User talk:Grutness/archive08

This file is an archive - please do not add new discussion here - add it to my Talk page

New stub sorter...

Hi - Im new at wikipedia and want to help with things like. Ive had a look at the stub project and your name seems to be everywhere so I thot Id ask what you think would be a good place to help? BL Lacertae 09:00, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

Welcome to Wikipedia! There are all sorts of things that you could help with. Best place to start might be having a look at two of the project's pages, WP:WSS/C (which is where new stub types are proposed) and WP:WSS/ST, which is the big list of all the stub types there are (don't be put off - it's a huge list!). A lot of the categories listed there are very big and have a lot of smaller sub-categories. Just shifting some of the things from the big parent categories into the right subcategories is the main stub-sorting task (like moving things from Category:People stubs to an occupation like Category:Writer stubs or a nationality like Category:Canadian people stubs). Other than that, keep an eye out for the ideas being suggested at the criteria page (WP:WSS/C) to see what new suggestions are coming up. Hope you enjoy being a Wikipedian! Grutness...wha? 09:09, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

Stubs

Wisconsin

Hey Grutness (do you have a less abrasive sounding name?), you may or mayn't have noticed I created Template:Wisc-stub and a corresponding Category:Wisconsin stubs, based off Texas-stub and the corresponding category. If that was completely out of line, please thwap me GENTLY. Tomer ^TALK 09:19, July 21, 2005 (UTC)

Consider this a gentle thwap, then! You should go through WP:WSS/C, and at the very least keep to the naming guidelines. Which would make it Wisconsin-stub (hope you don't mind - I've redirected your template there). I've added the new template to the big list, though. Most of the geography and regional type stubs are more hassle than they're worth to get rid of once they're made. Just make sure you don't use it for geographical items, only for items relating to the state in general, in the same way as Texas-stub and the like. Geographical templates are all XX-geo-stub, and are all much more strictly controlled as far as their creation is concerned. Oh, and it's James, BTW. Grutness...wha? 09:34, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

OK, then, James. I think it should be pretty clear from the work Sasquatch and I have done, that the Wisconsin template is not meant to be a substub of US-midwest-geo-stub. I highly doubt that the time will ever come that there will be enough Wisconsin geo-stubs to ever support an independent geo-stub cat. That said, however, I don't think it's beyond belief to imagine that there are potentially sufficient stubs to warrant a separate Wisc-stub. That said, I only chose Wisc-stub instead of Wisconsin-stub bcz Wisc is basically univerally recognizable (for people who care, at least) as a shortened form of Wisconsin-stub and in that light, as a convenience to contributors, I went with it. In that light, while "Texas" is pretty-easily spelled, I would be willing to guess that the vast majority of Americans would be befuddled were they asked to spell "Wisconsin", to say nothing of "Massachusetts" (Massatwoshits), "Connecticut" (Conneddicut), "Tennessee" (Tennis Sea), and/or even "Rhode Island" (Road Island). Without going out of my way too far to belittle American typographiqueurs, nor wishing to stand trial for my belittling certain (Mass of Two Shits) states, so I chose to go with an abbreviation that is not only widely used, but almost universally recognized. Where do you live, btw? Kwinslund? Tomer ^TALK 09:45, July 21, 2005 (UTC)

Oh dear... I'm already in trouble with one Argentinian because I put his redirect at AR-geo-stub up for deletion... It's just standard stub-sorting practice to use the full name... and Wisconsin's certainly no more difficult than many states and places. "Universally recognised" is always a tricky one, too, because you may think so, but I'm sure that a lot of people in different parts of the world have never heard it used. I've had a look at the category, and there are a lot of geo-stubs there I'd ask you if possible to do the same thing I've asked at Texas stubs and other categories like that - double-stub. Wisconsin could well eventually get its own geo-stub category, but as stub sorters we won't know it needs one unless the geo-stubs are in the US-midwest-geo-stub category to be counted sorry - didn't notice you'd done that - well done, thanks!. Wisconsin's got over 40 geo-stubs, and we're using 80 as a cutt-off mark, so it's already more than half way there, and stubs are created at a huge rate. Also, a lot of people search for articles to improve based on geography, so it's useful for the editors. if you want to mark them as wisconsin items too, that's fine. But as for "Kwinslund", that's a gross insult! Never accuse a New Zealander of being Australian! Bleargh! (I'm from here) Grutness...wha? 10:01, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

