User talk:Andrwsc/Archive 11

This is an archive of past discussions with User:Andrwsc. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 5

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Archive 9

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Reverts

Why did you revert my changes on those hockey articles without comment? We don't use registered trademark symbols here per the MOS.—Chowbok ☠ 21:00, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

That symbol was part of the book's title used in a cited reference, not in the prose text of the article. The book name must be cited properly. Altering a quoted title is not what the MOS says you should do. Please be more careful with your AWB work. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 21:11, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

I don't see anything that says that trademark symbols should be kept if they're in book titles or citations. I regard them as the equivalent of typographical flourishes. Please don't confuse good-faith editing disputes with carelessness.—Chowbok ☠ 22:47, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

It's not so much a bad faith assertion about your edits that I'm making—the "be careful" comment was more directed at AWB editing in general. I've seen too many cases where it has corrected spelling errors inside direct quotations, for example (even some explicitly marked with "[sic]"), where literal copying of the source ought to be preserved. This strikes me as a similar situation. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 04:14, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Flatwater v. sprint

At the 2008 ICF Congress in Rome, the International Canoe Federation changed flatwater racing to canoe sprint. I am having to change flatwater racing to canoe sprint in order to meet the new ICF requirements. Remember the issues we had when the International Sailing Federation changed from the International Yahct Racing Union following the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta? All of the Sailing events to the 1996 Games were referred to as Yachting in the official report. Chris (talk) 04:23, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, I remember sailing vs. yachting as a WikiProject Olympics decision for consistency, not specifically to match the federation name. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 04:25, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

About Template:TAI

I found that you had asked to delete the template "TAI", which is initially created and used for Republic of China (Taiwan) as whose member name in International Olympic Commission (and even claimed for being used by FIFA in Chinese Wikipedia) long long ago. According to your historical action, I has also asked to delete the template with same name (zh:Template:TAI) in Chinese Wikipedia a few days before. Now I'm having a question on it: "Was that 'TAI' really used for ROC/TWN as its name of membership in either IOC or FIFA?" In case of my capability, I cannot find out any relative result from Internet but Wikipedia. Did you have any answer for that?--Gzyeah (talk) 14:51, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

You can use either {{flag|Taiwan}} or {{TWN}}. "TAI" is not a current country code, so per WP:WikiProject Flag Template conventions, no "shortcut" template is created for obsolete codes. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 21:24, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

list of people from bitola

regarding your recent revert to the list of people from bitola which section of the WP says that the addition of flags as such is not procedure. The process is widespread on other wikis. PMK1 (talk) 00:25, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Manual of Style (icons) is the relevant guideline on the English Wikipedia. I also note that no other article in Category:People by city in the Republic of Macedonia has unexplained flag icons either. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 12:23, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Olympics question

Have they started official qualification for cross country skiing for the 2010 games yet? A user created this vanity page and is adding that the athlete has qualified, but I haven't found anything to verify this. It's possible that he has qualified for Venezuela's team, but I have checked over the IOC and FIS sites and can't find a mention of official qualifying. Would you mind keeping an eye on both that page and the 2010 Olympics page? I've asked the user to provide a source, but so far has has refused and continued to add it. -- Scorpion ⁰⁴²² 02:48, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

To be honest, I don't know about the cross country qualification. (FIS website, perhaps?) For that article, I think all the usual policies would be in effect... — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 12:25, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Test templates

Hello. I encountered two templates Template:Country data Germany test and Template:Country data Nepal test which you created for testing many months ago. So I wonder if you still use it? If not, I will propose the two to be deleted. --Lerdsuwa (talk) 08:29, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Moscow Metro

Hi, can u help?

Some dude renamed 2 articles

2 stations:

But this stations be renaming just after July 1, 2009 [1]. I can't rename this articles, but u are.

