User talk:Rama/archive 1

Archive of talk, subjects 1 to 50

I've been wondering wether images from films can be used under the Fair Use American laws, or if it preferable to re-draw them by hand so that they become fan-art and thus licensable under the DGPL...

Images on list of sex positions

Hi Rama,

I have a question: do you need a photo or models to create your pictures? Or are you able to do them from imagination? I am just curious as a sometime editor of sex positions.

I would also second the comment below about male versus female point of view in the drawings. I think it would be quite interesting to see a pair of illustrations of a simple act, one for each basic point of view, like looking up at the man and down at the woman. Just thoughts, I wouldn't tell you what or how to draw.

(They are great, btw--the perfect combination of low-key, spare, yet very erotic.)

--Maxweber 22:15, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Hi !

I tend to rather from imagination or memory rather than photogaphs, because this helps me visualise the movements better (trying to reproduce a photograph, you alwys run the risc of getting rather static image, if you see what I mean).

The idea of several images is interesting; to be quite frank, I am not sure that focusing on the male/female point of view will always be the best thing to do (after all, you hardly ever get to see anything while making love :p), but there are some positions which are complicated enough to justify several figures -- and in some cases, the best ones probably coïncidate with the male/female points of view indeed.

I hope I answered your questions; should this not be the case, or should you have further questions, don't hesitate to write ! Thank you very much for your appreciation, and for your contributions to Wikipedia ! Rama 08:04, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Hi again!

Question: What is your training and practice regimen with drawing? I would love to draw too, but I haven't taken a class yet and the learning curve is quite steep. Just curious...

Request: Group sex picture of "Kneeling sandwhich" (my fantasy of fantasies)--penetration is possible from the man in front, probably combined with other stimulus of the woman in the middle by the man in back... Anyway, would love to see it.

Thanks so much for your work here! Bye! --Maxweber 18:35, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Hello Again ! Nice to see that customers get accustomed ! ;)

I've never taken drawing lessons, apart from what I had in school -- which was sometimes rendered difficult because I'm colour-blind (try discussing the colours in a work when you can't see then ! :p ).

To draw, I usually try to picture a three-dimentional image of what I'll be rendering, but more in terms of movement than in just position; that is, I'd really picture a curve not "begin from A to B", but like "going from A to B" (I don't know wether that makes sense...). Then I'll draw the diagonales on the paper and start placing the main areas of the drawing. Human bodies a fairly complex to draw (you'd actually have to watch a human body from close enough; my advise is invide someone you fancy and... err.); I'd suggest starting by drawing complex but rigid objects, to learn to go from a simple general silouette to a detailed drawing (hint: perhaps you're not as fond of them as I am, but XVIIIth Century ships are very good for this ! try to reproduce Image:La_Boudeuse.jpg for instance; but buildings, cars, planes... will do). Try to understand the basic of shadows to add volume (easy: what's protuberent is light, what's deep is dark :p). Then you can try humans and horses. Basically, try drawing your left hand; that's horribly complicated, so when you can make a drawing which satisfies you, you'll probably be able to draw mostly anything ! :) (I'm far from this stage :p)

Hmmm, we should gather people who actually know how to draw and make some sort of wiki project... 12 Steps to Draw Ungodly Pictures :)

Thank you very much for the "Kneeling sandwhich" (whow, nice idea, must try this one ! :) ), added on my todo list ! Cheers (and do come again if you have more ideas !) Rama 08:13, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Hi yet again!

Kneeling sandwhich is on my todo list, too, though it might have to wait until a young man in shining armor walks into our life... I have lots more ideas, if you want them, perhaps a comic strip worth? Thanks for keeping me entertained!

I am going to look for a low key drawing class. It is hard to start. I would love a wikipedia how to draw page. Maybe organized so that each artist has her/his own section, since it is so personal (especially when it is just for fun). --Maxweber 16:30, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Hello Rama,

In response to your question above, as far as I know, stills from films would qualify as a fair use exclusion to copyright under American law.

Regarding your recent additions to list of sex positions, I think the images are quite appropriate for the article and improve it.

However, I should warn you that they might be a bit controversial. It wouldn't surprise me if they are (temporarily?) removed while users discuss whether they should be included on the talk page. Then again, I might be wrong. In any case, keep up the good work and thanks for contributing.

Acegikmo1 17:49, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Another picture needed - similar to the amazon picture, but with the woman's torso horizontal, supporting her upper body with extended arms. Noted in the text of Cowgirl_sex_position as having particular advantages. Note in particular that the male may control penile position with his hand for added clitoral stimulation. Thanks, Leonard G. 21:11, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Thank you for the suggestion, I will see to it as soon as I have both the time to draw and a scanner. Rama

A note on the images & formats

I've also find your images very nice -- but three small remarks.

1 -- if you are scanning from handdrawn picture, I think that JPG is a more appropriate format, because it takes much less space. I believe PNGs are for exact pixel-by-pixel depiction and are more efficient and appropriate for computer-drawn images.

2 -- I think it would also be better if you added "Sex Position" in the name of any future pics of sex position you might make. For example instead of "Cowgirl.jpg" it'd be better to have "Cowgirl_Sex_Position.jpg". That's to easily differentiate between any future image of *real* cowgirls contained in Wikipedia as opposed to the sexual position named "Cowgirl" -- and likewise for Amazons, doggies, etc :-)

3 -- Lastly, could you please tell me under what kind of "license" you are giving these pics of yours to Wikipedia? Do you feel that people should be allowed to modify them as long as they give you credit? Or do you want them to remain forever unaltered, in which case you retain the "copyright" but are simply granting permission to Wikipedia to use your images as they are? Or are they "public domain"?

I'm asking because if you allow permission to modify them I was thinking of reuploading them in the more "appropriate" formats and names. Perhaps I'd even upload different colored versions of them, in case people want to have them in the articles colored. Always giving you full credit ofcourse.

Anyway, congrats again for drawing some great pics!! Aris Katsaris 16:28, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Thank you for your interest.

1) I've been myself fooled by the black-and white nature of the images, from a human point of view, while, from a computer point of view, the images are indeeed in grayscale, and technically closer to photographs. Mea Cupla.

2) Sorry, I am rather new to Wikipedia, so I am not yet very used to the etiquette of the naming of files. I certainly take your advice on these subjects (I've already uploaded huge versions of my drawings by mistake... typical newbies mistakes I suppose). Is there a way to rename the files ?

3) The artwork which I provide for Free projects are typically under the Free Art license, whose terms are available at [1]. It is basically supposed to implement a GPL-like license for artwork. Should there be any doubt, I hereby grant the right to alternatively use the GPL for the artwork which I would have created and uploaded on Wikipedia (So now it makes it sufficiently official, I hope ! :) )

If you have any question at all, please feel free to ask ! :)

--Rama

1) *g* As a means of procrastination from my studies, I've been doing some casual computer cleanup of your images (removing most of the unintentionally "grey" areas, and I may soon upload the cleaned-up versions which now might indeed be more appropriate as PNG than JPGs... Will try to see and compare filesizes and quality before I figure out which format I'll use to upload them as...

2) No, there's no easy way to renaming them as far as I know -- I believe usual tactic is to upload them again under the "correct" name, and then ask for the old image to be deleted as redundant at Wikipedia:Images for deletion. Give me a day or so to check out the things I mentioned above about the formats and I'll do these stuff myself. I'll drop a note here as well...

3) Oooh, that's a very nice and free license. Thank you! :-)

Aris Katsaris 22:25, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Actually, I've just found (in the archeological sense of the term) a discussion that we had with some friends, and it turns out that JPEG format is typically 4 times less clumsy than PNG for this kind of documents. From the same discussion, if you really have lots of time to waste, you might want to give the Bezier curse of GIMP a try, they turn out quite well for "dressing up" drawings like this. Thank again !

