User talk:Thumperward/Archive 31

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Regarding offer

Perhaps all I need to do is just ignore/avoid the notability discussions. I guess I just shouldn't take things too seriously and use this site for what's enjoyable and ignore/avoid what isn't. Anyway, I made some minor cosmetic changes to the article. What do you think about looking for reviews of the authors' books and using those for in-line citations? If you think I should take that approach, let me know. Best, --A Nobody^{My talk} 17:50, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Go for it. As I say, it's not really my bag, but this looks like an area where an editor with a keen sense of what it takes to preserve content might be able to easily improve the encyclopedia's coverage of a given subject without getting into any arguments. If that helps prevent burnout then great. I reckon everyone involved in the current notability debates could do with concentrating on something else for a while, and thought this might be a good fit for you in particular. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 21:15, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Okay, when I get a chance within the next week, I'll see what I can do. One was brought to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Natural hoof care, but as you can see we were able to get it kept and improved to boot. Best, --A Nobody^{My talk} 21:18, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

That's what I like to see. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 10:21, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Me too. If nothing else, it is proof of when and how the ARS works. I wish more of the members would help in the article editing like Colonel Warden and I do than just commenting in the AFD and I similarly wish more participants in AfDs would watch them and acknowledge changes like the two editors who changed their stances in that discussion do. I think too many "vote" and leave and don't care if it is improved further. Some even act annoyed when the article is improved! Best, --A Nobody^{My talk} 18:30, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't have a problem with the concept of ARS: it's that ARS is currently being diluted to mean "every article must be saved" as opposed to "every worthy article must be saved" that I dislike. In this case, I thought the subject was something which was probably notable but wasn't getting enough eyes, which was why I thought of you. That certainly doesn't apply the the sort of "character in a TV show" articles which frequently get rescue tags these days. I would imagine that editors who "act annoyed when the article is improved" are doing so because they don't believe that the improvements do enough to establish notability; a well-written article on a subject of absolutely no encyclopedic value is likely to be kept indefinitely even if it is never established that the subject is of note to any wide audience. The canonical example is spoo, which was actually Featured at one point. I know you don't agree with me on the above, but we're pretty honest with one another, so I thought I'd tell it how I see it. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 19:44, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

There are some who assert they never will and in fact never have argued to keep in any discussion even if it ends up being a snow or speedy keep due to improvements, because they have an agenda (in this case, the user has tossed around "goal" in the aforecited diff, but "mission" elsewhere) that is incompatible with article rescue efforts and that is what bothers me. I really don't think that should be acceptable here. If I am willing to argue to delete as seen at User:A Nobody/Deletion discussions, including for some fictional character articles, then others should be open minded to at least some articles being kept. It's one thing if someone with scores of good article credits occasionally makes a case for deletion, but these accounts that have created and worked on pretty much no articles seeing fit to tell all of us who has that they do not believe the articles should be kept just feels wrong. Best, --A Nobody^{My talk} 19:59, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

I would far rather you dropped the "deletionist bogey man" rhetoric entirely, because it is largely unconvincing and needlessly antagonistic. Anyway, I didn't really intend this thread to become yet another soapbox. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 22:45, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

I truly do believe that that account in particular is not here for constructive purposes and am appalled that it is still allowed to edit, but anyway, may as well get back to improving articles. My current focus is on User_talk:Casliber#Moon_of_Pejeng, which is another colloboration. Best, --A Nobody^{My talk} 00:38, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Talkback

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rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 14:47, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Your comment

See Beverly Eckert.

I saw your comment on WP talk for What WP is not. It started as a result of me seeing a news article about Mrs. Eckert. Little did I know that hours later, someone else created an article. It was subject to an AFD which was closed as speedy keep. Speedy keep not just regular keep? Chergles (talk) 20:47, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

My comment was on your suggestion that our notability guidelines be changed, not on this particular example (which has received significant non-trivial coverage in multiple reliable sourced, covering more than one incident in the person's life). This particular article was speedily kept due to the presumption of a bad-faith nomination, which has nothing to do with notability. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 21:00, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Template:Ballon d'Or recipients styling

I'll leave some comments on the Talk Page for the template.

