User talk:Geometry guy/Archive 9

RfA thanks from Happy-melon

Along with all our other discussions, I just wanted to say thanks for your support for my RfA, which closed (74/2/0) this morning. Your comment and support was very much appreciated. Now I can use my shiny new admin bit to clear up all the wierd redirects at PR myself! Happy‑melon 15:30, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Congratulations, you're welcome, and thanks for the individual message instead of the usual thank-spam! It will be of great benefit to Wikipedia that you now have access to the extra tools. Now, lets see who can edit {{!}} first, on your marks, get set,...  :-) Geometry guy 18:36, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Welcome

I appreciated your note. It's been my pleasure working with you on the automation process, and the PR people have been remarkably patient through the technical difficulties.

I'm afraid I need to respond by asking you for a favor, since I know you have done more work with the GA process than I have. If you have a chance, could you look at this talk section? I'm sure User:Judgesurreal777 is trying to help out by checking GAs for compliance with WIAGA, but this sort of situation is one of the reasons I avoid the GA process whenever possible. — Carl (CBM · talk) 23:38, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

I agree Harvard references are fine, but at a first glance, the article needs some work. Unfortunately, as I think you well know, WP:CITE is not stable: personally I like the approach of Sally Scot, but it looks like she has been overwhelmed by one of Wikipedia's worst admins. Anyway, if you follow a citation approach along these lines, GA should be no problem. I hope to look more carefully at the article tomorrow. The main thing is to get wikilinks for the citations working. I can help with that. Geometry guy 00:24, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. Getting the references to have working links would be easy enough, I agree; maybe I can learn the Harvard referencing templates in the process. My concern here is especially the second comment from the reviewer; that sort of thing will only turn additional people away from the GA process. — Carl (CBM · talk) 00:52, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

The reviewer's second comment is lazy and way out of line. I suggest you make all reasonable changes, and if you still have problems, take the article to WP:GAR. That process has changed for the better: drive-by bean counting and "Delist, not enough inlines" are a thing of the past at GAR, and I am now, according to some, even the GAR "guru" :-) However, reviewers like to see easily that an article is reliably sourced, so those links really matter. Geometry guy 01:09, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

I've taken a closer look now, and realise that this was not a GAN review, but a drive-by delist. There are guidelines which discourage this sort of thing. Since the delisting was also so factually inaccurate that the reviewer cannot possibly have read the article, I am restoring the previous GA status. I've also added a couple of citation templates and Harvard reference links so you can see how it goes. Geometry guy 14:52, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

FA-Team Footnote

Lol - I was sorely tempted to unspace those emdashes, but discretion won out in the end. No point in antagonising the Team leader while the plan's still coming together :D EyeSerene^TALK 12:12, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

In return, your comment about Knight rider etc. on Willow's page just cracked me up. Nice one! Luckily I did not collect the music of the 80s, otherwise I would be putting on some Spandau Ballet tonight. I guess it will have to be the Pet shop boys instead. They were smart enough, at least, to have their tongues in their cheeks (erm, please don't misinterpret this!!) at the time :-) Geometry guy 20:56, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

PR errors

Hmn, seems like we have a problem here. The ordering of the archives for ones with large numbers of reviews is a bit quirky, especially when they've been combined from several different naming conventions. I'm reasonably sure I've managed to permanently lose or combine two reviews of Neuro-linguistic programming in my efforts to sort them out. I don't think I could do this without the admin bit!

My code is currently running on a list containing anything with "/archive", "/attempt", or a number in it, in an attempt to catch all the "/articlename 2" styles. Unfortunatley it's throwing a lot of false positives (anything with a date in it, but also things like Halo 2 or Xbox 360) which I'm just having to battle through. Once I've worked through all the wierd ones I'm going to have a cleanup run to make sure that the only things left are straightforward Wikipedia:Peer review/articlename format, then I can comment out a lot of the exceptions and tests and just blitz the rest of them.

So thanks for picking through the debris to find those mistakes - I'm not sure exactly what's going on but much better to know even though it's probably easiest to fix these rare ones by hand than try and armour the code against every possible crazy interpretation of the instruction "move the old page to /archiveN"!!

