text:
Talk:Zhang Yuzhe

C.-H. Chang?
I strongly suspect the "C.-H. Chang" credited with discovering (5384) 1957 VA at Nanking is the same as Y. C. Chang a.k.a. Zhang Yùzhé. It wouldn't be the first typo in the MPC lists. Anyone care to prove or disprove?

Urhixidur 17:39, 2004 Dec 11 (UTC)

 * I strongly doubt these could be the same person.

 * Have you confirmed that C.-H. stands for Chia-Hsiang? If so, Chang Chia-Hsiang is written like a name from Taiwan rather than a mainlander.

 * -- Curps 05:28, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)

 * Chia-Hsiang is the name Dr. Schmadel has in his files for C.-H. Chang. The discovery was in Nanking in 1957.
 * Urhixidur 13:06, 2004 Dec 21 (UTC)

 * I have found mention through Google of a ZHANG Jiaxiang (which is pinyin for Chia-Hsiang Chang) affiliated with Purple Mountain Observatory. This is probably the person.  I couldn't find the Chinese characters for his name, I suppose we could contact pmo.ac.cn as a last resort.  However he is probably retired by now and they might not have current information. -- Curps 18:55, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)

title: Talk:Zhang Yuzhe


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Independent Gay Forum

The Independent Gay Forum was an organization that sponsored a website featuring free access to articles and opinions penned by gay economical conservative, center-right Independent and libertarian gay authors. Its raison d'etre was dissatisfaction by some lesbians and gay men with the alleged center-left or liberal orthodoxy of the lesbian and gay rights movement in the United States. It was founded around 1998 and dissolved in 2010, believing its mission had been largely accomplished. Its blog, by Stephen H. Miller, continues at the website IGFCultureWatch, which also hosts the Forum's article archives.

Rise of the new 'gay right' movement
In 1993, Bruce Bawer published his book A Place at the Table that criticized homophobic social conservatives and U.S. Democratic Party-aligned and center-left lesbians and gay men in the United States. He argued that this political bias produced an unworkable and partisan bias which locked lesbian and gay voters into endorsement of one partisan choice, instead of bipartisan political initiatives that focused on both the Democrat and Republican Parties, as well as questioning the relevance and importance of some broad center-left goals and objectives to lesbian and gay communities in the United States.

Bawer called for full inclusion of gays in mainstream society and criticized what he considered an unrepresentative but highly visible gay subculture that equated homosexuality with promiscuity, hedonism, political correctness or stereotypes like being effeminate or "different" in general.

In 1995, Andrew Sullivan published the book Virtually Normal. Sullivan was a longtime critic of decadence in the gay community, but the book also did something that Bawer did not do. Sullivan criticized what he called the prohibitionist, liberationist, liberal, and conservative approaches to gay rights in favor of a more "classical liberal" or libertarian approach.

In 1996, Bawer edited a collection of writings by mostly gay men and women titled Beyond Queer: Challenging Gay Left Orthodoxy. The authors--including Sullivan, Jonathan Rauch, Stephen H. Miller, Paul Varnell, and Norah Vincent--covered a wide range of topics and did not have one political message. Some authors were critical of how the gay rights movement was trying to achieve its goals, some were critical of certain goals such as hate crime laws, and others were critical of both the ends and the means.

These books became labeled in leftist gay circles as the manifesto of a new "Gay Right" though many of the authors in these books would dispute being labeled conservative. Some had libertarian political sympathies.

The Independent Gay Forum became a significant online site for U.S. lesbian and gay authors that endorsed limited-government conservative or libertarian alternatives to what they saw as the 'impractical' center-left bias that 'characterizes' lesbian and gay identity and politics. Additional writers include philosopher John Corvino, activist Richard Rosendall and columnist Jennifer Vanasco.

The website included hundreds of articles on a wide range of political and cultural topics -- marriage, sex, religion, economics, law, politics, activism, books, and gay identity. It also included "IGF Culture Watch", a blog authored by Miller.

Liberal criticism
Critics of the Independent Gay Forum's writings tend to be drawn between a division between liberals and conservatives and a second division between conservatives and libertarians. The Independent Gay Forum mission statement is to forge a new "gay mainstream" that is committed to more conservative-libertarian values; i.e., limited government, free market capitalism and personal responsibility.

Liberal critics felt that the Independent Gay Forum was too closely aligned with the Republican Party, to be called "Independent", and that its writers demonstrated too little respect for cultural diversity, social justice and social responsibility. IGF writers would often endorse conservative Republican theories about the harm that gun control legislation would pose to lesbian and gay handgun owners, arguing that such controls infringe constitutional rights under the Second Amendment, welfare 'reform', Social Security privatization, abortion, and the neo-conservative theory about initiating military action in order to promote a freedom and democracy in certain nations such as Iran and Iraq.

In another was when Miller supported Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger's successful bid to become governor of California, praising his socially liberal, fiscally conservative philosophy. Liberal critics pointed out that Miller was much less supportive of Vermont Governor Howard Dean's bid for governor who ran on a similar neoliberal philosophy.

In another case, gay liberals also argued that the articles about the late, former U.S. President Ronald Reagan were too partisan and tried to rewrite the Reagan Administration's policies on AIDS and gay rights.

Libertarian criticism
Libertarians criticism of the IGF tends to be tied to a belief that the writers do not go far enough in advocating for reducing government regulations that limit citizens personal and economic life. Yet, a second source of criticism, among libertarians is that the IGF writers do not advocate election law reforms that would allow the Libertarian Party to freely compete for votes in elections.

When Miller defended the work of gay Republicans by using an analogy of the benefits to the consumer that occur when there is more than one grocery store in a town. The message was that gay voters, like consumers, would get a better deal with more competition for their support. This angered many Libertarians as the 'grocery store analogy' ignored the fact that government regulations as ballot access law make it hard for a third political party such as the Libertarian Party to compete for the support of gay citizens because they have to spend limited resources in order to obtain access on the general election ballot with a party affiliation. Thus some libertarians felt that Miller should have been a better advocate for greater voter choice.

Topics
Aside from Miller, other writers have contributed to the Independent Gay Forum and have written numerous articles about current events such as gay marriage, civil unions, the Marriage Protection Amendment, transgender rights, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, hate crime or hate speech bans, the religious right, the military gay ban, Social Security, the War in Iraq, and the Second Amendment.

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

title: Independent Gay Forum


text:
Talk:Hart Island

Untitled
I strongly disagree with the move of this to the comma form. Hart Island is not a city, or any kind of municipality. It is a geographical feature, and in such cases, I am strongly in favor of the parentheses disambiguation over the comma. If a comma is to be used, it should be Hart Island, Bronx, as a neighborhood in List of Bronx neighborhoods. Using the comma with the state New York puts it into the false representation as a census-designated place in the United States, which it is not. -- Decumanus 17:41, 2004 Dec 11 (UTC)

Hi!, I'll leave all the punctuation up to you. It is an island in Bronx County. Supercool Dude —Preceding unsigned comment added by Supercool Dude (talk • contribs) 12:38, 27 December 2004 (UTC)

Potter's field
I remember watching a short documentary film about a small island in NYC where prisoners bury stillborn infants. I assume it was Hart Island. But is the island a potter's field in general, or is it specifically for infants? (Sorry for the morbid subject matter) -- Gyrofrog (talk) 00:52, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
 * My understanding is that it's still a potter's field, for people of all ages. --RoySmith 01:06, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Prison
The article says about 100 prisoners are still held on the island, but at least one source says all prisoners were removed to Rikers in 1991. The Corrections website also makes no reference to a current facility on the island. Can anyone confirm this from a source? --Dhartung | Talk 20:05, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
 * According to, In 1966, the jail was closed and the Island was used as a center for the Phoenix House narcotic rehabilitation program. This program was discontinued in 1976 and the Island returned to the Correction Department. However, the Department did not operate the Island as a jail until 1982, when a small prisoner contingent was again housed there. In 1991, the inmates housed on Hart Island were transferred to Rikers Island. I'll fix up the article.  -- RoySmith (talk) 20:19, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
 * The prisoners apparently "commute" daily by boat back and forth to Hart Island. http://hartisland.net/wwwebs/Home/History/tabid/64/Default.aspx Wordreader (talk) 00:43, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

Mrs. Hart
The article talks about a certain "Mrs. Hart" donating the land to New York City. I have a published source which says the land was purchased from the Hunter family, as I have now put forth in the article. Therefore I have edited the article to note that the Mrs. Hart claim is just an urban legend. If there is any published source which supports the Mrs. Hart claim, then I will be happy to remove the urban legend description. Otherwise, the information is suspect. Who seriously trusts local legends? Galanskov 07:57, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

POW
Was a prisoner of war camp established on Hart Island in 1863? Jim.henderson 16:09, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Method of Burial
In the article's cemetery section, there are two different references to how people are buried: "Inmates stack the pine coffins in two rows, three high and 25 across", and "Adults are placed in cardboard cartons costing $54, and are stacked three coffins high and two coffins across" - quite the difference. Which is it? The source is a NY times article that is not reachable. Ouze 11:41, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

The Cemetery section of article
Please, could someone check the Cemetery section of the article. I noticed that there are information twice in different places. The dublication doesn't bring any additional information but structure should be checked.--Hannu (talk) 14:31, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

This section is also somewhat disjoint and rambling, with different topics covered in one paragraph and as noted by Hannu above, repetition across multiple paragraphs. A fairly extensive re-write seems to be called for. ChrisB600 (talk) 20:46, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

I read this article from England (am British resident). However, I can't help but question the last line about 'famous screenwriter Chris Weller' being buried here as I have not found any wiki articles that could be him (the Chris Wellers are all listed living, none screenwriters). Googling has turned up a few North American pages with mentions of a Chris Weller in film industry that are as recent as 2010. I suspect a hoax, unless someone can produce a citation that dates his death.Cloptonson (talk) 18:11, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

Commentary
User:Texkayaker inserted the following comment in the article:
 * I was stationed on Hart Island with the Nike Base from 1955 thru 1958. There were never any Silos on Fort Slocum, only the Radar was located there. It was great duty on Hart Island for the military there.

