contents - the contents page.
 * Existing articles need expanding and checking for spelling and mistakes
 * The front page lead articles often need updating
 * Developing stories need finishing and publishing
 * Discussions need your input
 * And of course, stories need writing!

message posted on ur user page
No axiom in Andersons system (see Perspex Machin VIII - Axioms of Transreal Arithmetic) deals with general powers and their properties. The equation $$a^{(x+y)}=a^x \times a^y$$ is dealt with in Perspex Machine IX: Transreal Analysis as a theorem. The special case $$0^{1-1}=0^1 \times 0^{-1}$$ has to be justified. This is not done. However he justifies the case when $$x=0$$ and $$y=0$$ by saying that $$0^0=\Phi$$. Does anyone have a proof of this case using only the axioms of Andersons system? on Userpage, moved here by Soldrums

 * unless u're particular, u can just blank the above message on ur user page, which is most likely posted there by mistake, or u can replace it with content of ur own. if u're particular, i can delete the user page, but deletion is not really necessary, i think. — Doldrums(talk) 10:08, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

title: User talk:Jonathan de Boyne Pollard


text: Template:Flagof

title: Template:Flagof


text:
User talk:59.92.104.83

Welcome
, welcome to Wikinews! Thank you for your contributions; I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers:

Our key policies - if you read anything, read these! Here a few pointers to help you get to know Wikinews: There are always things to do on Wikinews: By the way, you can sign your name on Talk pages using four tildes ( ~~~~ ), which produces your name and the current date. If you have any questions, you can ask them at the water cooler or to anyone on the Welcommittee, or ask me on my Talk page. Again, welcome!
 * Neutral point of view - tell every side to a story in a fair and balanced way
 * Cite sources - everything in a Wikinews article must be sourced
 * Introduction - overview of the site
 * Writing an article - how to write and publish a complete article
 * Content guide - what's suitable for Wikinews
 * Contents - the contents page.
 * Existing articles need expanding and checking for spelling and mistakes
 * The front page lead articles often need updating
 * Developing stories need finishing and publishing
 * Discussions need your input
 * And of course, stories need writing!

Additionally, thanks for experimenting with Wikinews. Your test worked, and has now been reverted or removed. Please use Sandbox for any other tests you want to do, since testing in articles will be reverted quickly. — Doldrums(talk) 10:02, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

title: User talk:59.92.104.83


text:
US House of Representatives passes India nuclear bill

December 9, 2006

The United States House of Representatives has passed the resolution seeking to implement the US-India Civilian Nuclear Cooperation agreement. The bill was passed with a huge margin in which representatives voted 330 in favour of the agreement and 59 against the agreement.

The resolution, in the 109-page compromise bill, based on high marginal support of the House-Senate conferees, will be sent directly to the US Senate which is also expected to also pass it unanimously by a voice vote today, before the Congress goes into Christmas recess.

The deal offers India US nuclear technology in exchange for inspectors' access to Indian civilian reactors. The accord is hailed as historic by many of the representatives, but critics said that it will damage efforts.

Democratic congressman said, "India is a state that should be at the very centre of our foreign policy and our attention." He added that a partnership with India would help in regulation of the peaceful and responsible spread of nuclear power.

Represenative from Illinois, who is the co-writer of the bill, argued that the conference report, titled "Henty J Hyde United States-India Peaceful Atomic Energy Cooperation Act of 2006", is a judicious balance of competing all priorities and accommodates the concerns of administration. He added that President George Bush is expected to sign it into law in a White House ceremony on Monday, if the bill passed by Senate.

Representative from New York, who was instrumental in pushing the bill, said, "With the final version of this legislation approved for this historic agreement between India and the United States to move forward, the Congress has provided realistic parameters for the benefit of both our nations. Now the ball falls into the President's and the Indian government's court to move forward, and ensure a positive relation between India and the United States well into this century."

Representative from California, who is from the Democratic Party, opposed the bill and said that it would lead to problems by way of doing lasting damage to more than 30-years of.

The law will allow the nuclear cooperation between India and United States after more than 30 years. After the bill is passed, the Indian government will have to conclude a bilateral agreement with the and engage with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). India and the IAEA have already concluded an agreement requiring the application of IAEA safeguards in perpetuity in accordance with IAEA standards, principles, and practices (including IAEA Board of Governors Document GOV/1621 (1973)) to India's civil nuclear facilities, materials, and programs, as discussed in the Section 104 (b) (2) of the bill.

