User talk:MJCdetroit/Archive August 1st, 2007 to November 1st, 2007

Two conversion TfDs

You had posted TfDs for 'Conv-temp' and 'Conv-dist'. These ran their normal course with inconclusive comments and then were relisted at Wikipedia:Templates_for_deletion#Template:Conv-temp. It'd probably be helpful for other reviewers if you could respond to some of the comments and questions I've added. --CBD 10:35, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Bernal (Argentina) Infobox parameters

I had just seen your edits to the new Bernal page and was trying to figure out how could I have copied something so wrong. It is funny. I took it from Template:Infobox Settlement this morning, copying and pasting from the example at the bottom of the page, that used to show a city in California. It was an easy to follow example. Now I see that right after I got the copy you changed it to a new one on Detroit. It's funny timing, isn't it? Thanks for the work and the heads up. I'll refer to this new one in the future. [Update] just saw your request to post answers in the original Talk page. oops :) -- Alexf(t/c) 18:16, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Not a problem.  :) —MJCdetroit 19:16, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Image placement in Bull Stone House

Thanks for the copyediting, but I moved the picture back (albeit smaller). There's no rule that says they all have to be on the right (in fact, I much prefer alternating placement because studies have demonstrated repeatedly that it improves readability since it mirrors the sweep of our eyes across a page), and I would IAR that idea anyway where an infobox is concerned. An image should always be as close as possible in the text to what it illustrates ... having it down by the footnotes is completely useless, and looks like a fifth wheel. Daniel Case 02:07, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

I thought that the picture on the left squeezed the text between itself and the infobox on the right. —MJCdetroit 03:52, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

MOSNUM changes

MJC, thanks for your support and input: much appreciated. The bit about avoiding overtly Christian symbols (CE etc) that I agree is extraneous is still there. But at talk I think you were saying you've removed it. And I can't locate where you first argued for the retention of the "don't change the existing choice without good reason" bit. This also applies to things like am vs a.m., and a host of other choices MOSNUM allows, with good reason as far as I can tell. Should these options all be tagged with a "don't change" clause? I'd rather like to toy with a global statement at the end of MOSNUM's lead. Let me know what you think. Tony 09:02, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Global is good, but the BC/AD vs BCE/CE needs to have its own clause (maybe even referencing the global clause) because of the passionate feelings involved. I've seen editors in the past change pages from AD to CE and BCE to BC and the like even thought a clause was in the mosnum to prohibit such a change. Believe me, we need it. As the old saying goes: an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.—MJCdetroit 18:17, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Template:Auto kg

Hi, I noticed that you made some contributions to some unit conversion templates, and I have run into a bit of trouble with one I made. The Template:Auto kg, automatically converts the weight in kilograms to pounds, but the converted figure is rounded up to one decimal place, even if you specify that not to be. If you could take a look at it, I would really appreciate it. OSX (talk • contributions) 09:47, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Fixed, but this looks redundant to other conversion templates. —MJCdetroit 15:07, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Infoboxes Person & Biography: merger proposal

You might be interested in commenting on, or assisting with, this proposal to merge {{Infobox Person}} and {{Infobox Biography}}. Andy Mabbett | Talk to Andy Mabbett 14:58, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Congratulations!

Only just noticed that you're now an admin - congratulations! - 52 Pickup 15:33, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Danke schön MJCdetroit 16:21, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

License tagging for Image:Polar tunnel Detroit Zoo.jpg

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Thanks!

Thanks for your support for my RFA! It passed and I'm looking forward to it --AW 17:51, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Majdal Shams

Why did you add a settlement infobox when no one would call Majdal Shams a "settlement"?? AnonMoos 21:29, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Settlement in this case, is just a generic term. It does not refer to a "settlement" as is used in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza. You can see that for Majdal Shams the settlement_type is clearly given as a Local council. The name Infobox Settlement was chosen as the "master" template because the term settlement was the most generic term. You could use {{Infobox City}}, {{Infobox Town}}, or {{Infobox Village}} but all of those redirect to {{Infobox Settlement}} anyway. Hopefully that clears it up a little. —MJCdetroit 22:28, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

OK, but the former template had explicit fields for "Hebrew name" and "Arabic name", while this one just has a vague and inadequate "native name" field (which could unnecessarily give rise to controversy). AnonMoos 05:41, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

I tweaked the field entry a little to use Lang templates but I personally like it better without as the same information is stated within the first few words of the article anyway. Not sure what the controversy would be other than which language is listed first. —MJCdetroit 12:59, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Israeli & Palestinian infoboxes

Hi MJCdetroit, I'm quite confused by your AWB changes to the infoboxes of Israeli and Palestinian municipalities, and I'd appreciate if you could at least temporarily revert the changes, and engage in a discussion so that only correct changes are made in the next round. Many thanks, Tewfik^Talk 21:48, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

What do you mean by correct changes? —MJCdetroit 22:17, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

A number of changes have been made which don't quite reflect the previous content, while other changes of a cosmetic and functional nature were also made. Firstly though, could you explain the purpose/goals this was meant to accomplish as well as any discussion on the topic. It would still be very helpful if you could revert all of the changes until the various editors have a chance to discuss the ramifications. Cheers, Tewfik^Talk 00:32, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Please give examples. I seen that Palestinian territory was changed to West Bank then to Disputed territories then to occupied territories. Something like that can be easily fixed when editors agree on something. —MJCdetroit 02:08, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Thats just it, sometimes it is best to let sleeping dogs lie. It would be most helpful if you could explain the reasoning behind making the change in the first place, since even if things like this could be fixed, the other style issues wouldn't be. Tewfik^Talk 08:55, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Your last edit summary read "REVERT the deleting of talk page content by Tewfik". I don't want to quote WP:AGF to you, but I'm unsure as to why you would think I was intentionally disrupting your Talk page. Edit summaries are very difficult to change, and so you should be careful not to include potentially misleading text in them. Tewfik^Talk 18:33, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Let me make sure that I am understanding you correctly. Somehow everything above your posting magically highlighted/selected itself then somehow persuded the keyboard to miraculously apply just enough pressure to the delete key to delete all the selected text. Then, this is the best part, all of the text below your posting felt so unimportant and inferior when left alone beside your far superior posting that it too prayed to be selected and deleted. Somehow its prayers were answered and it too was spontaneously deleted. Maybe if it was just the top or just the bottom portion that somehow got deleted by accident, but not both and not by someone with over 13,000 edits. Sorry, I didn't just walk out of the cotton fields yesterday or just fell off the turnip truck last night. Therefore, the edit summary was correct.—MJCdetroit 01:25, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm puzzled as to what reason you think would make me want to disrupt the archiving of text from your user Talk unrelated to the ongoing discussion, but Wikipedia:Assume good faith is prescribed for exactly this type of situation. As for what happened, it was the result of an edit-conflict gone awry. Tewfik^Talk 19:28, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

tabulated examples re convert template

Thanks for tidying up - I didn't proofread it well enough! PamD 15:10, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