I moved it here because this kind of commentary does not belong in articles, but it appears to indicate a possible error in the article. --Orlady (talk) 23:57, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Original research
I don't understand this "original research" rule. Wikipedia has literally hundreds of thousands of references to scientific research papers that are undoubtedly primary sources. In fact, the Wikipedia policy states, "a scientific paper documenting a new experiment conducted by the author is a primary source on the outcome of that experiment." But nonetheless there are plenty of references to such papers. So why is it that on any non-scientific topic, the worst gossip website is acceptable, being a secondary source, but a reference to a novel or other primary source is not? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wombatjpw (talk • contribs) 16:09, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
 * You should read WP:NOR, WP:RS, WP:BLP, and WP:MEDRS. Unsubstantiated gossip is not allowed. If you see it, it is an error. Secondary sources are preferred. Primary sources can be used if they they are reliable and don't violate WP policies - see the BLP rules. If you have a concern about a particular issue, you can bring it up in the talk page like you are doing here. MartinezMD (talk) 16:37, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Regarding this "added possible fact". It's your speculation it is about Hart Island because Hart Island is not mentioned. We don't include the idle speculation of editors on what might be true. —DIYeditor (talk) 17:32, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Thankfully, there's lots of good original analysis on Wikipedia -- eg in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_VI%2C_Part_3#True_Tragedy_as_a_reported_text
 * This entry says Hart Island was (a) called the Potter's Field in 1900, (b) operated as New York's Potter's Field in 1900 and (c) the boat mentioned in the quote is consistent with the destination being an island. So why not include this, though with the word "may"? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wombatjpw (talk • contribs) 21:50, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
 * WP:SYNTH. You have no basis for "may". If it is an obvious conclusion you would just omit "may" but it is not a given so it would be SYNTH. —DIYeditor (talk) 22:01, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

COVID-19 Burials
I'd ask editors to consider reframing the COVID-19 section in light of more current and better reporting by the New York Times, New Yorker, etc (early reporting was often in tabloids). Only unclaimed bodies are being buried on Hart island, as usual, regardless of cause of death—it is not a temporary holding ground for COVID-19 burials in specific. Furthermore, while the term "mass grave" is frequently used it may be misleading, since it denotes graves without coffins or a way to retrieve the bodies later. Hart burials include numbered coffins that can be retrieved if families later request it, free of charge. (I have no connection with the NYC government, I am just a writer and researcher interested in Hart.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gabriellemeroe (talk • contribs)

Requested move 3 March 2023

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Moved. (closed by non-admin page mover)  Sennecaster  ( Chat ) 01:06, 11 March 2023 (UTC)

– Clear WP:PRIMARYTOPIC; gets almost all the pageviews amongst all the Hart Islands that exist on Wikipedia and is the most notable by a wide margin. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 13:11, 3 March 2023 (UTC) The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
 * Hart Island (Bronx) → Hart Island
 * Hart Island → Hart Island (disambiguation)
 * Oppose very little advantage in ambiguating geo articles. In ictu oculi (talk) 13:45, 3 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Support per nomination. One of the disambiguation page entries is a book written about this Hart Island. It has also been the subject of documentaries. The other two Hart Islands are represented by a four-sentence stub delineating Hart Miller Island and a three-sentence stub delineating Hart Island (Washington). —Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 18:55, 3 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Support per nomination. Excluding the book (which isn't even linked), there are four possible subjects to which "Hart Island" can refer. One of these subjects (Hart Miller Island) isn't even named "Hart Island", and another (Hart Island, Nova Scotia) is a redirect to Nova Scotia. But, even when these are included, the island in the Bronx gets 20 times more page views than the other islands combined. I doubt that the proposed move would create ambiguity, as that can be easily resolved using a hatnote, and most readers have Page Previews enabled anyway. – Epicgenius (talk) 20:57, 3 March 2023 (UTC)
 * https://wikinav.toolforge.org/?language=en&title=Hart_Island shows 64 incoming views in a month, and 50 of these went to the Bronx article. This is still pretty tiny, but does indicate a usage trend. The Bronx island certainly has the most content written about it already - is there potential for a comparable long-term significance of others to be shown in the future? --Joy (talk) 09:29, 4 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Support I'm surprised this gets so few page views, it's quite a comprehensive article. There don't really seem to be other major uses of the name. —DIYeditor (talk) 17:52, 4 March 2023 (UTC)
 * @DIYeditor, not that it should affect your !vote, but last year, the Hart Island (Bronx) article received 111,000 page views; it is the Hart Island disambiguation page that receives only 64 views per month. There are other articles that are similarly detailed but just do not receive many page views, though. – Epicgenius (talk) 23:46, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

title: Talk:Hart Island


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Cook (crater)

Cook is a lunar impact crater that lies in the western part of the Mare Fecunditatis, just to the southeast of the prominent crater Colombo. To the southwest is Monge.

The interior of this crater has been flooded with lava, leaving only a low rim projecting above the surface. This rim is not quite circular, and has a somewhat hexagonal appearance. The low wall is worn in a few places, particularly along the northeastern rim. There is a small crater called Cook A on the interior floor near the southeast rim.

Satellite craters
By convention these features are identified on lunar maps by placing the letter on the side of the crater midpoint that is closest to Cook.

title: Cook (crater)


text:
Kevin Eltife

Kevin Paul Eltife (born March 1, 1959) is an American businessman and former politician from Tyler, Texas. A Republican, served in the Texas Senate from 2004 through 2017. He was sworn in on August 15, 2004, after winning a special election to represent District 1. He declined to seek re-election in 2016 and was succeeded in office by fellow Republican Bryan Hughes.

Early life and education
Eltife was born in Tyler, Texas, and grew up there. He is a Lebanese American; all of his grandparents immigrated to the United States from Lebanon. His father died when he was under two years old.

Business and political career
Eltife is the owner and operator of Eltife Properties, a commercial real estate company.

He first entered politics in 1991, when he ran for a city council seat. He subsequently served as mayor of Tyler for two terms (six years).

He defeated Paul Sadler in the special election for Texas Senate; in 2012, Sadler was the unsuccessful Democratic nominee against Ted Cruz for one of the two Texas seats in the United States Senate. The position opened when state Senator and former Lieutenant Governor Bill Ratliff of Mount Pleasant resigned with less than a year remaining in his state Senate term.

Eltife was a strong proponent of raising sales taxes and reducing property taxes. He wishes to use additional sales tax revenue to reduce the debt of the Texas Department of Transportation.

He was considered one of the most liberal of the nineteen (as of 2013) Texas Senate Republicans, along with Robert L. Duncan of Lubbock, Kel Seliger of Amarillo, Bob Deuell of Greenville, and John Carona of Dallas, according to an analysis by Mark P. Jones of the political science department at Rice University in Houston. Jones also found that these Republicans saw passage of 90 percent of the bills for which they voted. Of these five senators, Deuell lost a runoff election on May 27, 2014, and Carona was narrowly defeated for re-nomination on March 4. Duncan, meanwhile, resigned from the Senate to become chancellor of the Texas Tech University System.

In 2015, Eltife announced that he would not seek reelection to the Senate in 2016. He was succeeded in office by Republican state Representative Bryan Hughes of Mineola, who defeated Republican state Representative David Simpson of Longview in the Republican primary and automatically won the seat because there was no Democratic opponent.

In January 2017, Governor Greg Abbott appointed Eltife, along with two others, as a regent of the University of Texas System.

title: Kevin Eltife


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Language school

A language school is a school where one studies a foreign language. Classes at a language school are usually geared towards, for example, communicative competence in a foreign language. Language learning in such schools typically supplements formal education or existing knowledge of a foreign language.

Students vary widely by age, educational background, work experience. They usually have the possibility of selecting a specific course according to their language proficiency. According to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR), there are six language levels that define student language proficiency based on their speaking, writing and reading skills. Students will be then assigned to the course that matches their skills.

Structure
As a general rule, new students take a placement test which enables teachers to determine which is the most appropriate level for the student. Courses can be organized in groups or for individuals (one-to-one lessons). Private language schools are generally open year-round and are equipped with pedagogical material (books, tape recorders, videos, language laboratories, a library, etc.)

Organization
Most language schools are private and for-profit. Fees vary depending on a multitude of factors, including local cost of living, exchange rates, and demand for the language in the area where a school is located. Language schools are either independent entities or corporate franchises.

Teachers
Teachers are expected to possess native speaker fluency or acquired competence in their target languages; formal qualifications to become a language teacher, however, vary by school, region or country. This ensures the quality of the language school and provides students with a richer experience. Teachers may have graduated with a BA, Master's degree or a PhD Pedagogy, experience and strong teaching skills are the principal criteria during the recruitment of the language school's teachers.

Accommodation
Many language schools offer various kinds of accommodation to their students: host family (homestays), campus residences, shared housing, or hotels.

Qualifications
Most students will sit an international language exam and receive an internationally recognized qualification.

International language exams
Language schools commonly offer specific programs to those wishing to prepare for internationally recognized language exams such as:
 * TOEIC (English)
 * TOEFL (English)
 * CaMLA (English)
 * TrackTest (English)
 * University of Toronto TEFL (English)
 * Cambridge English Language Assessment (English)
 * DELF/DALF (French)
 * TestDaF (German)
 * SIELE (Spanish)
 * DELE (Spanish)
 * JLPT (Japanese)
 * TOPIK (Korean)
 * TOCFL (Chinese)
 * HSK (Chinese Mandarin)
 * DELI/DILI/DALI (Italian)
 * CNaVT (Dutch)

Some organizations combine language study with travel to destinations where the language is natively spoken. This concept of immersion travel makes it easier for students to experience and understand the destination country's culture and language.

English
Globally, English language schools have seen the greatest demand over schools for other languages. Over one billion people are said to be learning English in a second language or foreign language context. In the United States alone, ESL learners make up over one-third of all adult, non-academic learners. English learning has experienced the highest increase in demand over the last three years, with an increase of 67%. The United States and the UK are the biggest players in the global English travel market accounting for 62% of the total revenue earned in 2013, and account for 65.5% of students worldwide.

English language schools are also among the most numerous in Asian countries such as China, Japan and South Korea, as Western culture influences the rising demand for English in business and cultural contexts.

Arabic
Arabic has also grown in popularity in the last decade. Reasons include the continued growth of Islam worldwide (the Koran holy book is in Arabic), as well as cultural, economic and political reasons.

Hindi
The Hindi language along with the culture of the Indian subcontinent has started to become important due to recent foreign policies, global competitiveness, and emigration from the country. Hindi began to be introduced as a foreign language in some American schools in the 2000s. Instructors in the language were sought to teach from the kindergarten level right up to the university as part of the National Security Language Initiative.

title: Language school


text:
Yangelʹ

Yangel is a small lunar impact crater that is located in the irregular terrain to the north of the Mare Vaporum. Its diameter is 8 km. It was named after Soviet rocketry scientist Mikhail Kuzmich Yangel in 1973. This crater was formerly designated Manilius F.