The basic approach is sound: I've also seen /old, but this may be a one-off. The /archiveN/archiveN bug is pretty serious though: MelonBot has created a lot of redlinks today, and these need to be fixed! Bon courage! Geometry guy 20:48, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Indeed. I think I'm going to have to write a script to run through all of MelonBot's contributions and fix the /archiveN/archiveN bug before we go any further. I have a sneaking suspicion of why it's doing it - I'll dig through the code tomorrow and see if I'm right. Shame to throw a spanner in the works like this... Happy‑melon 21:53, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Gergonne and orthogonal coordinates

Hey G-guy,

You're probably a-bed already, but when you awake tomorrow, could you please have a look at the coordinate surface images I've been making, e.g., at toroidal coordinates, bispherical coordinates and oblate spheroidal coordinates? I'd love to have your impressions, ideas and suggestions. :)

I'm slogging my way through the Gergonne solution to Apollonius' problem, but so far it's been easier to clean my kitties' litter-boxes. ;) I sense that my stumbling block lies in (mis)understanding the radical axis and homothetic centers, so I made a few additions there. The whole "pole line" thing seems mysterious. Helpful hints from an expert would be nice! :) Willow (talk) 01:57, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Apollonius problem is looking great: I don't have time to look into it in detail yet though. As for the coordinate surfaces, I found them a bit overwhelming at first: there's a lot going on in them. Then, once I got used to them, I found them very nice. Apart from cosmetic issues (colours, too light? too dark?) the only suggestion I have is to remove the plane which indicates the origin of the angular coordinate. We're geometers, right, Geometry girl? — so the angle coordinate lives on a circle, and who cares where the origin is! :-) Geometry guy 10:28, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Feedback re how to close GARs

I've had a go at delisting Yuna - so, does a bot move the old page to the archive, or do I have to? The instructions didn't say. -Malkinann (talk) 06:32, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

PS. I'm not sure if I used the template for the talk page right - the link to the archived discussion doesn't show the archived discussion. Talk:Yuna_(Final_Fantasy)#Good_article_reassessment -Malkinann (talk) 09:53, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

You gave the page number of the archive (35), rather than the page number of the discussion (1). I've fixed it. The listing of the discussion at the archive is completely automatic. However, you do need update WP:GA. I've clarified the guidelines in the light of your comments. Many thanks for testing this and commenting here. Geometry guy 10:00, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Oh, is that what number meant?? I spose I'm used to linking to the archive directly. I thought a bot was set up to update the GA article count? I've done it anyway, though. It's a lot easier than it used to be. :) -Malkinann (talk) 10:07, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes, the GA count is done by a bot, so you didn't need to do that, but you do need to remove the article from the list (its under Video and computer games). One day the whole of GA will be automated too, but it isn't yet! Geometry guy 10:15, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Oh, right, you meant that bit? Whoops - perhaps you need someone else to try, to make it more representative. -Malkinann (talk) 10:32, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Peterborough local elections

Thanks for helping us with this article GAR about one week ago. I put the article on hold as agreed, yet not single person has made any edit whatsoever since then, thus it is only logical to fail it again. Yet my hesitation comes from the fact that the article is so close to GA and would hate seeing it failed. Any advice on this matter is appreciated. Cheers! Λua∫Wise ^{(Operibus anteire)} 16:41, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

If you don't want to fail right now, you could extend the on-hold period and add some specific comments on the talk page. Do you agree with my suggestion to move the article to a more inclusive title such as Peterborough local government? Geometry guy 09:06, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Agreed, more than one problem could be solved this way, then it will pass GA. thanks! Λua∫Wise ^{(Operibus anteire)} 11:53, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Wisconsin Highway 29

I started reviewing this before I read the archived discussion. It occurs to me that you might have been planning to to review it yourself. If I've trodden on your toes, let me know and I'll walk away. Jimfbleak (talk) 17:51, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

No, don't worry, my toes are not so easily trodden. I hope the review goes well! Geometry guy 09:07, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

The GA (Re)nomination of Interstate 70 in Utah has been accepted

Hello.

I have seen the GA nomination of Interstate 70 in Utah, and have decided to undertake this task. I'm just letting you know since you seem to have done some work on this article, along with Davemeistermoab. If you have any questions, comments or concerns, you are welcome to ask on my talk page, or, if you prefer, I'll also read anything posted on the article's talk page.

By the way, I've read up on the previous attempt at review by NE2, and I can assure you that this will not happen again. At the very least, I'll certainly make sure to finish what I've started...and not make you perform any of the necessary progressions. - Robert Skyhawk (Talk|Contribs) 00:28, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for stopping by to comment here. Good luck with the review. Geometry guy 09:09, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

FA-Team and first mission (MMM)

Dear Geometry guy (aka me!),

Many thanks for volunteering to join the FA-Team. We now have a first mission, to help the Murder, Madness and Mayhem WikiProject improve twelve articles towards featured article status. These articles are really interesting, and the person in charge of WP:MMM is enthusiastic about our support, so this mission should be a real pleasure. Please watchlist the mission page and the WikiProject page as well as some (or all) of the twelve articles. The students contributing to these articles are all new to Wikipedia, so please be ultra-friendly towards them.

The coordinator for this mission is Wrad (talk), who may suggest further ways in which you can help. I will provide back-up. In particular, it might be useful for you to indicate which of the twelve articles interest you most (or which ones you are watchlisting) on the mission page.