Rama 22:47, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)

*g* GIMP -- I've never used that (retouching images is only a new hobby of mine), but I'll give it a look. Aris Katsaris 00:25, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)

PS : that's weird, I seem to get much more comments on a few innocent images added on Sex Positions than on my lengthly contributions on the International Brigades, for instance... I suppose this means that my writing is very bad... :)

Rama 22:54, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Or your drawings very good. ;-) Aris Katsaris 00:25, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)

My "cleaned-up" versions...

I have uploaded Image:Missionary Sex Position.png and Image:Missionary Sex Position-small.png You'll see that even the freaking huge (in area) image is only 90 KB or so in filesize, as opposed to the more than 1 MB it had once been.

I've already changed it in the articles. Moving on to newbies mistakes I suppose). Is there a way to rename the files ?

3) The artwork which I provide for Free projects are typically under the Free Art license, whose terms are available at [2]. It is basically supposed to implement a GPL-like license for artwork. Should there be any doubt, I hereby grant the right to alternatively use the GPL for the artwork which I would have created and uploaded on Wikipedia (So now it makes it sufficiently official, I hope ! :) )

If you have any question at all, please feel free to ask ! :)

--Rama

1) *g* As a means of procrastination from my studies, I've been doing some casual computer cleanup of your images (removing most of the unintentionally "grey" areas, and I may soon upload the cleaned-up versions which now might indeed be more appropriate as PNG than JPGs... Will try to see and compare filesizes and quality before I figure out which format I'll use to upload them as...

2) No, there's no easy way to renaming them as far as I know -- I believe usual tactic is to upload them again under the "correct" name, and then ask for the old image to be deleted as redundant at Wikipedia:Images for deletion. Give me a day or so to check out the things I mentioned above about the formats and I'll do these stuff myself. I'll drop a note here as well...

3) Oooh, that's a very nice and free license. Thank you! :-)

Aris Katsaris 22:25, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Actually, I've just found (in the archeological sense of the term) a discussion that we had with some friends, and it turns out that JPEG format is typically 4 times less clumsy than PNG for this kind of documents. From the same discussion, if you really have lots of time to waste, you might want to give the Bezier curse of GIMP a try, they turn out quite well for "dressing up" drawings like this. Thank again !

Rama 22:47, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)

*g* GIMP -- I've never used that (retouching images is only a new hobby of mine), but I'll give it a look. Aris Katsaris 00:25, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)

PS : that's weird, I seem to get much more comments on a few innocent images added on Sex Positions than on my lengthly contributions on the International Brigades, for instance... I suppose this means that my writing is very bad... :)

Rama 22:54, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Or your drawings very good. ;-) Aris Katsaris 00:25, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)

My "cleaned-up" versions...

I have uploaded Image:Missionary Sex Position.png and Image:Missionary Sex Position-small.png You'll see that even the freaking huge (in area) image is only 90 KB or so in filesize, as opposed to the more than 1 MB it had once been.

I've already changed it in the articles. Moving on to the next drawing -- once I've "cleaned up" and reduced in size all of them, I'll request at Wikipedia:Images for the redundant versions to be removed if you don't mind... :-) Aris Katsaris 00:25, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Also: Image:Doggy Sex Position.png, Image:Doggy Sex Position-small.png and Image:Cowgirl Sex Position.png. Aris Katsaris 03:47, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)

No no no I don't mind, much to the contrary, I am very grateful ! I am really ashamed for putting such heavy files on the net...

The GIMP is the Free Software image edition program, but any proprietary clone should have the same functions. It's just that it's what I use.

I've been drawing a few other positions today, I don't quite know when I'll have some time to scan them, but there are things under way (they seem to sort of confuse part of the audiance of the conference to which I am attending, but this is for the good cause :) )

Thank you again for your nice work ! Rama 12:04, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Well, I'm not entirely sure what to recommend on the image-format front anymore. Though JPGs do work better for *scans*, it seems that when cleaned up of imperfections a bit (and reduced to greyscale) PNGs are much nicer, more elegant and smaller in filesize. So you can perhaps upload them as PNGs (no need to have them *that* huge in dimensios though :-) and then I'll clean them up a bit and post the new version. Or you can perhaps email them to me in a PNG format, as big as you want, and I'll upload them only after I clean them up. Or you can upload them as JPGs from the get-go.

I'll probably try and upload jpg versions, so that you don't actually would *have* to process everything.

*g* Either way, am looking forward to seeing some more of your nice drawings. I can't draw anything myself which is why I always admire artists. :-) Aris Katsaris 14:31, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Let's not exagerate... these things will be there until couples will be daring enough to upload photographs of themself in action. Which might however take some time, since lots of people would frown at the idea of destroying all chances of being elected to an upper position, however unlikely the probability... :p

I'm not saying it's really logical but I think there'd be Wikipedians that'd object to Wikipedia hosting photos of real-life people depicting sexual acts -- I think many people would find sketches more acceptable. And from simply an artistic/stylistic point of view I think I prefer sketches also. They're less specific and personal than photos -- as such I'd feel they represent the given position *alone* instead of two *people* doing that position. The focus is different if you get what I mean. Aris Katsaris 23:59, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)

More praise

Many thanks for enriching Wikipedia with your illustrations of sexual positions. Lotus and cowgirl are particularly beautiful. They are very tastefully done, and I like the little touches like the teddy and the Asimov book. Keep up the good work! Trilobite (Talk) 00:11, 5 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Allow me to add my praise. If I had time, I would propose to do a Wiki Sex manual with you as illustrator! But there may be others who are better qualified anyway. Maxweber 23:56, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Props for the drawings

Like everyone else here, I offer props for the drawings. For they are hot, yet tasteful, and descriptive. It's a lot easier to show than to tell with this sort of thing. This is the sort of thing which makes Wikipedia truly rock---it brings out productivity and creativity of all sorts in people.

Request: Could you illustrate stand and carry position and/or reverse piggy-back position? I can't for the life of me figure out what the articles are describing. Can you? grendel|khan 03:14, 2004 Sep 13 (UTC)

Added to my todo list. Rama 08:51, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Done Rama 19:40, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Idle musing on cowgirl

Not a complaint at all here, but more of an idle musing. The angle from which you've drawn the 'cowgirl' illustration (a mighty nice one, I might add) seems to be the standard angle from which to portray this, e.g., in porn. (Either that, or they use the "zoom way in on the action" shot from the other side, which isn't close to anyone's viewpoint.) The idea is that it's from the boy's perspective, never the girl's. Perhaps it reveals a subtle but present bias, that sex is, even when not explicitly, implicitly shown from the male perspective.

Also, I suppose, since the boy is at 'ground' level, it's less of a perspective trick to draw it from his perspective.

Just musing. Probably reading way, way too much into it. This is what happens when I start typing at 2 AM. (Local time.) grendel|khan 06:06, 2004 Sep 18 (UTC)

The idea here was to feature a view in which the penetration angle would be clear, which explains the "visually explicit" and "technical" aspects of the drawings. The drawback is, of course, that it stresses the "penetration" part more than the clitoris stimulation. I've tried to do this better with the other image in Cowgirl_sex_position, I don't know how well it shows...

As for the implicit bias, it is a very good point : basically, it seems that men have a more visual perception of sexuality than women, who hare more receptive to mood and more subtle signals such as voice, clothes, ambiance, and such (see "Snape/Hermione" fan fictions to get a good overall picture of the trend). Another example that the "weak sex" is the more subtle. As to why it is so, I leave it to the reader as exercise ^^;; Rama 14:15, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Image source and copyright status

Can you provide image source and copyright status for the images you upload? Also, a brief description on the image page would be nice. I did this for Image:Yamato damaged 7 apr 1945.jpg and Image:Yamato battleship under construction.jpg; take a look at those pages to see what is needed. Wikipedia can't use images for which no information is given, because the presumption is that they are copyright infringements. For this reason, I replaced your image on Japanese battleship Yamashiro with one that's known to be public domain.
When you upload a photo from the U.S. Naval Historical Center, please crop it to remove the caption at the top; we have a different way of doing captions at Wikipedia.