If I were a less-seasoned contributor, I'd take your most recent comments on my talk page as "insulting". Disregarding their "you should do it our (mysterious) way, instead of the way that you (in your incomprehensible ignorance) considered logical" tone of your comments, allow me to re-clarify. I did not mean to make a substub of US-midwest-geo-stub, but rather simply a WI-stub, for stubs pertaining to Wisconsin, Wisconsin-based interests, and Wisconsin-based locales. I would include the putative WI-geo-stub in this, were such a stub cat to ever be invented (although given the granularity of Wisconsin municipalities, I don't forsee that ever happening, except perhaps should the Rivers and Lakes stubs get out of control...) Now, back to my real point...the reason I named the stub cat "Wisc-stub" was not because I wanted to flout WP convention, but because I tried a dozen stub names looking for "the right stub cat" before I realizes that nonesuch existed, and "Wisconsin-stub" was most definitely not among my "most logical choices". While such a convention may make perfect sense among the seasoned stubsorting community, it (I can guarantee you almost to a wo/man) is unnecessarily demanding for those who are just trying to add a simple stubcat to an article. Anyways, I'm about to tip over. Good night, good sir.  :-p Tomer ^TALK 10:03, July 21, 2005 (UTC)

Sorry, I misremembered your location. Dunedin's a beautiful town (if somewhat out-of-the-way) in a striking setting. I'd envy you somewhat were my own location not even more beautiful.  :-p and :-D Tomer ^TALK 10:08, July 21, 2005 (UTC)

Apologies if my tone seemed insulting - it was not intended to be so. And it does look like everything about the category and the way it is used is perfectly good as far as everything stubsortingesque is concerned, for which much thanks. I still believe that Wisconsin-stub is a more natural name, since the state's full name is the one most likely to be recognised everywhere, but it looks like we'll have to agree to disagree on that. The easiest way to see whether a category exists, BTW, is to look at the list of stub categories, either at WP:WSS/ST or Wikipedia:Template messages/Stubs, or in Category:Stub categories, rather than using trial and error on a template name. (More beautiful than Dunedin??? Heretic! ;) Grutness...wha? 10:14, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

You goddamned enzedder!! You misspelled "recognized"!!! :-P I'm kidding, I hope "obviously"... Anyways, I don't think our disagreement is substantial. I'm more than content to have Wisc-stub renamed Wisconsin-stub. If there's precedence to support it, in fact, (I'm a Jew, and, as everyone knows, all Jews are laywer-prone) I'm happy to support precendence. That bit of self-deprecation in favor of idiotic prejudice notwithstanding, I'm still not sure that your argument about "go here to find this, go there to find that" really holds much weight, and would like to see some sort of (subtle, if necessary) language included into stub tags regarding where to go to find a collection of similar stubs. WP, IMHO, suffers from a horribly "insider" vs "outsider" dichotomy, where the "insider"s consider things to be "obvious" to "outsider"s that simply aren't even remotely obvious. For example, I don't consider myself especially stupid, but I was editing regularly on WP for over a year before I even SAW Categories on the bottom of articles, and it was another full year before I realized that they were meant as a guide to direct me to related articles. That's actually why you'll find me to be such a strong proponent of templates as opposed to categories, but that's really neither here nor there. When can I move to Raoul and establish my own republic, w/o interference from the Commonwealth? Tomer ^TALK 10:24, July 21, 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, you're right - it would be easier if there was some sort of link to all the templates/categories, but there's only so much you can do to a stub template before it gets unwieldy. it does link to Wikipedia:Stub, which has all the info, but it's sort of "click here to click there so you can link to that", which isn't exactly the best way of doing things. As to lawyer-prone Jewish support for precedence, can I that plead my support for what doesn't instantly seem logical is due to my irish ancestry? :) (I thought you were going to bed...) Grutness...wha? 10:31, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

Going to bed laddy? Woat in bloaddy ell da geeven ye det eddia? ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ  :-p Tomer ^TALK 10:37, July 21, 2005 (UTC)