I was debating on adding a table when I added those. I'm glad you did. It looks nice. MJCdetroit 15:28, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Template:German plant

Hi, I noticed you replied in the TfD for this template, and I'm sorry to for going so far out of my way to involve a random person such as yourself, but I am desperate for help on this.

The big problem that I've discovered now is with Template:Nuke Plant Table, which is the US specific template as I was saying. The big problem as it would seem now are the NRC templates, which are apparently embedded in the infoboxes. This is something that I didn't discover until a minute ago, but I really need a new pair of eyes to look at what's going on with them.

So you have some {{Nuke-NRC{{{Region}}}}} for all of 4 regions, which contains links to all the plants in it. Then you have another one, Template:U.S. Nuclear Plants, which gives links to plants in all regions. Granted, I think the region template is already put in the code for each page, which means we're also calling the same template multiple times, and furthermore, if it was expanded for other countries, then you would have the {{Nuke-NRC{{{Region}}}}} thing show up...

So basically everything's just a big mess. -Theanphibian ^{(talk • contribs)} 08:18, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Template:Nuke Plant Table is only transcluded on less than 10 pages so it should be easy to fix or even reconstruct. I'll look closer later. —MJCdetroit 12:15, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, in addition to the problems I was talking about before, it just messed up the alignment and stuff. It also needed to be able to display a picture. I just phased it out, there's no reason to keep it. -Theanphibian ^{(talk • contribs)} 19:55, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Sounds better to just build one from scratch. My suggestion would be to use the name "Template:Infobox nuke plant" instead of something "table" because it is actually an infobox and not a table. —MJCdetroit 20:28, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Why would we build something from scratch when Template:German plant has worked fine from the beginning? -Theanphibian ^{(talk • contribs)} 21:11, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

I would suggest that you deprecate the German names as much as possible. If you need to keep them for translating articles from the German wiki to the English Wiki, then only leave them in the code and use AWB to swap out the parameter names after importing from the German wiki. The article Phénix should not have an infobox with parameters in a language other than English as it does. I seen that you have an idea how to do dual names within the code. You just need to complete the job for every parameter. If you can do this I will change my vote. —MJCdetroit 01:04, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Daburiyya location

Hi MJC, I noticed the map you added for Daburiyya's location and I think there was some mistake made. Daburiyya is not located in the Golan Heights or even the Eastern Galilee but a little to the southeast of Nazareth atop Mount Tabor. Can you please inform the mapmaker. -- Al Ameer son

I copied the coordinates (32°70′N, 35°40′E) over from what was given on the page. A second look reveals that the coordinates are clearly wrong. There are never 70 minutes in any thing. So the map interpeted the coordinates as

Latitude: 33° 10′ 0″ N OR 33.166667°

Longitude: 35° 40′ 0″ E OR 35.666667°

Mount Tabor, according to Google Earth, has coordinates of approximately 32°41'N, 35°23'E. I'll in those coordinates into the article. Let me know if that is better. Otherwise, we can nix the map for now. —MJCdetroit 19:33, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Israel municipality infoboxes

I am aware that two users have already messaged you about these changes, but you have so far not given any reply, therefore I will ask some questions.

1. Is there a policy or guideline which stated that Template:Infobox settlement should be used for all settlements in the world? If so, please provide a link.
2. Was there a discussion about your sweeping changes to so many articles? If so, please provide a link. If not, why did you make these changes without discussing them first?
3. Are you aware that there was a lengthy discussion at WP:CFD (can't find the link ATM, but I will look again later) about settlements in Israel and consensus was reached that Israel is a special case and therefore the term settlements should not be used for Israel, except in cases of Israeli West Bank settlements?
4. Are you aware that some Israel-specific things are more difficult, less intuitive or completely impossible to include in Infobox settlement? This is also clear in some of your changes, which simply left out relevant information. An example is niqqud, which should use a specific font, and also alternative transliterations which is one of the most important things in Israeli town articles.

Please answer these questions. I was completely taken aback by your changes and completely don't understand the reasoning behind them. I'd appreciate it if, like Tewfik said, you'd revert them until a clear consensus is reached on what to do.

-- Ynhockey ^(Talk) 14:59, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Hi Ynhockey,

1) There has been a long standing consensus that if a topic specific template can be replaced with a standard template, it should be. Remember when every country and territory had its own template? Now they all use {{Infobox Country}} and are better off because they do.

2) No and please don't take this the wrong way, but I learned a long, long time ago that if you ask editors to replace their template with the standard template for purposes of standardization, that the answer is always no and the defensive walls go up and making any progress very difficult. (I think that was a run-on sentence...oh well).

3) I am unaware of any discussion at WP:CFD. However, my discussion above regarding Majdal Shams did open me to this. Therefore, I changed Majdal Shams from Infobox Settlement to Infobox Municipality to avoid using the word "settlement" and was going to change my other edits to mideast articles to also reflect this.

4) I tried to include as much information as possible, I even made sure that Infobox Settlement would be dunam friendly. I am sure that you have some specific examples where I forgot the transliterations, I think that they can be easily inserted back into the infobox.