Nice images, by the way. Gdr 16:40, 2004 Oct 22 (UTC)

Thank you very much for your reminder, your superb work to fix the mess I inadvertedly created and massivly improve it, and for fixing my numerous other clumsinesses. Rama 15:27, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Arizona comment

I'm curious about your source for a recent addition to the USS Arizona page. The figure for 800kg and the fact that it was beyond regulations, specifically. I'm not disputing it, but can't find any evidence for that information. Thanks. Jinian 13:53, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I would not bet my right hand on this either, I just happened to find this on http://membres.lycos.fr/generationcuirrasse/ (it's in French... you'll have go "Bienvenue"->"Navires" (on the top of the page) ->" Classe Pennsylvanie") and you'll find a bried resume of the carrer of the ships of the class. Arizona reads :

"Coulé à Pearl Harbor le 07/12/1941. Une bombe perce le pont avant, faisant exploser les soutes à munitions. A signaler que en violation de toutes les règles,800 kilos de poudre noir y était stockée. Le navire se soulève, et les ponts avant éclatent, faisant descendre les tourelles de plusieurs mètres par rapport à leur position initiale. Les ponts avants sont comme des accordéons, les équipes de sauvetage essaieront d'y pénétrer, mais les ponts deviennent vite trop aplatis, empêchant toute progression. Trop endommagé, on enlève toutes ses superstructures, et les 2 tourelles arrières, ainsi que les canons de la tourelle N°2."

This translates (rough and quick) into

"Sunk in Pearl Harbour (...) A bomb pierces the forward deck, igniting the ammunition stores. Note that despite all regulations, 800 kg of black powder were stored there. The ship is lifted by the explosion, forward decks explode, and the main turrets fall several meters from their nominal position. Forward decks crumble like acordion, which makes the salvage work impossible. Since she is too damaged to be salvaged, her supertructures, aft turrets and guns from n°2 turret are removed".

So, for more references, we'll have to ask the webmaster. By the way, I find it very curious that a WWII era battleship should have black powder in her stores... this explosive was completely obsolete by then... did it serve other purposes ? Rama 14:07, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I didn't know that black powder was considered obsolete. Perhaps the problem is that she was really a WWI era battleship, built in 1913. All of the battleships had black powder magazine stores, so the question is were the regulations broken by the amount or the location? I've seen mention of a BUSHIPS report that stated the problem might have been an open hatch, which is an different issue all together.

Black powder generates huge amongh of smoke when fired -- that's why naval battles up to the XVIIIth Century looked like cloud mating seasons :p -- is three times less powerfull, is more vulnerable to humidity... You can find details in the "Cordite" article (the successor of black powder). Warships from the WWI era also used more sophisticated explosives than mere black powder (actually, I recall reading about cordite in Jules Verne's De la Terre à la Lune (From the Earth to the Moon) which dates back to 1865), and I think we can be fairly confident that USS Arizona used these modern ammunition as well, since her main armament seem to have been standard navy 14 inch guns which uses this kind of propellant.

As to why black powder was stored on the USS Arizona, it seems to be for saluting guns : " Several bombs struck Arizona; and, at about 0820, one of them penetrated her protective deck and exploded in a magazine detonating black-powder saluting charges which, in turn, set off the surrounding smokeless-powder magazines." ([3]). The American vaval History site history.navy.mil states "The massive explosion that followed has never been fully explained, since the bomb apparently did not pierce Arizona's armored deck, which protected her magazines. Many qualified authorities have blamed powder storage outside of the magazines as the cause, but this is conjectural and probably will always remain so."

Your mentioning of the open hatch is interesting, and it might after all be what is refered to as a contradiction with regulations. In battleships, a major vulnaribility and recurrent problem has always been the tendency of huge among of explosives, stored in a tiny place, to... well... explode :p

The bomb which ignited the reaction was dropped from a bomber, I am unsure wether these bombs are likely to pierce the deck armour of a battleship... at least, history.navy.mil seems to incline to think it would not have.

I read an article when I was very young -- I can't remember for sure where -- that said that rather than develop a bomb from scratch the bombs they used at Pearl Harbour were adapted large naval shells. It would probably have been Popular Science, Popular Mechanics. That would have been three or four decades ago. -- Geo Swan 18:42, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

So the massive magazine explosion without deck piercing basically leaves us with two solutions :

an open hatch explains the detonation (what, the bomb flew directly through, or something ? Well, luck shots do happen...)
someone stored significant amount of black powder outside of the armoured section -- this detonated and did pierce the deck.

Keep on checking wether I can find something else (but according to the comments from history.navy.mil, it seems unlikely that we might ever be quite sure)

Rama 17:38, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

The note I found (now only available in the Google Cache) is hardly definitive. I'll need to look for the BUSHIP report referenced. However, it mentions that the hatch was open, the bomb hit nearby, setting fire to some combustibles and the fire spread down the hatch. A more likely scenario than a lucky shot and not necessary for the powder to be outside the section. As you say, more research is probably required on this point. Given that, do you want to temper the addition you made to the page? Jinian 10:53, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

It certainly would be an idea to include what we've discussed in one form or another. What would you think about something like this :

The explosion which destroyed the forward part of Arizona was due to the detonation of the ammunition magazine, located in an armoured section under the deck. Most experts seem to agree that the bomb could hardly have pierced the armour. Additionally, it seems widely accepted that the black powder magazine (used for salute guns) detonated first, igniting the smokeless powder magazine (military ammunition). A 1944 BUSHIP report suggests that a hatch leading to the blak powder magazine was left open, with perhaps inflammable materials stocked nearby. A US Navy historical site history.navy.mil goes as far as to suggest that black powder might have been stockpiled outside of the armoured magazine. However, it seems unlikely that a definitive answer to this question might be found.

Rama 12:53, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Looks good to me! Clear, and NPOV. Thanks. Jinian 13:09, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Right, I included this in the article, and tried to credit you as well. Thank you for the stimulating disussion and your high standards ! Rama 13:21, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Zatoichi

Slightly puzzled by your amendment to Zatoichi:

...his sword secreted within his [[cane]] (cane-sword were straight, low-quality blades, which stand now comparison with regular [[katana|nihon-to]])

Do you mean that "cane swords" are similar to katanas, but are lower quality? Also, what's the distinction between nihon-to and katana? If there's no difference, then we shouldn't leave a misleading link like this, as the word nihon-to doesn't appear in the katana article. Cheers. - MykReeve 20:22, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Don't worry, ChrisO's fixed it. - MykReeve 20:28, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Yeah, perhaps we want to do more research about the Japanese swords in general... Roughly, nihon-to is the general family of Japanese sabres, with differential tempering, curvature, and mountings. Nihon-to include No-dachi (a huge sabre desgned to cut horses, more or less the ecological niche of the naginata... you can one in the Seven Samurai), Tachi (the oldest sabre, worn cutting edge downward), katana (also a sabre, but usually slightly less curved, an worn cutting edge upward; but some katanawere mounted in the tachi fashion for standing reasons... complicated stuff ! :p), wakisashi, and tanto (I'll leave the numerous tanto variants as exercise ;) ).

But there were also other, cheaper weapons or different. Examples are the swords of older technology -- bronze age (short, straight, double-edged) or iron age (evolution toward a straight, long, one-sided blade, and later toward the modern form). Shinobi ("ninja") blades were typically straight and cheap -- shinobi did not have the mysticism of the blade which samurai had toward their katana (excpet if they combined being samurai and shinobi... again, life is complicated ! :p).

As for cane swords, I heard they appeared rather in the late Edo era. They are straight, one-sided, but are usually just forged pieces of iron or steel (the katana blade has at least three different qualities of steel in it, differential tempering, etc.). That's why we can safely say that they have very little in common -- they look close to each other when compared with Western swords.

Oh, also, confusion might also arise because of the storage moutings of the nihon-to swords, which a rough wood, which looks a little bit like a cane. Actually, this is only done when the blade is not intended to be used in combat: so that the mounting and blade do not damaged each other because of a change of shape of the mounting (due to humidity for instance), the blade is temporarily mounted in a stabe wooden shaft and mounting, while the regular mouting is stored separately, holding a fake wooden blade (so that the mounting doesn't get ruined either).

