User talk:Paine Ellsworth/Archive 4

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Archive 1

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(Continued discussion Re.: Template:Infobox Former Country)

Resolved

— ^.`^) Paine Ellsworth ^diss`cuss (^^`. 07:56, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

I just found a fix for this problem, but I don't have the power to edit this template. Can somebody help me?
— ^.`^) Paine Ellsworth ^diss`cuss (^^`. 06:14, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

It's a fully protected template. Put a {{editprotected}} tag on the template talk page to make an edit request, assuming that the change is not controversial or has consensus. The tag documentation has more specific instructions. Tim Song (talk) 06:28, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Thank you so much, Tim Song... it is done.

— ^.`^) Paine Ellsworth ^diss`cuss (^^`. 06:44, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Discussion from Template Talk page

Ref: Template talk:Infobox Former Country#Disappearing flags

I have taken the liberty of moving your sandbox code to the correct place Template:Infobox Former Country/sandbox. There is also a comparison of the two templates on Template:Infobox Former Country/testcases. Feel free to use these standard subpages in future.

Well done for getting your hands dirty and trying to fix this template! As for the request itself, it seems not so straightforward. On Internet Explorer, your new version looks much better as you say. However on Firefox, I have to say that the current version looks better. So perhaps the best fix has not been found yet. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:56, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Thank you so much, Martin! I was wondering what it might look like in other browsers like Firefox. I just tweaked the widths to 95%, which still looks good in IE7. How does the 95% appear in your Firefox?

— ^.`^) Paine Ellsworth ^diss`cuss (^^`. 02:33, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

PS. In case you're wondering which widths are involved, I've nowiki'd the source section into my sandbox. The two width's that adjust those flag columns are highlighted in bronze.

To briefly recap: I happened across this template on the Austria-Hungary page. In my IE7 browser, the "Succeeded by" flags toward the bottom of the template are almost invisible. They are cut off on the right. I troubleshot this template and found a fix (in IE7). Having received no answer from the above editor, I would like someone with a Firefox browser to confirm that the template found at Template:Infobox Former Country/testcases, the one on the right, is acceptable in Firefox. Specifically, is the flag section toward the bottom of the template acceptable? If it is, then it's time for an administrator to make the two small changes that will fix the Template:Infobox Former Country. You will find the bottom part of the code nowikified on this page, and the two widths that must be altered are highlighted in bronze on that page. Thank you very much in advance for a speedy solution to this problem!
— ^.`^) Paine Ellsworth ^diss`cuss (^^`. 17:41, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Running Firefox 2.0.0.14 on Linux, and the flags on the right (13 of them) all look complete to me. Hope that helps. W.stanovsky (talk) 05:37, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

That's great, W.stanovsky! Now all we need is an administrator to make the two width changes in the template. Thank you very much!

— ^.`^) Paine Ellsworth ^diss`cuss (^^`. 06:42, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Done. Please let me know of any problems. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 17:09, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Thank you again, Martin. Now, I'm not sure what's happening, not sure if it's because of my inexperience or what, but something very weird seems to going on. The first thing I did was to check a few pages in namespace. I checked three articles, Austria-Hungary, German Empire and Nazi Germany, and the flags are still cut off. So I copied the infobox templates from the German Empire and Nazi Germany to the Template:Infobox Former Country/testcases page, and on that page both of these templates were okay – all the flags are visible. What the heck am I doing wrong? It's as if there are two {{Template: Infobox Former Country}} templates – one that works for the testcases page, and another that gets called by the articles in namespace. I don't get it.

~~— ^.`^) Paine Ellsworth ^diss`cuss (^^`. 05:57, 11 September 2009 (UTC)~~

PS. I thought that maybe somehow the articles in namespace were calling a cached version of the template, so I logged out, cleaned it up and rebooted. I checked the same three articles and the flags are still cut off, but only in namespace, not on the testcases page. What's up with that?

I just used the Purge function on the three article pages and it worked. All is copacetic!