Regards, —MJCdetroit 02:07, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Sorry I was not able to reply sooner; was in the army. In any case, I will take the liberty of bringing up this issue on WP:ISRAEL and other relevant pages. If consensus is reached to use the local template then please don't try to make more unilateral changes. If however the opposite is true, then I will help in converting all the existing articles (you missed quite a few). Please don't make any more changes until the discussion is concluded. -- Ynhockey ^(Talk) 20:55, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

I haven't made any further edits since the first being contacted. There are 100 more articles that still needed to be converted. I will hold off. However, I may go through and change " infobox settlement" to Infobox Municipality, which of course doesn't change the look just the name to avoid any confusion. Let me know if you want my input. Regards, MJCdetroit 00:25, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

TfD nomination of Template:Infobox Guitarist

Template:Infobox Guitarist has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. — Kudret abi 05:43, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Infobox Afghan City

Hello. Can you please make a minor adjustment with the name of this template? As per constinency with other country-city templates, can you please change it to Cities in Afghanistan'? Thanks. --Behnam 03:58, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I am sorry, but you are incorrect. WP:IBT states that:

Name the template [[Template:Infobox Some subject]] (Somesubject should be in the singular and capitalized).

—MJCdetroit 02:14, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Template:Infobox Korean settlement

Just saw your note on the talk page - I was just about to drop you a message about this. The changes you made were causing havok with the ref tags in the "pop" field, so it was necessary for me to revert. As you say, it would perhaps require a seperate "popnote" field (or something) to get around this problem, but that's something that really needs to be taken care of first. PC78 00:56, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

I hit save over there and seen this message. Give me a couple minutes to do a test. I let you know. MJCdetroit 00:59, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Would it work without adding a new field to the template? I've already been through a ton of these articles updating various things in the infobox, the thought of having to retrace my steps is making my head spin. :) PC78 01:04, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflicted) ....Saha-gu. Besides missing the comma, how does that look? After all pages have been switch to use "popnote", the formatnum can be reintroduced thereby giving a comma to the value. —MJCdetroit 01:09, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Post Scriptum: Don't worry. I can do it with AWB.—MJCdetroit 01:09, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Looks fine. Do me a favour though if you're going to edit these articles - leave the old template names as they are. I still want to go through these articles myself and do various bits of cleanup, and that way I kinda know where I'm up to. :) Cheers! PC78 01:24, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

What did you have in mind? I can hold off on changing the parameter names if needed, but I would have to reprogram AWB. —MJCdetroit 01:35, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, if you could take care of the infobox fields then that would certainly save me a job! But I've also been doing other things - assessments, adding images, general tidying, that sort of thing - and the old template names (i.e. {{Korean district}} and {{Korean district logo}}) are pretty much all I've got to track my progress. What were you planning on doing with AWB? PC78 02:04, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

I understand now, I'll drop that rule so that Korean district will not change its "template call" to Infobox Korean settlement. That way you have a way to track your progress. I'll probably play with it tomorrow. I am working on a different template at the moment ({{Collapsible list}}), which maybe useful for many infoboxes (if I can tweak it right). &mash;MJCdetroit 02:13, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Just wondering why articles using the "pop" field are being added to the maintenance cat.? Since articles will still be using that field after cleanup, how will they get removed from the category? PC78 01:09, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I missed this post because of the nickname thing below. I included "pop" in this category because I needed a way to check every article that uses the field "pop" to see if it had an inline reference. I found that many did have references which I switched to the popnote field. — MJCdetroit 01:37, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for all your help with this template! I assume everything is now done? Regards. PC78 10:55, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Could be, but I was going to ask on the actual template page if calculating the population density would be something that would be desired. I am fairly confident that this can be done if population and area are given. —MJCdetroit 12:32, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Presumably it's now safe to remove the defunct "area", "elevation" and "popden" fields from the template? I was just going to do it, but thought it best to double-check first. PC78 00:36, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes, sir. —MJCdetroit 01:30, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Can you take a look at your last edit to the template? It seems to be producing an eroneous |}}. Cheers. PC78 01:44, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

All ready on it. Thanks, MJCdetroit 01:46, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Nickname dispute

I would appreciate your expertise in assisting in this nickname dispute. Please follow that posting to the article talk page. Thanks! -- Jreferee ^(Talk) 02:29, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Greetings from WikiProject Korea!

Thank you for your recent contributions to one of Wikipedia's Korea-related articles. Given the interest you've expressed by your edits, have you considered joining WikiProject Korea? It's a group dedicated to improving the overall quality of all Korea-related articles. If you would like to join, simply add your name to the list of participants.

If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask at the project talk page. We look forward to working with you in the future! Wikimachine 04:25, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

AWARD too

		The Working Man's Barnstar
		Apart from the wikiproject invitation - that is purely up to you & I'd rather not have somebody join if s/he doesn't feel committed - I noticed your edits for the Korean city templates. It must have been really boring & repetitive. Also, you didn't get an award for a long time, it seems. You deserve one. Good luck! Wikimachine 04:27, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Template:Infobox Korean settlement/Sandbox

Hello, this is a message from an automated bot. A tag has been placed on Template:Infobox Korean settlement/Sandbox, by another Wikipedia user, requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. The tag claims that it should be speedily deleted because Template:Infobox Korean settlement/Sandbox is a test page.

To contest the tagging and request that administrators wait before possibly deleting Template:Infobox Korean settlement/Sandbox, please affix the template {{hangon}} to the page, and put a note on its talk page. If the article has already been deleted, see the advice and instructions at WP:WMD. Feel free to contact the bot operator if you have any questions about this or any problems with this bot, bearing in mind that this bot is only informing you of the nomination for speedy deletion; it does not perform any nominations or deletions itself. CSDWarnBot 18:33, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Celsius sux, Fahrenheit rox

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template_talk:Infobox_Weather#Brackets

Done. Thanks for thinking of me. Tom P. Ortolan88 01:14, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

A little something...

		Cookies!
		An extra "thank you" for your contributions to Template:Infobox Korean settlement. Your expertise in improving this template has been much appreciated, and I even picked up a few tips in the process. Much obliged to you, sir! PC78 16:13, 5 September 2007 (UTC) has given you some cookies! Cookies promote WikiLove and hopefully this one has made your day better. You can spread the "WikiLove" by giving someone else some cookies, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past or a good friend. To spread the goodness of cookies, you can add {{subst:Cookies}} to someone's talk page with a friendly message, or eat this cookie on the giver's talk page with {{subst:munch}}!

I'll wash 'em down with a big glass of milk. Feel free to remove that maintenance category and place it up for speedy delete whenever you are ready. —

Convert template

Do you think the convert template could be made to include more units? I note that somebody suggested it is too big and needs to be code optimised or split.