Canadian regional geo-stubs

More than reasonable: civil, accommodating, and attentive. Cheers! DoubleBlue (Talk) 07:00, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

I'll echo DoubleBlue's sentiments. Thanks for the changes... Mindmatrix 12:50, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

geo stubs (july)

relax: e.g. Category:Ecuador geography stubs reached very easily 78 articles this is more than your 60-limit. Why be so bureaucratic with "go through process". Make easy rules and people will follow them. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 23:06, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

Grutness, if you want to RfC Tobias, I'm sure there will be no trouble in gathering friends. I'm just not sure what the proper grounds would be. Please, please don't let this guy, who seems to have no respect for process, consensus, and multilateral editing, get the better of you. We'll fix it somehow. What confuses me is how he's managed to get away with it so far. I've seen too many people get in fights with him and simply give up - myself possibly included. --Golbez 00:05, July 24, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks - I shall consider it, but a few days with a low wiki profile will probably do me good (I've still got a little work to do here - I took some photos over the last week which I want to upload, for one thing). I've never used rfc before, so I'm not sure of the mechanism, but it's definitely worth considering. See how I feel in a couple of days. Grutness...wha? 00:18, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

PS, there's already an RfM on Tobias. I'm just letting you know this, and then bowing out - I've probably stuck my nose where it doesn't belong, I don't know all that's going on here. --Golbez 14:53, July 24, 2005 (UTC)

That was me. I requested this RfM, because of conflict with NoPuzzleStranger. ... Tobias Conradi (Talk) 23:33, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

I have no respect for silly process. Grutness told me 60 is the rule. I could not find the rule but did my best to stick to this rule. Bolivia and Suriname stubs where not created. Peru existed already! but the geo-stub police has not mentioned it on their page. So what? And why go through a process if there where 60? No respect for multilateral editing? Where do you learn this, dear Golbez? Are you shy? BE BOLD. Please show me any open article dispute. But it seems you once again spread bad words without (I call people stupid eh?) before looking at the things in detail. Sorry I have no respect for this kind of behavior. It's close to defamation thx Tobias Conradi (Talk) 00:29, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

I was wrong about 60 - the stated rule was 100-300. Grutness...wha? 00:34, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

if you would have looked at Category:Paraguay_geography_stubs you might have found 60. So what? And that someone created Slovakia-stub and not Slovakia-related-stub is due to the inconsistency in the stubmsgs. So whom to blame here? Tobias Conradi (Talk) 00:33, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

Quite obviously the person who created the new category without checking what needed to be done first. Grutness...wha? 01:10, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

I don't think so. The Slovakia guy maybe needed something and created it like other <countryname>-stubs he found active. If there would have been nothing active this way the problem might have been avoided. If wikipedians would have to read all the rules that emerged in the last months and years before contributing - ... - there would be considerable less contribs. Make stuff more intuitive. And I know you/(the team) already worked on that. We had this AR debate. The country names are intuitive. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 23:51, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

Can you imagine that people that are not "member" of the stub team have problems with WP:WSS/C#Proposing_new_stubs_-_procedure - a section which does not say anything about critiria, as the name implies? Instead the criteria are at Wikipedia:Stub#New stub categories. Can you imagine people are confused? Tobias Conradi (Talk) 00:56, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

I can imagine it, but I can't imagine why they should have. It quite clearly says that new stub types should be proposed on the page before creation - standard procedure. The page is called "Criteria" as it is the page where new proposals are checked to see whether they meet the criteria, which are listed on the main stub page at Wikipedia:Stub - the most logical place for people to look if they want to create new stub types. Grutness...wha? 01:10, 24 July 2005 (UTC).

