User talk:Thumperward/Archive 40

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OOXML

Hi Chris. On the OOXML talk page you're painting me as the main edit warrior with HAl. I actually haven't made that many edits to the article. A fraction of most of the other players. I reverted HAl yesterday, not because of the content, but because his edit summaries were claiming "vandalism", while the edits were changing large portions of the article. It's a basic thing in Wikipedia that editors give an honest description of the edit in the edit summary. Look back through the article history from the past few months. Is that me being a main player there? Maybe I was wrong yesterday, in reverting HAl 3 times. Maybe we all should go away and leave the article to HAl to write alone. Someone's got to challenge it sometime. I'd like to spend time on the article and add referenced content, but I can't put anything in as I know that HAl will revert it 2 minutes later. The article is currently an embarrassment to Wikipedia, as it takes an minority view far removed from the mainstream. Regards, Lester 14:33, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

While my comments were in reply to yours, they were meant to be addressed to all involved parties. Sorry if I didn't makw that clear. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 17:22, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, Chris. I'll probably refrain from editing the OOXML for a little while, and await the results of the RFC. So far, only involved editors have commented. I'm hoping very much that it attracts some previously uninvolved editors to give some fresh opinions. Regards, Lester 00:09, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Articles for deletion nomination of Comparison of e-book formats

I have nominated Comparison of e-book formats, an article that you created, for deletion. I do not think that this article satisfies Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion, and have explained why at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Comparison of e-book formats. Your opinions on the matter are welcome at that same discussion page; also, you are welcome to edit the article to address these concerns. Thank you for your time.

Please contact me if you're unsure why you received this message. Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • ^{(Many otters • One bat • One hammer)} 00:13, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Fruit preserves

Why did you move this? The proper title is fruit preserves; preserves is always presented in the plural form so your move of the article was in fact incorrect. Could you please undo this and fix your changes? --Jeremy (blah blah • I did it!) 00:17, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

I've got a jar in my cupboard right now which uses the singular ("Strawberry Preserve"); any evidence for this? Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 00:26, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

For the sake of getting wider input I've taken this to the talk page. Cheers. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 00:33, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Deleted: Barracuda Web Server SDK

I have discussed with a number of people and none of us understand why the "Barracuda Web Server SDK" page was deleted and what must be done to restore the page. In addition, we do not understand the wording and links provided in the deletion log. Please advice. Wilfrednilsen (talk) 11:52, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

What must be done to ensure that the page survives is to ensure that it is accompanied by multiple significant reliable sources which would establish why the subject is important enough to warrant a Wikipedia article. Wikipedia is a tertiary source; in order to ensure that its content is reliable and neutral, it must be extrapolated in its entirety from existing secondary sources. If such sources are not provided, it is not possible for our readers to be assured that our material is accurate or even factual.

Neither the deleted Barracuda Web Server SDK nor the currently still active BarracudaDrive provide any references by significant secondary sources; the latter will probably end up being deleted if this remains the case.

Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 12:15, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Please check bot edits

In this edit, you added a nbsp to the name of an image file. Since the file was then misnamed, the image no longer appeared. A quick glance at the article after you ran this script would have alerted you to that fact. Obviously, it would be best if the script did not add nbsp's to image file names! Awadewit (talk) 19:23, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Oops! Sorry about that. I try to be careful when making changes like that, but occasionally miss one. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 12:37, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Infobox field shadings

In your edit summary on Template:Infobox card game you said that "field shadings are deprecated." Can you tell me where you read that? Daniel J Simanek (talk) 17:58, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Well, not "deprecated" as such, but they're no longer the default in {{infobox}} and haven't been for a couple of years now, and they're increasingly being phased out. They'd already gone in this infobox before you did the hard work of converting it over to {{infobox}} as well. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 18:00, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

They're still used in the documentation for {{Infobox}} though and I still see them used in other infoboxes as well. To be honest, I like the two-tone style better, but if its being phased out, I can deal. Daniel J Simanek (talk) 19:32, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

There's some discussion of it on the talk page; I'm happy to follow whatever consensus ends up there. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 21:01, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

I will follow up there. Thanks for your responses! Daniel J Simanek (talk) 20:44, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Template:Infobox musical artist/doc