There are good pages out there on the Internet [4] for instance, I think that the best way to deal with this would be to develop a page about Japanese cane swords, if this hasn't been done already... Cheers ! Rama 21:03, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)

list of sex positions

Could you also create an image for group sex? Would be great. I like your images, because they are not pornographic, but a good illustration for the text. Stern 00:31, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I'll see what I can do (Inarticulated rant : it's true that there are lots of things about triolism in the original Kama-Sutra that I usually don't find in those little well-illustrated books about "couple health" -- but it's true as well for the parts about poetry, cryptography... does modern culture suck or something ? :p) Rama 06:57, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Obviously :-) Maybe you want to illustrate gay sex, too? In my opinion some Wikipedias (including en) have a very conservative view at sexuality, that doesn't fit to a modern society. Stern 12:24, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Image:Sixtynine.png is already gay, and I've illustrated Tribadism, which is quite homosexual. I have no ideological problem about this (my personal theory would even be that we're all bisexual and blah blah blah -- actually I'm European as well, and I somehow have the feeling it helps with this sort of questions :p ), but I'm afraid that I might have broken one of my hands, which is going to make drawing a little bit more difficult :/ Let's cross the valid fingers, and keep you informed about the next drawings. Thanks ! Rama 19:30, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

UPADTE : my hand was not broken, it was just a jolly good contusion. I will thus try to comply, and the only explanation or excuse to the dely will be laziness :p Rama 08:36, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Image:Triomphant-blason.jpg

Thanks for uploading Image:Triomphant-blason.jpg. I notice it currently doesn't have an image copyright tag. Could you add one to let us know its copyright status? (You can use {{gfdl}} if you release it under the GFDL, or {{fairuse}} if you claim fair use, etc.) If you don't know what any of this means, just let me know where you got the images and I'll tag them for you. Thanks so much, – Quadell ^{(talk) (help)}[[]] 21:22, Nov 15, 2004 (UTC)

Sorry, nor can I. We might as well remove this picture and I'll try to gather authorisation for a replacement. Rama 07:49, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

UPDATE : I got the kind permission from Gerard Schmidt to use his pictures from [5], so I replaced the offending picture with these ones and removed Image:Triomphant-blason.jpg. Thank you again ! Rama 19:34, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Barnstars on Wikipedia

Hi, Rama. When you get a chance, would you mind updating the entires you added to Wikipedia:Barnstars on Wikipedia to include the reasons why such an award may be awarded? Many thanks! -- [[User:ClockworkSoul|User:ClockworkSoul/sig]] 08:13, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

To be quite frank, I suppose we ought to ask Raul654. I'll see to this. (in Wikipedia, even the silliest matters have to be doumented in the most deadly serious way ! :) ) Rama 08:23, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

UPDATE: We have an answer at here. Rama 10:23, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

List of tongue-twisters

A note about your recent change of "Un dragon gradé dégrade un gradé dragon" to "Un dragon gradé dégrade un dragon gradé": it's the first time I see these sentences, but I think the former may have been the correct one (playing on the orders name-adj and adj-name, both allowed in French, but which sometimes have different meanings).

Well, I had heard the sentence before, but I'm not sure of the order. "Gradé" can be both adjective and noun, here. "Un dragon gradé" means "a commisionned dragoon", and "Un gradé dragon" means "an officer of the Dragoons".

The "tongue-twisting nature" of the sentance comes from the alternance of DR-G / GR-D, so "Un dragon gradé dégrade un dragon gradé" is more likely to make me stumble. But perhaps this can vary from one person to another... Rama 18:57, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Unverified images

Hi! Thanks for uploading the following image:

Image:Inflexible.jpg

I notice it currently doesn't have an image copyright tag. Could you add one to let us know its copyright status? (You can use {{gfdl}} if you release it under the GNU Free Documentation License, {{fairuse}} if you claim fair use, etc.) If you don't know what any of this means, just let me know at my talk page where you got the images and I'll tag them for you. Thanks so much. [[User:Poccil|Peter O. (Talk, automation script)]] 21:45, Dec 10, 2004 (UTC)

P.S. You can help tag other images at User:Yann/Untagged_Images. Thanks again.

Article Licensing

Hi, I've started a drive to get users to multi-license all of their contributions that they've made to either (1) all U.S. state, county, and city articles or (2) all articles, using the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike (CC-by-sa) v1.0 and v2.0 Licenses or into the public domain if they prefer. The CC-by-sa license is a true free documentation license that is similar to Wikipedia's license, the GFDL, but it allows other projects, such as WikiTravel, to use our articles. Since you are among the top 2000 Wikipedians by edits, I was wondering if you would be willing to multi-license all of your contributions or at minimum those on the geographic articles. Over 90% of people asked have agreed. For More Information:

Multi-Licensing FAQ - Lots of questions answered
Multi-Licensing Guide
Free the Rambot Articles Project

To allow us to track those users who muli-license their contributions, many users copy and paste the "{{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}}" template into their user page, but there are other options at Template messages/User namespace. The following examples could also copied and pasted into your user page:

Option 1

I agree to [[Wikipedia:Multi-licensing|multi-license]] all my contributions, with the exception of my user pages, as described below:

OR

Option 2

I agree to [[Wikipedia:Multi-licensing|multi-license]] all my contributions to any [[U.S. state]], county, or city article as described below:

Or if you wanted to place your work into the public domain, you could replace "{{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}}" with "{{MultiLicensePD}}". If you only prefer using the GFDL, I would like to know that too. Please let me know what you think at my talk page. It's important to know either way so no one keeps asking. -- Ram-Man (comment| talk)

Jules Verne

Hi Rama, you are using photo's of the Jules Verne book. I used scans (with a normal flatbed scanner), saved as PNG picutures: nl:De wonderstraal, nl:Michael Strogoff, de koerier van de tsaar. I put your pictures in a gallery at Jules Verne as well, they could be moved to the specific book later.

I'm not sure I understand the question... Anyway, I have got two ancient Hetzel books, so I tried to take advantage of this. I have taken pictures of them but they are of a relatively low quality, i'll try to do better (probably with a better camera, or by scanning a less valuable edition of the book). I have added pictures at Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, Captain Nemo, Nautilus (Verne) and Pierre-Jules Hetzel. You are very welcome to use my phtograph in any way you see fit, of course. If you have any question, I am at your service. Thank you ! Rama 13:12, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

fr:Polyamour

fr:Polyamour Merci :) 82.226.47.33 15:53, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)

C'est un plaisir de contribuer un peu, et c'est aussi toujours ça de moins à expliquer à chaque fois, plus qu'un lien à copier ! Bonne continuation ! :) Rama 15:56, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Je viens enfin de le lire, j'ai corrigé quelques fautes mais vraiment l'article est très bien, je ne suis pas sûre d'écrire amour libre du coup... peut-être qu'une redirection suffira :)

Je te félicite encore ! 82.226.47.33 05:03, 25 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Ben c'est pas exactement la même chose, si j'ai bien compris... il peut y avoir des relations polyamoureuses fermées... Et puis j'ai un peu l'impression que "polyamour" est un néologisme, et que la plupart des gens vont naturellement parler d'"amour libre". Mon intuition est qu'il y a de la place pour un article sur l'amour libre, quitte à mettre un lien vers "polyamour" pour un cas particuler, avec une "formulation rigoureuse" des différents types de relations... Enfin, je te laisse juge ! Joyeux Noël et bonne continuation ! Rama 09:27, 25 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Karen Kwiatkowski

Thanks! And thanks for your initial work on the article! - Nat Kraus e 01:05, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Colour-blindness