Thanks again for joining in. I think this will be a lot of fun for all of us, and hopefully we can make it fun for the students too and create a few more featured articles between now and April. Geometry guy 21:49, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

I agree :) Geometry guy 21:49, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

This is just weird. EyeSerene^TALK 22:56, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Oh, now I understand the dreams I've been having. Clearly I need to be banned :-) Geometry guy 23:04, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps you should report yourself to an admin? EyeSerene^TALK 23:23, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Done that, and the admin said "Hey" and promptly fell asleep. You just can't get the staff these days, can you? Geometry guy 23:28, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Tch! I'd take that admin straight to Arbcom. I'm composing a nine-page supplementary report (with diffs) for the guvnor's talk page as we speak; that should get results! EyeSerene^TALK 11:55, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your edits: much appreciated

Hi Geometry guy, :) Thanks for your edits at my proposed Controversy Section for Opus Dei. I truly appreciated them. I just saw them recently and read them as an implicit nod, and duly posted them in the article. I will keep on working on this section based on the other comments you made. I have high hopes that we are moving in the right direction. If you have time, please continue helping. Thanks again. Marax (talk) 12:33, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

You're welcome. I think it is a step in the right direction. Geometry guy 18:33, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Hi Geometry! Thanks also for your encouragement, support and for alerting me to the discussion page at the fork I made. I didn't realize the support it got until now. :) And thanks as well to your additional detailed comments. Very helpful indeed. Yes, I intend to add more criticisms in other sections of the article as you suggested. I believe this will bring the article to a higher level of neutrality. Marax (talk) 05:46, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

New PR archiving system

Makes me crazy. Old dog, new tricks. When I run through new FACs prepping for Gimmebot, if I find a PR, I switch it to old so it will be archived. But in this case, I found an unarchived PR that had a name change. No idea if I fixed it correctly; do you know who can check, so GimmeBot or the PR bot won't stall? [1] SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:59, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

The situation you have run into here is extremely rare: the article was moved during an open peer review. The idea of the new system (invented by Gimmetrow) is that the peer review page should never have to be moved. So, when an article is moved, the peer review, ideally, should stay in the same place. However, this makes it difficult to provide stable links from the article to the peer review. I think your fix is fine: you moved the peer review to match the article, and there are no other peer reviews to move. I've closed the PR discussion. Geometry guy 20:16, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! If it comes up again, should I contact you (or anyone else) to make sure it's done correctly? This sort of thing isn't that rare, actually; it's exactly the sorts of things I have to fix when I run through every FAC to prep for GimmeBot. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:08, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Hi Sandy! Yes, please let me know again when this happens. I am minded to change the {{oldpeerreview}} template so that it provides a permanent link to the peer review page, even if the article is moved, but I want to get a feeling for how big an issue it is before changing the archiving process again. Also if you a relying on GimmeBot to fold {{oldpeerreview}} into ArticleHistory post-FAC, then I'll need to keep Gimmetrow abreast of any changes to the template. Geometry guy 19:07, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

OK, I'll keep you posted on GimmeBot prep issues; the biggest ones are GA. By the way, I'm getting a rash of GA errors lately; is there some sort of sweep on? Is there a place where you can remind reviewers to scroll to the bottom of the page and look for the red error category lit up? On rolling oldpeerreview into articlehistory, yes, GimmeBot has to do that on the majority of closed FACs. Best, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:17, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Articles sometimes move even during a FAC, and it usually creates confusion. The PR template should still support partial links which include the article name ({{peerreview|Articlename/archive1}}); using that rather than ({{peerreview|archive=1}}) ought to avoid this problem. Is that a possibility? Gimmetrow 03:17, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

That would make more sense to me, because it's what I understand, but you all with this automated stuff are over my head. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:40, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

That should be possible, yes. The "archive=1" business is just a shorthand for Articlename/archive1, using {{PAGENAME}} to get the article name: hence it breaks if the page moves but the review doesn't. This could also be fixed using template substitution. Geometry guy 11:40, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

If you all did that on the automated version, then I'd know how to deal with changes, and that would solve the problem, no? Or are you saying that I can add the name option? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:05, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Sandy, I've updated the documentation at {{oldpeerreview}} to cover this issue. Does it make sense? And is this everything you need in order to prep for GimmeBot? Cheers, Geometry guy 20:36, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Beautiful :-) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:38, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks :-D Please let me know if any problems arise (e.g., the template doesn't work as advertised!) Geometry guy 20:42, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Discussion at MoS