Hi. I see you reverted my edit here. I don't know if you are aware of this, but the text was changed by pigsonthewing (aka Andy Mabbett) who has a history of arbcom blocks. He was banned for a year for disruptions on classical music related projects relating to this particular infobox. (I can give you lots of references, but see his block record and Composers Project infobox debates for a start). We'd like to avpid this kind of trouble in the future, hence my re-insertion of the words non-classical. Besides this, there is also the problem that this box just isn't designed for classical music, and invites irrelevant and erroneous information. Best. --Kleinzach 00:25, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm aware of Andy's record, but I'm also aware that he's currently an editor in good standing. The classical music project already has its own MoS on which to define what should and should not be included on articles within its remit, and should not need to go posting warnings on template documentation as well. Were this to become commonplace (with us having to post disclaimers on template docs to cover every WikiProject idiosyncrasy) then our template documentation would be a mess. As that wording has stood for over a month without much apparent furore, I'd really rather that it were kept unless there were a really compelling reason to re-add the opt-out notice. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 07:50, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Raglan Road

Thanks for getting back to me. I had a good think before doing that revert. I looked up the Wiki definition WP:Stub and came to the conclusion that the stubbing was not what was required, for the following reasons:

Firstly, the definition of a stub is: A stub is an article containing only a few sentences of text which is too short to provide encyclopedic coverage of a subject. On the other hand, there are some subjects about which there is very little that can be written. I think the information contained in the article puts it beyond stub status. I agree completely that it could do with more information, but even Peter Kavanagh's book, which I have, does not provide more information (otherwise I would have used it to expand the article), nor does Christy Moore's or any other songbook that I possess.

Another point is that an article usually has stub status when it's new, where this article has been up for 3 years, and over that period has had many edits.

Also (as I'm a song-collector), I know that there are many articles on songs that have less information than this one has but are not stubs. Hohenloh ⁺ 16:36, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Actually, this edit (from 2007) is really the start of the current article, which means there are only 49 edits in total to the article so far. The article currently contains almost nothing of the actual content of the song, nor any references to indicate its popularity. The existence of similarly-sized articles which aren't stubbed does not negate the premise that this one is; it's simply an indication that not all stubs are appropriately marked. I don't see the harm in attracting the attention of WP's stub sorters by re-stubbing it, so I'd like to do that if you've no objection. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 21:08, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Question

What does style="overflow: auto" do? Debresser (talk) 18:33, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

It prevents long <pre> lines from causing horizontal scrollbars on the viewport if the line is wider than the normal content area. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 18:52, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Very nice. Thank you. Debresser (talk) 18:56, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Template:MoS-guideline

On the talk page, you recently did this[1]. I think you are entirely right to voice your opinion on the nature of the discussion, but I think you overstep the mark by folding up a discussion (even though it was quiet) which hadn't reached a conclusion. And in so doing expressly "forbidding" - The following is an archived debate. Please do not modify it. - any further contributions. The discussion page is after all for discussions. I have undone that action, and hope you do not take offence at this. Cheers. HarryAlffa (talk) 14:40, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

The talk page is for discussion on how to improve the template, not for ranting about policy. Frankly, I was tempted to simply delete the entire section. There's evidently not going to be consensus for your proposal. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 16:23, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

RFA spam

{{User:Kww/RFAspam}}

—Kww(talk) 18:47, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Launchballer MFD

Just so you know, there *is* a rule against using templates for signatures. It's right in WP:SIG#NT. "Forbidden" is a pretty strong choice of words; I'm not sure if it appears anywhere else in the behavioral guidelines. Horologium (talk) 23:07, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Heh. Cheers. In that case, this should just be a case of summarily changing the template to something sane, substituting and deleting, right? Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 23:11, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Someone on AN/I suggested hacking it down and then full-protecting it to prevent him from editing it. Either way, I don't see that sig lasting past the next time he comments on a talk page somewhere; he'll be blocked if he does. Horologium (talk) 23:14, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Cool. I'll leave the MfD for now, although feel free to nuke it if you want. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 23:16, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Archiving Bot parameters

Thanks for changing the above on my talk page - I'd not even noticed that it said about threads older "than 7 days days"! -- PhantomSteve (Contact Me, My Contribs) 10:59, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

It actually only happened last night - it's my breakage, so it's only right that I go and fix it. :) Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 11:02, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks from me too! Leuko ^Talk/_Contribs 22:17, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Re: Talk:Wiki farm/Old history

Yes, it's strictly necessary, per this edit summary indicating that it was merged with another article and the GFDL. The page history is substantial, over 100 edits,, and it used to be a valid article in the past. Its only crime was that it was in the way of a page move. I don't see what harm it's doing, but I like to keep as many edits undeleted as possible. I've done similar operations before, like at Talk:Weekend/Old history, which also contains a large number of edits. Graham87 11:28, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