Hey Rama, thanks for your feedback on the red on purple not being appropriate for colour-blind people. What kind of colour on purple would be best for colour-blindness? If people think that any one of the barnstars is appropriate, I'll go about making a colour change. -- Deathphoenix 01:35, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Hmm, that's a tricky question... thre are different kinds of colour blindness, so depending on the type, it can be different. On the other hand, colour-blind people often are very sentitive to luminescence (more than normal people), so I would advise you to create a very bright or very dark border around the object (for instance a white border would be perfect there). But in no occasion should you take my suggestion for a colour seriously ! ;) Thanks for caring ! Rama 01:41, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for your quick reply! :-) Without really doing it, I'm thinking maybe either a white or yellow might do the trick. -- Deathphoenix 01:53, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Spelling of "organis(z)ation"

hey, after doing a lil research, you are right! Thanks for pointing that out, but funny how I live in Canada, a Commonwealth nation, and not know it =/. I had no intention of being impolite in any sense. =) Peace. — InuYasha-LG 11:28, Dec 20, 2004 (UTC)

Actually I think I own you an apology, "impolite" was very probably a far too strong word. I would rather take it in the spirit of the UK Spelling Guerilly Campaign ;) Merry Christmas, happy new year and good editing ! Rama 12:15, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Japanese battleship Yamato

If I understand correctly, Zipang is heavily based on The Final Countdown, with the fictional Kongo-class destroyer Mirai taking the place of Nimitz. Whereas Le Crabe Tambour at no point features a ship travelling back in time to World War II... (But I basically agree with you that it's wrong to discuss The Final Countdown in the Yamato article. Leave that to a future article on Zipang (anime).) Gdr 14:06, 2004 Dec 21 (UTC)

Oh, sorry I missed the point then. Perhaps the best way to solve this thing would be to have an article about Zipang; could anyone who have seen the series draft an article about it ? We should post a joined request for article on the Yamato talk page, perhaps :) Thank you ! Rama 14:17, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)

DYK

Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Karen Kwiatkowski, which you created. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the "Did you know?" talk page.

It looks like your article already has a major additional contributor :) 68.81.231.127 10:45, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I am deeply honoured. Thank you very much. Rama 11:42, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

User:Nat Krause is the one who suggested the article, and expanded it :) 68.81.231.127 11:51, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I cannot but thank him again for the honour made to me, and most of all for his commendable improvement of the article ! Rama 12:07, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

feta needs an image?

hi, nice done on sex positions and the rest of your articles. I see you did some modification in feta cheese. I don't get it why I couldn't find ANY cheese that had an image. maybe feta should be the first to have? what do you think (please reply to my discussion so I can see it) keep it up!

Hi ! Thanks you your consideration ! I certainly concure that cheese should be taken care of with the most respect. I think that the bets way to do it would be to take photographs and put them in the information table (and possibly additional pictures could follow in the article itself).

The main thing is that drawing feta will probably not render very well, only a photograph can render the texture of the matter. There are several images on the Internet (if you image-google "feta"), but these images are not "libre"; so we'd have two main solutions : ask for the autorisation to use the photographs on a site under a libre licence, or take a photograph ourselves.

I happen to live in a country where feta is not the most usual kind of cheese -- the one which is easily available does not make justice to the glory of feta. Since you live in probably the best place for this, perhaps you could do it if you can have both some feta and a digital camera ? A nice juggestion in any case.

Any now, for something completely different, did you know you can sign your comments easily by adding ~~~~ at the end ? Can be helpful sometimes :) .

Thanks for your suggestion and have lots of fun ! Rama 01:56, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Hey I said to a friend of mine, who likes to take photographs, to do so. I asked him to take simple feta, and then feta with oil and 'rigani'. (the way it's mostly served, that picture will go in the article). It's strange that all the (other) cheeses I look have no pictures! He likes taking pictures, so much, that I will persuade him, to take pictures in places that wikipedia articles needs them, and doesn't have them. Is it right to say that every article that describes something with more than two setences, should have a picture?..

thanks for the tip (I now also use wikipedia firefox extension and it rocks), btw, you have drawn some nice sex positions, but in the main article you forgot to put them. Yesterday I put one in the standing (you had the same one, in the article for this position) but not in the general "sex positions". What can be annyoing is that the info that is shown when the mouse pointer is over the picture is the one in Desc (when thumbnailing). So if you have The foo position, the mouseover info will say The position. I'm not sure it's somehow fixable. Also the same article needs some better formating (the way the firsts section are doing it). again nice drawings! --Nkour 11:18, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Brigantine Etoile

You added an image to the Brigantine article. But a brigantine has square sails, in addition to her fore-and-aft sails, and the vessel you show doesn't display any. It does have a trapezoidal sail on its main mast. But since that sail has one edge adjacent to the mast, it is a fore-and-aft sail, not a square sail, in spite of its shape. At least that is my understanding. Geo Swan 18:16, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Well, to be completely frank, I am unsure myself. In French, L'Etoile in a "goélette". She does have two square sail on the fore-mast (on the photograph, they are not out, but you can see the two sticks which hold them when used (what is it called ? Like a boom, but on the top of the sail... :p )). On the other hand, l'Etoile has square sails only on her fore-mast, not on the main mast, which might add further subtleties to the denomination. In French I can more or less find my way out of it, but I confess that in English it is far out my reach. So if you know another article where this photograph might live a happier life, please do move it ! Thank you for the inquiery and have fun ! Rama 20:00, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Sorry to be so long getting back to you. In English the term square sail does not just refer to the sail's shape, but to how it is attached to the mast. Trapezoidal sails that are hung from a spar, that is then hung from the mast in such a way that approximately half the sail is on one side of the mast and half on the other are considered square sails. These kinds of sails work more like a parachute. The other kind of sail is called a fore and aft sail. They work more like an airplane wing. Air flowing onto the windward face of the sail puffs it out into a nice airfoil shape. One edge of these sails is fastened to the center of mast, or to a stay. Jibs are fore and aft sails. Air flowing across the leeward face of the sail travels a longer distance, and through the bernouli effect is drawn upwind. This kind of sail is more useful than a square sail in sailing into the wind. In spite of their shape, the trapezoidal sails on the Etoile are fore and aft sails. That would make it a schooner. I think someone else has already moved the image to the schooner article. Cheers. -- Geo Swan 20:48, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

No, I really meant "square sail", like in voile carrée. Have a look at [6] (another view of l'Étoile). Unfortunately, on the photograph I have submited, the square sail is not out, and the spar is not very visible... Cheers ! Rama 10:33, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Ah. Sure enough -- a square sail. In my understanding of English nautical terminology, this square sail would make her a topsail schooner. AIUI, she would need square sails on both masts to be a brigantine. -- Geo Swan 16:27, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Map

Yes, in retrospect those colours are too similar - however choosing 3 non-similar blues to work on all monitors and colourblindness is a bit tricky :) The large image seems to work for me. Hopefully it was a temporary glitch? Morwen - Talk 12:00, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Offensive Terms for the British

Why did you remove the article Les?CiaraBeth

Well, they are not really part of the name itself. They are, well, articles. It would be a little bit similar to listing words like "the chair, the table, the floor" rather than "chair, table, floor". Naturally, I might be mistaken, so please don't take this too seriously ! ;) Thanks for asking and happy new year ! Rama 23:51, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Hehe. It is just that I spent way too much time on that blasted article one day.:-p Anyway, I had wondered because British friends that have been victim of such insults, either in UK or in France insist the French use the article as part of the insult. Anyway, happy New Year to you as well. :)CiaraBeth 18:10, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I see... that's not something uncommon on Wikipedia ! ;) Indeed, I think you can assume that is effective usage, these words will be accompanied by articles. Don't worry, most of the time, they will be rather affectuous -- at least I hope ! ;) Enjoy yourself and happy editing ! Rama 22:04, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)

GCIV

Thanks for engaging in the conversation on "Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki", I got mixed up in this issue some time ago when I wrote a piece on Professor Lindemann and his cabinet paper on bombing Germany see RAF_Bomber_Command. He was very careful to propose that they were bombing the houses of civilians not the civilians themselves and so I expected to find a treaty which said that bombing civilians in enemy held territory was against international law. So far despite asking a number of people who say that "area bombing was a war crime" to provide sources no one has come up with one.