I strongly support your take on things. Keep it up. If I had discovered WP two years ago, I would be giving you (and a few others) all the support I possibly could. I'm so involved with robotics now that I don't have the time to get into every conversation I want to, but please call on me for support at any time. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 16:55, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Many thanks for the encouragement: I have been keeping it up this evening (UTC!). Your comments at this proposal were very valuable: it is so important at these discussions to have editors who look at all sides of the argument, and make general comments. In the meanwhile, the discussion has set my neurons firing and generated an idea: that WP:MoS is desperately lacking a WikiProject to oversee it, and consequently, too much discussion takes place on WT:MoS and coordination between this and talk at other style guidelines is very difficult to achieve. I made a fledgling post here and would be very interested to hear (either here or there) what you think. Geometry guy 22:04, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm delighted to hear I was helpful, thank you. I posted two comments, one in each section. I guess my basic reaction is that, on the one hand, you're right, these kind of problems are often tackled with a WikiProject. On the other hand, I'd kind of like to see evidence that people can solve this one problem...that is, stick with it until we all understand each other...before we all decide to debate these problems on a nightly basis. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 03:28, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Those comments were both helpful too and I commented further under one of them. Thanks for replying again here. Geometry guy 09:03, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Your appalling behaviour at MOS talk

BACK OFF, dude. Tony (talk) 00:17, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Wow! That was a knee-jerk response. I hope in due course, you may realise that you owe me an apology. Thanks, Geometry guy 00:32, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

PR

No problemo, I just archived 19 (I think) so that should help some, plus I chopped out the semi auto PR that had been copied over in one. Can go do that in another one too. Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 20:16, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

I got a list from Carl of the longest PRs. That should help me see which ones need to be pre-archived. Geometry guy 21:45, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

PR archive restructure grinds slowly onwards

OK, I've run a simple little regex in AWB through all pages touched by MelonBot, so I think I've fixed all current instances of the archiveN/archiveN bug (it even corrected the example you left on my talk page!). I also think/hope I've fixed the bug in the code so it won't recur, so I'll pile on through the rest of the wierd archives ASAP. Happy‑melon 21:31, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

That's good news. There were a whole load of user pages in one case: the bug really hit where it hurt with US.Roads articles on Interstate X. I'll try to keep an eye out for any further issues over the weekend. Meanwhile, about 1 in 5 new PRs require a move, so I will be happy when you move from the weird archives to sorting out the rest! Geometry guy 21:49, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes, that was a "Crazy epic boxing title number N" PR, which got incorporated into a project newsletter and spammed to literally hundreds of user talk pages. I remember sitting here when it was first doing the changes: I was trying to complete a really complicated four-way chronology swap about ten pages ahead (the script is an absolute pain to start and stop so I was trying to get the difficult one done manually without stopping the automated run) and I was glad it got caught up... at first... when it was still chugging through five minutes after I'd finished my manual work I kind of lost any appreciation for whoever decided to subst that newsletter :D! If I'd realised that it was spending five minutes creating errors rather than fixing them, I'd have been even less amused! I should have some time tomorrow to fire the script up again, anyway, so I can get chugging away. Happy‑melon 22:01, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Finished!!! I am so glad to have got that out the way. All the wierd archives should have been cleared up, but we need to have a trawl through looking for oddities before I can strip out all the checks and move everything that can't get out of the way fast enough to /archiveN:

• Anything with /Archive or any of the other archiving formats shouldn't exist any more, redirect or not. Any that are left need to be dealt with manually or they'll get moved to articlename/Archive N/archiveN!!
• There are a few pages that aren't reviews, but maintenance pages or other things that shouldn't be archived, so I need an exclude list. I've started one at User:MelonBot/PR/exclude, so if you notice any subpages that shouldn't be sent to archive, add them there.

I'll do my best to work through tomorrow, but if you have any free time, I'd be grateful for any assistance. Happy‑melon 22:26, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Cool: you need to exclude also WP:Peer review/Automated... stuff and WP:Peer review/Archive 1, WP:Peer review/Archive 2, WP:Peer review/Archive 3. I have a small amount of Wikitime tomorrow am (UTC) and tomorrow evening (UTC), so I will troubleshoot where I can. Geometry guy 22:36, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Okay, I went through the PR prefix index. You need to make sure you handle hard and soft (the latter usually GimmeBot) redirects. There are a couple of User pages. Watch out when you get to Xbox (or sort it out now). Please don't move WP:PR/guidelines or WP:PR/volunteers. Apart from this, the only issues I spotted are:

• Wikipedia:Peer_review/Singapore_(Archive)/archive1
• Wikipedia:Peer_review/Póvoa_de_Varzim2
• Wikipedia:Peer_review/National_Collegiate_Athletic_Association_(Philippines)/1
• Wikipedia:Peer_review/Music_of_Nigeria1
• Wikipedia:Peer_review/Mandan/October_2005
• Wikipedia:Peer_review/February_2006/Bath_School_Disaster
• Wikipedia:Peer_review/Azumanga_Daioh/1

Good luck. Geometry guy 23:49, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for sorting out most of these. I fixed the last two, and added a bunch of stuff to MelonBot's exclude page. Happy standardizing :-) Geometry guy 21:01, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Poorly worded?