And Petrovsko-Razumovskaya (Serpukhovsko-Timiryazevskaya Line) after 2013 and connect to Lyublinskaya Line, it will be cross-platform station, so one name

US - Jimmy Slade (talk) 03:04, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

List of Edmonton Oilers head coaches

I was wondering if, after I fix up this article, I can co-nominate with you for featured list nomination. Hope you're having a good vacation. -- _{signed by} SRE.K.A~~nnoyomous~~.L.24 _{spell my name backwards on} 08:55, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

Actually never mind. The list only has 8 entries. I'll just fix the article, and hope to have a co-nomination with you. Again, I hope you're having a good vacation. -- _{signed by} SRE.K.A~~nnoyomous~~.L.24 _{spell my name backwards on} 09:04, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

Orphaned non-free image (File:NOC logo IRQ.gif)

You've uploaded File:NOC logo IRQ.gif, and indicated that it's used under Wikipedia's rules for non-free images. However, it's not presently used in any articles. Wikipedia policy requires that non-free images be either used or deleted, so if this image isn't used in an article in the next week, it will be deleted.

This is an automated notice by FairuseBot. For assistance on the image use policy, see Wikipedia:Media copyright questions. 14:27, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Edit revertion in Silesia data template

Well, at first I didn't understood why idi you revert my edit, but now I see why it was unnecessary - I removed the part of template since I thought it makes the small flag images not display, but it was actaully due to some technical issues of my Web browser. Thanks for correcting the mess I've made in my ignorance ;)

Appreciate your input

...but support there is largely moot with a little better understanding of trademarks and copyrights (which just about every contributor, including myself, has learned a LOT more about today). If you'll scroll down to the bottom of the page, I think you may find it an interesting read (). — BQZip01 — ^talk 23:27, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

I am fully aware of this, and participated in a discussion on this specific point on Wikipedia:Media copyright questions several months ago. The fact is that even if some number of team logos are not copyrightable, quite a few are (e.g. Image:Georgetown Hoyas.svg, so any blanket statements such as those proposed in the RfC are worthless. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 23:35, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Actually, there isn't a university yet I've found that doesn't have such a logo. Case in point... Please note, this doesn't mean you can't have the Hoya Logo, but it simply means we're clarifying the use of non-free logos. If there's another school you know of to which this doesn't exist, please let me know, but I think we're on the right path here... — BQZip01 — ^talk 23:27, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Ok, the next one that came to mind for me was Image:Oregon State Beavers logo.png. After looking here, I also see a non-copyright but still trademarked image of text only, which is what I think you are trying to find for all schools. However, also note that the page clearly says that nobody can use any of the trademarked logos without prior approval etc. I think that's they key issue for me—we can't assume that we can use any trademark logo freely, and I would much rather see some consistent guidelines for article pages instead of variable guidelines depending on logo copyright and trademark status. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 23:52, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

The problem is that they don't have the rights to restrict such a logo as an informative tool; as a trademark, that's its job. Copyright, in some ways, provides the same protection, but copyrighted images are still in use here too. We cannot assume to use a trademark in any way we so desire (such as fundraising or in any many which implies endorsement by such an entity), but we are well within our legal/policy rights to use it in this context. — BQZip01 — ^talk 00:38, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

BTW, everything in the proposed guideline addition (with one minor exception) is about FREE logos, not non-free ones. — BQZip01 — ^talk 00:39, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Re flags

In general I have been removing icons from templates which would require innate understanding of the topic too understand what the image is meant to be , however if you wish to restore that image that is fine but other such image I have remove have not been reverted but the call is yours Gnevin (talk) 21:45, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

List of Olympic medalists in alpine skiing

Hello, thanks a gain for your comments on the list. Do you consider your concerns addressed? -- Scorpion ⁰⁴²² 18:40, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Well yes, and no. From the FL candidate perspective, I don't see any reason to object to that promotion. But I do want to continue (within the WikiProject) the discussion of what we want the general structure of those lists (for all sports) to look like, and I'd rather see some multi-editor consensus on that before the second, third, etc. of these medalist lists get nominated for FL. If we agree on something slightly different than what was done for alpine skiing at time of its FL promotion, that's fine, but it will be easier to make changes to one page rather than track a moving target for other sports that follow. I hope you agree! Thanks for your hard work on that list. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 01:06, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Final version

As a contributor to the discussion regarding sports team logos, I am soliciting feedback as to the latest version of that guideline. Your support/opposition/feedback would be appreciated. — BQZip01 — ^talk 21:59, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Template:Country data Burma

Hi. I saw that you could repair damage to this template. The offending 1942 flag can be found here: . Cheers. Lycaon (talk) 09:00, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Done— Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 16:04, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