— ^.`^) Paine Ellsworth ^diss`cuss (^^`. 06:52, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

(out) Okay, Martin, I've checked several articles that use this template. All look fine with one exception, the Second Polish Republic. I've placed this one in Template:Infobox Former Country/testcases and tried altering just the 2nd width command. I tried 94% and 93%, but had to go to 92% to get the best image in IE7. If that looks okay in FireFox, then please make this change to the Template:Infobox Former Country.
— ^.`^) Paine Ellsworth ^diss`cuss (^^`. 07:26, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

{{editprotected}}
This problem is almost resolved, however there is still at least one instance (perhaps more than one) on the Second Polish Republic page where the lower flags are only partially visible in Internet Explorer 7. They are still cut off to the right. To fix this, the second width, as shown by the sandbox version on the Template:Infobox Former Country/testcases page was decreased from 95% to 92%. There are two widths that have previously been adjusted by an administrator, and they can be found nowiki'd in this sandbox highlighted in bronze. The first width near the top can be left alone. If you scroll down to the 2nd width highlighted in bronze, that is the width that needs to be changed slightly to 92%. The trick is to ensure that the alteration is also viable across browsers, for example in FireFox. If it still looks good in FireFox, then this one more slight decrease to the 2nd width in Template:Infobox Former Country ought to completely resolve this problem. Thank you very much!
— ^.`^) Paine Ellsworth ^diss`cuss (^^`. 12:13, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Yo Paine, could you either update the sandbox so that all that needs doing is sync'ing the template with it, or explicitly identify the added code needed and what it is intended to replace? Danke, Skomorokh 19:45, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Hi, Skomorokh! I just changed the second width in my sandbox, and of course the 2nd width is already down to 92% in the Template:Infobox Former Country/sandbox, so that when you see the box on the right in Template:Infobox Former Country/testcases, the flags toward the bottom of the box are fully visible. Thank you so much for your help. Can you tell if that second box (in "/testcases) looks okay in FireFox?

— ^.`^) Paine Ellsworth ^diss`cuss (^^`. 04:23, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

PS. The code is toward the bottom. In my sandbox toward the left side I have highlighted in blue all of the "image_p#" codes, as well as the single "image_s1" on that page. The width to be changed from 95% to 92% is in the code between "image_p15" and "image_s1" lines, and it is highlighted in bronze.

(out) Skomorokh? Martin? Where did ya'll go? Is there anybody around who can check the sandbox version in FireFox and help us put this one to bed?
— ^.`^) Paine Ellsworth ^diss`cuss (^^`. 20:49, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Aloha, sorry haven't been monitoring help requests in the past few days. I'm afraid I am not very template-literate and so am not an ideal admin to be handling this, but seeing as there's no one else at hand I'll give it a shot. I'm not sure exactly what I am supposed to be looking for, but I can't detect any major visual differences between the boxes in /testcases in Firefox 3.5.3. The small flags are consistently formatted, nothing appears cut off; I can probably find a way to take a screenshot if you like. Shall I go ahead and replace Template:Infobox Former Country with http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Infobox_Former_Country/sandbox&oldid=313148167 ? Skomorokh 19:12, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

(stick the editrequested tag back up if you're happy with it). Skomorokh 20:02, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, thank you, Skomorokh! There is a diff in IE7: The flags toward the bottoms of the templates show differently. The flags in the template on the left are about 1/2 cut off to the right (they go off the template). The flags on the right are shown much better and are only just barely cut off on the right. So yes, the sandbox version of the template is ready to replace the existing working version. Thank you so much for your help in this!
— ^.`^) Paine Ellsworth ^diss`cuss (^^`. 00:10, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

No problem, done. Thanks for your interest, and sorry it took so long to sort out. Skomorokh 00:38, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Don't give it a second thought; there was no hurry. I'm just glad to see that all the flags are now fully visible for readers. Thank you so much for your help!

— ^.`^) Paine Ellsworth ^diss`cuss (^^`. 07:52, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Resolved

— ^.`^) Paine Ellsworth ^diss`cuss (^^`. 07:56, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Account

You're welcome. I'm glad to help whenever I can. Actually, I do have an account (User:SWAdair) but rarely log in any more. Most of my edits now are anonymous, just because I don't take the time to log in. Thank you for taking the time to leave me that note. Have a great day. 152.16.59.102 (talk) 08:28, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Another Tfd

Once again the Charmed template I've been laboring over is up for deletion.
— ^.`^) Paine Ellsworth ^diss`cuss (^^`. 11:42, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Update. The template was deleted today. It can be found userfied at this location, and I have Wikitable-ized the template information and have added it to the List_of_Charmed_characters#Timetable article and section.

