User talk:Fr33kman

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[edit] Welcome to my talk page

Some basic rules of this talk page (not all, just mine)

1) Do not insult me! I don't insult others, so don't insult me! 2) Assume good faith! I don't make edits maliciously, EVER. So please assume that I meant no harm by any edit you take exception to. 3) I'm a nice guy, so talk to me rather than lecture me. (I don't respond to lectures, I'm too old!) 4) Post ALL new messages to me BELOW all the other messages and NOT at the top of the page (same for ALL user's talk pages) 5) If you have official power here at Wikipedia, state this. To not is dishonest. 6) If you have NO official power here at Wikipedia, then don't pretend that you do and make this clear in your message! 7) I'm not here to make friends, don't use my talk page for social chats with me. Email me instead!


Enjoy you time here, and make lots of edits! The most useful can sometimes be the smallest, a comma here, a period there.

Good luck!

Fr33kMan (talk) 01:00, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Re: Thanks

Of course. :) Glad to be of any service. Luna Santin 08:29, 10 February 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Emergency Medical Technician

Can you also move over the talk page? Bstone (talk) 04:58, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

coolBstone (talk) 05:09, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
Your wish is my command Fr33kMan (talk) 05:11, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Sheriff Seagal

Hi. I have removed yet again the section in the article Steven Seagal claiming that Seagal is or has been a deputy sheriff. Please do not re-add this material section unless you can offer reliable sources that would make the claim verifiable. You assert that evidence for this claim is available from more than one source, but the only evidence offered is the following:

  • Seagal's own self-report, which is not adequate without corroboration.
  • A claim which cites another Wikipedia article as its source (please see Wikipedia:Verifiability#Self-published sources (online and paper): "Articles and posts on Wikipedia may not be used as sources.")
  • A comment responding to a blog post in which a poster says: a) he saw Seagal on MSNBC wearing a badge; b) he heard the Sheriff say Seagal trained his SWAT team (please see Wikipedia:Verifiability#Self-published sources (online and paper): blogs, forum postings, and similar sources are largely not acceptable.) If a blog is not a reliable source, then what a comment-poster to a blog says he saw on TV is obviously not a reliable source. Even if what the poster claims could be corroborated from a reliable source (like the transcript of the MSNBC show in question), the sheriff asserting that Seagal helped train his SWAT team does not make Seagal a deputy; nor does Seagal wearing a uniform.
  • A CNN transcript of Anderson Cooper 360 in which Cooper says, "You know, you see a lot of surreal things here in New Orleans these days. One of the most surreal, Steven Seagal dressed up in a SWAT uniform. I don't know if you can see him, that's his back, I think, is turned to the camera. He's driving around, with the SWAT Team from Jefferson Parish. Not sure why. Just he is. One of the strange things you see here in New Orleans." Needless to say, this does not establish that Seagal is a deputy sheriff.

In fact, not only do none of these, taken singly or together, add up to a verifiable claim from a reliable source for Seagal being a deputy sheriff, none of them even attempt to make such a claim at all -- or even use the word "deputy".

In addition, you appear to be confused about where the onus lies: you ask, "Can you back up that your belief that he's not a cop...?" Please see Wikipedia:Sources#Burden of evidence: "The burden of evidence lies with the editor who adds or restores material."

In other words, it is not up to an editor who doubts an unsourced or poorly-sourced claim to justify removing it: the onus lies with the editor who wishes to include material to offer a verifiable, reliable source. If you have such a source -- i.e. a reliable source that can be checked by other editors which states explicitly that Steven Seagal is or was a deputy sheriff -- feel free to restore this section. Until then, please leave it out.

You ask, "should we take what [Seagal], Anderson Cooper and Sherrif Lee have to say [as true]? Or are you more knowledgeable than those people?" You have offered no verifiable, reliable source in which either Cooper or Sheriff Lee claims Seagal is or was a deputy Sheriff, so this question is moot. Moreover, what I know or don't know is quite beside the point: the issue is solely what claims are attributable to reliable, verifiable published sources. Those that are not, like the claim that Seagal is a deputy, don't belong in an encyclopedia article.