I wrote some of the article on "unlawful combatants" and "torture". It comes as a surprise to many people how limited GCIV is. For example Art 4 defines who is a Protected person in an international conflict, Persons protected by the Convention are those who, at a given moment and in any manner whatsoever, find themselves, in case of a conflict or occupation, in the hands of a Party to the conflict or Occupying Power of which they are not nationals. So no one behind their own front lines are covered by GCIV. In the case of most of the none Afghans held as "unlawful combatants" by the USA, because they are nationals of a neutral state (eg Pakistan) or an allied state of the US in their war in Afganistan, (eg UK and Australia), they are not protected persons and so are not covered by GCIV Philip Baird Shearer 02:35, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I am the one to thank you for starting this; it is probably on of the most interesting things to study about Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and I really appreciate your knowledge of the legal matters. You'll have to be patient, I'm afraid, with my very clumsy understanding of legal matters and lack of culture in the domain. I sort of expected international laws to be counter-intuitive, actually. I might sound like arguing, but I am not native English speaker and I might be clumsy; my comment are likely to be out of puzzlement or to test objections. Anyway I really have a high opinion of your initiative; a clear understanding of the matter will certainly only come out of a rigourous study, including precise legal texts. So thanks and I hope we can continue to collaborate constructively ! Cheers ! Rama 21:01, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)

SAMU

Well, its one of my hobbies... Thanx to you for "defending" the "French doctrine". By the way, the cardiopump is not so appreciated anymore. I heard two types of reasons:

most studies show that it is more efficient only when the CPR-performer is very well trained and athletic (i.e. only the Paris firefighters have a better survival with the cardiopump), so better perform agood CPR with hands than a bad with cardiopump;
it is so efficient that the thrombus can be moved away, it makes the thrombolysis more difficult;

(I personnaly have no competence about this, I am just a CFR, I just repeat what I read).

The specificity in case of cardiac arrest is perhaps more that everything is performed onsite, including IV injection of adrenaline, vasopressors and thrombolytics (study still running, Troica "thrombolysis in cardiac arrest" [7], page in french but english references at the end). I think that some North-American EMS also perform full treatment onsite, that it does not lower the survival rate and frees some rooms in the emergency departments, but I do not have the references.

Cdang 08:48, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Netmarine-images on commons

Hi Rama, I saw the discussion on commons about the images of netmarine.net. Some of them have been deleted twice for copyvio. I really find the pictures useful, therefore I did a sample to show you how they might been preserved from deletion. Have a look: Image:FS_Redoutable_torpilles.jpg.

While translating the legend beneath the image, I encountered a new problem: The Images were taken in a museum. Usually, the copyright of a picture taken in a museum belongs to the museum, not to the photographer. Did netmarine take the images legally? Under which license? Greetz --Ikiwaner 18:59, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The photographs were taken at the Cité de la Mer in Cherbourg. The French law is applicable here. As far as I know, France does not use the notion of copyright, only the autor's right are applicable. (see the French Wikipedia article on copyright, [8]). If the museum autorises taking photographes (I think it is safe to assume they do), the rights of the photograph are entirely to the author. Have fun ! Rama 21:46, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The question about the museum is in the end in your responsability. But keep in mind that the image above will be soon deleted, not by me but by someone else. I saw that you did continue to upload images without the original text and source. Keep in mind that quality is better than quantity, that most images are more or less useless when we don't know anything about the place they were taken and what we see on the image. I don't understand neither why you place the explanation about your permission on your user page. Please take some time and upload the text below the images too. Have fun, too! --Ikiwaner 08:48, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I did not upload new images, only restored some of those which were deleted by mistake. Do you think that this [9] is all right ? I don't really know why "Courtesy and authorisation of NetMarine.net" is not enough, so I don't really know what is. Rama 09:00, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)

UPDATE : Turns out that photographs are only allowed outside the Redoutable at the Cité de la Mer :

"Nous vous informons qu'il est interdit de prendre des photos sur le site, exception faite de l'extérieur du sous-marin" (We inform you that photographs are not allowed on the site, excepts for the outside of the submarine).

Rama 10:42, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)

CPR images

Hi,

I saw your picture en fr:, really nice (-: did you draw them yourself ?

In this case, I have a little request : the French procedure is a little bit different, the head tilt-chin lift must be kept while controlling the breath. You can find illustrations here p59 (labelled 51) - big PDF (211 pages) or here p30 - smaller PDF (121 pages). These documents can be downloaded freely, but are not under free license.

This position of hands is also kept during insufflation, so in France, the fingers are under the chin and not besides the cheek.

So would it be possible to have another version of Image:Checking respiration.jpg and Image:Insulfation.jpg for fr ?

I am aware that this is a big work, I would have done this myself, but unfortunately I am not a good drawer (you can see my ugly work on casualty lifting). So if you don't have the time, never mind, your pictures do not induce error, they just do not exactly match the French instruction...

Cdang 10:07, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Hi ! Thanks, I was browsing the French First Aid pages and was really impressed :) Yes I did the images myself. Yes I will try to produce comething more in acordance to the French doctrine, it might just take a little while untill I have some time to spend on this. Thank you very much for the explanations and the references, which will make it easier. Have fun ! Rama 10:16, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)

PS: Waht are you saying ! Your images are extremely good ! :) Rama 10:24, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Uh, well... thanx (-: I would rather say "clear" than "good". Another advice if I may: if it was always the same character and this character is always on the same side, this would imho make the identification easier (here, we have a girl on the right side for the positionning, then a boy on the left side for the chest compression).

I know this is not politically correct because you don't have the 50% male/50% female ;-), and I know that this takes a lot of time (I spend enough time with my easy drawings) but...

(Yes, you can point out that in France, we deal with little details... we call it "enculer les mouches", i.e. "fuck the flies in the ass", a very precise work indeed — btw YES we French are all sex addicts.)

Anyway, thanx again for your great work Cdang 11:45, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I see your point; I did this mostly because it's funny to draw lots of caracters, but it is feasible of course. I aslo had the advice, about Image:CPR-oxygen-defibrillator.jpg, that most cardiac arrests are male, obese and elder ;) I'll keep your idea in mind when I do the drawing.

Pour l'histoire des mouches, je connais, je suis de Strasbourg... ;)

Thanks to you for your work (given their quality, I was also amased at the diversity of your contributions ! Seems that we physicists like to have side occupations ! :) ) and have fun ! Rama 13:36, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Ah, je me disais aussi... d'après les légendes des illustrations sur fr:, tu semblais maîtriser plutôt pas mal la langue de Michel Audiard... Btw, I noticed I made a silly remark, concerning the side ofthe girl on the check pulse vs check breadth: it is quite easy to mirror the picture...

Concerning the victim, this is not a problem for me; while it is true that most cardiac arrest are fat men, this also happens on thin ones, and even on thin women: the combination of cigarettes and contraceptive pill is quite bad...

Imho, this is not physicist vs physician, but more everyday practice on the field vs teaching to M. Joe Average. Yes some of the Average are dumb (maybe no Joe or Jack, but William and Averell for shure), although you never say it (but say instead "well, this is an interesting group with very different concerns, a real pedagogical challenge").

Cdang|write me 08:31, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

You certainly have a point about training. The two cases of gross incompetent first aid I ran over (a cardiac problem where the victim was put in dorsal decubitus with legs up, and a conscious traffic accident victim with polytraumatism suspicion put in lateral recovery position) were the deeds of qualified nurses (unfortunately not qualified for field emergencies :/). Better have an ambulancer than a doctor in dermatology ! :) Rama 10:49, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

In fact, in France, the recovery position is recommended for unconcious casualty event in case of a suspicion of spine trauma: we considere here that the protection of the airway (risk of Mendelson syndrom) as discussedin the fr page (where I notice again your nice pictures); but I know this is different in other countries.