It is a relatively solitary crater formation, and the nearest larger craters lie more than 100 kilometers distant. To the southeast of Yangel is the prominent crater Manilius. Conon is located to the northwest, near the flanks of the Montes Apenninus range. Just to the north of Yangel is the small lunar mare named Lacus Felicitatis, or Lake of Happiness. To the northeast, forming a bay on the Mare Vaporum, is Sinus Fidei. A sinuous rille named Rima Conon runs along the middle of this feature, reaching the northern end.

This is a circular, bowl-shaped crater with a narrow outer rim. The interior floor has a relatively low albedo that matches the dark hue of the mare to the south.

title: Yangelʹ


text:
Montaillou

Montaillou (Montalhon) is a commune in the Ariège department in the south of France. Its original, medieval location was abandoned and the current village is a short distance away.

History

The village is best known for being the subject of Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie's pioneering work of microhistory, Montaillou, village occitan. It analyzes the village in great detail over a thirty-year period from 1294 to 1324. Then a village of some 250 people, the daily routines of the people are in the records of Jacques Fournier, later Pope Benedict XII.

Montaillou was one of the last bastions of Albigensianism, the heresy also known as Catharism. Fournier, then the local bishop, launched an extensive inquisition involving dozens of lengthy interviews with the locals, all of which were faithfully recorded, as well as the arrest of the entire village in 1308. When Fournier became Pope he took the records of the investigation with him and they remain in the Vatican Library.

The medieval village has been abandoned and the modern village is located a short distance downhill. There are visible remains of houses and there are also old tracks and field markings. In medieval times, the old village was guarded by the Château de Montaillou, now a ruin. The village church, dedicated to Notre Dame de Carnesses, remains in use.

title: Montaillou


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Wolf (crater)

Wolf is a lunar impact crater that lies in the south-central part of the Mare Nubium, a lunar mare in the southern hemisphere of the Moon. It lies to the north-northwest of the walled plain Pitatus, and east-southeast of the prominent crater Bullialdus. It is named after the German astronomer Max Wolf.

The interior floor of this crater has been completely flooded by lava, leaving only an irregular, broken rim projecting slightly above the surface. The surviving rim is not quite circular, having outward bulges to the north and west. It rises to a maximum height of about 0.7 km. The smaller crater Wolf B has overlaid the southern rim, and the two have now merged into one formation. Low ridges connect to the exterior rim to the east and south.

Satellite craters

By convention these features are identified on lunar maps by placing the letter on the side of the crater midpoint that is closest to Wolf.

title: Wolf (crater)


text:
Edgerrin James

Edgerrin Tyree James (born August 1, 1978) is an American former professional football player who was a running back in the National Football League (NFL) for 11 seasons. He played college football at the University of Miami for the Miami Hurricanes. He was selected by the Indianapolis Colts fourth overall in the 1999 NFL draft. James also played for the Arizona Cardinals and Seattle Seahawks.

He was named AP NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year in 1999 and earned four Pro Bowl selections and four All-Pro selections. James is the Colts' all-time leader in career rushing yards, attempts, and touchdowns. James is 13th on the all-time rushing list, and a member of the 10,000 Yards rushing club. He was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame as a member of the Class of 2020.

College career
James was recruited out of Florida's Immokalee High School by the University of Miami. He proved to be one of the most successful running backs in the school's history.

James ranks third in all-time University of Miami rushing yards. He was the only running back in school history to post two consecutive seasons with 1,000-plus rushing yards, and he ranks first in school history with the most 100-plus rushing games (14). All single season records held by James have since been broken by former Baltimore Ravens running back Willis McGahee.

James was inducted into the University of Miami Sports Hall of Fame on April 23, 2009, at its 41st Annual Induction Banquet at Jungle Island in Miami.

Indianapolis Colts
The Indianapolis Colts selected James in the first round of the 1999 NFL draft as the fourth overall pick. James signed a seven-year, $49 million rookie contract. Some critics believed that the Colts made a mistake by choosing James over the reigning Heisman Trophy winner Ricky Williams.

James quieted the critics and was an immediate success, and was named the 1999 NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year by the Associated Press. James won the NFL rushing title in his first two seasons. He was the last NFL player to win the rushing title in his rookie season before Ezekiel Elliott. Six games into the 2001 season, he tore his ACL.

James had over 1,500 rushing yards in both the 2004 and 2005 seasons.

James left Indianapolis as its all-time leading rusher with 9,226 yards. After James's departure in March 2006, the Colts won Super Bowl XLI the following season. Although he was not on the team at the time, Colts owner Jim Irsay still sent him a Super Bowl ring.

On September 23, 2012, James was inducted into the Indianapolis Colts Ring of Honor during the week 3 game against the Jacksonville Jaguars.

Arizona Cardinals
James signed a four-year, $30 million deal with the Arizona Cardinals on March 23, 2006. With the retirement of Corey Dillon, James became the active leader in career rushing yards at the start of 2007, and remained so through his last game in November 2009 (though he would be passed by LaDainian Tomlinson by the end of the season). James went through a stretch of 10 games out of the 2008 season where he carried the ball only 20 times. Through this time, Ken Whisenhunt brought him in strictly as a pass protector. In Week 17 against the Seattle Seahawks, James carried the ball 14 times for 100 yards. James said he would not come back to Arizona following the 2009 NFL playoffs, despite a year left on his contract. In the Cardinals' first playoff game since 1998, James averaged 4.6 yards per carry against the Atlanta Falcons in the Wild Card Round. In the Divisional Round of the playoffs, James rushed for 57 yards and a touchdown in the Cardinals' upset victory over the heavily favored Carolina Panthers. James rushed for 73 yards in the Cardinals' 32–25 win over the Philadelphia Eagles in the NFC Championship. James rushed 9 times for 33 yards in the Cardinals' 27–23 loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers in Super Bowl XLIII.

His long-time girlfriend, the mother of his children, died of cancer in April 2009. After this, he asked for his release from the team, and the Cardinals honored his request on April 28.

Seattle Seahawks
After spending the 2009 offseason grieving with his four children and declining NFL offers, James finally agreed to a one-year, $2 million contract with the Seattle Seahawks on August 24, 2009, missing the team's training camp. The team released running back T. J. Duckett to make room for James on the roster. However, James rushed for only 125 yards on a career-low 46 carries. He played in only seven games, and on November 3, 2009, Seattle cut him from the team.

On July 26, 2011, James announced his retirement from professional football. He had amassed 12,246 rushing yards (11th all-time at the time of his last game in 2009) and 80 rushing touchdowns (15th).

Colts franchise records

 * Most career rushing yards (9,226)
 * Most career rushing touchdowns (64)
 * Best career rushing yards per game average: 96.1
 * Most seasons with 1,000 rushing yards (5)

Personal life
James currently resides in Miami, Florida. He has six children, including Eden, a running back committed to Howard, and Edgerrin Jr., who is a four-star basketball recruit in the class of 2023, committed to the University of Cincinnati. On April 14, 2009, Andia Wilson, James' long-time girlfriend and the mother of four of his children, died from leukemia at the age of 30. He is the second cousin of current LA Chargers safety Derwin James.

title: Edgerrin James


text:
Todd Staples

Douglas Todd Staples (born August 24, 1963) is the former two-term Texas Commissioner of Agriculture. He unsuccessfully ran for the Republican nomination for lieutenant governor in 2014.

On September 18, 2014, Staples announced that he would resign by mid-November to become president of the Texas Oil & Gas Association, following a controversy surrounding his views on a "Meatless Monday" campaign being adopted by some Texas schools.

Background
Staples was reared in Palestine, the seat of government of his native Anderson County in East Texas. He graduated from Palestine High School, where he was an active member of the Future Farmers of America. While in college, he served from 1981 to 1982 as state vice-president of the FFA. He attended Texas A&M University in College Station and graduated magna cum laude in 1984 with a Bachelor of Science in Agricultural Economics. He started a plant nursery and later became involved in cattle ranching with his family. He also owned a real estate business. For a time, he was an instructor at Trinity Valley Community College in Palestine.

Staples has two adult children from his first marriage, which ended in divorce.

Staples is a Southern Baptist deacon in his local church.

Political career
Staples served on the non-partisan Palestine City Council from 1989 to 1991. In February 1995, he was elected to the Texas House of Representatives District 11 seat in a special election to replace Elton Bomer, who had been appointed state insurance commissioner by newly elected Governor George W. Bush. In a contest against two Democrats, Staples avoided a runoff by about sixty votes, having collected 50.6 percent of the vote.

In 2000, Staples entered the race for the District 3 seat in the Texas Senate, vacated by Drew Nixon. Despite personal scandal surrounding Nixon, Staples held the seat for the Republican Party, having received more than 60 percent of the vote in the general election. He represented Anderson, Angelina, Cherokee, Hardin, Henderson, Jasper, Nacogdoches, Newton, Polk, Sabine, San Augustine, San Jacinto, Shelby and Tyler counties, and portions of Montgomery and Smith counties.

In the Senate, Staples was the chairman of the Transportation & Homeland Security Committee, the Workers Compensation Select Interim Committee and the Texas Senate Republican Caucus. Staples sponsored and helped to pass a state constitutional amendment defining marriage as between one man and one woman. He was the vice-chair of the State Affairs Committee and the Veteran Affairs & Military Installations Committee.

Staples was unopposed for the Republican nomination for Agriculture Commissioner in 2006 when the incumbent Susan Combs instead was elected Texas Comptroller to succeed Carole Strayhorn. Staples defeated Democrat Hank Gilbert and Libertarian Clay Woolam in the November 7, 2006, general election. He received 2,307,406 votes (54.77 percent), a margin of 547,000 votes over Gilbert.

In 2010, Staples ran for re-election as Agriculture Commissioner and won with more than 60 percent of the votes, again against Democrat Hank Gilbert.

Staples explained that in his role as commissioner he is compelled to tell the story of agricultural success: "It's up to us to engage with consumers because we know there are those who do not appreciate the work that's being done and what that means for available and affordable food supply."

On September 18, Staples announced his resignation to become the president of the Texas Oil & Gas Association.

2014 primary for lieutenant governor
Though Staples enlisted baseball great Nolan Ryan as his campaign chairman, he finished third in the primary for lieutenant governor with 235,981 votes (17.8 percent).

Same-sex Marriage
In 2003, Staples sponsored a bill that prohibited the State of Texas from recognizing same-sex marriages, then again in 2005, sponsored and campaigned for another bill that successfully amended the Texas Constitution to limit marriage to one man and one woman.