Category:Peru geography stubs has 150 and YOU did not have it on your geo page. And than a Golbez comes around and wants RfC and you think this is nice. I don't get it. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 01:00, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

It was on the stub page. It was both on the main stub list at WP:WSS/ST and in the appropriate category at Category:South America geography stubs. Theseare the two places that should be checked for stub categories - the list and the immediate parent category. And it has far fewer than 150 stubs, but still over the threshold. I know - I created it. Grutness...wha? 01:10, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

I fixed 150 to 105 last night, unfortunatly due to editconflict your edit reversed my fix. [1] :::If a page is called criteria i would expext criteria and not ONLY debating fit of criteria.

peru was not at [2] a page where only few time later you did delete peru along with others notably colombia what I added but not created the same as it was with peru [3]

If you say peru was in the two places it had to be, that I wonder 1) why there is a list at Category:Geography stubs and 2) you yourself are editing in this list? It is confusing. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 21:54, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

Rfa

thanks for supporting me (MTG)

I made it, I'm an admin at last! Thanks for all your help along the way, I doubt I'd have gotten there in the first place without all your support and guidance. Thank you so much. :) Garrett^Talk 09:37, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

My wikibreak

I QUIT. I shall be continuing to monitor the talk page for a while, but I am taking a break from Wikipedia, at least for the time being, and possibly for good. It's just not worth the hassle right now.

Ahhh. To hell with it... I seem to be doing nearly as much on Wikipedia when I'm "not here" as when I am here. Seems I am addicted. Also, given the astonishing amount of ego-boost I got from well-wisher messages, how could I stay away? {:) Thanks to all those who said they hoped I'd be back soon. I'm still going to be taking it a little easier than I did (I was Wikiing at an unhealthy level, I think), but my gafiation is officially over.

Your wikiholiday

Have a good break from Wikipedia. It's certainly a good idea to take a break occasionally. So far I haven't needed one, but I do change my pattern of activity on Wikipedia every few months so I don't burn out on any one thing. I've enjoyed working with you. Hope to see you back here in a while.-gadfium 23:41, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

Have a good break. I certainly hope it isn't permanent. I cut back recently, and it did me a world of good. I just decided to watch but not edit for a couple days. It helped. I got over some of my monomania - there are lots of other people who can fix things. Sometimes it's helpful not to "deal with a problem" for a few hours - if someone else doesn't fix it, you can, but at the same time, it helps to get some perspective. Use the "no personal insults" rule broadly and delete insults. Abusive users will either figure out that they have to be civil if they want to be heard, or they will escalate (and get themselves blocked/RFAr'd).

You are liked and respected here. You are immensely valuable to the project. If you need help dealing with problem users, ask for it. If you need time to get some perspective, take it. But don't let people force you out. Guettarda 01:22, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

It isn't much of a holiday when you can reply in 5 minutes ;) Guettarda 01:35, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

You shouldn't leave, James. The Wikipedia needs you. I know that at times it can get hard to find motivation to deal with such issues, but think about all the people that support you. If this comes to extreme consequences (you know what I mean), there will be many supporting your every action, be sure of that. Cheers and rest as much as you want, but be sure to come back. Best regards. --Sn0wflake 05:15, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

• I do hope that your Wiki-absence ends up being a break, rather than a departure. You've done wonderful work, and the encyclopedia is the better for your presence. Joyous (talk) 05:18, July 24, 2005 (UTC)

• I agree and I can relate. It works wonders, believe me. Also, I understand your frustration with the user who set you over the edge. He seems well-meaning if a bit clueless. Please don't make this permanent. You are needed here more than I can express. - Lucky 6.9 06:01, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

• Grutness, take whatever time you need, or just dip your toes in the vacation pool like I've been. As others have said, it would be a shande for WP to lose you over this. Tomer ^TALK 06:04, July 24, 2005 (UTC)

• Echo of all the above. You've given me a lot of help and support, I should hate to see you go. You are not alone in becoming seriously pissed off at times, take a look here [4]. See you! Giano | talk 06:14, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

• Take a break, James, but do please come back in a few days, a week or two, or even a month. You're doing good work, and actually achieving something. -- Hoary 06:45, July 24, 2005 (UTC)
• Ditto what everyone else said. Don't let stress get to you. Taking a step back always does the world of good. Come back soon though. :) --TheParanoidOne 11:07, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

I took a break that I thought might be permanent, but came back for reasons stated on User:Ceyockey. One possibility is that it's time for you to consider moving to another area of activity. For instance, I've pretty much stopped working on WP:WSS for now in favor of starting a Wikipedia-related research project and participating in a new WikiProject (Wikipedia:WikiProject Disambiguation). I find WP:WSS a good place to work, but I felt I'd contributed quite a bit and was interested in trying some new stuff. Give it a think; much better than leaving permanently in my opinion. Courtland 14:27, July 24, 2005 (UTC)