Examples of how and where before you bandy about your attack on my wording .... Tony (talk) 23:13, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

In a nutshell: "prevails", which contributed to the unfortunate direction of the whole thread. Tony, if you read all my comments at WT:MoS you will a) find plenty of commentary which answers the above, and b) you will find that I am critical in several places of those who opposed the proposal without assuming good faith. I am not bandying anything about, or attacking anyone: I am engaging in process to attempt to find a solution that will satisfy all. Your apparent impression of me as a saboteur is unfortunate. I am not: I am, by nature, a problem-solver. Geometry guy 11:19, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Differential geometry

Hi Geometry Guy, I've done a couple of splits ("Differential geometry and topology" into "Differential geometry" and "Differential topology", forked out "Differential geometry of curves" from "Surface") and expansions/rearrangements of these articles and "Differential geometry of curves". Can you, please, take a look? As a distinguished member of the profession, you ought to :P Arcfrk (talk) 01:56, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Great, the first split in particular was long overdue. I'll take a look at the weekend. Geometry guy 10:18, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Sorry for the long delay. I had a closer look, and like the changes. I only had time to make a couple of tweaks to the DG one: there is clearly much more to do, but you've pointed these articles in the right direction, thanks! Geometry guy 20:18, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

GAR essay

Hi G-Guy, you seem to be quite established as the GAR “guru”, so I was wondering whether you’d take a look at my draft GAR-related essay (here: User:Elcobbola/Sandbox2) and offer any comments, criticism, input, etc. Thanks! Ɛƚƈơƅƅơƚɑ _talk 02:38, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for asking. I've only had time for a quick glance so far. I like the nutshell (apart from the "however minor", perhaps), but am not so sure about some of the text. I'll take a closer look at the weekend. Geometry guy 10:22, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

I've read this in more detail now, and I agree very much with the conclusion that nominators should be encouraged address reviewer concerns and renominate rather than taking fails to GAR. However, while I completely understand where you are coming from, I didn't completely agree with the arguments you employ to get to this conclusion. In particular, as you probably know, I like a GAR process which is sometimes able to fix articles. The goal of everyone here should be improving the encyclopedia, and the GA process should be viewed in that light. If an article can be improved and made into a GA by bringing it to GAR, then that is a good thing. However, we are all volunteers, and GAR should not be abused in an attempt to fix articles that need significant work by their regular editors. If you are still interested in taking this essay forward, it's possible that our somewhat different points of view could be exploited to create something which many editors would appreciate. Geometry guy 20:27, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Help with talk page moving

Hi GG, I've moved "Isoperimetry" to "Isoperimetric inequality" (over a redirect). However, the talk page didn't get moved, most likely, because there is already a non-empty (albeit trivial) talk page at the new location. Can you, please, effect your awesome administrative powers and move it manually? Thanks, Arcfrk (talk) 08:12, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Kitchen floor now shiny again. :-) Geometry guy 11:11, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, another request along these lines: Can you, please, delete the following useless redirect pages (with no incoming links)?

1. Isoperimetric Problem (redirect page)
2. Isoperimetric Inequality (redirect page)
3. Isoperimetric Theorem (redirect page)

I've made "Isoperimetric problem" into a disambiguation page, since there are multiple uses, even on Wikipedia. But I think it would be unwise to repeat the trick for all these alternate spellings (and you will see a few more in the list of pages linking to "Isoperimetric inequality" than can probably be safely deleted). Arcfrk (talk) 23:27, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

I deleted 1 and 3, but not 2 (for now). Geometry guy 21:13, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Newbies and Assessment

(copied at my userpage) I mentioned that I had questions about how to do assessment on newbie articles...all solved now. I didn't realize there are 160 active wikiprojects on science, engineering and technology...they had all the answers I needed. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 01:59, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Okay, good. For what its worth, I think self-assessment is a good idea at the Stub-Start-B level. If someone else labels your work as a Stub, it can be unencouraging, whereas if you label it so yourself, it feels more like: good, I made a decent stub, now lets see if I can flesh it out to Start class. It can also be more accurate, as good editors are often their own best/worst critics, if you see what I mean. Geometry guy 11:41, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

I do! - Dan Dank55 (talk) 12:23, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Help with Apollonius' problem?