User:Grant.Alpaugh

Hi there, I saw you performed a 72hr block of this user a while back and thought I would alert you to incivility from the same user here and a refusal to strike out those remarks or civily acknowledge an associated warning here. Coldmachine^Talk 22:15, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

1980 Summer Paralympics

I notice that you have done a lot of work relating to flag images, especially in Olympic pages. I am having a problem with some pages relating to the 1980 Summer Paralympics. It appears that using {{flagIPC|foo|1980 Summer}} throws up the IOC flag for certain countries (those who sent athletes to Moscow but not under a national flag). Unlike the Olympics of the same year there was no Boycott of these games so the national flags shouls be shown, is there anything that can be done to correct this at the template level or does someone need to go through the pages and hardcode the templates. Strangly everything appears OK for the 1980 Winter Paralympics. Waacstats (talk) 14:02, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

It looks like the code for {{flagIPC}} already has a #switch function for special cases where the Paralympic flag is different than the Olympic flag. Right now, only TPE is a special case, so Template:Country flag IPC alias TPE was created for that purpose. I think the solution to your problem is to extend the switch with more country codes, and create templates such as Template:Country flag IPC alias GBR etc. Hope this helps — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 17:16, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Medalists

Hello. After reading your message at WP:OLYMPICS, I was curious, is there anything else on any of the medalist pages I've worked on that you would rather see removed or moved back to the main sport page? -- Scorpion ⁰⁴²² 18:22, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Well, as we discussed for alpine skiing, I think all the "statistics" sections are more appropriate on the summary articles. The approach you took for alpine skiing is not scaleable to all Olympic sports, especially where we had to split into men/women (athletics, swimming, rowing, etc.) or by discipline (wrestling). — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 18:24, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Just replying to your comment at WP:OLYMPICS (again), you said "I think the ideal FL for a list of Olympic medalists is fairly close to what we have for most sports." Does this mean you dislike the system that is used in the current FLs (other than the statistics section)? -- Scorpion ⁰⁴²² 19:53, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

What I meant by that is that the current set of lists is fairly stable with respect to content and style, and does not need to be changed. The improvements that could be made to List of Olympic medalists in boxing (for example) are the addition of a proper introduction, lots of photos, better references, and perhaps a better navigation box to other articles. What it doesn't need is an overhaul of the tables of names that are already there. So yeah, looking at List of Olympic medalists in short track speed skating, those are the biggest differences between pre- and post- FL review work. (And specifically on that list, I think the "Athlete medal leader" statistics table could stay, but the "Medals per year" really ought to be pulled out.) — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 20:07, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

I've been toying with the idea of working on a Winter Olympics medalists FT and trying to have it ready by the start of the Vancouver games. However, I can't think of a page that could be used as a lead article. Do you have any ideas? -- Scorpion ⁰⁴²² 00:59, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

The only one I can think of is Winter Olympic Games. There is no "parent" article for each of the medalist lists, and Olympic sports is the parent for all sports, summer and winter. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 17:08, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

There is Lists of Olympic medalists. Maybe that one could be re-formated into a table (something like this, only better) and contain summaries, such as number of medals awarded in each sport, etc. -- Scorpion ⁰⁴²² 18:05, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

That's a good idea! The current version has been nothing special for a few years now, and I like the idea of turning it into a more informative "gateway" to the detailed lists, yet can also stand on its own. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 19:19, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Great, what do you think of the test table I whipped up here? -- Scorpion ⁰⁴²² 19:29, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, it looks good. I would still add names for team sports (like Tretiak, Kravchuk, and Holik for hockey), and perhaps "Number of medal events in 2010" could be reduced to "Current number of events" or somesuch. But I think those are the essential table columns, and I can't think of anything obvious to add or subtract. The only other comment I have at the moment is that I think it should remain as a complete Games list of lists, and not split into summer and winter lists of lists. (I don't know if you were thinking of that to keep the FT specifically on the Winter Games.) — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 19:42, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

I've tried adding it to the mainspace. I have no plans of splitting the lists. -- Scorpion ⁰⁴²² 20:32, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Going back to the ice hockey page, what do you think of this? -- Scorpion ⁰⁴²² 17:23, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