— ^.`^) Paine Ellsworth ^diss`cuss (^^`. 02:50, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Sandbox in userspace

Pursuant to your comment here, you could also have created the template in your userspace first as a way around the problem of editing the live version. When you were happy with it, just move the code over the old page (with talkpage consent, of course) and {{db-author}} the sandbox. Anyway, happy editing. - 2/0 (cont.) 21:10, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, that's what I did 2/0, I created it in my sandbox and then created the page Template:Charmed Companions. As I also mentioned at the link you provided above from the first deletion attempt, I didn't care for the old name of the template, which was "Charmedcompanions". I suppose I could have moved it, but that's a toss-up since an administrator ended up moving it, anyway. Thank you so much for your input!

— ^.`^) Paine Ellsworth ^diss`cuss (^^`. 01:35, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

re: Skip to TOC template

Sorry, that was an accident, when I accessed the talk page, i accessed by clicking on the link of the differences between the edition in my watchlist before you add that template, and I ve checking others changes in other tabs before comment in the talk:Brasil, I forgot that when we click in the edit button in a page showing the differences between edition, we edit the content of that revision instead of the actual revision, was my fault and I will input again.
Luizdl (talk) 21:16, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

WoW!

COPY from Plastikspork's talk page for future reference:

I just noted on my watchlist that you appear to have manually deleted the {{Charmed Companion}} template from all the pages it was on. I realize that, while it probably took a fairly significant amount of time, it probably wasn't so bad as it could have been. Is there a bot for the larger lists? or do they also have to be done manually when a template is deleted?
— ^.`^) Paine Ellsworth ^diss`cuss (^^`. 04:20, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

I usually write a short script if there is more than a dozen transclusions, or if the edit is somewhat complicated. In this particular case, I was on the phone and the task was relatively mindless. This partially contributes to the 3000 edits per month You should check the edit history of my AWB account, User:Plasticspork, if you want to see some mindless automated editing. That account typically racked up over 16000 edits last month, which is mostly TFD (and template merging) related cleanup. We used to have an editor, Erik9, who ran an actual bot to do the work, but he was banned for sockpuppetry. If I don't have the time to sort it out, I usually just drop it in WP:TFD/H and see if someone picks it up. Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 04:29, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

So, when you say you "write a short script", this is like a temporary bot? (Sorry, I'm not a programmer, so much of the behind-the-scenes items are foreign to me, yet I still remain curious.) I'm glad, though, that there are ways to make the job easier for you. From the outside it looks quite teejus.

— ^.`^) Paine Ellsworth ^diss`cuss (^^`. 05:50, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

It's a script which adds a tab to the top of the page which will automatically perform a particular editing task on that page. For example, I you can check out WP:AutoEd, which is a script which performs basic clean up edits. I keep a very short variant of AutoEd in my own userspace which I modify each time I have a new task to perform. If the task involves more than 50 pages, I usually use Autowiki Browser, which also uses similar "regular expressions" or pattern-based edits. The difference is that it runs a bit faster and can be set to run in a semi-supervised mode, so it reduces the amount of clicking. Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 05:58, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for the effort, Mr. P, but it all "looks Greek" to me <g>. I suppose one needs some prerequisite instruction that I have not learned. I'm just glad that the tools are available for those who know how to use them.

— ^.`^) Paine Ellsworth ^diss`cuss (^^`. 16:54, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

New message

Hello, Paine Ellsworth. You have new messages at Debresser's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Archived: User talk:Debresser/Archive 4#Merge discussion for Template:Anglophone states

At your (p)leisure

White BARBARIAN— to read at your (p)leisure! [From The Wikipedia Signpost: 28 September 2009]
— ^.`^) Paine Ellsworth ^diss`cuss (^^`. 10:07, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Falkland Islands

Any particular reason for the self-revert? I thought it a constructive edit. Regards, Justin talk 14:59, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Hiya, Justin! You must be talking about the Coord template? At first I thought it was constructive, but then I learned that they're still working on that template. They've been able to repair it enough so that the coordinates will appear within a Template group in the "simple" skin (which I edit in), but I found out after adding it that the coordinates still don't appear in the "monobook" skin (which general readers have to use to read Wikipedia). I'm not sure about other skins yet, as I haven't checked them, but the monobook skin is the most important. As soon as they get the Coord template working in monobook skin I'll add it back in. That's why I left some of the info commented out. Thank you very much for your compliment!