• In that vein...there are a tremendous number of NZ red links and stubby articles that could use instantiation and/or expansion... It might even be therapeutic to look outside and write about your beautiful part of the world more.  :-) Tomer ^TALK 22:39, July 24, 2005 (UTC)

I presume you realise that Grutness has already written more New Zealand-related articles than probably any other contributor?-gadfium 23:05, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

Indeed...I was just pointing out that if he's trying to gain perspective about whether or not it's all worth it, that there's a lot to be done with NZ articles...I, for one, have learned a lot about NZ by reading articles he's created or expanded upon. Since his current stress level was caused by problems over stubsorting, I thought it might be therapeutic to go back to writing about iwis and kiwis. Tomer ^TALK 04:40, July 25, 2005 (UTC)

Thank you all for your embarrassingly kind words! My wikibreak seems to be less of a break than I intended, but I am largely steering clear of policy-type areas and Wikipedia pages at the moment. I was three quarters of the way through tallying the 4000 UK geography stubs, and it seemed like too much work to waste, so I'm completing that task, and I have been doing a few odds and ends apart from that (and will have some photos to upload in the next couple of days with any luck). Anyone who monitors UK and NZ geography articles (e.g., River Great Ouse, Clutha River) will have seen a few things cropping up from me, as well (and I think I just saved an article on the Beatles' song I'll Get You that was at vfd). As far as monitoring new stub types is concerned, though, it's like the old story of hitting your head against a wall being good for you because it feels great when it stops. The break has also allowed me to start moving on my art again (about time, too - I have an exhibition coming up in March!). I suspect I'll be back to full Wiki work again soon, but this "reduced energy mode" is fine for the time being. Grutness...wha? 05:59, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

In the past few weeks I've seen several good editors leave. I hope in your case that it is just a wikiholiday and you'll return. BlankVerse ∅ 09:19, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

Article of interest

Man, it will be hard having you not here. To perhaps lighten the mood, I found this article on the NZ flag. Zscout370 (Sound Off) 01:56, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for that - I'm likely not gone for goos - in fact I'm still involved in low-level activity here. Just not as prominent as normal. I need a bit of time for real-world things, too. Grutness...wha? 02:57, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

After the wikibreak

Ken Rutherford

Thanks :) Thanks to you as well for expanding those NZ cricket stubs. Just a shame I made an edit conflict for you...they are a pain sometimes, aren't they? And yes, I am a cricket fan from Norway - it's all a bit weird, but suffice to say I got charmed by a sport which looks to be the most complicated thing in the world from the outside. And then I sort of stuck in, to the point where I'm now helplessly caught in the net (or should that be nets?). Sam Vimes 11:13, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

Clayton's

I'm sitting idle here at my job, and I've been on new page patrol for a bit now. Your Clayton's article is very interesting and broke of the monotony of nominating things for speedies and adding stub tags. Glad to see you didn't quit after all. Fernando Rizo T/C 03:43, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for that. No, consider it a "Clayton's resignation" :) I've cut back on my wiki work by about 75%, and I haven't done anything in the admin/policy area for a while. I think I'll probably be back fully sometime in the next few days, though. Grutness...wha?

Don't worry about Clayton's getting VfD'd, it's obviously notable and a fun bit of Kiwi trivia. In the words of the immortal Kris Kristofferson, don't let the bastards get you down. Fernando Rizo T/C 04:16, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

Neil Diamond can write Latin? As in nil carborundum bastardum? ):-. Moriori 04:31, July 28, 2005 (UTC)

Stubs pt. 2

Category:People stubs

Migrated from User page How does one ever wallow through all of the subcategories and sub-subcats and find the one you want? I am tired of slapping bio-stub on articles I submit, but it's easier than spending an inordinate amount of time digging through the bio cats. I have been importing EB 1911 stuff, and discover I spend far more time rooting thru categories than I ever spend on copyediting and adding links. The temptation to slap 1911 on at the bottom and leave it at that is overwhelming. The problem is not the proliferation of categories, but a way of easily locating them in the first place. --FourthAve 06:11, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

Replied on FourthAvenue's talk page. Grutness...wha?

at this wiki page, which seems to be decaying. (It pays to save links offline) What's a special page? This leads to Royalist, the grandest of all disambigs: it refers to a disambig which nicely disambigs itself -- and all the pages that lead to it. Who wrote this page.