I like it; well done! Those are the three sources I would use, and the little table is clearer than describing the combinations in prose. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 17:40, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Great. Another question, do you know any sites that list all of the medals awarded by sport? (ie. One I can use for the Lists of Olympic medalists) -- Scorpion ⁰⁴²² 17:52, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Check out http://www.sports-reference.com/olympics/sports/ICH/ and look at each sport on the drop-down list. This section of the S-R website was created with data from the ISOH people, so it is certainly reliable. They include some demonstration sports, however, so please don't add stuff like aeronautics, alpinism, etc. to the wiki list. Good luck! — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 18:02, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

There is a nice summary at http://www.sports-reference.com/olympics/sports/ and then drill down to each sport details. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 18:03, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

I was looking more for a quick list and those don't include the totals (from what I can see). NBC has a listing per sport but I've already found discrepencies. For example, the archery list has one less gold than our wiki list (even after adjusting for 2008 totals) In their list, Belgium is missing one. -- Scorpion ⁰⁴²² 18:08, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Well, you get see each sport's total on the individual pages and then sum up the table (cut&paste into Excel).... And yes, there are dozens of discrepancies around medal totals. Welcome to WikiProject Olympics. ;) And you thought it would be easy... The best we do is like what you did for 1920 TCH hockey—copious footnotes to explain discrepancies. We almost never use media sources like NBC etc. as they appear to be lazy with their totals and never explain how they add up. At least with the IOC website and the S-R (ISOH) database, you can drill down and see the individuals that add up to the totals, and that's the only way to uncover the discrepancies. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 18:19, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

I never thought it would be easy, I just didn't think it would be this time consuming. The problem with that is that they include the 1906 games in their totals, but it will have to do. -- Scorpion ⁰⁴²² 18:29, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

I've added the summer table to the article. Feel free to scrutinize. -- Scorpion ⁰⁴²² 19:20, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Format looks good; I shall try to check out the numbers when I can. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 21:15, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

The numbers are based entirely on the sports-reference site. In many cases it conflicted with wiki numbers, but I wasn't too concerned because it could just be that people haven't updated for the 2008 games or the same results were inputed twice. -- Scorpion ⁰⁴²² 22:00, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm done with the major table formatting, what do you think? -- Scorpion ⁰⁴²² 00:05, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Looks great! I see some minor formatting items, but overall this is a great improvement. Well done! — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 01:09, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

minor formatting items like? I'm going to throw together a lead (it probably won't be more than 2, possibly 3 paragraphs) and maybe have it to FLC tomorrow. -- Scorpion ⁰⁴²² 01:21, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Ah, ok, well the "(men) (women)" for canoeing isn't <small> like the others. The two "Number of" columns ought to be centered like the medal numbers; they look funny aligned all the way over on the left side. Sometimes you put a semicolon after one year but before the "Since xxxx" date, and sometimes the semicolon is missing. Also, I'm not sure I like the discrepancy between using 2008 for the number of summer events but 2010 for the winter. They should be 2008/2006 or 2012/2010. Anyway, all easily fixed. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 01:35, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

I used 2010 for winter because it is the closest games and the events have all been finalized and none will be added. The events for 2012, however, are not finalized and some (ie. women's boxing) could still be added. So, I used 2008. As for your other formatting concerns, done. -- Scorpion ⁰⁴²² 02:21, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

By the way, just so you know, the List of Edmonton Oilers players, a FL you nominated shows up on the FL cleanup listing as having an unsourced statement. -- Scorpion ⁰⁴²² 16:54, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

I need your help, the total medal stats for the winter sports and winter games are coming in different. I'm getting a total of 2336 sports medals and 2332 games (including the figure skating/hockey events from the Summer games). There are 1 more gold, 2 more silver and 1 more bronze on the sport side. I've double checked everything - the games totals are EXACTLY as stated by the IOC, and the sports are exactly from s-d (I've checked to make sure that there are no extra/demonstration events stuck in their totals, all of the events numbers are the same). I guess that's the problem with using two completely different sources, there will be discrepencies. Do you have any ideas?