Aaron carass (talk) 03:06, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Ryan Giggs in popular culture

I see where you're coming from, but I think there's a big difference between "wood in popular culture" and "Ryan Giggs in popular culture". Football is hardly ever mentioned in The Simpsons, so I think it's appropriate for a mention of Giggs himself to be noted on his article. – PeeJay 11:30, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

But did this inclusion have any impact on Giggs's perception in the US? Or was it essentially a random name with no further knock-on effect to the article subject? Pop culture sections should be reserved for cases where the references in question have had a notable impact of some sort on the subject - either by framing popular perception, or by directly affecting someone's life. This reference does neither - it was a throwaway gag in a show with lots of throwaway gags. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 11:35, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Template:Infobox Radio show

Your edits to the Infobox Radio Show template have removed caption capability. Please review the Talk page of that Template thoroughly, and fix the template. Thanks. Softlavender (talk) 20:24, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Why the bolding of "thoroughly"? Anyway, fixed. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 23:42, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Because I thought you had done all that stuff because you hadn't read all the discussions on the page. Anyway, even though I thought the captions were fixed by your re-edit just now, they are not visible on a lot of shows: A Prairie Home Companion, The Al Franken Show, etc. Can you please fix it so they are? Plus the image of the template on the template page (right hand side) needs to have "caption" on it. Thanks in advance. Softlavender (talk) 02:42, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

You might need to purge the cache to update recently-viewed instances of the template; I've verified that the caption appears in all cases here. I've fixed the display of {{{name}}} and {{{caption}}} on the template page now. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 08:35, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Laser Tank

With all due respect, I disagree with part of your edit on this article. Propulsion suggests engine/powerplant type (eg Marine Turbine, Petrol engine, Nuclear Reactor) Chassis is the arrangement whether a hovercraft, wheeled, tracked, half-track etc. Douglasnicol (talk) 16:43, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm going to sort that by moving {{infobox Fictional Spacecraft}} to {{infobox fictional vehicle}}. This was just a temporary hack to get the old infobox off my radar. That said, I don't reckon either of the articles which used the ground vehicle infobox really need to be standalone articles anyway. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 17:39, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Which ones were those, I remember creating a category which quickly fell out of use because of a debate with another member. I still maintain there is a difference between propulsion and chassis however, propulsion is the means of power in my opinion. Douglasnicol (talk) 23:22, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Laser Tank and Space 1999 moon buggy were the only two. Yes, "propulsion" and "chassis" are different concepts; I'm either going to add both to the infobox, or just remove them as too trivial (and in-universe) for an infobox anyway. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 08:57, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

DAT & archived audio problem: it's not "ludicrous"

In your edit of the DAT article in November 2008, you've removed the "archived audio" section reasoning that it's ludicrous, because "commercial discontinuation does not imply elimination of the technology".

I'm involved in archival processes of large audio broadcasters, and they do suffer from these problems, so they are neither fictional nor easy to overcome, if you find that you can't even get spare parts for existing playback machines anymore, simply due to "commercial discontinuation". And believe me, it's not ludicrous at all, especially when you have literally tons of DATs to transfer in order not to lose over 2 decades of cultural heritage - This problem affects almost any audio broadcasting station with a medium archive of DATs.

I will revert your removal of the "archived audio" section. I hope you consent. The rooker (talk) 18:37, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

No, I don't. Your personal experience of difficulty in finding spare parts for your machines is in no way a sufficient reference for the section you've just replaced, which is utterly speculative. See WP:OR and WP:SOAP. I've left a comment on the talk page regarding what I see as the no-brainer of removing this again. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 20:23, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

I understand your criticism of lack of reliable sources to back arguments made by me (and others, if you check the history) regarding the sustainability of replaying devices. I assume that if sufficient references are provided, this disagreement should be settled properly, or do you have any other objections? The rooker (talk) 12:43, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

If sufficient references for the conclusion (that DAT is in danger of being unplayable due to the difficulty in maintain existing equipment) are provided then I have absolutely no problem with its inclusion. Note that the breakdown of existing machines is not in itself sufficient to make that statement. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 12:47, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Merge

Just to let you know, I've merged the SCE Studio Liverpool and Psygnosis articles that you nominated for merging back in November. There had been no discussion/opposition so I went ahead. - X201 (talk) 13:20, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Excellent. Cheers! Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 13:39, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

World War Z

I reverted your edit regarding the reference to Transformer in World War Z. I wanted to contact you though to say I didn't do it out of malice, spite or anything like that. I have no special attachment to the line and would be willing to delete, but I want to know if it could be reworded to mention that Brooks intentionally added pop culture references throughout the novel and use it as an example? See the talk page for more of my reasoning, but like I said I'm willing to hear your opinion and if its against keeping it I will delete it. Zombie Hunter Smurf (talk) 17:50, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Sure. I'll reply over there. Thanks for the heads-up. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 18:00, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

I objected to Marionnet's deletion

I have removed the {{prod}} tag from Marionnet, which you proposed for deletion. I'm leaving this message here to notify you about it. If you still think the article should be deleted, please don't add the {{prod}} template back to the article. Instead, feel free to list it at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion. Thanks! We can discuss the issue on the article's talk page.