, who is visiting India, anticipated a very successful and supportive bill. Supporters of the compromise bill, backed by the United States are quite confident that the bill would be acceptable to India.


text:
Talk:US House of Representatives passes India nuclear bill

IAEA clause
according to the NDTV report, "India is not obliged to first conclude an agreement with the IAEA on safeguards as required by the earlier bills. This too had been a major sticking point."[emphasis mine]. this appears to be at odds with what we've written, "After the bill is passed, Indian government will have to conclude a bilateral agreement with US government and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)."  — Doldrums(talk) 11:56, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Typo
editprotected 'wih' => 'with' Van der Hoorn (talk) 22:24, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

 * ✅ ♪Tempo di Valse ♪ 02:32, 7 March 2009 (UTC)


text: Category:West Africa

title: Category:West Africa


text:
User talk:Yiang

Welcome
, welcome to Wikinews! I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers:

Our key policies - if you read anything, read these! Here a few pointers to help you get to know Wikinews: There are always things to do on Wikinews: By the way, you can sign your name on Talk pages using four tildes ( ~~~~ ), which produces your name and the current date. If you have any questions, you can ask them at the water cooler or to anyone on the Welcommittee, or ask me on my Talk page. Again, welcome!
 * Neutral point of view - tell every side to a story in a fair and balanced way
 * Cite sources - everything in a Wikinews article must be sourced
 * Introduction - overview of the site
 * Writing an article - how to write and publish a complete article
 * Content guide - what's suitable for Wikinews
 * Contents - the contents page.
 * Existing articles need expanding and checking for spelling and mistakes
 * The front page lead articles often need updating
 * Developing stories need finishing and publishing
 * Discussions need your input
 * And of course, stories need writing!

Non-english work in progress
I have moved your work to here, User:Yiang/sandbox, a sandbox page. This page should be kept for communication with the community. --Brian McNeil / talk 16:11, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

title: User talk:Yiang


text:
User talk:200.198.103.140

Welcome
, welcome to Wikinews! Thank you for your contributions; I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers:

Our key policies - if you read anything, read these! Here a few pointers to help you get to know Wikinews: There are always things to do on Wikinews: By the way, you can sign your name on Talk pages using four tildes ( ~~~~ ), which produces your name and the current date. If you have any questions, you can ask them at the water cooler or to anyone on the Welcommittee, or ask me on my Talk page. Again, welcome!
 * Neutral point of view - tell every side to a story in a fair and balanced way
 * Cite sources - everything in a Wikinews article must be sourced
 * Introduction - overview of the site
 * Writing an article - how to write and publish a complete article
 * Content guide - what's suitable for Wikinews
 * Contents - the contents page.
 * Existing articles need expanding and checking for spelling and mistakes
 * The front page lead articles often need updating
 * Developing stories need finishing and publishing
 * Discussions need your input
 * And of course, stories need writing!

Additionally, thanks for experimenting with Wikinews. Your test worked, and has now been reverted or removed. Please use Sandbox for any other tests you want to do, since testing in articles will be reverted quickly. — Doldrums(talk) 16:35, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

title: User talk:200.198.103.140


text:
Customer says Verizon confuses dollars and cents

December 9, 2006 Blogger George Vaccaro is a customer from the US who apparently purchased wireless network connection from, thinking that he was getting a good deal. Instead, he says he was charged about 71 dollars instead of 71 : 100 times more than what his bill should have been at the rate quoted.

When he called the Verizon customer service, he said he also found out that several Verizon representatives think 0.002 cents is equal to 0.002 dollars. According to the phone conversation recording he posted to his blog, when I called before entering I spoke to a rep who quoted me a rate of ".002 cents per KB." ... the charge for my usage at .002 cents/KB is $.71786 - or $.72 rounding up to the nearest cent - 72 cents. That is what I was quoted and that is what I am therefore willing to pay.

Vaccaro also posted on his blog the text of what he said was an e-mail reply from a Verizon Wireless customer service representative on December 8, stating: I sincerely apologize for the inconvenience and confusion this has caused. Per the remarks in the account, I have found that the customer service representative provided the correct pricing information. However; due to the miscommunication, I am willing to credit half of the data charges which would be $-36.00. Please reply to this email if you would like to accept this offer.


text:
Talk:Customer says Verizon confuses dollars and cents

Thinking to unpublish?
As usual ;) Rather than unpublishing, please add a comment here as to what to fix, or better yet, just drop a brief note to towsonu2003 at gmail dot com. If you can't help but unpublish it, you need to please add a reason here in the discussion page so we can fix it :) thanks Towsonu2003 18:53, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Who said we were going to unpublish? It's an interesting story, I'm in favour of keeping it. --  Zanimum 18:59, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Usually happens with my stories (someone unpublishes it without noting what was wrong in the discussion page) so I put that text to the article I publish ;) Towsonu2003 19:43, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
 * a response from verizon pls, at the very least, we can note Verizon's apparent e-mail offer to halve the charges, as detailed on the blog.
 * also, all the info in this article is sourced from one party in a dispute, and shld be attributed to him. i.e. "Verizon charged him $72" shld be "He says Verizon charged him $72" — Doldrums(talk) 19:14, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Done. --  Zanimum 19:26, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Title change
I deleted the word "bill" from the previous title. It was confusing (I had no idea what "Verizon bill" meant, then I figured that out but it isn't only the "bill from Verizon" that confuses cents and dollars, it's also at least 2 reps who think .002 cents = .002 dollars -listen to recording for clarification-). Seems to me it looks better now. Towsonu2003 19:44, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

editprotected
editprotected CAT:Economy and business
 * I can see why it was originally not put in that cat, but, ✅ --Pi zero (talk) 12:59, 25 October 2016 (UTC)


text:
Listeners call for tattooing of Muslims in America, supporting comedy skit

December 9, 2006

When radio host suggested that all Muslims in the United States should be identified with a crescent-shape tattoo,"the switchboard went from empty to totally jammed within minutes." Some callers agreed with Klein, one saying that, "Not only do you tattoo them in the middle of their forehead but you ship them out of this country ... they are here to kill us." Another caller added that America should, "set up encampments like during World War Two with the Japanese and Germans"