And I haven't even had the courage to cross check the summer numbers yet either. -- Scorpion ⁰⁴²² 18:35, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

I actually have a massive Excel spreadsheet that I used to cross-correlate all these numbers to find those kinds of discrepancies, and to automatically generate wikicode for the various medal tables on per-sport and per-nation articles. I haven't updated it since Beijing, and for some of the medal withdrawals & changes in recent months, but when I get a chance I'll look at it for the winter sports at least (maybe on the weekend). — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 18:40, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Without digging into the details, are you double-counting military patrol and biathlon? 18:57, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

I don't think so. I did a manual count of the biathlon medalists and got 53, which is the same number as s-r (and they definitely don't count it amongst their numbers). -- Scorpion ⁰⁴²² 19:10, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

I figured out part of it. I forgot to include the Men's special figures figure skating event from 1908 in the events I added to the Winter games totals (I added 21 instead of 24 medals). But there is still one more silver in the sports portion. -- Scorpion ⁰⁴²² 19:24, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

I found a discrepency. S-R says Guy Revell & Debbie Wilkes of Canada won a silver in figure skating [2] but the IOC's database says they won a bronze. Further, they say the Soviets won gold, Canada and Germany shared silver and the US won bronze. This is what the IOC says:

Innsbruck 1964 Figure skating pairs Mixed Gold URS BELOUSOVA, Lyudmila Innsbruck 1964 Figure skating pairs Mixed Gold URS PROTOPOPOV, Oleg Innsbruck 1964 Figure skating pairs Mixed Silver EUA KILIUS, Marika Innsbruck 1964 Figure skating pairs Mixed Silver EUA BÄUMLER, Hans Jürgen Innsbruck 1964 Figure skating pairs Mixed Bronze CAN WILKES, Debbi Innsbruck 1964 Figure skating pairs Mixed Bronze CAN REVELL, Guy

So which is correct? -- Scorpion ⁰⁴²² 19:36, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I remember that now. I guess it's up to interpretation as to which is "correct". Some readily available sources [3] [4] explain the story. The S-R reference (especially) explains how there ended up being a second silver. As with all these situations, it is best to use copious footnotes, I suppose. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 20:36, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, well, I think I'm going to go with the IOC. Even if the American & Canadian couples were allowed to keep their medals, it doesn't mean that the result hasn't been retracted, as shown by the IOC database. The Winter games are mostly up to standards then, just the summer ones left. Oh joy. -- Scorpion ⁰⁴²² 21:54, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Would you mind double checking the summer numbers? I tried last night and I spent 2 hours and made it to 1904. I gave up because I thought my brain was going to melt. There are about 50 more event medals than games medals, so it might be that s-r is counting some demonstration events that the IOC does now. Also, I've been considering merging the List of Olympic medalists in cross-country skiing (women) and List of Olympic medalists in cross-country skiing (men) together. Neither is particularily long (18,492 and 25,106). In terms of medals given out, a combined list would be shorter than the speed skating list (although there are more events). What do you think? -- Scorpion ⁰⁴²² 20:34, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Templates

I will have a look, TFD does seem to be the only option Gnevin (talk) 23:08, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Corrected Switzerland in FIS Nordic World Ski Championships

Switzerland's IOC code is SUI, not SWI. I got it fixed. Chris (talk) 00:26, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Association of Boxing Commissions ‎

As usual you seem very interested in my edits! Nice to know I have my friends looking out for me. x --Vintagekits (talk) 22:07, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

I saw your name on ANI, thought to myself "oh no, not again", and checked your recent contribution history to see what the fuss was about. That's when I saw the new article, and hence, the edits to improve it. Glad you approve. If you stick to policies and guidelines (including civility, WP:RS, and the manual of style) then all will remain copacetic. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 22:14, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Much appriciated!--Vintagekits (talk) 22:35, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Apology

Thought I should apologise for creating {{WIN}}. When I previewed a page I was working on I noticed the template didn't exist so just went ahead and made it. I wasn't aware of the WikiProject Flag Template consensus, and just did what I thought was standard practice. Thanks for cleaning up after me, and sorry I created extra work for you. I'll be more careful in future. Best wishes, Rambo's Revenge (talk) 16:55, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