It writes itself. Anything that links to the page Royalist will automatically be listed there. All pages have them - click the "What links here" link to the side of any page and you'll get a page like that. Pages of this type for disambiguation pages usually slowly deprecate (i.e., "decay"), as people realise that they have linked to a disambiguation page rather than their real target page. Special pages include pages like this which are created as editing tooks within the Wiki but which are not articles, templates, categories, user or talk pages. Grutness...wha? 07:34, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

nice to see you back

hi james, nice to see you back. Regarding your user page I tend to regard the geography stubs as "my baby", - I can understand this. And I think you have done a great work if the naming scheme is there thanks to you. I saw edits of you reverting Czech-geo to Czechia-geo, seems like lot of stub-fixing-work. And even if there are some cases where I had another opinion regarding naming (e.g. NI [ forget AR/argentina, I ate this ;-)] ) what is that regarding possible 140 country-geo-stubs and even more in geo-stubs in general. If I can help you in the geo-section I will do so. Best regards from DE, - not Delaware -- Tobias Conradi (Talk) 13:31, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

Czech/Czechia was a unique case. There was a big edit-war going on over what the country should be called, Czech Republic or Czechia. As soon as one name was decided on for the stub template and category, someone else would come along and change it back. Which may seem like no big deal, but when articles are categorised by way of a template, any change in the category name requires null-edits to be made to all the articles. In the end, a compromise name (Cz-geo-stub) was used for the template, and the category was protected from moving.

A lot of the geo-stub naming scheme is down to me, but not all of it by a long way. And, as with the AR business, I and the other stub sorters do try to avoid using abbreviations, as they can be ambiguous. Where the abbreviation is a country's initial letters, though, most of the time there's little confusion. People talk about "The U.S." or "The U.K." worldwide, and the same is true, albeit to a lesser extent, with the others that initials have been used for (and I do admit that Northern Ireland is perhaps the one where this is least the case). Basically, we want the stub names to be easy to remember - and if abbreviations are used, they should be the sort of abbreviations that are instantly recognisable by anyone. The problem with using ISO codes is that they may be well known by people who use them regularly, and a few codes may be known by many people, but the same two letter codes are used for subdivisions within countries, and may be ambiguous to sorters who don't know the code. ML-geo-stub might refer to Mali, Malaysia or Malta, but with Malaysia-geo-stub we all know where we stand. As for redirects, we're slowly trying to reduce the number of them, becuase they make a little more work for the servers every time one is used rather than the standard template. There may recently have been a server upgrade, but with the speed Wikipedia is growing, the less strain that gets put on them the better. Right now I don't want to think about it too much - I'm still easing myself back into the work. Grutness...wha? 13:52, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

not having AR is totaly fine. I ate this. I mean it's part of myself using Argentina-geo-stub. ;-) -- Tobias Conradi (Talk) 13:58, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

Glad to see you're back James. WP has a rudderman again.  :-) Tomer ^TALK 13:40, July 29, 2005 (UTC)

Rudderman? Oh dear...does that mean I've got more work to do? :) Grutness...wha? 13:52, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

Glad your back - I've some spare rugby boots if you require them just ask! Giano | talk 14:00, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

{{horseracing-stub}}

First, a big major awe-inspiring WELCOME BACK! (though it seems you didn't actually leave the building, just stepped back-stage and took a few steps past the green room... ). "Don't let the bastards get you down" as the song goes. There's a heck of a lot more good people here than there are nasty people. If you run in to too many nasties, go do something different. Somebody eventually will fix what the nasties did, and usually very quickly. Oh, by the way...for your wiki-fix, I hear you can get an IV tube now .