At the end of the show Klein revealed that that it had been staged as a hoax. "I can't believe any of you are sick enough to have agreed for one second with anything I said," he told his audience which covers Washington D.C., Northern Virginia and Maryland.

"For me to suggest to tattoo marks on people's bodies, have them wear armbands, put a crescent moon on their driver's license on their passport or birth certificate is disgusting. It's beyond disgusting."

"Because basically what you just did was show me how the German people allowed what happened to the Jews to happen ... We need to separate them, we need to tattoo their arms, we need to make them wear the yellow Star of David, we need to put them in concentration camps, we basically just need to kill them all because they are dangerous."

Council on American-Islamic Relations Communications Director commented: The public reaction to Mr. Klein’s courageous parody should be a wake-up call for American religious and political leaders who remain silent in the face of growing anti-Muslim bigotry in our society. Americans of all faiths must come together to marginalize extremists and to challenge ethnic and religious bigotry.


text:
User talk:Brian McNeil/Archive 06

 This is an archive of old talk page discussions! Do not add new comments to this page, please do so on my main talk page

Archives

Archive 01 — January 9, 2006 | Archive 02 — April 6, 2006 | Archive 03 — June 4, 2006 | Archive 04 — September 29, 2006 | Archive 05 — December 9, 2006 | Archive 06 — March 24, 2007 | Archive07 — May 30, 2007 | Archive 08 — November 4, 2007 Archive 08 — November 4, 2007 | Archive 09 — March 25, 2008

Deletion Death
Hey Brianmc! Does this work? User:Terinjokes/death terinjokes User Page / Talk 06:55, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Have a break! Have a Kit Kat!
Oh, and ask on someone else's talk for the next couple of weeks. --Brian McNeil / talk 20:40, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Wiki Break
Have a nice break, enjoy the holidays (and beyond?) and hope to see you real soon! (Wow, this RSS Feed of recent changes is helpful :D ) terinjokes | Talk | Come visit the WikiBistro 12:05, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Wikiholic - a definition or an admission?
There's a dirty big Wiki-Break notice on my user page that has totally destroyed the pagerank of the page, but I keep making edits. I feel responsible for trying to keep this part of the Internet well organised and accessible. I'm real busy with work at the moment, but I just can't help but check in and look at RC. Archiving is behind, with November 9th the last date done. I'll have time for some catchup between Christmas and New Year. --Brian McNeil / talk 16:32, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Canadian flag
Ok, so how about PVJ? He has the Indian flag in his signature and has used the flag in his from the start. Check out the links to Image:Flag_of_India.svg. — F e  llow  Wiki  News   (W)   23:14, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Yup, another case that "pollutes" the what links here. How does wikipedia deal with this? --Brian McNeil / talk 23:35, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Answer: They don't :P — F e  llow  Wiki  News   (W)  [[Image:Flag of Canada.svg|18px|I am Canadien!]] 00:10, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
 * ummm...w:WP:SIG. — Doldrums(talk) 05:18, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Right. I mean, if you want something like Bawolff has in his signature, ask him about that. Thunderhead - (talk) Congrajulations to Kat! 06:50, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
 * I have found a solution. Instead of using Image:Flag_of_Canada.svg I will use . — F e  llow  Wiki  News   (W)   19:38, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
 * That's a small flag, or is it the biggest 18px I've ever seen. --Brian McNeil / talk 20:16, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
 * well, ppl tend to forget, Canada's a big country. Bi-ig country. — Doldrums(talk) 20:20, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks for that, raised a smile. --Brian McNeil / talk 20:29, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

 * Canada is the second biggest country in the world! FellowWikiNews 21:02, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

 * I will not have a flag in my signature. I can't work out a way to fix this problem. Also, will PVJ still be allowed to have a flag in his sig? FellowWikiNews 21:02, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks, I'll have a word with PVJ and ask if he's prepared to fix the issue. --Brian McNeil / talk 21:05, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
 * what do I have [refering to thunderhead]? I used to have [[image:smile.png|18px]] but I took it out mostly because it was annoying me (actually for similiar reasons to the 'pedia policy I just read from the link above). Bawolff ☺☻ 00:20, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Oh, you're proablly refering to ascii characters number 1 and 2. (Avalible as a nice neat list in the ascii(7) (Except for the first 32 characters are listed as there real command meaning instead of there other meaning sometimes used) manpage or charmap.exe on windows as well as some page in 'pedia. Bawolff ☺☻ 00:24, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
 * I've taken the flag off my signature. By the way, I'd asked about this on Water Cooler back in April. Zeest(Talk)(Newpages) 06:21, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