--positron (talk) 17:21, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

I think that the current article has sufficient referencing now. Good work! Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 09:24, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. --positron (talk) 18:42, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

RE: {{unreferencedsect}} merged to {{unreferenced}}

Hi,

Is there any chance you can reconsider your position on this? {{unreferenced}} automatically adds articles into Category:Articles lacking sources, whilst {{unreferencedsect}} used to put them in Category:Articles needing additional references. Whilst I'd agree that a rename of Category:Articles lacking sources may be in order ( maybe to Category:Articles with no sources or Category:Unreferenced Articles or something like that), this merge means that articles such as Cat and Ohio with unreferenced sections are in the same category as the article Adolecent's orquesta. The latter is clearly in more need of attention than the first two. I do admit I have picked some extreme choices to make the point. Category:Articles lacking sources, was a category containing articles with no sources and is used by the WP:URA project (of which I am a member of) to identify articles which have no sources at all- i.e. might need to be deleted. I think there is a need to distiguish articles with no references at all, from those that need more references which could be any article with a {{fact}} or {{refimprove}}, {{rs}} {{Primary}} or until now a {{refimprovesect}} and there's probably other templates I'm missing out..

Any thoughts? (or if you would prefer to move this discussion to the template talk page, please do?)

regards,

ascidian | talk-to-me 18:58, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

You appear to be offline so I have posted here. regards, ascidian | talk-to-me 10:46, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Oops, yep, was offline for a while. I'll reply on the template talk once I've considered how to proceed with this. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 09:58, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Idea

Hi! I know that you've quite a bit of work on various templates, so I was wondering if you can take a look at my idea in User:Drilnoth/Sandbox 5 (permalink), and tell me what you think? Thanks. -Drilnoth (talk) 16:25, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

It looks very cleverly done - nice work. I'm just unsure as to whether it really reduces the workload of template maintenance, because you're still going to have the shortcut-style templates like {{In-universe/Star Wars}} for people who don't want to have to remember parameters. Can you suggest use cases where this would be a win for maintenance? Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 09:57, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Bascially, my goal is that it would allow for better categorization of articles. For example, I'm very interested in cleaning up Dungeons & Dragons-related articles, but right now there's no single place that those are listed by what problems they have. If I could look through Category:Dungeons & Dragons articles in need of wikification or Category:Dungeons & Dragons articles without inline citations, it would be much easier to cleanup articles that I'm interested in then just looking through the current D&D cats or the by-date maintenance cats would be. The goal isn't to get rid of the shortcut-style templates (although, for example, {{In-universe/Star Wars}} would just add {{In-universe|topic=Star Wars|date={{{date|}}}}} to the article, rather than being it's own template). -Drilnoth (talk) 19:42, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, sounds good. The implementation looks sound; asking at one of the Village Pumps would be a good way of getting a wider view of whether this would be acceptable to the project as a whole. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 20:03, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Okay; thanks! I just wanted to ask you before I went and made some big proposal. I'll probably add a few more projects into it for further testing ability, create another sandbox or two with samples using other templates, and post at WP:VPR. -Drilnoth (talk) 20:46, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Smile!

A Nobody^{My talk} has smiled at you! Smiles promote WikiLove and hopefully this one has made your day better. Spread the WikiLove by smiling at someone else, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past or a good friend, Go on smile! Cheers, and Happy editing!
Smile at others by adding {{subst:Smile}} to their talk page with a friendly message.

Merge

Despite being the creator, I agree with your merge of Spider webs in space to Spider web. However, please discuss this kind of thing in future. merges should not be undertaken without adequate discussion, and they certainly shouldn't be done without notifying the creator or other major editors as common courtesy. Best, —Anonymous Dissident^Talk 08:10, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Oops - I thought I'd left an update on the talk page. My bad. I did feel that the job was well enough done that it wouldn't be controversial, given that the subject of merging had been well-discussed previously (albeit without consensus at the time). Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 18:55, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

No problem. I totally agreed; it'd just have been nice to know. Thanks, —Anonymous Dissident^Talk 08:33, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

See also - no context required

Hi there. Just out of interest if you have a free moment (this isn't important to me except for self-improvement), what's wrong with And you are lynching Negroes (Soviet propaganda)? Is it a style/consistency thing? Would And you are lynching Negroes (Soviet propaganda) have been better? Thanks for any feedback - Pointillist (talk) 18:14, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

The "see also" list should be as short and pertinent as possible, and there shouldn't be any reason to pipe links or give additional context (as the term in parentheses does). The most pertinent article to link to is the first one; not all Soviet propaganda fits the bill, but the Lynching Negroes one does, so that's all that we need link to. Should an interested reader wish to pursue the topic further, they can find a link to the Soviet propaganda article from the Lynching one. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 18:53, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Please stop your campaign against GNU/Linux