The extent of that merge is one sentence, which isn't substantial enough to require GFDL attribution. There is no "crime" here except that a page with a trivial history has now spent more time being speedied, unspeedied and moved around than it ever spent as an article. Keeping edits undeleted is, well, not really the point. Do you mind if I re-speedy this? Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 11:34, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I would mind. The page spent five years as an actual article - not a particularly good one, but that's not the point - and has over a hundred edits in its history. Its history is hardly trivial, and there's no reason to make it inaccessible to non-admins. Graham87 11:56, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

It rather is the point. None of the history is useful as either a reference for how the article evolved or as attribution for the current state of the article: so what's it being kept for? I wasn't aware that there was a guideline which said that article histories had to be preserved even in the case of them being entirely useless. Had the prod here not been removed, I doubt there would have been much fuss over it. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 12:04, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Taking another peek at the history, the article "comparison of wiki farms" *may* have been spun out from the wiki farm article, without using an edit summary. Unfortunately, some of the edits at Talk:Wiki farm/Old history from 2005 are blank due to bug 20757, so it's hard to tell. This diff between the last non-blank version and the first blank version isn't any help. I also find the dates in the page history interesting, to show that yes, there was an article about wiki farms before March 2005.

There is no guideline that says that edits *must* be preserved at all costs - that's just my philosophy when dealing with non-redirect edits. If the article had been deleted using prod I would've probably thought twice about it. If there were no overlapping revisions in the wiki farm history, I would have simply undeleted the old history, which is routinely done at deletion review, rather than moving it to a different page.

If the history at Talk:Wiki farm/Old history is deleted, then the history at Talk:Wiki farm will make no sense ... for example it's incongruous to have a talk page edit from May 2002 when the article was started in March 2005. I think that leaving things the way they are is the easiest way forward ... all page history and text is available. We might need a third opinion somewhere like the administrators' noticeboard. Graham87 12:45, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Nah, I'm okay with leaving things as they are. Just wanted to get your angle on why you seemed intent on preserving something which I was about to speedy. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 12:56, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

OK, thanks. Graham87 13:00, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Funny

Funny you should mention that. I seriously considered "blink." :P user:J aka justen (talk) 15:59, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Heh. :) But yeah, I think it's clear enough already. If someone is capable of missing not only the initial bold but then an entirely bold reiteration, then I don't think they're going to see it no matter what. 16:36, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Notability tag

Hi Thumperward. You added a notability tag to List of governors of Badakhshan. The page lists(will list) all the governors of Badakhshan Province, Afghanistan. There are 34 provinces and I am trying to create a list for all the province. So far I have added a list for 16 provinces and you can see that at List of current governors of Afghanistan. At the right of the table it says "All" and the ones that are blue have a list, but I am still working on the red ones.

Most of other countries have similar lists. (Ketabtoon (talk) 00:20, 24 October 2009 (UTC))

It is not necessary to start a separate article for this. I would advise you to merge it with the main Badakhshan Province article, at least until it is more substantial than one unfinished table. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 00:23, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Template:Infobox enzyme

Thanks for cleaning up the above template. You are amazing! Cheers. Boghog (talk) 11:27, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Any time. Thanks for the kind words! Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 13:31, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

TPS thanks

No, not TPS report, but talk page stalker. I appreciate your revert of my userpage very much. Cheers, tedder (talk) 05:07, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

You're welcome. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 06:54, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

archive changes

Regarding this edit [2] the archive search feature is nice, but now there is no way to just browse the archives without searching a particular term. Actually I just tried to use the search and I'm not really clear on how it's supposed to work either, I searched two different terms I knew would be in the archives somewhere and got no results. Is there maybe a way to have both the search and a list of the archives? Beeblebrox (talk) 17:29, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

I think I might have just figured out the crux of the problem. The article used to be called Jack Thompson (attorney), and most of the archives are still under that name, so there's no way to automatically list or search them unless they are moved I think. Beeblebrox (talk) 17:31, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

yep, that was it, I moved all the archives and now it works fine. Beeblebrox (talk) 17:49, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Sorry about that: was going to do it myself, but something came up. Cheers for fixing them. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 18:46, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Jack Thompson (activist) hatnote

Completely agree that the article title is very clear about which Jack it's about. There's 3-4 other Jack Thompson's in WP though. While the activist is the most likely destination, I thought keeping the reference to the disambig made sense. Feel free to toss it if you don't think it's needed. Ravensfire (talk) 20:59, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

WP:NAMB is pretty clear on this point; I don't think that anyone is going to end up on (activist) looking for an actor, boxer or football player. I'll remove the tag again. Cheers! Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 21:48, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Golden Team