Hey Geometry guy,

I just noticed that you were ensnarled in a rather hot debate at WP:MOS, but I'm proud of you for keeping your grace under fire, which unfortunately cannot be said of everyone there. :( It'd all be so much more efficient if people would just stick their tongues out at each other thusly :P and then get back to thinking and discussing. ;) Or perhaps Shakespeare? No, sir, I do not bite my thumb at you, sir, but I bite my thumb, sir! It seems to satisfy both WP:CIVIL and the law of Verona. ;)

I think I might've understood the Gergonne solution to Apollonius' problem, although I'm still a little hazy on why the lines connecting the six homothetic centers of the given circles happen to be the radical axes of the solution circles? I don't really see why the tangent points, e.g., B₂ and B₃, have to be homologous, I guess. Actually, if you could add something somewhere explaining all that and more generally about homothetic centers of circles and whatnot, that'd be really helpful. :)

I probably won't come back today, though. I have a lot of sewing to catch up on, now that I've finally fixed my recalcitrant machine — yeay! :) I've been working on it for weeks now, so that's a happy ending. Oh, and I found a cute pair of comfortable shoes for $7, can you believe it? I've been having very good luck these past few days. :) Ta ta, Willow (talk) 15:39, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

I have a great role model :-) The main problem is that the desire to move things forward leads to impatience. I made a mistake myself for essentially that reason. So I just repeat to myself "serenity is its own reward" :-)

I really like your idea to make a special exception to WP:CIVIL for insults in eloquent Shakespaerian language. Maybe I'll raise it at WT:CIVIL. Or maybe not.

The Gergonne solution looks pretty fearsome (or do I mean fiercesome?): I really hope I'll have more wikitime to think about such things soon: drop me line (aka, kick me up the backside) on Wednesday or Thursday. Meanwhile, where's the photo of said fantastic purchase? ;-) Geometry guy 20:57, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Hi G-guy

You're nice. :) And serenity is its own reward. :D The sewing went wonderfully; not perfectly, but it was lots of fun.

I think I'm beginning to understand the homothetic thing, but it still needs time to stew. I'd be grateful for any insights or pushes-in-the-right-direction you could give me; it's more fun figuring things out together, anyway, no? :)

Unfortunately, I haven't been that lucky and won the lottery; I'll have to start playing, though, to buy myself a camera. ;) I looked online but I haven't found a picture of the shoes yet; maybe you can? They're called Tabitha (in black) and they're made by Emergency Exit. Not the swankiest company, I know, but the shoes have these cute frills and some nice top-stitching, and they're pretty high wedges with a heel that tapers towards the back, which is a style I like. They have a little strap across the instep, slimmer and further forward than on a typical Mary Jane shoe. And they're comfy. :) They might not last as long as some, but I rarely wear out my, ummm, less casual shoes, anyway. At least now you can imagine them, even if we can't find a picture. :) A plus tard, Votre Eminence, Willow (talk) 21:53, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Your message put me in a very good mood. Thanks; it is; I'm glad; and I agree, I'm looking forward to joining in the fun. I think you have sussed the main reason for my italic sig: it looks slightly better on my talk page than Geometry guy (I am so important! :).

The shoes sound cute indeed, and at 7 dollars, I think you should wear them more often :-) Sorry this reply is a bit brief! As for a camera, isn't your Wiki-birthday coming up soon? Geometry guy 23:08, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

S Club PR questions

Hi Geometry guy, I archived a bunch of PR requests just now, including S Club. Since it has the no include tags, I was not sure what else to do there - could you please double check it? Thanks, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 01:47, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't think it matters: the noinclude comment can be deleted but the onlyinclude tags can be kept to prevent the review from being transcluded on the archive page, which is probably a good thing (or we may have archive pages breaking!). I've done that with this one. Cheers, Geometry guy 21:12, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

oldpeerreview

Oops, extra space foiled GimmeBot, which failed to botify the peer review.[2] Was that an anomoly, or are there possibly others? I'll let Gimmetrow know. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:02, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Yikes, there are others; I left a note for Gimmetrow.[3] SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:09, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

"It" awaits you...

"It" being The Cabal. Lara❤Love 05:10, 14 February 2008 (UTC) --END TRANSMISSION--

Long time no fusebox! The cite (site :) looks great. You may be amused to know that in the morning I do sometimes edit in a suitably rouge bathrobe. Alas, it is the cheesy grin and/or other approved facial expression which I can't manage. Ah well. Meanwhile what do you think of my own small attempt to add a bit of humour to wiki-life? Geometry guy 19:27, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

AfD discussion on Calyx surfaces

You may wish to comment on this AfD for Calyx surfaces. Cheers, Majoreditor (talk) 18:12, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

WikiProject MoS

So ... r u gonna do it? I think you have to submit a proposal somewhere, and garner five members. I don't think it will work without strong leadership, and if that's not going to be you, we don't have one. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:43, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't like to rush things. The strongest support I've had for this proposal has been from a private email saying WP:WPMoS was a great idea: editors at MoS have been distracted by recent events, and have not commented significantly on this idea. There is no point in taking forward the idea if editors at MoS don't support it. In particular, it needs your support, Tony's support, and the support of some subpage editors who didn't like the earlier proposal. I agree this needs some leadership: it is not clear to me that I am the person to provide such leadership, although I may be willing to try. I have been following MoS discussions for some time, and am aware of some of the issues, but I have not contributed very often, and have only recently contributed substantially: neutrality and experience are both valuable qualities in such a leadership role. I have only a little experience, and although I believe I have a good deal of neutrality, I don't think that is the perception of all involved at the moment.