Secondly, I see that there are other templates such as the 'auto' ones that do much the same thing. Is it time for a strategic approach to these templates? We could then have a bot replace the superceded templates.

I made a comment at the Template talk:Convert. Feel free to take this discussion there. Lightmouse 20:04, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

I was just reading your post over there.

Q1: It could, but I wouldn't. As pointed out it is very big now. To see what I am talking about try running your script at Erie Canal and watch what happens at the end of the page in the last table. Would I split it up...No. I am planning to try to do weight and volume templates based on the same architecture as convert in the future.

Q2: Some templates but not all, at least not yet.

Comment: I've been playing with the script that you created and I'll have a few suggestions for you soon. The first suggestion I can make now is to change the edit summary from Gen fixes to "Format per WP:MOSNUM; units and/or dates". I think that is a little more specific to what the script is actually doing.

Anycase, I am pressed for time so...

Regards, MJCdetroit 20:19, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

I looked at Erie Canal. Yikes.

Thanks for your comments at Template talk:Convert.

Feedback on the script is welcome. It would be nice to have common code that is well tested by multiple users. I think it might be worth making it modular. I would like it if other users wanted to use it. Lightmouse 12:36, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Edit summaries, please!

Hello. Please don't forget to provide an edit summary, which wasn't included with your recent edit to guar. Thank you. --Slashme 14:34, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Tibetan towns and villages

Hi I want to create a standard infobox Tibetan settlement for all the towns and villages in Tibet under Template:Infobox Tibetan Settlement. Is there anyway we can have something like this: Domartang but with parameters to include the Tibetan/Chinese language section like on Deleg at the top so it all goes neatly in one box for settlements? PLease repsond on this as soon as you can as I feel it very important thanks ♦ Sir Blofeld ♦ ^"Talk"? 13:35, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

I would prefer it if we tried to modify the standard infobox of {{Infobox Settlement}} to accept all those name transliterations instead of creating another infobox. The reason I say this is because this has come up before but for a different country. Let me see if I can come up with anything quickly. —MJCdetroit 14:28, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

That looks - well excellent. I love the map also. Is this possible for all towns and villages in Tibet?If its Ok I'm going to copy from your template into the Tibetan Settlement one but I agree it should look as similar to the others as possible. Thanks!!! ♦ Sir Blofeld ♦ ^"Talk"? 08:49, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Well Germany and France, Hungary etc have there own templates don't they? ♦ Sir Blofeld ♦ ^"Talk"? 08:50, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

As you say its probably best to write it with the parameters into the main Infobox Settlement. Is it possible you could do this as soon as possible and then give me a template which can then be put in all the articles? ♦ Sir Blofeld ♦ ^"Talk"? 09:01, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

		The Template Barnstar
		Awarded to the King of templatesMJCdetroit for his hard work and outstanding technical ability at templating. Superb editor!! Thanks a million ♦ Sir Blofeld ♦ "Talk"? 16:45, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Well deserved. One thing though can we unbolden the settlements in the box to distinguish between these small settlements and the region/ country etc. This really is superb ♦ Sir Blofeld ♦ ^"Talk"? 16:47, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

E.g on Domartang the words Coka through to Banbar would be in standard text so the above boldened stands out. ♦ Sir Blofeld ♦ ^"Talk"? 16:51, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflicted):Thanks, but I am not sure how to unbold the surrounding settlements part. You can see where I placed <small> tags around the distances to unbold them. It may not be doing unless I move them further down the template, if at all. —MJCdetroit 16:53, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

It looks perfect now whatever you did it seemed to work. The villages nearby are now in standard against the enboldened coutny/region etc which is correct. Thanks ♦ Sir Blofeld ♦ ^"Talk"? 17:00, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes I speedied it before but User:Babel Fisch (who adds all the language transliterations to the box added a long comment in the talk page which I have since redirected to the main Tibet WP page ♦ Sir Blofeld ♦ ^"Talk"? 19:02, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Hey have a look at Jaggang. I've begun and think they are excelelnt new additions to the encyclopedia ♦ Sir Blofeld ♦ ^"Talk"? 19:03, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Theres now about 800 new articles to do at List of towns and villages in the Tibet Autonomous Region!!! ♦ Sir Blofeld ♦ ^"Talk"? 19:05, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Convert template

What is your current thinking on the issues at: More flexiable inputs and Suggestion to simplify the code and its effect on articles? Feel free to answer here or there, I am watching both. Lightmouse 11:12, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

I took care of the more flexible request on the 16th. Check out the documentation on the main template page.

I don't see a problem removing the nbsp between the first unit and the parenthesis of the converted value. I don't know about the span stuff...yet. I'll look tomorrow or Monday when I have a clearer head. I am under the weather and doped up on cold medicine at the moment. :( —MJCdetroit 03:10, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. See my response on the talk page. Hope you are well now. Lightmouse 08:44, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

WP:RFBOT

Your recent bot approvals request has been approved. Please see the request page for details. When the bot flag is set it will show up in this log. —METS501 (talk) 00:25, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Thank you, —MJCdetroit 00:55, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Conversions

Am I a visionary or what? :))—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 20:39, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Metric system and US contribution to it