comment about public official
is this comment something we shld be concerned about? as in potentially libellous. — Doldrums(talk) 21:23, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
 * I need the libel in it pointed out to me, I could see the point of a "we refer to authority, not provide it" message as a followup with some fudge-factor about community trust. That'd be to counter the claim of authority, which I don't see disagreeing wildly from the actual article. --Brian McNeil / talk 21:52, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
 * the "She was uniformly disliked by those who worked with her" and "hated by those who she harassed out of the department"(emph. mine). — Doldrums(talk) 06:41, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
 * I'll touch on this, mostly because I noticed it. To whom does liability for what is posted on an article discussion page fall? For that matter, couldn't Wikinews just issue a general disclaimer that all news is potentially false, so then it could report fearlessly. What's this site trying to be, authoritiative? I thought this site is an invitation for everybody to participate in news, where the good news will get worked on, along with the bad. Open it up with a simple disclaimer if the legality is the concern. Numbers of people involved with the site makes for it's neutrality. -Edbrown05 07:09, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
 * i don't know for sure whether Wikinews bears any liability for libelous material posted on it, but suspect it does, especially if is aware of the problem but did not act on it. if i am correct, that itself is enough reason for Wikinews to monitor and remove such material from its site. but there is also a different reason.

 * Wikinews is not a public message board where anyone can post whatever they feel like. it claims to be a news source, and that means it has to make every effort to ensure that material it carries is truthful, accurate and fair. this is what separates Wikinews from the tonnes of blogs, message boards and whatnot out there.

 * WN's open editing system and claim to be an "authoritative" news source will mean that everyone out there with an agenda or a "sense of humour" will try to post stuff which won't meet these criteria. it's upto us to come up with a process that filters such stuff out. so far as i can see, this won't impinge on anybody's freedom to say what they want to say, it requires them to say it in a responsible way(T,A,F) here or take it elsewhere. i see this site as a place for everyone to participate in news, to learn how news is written and write it themselves. but i also want contributors to try their best to write to the same standards that professionals do. we shld do our best to help, teach and show editors how to do that, but shld equally not hesitate to remove material that we can't salvage.

 * finally, as anyone who's been on a usenet group will tell u, numbers by themselves won't make for neutrality. — Doldrums(talk) 07:35, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
 * So much shit Doldrums, I see now that we've come to the end of the rope. -Edbrown05 07:49, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
 * I go back to Neutralizer (banned now) who said something to the effect that, "You got to offer something different from mainstream media." If that's all we got is parrot talk, then "fu" . -Edbrown05 08:01, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Merry Christmas!

 * Haha, no problem, and thank you for the wonderful card and sentiment! Thunderhead - (talk) Congrajulations to Kat! 09:29, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks!
Thanks for the nice Christmas card! I do too hope that you have a good holiday season and a prosperous new year. — F e  llow  Wiki  News   (W)  15:58, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Merry Xmas!
My personal message for you can be found here.--Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 16:26, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Merry Christmas to you too
Merry Christmas to you too. Bawolff ☺☻ 21:18, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

P.S. The wikinews logo is copyright by the wikimedia foundation (template:copyrightByWikimedia), and is not licensed under the CC-by. If you make a derivitive image from it, you have to give all copyrights to the wikimedia foundation (I think.) Bawolff ☺☻ 21:18, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

 * Merry Christmas and a happy new year, Brian. When the WMF lawyers come after you, tell them Christmas is a time for sharing. — Doldrums(talk) 06:47, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
 * I suspect we can just delete the image on 12th night. ;-) --Brian McNeil / talk 08:59, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Merry Christmas!
Merry Christmas and a happy New Year! Zeest(Talk)(Newpages) 03:08, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

RE: Merry CHristmas
Hey Brian, THanks for your greeting. Merry Christmas and all the best for the new year. Cheers - Cartman02au (Talk)(AU Portal) 08:37, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Merry Christmas
I would like to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a happy new year for 2007 Brian | (Talk) | New Zealand Portal 23:31, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

My personal Christmas message for you can be found here.--Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 20:27, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
 * I saw that already, nice one. ;-) --Brian McNeil / talk 20:45, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Protected article "Friday the 13" Buffalo, New York snow storm in pictures
This protected archived article needs a bit of fixing; the section titles are one size too large (they're first order, not second order). Osgoodelawyer 16:39, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Greetings from WiseKwai
You're the first person on Wikimedia to comment about my handle. Hope you like it. Wisekwai 16:31, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Happy January
Happy January! Wishing you all the best for the forthcoming year. --terinjokes | Talk | Come visit the WikiBistro 23:15, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Happy (Gregorian) 2007!
Hi!, thanks...  Amgine | sw 02:25, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

I'd appreciate some feedback...
If you find the time, could you listen to my post on WN:AW? Thanks!--Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 18:13, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

