User talk:Zachary Yan

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Can you please make an effort to write in grammatical English? c.f. [1] Jonah (talk) 05:05, 15 January 2014 (PST)

Sorry about my lack of English skills... What exactly is grammatically incorrect, everything makes sense to me. Also I'm revising it right now.--Zachary Yan (talk) 09:12, 15 January 2014 (PST)
I mean, do you want an itemized list of the mistakes? Here you go (not necessarily exhaustive):
  • "among those individuals named was Andy Watkins" should not be preceded by a comma; a semicolon would be technically correct, but separate sentences would be better
  • "previous to" is nonstandard; something like "It had previously been speculated" would be correct
  • "however Andy's play was nonetheless still held in good faith" is perhaps only incorrect in that "nonetheless still" is redundant, but it's also just not a true statement (neither, for that matter, is calling the inspection "routine", which the NAQT release on the matter clearly implies
  • "Casting doubt on this however" is a weird way to begin a sentence; if you wanted to keep it, it would be necessary to enclose "however" in commas. Similarly, there should be a comma after "However" in "However he was later forced"
  • Also more factual than grammatical, Andy did not exactly "maintain his innocence": he did not deny having accessed the pages he accessed, although he did deny using that material to his advantage.
There are still a bunch of typos and factual errors in the article in its current state. If you're going to write about topics you don't have direct knowledge of, please do more thorough research.
Also, this is not a "minor" revision. Please do not mark your revisions as minor unless they are truly minor. Jonah (talk) 19:42, 15 January 2014 (PST)

Okay you're right there are some things, like Andy Watkins, I shouldn't be writing about. I've reverted the page back to its previous revision. Let me know if anything else gets out of hand.--Zachary Yan (talk) 20:07, 15 January 2014 (PST)


As I told you above, stop marking significant revisions as "minor". A revision is minor if it amounts to fixing a typo or formatting error, or making clarifications to wording that do not introduce new information or remove existing information. That's my first stab at a definition of "minor" and I reserve the right to amend it. The idea is that I shouldn't have to look at "minor" revisions when I look at the recent changes page. Jonah (talk) 11:37, 24 January 2014 (PST)

Okay sorry --Zachary Yan (talk) 13:58, 24 January 2014 (PST)


Once again I am going to ask you to use English that is grammatical and makes sense. Please read packet study carefully, then fix it, then be better in the future. Jonah (talk) 05:11, 28 January 2014 (PST)

Looking at your revision, there are still some problems. "Method of" is correct, "method by" is not. The word "Internet" should be capitalized. Those are the only obvious technical errors remaining, but your prose still sounds like someone who reads at around a sixth-grade level. You might want to read some books and take some basic English classes before trying to add more than numerical data to the site. Matt Weiner (talk) 12:11, 28 January 2014 (PST)

I don't really know what's going on with my writing and specifically my prose, but I'm trying to emulate the encyclopedic style of Wikipedia, so I guess it might come out to be a little stilted.Zachary Yan (talk) 17:21, 29 January 2014 (PST)

The issue is not that your prose sounds stilted. The issue is that your prose is often ungrammatical and nonsensical. Jonah (talk) 17:39, 29 January 2014 (PST)

The edits you're making wouldn't fly on Wikipedia, either. This is coming from someone who has been editing regularly for years. Alex Liu (talk) 09:37, 30 January 2014 (PST)

Okay I admit I suck, so I'll try stick to more almanac info for now.Zachary Yan (talk) 8:39, 31 January 2014 (PST)

You haven't been doing that and you have been making a lot of bad, and even potentially dangerous, edits. Further bad edits, bad English, or other problems will result in a ban. Jonah (talk) 12:23, 13 February 2014 (PST)

Okay I'll lay low/minor edit for a bit.--Zachary Yan (talk) 07:51, 16 February 2014 (PST)

Please complete this course before making further edits to the QBWiki. Jonah (talk) 21:22, 3 June 2014 (PDT)

I don't even think immersion is even going to help my English, ugh... --Zachary Yan (talk) 22:08, 4 June 2014 (PDT)


What makes you say "NAQT champs don't have 'state' in their name"? That's completely untrue; see, to pick one of hundreds of examples at random, [2]. Jonah (talk) 20:48, 22 February 2014 (PST)

I remembering seeing something somewhere... but apparently I was wrong.--Zachary Yan (talk) 21:39, 22 February 2014 (PST)


Do you have a source for editing "MN" next to the name "Apollo" in the 2002 NAC article? Given the Apollo from Kentucky has played NAC multiple times and Apollo from Minnesota does not have any record of a team prior to Hentzel's arrival in Minneapolis and setting up of the NAQT league there in 2006, it seems much more likely that this is the one from KY. Are you, yet again, just making shit up because you're either trolling the site or too stupid to function? Matt Weiner (talk) 16:05, 20 April 2014 (PDT)