— ^.`^) Paine Ellsworth ^diss`cuss (^^`. 15:17, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Okay, I've had a chance to check and the only problem seems to be the "display=" parameter. When this is set equal to "title", then the coordinates can only be seen in the "myskin" and "simple" skins. They will not appear in all the other skins including monobook. However, if the "display=" parameter is set equal to "inline", then the coordinates show up in all the skins. There is only one small problem and that is the "Coordinates:" link just before the globe that links to Geographic coordinate system. When "inline" is used, that link does not appear. All you get is the globe and the coordinates. Of course, the link could be added in manually, but if the {{coord}} template is ever fixed correctly, the manual addition might become redundant and have to be removed from all the articles it's in. It's probably better under the circumstances not to worry about that link. So I shall add the {{coord}} template back into the Template group as soon as I do a little more research. Thanks again, Justin!

— ^.`^) Paine Ellsworth ^diss`cuss (^^`. 18:00, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Proposed delinking

I just had the following conversation on this talk page about the {{PDFlink}} template. Now, try to imagine a template called "PDFlink" that absolutely refuses to contain the PDF link? 'Twould be hilarious if it weren't so sad...

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

I propose this template be altered so "PDF" is not a wikilink. Everyone knows what a PDF is—it's as ubiquitous as DOC. We don't need the link, which creates a sea of blue in References sections of articles that use a lot of PDFs. --Andy Walsh (talk) 18:16, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Support In the rare case that a reader doesn't know, we still have the search box. Dabomb87 (talk) 19:24, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Support I actually been delinking some of the hard links with PDFbot. — Dispenser 19:29, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Support For the reasons stated, and also because a link works effectively as some kind of highlighting. In this case it's like highlighting page wherever it occurs in a reference. Or like highlighting et al., which we do, but not because it's good for it to be highlighted but for consistency (as it's Latin). Since PDF is also in capitals, we even have the effect of a double highlighting – quite ugly, and detracts from the real information in the vicinity that isn't highlighted at all, or only by italics. Hans Adler 20:46, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Okay, no one has commented in about a week (not like anyone watches this template) or offered an objection, so I'm going to go ahead and make the change. --Andy Walsh (talk) 20:59, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Well, I just came across it for the first time in Robert E. Lee (steamboat)#External links, and my second thought was I better come over here and see why there is no link to PDF in this template! My first thought was what about all those thousands of new readers each year/month/week to the Internet who don't have a clue about what a PDF is? Andy, I'd like to see some reliable verification of the assumption that "Everyone knows what a PDF is . . ."
— ^.`^) Paine Ellsworth ^diss`cuss (^^`. 10:58, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Well, perhaps not literally everybody knows what a PDF is, but surely we need to draw the line somewhere. PDF is the #1 standard for distributing print-ready content on the web. Readers who don't understand what is meant by "PDF" will run into lots of similar problems at Wikipedia and elsewhere. They can resolve them by Googling for "PDF" or, if unable to do so, asking someone. This is quite similar to the situation with "ZIP code" in the settlement infobox at New York City. It doesn't link to ZIP code, and it shouldn't, even though the term is not used outside the US and is therefore potentially confusing to most Europeans. Every single link has a benefit (unless it's misleading), but also a cost because it distracts from the text and from other links. Links for common expressions such as "PDF" or "ZIP code" have a very low benefit/cost ratio and should therefore be avoided. Hans Adler 12:05, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Okay, let me see if I have this straight... you know it's not literally everybody, yet you still don't know where the line must be, or even should be, drawn. You have offered no figures to support either that we need to draw the line here at the PDF link or anywhere else for that matter. Instead, you suggest that whenever we have the choice between being crystal clear to all possible segments of Wikipedia readership and concerning ourselves with "benefit/cost" rationalizations, we should send our readers to Google or someplace else??? Um, I really don't think this is what Mike and Jimbo have in mind for where Wikipedia should be in five years, do you? You need to add the PDF link back in if you want the template to be used more widely. I certainly don't intend to use it in its present form. Instead, I'll continue to add PDF reference citations manually with the PDF links.