 * Thanks for the advice. I'm not a native speaker, so you'll hear a few Dutch words here and there :-) .--Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 22:01, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

and happy new year !
Jacques Divol

New idea for community goings-on
Hi, (I hope you don't mind this general message, I'm just randomly contacting people from my talk page)

I've had an idea after reading User:Kinnerc/WhereToWikinews? that might make people more aware of what's currently going on on this site, what discussions are being held, where help is needed etc. I've designed a little signpost-like box that I would like to introduce as a newsletter to post on user talk pages. Of course, the majority is copied from the Newsroom, which I think people don't visit often enough. Oh yeah, and the title should probably change :-D

I would appreciate some feedback on the idea, and also I'm interested to know if you would subscribe to such a newsletter. Please go to User_talk:Stevenfruitsmaak/Goings-on.

--Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 19:48, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

The Fruitsmaak Goings-on Selection
{|
 * style="border: 1px solid #FFFFFF;padding: .5em 1em 1em; color: #000000; background-color: #ffffff; width:60%; vertical-align: top;" |

Wikinews community

 * style="width:40%; border: 1px solid #cfcfbf; background-color: #f0f0ff; height:1%; padding: .5em 1em 1em; text-align: left; vertical-align: top;"|

Collaboration requests
Post new request  category=Ready addfirstcategorydate=false count=25 suppresserrors=true namespace=Main   category=Stub addfirstcategorydate=false count=25 suppresserrors=true namespace=Main   category=News with items needing expansion addfirstcategorydate=false count=25 suppresserrors=true namespace=Main
 * International interviews/poll on climate warming

Flagged discussions
 category=Flag suppresserrors=true
 * }

AWB
Responding to your call for more archiving, how should I use AutoWikiBrowser to archive stories, easily?
 * The actual archive action has to be done with a browser, but the automated fixes that AWB can provide are useful. So you do your copyedit for grammar, spelling and so with AWB (which helps a lot) then pull up all articles for the day and protect them. --Brian McNeil / talk 15:18, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks. --Nzgabriel | Talk 22:50, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Re: Skype?
Yes I have Skype available although it malfunctions from time to time and I only log in when I need to use it... I don't immediately see how using Skype would allow to improve the problem: what do you suggest, that I proof-read it to you? Of course the real solution to the problem would be that those here who have the capabilities of doing it properly would do it... helas.--Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 14:39, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

 * I was thinking not so much of a full read but of edited highlights. The call would also serve as a reminder for me to go download your recordings.  The other suggestion I have is watching the BBC summary here, you'll pick up on pronunciation of terms like Shiite (She-eight - like height not eight).  It is very difficult to explain pronunciation in written text, hence looking for an audio channel. --Brian McNeil / talk 15:23, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

 * I think this would be difficult in practice no? We seem to be on-line together sometimes, but it seems rather inconvenient to me. "Edited highlights" sounds vague: you mean warning me about tricky words? I might have a look at that BBC site, but maybe it's better if you guys just correct me as much as possible? And maybe if I torture the ears of the native speakers enough, they'll do it themselves? :-p
 * --Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 00:09, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Meh, keep on doing it - and keep on pointing it out to me. I can then be a grumpy old fart and find mis-pronunciations.  Of course, checking the BBC stuff might help if you can figure out which bits are worth listening to. --Brian McNeil / talk 00:22, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

 * I'm really open to feedback so don't hold back, plus I'm going to do 3 months of my practical training in England so feedback would really be useful!--Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 00:38, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Copyvio
This is commonly done. In theory because these stories are being published under my name in the newspaper, for all you know it could be my work out of my newspaper. I shall not do this however legally, this can be my work. All i am doing is adding stories under my name in the newspaper. There isnnothing rong with this. oh, I'll speak to you on skype soon! Symode09 23:41, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Hint: See user's talk page.--Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 00:09, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

RE: Edit counts
Thanks. It'll probably be a long way till I get close to your edits! — F e  llow  Wiki  News   (W)  20:27, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
 * You have a fairly respectable count, you just need to come up with projects like archiving two year's worth of articles or adding people categories. I suspect those two efforts netted me a huge number of edits. --20:31, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Bravitude climbing fast on Google
I've tried to turn the article around, please discuss any further concerns you might have on WN:DR.--Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 14:43, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

re: Noose
Yes I suspected so, I never heard the word before I wrote that mathematics article: Russian mathematician declines Fields Medal. But you don't get to hear how many takes I needed :-D The names are also difficult but nobody can blame me there. Anyway, thanks!--Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 17:07, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

 * Mmm... huis doesn't rhyme with moose in Leuven... :-p anyway I understand what you mean.--Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 17:38, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
 * It does in Scotland where the influence of Dutch speakers has "house" pronounced as "hoose". :-P --Brian McNeil / talk 17:41, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Hi
WHat do I need to do to get the story I wrote back online? Thanks The News Catcher 19:28, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Brian,

How, then do I pull this story (PREXCEL-Q) from Wikinews without doing "damage" to you or I? I appreciate and understand your comments. I believe you are right on this. Perhaps I am not thinking from the outside enough on this somewhat unfamiliar topic.

jack gallup

Eag 13:49, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

How do I pull my article safely for all?
Hi Brian,

Thank you for your comments on my PREXCEL-Q article. I believe you are right that it is not for the general public. How can I pull the article without doing damage to Wikinews or myself?