No need to apologise at all!! If anything, I should apologise to you for deleting the template without discussing with you first. In retrospect, you were WP:BOLD in creating the template, and I was WP:BOLD (with a dash of WP:IAR) in deleting it. ;) The consensus I mention is that we try to limit the instances of the "shortcut" flag templates (such as {{ENG}}) to instances where there are well-known standard country codes and to use the complete names with {{flag}} in most cases. That makes wikicode much more readable. Hope that makes sense. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 18:56, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Yes, the logic there is fine and I appreciate your thoughtful reply. Best wishes, Rambo's Revenge (talk) 15:37, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

New flag templates

Why are you creating so many new, redundant flag templates? Why is it necessary to write {{flag|Dronning Maud Land}} instead of {{flagicon|Norway}} [[Dronning Maud Land]], for example? In WP:WikiProject Flag Template, we have been maintaining country data templates for entities with unique flags only. Thanks for any clarification — Andrwsc (talk • contribs) 19:36, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

I created 11 country data templates for the following current or historic countries:

All of these current or historic countries appear in the standards of the International Organization for Standardization, the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority, or the United Nations. All of these countries share a flag with another current or historic country, but have histories distinct from those countries. I do not propose to create any additional country data templates. --Buaidh (talk) 21:02, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

I know what they are; I'm questioning the need to add more templates to the already large flag template system when existing templates can be used? What is the benefit? The downside is increased maintenance work. (e.g. several of the templates you created are malformed.) — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 21:10, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

These templates hold country data, not merely flags. --Buaidh (talk) 21:27, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Such as....? There is no "data" other than a wikilink to an article, and that wikilink can be rendered without a flag template. Once again, I ask a non-rhetorical question, what is the benefit in writing {{flag|Dronning Maud Land}} instead of {{flagicon|Norway}} [[Dronning Maud Land]]? — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 21:39, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Why not use [[Image:Flag of Norway.svg|22px|border]] [[Dronning Maud Land]] instead and discard all existing country data templates? That would eliminate all maintenance! --Buaidh (talk) 22:36, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

That doesn't answer my question. The answer to your question is obvious—using a flag template allows changes such as the insertion of the flagicon CSS class and the addition of the link= parameter to be made easily to hundreds of thousands of instances, and also ensure consistency with respect to icon size etc. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 23:06, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

At a whopping six lines, Template:Country data Dronning Maud Land conveys the following information:

That Dronning Maud Land is a separate entity from Norway, and not just an alias for Norway.
That Dronning Maud Land is a dependency of Norway that currently uses the Norwegian flag.
That Dronning Maud Land could, at a future date, adopt its own flag.

Perhaps this information is of no interest to you, but I find it useful for my work in Wikipedia:WikiProject Geography and Wikipedia:WikiProject History.

I'm not interested in creating any work for you, but I do find it ridiculous for a tool such as the flag templates to rule its users. If you are not convinced, delete whatever templates you wish. I will find a work-around for anything you wish to throw at me. You need not respond. Yours aye, Buaidh (talk) 23:32, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

I am truly surprised that you think that all this information is conveyed by the existence of a utility template. However, I would say that the first point should be obvious since Dronning Maud Land is a distinct article from Norway and it explains that relationship within its contents. The second point would be clear by the presence of the Norwegian flag to identify Dronning Maud Land. And the third point is speculation, which has no place in Wikipedia. But since you seem to think that a redundant template is necessary to make these associations, then I question the "claim" that the flag of the Arab League is the official flag of the Saudi-Iraqi neutral zone, for one example.

I'm not trying to "throw anything at you", nor am I trying to be argumentative, and you seem to be taking this somewhat personally. I am still trying to understand how the alternate wiki markup is worth all the trouble of a few dozen more templates (some created by you, some by others). — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 00:11, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Flags and countries

I don't know whether you are familiar with database design (which I have done professionally for 38 years.) There are flag objects and country objects. In Wikipedia, country objects are represented by country articles and flag objects are represented by flag images. Flag objects and country objects have a zero-to-many:zero-to-many relationship. The country data templates are a country relationship database because they link to only one country but can link to several flags. To be complete, a country relationship database should contain one file for every legitimate country.