— ^.`^) Paine Ellsworth ^diss`cuss (^^`. 14:05, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

So please be aware that if you use that template, the PDF link template, there is no link to Wikipedia's PDF article that would explain to new readers and Internet users what "PDF" means or refers to.
— ^.`^) Paine Ellsworth ^diss`cuss (^^`. 14:05, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Hey! There's more!...

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Sorry, you are not being convincing. It's notoriously hard to quantify such questions, and the claim that one is not allowed to distinguish between brainiacs and idiots, between hot and cold, between men and women etc. because there is no clear demarcation (yes, even in the latter case, what with people with XXY chromosomes, or with XX in one half of their body and XY in the other, and many similar rare but not so extremely rare phenomena) – this claim is a relatively effective rhetorical trick but not a logical argument. Linking "PDF" is a very clear case of overlinking because it clearly hurts much more than it helps. If you think that linking comes completely free, having only advantages and no disadvantages, with no trade-offs involved, then you are being naïve. It's very unlikely that you are going to help anybody with these links. On the other hand, they are obviously distracting from the important information. It's a bit like rewriting a text so that every 'hard' word (according to some person's standards) is replaced by a long circumlocution. This doesn't make a text easier to understand, it ensures that nobody can understand it without a great deal of concentration. Hans Adler 14:32, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

I don't have to be "convincing". I'm not the one with a spiffy template that is almost useless without the right tools. Those who know what a PDF is simply won't click on the link, and those who don't know what a PDF is would have the link right there to "'splain it to them, Lucy". I just won't use the template. What you're not getting here is that all the concentration in the Universe will come to nothing without the prerequisite information needed to support the concentration. I can lead you to water, but I cannot make you drink. Best of everything to you and yours!

— ^.`^) Paine Ellsworth ^diss`cuss (^^`. 14:43, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

PS. Wikipedia gets clicked on 6 million times a week these days. That's about three times the clicks that Britannica gets. Do you really think we got to this point by making it more difficult for readers?

What you are not getting is that if you write all the personal pronouns in a text in green, underline every second word and add an Albanian translation, you are making it much harder to read, except perhaps for a few Albanian speakers. What you want to do is very similar. Linking a commonplace abbreviation such as "PDF" is eccentric and needs justification. Hans Adler 15:18, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Well here is what my "naivety" tells me, Hans... Let's just say you're right. Let's suppose that in all the world, there is only one person who does not know what PDF means. So what is everybody else going to do if they come across a link in a reference to Wikipedia's PDF article? They'll ignore it, won't they? Why should they click on that link if they already know what a PDF is? So where's the "cost"? The "cost" you suggest is that all those useful internal Wikipedia links should be delinked because they're "distracting"? Who precisely is being "distracted"? I stopped editing for awhile earlier today because a song kept going through my head. It was sang by Mickey Rooney and that, um, Wizard of Oz girl, um Judy Garland, and also by Al Jolson. Titled Waiting for the Robert E. Lee., I found it on the Al Jolson page. It wasn't linked, so I did a WP search but only found the general's article and the one on the steamboat, which the song was all about. Anyway, the lede in the steamboat article needed improvement, so I went back to editing. One of the links was "general" and linked to "General (United States)". So how many people do you suppose do not know what "general" means in a military context, such as General Robert E. Lee? The word has a "global" usage, so even a French person or a Brazilian citizen would most likely know what a "general" is and would probably not click on the link (I say "probably" because even people who know what "general" means might want more detailed information about generals). Where's the cost? Distraction? What is so distracting? The different color of the letters? or maybe the underlining? What? There is nothing distracting to those who know what a general is and who will then ignore the link and go on reading. The only cost I see is the cost to those few (or in some cases many) readers who do not know the meaning of whatever is being linked to. The cost to them if the word or phrase isn't linked is that now they have to drop everything and go to Google or pick up a dictionary; they have to find some other reference to learn what they need to know to fully understand what they're reading. That's the only cost I can see. If the word is linked, even a word like "general" or an abbreviation like PDF, then the reader doesn't have to hunt for another reference, but instead, the reader can deftly click on a Wikipedia link and get the information immediately. There is distraction only to those who do not know what something means, and that distraction is greatly lessened by the fact that they can click on a link and immediately find what they need. That – in my naivety – is the only cost I see. The "cost" you describe just doesn't exist. But the cost to readers who are trying to understand our encyclopedia, and who have to reach for a different reference every five minutes to do so, can also be a high cost to Wikipedia.