Electoral history

 * 2014

Texas general election, 2006: Texas Commissioner of Agriculture[4] Party	       Candidate	          Votes	                  % -Republican	Todd Staples	    2,9573,406	               60.82% -Democratic	Hank Gilbert	    1,738,456	               35.79% -Libertarian	Clay Woolam	    164,035		       3.37%
 * 2010

Turnout	4,856,266

 * 2006

 * 2002

 * 2000

 * 2000

title: Todd Staples


text:
Moses ben Jacob Cordovero

Moses ben Jacob Cordovero (משה קורדובירו Moshe Kordovero ; 1522–1570) was a central figure in the historical development of Kabbalah, leader of a mystical school in 16th-century Safed, Ottoman Syria. He is known by the acronym the Ramak (רמ״ק).

After the Medieval flourishing of Kabbalah, centered on the Zohar, attempts were made to give a complete intellectual system to its theology, such as by Meir ibn Gabbai. Influenced by the earlier success of Jewish philosophy in articulating a rational study of Jewish thought, Moshe Cordovero produced the first full integration of the previous differing schools in Kabbalistic interpretation. While he was a mystic inspired by the opaque imagery of the Zohar, Cordoverian Kabbalah utilised the conceptual framework of evolving cause and effect from the Infinite to the Finite in systemising Kabbalah, the method of philosophical style discourse he held most effective in describing a process that reflects sequential logic and coherence. His encyclopedic works became a central stage in the development of Kabbalah.

Immediately after him in Safed, Isaac Luria articulated a subsequent system of Kabbalistic theology, with new supra-rational doctrines recasting previous Kabbalistic thought. While Lurianism displaced the Cordoverian scheme and became predominant in Judaism, its followers read Cordoverian works in harmony with their teachings. Where to them, Lurianism described the "World" of Rectification, Cordovero described the pre-Rectification World. Both articulations of the 16th century mystical Renaissance in Safed gave Kabbalah an intellectual prominence to rival Medieval Rationalism, whose social influence on Judaism had waned after the Expulsion from Spain.

Early life
The name Cordovero indicates that his family originated in Córdoba, Spain and perhaps fled from there during the expulsion of 1492 ensuing from the Spanish Inquisition. His Hebrew signature, however (Cordoeiro), strongly suggests a long-lasting residence in Portugal.

Moses was either born in or moved to Safed in the Land of Israel, the city that was soon to become famed as a center of Kabbalah and mystical creativity. Albeit not involved in mystical studies until his twentieth year, he soon after gained a reputation of an extraordinary genius and a prolific writer. Besides his knowledge in kabbalah, he was a Talmudic scholar and a man of commanding mastery in Jewish philosophical thought who was respected in these fields. Contrary to popular belief, however, he was not one of the rabbis who received the special semicha ("ordination") from Jacob Berab in 1538, alongside Joseph Karo, Cordovero's teacher of halakha, Moses ben Joseph di Trani, Yosef Sagis, and Moshe Alshich. As a whole, Moses' contributions to posterity were in speculative and performative Kabbalah, but during his lifetime he was the renowned head of the Yeshiva for Portuguese immigrants in Safed.

Scholarship
According to his testimony in the introduction to Pardes Rimonim, in 1542, at the age of twenty, Moses heard a "heavenly voice" urging him to study Kabbalah with his brother-in-law, Shlomo Alkabetz, composer of the mystical song Lecha Dodi. He was thus initiated into the mysteries of the Zohar. The young Moses not only mastered the text but decided to organize the kabbalistic themes leading to his day and present them in an organized fashion. This led to the composition of his first book, Pardes Rimonim "Orchard of Pomegranates", which was completed in 1548 and secured his reputation as a brilliant Kabbalist and a lucid thinker. The Pardes, as it is known, was a systemization of all Kabbalistic thought up to that time and featured the author's attempt at a reconciliation of various early schools with the conceptual teachings of the Zohar to demonstrate an essential unity and self-consistent philosophical basis of Kabbalah.

His second work, a magnum opus titled Precious Light (אור יקר), was a 16-volume commentary on the Zoharic literature in its entirety and a work to which Ramak had devoted most of his life. Some other books for which he is known are the Tomer Devorah ("Palm Tree of Deborah"), in which he utilizes the Kabbalistic concepts of the Sefirot to illuminate a system of morals and ethics; Ohr Neerav, a justification of and insistence upon the importance of Kabbalah study and an introduction to the methods explicated in Pardes Rimonim; Elimah Rabbati, a highly abstract treatise on kabbalistic concerns revolving around the Godhead and its relationship to the sefirot; and the Sefer Gerushin, a short and intimate composition which features the highly devotional slant of Cordovero, as well as his asceticism and religious piety. Certain parts of Moses' works are still manuscripts, whereas his existing writings suggest many other compositions which he either intended to write or had written, but were lost.

Disciples
Around 1550 he founded a Kabbalah academy in Safed in the Damascus Eyalet of Ottoman Palestine, which he led for approximately twenty years until his death. He is buried in Old Cemetery of Tzfat / Safed. His disciples included Eliyahu de Vidas, author of the Reshit Chochmah "Beginning of Wisdom", and Chaim Vital, who later became the official recorder and disseminator of the teachings of Isaac Luria.

Moses was survived by a wife, the sister of Solomon Alkabetz, whose name remains unknown and by his son Gedaliah (1562–1625). Gedaliah was the impetus behind the publication of some of Moses' books in Venice c. 1584–7. Gedaliah was buried in Jerusalem in the Damascus Eyalet, where he had spent most of his adult life after returning from Venice.

Succession of Kabbalistic interpretation after the Ramak
According to tradition, Isaac Luria (known by the acronym "Ari" or "Arizal") arrived in Safed on the exact day of the funeral of Moshe Cordovero in 1570. When he joined in the funeral procession, he realised that only he saw a pillar of fire following the Ramak's presence. The Zohar describes this spiritual revelation as a sign to the individual who sees it, that he is meant to inherit the succession of leadership from the departed person. However, as Luria had been instructed to find his chosen disciple in Safed, Haim Vital, to reveal his new teachings to, he avoided accepting Kabbalistic leadership until six months later, when Rabbi Haim Vital approached him. The Ari only lived for two years after this, until 1572, but in those few months he revolutionised the conceptual system of Kabbalah, with his new doctrines and philosophical system.

The two schools of Cordoveran and Lurianic Kabbalah give two alternative accounts and synthesis of the complete theology of Kabbalah until then, based on their interpretation of the Zohar. After the public dissemination of the Zohar in Medieval times, various attempts were made to give a complete intellectual system of theology to its different schools and interpretations. Influenced by the earlier rational success of Jewish philosophy, especially the work of Maimonides, in producing a systematic intellectual articulation of Judaism, the Ramak achieved the first accepted systemisation of Kabbalah, based on its rational categorisation and study. Subsequent followers of the Ari saw their teachings as harmonious with, and a deeper interpretation of the Zohar and the Ramak's system, but the new system of Isaac Luria revealed completely new doctrines, as well as new descriptions of the earlier ideas of Kabbalah. In time, Lurianic Kabbalah emerged as the dominant system; however, the works of the Ramak are still highly esteemed and widely studied, as well.

Among the Ramak's most visible books
Light") - translated to English and annotated by Ira Robinson (1994).
 * 1) Pardes Rimonim ("An Orchard of Pomegranates") - Ramak's first book, an encyclopedic synthesis of the main trends of kabbalistic thought with numerous diagrams, which secured his reputation as a mystical genius.
 * 2) Ohr Yakar ("A Precious Light") - a Magnum opus of some 16 volumes in its extant manuscript form, which had occupied Ramak throughout his adult life - a classic commentary on the Zohar, Sefer Yetzirah and the Zoharic literary offshoots. Its publication ended around 2005 in Jerusalem (some 22 volumes). Certain parts, such as Tefilah le-Moshe and Shiur Qomah, were previously published as separate works.
 * 3) Tomer Devorah ("Palm tree [of] Deborah") - a popular work of Musar Literature based on kabbalistic principles. It was translated into English by Louis Jacobs as "Moses Cordovero, The Palm Tree of Deborah", New York Sepher-Hermon Press, 1960, BJ1287.C8T61J2; and later by Rabbi Moshe Miller (1993). First chapter was also translated with an extensive commentary by Henry Abramson under the title The Kabbalah of Forgiveness: The Thirteen Levels of Mercy in Rabbi Moshe Cordovero's Date Palm of Devorah (Tomer Devorah) (2014)
 * 4) Eilima Rabbati - of which 2/3 is still unpublished.
 * 5) Ohr Neerav ("A Pleasant Light" - can also mean "A Mixed Light" or "A Darkened
 * 1) Sefer Gerushin ("The Book of Banishments") - a disclosure of Ramak's fellowship and their devotional piety in the Galilean outskirts of Safed. A highly informative text concerning Ramak's devotional piety and the use of landscape as the negotiator between heaven and earth.

title: Moses ben Jacob Cordovero


text:
Tony Award for Best Original Score

The Tony Award for Best Original Score is the Tony Award given to the composers and lyricists of the best original score written for a musical or play in that year. The score consists of music and/or lyrics. To be eligible, a score must be written specifically for the theatre and must be original; compilations of non-theatrical music or compilations of earlier theatrical music are not eligible for consideration.

History
The award has undergone a number of minor changes. In 1947, 1950, 1951, and 1962, the award went to the composer only. Otherwise, the award has gone to the composer and lyricist for their combined contributions, except for 1971 when the two awards were split (although Stephen Sondheim won both, for Company).

The only tie in this category occurred in 1993, when Fred Ebb & John Kander (Kiss of the Spider Woman) and Pete Townshend (The Who's Tommy) shared the award.

In only ten years have non-musical plays been nominated for Tony Awards in this category: Much Ado About Nothing in 1973; The Good Doctor in 1974; The Song of Jacob Zulu in 1993; Twelfth Night in 1999; Enron and Fences in 2010; Peter and the Starcatcher and One Man, Two Guvnors in 2012; Angels in America in 2018; To Kill a Mockingbird in 2019; A Christmas Carol, The Inheritance, The Rose Tattoo, Slave Play, and The Sound Inside in 2020; and Stereophonic in 2024. Because the Broadway season of 2019-2020 was shortened due to the COVID-19 pandemic, only four musicals were eligible for Tony Awards; three were jukebox musicals and the fourth was The Lightning Thief, the only musical of the season with original music. The Lightning Thief was not nominated for any Tony Awards, meaning that every nominee in this category in 2020 was a play rather than a musical.

In 2013, Cyndi Lauper became the first woman to win the award solo for Kinky Boots. In 2015, Lisa Kron and Jeanine Tesori became the first all-woman team to win the award for Fun Home.