It would be nice if no flag represented more than one country. Unfortunately, ISO 3166 includes many countries which use the same flag (France and most of its overseas departments for example.) I know you like to delete unnecessary files, which is indeed a service to Wikipedia. I would suggest that you delete country data templates that link to mere aliases or entities that are not legitimate countries or country subdivisions rather than legitimate countries that link to the same flag. --Buaidh (talk) 15:51, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I have a degree in computer engineering and back in the 80s and 90s I was a professional software engineer. Nowadays I still dabble with some C++ as a parallel hobby to Wikipedia editing, so I know what you are talking about. However, I think you are reading FAR too much into the "country data" templates that we designed in WP:WikiProject Flag Template a couple of years ago. There was no conscious OO design thought, but merely a pragmatic approach to managing a couple of thousand flags. (For example, despite being named "country data", they ONLY contain flag template information.) And I guess that's the rationale behind my original question—being a very pragmatic person, I'm trying to understand the benefit of writing {{flag|United States Miscellaneous Pacific Islands}} for wiki markup versus {{flagicon|USA}} [[United States Miscellaneous Pacific Islands]]. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 19:10, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Templates

I'm fine with you deleting them. Chanheigeorge (talk) 10:07, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

OK, thanks! — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 17:15, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Medalists II

I decided to try a Triple Gold Club FTC with just the lists (although I was reasonably sure it would fail, it doesn't hurt to try) and it's not going well. So, I've decided to try improving Ice hockey at the Olympic Games‎. I've got the history from 1998 to 2006 mostly done, could you take a look and make sure I'm on the right track? Thanks, Scorpion ⁰⁴²² 18:15, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm done with the major history expansion. I've got most of the major events covered, but I'd like to add some more mentions of teams other than Canada, the US or Soviet Union. I think the article is at times a tad Canada centric and sometimes strays a bit ftoo far into IIHF/Worlds territory (although in both cases it's understandable). Could you please take a look at it when you have the time? The page could easily be split into sections like "Rule changes", "tournament formats" and "status of professionals", but I thought it would be best to start off with everything in the history section. If you wanted, I could split it into such sections. Thanks, Scorpion ⁰⁴²² 18:48, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm a little busy in my off-wiki (i.e. "real") life lately, so I won't be able to give any detailed feedback anytime soon, but it looks like you've done some great work already! The only high-level comments I have for now are that you seem to rely on CBC and TSN websites a lot (which is why it is probably Canada-centric), so I would strongly encourage some other sources. I think it is absolutely essential to use the official Olympic reports for each Games as references for these "Sport at the Olympics" articles, and I would also look deeply into the IOC's "Olympic Review" past issues (use this Google search) and the "Journal of Olympic History" (on Google). That excellent "Birth of Swedish Hockey" article is a good reference that should not be missed. The JOH is a scholarly publication, and probably more reliable than media websites. Hope this helps, — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 19:16, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

DO you mean use the official reports as citations or just include a link to them? I think the TSN references are acceptable because I tried to only use them for non-controversial information - specific teams, scores, etc. - and I used IIHF sources for the rest. -- Scorpion ⁰⁴²² 20:03, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

I mean as citations. Currently the article has 89 references, but the majority are from 3 or 4 websites. For example, instead of using TSN to cite the cancellation of 1940, how about:

(ed.) Carl Diem (1940). "The Fifth Olympic Winter Games Will Not Be Held" (PDF). Olympic Review (PDF) (8). Berlin: International Olympic Institute: pp. 8–10. Retrieved 2009-03-03. {{cite journal}}: |author= has generic name (help); |pages= has extra text (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)

That's not the best example or reducing the "Canada centric" view you're afraid of, but I guess my point is that it adds a better mix of references. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 20:33, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Okay, I'll see what I can do. (I've already replaced several TSN refs). Do you think the history is adequate and covers everything necessary or is it too detailed (or not detailed enough)? Also, what about sections? -- Scorpion ⁰⁴²² 20:47, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

As well, what do you think of this? Nobody at WT:OLYMPICS has responded yet. If it's well-received, I might adapt it for use on every sport page. -- Scorpion ⁰⁴²² 22:04, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Is there anywhere where I can get an official list of rules and qualification standards for the 2010 games? I've tried the IOC, IIHF and VANOC with little luck (I found some qualification info at IIHF, but I'm looking for info like #of team members allowed, etc.) -- Scorpion ⁰⁴²² 21:39, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Flag Netherlands Antilles