Hello again. I notice from your infoboxes that you are passionately in favour of imperial measurements as compared to metric or SI. Some interesting information has recently come to light and I thought it may interest you. Most people think that metric comes from France. Well it seems that it was thought up in England in the late 1500s and later on taken to France by Thomas Jefferson (this is THE Thomas Jefferson by the way). Jefferson and George Washington were avid proponents of a decimal based measurement and money system. Anyway, France adopted the system in the 1700s (after many local objections) and it has spread around the world since then. I find it really interesting that it is not French after all. This 15 page PDF http://www.metricationmatters.com/docs/CommentaryOnWilkinsOfMeasure.pdf goes into the details. Regards. Jim77742 22:38, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes, all of this I already knew. Yes, I do prefer U.S. customary measurements over metric. Do I hate metric measurements? I am a scientist myself and I do use the metric system in the laboratory, but not exclusively (probably only about 25% of the time). In fact today, I made three 200 gram "bench top" formulations and tested them in a 275°F industrial oven. I made the 200 gram batches because it is a small batch where all I have to do is multiple the percent in the formula by 2. If I needed to test the brookfield viscosity (which measures in cP; which is metric but not SI), I would have made a half-pound or one pound batch. I work in a lab that has ovens that are set in Fahrenheit, some that are only set in Celsius, and some that have dual dial setting. Any testing of strength like torque, compressive shear, tensile strength (with one exception) are all done using U.S. Customary measurements. Flash point in always done in degrees Fahrenheit. Most of our lab scales by default, weigh in pounds and grams and they can be changed to weigh in other units, but we don't bother. Our plastic tri-pour beakers have markings in mL and U.S. fl oz. Our glass beakers are mL only. And where I work, with a few exceptions, that's where the use metric system ends. My chemical reaction plant does everything in U.S. customary unit. The reaction vessels are 200 U.S. gallons and all chemical components are weighed in pounds on giant floor scales. All of our raw chemicals are sold to us and shipped to us in "hard" U.S. customary units; usually in 55-U.S. gallon drums or 50# bags. In fact the only chemical companies that we deal with that package in "hard" metric amounts are Kowa (Japan) and Sigma-Aldrich. Even the imperial system (from Canada) finds its way in to our factory. We buy 5 imperial gallon buckets for our mixing plant. All of our industrial sized products are packaged in 5 U.S. gallon buckets and marked as 40# or 48# and shipped around the world as such. Only one customer in Europe insists on having a package that is 12 kg and the line workers weigh up 26.4# and put the 12 kg label on it.

So, do I hate the metric system?—no I don't. What I don't like is the forced metrication of articles because one group of people may prefer that system and therefore those you do not think in terms of the metric system are forced to read the articles in terms that they are not used to. I believe that wikipedia should be as universal as possible and should never be written for just us scientists. —MJCdetroit 02:15, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

On a related note, I support your change to the Tombstone, Arizona article that I happened to notice, since (as you correctly indicated) the Manual of Style states that for US-related articles, US units should be primary. I'm also not anti-metric, but the MOS statement is pretty clear, and makes sense since the mile is much more commonly-used in the US than the kilometer. It was reverted with the claim that metric is the standard for municipality articles, but in the demographics sections, it seems to be the de facto standard only, and the census.gov site itself doesn't seem to prefer metric units. Anyway, I agree with what you did. Omnedon 11:25, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Regex assistance needed

Hi Rich,

I recognized your name from a list of users who are regular expression programmers and was hoping that you can help me. What I want to do is to use the find and replace function in AWB to remove commas (or spaces) in numbers within parameters of an infobox template. For example, if the parameter |area= has a value entered of 102,003. I want to have AWB replace it with 102003. That way, calculations can be done on that raw formated number. Can you assist in creating a regular expression to do this? Thanks, —MJCdetroit 14:07, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

(\d),(\d\d\d) replace with $1$2 for one comma, probably get multiples as well, if not just repeat. Rich Farmbrough, 14:13 10 October 2007 (GMT).

(replied at RF's talkpage)Based on what you gave me and what little I know about regex, I came up with something like this for the AWB:Find: (some_parameter_name[\s\=\s|\=\s|\s\=|\=])(\d),(\d\d\d\.\d) Replace with$1$2$3. There are multiple variations of the "\d groups" to include 5 digit numbers with or without the decimal place, so on and so forth. In the one page that I did test it with, it did seem to work well. Thanks, —MJCdetroit 20:37, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Unless there are "," after the decimal point you could probably simplify with something like

(\s|\|)(paramtername1|parametername2|...)(\s*)=(\s*)(\d+)(,\d\d\d)+ => $1$2$3=$4$5$6

(Where the ... is not literal!)

This has the advantage of not matching, say, "pitcharea=" when you want "area=" and maintains the spacing before the edit, people sometimes (and Smack Bot for all the Album pages...) line up the "=" signs. Using a list of parameter names helps, in that changes you make then apply to them all, rather than having to work through a list in AWB's tiny font. Watch out for accidentally having "||" "(|" or "|)", these will match the empty string.

Regards, Rich Farmbrough, 10:13 11 October 2007 (GMT).

(replied at RF's talk) Thanks. I didn't think to list of parameternames. I've been burning my eyes out trying to change each separate entry with that tiny print. I'll try that method out and let you know. —MJCdetroit 12:25, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Update: I moved the comma in between groups 5 and 6 and that seems to have done the trick. It looks like it is working perfectly. Check out my last few AWB contributions. —MJCdetroit 13:24, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Of course! Needs testing with numbers over 1E6. Rich Farmbrough, 13:49 11 October 2007 (GMT).

Bot

• Avoid edits like [1] if possible by careful use of the settings.
• Be a little careful when straying outside mainspace. For example SmackBot runs its template dating against mainspace and talk pretty freely, but against user space, wikipedia and template it runs manually. Here you might find people crossing the use mention barrier.

Best regards, Rich Farmbrough, 10:33 11 October 2007 (GMT).

Brussels-Charleroi Canal/Sig Digs

Thanks for your addition of US units to the article I made using the conversion template; it totally slipped my mind. One thing I ask you to be careful about in future, however, is the number of significant figures used. Specifically, you did not ever specify that the number precision be negative, even when appropriate. Example:

Each caisson is pulled by 8 cables wound by a winch with a 5,200 metric tonnes (5,732 S/T) capacity.

Should be:

Each caisson is pulled by 8 cables wound by a winch with a capacity of 5,200 metric tonnes (5,700 S/T).

Obviously the capacity is not exactly 5200 T, but more of an about 5200 T. Thus your conversion added more precision than was originally in the figure. As for template syntax, this means {{convertW|5200|M/T|S/T|0|}} should be {{convertW|5200|M/T|S/T|-2|}}.

Thanks, and keep up the good work. -Oreo Priest 11:38, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Template:Infobox Australian Place

Hi MJCdetroit. Regarding your edits to the above infobox, I applaud your boldness but it may be worthwhile to expalin your edits more fully on the template talk page. While personally I know nothing about maintaining complex templates like the one above, there are a number of editors who have spent a lot of time developing and maintaining the template and any advice etc. you can give may be useful and perhaps there may be very good reasons why they do things the way they do.

Further, the template is transcluded on thousands of articles and making the changes to each article that you appear to be making will be a very time consuming task, even using tools such as AWB. If these changes are either unnecessary or harmful, that is a lot of work to change back.