Toby Marlow is the youngest person to win the award; he was 27 when he won in tandem with Lucy Moss for Six. Adolph Green is the oldest person to win the award; he was 76 when he won for The Will Rogers Follies. If T. S. Eliot were alive when he won for Cats, he would have been 94. Eliot is one of two people to receive the award posthumously, the other being Jonathan Larson, who won for Rent. He would have been 36.

Winners and nominees
{{legend|#B0C4DE|indicates the winner}}

Multiple wins

 * 6 Wins
 * Stephen Sondheim (3 consecutive)

 * 3 Wins
 * Cy Coleman (2 consecutive)
 * Betty Comden
 * Fred Ebb
 * Adolph Green
 * John Kander
 * Andrew Lloyd Webber

 * 2 Wins
 * Jerry Herman
 * Robert Lopez
 * Lin-Manuel Miranda
 * Tim Rice
 * Richard Rodgers
 * Jeanine Tesori
 * Maury Yeston
 * Jason Robert Brown

Multiple nominations

 * 11 Nominations
 * Fred Ebb
 * John Kander
 * Andrew Lloyd Webber

 * 10 Nominations
 * Stephen Sondheim

 * 9 Nominations
 * Cy Coleman

 * 7 Nominations
 * Tim Rice

 * 6 Nominations
 * Jeanine Tesori

 * 5 Nominations
 * Don Black
 * Jerry Herman
 * Richard Maltby Jr.
 * Alan Menken
 * Stephen Schwartz
 * David Yazbek

 * 4 Nominations
 * Jason Robert Brown
 * Betty Comden
 * Adolph Green
 * Sheldon Harnick
 * Tom Kitt
 * Richard Rodgers
 * Charles Strouse

 * 3 Nominations
 * Howard Ashman
 * Chad Beguelin
 * Jerry Bock
 * Adam Guettel
 * Elton John
 * Alan Jay Lerner
 * Robert Lopez
 * Glenn Slater
 * Maury Yeston

 * 2 Nominations
 * Lynn Ahrens
 * Sara Bareilles
 * Nell Benjamin
 * Elmer Bernstein
 * Susan Birkenhead
 * Alain Boublil
 * Leslie Bricusse
 * Craig Carnelia
 * Joe Darion
 * Dorothy Fields
 * William Finn
 * Stephen Flaherty
 * Micki Grant
 * Amanda Green
 * Larry Grossman
 * Marvin Hamlisch
 * Charles Hart
 * Joel Hirschhorn
 * Rupert Holmes
 * Tom Jones
 * Al Kasha
 * Edward Kleban
 * Michael Korie
 * Henry Krieger
 * Michael John LaChiusa
 * Burton Lane
 * Cyndi Lauper
 * Carolyn Leigh
 * David Lindsay-Abaire
 * Peter Link
 * Hugh Martin
 * Tim Minchin
 * Lin-Manuel Miranda
 * Anthony Newley
 * Benj Pasek
 * Justin Paul
 * Harvey Schmidt
 * Claude-Michel Schönberg
 * Marc Shaiman
 * David Shire
 * Matthew Sklar
 * Michael Stewart
 * Richard Stilgoe
 * Jule Styne
 * Kurt Weill
 * Frank Wildhorn
 * Scott Wittman
 * Brian Yorkey
 * David Zippel

Female winners
Only nine women have won this award, six of whom won without male writing partners, and for eleven shows:

 * Betty Comden – Hallelujah, Baby! (1968), On the Twentieth Century (1978), and The Will Rogers Follies (1991), becoming the first woman to win this Tony multiple times.
 * Lynn Ahrens – Ragtime (1998)
 * Lisa Lambert – The Drowsy Chaperone (2006)
 * Cyndi Lauper – Kinky Boots (2013), becoming the first woman to win this Tony without a writing partner
 * Jeanine Tesori – Fun Home (2015) and Kimberly Akimbo (2023)
 * Lisa Kron – Fun Home (2015), Kron and Jeanine Tesori becoming the first all-female songwriting team (music and lyrics) to win this Tony.
 * Anaïs Mitchell – Hadestown (2019)
 * Lucy Moss – Six (2022)
 * Shaina Taub - Suffs (2024)

title: Tony Award for Best Original Score


text:
Operation Red Dragon (civil defense exercise)

Exercise Red Dragon is a recurring civil defense readiness exercise conducted in Fort McCoy, Wisconsin held during the summer, training Army Reserve, National Guard units, and civilian agencies, such as fire departments, police stations, hospitals, and non-governmental organizations (i.e. American Red Cross) to improve the Defense Support of Civil Authorities capabilities for large-scale chemical defense missions.

History
As a result of the 1995 sarin gas attack on a Tokyo subway and the growing concern about a terrorist chemical attack, the U.S. Congress passed laws to implement a program to train civilian agencies on responding to incidents involving Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD). In response, the U.S. Army Reserve Command's Homeland Defense Office, then under the direction of LTC Jon M. Byrom, US Army Reserve developed an annual exercise to integrate collective training with specialized HAZMAT protection and decontamination equipment for Army Reserve units with this homeland defense mission. This annual exercise began in 2004 when the 472d Chemical Battalion, under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Scott S. Haraburda, was selected to provide operational command and control over nearly 400 Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear and high- yield Explosives (CBRNE) defense soldiers. The following year, the exercise doubled in size to 800. In 2006, the 464th Chemical Brigade commanded this exercise, again under newly promoted Colonel Haraburda as the brigade commander, commanding over 1,100 chemical, military police, and medical soldiers, laying the groundwork for future training efforts with non-military organizations as part of the Defense Support of Civil Authorities for large-scale chemical defense missions. This exercise eventually grew to over 3,000 soldiers with ten civilian hospitals in 2009 and to include foreign contributions with Canadian soldiers in 2014.


text:
Tommy Williams (Texas politician)

Thomas David Williams, known as Tommy Williams (born December 17, 1956), is a Republican former member of the Texas Senate, who represented District 4 in The Woodlands in Montgomery County in the Houston suburbs.

Background
Williams was first elected to the Texas Senate in 2002, after incumbent District 4 Senator David Bernsen, a Democrat, declined to seek re-election after redistricting changed the composition of the district. (Bernsen instead ran unsuccessfully for Texas Land Commissioner, losing that race to Jerry E. Patterson.)

After more than ten years in office, Williams, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, was in October 2013 in the process of resigning, to accept a government relations position at his alma mater, Texas A&M University in College Station. On October 3, Williams confirmed that he would not run again in the Republican primary election scheduled for March 4, 2014.

Williams previously served three terms from 1997 to 2003 in the Texas House of Representatives. Williams has served as president of Woodforest Financial Services, an affiliate of Woodforest National Bank. Williams started his new position at Texas A&M on December 2, 2013.

Among those seeking to fill Williams' Senate seat were neighboring State Representatives Steve Toth of District 15 in The Woodlands and Brandon Creighton of District 16 in Conroe, both of Montgomery County. Creighton defeated Toth in a runoff election to claim the seat.

title: Tommy Williams (Texas politician)


text:
User talk:ABCD/Archive 1

This is the first archive of User talk:ABCD.

Welcome!
Hello, and welcome to Wikipedia. Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers: I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! By the way, you can sign your name on Talk and vote pages using three tildes, like this: ~ ~ ~. Four tildes (~ ~ ) produces your name and the current date. If you have any questions, see the help pages, add a question to the village pump or ask me on my Talk page. Again, welcome! -- Graham ☺ | Talk 23:16, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * How to edit a page
 * Editing tutorial
 * Picture tutorial
 * How to write a great article
 * Naming conventions
 * Manual of Style

Compressing of wikitext
Please do not make [ changes such as these], the whitespace formation is a software bug which should be fixed in the software and not by dirty hacks which make the wikitext ill-readable.

File a bug at http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org if there is not an open one discussing the problem. --Ævar Arnfjörð [ Bjarmason] 11:00, 2004 Nov 23 (UTC)

 * Sorry, I didn't realize that it was just a bug, not a feature. 22:21, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

WP:RfD
How funny! I was trying to delete the entry (having noticed that the target had just appeared) just as you added the note! You hit "Save page" seconds before I did! Noel (talk) 14:00, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

If you delete entries from WP:RfD (I had temporarily left those because they were deleted by someone else who didn't follow policy), please read WP:RfD about what to put in the edit summary. Noel (talk) 04:32, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

 * Opps - sorry -- 13:52, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

GNAA
Hi. I don't know if you're aware of it, but your last edit to Unusual articles, in addition to the categorisation improvement also redacted the word "--" (if you don't see a word between the preceeding quotes, it was the-n-word) from the GNAA linked from that page. As you seem to be embarked on an impressive programme of category tweaking (and not a personal swearyword jihad) I'm guessing you (or whatever institution from which you're editing) has some kind of automatic "naughty words" removal system. That's probably something you might like to look into, as it has the potential to zap lots of stuff quickly, without your knowing it. -- John Fader 19:44, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Check this out
hey ABCD (please respond in my own Talk Bgs022) What happened to your Name on my wheel of fortune? its doesn't have ABCD. please try to fix it.
 * Replied on User talk:bgs022

Million pool
The time given for your guess on Million pool (15:92) is impossible in the method of time measurement employed by Wikipedia. Please change it to something we can evaluate the validity of. 2-7 at 18:28.182845 (or any time) is still available in 2006 if you'd like to retain your mathematical reference. -- Cyrius|✎ 00:28, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

 * Fixed – ABCD 18:38, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Infatuation redirect
Hello, do you know what the situation is with the Infatuation redirect? I couldn't find any RFD discussion for it. - RedWordSmith 06:34, Mar 3, 2005 (UTC)

 * Look under November 22. – ABCD 17:10 3 March 2005 (UTC)

Just as a heads-up
If you find a stub article without enough context (as Fox Fire was earlier today) it's helpful to check "What links here". Very often such articles are created by newbies who follow a redlink (often from a large list) and mistakenly assume that anyone who reaches the article they create will undoubtedly do so through the list and will thus already know the context. -- Antaeus Feldspar 18:30, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * Good point, I forgot about that. – ABCD 18:59 6 March 2005 (UTC)

Blue links = trouble
I had to let you know that your "if this link is blue, I'm in trouble" entries on your userpage made me laugh and accidentally snort Diet Coke up my nose. That hurt, but it was worth it. Joyous 18:13, Mar 18, 2005 (UTC)
 * Actually, I got those links from someone else's user page, but I forgot whose it was. – ABCD 18:42, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * I've had a good laugh too, I guess someone else has beaten to me writing on your talkpage about it. ;) - Mailer Diablo 11:18, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * When I'm on at night, I often have the monitor colors inverted (white is black, black is white), so the link did look blue (or cyan, if you're picky). :^) -Jobarts 07:55, Mar 31, 2005 (UTC)