With regards,

jack gallup

Eag 13:53, 22 January 2007 (UTC).

Thanks Brian~ I will most likely let Iowa State University's News Service take it from here then - as they have voiced identical concerns as you have to me about the PREXCEL-Q article. They will slice it down to its basic core and then have it appear in an ISU-related Newletter. Thanks for your helpful insights.The truth is, I'm just to busy in the lab right now to be able to get to this quickly and give it the attention it deserves - so I will be deleting the article soon from Wikinews (as soon as I can figure out the exact right way to do that).

With Professional Regards,

Jack M. Gallup

Eag 19:00, 22 January 2007 (UTC).

Re: Audio template
Yes I can understand that's a problem... maybe it's best that you make some changes yourself to best fit what you have in mind, and then I can tweak it if necessary? Or if you really don't wanna just say so and I'll give it a shot. On the plus side, the other stories get listed too also :-D. --Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 19:52, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

admin suggestion
hey, thanks for the admin suggestion, but I will soon "loose" my free time, so for now, it's better for me to do intermittent contributions. thanks again for the suggestion though :) Towsonu2003 20:06, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Reply
Hi, your comment with the heading: "This has been missing for too long..." on my user page has been replied to here. --Nzgabriel | Talk 21:52, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

in regards to Image:World Food Program told to leave North Korea.ogg
I have tagged it public domain as it is a spoken version of a wikinews article which was public domain. i hpe that is okay. Bawolff ☺☻ 23:11, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Thank you Brian - your are a true Gentleman and a scholar. Jack

Eag 02:17, 25 January 2007 (UTC).

Thanks
Thanks for that,I'm new to this but I love writing news, I'll try and fix the sources now you've told me how. Just harassme if I get things wrong until I get them right. I try and follow the instructions but there's so much, gets confusin. I'm keeping some of the press release in because it's received as first-hand and not online as a link. --Kaiserjnr 13:09, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Re: new cat
Ow... I thought it was one big affair? Photos were apparently released several times... I used "case" instead of "scandal"... Maybe I should change to "Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse"?--Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 21:57, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Anonymous1 and 2
You may like to know that the user anonymous2 who has just created the two articles you just deleted also created an article before under a very similar title using the username anonymous1. does this class as sockpuputing??--Markie 11:26, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Right ok thanks--Markie 11:34, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
 * We've got another one: User:Anonymous3 --Thunderhead - (talk) 12:21, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

'Fair use' images
Just a comment and then I have to dash off --> If Wikimedia Commons remains unchanged, there is no question images such as would be deleted. I am not enough engaged with that community to know if they are considering any wiggle room for such images.

If you recall it was only after much agonizing over the lack of it, that Wikinews came to accept 'Fair use' images to support news reports. I recognise that MSNBC Poll: 87% of Americans would like to see Bush impeached was, or is as it develops, pushing the edge of the 'Fair use' implementation. But at this time, I don't think it is something that should be withdrawn, unless consensus forms that it is something that is being abused. Best regards -Edbrown05 19:36, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

 * The image I added to Hillary Clinton to host live webcasts is an example of what Commons will not except. I know, because I uploaded it there and it was deleted. My concern is whether Wikinews will back-peddle on the issue of 'Fair use'. -Edbrown05 08:10, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Sitenotice
Hi. Could you change the site notice as the elections have now finished. Thanks--Markie 21:24, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Don't want to be picky but for grammer's skae could you change it to "...elections have just finished..." instead of are. I think it would sound better.  Cheers --Markie 23:11, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the help
Thanks for the edits on the bird flu page, I'm still very inexperienced when it comes to writing news articles and appreciate the input.

Thanks, Drew Drewbie 23:37, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Re: Chill
Seriously, since there has been a lot of complaints on the talk page the article should be deleted. — F e  llow  Wiki  News   (W)   (sign here!)  23:18, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Urban Planning
How very weird. You were writing on the talk page that it should be moved whilst i was in the process of moving it. Strange, maybe even telepathic. --Markie 12:40, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

shorts stuff
i think we shld retain the toc as there are multiple independent stories in each article. btw, there's a toc tag in the header template that's overriding ur notoc. also, the date thing needs a fix. any ideas? now fixed. — Doldrums(talk) 15:51, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Football lead
well im actually from the uk so i think it does interest more than 1 country but yes i apprciate the comment. i thought that it would be more suitable than the iraq story which is now quite old. i will try to look for a better lead but your more experienced than me at lead choosing so ur feedback is very welcome.--Markie 20:32, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
 * yeah you seem to make ALOT of changes. whilst your poking about could you hvae a look at the wikinews shorts for today.  ive added code to loose the TOC but it doesnt seem to want to budge.  also had a look at the template for the shorts and cant see why it seems to appear.  help appriciated.  thanks --Markie 20:47, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

shorts
ok thanks anyway.--Markie 20:57, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