You don't seem to be able to read very well, do you? I said that Steven made those comments on a TV programme in England called the Friday Night Project and transcripts are available for it. Try reading the whole argument before you go off on one. Users like you who get a little power at wikipedia make the place crap for the rest of us because all you do is go around and pick on what others say. Your talk page demonstrates that! Fr33kMan (talk) 06:11, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Finally, please do not edit other editors' talk page comments, as you did here. --Rrburke(talk) 19:34, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

I have requested Oversight on this issue and have reported you for making potentially libelous comments about Mr. Seagal. Fr33kMan (talk) 22:39, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
In the unlikely event that Mr. Seagal's representatives respond to your request for information about his status as a law-enforcement officer, that information will still not be includible, as an email is not a reliable published source, does not meet the requirements of Wikipedia:Verifiablity and conflicts with Wikipedia:No Original Research, policies I invite you to review. As I have already said, when you can produce a reliable published source that states explicitly that Steven Seagal is or was a deputy sheriff, by all means feel free to include that information in the article. Until then, please leave it out.
{{Fact}} tags belong in articles at points where citations are missing. Please do not add them to other editors' talk page comments.
You'll note that my tone during our dispute has been neutral and civil. I'd ask you to follow suit and moreover to confine your comments to the substance of our disagreement.
Finally, I imagine you have already discovered that frivolous reports to oversight-l are unwelcome. Additionally, your claim to have contacted a third party on a matter of purported libel might be understood as a legal threat. Please review WP:No Legal Threats. --Rrburke(talk) 01:05, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
I have not threatened you with legal action. My reporting this to Seagal's agent was done to provide them with a means of responding to your statements that he is an unreliable source of information about himself and to further ask for WRITTEN confirmation of his police officer status. I also have not personally attacked you and would proffer the explanation that we have different styles of English. Also, it is not for you to decide if oversight is appropriate, it is for them. Thank you and have a nice day!
PS: You still have not offered ANY evidence that Mr. Seagal is an unreliable source of information about himself-- have you got any? Fr33kMan (talk) 01:18, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
To my mind, the Sheriff's comments from the MSNBC transcript are sufficient to establish that Seagal was employed by the Jefferson Parish Sheriff to train their SWAT team and that he evidently rode with them, for how long is unclear, in the aftermath of Katrina. Whether he is still connected with them is open to question, as Sheriff Lee died last October. As I mentioned previously, Cooper's comments merely establish that he saw Seagal wearing a uniform; same goes for the picture.
The issue of Seagal's credibility is really ancillary, because an off-the-cuff remark made during a TV appearance would be unlikely to satisfy Wikipedia:Reliable Sources anyway, whether it was Steven Seagal or anybody else. That said, doubts about his accounts of his own biography date back at least fifteen years, beginning with a 1993 profile on Seagal in Spy Magazine. The article calls into question a great many of the claims Seagal has made about himself: that he battled the Yazuka in Japan (his then-wife says he may have "chased a few drunks away from the dojo" but never squared off with the Yazuka); that he was the first westerner to open an aikido dojo in Japan (she says the dojo was hers, and it came to her through her father); he left the U.S. to avoid the Vietnam draft (the timeline doesn't work); he was a Navy SEAL (his former business partner said he panicked in the water, unlikely behavior for a SEAL); he grew up in hard-knocks Brooklyn (he lived in Michigan until he was 5, and never lived in Brooklyn)... The list is practically endless. I note that in the MSNBC transcript he also claims to have spent a lot of time as a youngster in New Orleans. He also claimed in a recent interview that unnamed blues "legends" had early on recognized his prowess on the guitar during the extensive time he spent, again as a youngster, consorting with said "legends" in unspecified locations in the Mississippi Delta.
More than ample reason, then, to be cautious and seek independent corroboration for autobiographical claims before including them in an encyclopedia article.