Soliciting votes
Interesting you have a no soliciting sign on the top of your page, yet solicit for votes on your RFA. I reallize you just asked me to vote, not to vote for you, but I think you would be much better off if you did not solicit votes. Many people frown on that. Just a heads up. Most people that vote on RFA watch it and like I, had already seen your nomination before you left the message. - Taxman 19:48, Mar 18, 2005 (UTC)
 * If there had been a no soliciting sign, I wouldn't solicit, but I felt that those who had voted last time might want to know that I had reapplied. – ABCD 19:54, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * I appreciate the note. Ever since RFA went into subpages I've had a hard time following it. Jordi·✆ 01:08, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Edit counts
Hi! It certainly was a lot easier to get counts when Kate's tool was working. What I did was to view my contributions and set the count to 500 per page. I then hit "next 500" until I reached the last page. At this point I reduced the per page count to 100 and went to the last page. Now there's less than 100 edits (starting from #2101, for example), which can be counted easily. Hope that helps! Carbonite | Talk 01:49, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

 * Hey, I saw your mention of Kate's tool on Carbonite's page. I believe it is working, but at a different location.  Try here.  I show you with 2805 edits.  Joyous 01:30, Mar 20, 2005 (UTC)

Thank's for the updated link! — Asbestos | Talk 17:07, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Question
Hi, Jonathan. It seems I was wrong in connecting you with Alex Plank, and I would like to apologize. Just to set my mind at ease, I wanted to know if you'd be willing to provide a little information. I want to respect your privacy, so this isn't information about you, just something that you would know and Alex Plank wouldn't. I believe the place you went to school last year (I don't know if you're still going there, and I don't need to know) has an elementary school next door, or across the street, right? Could you give me the name of that elementary school? --Michael Snow 22:01, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)

 * Tolbert is what I was expecting, and I knew the information I had was dated. Anyway, thanks for doing that, you've completely satisfied my doubts. Again, I apologize for my accusations and for contributing to this situation. And regardless of what others may say, I think you handled it reasonably well considering the circumstances. Just keep in mind that if you do end up using admin abilities to deal with vandals, they may respond even more harshly, even though you probably won't deserve the mistreatment any more than you did this. --Michael Snow 22:37, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)

RfA
My pleasure. I seem to spend half my time dealing with vandalism, and the more help the better. Good luck! Mel Etitis ( Μελ Ετητης ) 09:14, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Congratulations!
Congratulations! It's my pleasure to let you know that, consensus being reached, you are now an administrator. You should read the relevant policies and other pages linked to from the administrators' reading list before carrying out tasks like deletion, protection, banning users, and editing protected pages such as the Main Page. Most of what you do is easily reversible by other sysops, apart from page history merges and image deletion, so please be especially careful with those. You might find the new administrators' how-to guide helpful. Cheers! -- Cecropia | explains it all ® 00:23, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)

 * Let me add my congratulations as well. I was especially moved to support your nomination after seeing the way you handled yourself on your previous nomination. You remained rational and polite despite a lot of allegations being slung around with very little evidence, and I believe you will continue to act this way as an administrator. I've only recently become an administrator myself but I'd be happy to try to answer any questions. — Knowledge Seeker দ 00:39, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)

 * Indeed, congratulations! -Kbdank71 03:51, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)

 * Indeed, congratulations! --JuntungWu 06:57, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)

 * Congrats! utcursch | talk 07:43, Apr 2, 2005 (UTC)

 * Congratulations! :) - Mailer Diablo 08:30, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)

 * Not bad. :-) Kim Bruning 10:50, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)

 * Congratulations! Rad Racer | Talk 06:01, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC)

 * Congrats! You'll make a great admin Cynical | Talk 12:43, 11 Apr 2005 (GMT)

List of pieces, American
See: Wikipedia talk:Votes for deletion/List of pieces, American. Thanks. Hyacinth 03:06, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Help with VfD cleanup
Hi. I saw that you were the administrator who dealt with VfD entries from March 24th, before and after my own problem child, SHWI-ISOT. I think we reached a rough consensus for a merge and redirect to Alternative history (fiction), and I am willing to do the work myself to help out, but after reading of the deletion policies it looked like such decisions are deferred until after closing debate and an administrator looks it over. It's been a while since debate closed and nothing looks like it has been done, so I wanted to check with an administrator and see if I should do anything or just wait. Thanks for your help and please respond on my talk page. -- Glen Finney 18:07, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Clout
Thanks for removing the VfD from User:Clout. Now let's wait to see what happens next. Mel Etitis ( Μελ Ετητης ) 08:56, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Thanks!
Thanks for removing the VFD from Angela Beesley. I'm so glad to see that article kept! David Cannon 01:02, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Circumcision and Anti-semitism
ABCD I would like to appeal your recent decision to close discussion and delete the article Circumcision and Anti-semitism. This page was not listed on vfd long enough. Also most of the criticism of the article was not relevant to the current version which was significantly enhanced since the process began. If the article had been left, it almost certainly would had been further improved. I feel that this article was discriminated against on the basis of its controversial nature and will go through every possible process to see that this decision be reversed! Sirkumsize 02:31, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Michael Parks
Urk! The version of this you deleted was a new stub, unrelated to the VFD discussion - the original article had already been deleted, but the discussion wasn't closed properly. Also, it may have been vandalised multiple times, so I don't know what state it was in. Could you undelete it please - only the rewritten revisions if that's possible. Thanks, sjorford →•← 08:20, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * Never mind, I've recreated it now. sjorford →•← 15:04, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)

you deleted my article and i am not a happy camper (unsigned by User:RescueHero (talk • contribs))

JS help
Hey. I recently registered (I've been contributing as an anon for a while), solely for the purpose of being able to have my own monobook.js. I did this because I noticed you were doing some interesting things with yours. As an experiment, I decided to try to mangle part of your .js for my own; my intention was to have (in this case) my edit summaries always and automatically filled out as test (again, that's just an experiment). So, if you could assist me with a some .js that could do that, I would be appreciative. Thanks! :) Ph43r 23:12, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * Thanks. :) Ph43r 23:22, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

 * ABCD - you've been had. Ph43r was a massive page creation vandal. Sorry :( ugen 64 00:04, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Your changes too the moonbook.css
I think your changes broke my browser! I can't read the "Edit this page" "history" "watch" etc labels on the tabs and clicking on them doesn't work, either. Mozilla 1.4.2 (actually galeon 1.3.7). Could you please change it back. At least so I can check if it really is your changes that did it? It happend around the time I see you edited the MediaWiki:Monobook.css. I posted a note about it on village pump, too. Thanks. Shanes 03:45, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)

 * Hmm, I tried experimenting and putting the old version of Monobook.css on my userpage, but it didn't help. So either I am screwing up something, your changes didn't have anything to do with anything or I am just confused. Probably all of the above. Maybe after I get a good nights sleep I'll see things better and everything will be fine. Shanes 04:26, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Yes it did!!! Thanks. But I don't understand why me having my own old monobook.csss shouldn't do the same thing. But it didn't. Anyway, everything is fine for me now. If you'd like me to test stuff like this in my browser in the future in anyway, just let me know. I like testing stuff ;-) Shanes 13:16, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Formatting
Your edits pop quite often on my watchlist. I see you replacing html style tags with the quoted wiki style. I just wonder, do you use a program, or do things by hand? Just curious. :) (You can reply here, I will watch this page). Oleg Alexandrov 00:11, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * I use a link in my monobook.css . – ABCD 00:12, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

 * OK, but how do you do the actual replacement? Do you mean your monobook goes through articles and replaces  with '' ? Oleg Alexandrov 00:23, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

 * Sorry, I mean monobook.js. – 00:26, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

 * Got it. I for some reason got distracted and did not notice you replied here. Thanks for the reminder. :) Oleg Alexandrov 00:59, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

 * And thanks for the information. My curiosity is satisfied now. :) Oleg Alexandrov 01:07, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

IRC fun
Well, that was embarrassing. Thanks for the private message. Guess I should have read the documentation before plunging in! :-) FreplySpang (talk) 00:55, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Babel
I was just joking around. I think the En-0 template is ridiculous because this is the english wikipedia and everyone should be able to speak english (I do understand that people from other wikipedias do interwiki work here, but how would they be able to find out what template to put on their page if they can't speak enlgish). The En-0 category is especially crazy. Why would someone want to look up people who can't speak english? The commons got rid of the En-0 category (where the template does make sense) for that reason. BrokenSegue 23:22, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

Votes for deletion/Susej
You closed this discussion a while ago, but I think you forgot to actually do the result. Just thought I'd let you know... :) --Dmcdevit 01:15, 5 May 2005 (UTC)
 * I deleted Susej, but the link in the vfd is to Bad jokes and other deleted nonsense/April Fools' Day 2005/Susej. – 01:24, 5 May 2005 (UTC)
 * So... do you mean the BJAODN page should be deleted, or it shouldn't have a vfd tag on it at all? Surely one of these... --Dmcdevit 01:28, 5 May 2005 (UTC)
 * I forgot to remove the vfd tag. – 01:30, 5 May 2005 (UTC)
 * OK, cool. --Dmcdevit 01:31, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

"history only" UnDelete request
Hi,

From Special:Log/Delete, you performed:
 * 20:57, 6 May 2005 ABCD deleted "User:Pmanderson" (owner's request)

In accordance with Undeletion policy I'd like to request a "history only" recovery of User:Pmanderson (the policy indicates not going via Votes for undeletion in that case).

Reason: explained at talk:republic - Pmanderson (a.k.a. Septentrionalis) asked me to establish for whom he might be poppeteering.

I'd rather not sign this, nonetheless: --Francis Schonken 15:32, 8 May 2005 (UTC)

 * Tx - sorry for the trouble, the history didn't learn much. Maybe undo ASAP, I don't want to be biting newcomers (which I maybe already did). --Francis Schonken 16:12, 8 May 2005 (UTC)

protections
Why are you protecting the featured articles against page moves? —Charles P. (Mirv) 18:20, 10 May 2005 (UTC)

Vandalism
Listen --, I propose a zero-tolerance policy on vandals. I say you get one warning, and that's it. This shit's gone too far. I also propose a blocked users page that blocked users could edit at the village pump, but it's been met with a lukewarm response. You seem to be a pretty prominent admin, so I was wondering if you could help me. Thanks. Karatloz 11:46, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

Uh...it's me again. If you're not responding because I called you a --, I'm sorry. I was really mad when I wrote that, and I thought it was clear I wasn't angry at you or anything. So...you're not a --, ok? Now can you help me with this? Karatloz 00:14, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

Hey! Cockney here ;)thank you for welcoming me. of course, i just love the place and wanna help it be a one-stop shop for knowledge and stuff... and i do like to contribute, although most of them are minor changes... i don't remember changing A THING in the article about Portsmouth. so this is neither vandalism, nor my stupidity. i edited a few football-related articles, but not that one. thank you

ps nice place to be and nice lads, indeed DAMN... now i see what you meant.. sorry... but Yakubu IS going to Villa NOT Boro!! innit?