Once again, I know little about the infoboxes and this is not meant as criticism of what you have done (which for all I know is probably long overdue) but a little bit of consultation with the creators of the info box may avoid a lot of work. Cheers, Mattinbgn\^talk 03:00, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Please discuss radical changes on the talk page - the changes made today broke infoboxes in several hundred articles including at least 3 featured articles. It should be noted the Brisbane project offered no input on the box when it was being constructed or in the time since, so for them to ask for unilateral changes now is putting the cart before the horse. I have reverted the changes for now. Orderinchaos 03:03, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

I wanted to do a small trial to see if there was any breaks anywhere before saying anything on the talk page. The major cities looked good and out of 35 edits. I only saw one break. It was a result of the FORMATNUM and having a non-numeric entry in the field itself. I reverted all my edits. —MJCdetroit 03:25, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for that - sorry if I seemed overly annoyed in the above. I'm not quite sure how to do that - we have for example "4,351 (2006 census)" fairly commonly in population fields, but with area they are strictly number so probably should be done in such a way. Orderinchaos 03:51, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

I purposely didn't do anything with the {{{pop}}} field for that reason. I reviewed about 50 pages before editing about 35 pages and I only found one occurrence (Ballarat, Victoria) where in the elevation field someone entered XXXX ft (XXX M) and a wiki link to the Austrian Height Datum. —MJCdetroit 12:05, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Infobox city guru needed

Since we're in quite different time zones, and in case you miss it from the watchlist, I have a strange problem with infobox settlement, explained at Template talk:Infobox Settlement‎#Help needed. You appear to be just the right person to investigate it :-). Thanks in advance. Duja► 15:23, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Done 'em

I've added dunams. The article had four different spellings. I included all four. E.g.

• {{convert/sandbox|4000|dunam}}
• {{convert/sandbox|4000|dunum}}
• {{convert/sandbox|4000|donum}}
• {{convert/sandbox|4000|dönüm}}

For ease of entry you can use donum diaeresis or simply donum ‎dots instead of dönüm. E.g.

• {{convert/sandbox|4000|donum diaeresis}}
• {{convert/sandbox|4000|donum dots}}

The article also had a number of different definitions. To use a different definition, specify it by adding metric (1000 m²), old (919.3 m²), Cypriot (1600 sq yd) or Iraqi (2500 m²). E.g.

• {{convert/sandbox|4000|metric dunam}}
• {{convert/sandbox|4000|old dunam}}
• {{convert/sandbox|4000|Cypriot dunam}}
• {{convert/sandbox|4000|Iraqi dunam}}

Therefore there are thirty possible combinations. Note: metric dunam is equivalent to dunam (same for other spellings of dunam). I assumed that this was the most common/widespread definition, it's the one Google uses & the one you used in your example. I felt it useful, though, to include the option of explicitely specifying metric so as to allow the Wiki markup to be clearer where desired.

Note also that whilst you'd been hoping for something like 4,000 dunams (4.0 km²/1.54 sq mi), I'm offering 4,000 dunams (4.0 km²/1.5 sq mi). I could also give you 4,000 dunams (4.00 km²/1.54 sq mi) (use {{convert/sandbox|4000|dunam|2}} or {{convert/sandbox|4000|dunam|sigfig=3}}). The decimal points, significant figures or precision of both conversions will be the same.

Jɪmp 00:13, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Pardon my french, but holy shit! You did more work than what I was asking for. Thanks! I was only talking about the 1,000 m² dunam that is legally used in Turkey, Israel, and elsewhere. The 1.54 sq mi was me just being sloppy with the copy and paste. You were correct in keeping it at 1.5 sq mi. Again...Thanks, MJCdetroit 01:03, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

No problem. Yeah, just being thorough, never know what might be needed. Jɪmp 02:33, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Big debate

Hello. I would like to know what is the official statement about current, quite schizophrenic, situation regarding Infobox and Geobox. Will there be some consensus debate or will we have still both these infoboxes? - Darwinek 12:38, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't know. I've said before that it would be nice to have just one infobox. In the past, it seemed that the geobox guy was not willing to compromise with others. Thereby, making a possible merger difficult. Maybe things have changed but I don't know. I know that there are a whole series of geobox infoboxes that compete with other commonly named templates (e.g.: {{Infobox River}} and {{Geobox River}}). —MJCdetroit 13:13, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

I think some official consensus-gaining debate or straw poll should be conducted to gain complete consensus in the future. Personally, I support "your" Infobox as it is far more established and not so dependent on one editor. As for now, I would concentrate on converting all "third party" redundant infoboxes like {{Infobox Greek Dimos}} and {{infobox Lithuanian city}}. - Darwinek 16:53, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

I have a bot now to do just that. I just did the Infobox City Estonia with it and I am testing it with {{Infobox Town BG}} at this very moment. If want, I'll target the Lithuanian city one next.

By the way, it's not "my" infobox, myself and three other editors did some major work on it a while ago. It does have its quirks. The geoboxes have some very good architecture involved with them, but the downside is that is basically dependent on one editor. —MJCdetroit 17:09, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Concerning your {{Infobox Town BG}} test, it is leaving a lot of damage. Have a look at the repair work I did on Belene Preslav 19:14, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll look into it. I tested on 15 pages before turning in on to auto save. —MJCdetroit 20:00, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Found the problem. I had (Infobox Town BG) when it should have been (Infobox Town BG|TownBG) in part of the code. In my test edits I must not have come across the redirect template:TownBG. Everything has been rolled back. —MJCdetroit 20:21, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Poland

Hello MJC. Can you please convert remaining Polish villages which use Geobox to Infobox [Settlement]? Cities and towns of Poland already use Infobox [Settlement]. It would be easier to convert it that way, as there are less Geoboxes used in Poland articles. Consistency is a good thing. - Darwinek 09:01, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

I'll look into it. —MJCdetroit 12:33, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

It's doable. Here are some test edits for your review: Baranowice, Góra County, Bartków, Góra County, Bartodzieje, Lower Silesian Voivodeship, Barycz, Lower Silesian Voivodeship‎, Bełcz Górny, and Bełcz Mały. It looks as if those pages were created with a User:Kotbot recently. You should contact its operator and have him/her tweak the bot to use Infobox Settlement (with the pushpin map feature) as that is what is already in place throughout much of Polish project. I can switch all of the existing pages if you are happy with the test pages. —MJCdetroit 13:52, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Feel free to do it. It looks good. I will contact User:Kotniski. - Darwinek 17:04, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Hi, please can you wait with this until agreement is reached. I'm not sure it's been decided yet whether to use Geoboxes or Infoboxes. Kotbot will also not be running until consensus is reached. --Kotniski 17:45, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