My own view is that WP:WPMoS needs to have its aim and scope discussed at WT:MoS. At the moment such discussion is lacking, so it needs someone to initiate a thread on this. I would be happy to do that if no one else does, but I think we need to let the "what went wrong" discussions die down, and then see if something good can emerge. Geometry guy 20:17, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

I agree that timing is currently an issue, and letting some of the heat die down may help. But as to a leader, if not you, then who? SandyGeorgia (Talk) —Preceding comment was added at 20:21, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

I may not be the right person to ask! I think if it were purely a matter of coordination, I could do it: after Tony's gracious remarks, I may be unique in being accepted both by him and PMAnderson. But I think inclusiveness, more than leadership, is the key: there have been several editors, I think, who made helpful contributions to the recent discussions without specifically defending their own turf. Such editors need to be brought on board. Geometry guy 21:08, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

I'll re-review when I have time; right now, it's hard to remember who was neutral, helpful and impartial, since there was so much bashing going on. Also, not sure when Tony's "Real-Life Workload" meter will go down. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:11, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

MoS talk appears to have settled down a bit, so I've posted another comment suggesting starting a new thread on the idea. Today or tomorrow could be a good time to start such a thread. Geometry guy 17:27, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

See my talk page, also. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:33, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I saw, but thanks for the reply and for all your efforts to smooth waters and move the WP:MoS issue forwards. Geometry guy 17:40, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

So, we now have issues at WP:TRIVIA, another ongoing situation at WP:GTL, as well as the earlier cited examples at WP:MOSNUM and elsewhere, and no coordinated means of working this out. Still worried, though, about Tony's "real life word load" meter on his talk page. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:43, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

(←) Wikipedia has lots of disputes. It also has a lot of good editors. We cannot solve every problem ourselves in a day, and I don't think that the WP:WPMoS will solve every issue. I do think it would help a lot however! Tony's workload was more of a concern when he was under attack, and was sending a lot of messages to user talk. Now the attacks have abated and MoS talk has settled down, I imagine he will focus more on providing the input from a professional copyeditor that has been a major force in making WP:MoS the high quality guideline that it is. Geometry guy 18:05, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

PR archives... again

Hehehe - that's brilliant!! The reason for that mistake is that MelonBot isn't reading that raw list (partly for security reasons, mainly because it'd require some messy code to parse into a python-readable format), but a hardcoded list which I forgot to add Feb 08 to! You notice it successfully excluded all the other /Automated/ archives (it's at Characters of Final Fantasy X and X-2 at the moment), so it was just human error. The edit to the exclude page is, however, an absolute gem! Happy‑melon 16:52, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

The latest restart (I only get statistics on restart) shows 4,232 articles to go... I just had to untangle it from a really messy one: Wikipedia:Peer review/Characters of Final Fantasy X and X-2 was linked to from a todo list which was translcuded into {{WikiProject Video games}}, which was then transcluded onto no less than twenty thousand articles! So it was crawling hundreds if not thousands of talk pages looking for a link that was hidden in a template the whole time, and corrupting a load of {{oldpeerreview}} templates while it was at it: thank god for rollback!!. Happy‑melon 16:56, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

I thought you might appreciate that edit! Good luck reverting this MelonBot vandal. Meanwhile, I'll try and fix some archive anomalies myself. Geometry guy 17:26, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Sure...

...you're sick of it all, but here:

		The Working Man's Barnstar
		Everywhere I browse I see your housekeeping edits. Keep up the fantastic work that wouldn't be done without you doing it! The Rambling Man (talk) 20:17, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Many thanks. I asked for the mop in order to clean, but notes like this are what make Wikipedia a special place. Much of my housekeeping is alas self-inflicted. In this vein, I'm having trouble fixing the links at WP:WikiProject Football. There still seems to be a link to WP:Peer review/History of York City F.C., which needs to link to one of the two archives: any idea where it is or which archive it should link to? Geometry guy 20:27, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Found it and fixed it! Geometry guy 21:43, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Edit link at FAC-instructions

Ugh, why the edit link? Afraid that will affect stability there. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:52, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

It is a fairly standard practice to provide edit links like this. It took me a couple of attempts to find the correct name (why the hyphen and why is this in template space?). However, if you have stability concerns, feel free to remove the edit link: it was not the main point of my edit. Geometry guy 15:57, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

I'd rather remove it if you don't mind. I'm not sure about the template thing, I see Raul set it up that way? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:22, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't mind at all, but why not wait and see if the link causes instability? This is after all, a wiki, and making it difficult for editors to contribute without good reason seems to me to go against its spirit: didn't you say "perhaps someone can phrase it better" in a recent edit summary? Well, if that someone can't figure out how to edit the header, they won't be able to help!