Mediawiki:Missingarticle
Hi, ABCD. You changed the missing article text to wiki coding. However, this is not enterpreted by the server when calling it. For some reason that I cannot divine, it had just been changed by MediaWiki Default to the default settings. Wiki coding does not work from these pages, so it is necessary to put in the HTML. I have put it back to my version. Could you have a look and check it out? Cheers, Smoddy (Rabbit and pork) 19:36, 25 May 2005 (UTC)

 * Hm, I'm not sure about this. On a couple of occasions, when checking edits recently made, the wikitext has been returned.  Actually, this could be the reason: diff pages do not show up with Missingarticle, but normal links do.  I don't know if there is any way around this.  Cheers, Smoddy (Rabbit and pork) 12:43, 28 May 2005 (UTC)

Page Non-white
I see you sensibly deleted this page after a recent VFD. Well, it's back. I was just about to put it on VFD myself when I found the previous discussion. I'm not sure of the protocol now so I wonder if you could advise, or assist? Naturenet 21:34, 29 May 2005 (UTC)

Formatting issues
Hi ABCD. One remark. At Linear regression after you reformatted it, some text got messed up, becoming bold italic. This effect happens when there are unmatched quotes, like when you have the prime symbol, f'(x). It was this thing which stopped me a while ago from using a bot I wrote to do what you are doing. So, I think you need to inspect visually each page in which you do the formatting. Cheers, Oleg Alexandrov 22:53, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

"rf" template
Hi ABCD, I noticed you edited Template:rf to remove the "plainlinks" bit. Thanks, that was some leftover cruft copied from a previous version of the "ref" template, which uses external links. Out of curiosity, how did you come across this template, are you using it? I wasn't aware anyone else was aware of this template but me. Paul August ☎ 20:22, Jun 9, 2005 (UTC)

 * Ah I see. Thanks. Paul August ☎ 18:00, Jun 10, 2005 (UTC)

Mind Benders
Hello! I've noticed your past interest in Mind Benders and wanted to share the following announcement with you! I've taken over the responsibilities of Mind Benders, and the page will now be regularly updated. Right now, the pre-round is open (it's more of a creative artistic competition), and round one will open soon (the questions are done, we just need to wait for the pre-round to begin/finish)! So why not check it out? I'll keep you updated! Thanks, Flcelloguy | A note? | Desk 01:26, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

P.S. Feel free to pass this news on to other Wikipedians.

My talk page
Hi ABCD, thanks for restoring my talk page for me. SlimVirgin (talk) June 29, 2005 18:21 (UTC)
 * You're welcome. – ABCD 29 June 2005 18:24 (UTC)

Greetings from the United Federation of Planets
I noticed you pmed me on IRC, how can I assist? Cat chi? 30 June 2005 23:26 (UTC)

Zlatiborian
Why don't you believe that there is the Zlatiborian language? George D. Bozovic

Page protection
Why did you protect a large number of pages with virtually meaningless comment "prevent page moves"? Was it vandalism? Or edit war? On this big number of pages at the same time? When it will be unproitected? Your action influienced a **huge** number of editors. You cannot do such things unexplained. mikka (t) 19:52, 12 July 2005 (UTC)
 * All I did was prevent the pages from being moved - they can still be edited by anyone, just not moved. – ABCD 20:02, 12 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Why? Look, there is a big crowd around. You owe people some respect, even if they are lowly nonadmins. mikka (t) 20:12, 12 July 2005 (UTC)
 * The only pages affected are featured articles, because they generally have a large history, and moving one can bring down the servers for hours (like when Wikipedia was moved in March). This is being done at the suggestion of the devs. – ABCD 20:19, 12 July 2005 (UTC)
 * All the more you had to explain this somewhere. Right now I am discussing the move of a page you protected. So are you saying I am on the brink of bringing a disaster?
 * Next time please write a useful comment, kind of "protected from moves due to technical limitations. Please consult developers, if the move is necessary."
 * I don't recall this problem with previous versions of mediawiki. Is it a new bug, or just histories were small before? mikka (t) 20:53, 12 July 2005 (UTC)
 * It's not new, just it takes time (sometimes hours) for changes to replicate to the DB slaves, as seen by the vandal back in March, and, while the DB is syncing, everything else is just left in a queue. Also, what page would you like to move? – ABCD 21:35, 12 July 2005 (UTC)
 * See Talk:Space Race. mikka (t) 21:56, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

Times
Hi ABCD. Just a remark about style, in case you are not aware of it. For a matrix of dimensions m and n, one writes its size as m×n, rather than m*n. This is about your edits at linear regression a while ago. Thanks. Oleg Alexandrov 16:10, 15 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Oops! That was a mistake - I know how it was supposed to be, but I accidentally changed it. – ABCD✉ 16:14, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

Mind Benders
Hello! I've noticed your past interest in Mind Benders and wanted to let you know that round one is now officially open! Consisting of ten challenging, puzzling questions, it is sure to be tons of WikiFun! In addition, take a look at all 9 of our great artistic entries and vote for one of them! Hope to see you there! Flcelloguy | A note? | Desk 15:54, 16 July 2005 (UTC)

Qiyamah
Please delete the Qiyamah/Temp page. It expired a while ago. freestylefrappe 23:19, July 19, 2005 (UTC)

How do you revert an article
? - Rajul 00:00, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

 * See How to revert a page to an earlier version. – ABCD✉ 00:19, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

VfD results - keep?
Could you please explain your keep summary of the voting results for Votes for deletion/Anti-Semitism in Poland? According to my count, the results were the following: Keep 14, Delete 28, Merge and Redirect 7. Four (4) votes to delete should not be counted due to low voters' contributions. See similar criterium used during the Talk:Gdansk/Vote. IMO the outcome of the vote should be ruled delete.

Keep (14) 1. TheUnforgiven 2. mysekurity 3. Splash 4. Harmil 5. Xoloz 6. Deror 7. Grue 8. Briangotts 9. Kloniumus 10. Falphin 11. TheCoffee 12. GabrielF 13. wayland 14. Goodoldpolonius2

Delete (28) 1. Halibutt 2. Balcer 3. Space Cadet 4. jamesgibbon 5. Ttyre 6. SylwiaS 7. JamesBurns 8. Thorsten1 9. Radiant 10. mikka 11. Tomer 12. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 13. Akumiszcza 14. Ttyre 15. Irishpunktom 16. Pibwl 17. Forseti 18. A.J. 19. Molobo 20. Cautious 21. Lysy 22. Taw 23. Tirid Tirid 24. Schwartz und Weiss 25. Rubezahl 26. V1 27. logologist 28. rafikk

Merge and redirect (7) 1. Pburka 2. brenneman 3. Avihu 4. Chris 73 5. Pavel Vozenilek 6. Kpalion 7. mikka

Discounted votes (4) 1. 208.54.14.65, 9 contributions including 3 for VfD 2. Signature unprintable, no other contributions 3. Gilgamesh he, low contributions 4. Hbk3, sock puppet - no other contributions

--Ttyre 23:16, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

 * After reading the comments, and examining the current content of the page listed, I determined that the consensus was to keep, though many voted delete for the version that they saw. The current version, at the time of closing, did not have the problems mentioned in many of the comments. I therefore used my discression as an adminsitrator, and closed the debate as keep. – ABCD✉ 23:19, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

Votes for deletion/Anti-Semitism in Poland
You closed the above vote, stating that the result was "keep the re-write" I dispute this. By my own count -

Votes before pointing out/making the re-write
 * Keep x 12
 * Delete x 13
 * Merge x 6

Votes after pointing out the re-write
 * Delete x 13
 * Keep x 4
 * Merge x 2

Total votes
 * Delete x 26

 * Keep x 16
 * Merge x 8

By no stretch of the imagination is 26:16 votes a majority for the 16 rather than the 26. Indeed, an even larger proportion of people wanted it deleted AFTER the re-write     12:26, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
 * After further research, I have found that I was mistaken in closing the debate as keep - the article will be deleted. I appologize for my mistake, and for any confusion it may have caused. – ABCD✉ 16:33, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Sorry to bother you, but I feel that you should consider making a third visit to this VfD closure. The Deletion process is clear that an "unambiguous merge and redirect" is a "variation of a keep" vote. This would put the count at 26 to 24, quite clearly not a consensus for deletion. You might also want to see the discussion of this issue at the Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents. - SimonP 17:37, July 23, 2005 (UTC)

 * Don't feel bad man. I tried to close it myself but decided to reopen it for similar reasons. I feel for ya. --Woohookitty 04:28, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

Final (hopefully!) Judgment
I have closed the VFD as no consensus, and have undeleted the page. – ABCD✉ 18:12, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

Mind Benders
Hello,. Thank you for submitting an entry to the pre-round and/or participating in round one of WP:MIND. I sincerely hope you enjoyed it. Round Two, which I have made a bit more difficult than round one, will open at approximately 2 PM EST, Sunday, July 24. In addition, the voting for pre-round has also been extended until the end of round two. I hope to see you at Round Two, so prepare for some WikIFun!!! Flcelloguy | A note? | Desk 17:33, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

Anon at Irish Reunification
Has just helpfully reverted for the goodness-knows how manyth time. Do you want me to take it to 3RR or can you just block them? I'm out of reverts, and I suspect this doesn't constitute simple vandalism-Splash
 * I'll block him in a sec. – ABCD✉ 00:40, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

Merge
Anti-Semitism in Poland has been redirected to Anti-Semitism. An attempt to circumvent the voting process? Just to keep you up to speed with current events. HKT talk 22:42, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

Hola
Hola, no sabía que ud. compende espanol.