By the way, is there some kind of war going on between the Infobox camp and Geobox camp? Each side seems to be running tools which automatically convert one kind of box into the other. I didn't really give much thought to my decision to use Geobox in my bot's articles; I just think the layout is slightly nicer, and the idea of standardizing the structure for all geographic articles appeals to me. But I suppose Infoboxes achieve this to some extent as well. If peace could be made then some kind of universal standard might be achievable. --Kotniski 18:12, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't think there is a war, but I can see how you may have gotten that impression from the last conversion. The point being that it would be nice to merge the best of both into one, but I don't foresee that happening. I am not aware of anyone having tools or a bot to switch Infobox Settlement to Geobox. However, Project Poland standardized on Infobox Settlement through consensus a while ago. I remember it was a project of WP:INFOBOX also. That being said, that consensus should carry over to any new articles or settlements that currently do not have infoboxes. In any case, I need to work out a minor bug in my bot; so it won't be running anyway. —MJCdetroit 20:24, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Infobox on Lithianian cities

Example town X
Town
Country	Lithuania
Area
• Total	100.0 km2 (38.6 sq mi)
Population
• Total	30,000

Just a question whether picture from Commons LietuvosPlikasZemelapis.png could be used as a default map instead of now avaylable (pushpin_map =Lithuania), or any additional adjustments to the image/map should be made. And an additional question - is there an easy way to use the same template for towns and an villages. Thank you in advance.--Lokyz 20:43, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

If you mean can that image above be used instead of what is currently used for the pushpin_map. Uhmmmm... The answer is maybe and probably not. You'll have to check with the folks at Template:Location Map to see if that image is in orthogonal projection. If that image can be used then you'll need to swap out the image at Template:Location map Lithuania and adjust the settings (i.e. the coordinates) and of course I'd be willing to help.

If that is not doable there is a another way but it is done manually on each page. You can use the |image_dot_map = fields to manually place a dot on that map (see example to the right).

Can you use it for towns and villages? Yes you can use it for basically anything by using the |settlement_type = field. See the example box to the right and take a look at the table at {{Infobox Settlement}} for other fields that maybe helpful. —MJCdetroit 00:34, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Question

OK. Thank you, hope we will find some consensus soon. Btw, what do you think about this: Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style#Question? - Darwinek 09:25, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Hello. Thank you very much for great work with merging national infoboxes. {{Infobox Hungarian settlement}} and {{Infobox German Location}} can be next. As for Poland, it seems that there are no objections on Portal:Poland's talk page with merging it all to Infobox. - Darwinek 18:46, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Hungarian: Yes, German: No. The German one is highly developed and involves many editors. Therefore, I wouldn't be in favor of replacing it at this time. It also was developed to interface with the German language wiki. (Side thought: What I would like to see is all that German replaced with English.) I am trying to replace/standardize under-developed infoboxes at this time and the German one doesn't fit that criteria to me. —MJCdetroit 20:15, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Re Darwinek's statement: What does 'merging it all to Infobox' mean? If this is another try at replacing Geoboxes by Infoboxes, then I still object, at least for the time being. Please see my and in particular Piotrus's last comment at the Poland portal talk page. I would like to hear some convincing arguments as to why Infobox Settlement is in any way better than Geobox|Settlement (I don't doubt that there are some, but the only differences I notice seem to favor Geobox). I would also like to know what Infobox is proposed for Polish powiats (counties) and gminas (municipalities), if Geobox is not to be used. But most of all I would like to repeat the general plea for a merging of geography-related Infoboxes with Geoboxes - Wikipedia would surely benefit from having this resolved (Wikipedia:Content forking??) --Kotniski 08:11, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Piotruś is in favour of merging Geoboxes into Infoboxes in general, not just only in Poland-related articles. Infobox can be used also with powiats and gminas. Point is, which is the deciding argument, we've established convention for Poland for Infoboxes long time ago. Then you showed up with creating many stubs with Geoboxes, thus going against this convention. You seem to be the only one favouring Geoboxes in Poland's case, therefore I urge MJCdetroit to run his bot, per our established Project rules. - Darwinek 09:28, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes I know what Piotrus is favouring, and I favour it too;) Anyway, all right, we'll use Infoboxes for now if that's been established. But if it was agreed a "long time ago", probably Geoboxes weren't around or hadn't been developed to the extent they have now, so the Infobox v Geobox question wouldn't really have arisen, and ought therefore to be discussed now. I still haven't seen anyone explain in what ways the Infoboxes are claimed to be better than Geoboxes (presumably they do have some advantages).

Remaining questions then: are you saying that Infobox Settlement can be used for powiats and gminas, or is there another similarly-styled Infobox that's more appropriate? And would it be possible (this is more a question to the long-suffering host of this talk page) for a few minor changes to be made to the way Infobox Settlement and similar are displayed? I'm thinking of the fact that, for example, we have Population / Village: 999 instead of just Population: 999. --Kotniski 20:42, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Geobox Settlement was an option, but Infobox Settlement (aka Infobox City) was chosen in April of 2007 (I think) and User:Hippus (I could be spelling that wrong) switched the under-developed Polish specific infobox over to Infobox Settlement by June of 2007. He did hundreds and hundreds of articles manually.

Yes, powiats and gwinas can use Infobox Settlement by inputing |settlement_type= Posiats.

Minor changes are always welcome at Infobox Settlement. Make your changes in the Template:Infobox Settlement/sandbox and compare the changes at Template:Infobox Settlement/testcases. While no one "owns" Infobox Settlement and none of us try to treat it as our "baby", it is transcluded on 40,719 pages (yes I just looked it up) and many editors will protect it from major undiscussed changes. I would suggest proposing your changes at the talk page first before going live. Population -Village: 999 is done like that to distinguish it from Metro and Urban populations. London is a great example of this because the largest city in England is actually called "Greater London" and it has a one square mile city inside it called 'the city of London'; it gets even more confusing after that. Point being that the infobox reflects that. I like the idea of somehow also placing the settlement_type up top near the names. I guess we'd have to see how that looks.