Cdang|write me 08:24, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The systematic recovery position seems to be recommended by the ERC European Resuscitation Council Guidelines 2000 for Adult Basic Life Support:

Finally, it must be emphasized that in spite of possible problems during training and in use, it remains above doubt that placing the unconscious, breathing victim into the recovery position can be life saving

Cdang|write me 09:24, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

yes, I think it is common sense that the life of the patient is the outmost priority -- I actually once did have to manipulate an uncounscious patient with heavy suspicions of spine trauma. In the case I mention here, the patient was very much counscious and not even on the verge of losing counsciousness (he was actually quite agitated); I'd think in this case (given he had been subject to an unknown trauma) it would have been safer to immobilise him while wainting for the ambulance, what do you think ? Cheers ! Rama 09:30, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Ifully agree with you (-: Cdang|write me 11:40, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

OK, finally done, see here. I hope they are all right ! Rama 21:46, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Credits of WikiDefender Barnstar's design

see Image:WikiDefender_Barnstar.png. Thank you all :) --Godric 00:08, Jan 11, 2005 (UTC)

illustrations and homosexuality

Hi Rama, some of your illustrations were referenced in the discussion on the Wikipedia:Village pump about censorship, which led me to wander through the associated articles and find the rest of your wonderful work. I agree with some of the other comments that photos of real people would probably not be nearly as acceptable as your drawings. However, I also found that I could not find a single diagram/illustration of male homosexual acts, or a single photo of a modern homosexual male (the Homosexuality article has historical and artistic depictions, unlike the Lesbian article with recent photos). It seems pretty clear to me that there is some sort of systemic bias at work here; some people find male homosexuality much more offensive than heterosexual or lesbian depictions. You mention that more images of "Homosexual sexuality" are in the works and I was wondering if you were planning to include male homosexuality. This can be an uncomfortable subject and I'm certainly not trying to browbeat you into anything that you weren't planning on, but the lack jumped out at me and I find it disconcerting. If you aren't, I'll try to see if there's some PD material that might be relevant. Cheers, BanyanTree 04:18, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Hi ! Thank you for your interest (and information, I was unaware of the discussion on Village pump, I'll have a look). I appreciate your politeness too !

Yes the planned images include male homosexuality. I don't yet have a schedule yet, but my todo-list is closing to the critical mass which triggers its processing; modulo other obligations, it shouldn't take months. Thanks again ! Rama 06:06, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Drawings

Great drawings! Thank you. 82.83.56.167 22:16, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Gosh! That's more than I ever dreamt... (-: Cdang|write me 11:51, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Las Vegas, Nevada

I'm not sure I agree with using the city boundaries to determine what gets included in the Las Vegas article.

However, rather than debate the point, I created a separate Metropolitan Las Vegas, Nevada article to try and reach a compromise that will allow having an article with stuff outside of the city limits.

I added a more detailed explanation of my most recent edit to the Las Vegas article on its talk page.

Good luck,

— DV 10:30, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Are you quite sure that this was intended for me ? I can't remember editing Las Vegas, Nevada... Cheers ! Rama 12:34, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Rama, you're listed with the comment "rv sandboxing" at 00:07, on 18 Jan 2005, just over a day ago.

Please see the edit history of the article if you don't think it was you.

Your name appears immediately before mine in the list of contributors.

Clicking the link leads directly to your user page.

— DV 03:36, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Just to refresh your memory, here is a page from your user contribution history where you made the aforementioned edit to the Las Vegas article.

00:07, 18 Jan 2005 (hist) (diff) m Las Vegas, Nevada (rv sandboxing)

Are you sure you don't remember this edit? It looks like you spent a fair amount of time working on it.

Cheers,

— DV 03:45, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Hi ! I am really really sorry, but I nw think I can be positive about not editing the article. The "rv sandboxing" refers to me removing a superfluous letter "m" in another article (I think it was Europe but I am far from positive).

These edits are quite massive and the editor who contributed them indeed much have spent some time ont it . Ccertainly I would not have commented such major edits with just "rv sandboxing" (I might have outright forgotten to comment it, but this documentation clearly is improper).

Furthermore, (joking) I am afraid that the most I know about Las Vegas is that there are casinos, my SMUR instructor told me there were defibrillators everywhere, and that it is a mjor strategic target in War Games. And though it might not appear in my other contributions, there are limits to my ignorance above which I refrain from editing article ! ;)

Now seriously, it might be something related to one of these famous slownesses we had in the past few days: but I am pretty sure that this particular edit went through quite quickly.

I think I will report this conversation on the IRC #wikipedia, we might have found a bug. Or it could be the "random cosmic muon from outer space" :p

Anyway, sorry for the trouble, I'll keep you informed. Cheers ! Rama 08:18, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

UPDATE: people in the #mediawiki channel told me that the problem was known. The prolem was brilliantly syntethised by brion:

rama: we've had a number of seriously fucked up database problems in the last couple of days. some edits may have been based on older versions or been oddly ordered, leading to odd-looking diffs.

I just hope I've not been involoved in too many criminally stupid edits :) Rama 08:30, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Image

You're right, L'Origine du monde is a famous painting, but the painting pictures female genitalia. Normally a warning is added at the top of potentially offensive articles. Adding the image directly to the main page, is likely to spur conflics. 131.211.210.157 12:05, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I've asked advice from User:Raul654. He has experience with this as he runs the featured articles. 131.211.210.157 12:17, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I understand your point, and I certainly don't mean to push for this. If the articles gets to be in "DYK" with another picture, or no picture, it'll be nice already ! I just think the painting should not be qualified of "obscene" or "pornographic", but it is undoubtly of a specific nature, let's say :) . It is just a pity, in the absolute, that we'd have to think twice for this kind of paintings -- how far are we from not displaying Mona Lisa because she doesn't wear a burka and that's obscene ? Anyway, thank you for considering ! Cheers and happy editing! Rama 12:40, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for being so friendly about it. Mgm|^(talk) 08:52, Jan 20, 2005 (UTC)

Nemo

I don't know what to say! An award of some sort? It's a nice picture anyway. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 11:18, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Well, I have no such problem -- I know what to say. I'd been thinking that my user page looked a little pedestrian, but I was too lazy to do anything to spice it up. This distinctive drawing is the sort of thing it needed. Thanks very much! JamesMLane 13:28, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)

please place images on pages or in categories

you have uploaded a lot of images from netmarine.net (with permission) However you have not placed many of theese images into the structure of the commons. Whilst i have done some that i have found on commons:commons:really unused it is sometimes quite hard for a non-expert to place them especially as the image description pages have no information on what the pictures are or where on the netmarine site they are from. Plugwash 15:20, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I just put a similar message on your commons talk page before i saw this one. Please have a look! -- G. Gearloose (?!) 17:03, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)

That's under processing. For the Marine Nationale photographs, I'll also gradually add more complete informations as to whom is the author and such. Thanks for the suggestions of cathegories for the others ! Cheers ! Rama 20:48, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks for the comment on Nineteen Eighty Four (Talk). Unfortunately while I was writing my reply to the person who originally waded in and just deleted text without conversation or explation or contribution, that same person then enlisted the help of Sam. Sam came in and just removed text which he wrongly assumed that had been written by one person - me. He did not bother to read the forgoing discussion. After he did that I carried through with my alternative suggestion and what did Sam do? He went and reverted the entire page minus his original deletion of part of my stuff and someone else's. On top of that he added the discussion to RfC as if to imply that trouble was afoot when the only trouble was the trouble Sam was/is causing. As a result I have thrown in the towel and walked away. It is all too silly and it reveals one of the major weaknesses of the Wikipedia system. Thanks anyway for your comments. MPLX/MH 21:59, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I don't know wether you will read this, but, a few days later, I would like to say that I am happy that you reconsidered droping the discussion; I find your contributions very valuable, as, I am certain, all others do. So thanks for your patience, and good continuation ! Cheers ! Rama 18:04, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Reverts

You're a bit revert-happy at the moment. There's no need to get into a war over this, we outnumber Silverback and TDC and have the best arguments on our side, so we'd win if it came to an edit war, but the trick is to avoid edit wars. At the moment, although I haven't checked closely, I think you're close to a 3RR violation. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 15:44, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Yes, if I am not mistaken I did it exactly three time (if more, it was a mistake). I know it might sound strange in the context, but I actually dislike reverts, and I deplore that questions such as wether "we" outnumber "them" could even be though about. Anyway, I certainly hope we can come to a compromise on the talk page. Thank you for reminding me. Rama 15:56, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Plek and I have been talking to TDC on his talk page but he his somewhat hostile to the notion that a discussion he had almost a year ago constitutes an adequate source. If he's still at it later I'll revert once (I seldom revert more than once) and then if he reverts again I'll get the page protected as a method of getting him to the talk page to discuss this. At that point a 24-hour block may also be merited. Make sure you don't get caught up as collateral damage if that happens. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 16:33, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)