Spy Magazine folded in 1998, and there is no online archive. American-buddha.com used to house an online copy of the article; perhaps they still do. The only place I'm aware of it being available online is on a blog. How complete or accurate the blog version is I couldn't say, but it corresponds as far as I can tell to what I remember. There's a Time Magazine article on the controversy that dates from that time, should it interest you. --Rrburke(talk) 15:52, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
I'm actually going to leave it off the article for the moment as I'd like to get a better source than the MSNBC transcript. I also feel that the issue of whether or not he was/is a sworn officer has been established but I'd still like to have a second reliable source and more information as to his current status. Oversight (who were very happen to talk to me)and I have been in conversation and I agree that a second source probably would be better considering the amount of ire that Steven Seagal seems to be getting on Wikipedia. (Not you, others seem to have real, personal issue with Mr. Seagal.) I will say that people like him who seem to have done a lot in life do tend to have BS called on them and their activities. I think it's because some people only do one or at most two things (jobs etc.) in their own lives and can't understand people who do more. I've had similar issues myself as I've spent a lot of time in educating myself. Fortunately I can produce diploma's. Do keep in mind that Steven Seagal is rich, and money allows a person to do a lot more in life than poverty does.
Given that almost every article on this encyclopedia is inaccurate to some degree, completely wrong, out of date or else doesn't have a proper list of references and citations (some have no references whatsoever!), that the manner in which this was just yanked displayed a personal dislike for Seagal, and that has NO place on a valid encyclopedia. This event has coloured my belief in this project somewhat and I will certainly take from this less of a desire to use wikipedia in the future. I think I'll stick to a more reliable source of fact.
I still feel that both you and I have gone about this the wrong way and your calling into question a person's reputation without offering the evidence you just have, raised my ire. I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt, unless I have firm evidence to the contrary.
Although I still maintain that I have not personally attacked you and have not threatened you with legal action, I did let my emotions get the better of me and reoffer the appology I gave earlier. I do feel that you owe me an apology for the way you went about it also. I'm dropping the issue now as frankly I just don't care anymore.
Take care! Fr33kMan (talk) 23:44, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
No need to apologize: no harm, no foul as they say. I also could probably have been more tactful: celebrity bios tend to attract over-the-top fans who are sometimes difficult to reason with, and without intending to I probably presumed, wrongly, that you were one of those, when I should've made more of an effort to give you the benefit of the doubt.
Now that IS funny! I was assuming YOU were a rabid anti-Seagal fan! Ha ha ha ... No, I'm not even a fan really, just saw the Friday Night Project whilst editing wikipedia one day and he said he was a deputy so I thought I'd add it. Fr33kMan (talk) 02:16, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
I'm sorry to hear this experience has made you less inclined to participate. I agree that this and many other articles are kind of a mess: instead of backing away, why not take it on yourself to improve some? You mention the lack of references: that's as good a place as any to start: it's kind of thankless work, but it helps rectify the kind of problems you accurately identified. Have a look at Wikipedia:Good article criteria and then see if anything at Category:Wikipedia cleanup categories or Category:All articles lacking sources interests you. The sheer number of articles needing attention can be daunting, but they can only be fixed one at a time!
Cheers! --Rrburke(talk) 01:38, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Your tone

Please tone down your comments. Several of your comments directed at User:Rrburke are bordering on incivility and personal attacks. While you are entitled to your opinion of the Steven Seagal article and while you are encouraged to contribute to the good of the encyclopedia, you are not allowed, per our explicit guidelines, to attack other editors. If you have any questions, please ask. If you cannot abide by our guidelines at Wikipedia, it is likely that you will eventually be blocked from editing from this account. Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 00:18, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