 * shorts formatting is up for discussion. — Doldrums(talk) 04:19, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Template:QuoteLeft
thanks for creating this long-overdue template. looks cool!. have fixed the margin and color. feel free to play around with the margin and color values. — Doldrums(talk) 04:41, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

WP FA template
do we really need to direct more traffic to 'pedia? :) — Doldrums(talk) 11:50, 11 February 2007 (UTC) as you no doubt would've noticed, the date does update. one more thing we can do is link to WP current events stuff, for eg., in the newsroom. pity we can't display the stuff - all that GFDL/CCA business.  — Doldrums(talk) 05:44, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

poorism
can you have a look at the poorism article. im sure its a copy vio but the ip reverted my template add. if its not then its deffinately a press release--Markie 21:12, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

copright on article about poorism
Brian, I run poorism.com, I also submitted the article. what do i need to do?

brad hines --66.131.7.78 22:05, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

QuoteLeft
Wow, nice template, I must say! This is sure a great find. -- Zanimum 15:01, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

CommonsDelinker
The user is a bot. It was approved at meta (we had a notice about it at the wc for a while), it removes deleted images. see its user page. Bawolff ☺☻ 00:09, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
 * lol. It doesn't speak English (not even Klingon) ! — F e  llow  Wiki  News   (W)   (sign here!)  00:15, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
 * But if we had the klingon wikinews (unfortunately it had a bunch of people oppose its creation, see meta), it could be translated :). Bawolff ☺☻ 00:25, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Why would we need a Klingon Wikinews? After all, it is a fictional language. — F e  llow  Wiki  News   (W)   (sign here!)  00:28, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
 * So is Esperanto, and we almost have enough interest for that. (plus news is better for a klingon. KPOV) Bawolff ☺☻ 00:31, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Gamespy story
I give up, you find the talk page with my comment on it and move it to match the current article. Oh, and you've created a slew of redirects that need fixed too. :-) --Brian McNeil / talk 22:17, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I did! :-) You can delete the redirects if you want, since it's not been published. GreenReaper 22:21, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

quote
"Internet Explorer's CSS rendering: WYSIWTF"

That's great. Bawolff ☺☻ 23:11, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
 * It's some guy's slashdot signature, I was laughing my ass off after the initial "huh?" --Brian McNeil / talk 23:37, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks
Thank you for the barnstar, I really appreciate that.--Grace E. Dougle 15:42, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Commons Picture of the Year 2006
I assert that I am the holder of the commons account brianmc and am thus entitled - due to my edits on this wiki - to vote in the Commons picture of the year. --Brian McNeil / talk 12:40, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Re: AWB
Thanks, I noticed that but didn't have the time to search for the right button, had to run to work where I arrived too late... --Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 23:22, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

dr
Please comment on entry for WN:DR. Bawolff ☺☻ 06:20, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Accreditation requests
CSpurrier made a comment about press passes in other countries, do you have any experience with that or do you know more about it?--Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 13:42, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

spot of OR
care for some OR on this? — Doldrums(talk) 14:58, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

AWB Checkpage
Can you remove the enabled versions section from the AWB checkpage? (AutoWikiBrowser/CheckPage) The software now loads the versions centrally. Thanks! 66.108.66.125 03:36, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

can you...
take a look at Jimmy Wales asks Wikipedian to resign "his positions of trust" over nonexistent degrees pls. thnx — Doldrums(talk) 11:26, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Re:Tournament articles
That's just the place I went when you mentioned it to me. I figured at the very least I'd get them up, and then we can figure exactly what to do with them during the week. Theirishpianist 21:57, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Rocketeers question
Question at Talk:Rocketeers find possible impact crater in Nevada. (SEWilco 18:34, 9 March 2007 (UTC))

I see that you are online...
Would you mind taking a look at Template:Imagedelete and telling me what you think of it? Cheers!  Thunderhead  ►  00:52, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Decorations
Well, Template:New article intro is already filled to the brim. Perhaps we could get the Mediawiki devs to install / develop some sort of pop-up window for quick reference for the tags?  Thunderhead  ►  15:42, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
 * There's probably some way a pop-up can be done if the code is done right, it'd be much better to have something in a separate window that documents lots of the templates people can use. --Brian McNeil / talk 16:12, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I remember that (somewhere) there was something called QuickUpload where you could upload images directly from the edit screen.  Thunderhead  ►  16:20, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Re: Research In Motion
Hi Brian. Thanks for the welcome! Cheers, Jcart1534 19:35, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Your question...
I am not affiliated with First Coast News, but yes, my username does seem to point to that. My username just means I report news covering the First Coast. Do you think I should change my username? If so, how?