Hello Andrwsc, on the lower end of the page Netherlands Antilles at the 1952 Summer Olympics the flag of the Netherlands Antilles that was made in 1986 is shown next to the flag of Turkey. I think this is caused by the template Template:Country data Netherlands Antilles. Before 1959 the flag was the Dutch flag: Image:Flag of the Netherlands.svg as can be seen in the right upper corner of the 1952 Olympics page. The template page is protected so there is no way for me to change it. From the history of that template it looks you know about this template and according to your user page you're an admin. When I look at Template:Country data United States I guess more than one flag alias should be no problem. Can you please change the template? - Robotje (talk) 14:19, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

NATO emblem

I do not dispute that image of the NATO flag is used wrongly in NATO summit infoboxes. In fact, I don't suppose I really need understand. Sorry for causing unwanted trouble for you.

Even though one specific uploaded image is unacceptable for use in a NATO summit infobox, does that mean that another very similar image would be improperly used as well?

I wonder whether you ight see a problem in uploading the NATO emblem from the NATO website? The image would appear to be the same as the flag; however, assuming I understand the "non-free" usage correctly, this newly acquired emblem poses no copyright infringement problems similar to the flag you brought to my attention.

I anticipate using the NATO emblem in NATO summit infoboxes in the same manner as other NATO summit-specific logos. In this context, perhaps I should refer to this emblem as the NATO "logo"? Similarly, I wonder if it might be less controversial if I were to use the blue emblem on a white background rather than the white emblem on a blue background? My guess is that this would more better distinguish the emblem or logo from its flag counterpart?

Do you have constructive comments to offer so that I can minimize further inconvenience to you or others sensitive to issues like this? --Tenmei (talk) 00:28, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

The NATO website states here that The use of NATO photos and logo is allowed for non-commercial purposes... This means they are definitively non-free images with respect to the WP:Non-free content criteria policy, which means that minimal usage (only) is permitted. You could not re-use one logo on multiple summit articles for that reason. But in cases where you have specific per-summit logos, you can use them on the individual articles (i.e. once per image instance) with a valid fair-use rationale. An existing example is Image:2008 Bucharest Summit logo.jpg, used only on the 2008 Bucharest summit article. But you can't use the same "generic" non-free image for all the years where you can't find a specific logo. Hope this helps — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 00:42, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I now understand the problem I created; and frankly, your explanation averts a likelihood that I would have made similar gaffs elsewhere. For redundant clarity, permit me to explain what I proposed to do next; and if you perceive another avoidable problem, I can modify the plans accordingly.

A. Tomorrow or the next day, I will upload 14 differently labeled images of the blue-on-white NATO emblem, e.g.,

B. Next week, I will contact the NATO webiste, asking if alternate summit logos are available for use in the infoboxes in these and other NATO summit articles?
C. In the future, if/when summit-specific logos replace the generic NATO emblem, I can then post a "speedy-delete" tag at the top of the unneeded image page?

Can you foresee other problems I haven't anticipated? Suggestions? Comments? --Tenmei (talk) 18:23, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, if you are uploading multiple instances of the same image under different filenames, they would be candidates for speedy deletion on those grounds. That's not an acceptable way of circumventing the WP:NFCC policy for "minimal usage". If you can't find a unique logo for some of those specific events, then I think it's better to leave the infobox empty. If you truly need something, perhaps Image:Map of NATO countries.png (or different versions with countries that were members at the time for each of those past years) might be a good choice. Hope this helps — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 18:48, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Some of the photos in commons:Category:NATO summits or its parent category might be useful too. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 18:51, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Aha, thanks again. I will use File:NATO expansion.png until something more specific can be located. As it happens, I thought I might be wasting your time when I typed out specifically what I intended to do; but that "ask first" strategy turned out to be precisely what was needed. --Tenmei (talk) 21:25, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Watchlist

While scrupulously avoiding any implied invitation for comment or participation, it crosses my mind that you may want to follow whatever unfolds at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration in a complaint captioned "Verifiability/Use English/Burdens in proxy battlefield article". This unconventional notion was inspired by some of what you've posted on your user page. --Tenmei (talk) 18:40, 20 March 2009 (UTC)