If they are 'bordering on attacks, then they, by definition, are not personal attacks. That user has repeatedly called into question the reputation of a known person by potentially libelous remarks. My comments reflected this! I am entitled to defend my edits. Please do not threaten me with being blocked. That is not correct either! I have asked for Oversight regarding this matter and wish to wait until this has been done before taking this matter up with others. Fr33kMan (talk) 00:58, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
While I appreciate your concerns, I don't believe you understand what oversight is intended for. On a separate note, I'm not threatening you with a block. All I'm saying is be civil. It is one of the Wikipedia five pillars. That's all. What exactly did Rrburke say that amounts to being "potentially libelous"? I just don't see it. Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 01:01, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
I reported the matter to his representatives because Rrburke said that he is NOT a reliable source of information about himself (basically saying that he is a liar (no other explanation that I can see in that statement} and I'd like confirmation of this supposed fact and Rrburke has repeatedly not offered any and also to seek, once again, WRITTEN confirmation of his status as a current or former police office. It is not now and never was a legal threat! Also, if you or Rrburke have taken offense at any of my comments then you both have my apologies! Fr33kMan (talk) 01:26, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
Apology accepted. Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 01:28, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
Please note, I suffer from autism (aspergers) , so this is how I speak, I can't change that, it's genetic, sorry! Fr33kMan (talk) 02:38, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Here are some of my thoughts. It doesn't matter necessarily what you say, but how you say it. Have you read WP:AUTO? What Mr. Seagal says about himself, unless backed up through reliable sources, does not necessarily mean that it's true. I'll give you a rather obivous example: "Keeper76 recently won the 2008 NBA Dunk Contest." Does the fact that I stated this verify the claim? No, not at all. I can say whatever I want. Doesn't make it true. And if it were true, a reliable, secondary, and independent source would say so. Are there any independent sources that claim what you are trying to add to the Seagal article? Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 01:50, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes I can, 1) A picture of Mr. Seagal in uniform exists here http://www.steven-seagal.net/forum/showthread.php?t=7866&highlight=swat , 2) Sheriff Henry Lee himself told Rita Cosby on MSNBC that Seagal trains his SWAT team and was given a commission [as a deputy] 15 years ago. Here's the transcript page: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9326665/ and here is the quote "COSBY: Yes, how do you two know each other? A great friendship here. LEE: We got to be friends—he actually was trains my SWAT team, pistol and hand-to-hand combat. And I gave him a commission 15 years ago. He was filming in Romania. And we get calls all the time, but he wanted to come down, so he finally made it today. So he‘s getting ready to ride with the New Orleans SWAT team for a little while, and then he‘s going to come back and just answer calls with us tonight." 3) Anderson Cooper on CNN stated ""You know, you see a lot of surreal things here in New Orleans these days. One of the most surreal, Steven Seagal dressed up in a SWAT uniform. I don't know if you can see him, that's his back, I think, is turned to the camera. He's driving around, with the SWAT Team from Jefferson Parish. Not sure why. Just he is. One of the strange things you see here in New Orleans." Which is located at: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0509/13/acd.01.html
I assume that we can lay this to rest and I can edit the article (with additional references) now? Fr33kMan (talk) 02:14, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Why the welcome?

I noticed that there was no welcome tag here, which is always placed on top. Yes, you have been at WP at least as long as I have, but it's never late to be a newbie. Erase it if you wish; it is your talk page. Bearian (talk) 00:43, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, never used the welcome tag myself, I'm here to read and edit arcticles, I'm personally unconcerned with other peoples page so have not bothers to learn those tags which are used on a talk page. Fr33kMan (talk) 01:44, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] EMT Capitalization

I responded to your comments at Talk:Emergency medical technician#Capitalization of article titles. The article title should still be in lowercase and I have explained why there. Also, if you move pages in the future, use the move tab. Copying and pasting loses the edit history, and "is a Very Bad Thing, because we need to keep the history with the content for copyright reasons" (according to Wikipedia). This then requires an administrator to fix the history with a history merge. --Scott Alter 02:41, 5 May 2008 (UTC)