- First Coast News

Sports Coordination
Hey mate, you left a message on my talk page (and i thank you for the praise) about coordinating with other sports writers on Wikinews to improve the site as a whole. I would love to do this, but I need a nudge in the right direction for where to start, as I am not exactly sure how i can get this coordination going, and how it can improve the work of the sports writers in general. Anything you have to suggest would be extremely helpful, thank you. (continued below) On a non-Wikinews subject, i noticed you live in Belgium. I'd just like to know what its like there because I have Belgian blood for the most part, and really take pride in it (not many Belgians in Winnipeg). My Grandparents live in Bruxelles Manitoba (obviously named after.....). Anyways, do you live in the French, Dutch, German, or Brussell's region, and whats it like? This is all if you dont mind me asking, otherwise ignore it :)Dark Squall 05:17, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

NI election article
Yes, it looks much better now. Thanks a lot! Getting rid of the congestion down the left hand side does make it more visually balanced and less trouble on screen with QuoteLeft boxes getting in the way of eachother. Tamino 15:27, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Jwjoffron
Just dropped him a note, detailing sports sources and ideas. Hopefully that will get him started. Happy to help! -- Theirishpianist 21:25, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

blocking tor proxies
have been doing it where i can. –Doldrums(talk) 10:25, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
 * here's a list, noncached site seems to be down. --Brian McNeil / talk 10:30, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

User:Wikiisn
as deprifry points out, and as this diff between a pre-Wikiisn version and that user's first edit shows, the user has modified FWN's comment. –Doldrums(talk) 18:36, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Sports coverage
I definitely like the ideas for organizing more sports coverage. It's about time we get some more coverage on sports, and a global perspective is definitely a plus. I'll definitely keep an eye on the requisite project pages, and hopefully this can get even more organized. Theirishpianist 20:39, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

thank-you
thanks for that comment!:-)--Mark Talk 11:56, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Re: Sint Niklaas
I'm waaaaaaaaaaaaay ahead of you... .

Today I went to the ministerial summit in Leuven, didn't get much OR out of it because I couldn't get close enough... see the Dutch Wikinews: Belgische_ministerraad_bijeen_in_Leuven.

Anyway haven't seen any accreditation on their website (http://www.sint-niklaasgaatvreemd.be/ ). I'll have my press card printed and laminated tomorrow, it clearly mentions that I'm an indy reporter. So I'm going there Wednesday and anyway I'll get some OR, probably some wedding pictures and hopefully somes quotes or interviews. The thing starts around 14 till late at night. Still need to borrow a digital camera though.

I looked up some info about the press card, only professional journalists can get a press card from the Interior department, all the others can only have what I have, so I guess that's in my advantage.

If you have time could you rephrase parts of the story I wrote to improve the grammar and such? I expect to get a lot of photos and a whole section on the event itself, and the article is rather long already, so I don't know, should I write one very long article or publish the background tomorrow and the rest of the article on Thursday? Oh yeah, if you'd be able to track the Washington Post article on him, haven't found that one yet.

Anyway it would be nice to cooperate on this one. And if you're nearby, don't hesitate to join me on the scene! Keep in touch!

--Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 22:40, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

LOL
— F e  llow  Wiki  News   (W)   (sign here!)  00:04, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

RE: Archives/Guidelines
Yes, I will temporarily add a list to my archives separately on my talk page. But I still don't understand why the dynamic boxes arn't working...strange. — F e  llow  Wiki  News   (W)   (sign here!)  19:35, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

wait a sec pls
the EU category thingy follows from this. –Doldrums(talk) 12:41, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
 * never mind, saw ur explanation on the user's talk page. –Doldrums(talk) 12:49, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I do not agree with the distinction geographical/political that you made. National borders are geographic and though they are political and not "natural". Categories like Europe, Spain, Ireland... are not Natural, but political. The category on the European Union may then obviously contain information about the political event of the institution of the EU but also events which may interest people living in the countries of the EU. That was the reason for my inclusion of the EU category on the page. Best :) Gpeilon 13:41, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Deleted story?
What happened to a story I posted - " UK sailors captured at gunpoint by Iranians"? I can't find it. 82.32.17.108 14:02, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

"Single source"
Brian, with breaking news, it's OK - encouraged in fact - to publish a story with a single source.

I'm not a big fan of this tag. People seem to be slapping it on rather than just getting a second source and adding it. Dan100 (Talk) 14:09, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
 * If you look at some of the messages at the bottom of things like AP articles, there's more to fixing an article that's tagged with single source than just adding a second source. --Brian McNeil / talk 15:14, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Graphic not for current event in 15 British Royal Navy sailors captured at gunpoint by Iranian guards
Hi Brian, I made this graphic today and i made it according to the news about the location of the recent (March, 23 in 2007) incident. What now? - Best wishes, Torsten 20:10, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
 * No problem, Brian. And thanks for relabelling and positioning the graph. It looks good now. Cheers -- Torsten 11:05, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks
Hi, thanks for your work on my youth parliament article. I have deleted it now (talk page is still present however), as I progress up to the final stages of my application. Thanks, --Nzgabriel | Talk 09:51, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

title: User talk:Brian McNeil/Archive 06