English spellings

Rama, (re de rigueur spellings, European Union article, 25.01.05) organization IS an English spelling. Refer to the Oxford English Dictionary, where "organization" is the preferred spelling. -- Picapica 23:28, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Is it ? Oh, sorry! I have come to develop some sort of Zetaphobia over the time, I'm afraid. Thank you ! Rama 07:39, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)

All high watchmaking is mechanical

"Rama (All high watchmaking is mechanical, it's not unusual at all ! :) "

I haven't got a model by model comparison here but the Tag Heuer and Omega that I have here are not purely mechanical. Even Patek Philippe make Quartz watches. So my point was that the thing that distingushes the Breitling (and presumably Rolex etc) from watches that are poularly percieved as high quality consumer watches is the mechanical mechanism. Daedelus

Yes, as far as I know the main "high" brand which advertises the fact that they do only mechanical watches is Blancpain. I didn't mean to say that all high quality watchmakers do only mechanical watches (that would be wrong), the higher you go in watchmaking, the less quartz movement you will find, and up to some point ("really" high watchmaking), you won't get any quartz at all. If you talk to a purist, the mere mention of quartz will make them shiver.

That's why something like "Oddly the mechanical watches are more expensive than quartz" sounds really weird... it'd be like saying "oddly, hand-crafted jewelery is more expensive than industrial one" :p

Do you think that the present state of the article convoys everything which is needed ? Else, we can still edit it, there's no problem about that ! :)

By the way, nice to see people interested in watches, and nice to see them contribute to Wikipedia ! Cheers ! Rama 19:25, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

North and south pole confused

Captain Nemo raised the flag at the south pole, not the north pole. Caption for images in the Captain Nemo article is wrong, as is the name of the picture itself. --J-Star 23:19, 2005 Feb 8 (UTC)

This is, of course, absolutely correct. I must have had the story about the South pole in 20000 being described as floating ice like, the North Pole, because the data of the time was not accurate enogh, or something like this. Doesn't make me less a fool on this, for that matters ! :) Cheers ! Rama 23:31, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Age of those depicted

Exuse my spelling. I never realy got the hang of memorizing words so I have to use phonetic guesses sometimes. For the most part, I love you'reAnyway, in some of your pictures, the people look very young. The kids in Lotus-sex-position.jpg look like they are only 14-15 years old! Maybe it's just my imagination...

LOL, You should have done Amazon-variant-sex-position.png to look like the computer is on Wikipedia. --KinkoBlast 23:51, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Naaah. They are just 18 year old adults that look young at heart. David.Monniaux 00:06, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Not at all, I wish my Japanese was half as good as your English ! Don't worry, the people depicted on Image:Lotus-sex-position.jpg just haven't turned 19, so don't send the present yet ! ;)

The computer on Image:Amazon-variant-sex-position.png is an attempt to associate the idea of love and tenderness with Linux. Hopefully... :)

Thank you and cheers ! Rama 00:09, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Autofellatio drawing

It's a possible, but I think we're a long way from that at the moment. First, I'd like to interest people in the possibility of a modified version of the current picture (so as not to offend) with a link underneath to the unmodified version. By presenting a series of different modifications, with differing levels of concealment, I hope to find a modficiation that would shift enough people from the "link" option to the "inline" option that we'd have a consensus. One possibility would be to present them all in a "beauty contest", a poll in which people could vote for as many candidates as they like. The highest scoring one would be the winner.

If that attempt completely failed then I think a drawing would look like a very attractive proposition. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 11:48, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Sounds reasonable indeed. I'm not actively watching the developpements of this page, so feel free to drop me a message if I can be of any use. Wishing you good luck with the current developements... Rama 11:52, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I love your autocunnilingus drawing. Please put it into that article. The link you give for autofellatio appears to point to the photograph. When I can see it, if it's as good as the autocunnilingus picture, I think I would almost certainly support a proposal to put it on the article as soon as we can reach agreement on it. The link to the current photograph would not need to be deleted first. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 13:33, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Oh, sorry, actually have overwrittent he photograph with my drawing. I though it was a thing to do since the photograph was doomed to a bitter destiny anyway... I didn't realise that it would be a problem from the English Wikipedia. Image:Autofellatio drawing.jpg now point to the right picture. Cheers ! Rama 13:42, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Thanks. I think it may be better to await the deletion of the current image now, then insert this drawing. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 14:10, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Swingjugend

Hi Rama,
your article Swing Kids is quite cool. I wrote the German Swingjugend and i always thougt about to translate ist into english, but I see your German is much better than my English. Thank you for writing this article, thats the way wikipedia makes fun. greetz vanGore
PS: I hope I´ll find time to edit a little bit more on Swing Kids.

Thank you, I think the merit is largely yours ! And it's nice to meet people with the same interest. I'll look forward very much to reading more about the subject... if you need help to something, don't hesitate to drop me a line. Cheers ! Rama 10:31, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

User:Keetoowah

Veux-tu signer sur Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Keetoowah? David.Monniaux 12:22, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Coalition Provisional Authority discussion

You have been on the wikipedia longer than I have. Do you have any advice for me? You have seen how one of our other contributors has sunk to the level of personal insults... -- Geo Swan 16:44, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I think that it's going to be better for everybody to assume that one mostly temporarly loses his temper or misunderstands what you mean when such things arise -- without the facial expressions and tone of the voice, the written medium of he wiki makes it easy to misunderstand one's tone.

I have written a notice to suggest a softer approach to the user, and I presently don't have reasons to think that he won't use the advice (he refrained from massively and carelessly editing the article itself, which would suggest that he is indeed in good faith trying to bring the best possible article, and not a mere troll).

Should the atmosphere of the talk page deteriorate much more, we can re-think our approach at that time... But the first thing to do is to make certain that everybody's motives were clearly understood (you'd be amazed at how violent insults can turn out to be a legitimate indignation about something you didn't mean to say !). Cheers and happy editing ! Rama 23:28, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)

That talk page

Hey, Rama, did you notice the user blanked all that stuff on the talk page a short while ago? Your long comment, and various other things. Bishonen | Talk 19:33, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Update: here cheer up. Bishonen | Talk 01:45, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I think that I should be more confident in the Japanese way of ignoring problems until they solve themselves. Thanks for your help ! Rama 08:01, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Autocunnilingus and contortionists

You say that there are publically-available images of (clothed) contortionists in positions similar to those needed to perform this act. Certainly, if people can get into the position needed, they would also undoubtedly be able to do the act itself. Can you give pointers to such images, please? -- Karada 12:09, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Quite a few examples appear quite straighfully with Google ("contortionist"), for instance

Rama 08:58, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

The 2nd one no longer exists. — FREAK OF NUR_xTURE (TALK) 10:44, Apr 1, 2005 (UTC)

EPFL pictures : a good laugh

Thanks for adding new pictures on the EPFL article. I really like the legends you put on the last two. I used to give a soviet-like name to this place also, but I must admit that Stalingrad is particularly clever, judging by the SG sign visible on the picture : Now we know what it really stands for! I checked the online map to see if an official name was given to the place [10] but could only find the two letters AN. Do you know what it stands for? Glaurung 13:32, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)

No idea... "An Nanglais" ? "Aebischer's Nest" ?

Or perhaps it would be some cryptical riddle of the Templar Knights, for instance, moving the first letter one step, the second letter two steps, etc... thus, "AN" would give out "BP", revealing the initials of the Saviour come down from the skies... Who knows ! And who am I to decide on the subject anyway ? For a moment, I though that for a few months, "EPFL" had stood for "École Polyclinique Féminine de Laquais"... :p Rama 13:50, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)