Hi Thumperward, I put in the references you needed for this article, they're located at the bottom of the page. Pretty much everything I used to put it together comes from those sources. Again, just a head's up the references are now included and the article title is Golden Team, many thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gallopingmajor (talk • contribs) 02:45, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I've done some more work on this myself: a great deal of work is still needed to improve the article's quality. For now I'm going to leave the tags on, until more inline citations can be provided. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 17:40, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Car infobox image size

Just check almost every car article, its the used size, we dont want to every article look different, you can also ask this in WP:CARS if its not documented somewhere there it should be Wikipedia:WikiProject Automobiles/Conventions Wikipedia:WikiProject Automobiles/Layouts is there some reason for 300px size? --Typ932 ^T·C 03:04, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

300px is a historic recommendation for lede image sizes: as I already explained, in this case the extra width actually saves space on the article by wrapping fewer lines in the infobox. I'm not convinced that "almost every car article" uses 250px, not least because if this isn't documented anywhere then that implies a rather staggering unwritten consensus to have gone uncodified. I would rather this went back to 300px. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 17:43, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

FIFA Ferenc Puskas Award

Hello again Thumperward. After I originated this article, I have to say this comes directly from FIFA own sources. I honestly don't see any bias or any tinge of partiality in how FIFA chooses to eulogize the on-field achievements of Ferenc Puskas. It is a soccer prize simply given every year. I have simply distilled down into basics what FIFA had stated prior to inaugurating this prize. Would you prefer reference proofs or quotes or article sources or what have you sir? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.25.208.26 (talk) 20:50, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

You're right: I've now removed the tag. Sorry about that. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 21:32, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Re:Disabling editprotect

I'm sorry. It had been there for a few weeks and I thought that it had already been handled. Besides, there was no objections to mine tlping it in the help channel so I thought that it was okay. Anyway, thanks for letting me know. BejinhanTalk 06:28, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Common courtesy would have been to undo those edits, no? But thanks for the reply. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 06:50, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

PLC

On the public limited company article, you added a tooshort tab, but I don't see any discussion on the corresponding Talk page about why. The intro seems pretty complete to me. What is missing as far as you're concerned? Please answer on Talk:public limited company. --macrakis (talk) 17:11, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

The lede is currently only three sentences long. Ideally, it should summarise all of the article's key points; right now it provides only an extremely abbreviated introduction. in fact, I'm struggling to find anything in the "Registration" or "Conversion" sections which is covered in the lede at all. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 17:24, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Huh?

Would you please explain the rationale behind this and this edit? And I don't mean moving the bolds in the second edit. Debresser (talk) 16:52, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Err, harmless whitespace edits? Was there a problem there? Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 02:49, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes. Why do you make such useless edits? Debresser (talk) 03:57, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Whitespace in templatespace has a tendency to cause problems in unforeseen ways. If I come across some, I'll usually remove it as a matter of course. Again, was there an actual problem here? Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 09:03, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Those problems are only in the case the whitespaces are in front of the noinclude tags. For your information. Debresser (talk) 09:52, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

When I asked earlier whether there was a problem with these edits, you replied in the affirmitive. So was there a problem or wasn't there? Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 10:06, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

The "problem" was making useless edits. Especially since User:Rich Farmbrough has added those spaces to all of the maintenance templates. I personally dislike them, but starting to removing them without doing at the same time anything more usefull than that, is an exercise in futility. I would not have called that a "problem", but did think I should bring it to your attention. And no need to be defensive and tell me how long you have been on Wikipedia and how many edits you have made here. A know proverb says "older is not necessarily wiser". While I do not mean to say that you are not wise, I also do not check the record of every editor I see making a "problematic" edit. Debresser (talk) 11:34, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

If you think I've been undoing another editor's work unnecessarily then there are far better ways of resolving it than posting strange, pseudo-interrogatory messages on my talk page. I'd appreciate it if you double-checked your messages for any implied tone of judgement if you're asking me questions in future. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 11:44, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Please accept my apologies for the tone I used. Debresser (talk) 13:16, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

No problem. And in turn, I'm sorry for snapping at you. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 13:38, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Fixing references

See your recent edit to Tape drive that it is always wise to check the results of such edits afterwards. Debresser (talk) 23:08, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

You don't need to bring random slip-ups I've made to talk. Everyone makes mistakes sometimes. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 02:50, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

I was trying to help you by pointing out that after making so many complicated edits to an article, it is wise to check the result. I can not force you to appreciate my efforts. Debresser (talk) 03:58, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

As I said, it was an innocent mistake. Seeing as I've been a registered user for several years longer than you and have more total edits, it seems odd that you are on my user page lecturing me about basic editing. What gives? Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 09:15, 2 November 2009 (UTC)