Concerning the namespace, the usual reason why things like this were put in template space time ago was that editors didn't realise that information can be transcluded from any namespace, not just template space. For headers like this, the obvious place to put them is a subpage, e.g. WP:Featured article candidates/header. However moving it now won't achieve very much, so I'm not proposing any change. Geometry guy 16:34, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Want to do a dispatch?

Wikipedia_talk:Featured_article_candidates#Dispatch_encore. If you're interested... Marskell (talk) 18:46, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Oh, and User:Ral315 is the guy to ping if you do write one. Cheers, Marskell (talk) 18:47, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

"If it is about PR changes I can probably help..." As I said at WT:FAC, just a paragraph desribing the technical changes would be great. If you can do it today, we can have a dispatch ready tomorrow. Cheers, Marskell (talk) 16:30, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Karanacs has written something, so we're good for this week. Let's write something on PR for next week. Marskell (talk) 18:45, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

I won't be much around until late Sunday afternoon UTC, but I expect it is best to focus on the volunteers list, which has been the main success, and you don't need my input there! The page is now subdivided into topics and largely automated. Such ideas (especially automation) could have an impact in other places, but they are still in their early days. Geometry guy 22:46, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Peer Review Mystery

Hello G-guy. I've been recommended to you by SandyGeorgia concerning a query I have about my article Discovery Expedition which I sent for peer review a few days ago. The Peer Review page seems to have changed its format from yesterday and I can't find the listing of my article. Is something going on? Brianboulton (talk) 21:56, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

It seems someone (and it could be me) has inadvertantly added the entire Peer review page to the Category:Arts peer reviews which has screwed up the entire page. It may take a little while to figure out what on earth has happened. Geometry guy 22:10, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

I've found the culprit now: it wasn't me, but User:Jamie jca. When I calm down, I will try to figure out ways to make the system more robust against such mistakes. In the meantime, I encourage editors to add polite abuse to User talk:Jamie jca :-) Geometry guy 22:35, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Or not. Jamie jca (talk) 23:08, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Hmmm, yes, maybe my own abuse of trout sufficed :-) Geometry guy 23:18, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, it was obvious, I just didn't want loadsa insults on my talk page. Thanks for the trout lol. Jamie jca (talk) 23:24, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks everyone for sorting it out, and if anyone would like to comment on my article that would be double-plus-good Brianboulton (talk) 23:23, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

LOL, look what I started :-) Whack, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:25, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm glad we're all enjoying this! I will try to figure out how to avoid this mistake crashing the system! Until then, I'm looking forward to dishing out the fish :-) :-) Geometry guy 23:29, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

hi

No problem; I'm sure I support your proposal, although I haven't read the large amount of discussion on it at MOS talk. Until 7 March things are crazy here with clients, so I just drop in once a day and do little. Tony (talk) 13:50, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Good luck with that. I'm pretty busy myself, but hope to take this forward in a day or two. Geometry guy 22:04, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Drive by delists

These have not vanished from Wikipedia; they've simply migrated to WP:FAR, which is going through the pointless exercise of observing that

• such and such an article, FA in 2004, has copious good sources, but they're not divided up into "in-line citations"
• the chief author is no longer watching, has left Wikipedia, or is simply not motivated to engage in such leaf-raking exercises,

and therefore taking away the little brass star. I am going to complain on WT:FAR; if you can persuade the regulars to accept a compromise, so much the better. If that doesn't work, I am considering stronger measures. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 14:56, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Stronger measures! Yikes! Marskell (talk) 16:28, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

On looking it over, it appears to be only a handful of irresponsible FARs, which I have objected to individually. I believe that one of them is a South African editor trying to keep an article which embarasses him politically off the front page. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:12, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

There have been some issues with older FAs. I opened an FAR for Galileo for example. But I agree this should not be used to promote agendas, and that it is preferable to fix old FAs rather than bin them. The FAR/FARC system encourages exactly that. Geometry guy 22:10, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Herpes zoster

About a month ago, you delisted the GA. Now that all the kerfuffle has died down, I'm trying to fix it, and get it read (one more time) for FAC. But for the life of me, I cannot find anything that would justify the delisting. It may have deserved, I don't know, but usually there is a list of reasons, which can be addressed in order. Can you point me to it? It's not on the Discussion page, nor is it in any commentary with regards to the GA delisting. Thanks for your help. OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 18:49, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Hi, I didn't delist personally, I just closed the good article reassessment discussion. The ArticleHistory template at the top of the page provides a link. Does that answer your query? Good luck with FAC. Geometry guy 22:03, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Ah, I just remembered we discussed this before, so you were already referring to the GAR discussion. It's not usual to provide lists of issues after GAR discussions are closed: the hope is that the discussion itself is helpful in suggesting improvements. In this case, it seems it wasn't. Geometry guy 19:47, 20 February 2008 (UTC)