This is a minor mistake that you don't have to get so angry about, but nonetheless I'm fixing it right now. Apollo (also known as Saint Cloud Apollo) from Minnesota has had a somewhat successful KB team since the nineties so when I saw it listed in the field I thought it was them, my apologies. But anyways Hentzel didn't really set up the league, he inherited a bad qb league that dates back to a 70s televised competition. R did introduce major good quizbowl reforms in the state like you said though.--Zachary Yan (talk) 16:56, 20 April 2014 (PDT)
If that were your only minor mistake no one would care. The problem is that it is part of a pattern of you making edits using assumptions in place of research, producing articles that have no basis in fact. You don't seem to have learned anything from your previous ban, so here, have another. Jonah (talk) 17:18, 20 April 2014 (PDT)

NAQT mythology distribution

Where are you getting this? Jonah (talk) 16:12, 16 May 2014 (PDT)

I got the exact year wrong, but the lit distro from 2010 has myth but it doesn't anymore--Zachary Yan (talk) 17:56, 16 May 2014 (PDT)

[3] doesn't really reflect anything about how questions are categorized the way you mean. Mythology is still under lit. Jonah (talk) 20:20, 16 May 2014 (PDT)

What, so why is distribution page apparently incorrect then? --Zachary Yan (talk) 20:29, 16 May 2014 (PDT)

It is not. The page you linked just shows things grouped in a way that is easy to understand; if mythology were indented under literature (which is how NAQT's coding system actually works) but with the same weights, it would mean the same thing but perhaps be more confusing. Jonah (talk) 21:25, 16 May 2014 (PDT)

Thomas Jefferson

Is there any reason you moved all the pages for "Thomas Jefferson (VA)" to "Thomas Jefferson" other than as part of your continued quest to irritate everyone and make the website less useful? There's at least two other schools named Thomas Jefferson that are very active in quizbowl, which is why it was stylized that way in the first place. Matt Weiner (talk) 00:42, 2 June 2014 (PDT) In any case, THE Thomas Jefferson is usually the TJHSST in Virginia, as seen in the fact that a recent edit to the 2014 HSNCT page redlinked to 2004 Thomas Jefferson as opposed to 2004 Thomas Jefferson (VA) as it was originally. Go ahead and revert if you feel its necessary.--Zachary Yan (talk) 09:00, 2 June 2014 (PDT)

I don't know how much more clear this can be

1) You are an unintelligent person. 2) Everything you edit is either factually incorrect or disrupting the stated topic of a page. You've repeatedly done things like edit random TV shows into the state championships page or destroy information in links. This is pretty much all you do. 3) The fact that someone who speaks English as poorly as you do was able to gain admission to any university in the U.S. is a stain on our higher educational system.

This is not a good-natured inside joke we have. You are actually terrible. I have no idea why Jonah has not actually banned you yet. But, you need to STOP EDITING.

MAKE NO MORE EDITS ON THIS SITE OF ANY KIND. ZERO. How fucking point-blank do I have to be? STOP.

Matt Weiner (talk) 03:52, 7 June 2014 (PDT)

Just to piggyback on what Matt Weiner has said, you should really stop editing things that you don't know very much about. I would not recommend anything, but if you must, look for spelling mistakes or something. Just please no more huge editing changes that one of the other members must go back and fix. Jonah has already once before temporarily banned you, and while you might be a nice person, your affect on these forums have been largely negative. Again, stop the insanity.

Peter Cordeiro (talk) 11:48, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

Well since it looks like I'm about to spark WWIII here or something, I'll stop making edits for the foreseeable future. --Zachary Yan (talk) 13:18, 7 June 2014 (PDT)

The answer to Matt's pseudo-question is mostly that for the past month or so I've been focused on the HSNCT and haven't paid much attention to the QBWiki. Ban coming in a moment. Jonah (talk) 17:45, 7 June 2014 (PDT)

Vandalizing pages

Since reverting your blanking of your own page was apparently not a clear enough signal, here is one that I hope will be: stop blanking pages or substantially removing their info! Next time it's yet another ban for you. Jonah (talk) 20:00, 30 October 2016 (CDT)

Hey man, I just wanted to excercise my right to privacy on the internet. I don't get what the big deal is. I just want the page removed that's all, and then I'll get out of your hair. Thanks for your understanding.
That's not a real right. Please read the privacy policy and stop violating it. Jonah (talk) 10:35, 2 November 2016 (CDT)

I already warned you about this and then you blanked your page. Time for a ban. Jonah (talk) 23:53, 21 March 2017 (CDT)