I was thinking that you could/should continue to run your bot creating articles with Geoboxes and we could have my bot replace them after ward. That way you don't have to do any reprogramming of your bot.

I also think that the infobox community are going to a get together and figure out how to merge the various geoboxes and the various infoboxes together. I would not be opposed to having modified Geoboxes be the master codes either. In other words, when someone uses infobox river it would redirect to Geobox River. We could even have some "Master" code yet to be thought of, where Infobox X and Geobox X would both redirect to it. In anycase, that is just me thinking out loud. —MJCdetroit 00:44, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments. I'm overhauling my bot's code anyway, so in the process I'll convert it to using Infoboxes before starting it up again. About the population/area display, I guess it should be possible to distinguish two cases, one where the extra line is necessary (as in London), and one where it can be suppressed (as in probably most cases). I'll think about it. --Kotniski 10:18, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Tombstone and SmackBot

Good idea on going through all demographics sections with a bot: it's been done several times before, so it's a well-understood idea. The last bot to reword demographics was SmackBot, which is still quite active in other matters. I'm going to leave a message on the talk page of its owner (Rich Farmbrough); please elaborate if you feel like it. Nyttend 15:16, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Another run-through for demographics sections

As you probably remember, US place articles' demographics sections place metric units before imperial units — for example, Tombstone reads "The population density was 135.0/km² (349.8/mi²).". User:MJCdetroit and I have agreed that this doesn't go well with the Manual of Style's directions regarding imperial and metric measurements. Since SmackBot was the last bot to update US place articles' demographics sections ("Simplify where possible &/or add state link, United States., map ref template, & or 00.00% .&/or other minor fixes using AWB"), could you please seek approval to have it go through these sections and switch the imperial and the metric measurements? Nyttend 15:23, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

By the way, since you say that you'll reply on my talk page: would you please copy the reply to MJCdetroit's talk page as well? Thanks! Nyttend 15:26, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

I will look at this. There were some other changes requested after the last run too. Rich Farmbrough, 15:28 26 October 2007 (GMT).v

Rollback of your last change to Template:Infobox_Settlement

I've rolled back your last change to this template as it seems to have broken the pushpin marker on at least one article - Padang Panjang. (Caniago 14:04, 27 October 2007 (UTC))

I tested it in different parts of the world and it seemed fine. I'll give it another look. I was trying to incorporate how {{Location map}} does stuff with how we should do things. This change would allow us to use decimal only coordinates to use a pushpin_map also. Thanks for the message. —MJCdetroit 14:50, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Standardization

Hello. I would like to ask you if you are bothered when I post here similar national infoboxes which could be merged or if you have some own plan. I can always find some obsolete ones and notify you about them. - Darwinek 20:19, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Not a problem. I was trying to stick with Europe and infoboxes that borrowed code from a previous version of Infobox Settlement/Infobox City. Hungary is done but I have to have the bot go back through and fix the timezone. —MJCdetroit 21:43, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Nice. Maybe Turkey - {{Infobox town TR}} could be the next one. - Darwinek 23:45, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

OK, I let you know if I can't do it for some reason. Otherwise, look for the TfD soon. —MJCdetroit 23:48, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

I am doing "TR" now but I am doing it manually as it seems have many mistakes within the existing infoboxes. For example, Mut (District), Mersin had the official name as Mersin instead of Mut and it is a district not a town, so that needed to be changed. Therefore, I am going through each one instead of letting the bot do it. —MJCdetroit 17:59, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Here you can see how important it is to standardize such templates. By the way, Hungary is not finished, I found {{HungaryCities}} :). - Darwinek 13:23, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Turkish cities infobox problem

I see that your bot did an infobox standardization sweep. The only problem I had was with the maps, which don't specify the exact locations of cities and towns, as the districts contained within a city are separate and the towns' areas are pretty large as compared to where the town actually sits. Is there any way to use the pushpin map instead of the multi-colored, not specific enough, garish ones? Thanks! Monsieurdl 15:17, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Absolutely! I always tried to use the maps supplied if possible, but those maps are "garish" as you say. I will start replacing them. The pushpin maps only work if the correct coordinates are supplied. Here's your first one—Kars. Read the passage above because I am running the bot manually because the Turkish infoboxes were loaded with typos and errors. —MJCdetroit

That's just fine by me- I use Wikimapia to get the exact coordinates and then convert them to decimal. It is a lot of work, but hey that's what it will take.

Hello, I wonder why you did such an operation on Turkish infoboxes without any voting procedure? I think the infoboxes are better when they are unique to each country, and gives a color to wikipedia. I wonder if is it not possible to fix the errors in our infoboxes rather than completely replacing them. Thank you Bozaci 18:07, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

While having color is nice, it is always better to have a consistent look from article to article. Fixing errors in localized templates doesn't usually work well because the template usually becomes underdeveloped (again) after a while anyway. —MJCdetroit 19:42, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

I knew you'd get opposition from my Turkish friends because of the removal of the infobox header. It is very difficult to explain the kind of nationalistic pride involved, but please be patient with them. Their identity is supremely important, and it will take time for them to absorb this change. Monsieurdl 20:12, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

I plan on making some Turkish syntaxes so that it will make it easier to for you and your friends to insert them into articles. That way you won't have situations you did with Infobox Town TR being used for everything and having to try to figure whether it is the area of the district or the town that is in the infobox. I don't know many towns that are 1,200 square miles in area. I think the syntaxes will help greatly. —MJCdetroit 20:36, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Monsieurdl, my objection actually has nothing to do with a nationalistic pride. I just look at other countries and they have their own infoboxes and i think that is nice and that's all. Nobody has to be patient with anything here, we are just discussing, right? :) Bozaci 20:40, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

I was just expressing that feeling and it wasn't because of what you said- just wanted to say it before more people say something. I know we were discussing it, and that's how it should be! Monsieurdl 20:43, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

TfD Closing

Hi there. I was looking at TfD, and a debate you closed was missing a bottom tag. I think I fixed it by adding the bottom tag, but I just thought I'd let you know. (The top tag seemed to be an AfD template, and I wasn't sure if that mattered or not). Best, --Bfigura ^(talk) 02:35, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll look for the correct tag. —MJCdetroit 02:49, 31 October 2007 (UTC)