Second, on the {{horseracing-stub}}; thanks for the support and creation of the stub. Unfortunately, I am as of Monday officially on holiday, heading off to Canada for a week of sailing (here: [5]). So, don't despair that the stub's been created and the major proponent of it suddenly vanished! I am vanishing, but only long enough to sail my 505, hopefully like this [6]. Once I get back, I'll get to sending those 225 articles to the new stub. If you want to start in on it, feel free. Just do me a favor and do it in sequence and maybe put a marker on my User:Durin/Horseracing-stub page to tell me how far you've gotten along. One other thing on this; I created a horse racing icon black on white just for the purpose of the stub. I'd like to replace the photo that's on the stub with the icon if it's alright with you.

Do you think we should create {{horseracingbio-stub}} too?

I'm also working on a {{yachtracing-stub}} proposal. You can see the support page in progress at User:Durin/Yachtracing-stub. There's a lot more work to be done before it can be proposed though, but I think I'll find plenty of material for it.

Related to the above; in digging through every A, B, and C article in {{sport-stub}} (I did a lot of sport-stub sorting today...~60 articles I think), I've come to realize there are a number of sports which lack stubs. For example, competitive swimming and gymnastics. I think there's room for such {{sport-stub}} children. If you like, I can start putting together similar pages to the user pages noted above for such sports as I work my way through the remainder of the {{sport-stub}} category. --Durin 03:19, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

Replied here. Summary of reply: Thanks for the welcome. Feel free to replace the icon. Horseracingbio might well be worth doing once horseracing is populated. Yachtracing... maybe yachting in general or sailboat racing in general might be better. Sounds like a similar project with sports to what I've done with geography. My advice - find a good number of stubs, then take it to WP:WSS/C - few will object if it's a natural category with a large number of stubs. Argument would be mainly over name and scope. Sport-stub and sportbio-stub do need splitting, so it's worthwhile. Grutness...wha?

• I replaced the icon with a black/white icon. You can see it at {{Horseracing-stub}}. I think the bio stub needs to wait until the stub cat gets larger. There are a number of articles that are candidates, but not enough just yet to justify the category. I've tagged all articles that I proposed as candidates at User:Durin/Horseracing-stub. The sub cat now has 243 articles in it. I think it is a success.
• On {{yachtracing-stub}}; within the sport of sailboat racing, the term "yacht race" is used to describe all levels of the sport, even for boats being raced that people would never describe as "yachts". Thus, for people familiar with the sport, "yachtracing-stub" would be readily identifiable and does not carry an connotation of being only used to describe big boat races.
• Re: {{sport-stub}}. I've been working my way through that stub to sort out articles into more appropriate stub cats. I've scanned 451 articles so far. I know the number because I am keeping an external list to allow me to rapidly identify articles that have been added to {{sport-stub}} since I last scanned the cat. The cat used to be bordering on 7 pages, but is now just barely into the 6 range. I've scanned all articles through K so far. By the time I'm through the initial scan, it will be down to 5 pages.
• In doing the scanning of {{sport-stub}}, I've come to realize there are a large number of sports for which there are no stub-cats. The three most prominent in terms of the number of articles lumped into {{sport-stub}} are rowing, volleyball, and handball. I keep running into articles on those almost every time I scan a new letter section. Honestly, I'm not sure I have an interest in pursuing stub-cats for those. I got hooked into the whole {{horseracing-stub}} stuff because of one article I found missing on an important horse (Spectacular Bid). That led me to find the absence of the {{horseracing-stub}}. It was pulling a thread on a sweater. I have other work in the pedia that I set aside temporarily while pursing {{horseracing-stub}} and really want to get back to that. While stub-sorting has dramatically increased my edit count (not a goal for me), I'm more interested in completing work in other areas (see User:Durin#What_I_work_on if you're really curious). Though, I will keep tabs on {{sport-stub}} ballooning and compare it against my already scanned list to help keep a lid on it. --Durin 15:24, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

Rfa, pt. 2: Thanks - but I must wait and see...

I deeply appreciate your confidence in my ability to weild the mop, but... I'm starting my new IP-lawyer job on Monday, and I'd like to see how that affects my Wiki-time before I seek any new responsibilities. Besides, the projects that I'm working on don't demand admin powers, and they fairly fully occupy the time I have now! -- BD2412 ^talk 17:08, July 30, 2005 (UTC)