Gronky listed a lot of examples. This is really not good, so please stop doing it. --Jimbo Wales (talk) 21:30, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Didn't we already have this discussion? There is, outwith a handful of partisans, consensus that we should be using at least one or the other consistently within articles; there is further consensus that if we're going to use one term consistently, we should use the one that the subject's article goes by, which is the vastly more common one. This has been on WP:DRAMA, your user talk, a half-dozen other user talks and at least two RfCs. If this is going to be an executive order, then it really has to be mandated that we're going to use "GNU/Linux" all over the place, rather than left in the current state of mostly-consistent-except-articles-Gronky-watches which is where we're been for the last 18 months. If it's not an executive order, then the message I left on Gronky's user talk details exactly how I'm going to handle this - by using the normal dispute resolution process, ending with a user conduct RfC if Gronky continues to obstruct normal editing in order to advance his personal point of view on the encyclopedia. So is this an executive order? Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 22:32, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

I'd treat it as any other warning, frankly. Jimbo has a checkered history as far as fully investigating the often slanted claims made on his user talk page--resulting in declarations (which carry a great deal of weight) which are well meaning but stem from the POV of the original complaint. I'm not saying that he doesn't do due diligence, he does (most of the time), but there is no amount of due diligence which will erase the perspective of the ruler listening to entreaties from the court. Protonk (talk) 22:44, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Oh, he's definitely investigated this one; he's participated on Talk:Linux/Name, and given me basically the same warning before, which eventually bled onto ANI (caution: Pythonesque lampooning ahead). This isn't so much Jimbo passing down declarations because he was petitioned by one side as passing down declarations because he personally disagrees with the outcome. If he's going to make a declaration on this particular content dispute then he should make it on those grounds (personal intervention into a content dispute) rather than arbitrarily hamstringing my editing by declaring that I'm not even allowed to make articles self-consistent. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 09:38, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

If you are suggesting that there is community consensus for you to engage in a campaign to wipe out GNU/Linux and insert your own preferred term, I respectfully beg to differ. If you want to open an RFC to ask the community to give you permission to do that, then please do. In the meantime, please stop doing it.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:33, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

The RfC is here; what else can be done I'm not sure, but there's certainly license there to (a) make articles internally consistent and (b) use compromise terms like "Unix-like" (or avoid the terms in question entirely) if it can help to prevent the problem. As such, I'll take the individual instances to each talk page to discuss individually, where restoring the pre-revert versions will be discussed. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 17:59, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

MGCP Articles

Please stop interfering with editing and improving the set of media gateway control protocol pages. Thank you. Kbrose (talk) 20:38, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm fixing your copy-paste page move, which not only causes editing issues but also legal ones (as we have to preserve the revision history of the articles for compliance with the GNU Free Documentation License. Once that's done, the titles can be discussed. Do not accuse other editors of "interfering" with your work without extremely good cause; such ownership of page content is considered extremely poor etiquette. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 20:43, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

You are the one that created the mess in the first place by reverting page moves without cause when it was obvious I was finally going to straighten out the ambiguities in these pages. Kbrose (talk) 00:14, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

That's far from obvious to me. Anyway, this isn't a constructive thread. In future, keep your warnings about "interference" to yourself. This is a collaborative project, and if other editors get in our way then the solution is to work with them to correct any problems, not to attack them. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 08:40, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Talkback

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Do U(knome)? ^yes..._{or no} 23:55, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Ibrox editing

Hey there. Unfortunately I am new to wikipedia but joined simply because i could include my knowlegde of suh things as sport in an article. I realise that some of the edit's are not entirely appropriate and i shall remove them. However, the Rangers FC article is missing so much information but I can't access this page yet as I am new. If you look at the Celtic FC article there is far more information in this one and I believe (not just beacause i am a Rangers fan) that the Rangers FC article should be improved. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Danny 1873 (talk • contribs) 09:42, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Actually I think that the Rangers article is higher-quality; the major problem is that it assigns undue weight to sectarianism relative to its length. But yeah, it'd be good to get another helping hand to improve it further. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 09:59, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

UEFA Cup seasons

[1] That's what I meant by, I think it looks much better when the | or · and the years align with each other vertically. — CHANDLER#10 — 16:30, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

is that in IE? The pipes didn't line up here (on Firefox) in the first place. I don't think this is a big enough win to warrant all the extra markup. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 16:41, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

The screenshots are from Firefox, but for it aligns the same way in Firefox, IE, Chrome, Safari and Opera. Do you get the same wrongly line up with templates that use the same "system" like {{UEFA Champions League seasons}} {{Champions League Final}} {{The Football League Seasons}} {{FA Cup seasons}} and all the other season templates, I think most use this system, and especially if you compare something like the FA Cup seasons where there's over 125 I think it's a big enough win because it's just easier to find the right thing. — CHANDLER#10 — 17:02, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Not on Linux it doesn't. I would imagine the same problem happens on Mac OS X. Basically, this alignment relies on certain font metrics - that's not a good idea. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 15:30, 4 March 2009 (UTC)