Hehe :D — Ilγαηερ   (Tαlκ) '' 00:56, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

Help
I don't know if this is inappropriate, but I need your help. There is a strong disagreement over the page Arvanites. User:Theathenae and User:Chronographos are insisting that certain facts be omitted without stating any good reason. I have proved to them many times from official sources that those facts are accurate, and they have proved nothing. Whenever I request proof that those facts should indeed be omitted, they always change the subject. The talk page is getting increasingly long and the page has been protected for the past few days. I beg you to intervene. They are in violation of Wikipedia policy, motivated by nationalist feelings, and are refusing to co-operate. When I proposed Meditation I was turned down. Could you please just have a word with them, to remind them that Wikipedia policy must always be observed. Thank you. REX 17:31, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

A couple a questions
I have been absent from wikipedia for some months and I wondered about a couple of things:

1. Is there any way to get access to my old username if I have forgotten the password and have changed my e-mail account? All of my previous attributions are under romeoslion but I find myslef nearly naked since I cannot access this account.

2. I also cannot remember how to put the copyright or public domain tag under the image. It seems that the upload forms have changed a bit since I was last on here.

Please help me out. I am desperate!

kmccoy's RFA
Hi, ABCD,

Thanks for your support on my RFA. After nearly half an hour of mouseovering, I finally figured out which letter to click to get to this talk-page. :) kmccoy (talk) 04:19, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

Jtkiefer's RFA
Hey ABCD, thanks for the support, I appreciate it. Jtkiefer T - 04:48, August 3, 2005 (UTC)

Other pub deletes
Hi ABCD. Thought I'd point out that when you closed the Votes for deletion/Arkles Public House, you missed 3 other pubs included in the VfD. Thanks. -R. fiend 00:16, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

Deletion of IMSCF Syndrome
Hi ABCD. According to the VfD, this page was voted to be deleted but wasn't. What happened? Votes_for_deletion/IMSCF_Syndrome --Dysepsion 20:18, 6 August 2005 (UTC)
 * It was recreated. – ABCD✉ 01:19, 7 August 2005 (UTC)

ASIN/ISBN
Hurrah! I note you've started nuking ASIN codes as well... thanks!

I notice you're hyphenating ISBNs. Is there any particular reason for this, or just personal taste? The software here doesn't need it, and it make no actual difference to the standard if the hyphens are included or not... I find missing it out prevents accidentally giving incorrect hyphenation for foreign publishers, where things can sometimes get confusing, but YMMV. Shimgray 23:38, 8 August 2005 (UTC)
 * The reason I hyphenate ISBNs is to improve readability. Also, I am using the list from http://www.isbn-international.org/en/identifiers/List-of-Ranges.pdf for the numbers, so I don't have to worry about giving the wrong hyphenation.  If all else fails, I remove the hyphenation completely. – ABCD✉ 23:45, 8 August 2005 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I didn't see any unusual ISBNs glancing through the pages you'd fixed, but wanted to politely check you knew the hyphenation was strange for the 8x and 9xx range. ;-) I agree with you it improves readability, which is probably v. helpful for people using this without the automatic lookup feature available. Thanks again for the help. Shimgray 23:54, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

I've just been put on WP:VIP by User:Kaldari, who didn't even wait for an explanation of the ASIN removals... thought you might like to know. Such is life. Shimgray 00:29, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

 * I've stopped the edits for now pending a consensus; could you leave comments at User:Shimgray/ASIN, so we can work something out? Shimgray 01:01, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

Emergency with the Michael Jackson Page
Help! I was trying to edit down the Michael Jackson page, because the disclaimer at the top said that at 46K, it was too long. In the edit window, only the portion up to the section on Jackson's nosejobs was shown, so I just assumed that my changes would only affect everything up until then, and that I'd have to click on the "edit" links for the sections following that, but when I finally hit "save page," to my horror, I saw that EVERYTHING after that was gone! The earlier version is visible on the History page for that article, of course, but I don't know how to restore it. Help! Nightscream 8.8.05. 11:38pm EST

monobook.js
Hey ABCD: I posted this to Alphax's talk page:

(Oops, darn that enter key.)

''What I meant to ask before accidentally saving a blank message is: We talked about your monobook.js on IRC yesterday, and discussed me copying it to my monobook.js and adding a block feature to the list. However, I've been unsuccessful; every time I try to enter the feature, it doesn't work, and all the features your code is supposed to insert disappear. Since you seem to know something about this, could you tell me: What do I need to do to add the "block user" tags to user & user talk pages? -- Essjay ·  Talk 04:53, August 9, 2005 (UTC)''

And she responded:

 * I'll look into it on the Wikicities site I'm an admin at... try asking ABCD though. Alphax τεχ 07:33, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

Since she recommended you, I'm asking you: Do you know how I can add the block feature to my monobook.js 1) successfully (as all my attempts have failed), and 2) without it removing all the other functions (as all my attempts have caused all the other features listed there to disappear). Any help you can offer would be greatly appreciated! -- Essjay ·  Talk 07:41, August 9, 2005 (UTC)

ISBNs
It's up to you, of course, but there's no standard or approved way of writing ISBNs; they can be one block of numbers or grouped, either hyphenated or separated by spaces. (When I ran my own small publishing company this was explained in the bumf that came with my assignment of numbers.) They appear in all those ways on books and in publishers' catalogues, and the Wikipedia system works in all cases. If you just like seeing the hyphens then fine, but I thought that you should know that you're wasting your time if you thought that you werecorrecting them. --Mel Etitis ( Μελ Ετητης ) 08:52, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

Func's RfA :)
Thank you, ABCD, for supporting my adminship! The $user is very[ 'happy' ] about it! :)

Please never hesitate to let me know if you have concerns with any administrative action I may make.

(This doesn't count as soliciting, does it?) ;-)

Func( t, c, e, ) 19:16, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

WWE Championship
Hi ABCD, Im SWD316. I was wondering, instead of making the WWE Championship article protected, why didn't you just block and/or ban the users who were vandalizing it???? — M o e   ε  00:00, 12 August 2005 (UTC)
 * The problem was that there were too many different anons to block and ensure that I got all of them. – ABCD✉ 00:01, 12 August 2005 (UTC)
 * Oh well, I hope soon that you un-protect for others use. And also, if your interested you can join our Professional wrestling Wikiproject,since you did a good job with the WWE Championship article and everything, if your interested in Pro Wrestling at all. Later! — M o e   ε  02:52, 12 August 2005 (UTC)
 * Done, and thanks, but no thanks. – ABCD✉ 03:05, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

Commons
Hello. I'm a bureaucrat on Commons. I've removed your request for adminship over there, there's unfortunately no proper majority after nearly three weeks. Thank you. villy ♦ ✎ 08:59, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

Vandal Vendetta
Certain AOL (who else?) user(s) are on a vendetta against me and are removing external links to my sites from Radio Boys, Grosset & Dunlap, Supermystery, Mildred Benson, Roy Rockwood, Clues Brothers, Casefiles, The Dana Girls, Hardy Boys Digest, Undercover Brothers, Harriet Adams, Ted Scott Flying Stories, Nancy Drew, Franklin W. Dixon, Rover Boys, Stratemeyer Syndicate, Tom Swift, Jr., Tom Swift, X Bar X Boys, Edward Stratemeyer, Hardy Boys, Tom Swift IV, While the Clock Ticked, What Happened at Midnight, The Yellow Feather Mystery, The Witchmaster's Key, The Wailing Siren Mystery, The Viking Symbol Mystery, The Twisted Claw, The Tower Treasure, The Sting of the Scorpion, The Sinister Signpost, The Sign of the Crooked Arrow, The Short-Wave Mystery, The Shore Road Mystery, The Shattered Helmet, The Secret of the Old Mill, The Secret of the Lost Tunnel, The Secret of the Caves, The Secret of Wildcat Swamp, The Secret of Skull Mountain, The Secret of Pirate's Hill, The Secret Warning, The Secret Panel, The Secret Agent on Flight 101, The Phantom Freighter, The Mystery of the Whale Tattoo, The Mystery of the Spiral Bridge, The Mystery of the Flying Express, The Mystery of the Desert Giant, The Mystery of the Chinese Junk, The Mystery of the Aztec Warrior, The Mystery of Cabin Island, The Mystery at Devil's Paw, The Mysterious Caravan, The Missing Chums, The Melted Coins, The Masked Monkey, The Mark on the Door, The Jungle Pyramid, The House on the Cliff, The Hooded Hawk Mystery, The Hidden Harbor Mystery, The Haunted Fort, The Great Airport Mystery, The Ghost of Skeleton Rock, The Flickering Torch Mystery, The Firebird Rocket, The Disappearing Floor, The Crisscross Shadow, The Clue of the Screeching Owl, The Clue of the Hissing Serpent, The Clue of the Broken Blade, The Clue in the Embers, The Bombay Boomerang, The Arctic Patrol Mystery, Hunting for Hidden Gold, Footprints under the Window, Detective Handbook, Danger on Vampire Trail, A Figure in Hiding and others. This is doubly annoying as I was the originator of many of the Wikipages and my web pages provide additional in-depth information on these subjects. This has been going on for weeks. PLEASE HELP ME!--FWDixon 21:39, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

24SevenOffice
I'm trying to figure out why 24SevenOffice is relevant on Wikipedia. The company is a complete unknown in the business. With only 1000 customers, there are pieces of shareware that have more users than that. The consensus was to delete the article. The exception to that was the employee of 24SevenOffice who originally posted the topic who voted to "rewrite". Can you help me understand what reasoning went behind keeping the article? I've tried providing a neutral point of view on this, but its hard since the product really is an uknown in the industry. A google search for his company brings up 2000 articles -- most of which stem from blog posts, forum signatures with url's to his company, and information from Wikipedia itself.

Additionally, the same employee of the company has spammed his links across several technology articles and competitor pages in an attempt to bolster his position. Its an obvious attempt to market his product. I've fought with User:Sleepyhead81 on this (he is the employee) with no luck in finding common ground. Please feel free to contact him or myself for more information, but I would be very interested in finding out what criteria was used to keep this product page alive. Thanks in advance. - Sleepnomore 15:04, August 14, 2005 (UTC)

title: User talk:ABCD/Archive 1


text:
Garston, Hertfordshire

Garston is a suburban village in Hertfordshire, England. Garston is contiguous with Watford and now, despite retaining a local identity, is effectively a suburb. It is within the Stanborough, Woodside and Meriden wards of the borough of Watford, although a small number of its streets are in Hertsmere.

The Building Research Establishment has its headquarters within Garston.

Garston has several large secondary schools including St Michael's Catholic High School, Parmiter's School and Future Academies Watford, formerly known as Francis Combe.

The A41 is the perceived border of Garston and North Watford; it crosses St Albans Road (A412) at the Dome Roundabout.

Transport
Garston railway station on the Abbey line is served by West Midlands Trains services. Arriva London operated a bus garage in Garston. It closed in 2018, and was completely demolished in early 2022.

title: Garston, Hertfordshire