Not all readers are as smart, or as wise or as savvy as the editors of this work. Some are just kids in maybe a secondary, or even a primary school. Some are reading in English as a second or third language. Some are really smart but are new to the Internet. Try to see this issue from their perspective. They might only need to use the link once, just one time, and they'll know all there is to know about PDF and never need to click on such a link again. But they were not the first to need that link... and they won't be the last.

— ^.`^) Paine Ellsworth ^diss`cuss (^^`. 16:44, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

In an article about a military topic, the rank "general" may well be on-topic and worth linking. (I am not saying it always is, because it isn't.) In an article on the same topic a link for "PDF" is definitely off-topic. It seems you simply don't know what you are talking about. Ignoring something takes a significant effort, and finding relevant information gets significantly harder if irrelevancies are highlighted all over the place. Just like finding a needle in a haystack gets significantly harder if the haystack contains crying babies, couples embracing each other, cute little kittens and several thousand postage stamps from all over the world. What you are trying to do is supply the stamps to the haystack in case a collector happens to come along. Hans Adler 17:57, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Some people seem to want to be "invincible", when all they really are is "unconvincible". Headstrong is good, don't get me wrong. But when you cut down the trees to save the forest, what's wrong with that picture? He says that he thinks that I believe that an indiscriminate link to PDF is on-topic. What he doesn't see is that in a template called "PDFlink" such a link is not in an indiscriminate place, but instead it's in a place where it very well could be needed by readers. The Wikipedia PDF link in and of itself is never really relevant to any particular article's subject. It is, however, highly relevant when someone goes to click on an

http://anywhere.com/anyfile.pdf url

and who hasn't a clue what he's getting into. These people would benefit from Wikipedia's PDF link. That editor seems to think these people are as rare as oxygen on Mars. And yet he can present no evidence to verify this claim. I'm done with that clueless editor. And I sincerely hope he doesn't do too much damage. Wikilinks such as the one we've been fighting over, the PDF link, are a significant part of what makes Wikipedia different and spectacular... and popular!
I could be wrong.
— ^.`^) Paine Ellsworth ^diss`cuss (^^`. 17:11, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

NRM

Paine, I started a thread at the talk page beacause the rationale for including that phrase isn't clear to me. Regards.PelleSmith (talk) 00:58, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

The need for a context in the lead seems obvious to me... Hyper3 (talk) 21:48, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Apparently not so for others, Hyper3. The reason others think its not needed is also obvious. There is only one context, that of academia. With only one context, then why does it need to be mentioned? It is mentioned, just not in the first sentence.

— ^.`^) Paine Ellsworth ^diss`cuss (^^`. 04:48, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

File:Gnome-globe.svg

Can you please stop adding File:Gnome-globe.svg to Geographic locale templates as per Wikipedia:ICONDECORATION 86.42.82.246 (talk) 17:56, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

You're probably aware that I am not the only one who adds the globe to the Geographic locale Navbar. And I honestly cannot understand why you don't see the good of the globe. Especially among several Navbars, each serving a purpose, the GL Navbar is lost among them without the globe. When readers see the globe they readily know it's a Geographic locale Navbar, so it doesn't get lost among all the other Navbars. And the Wikilink you provide appears to support the addition of the globe under certain conditions, and adding the globe to the GL Navbar seems to be one of those conditions. Out of all the many pages I've seen this template with the globe on it, and out of all the few pages I've added the globe myself, I am curious as to why you would not want the globe added. Please remember that you are the only one who has asked this of me. This is why I'm curious. The globe serves a purpose for readers. Why would you not want it added?

— ^.`^) Paine Ellsworth ^diss`cuss (^^`. 19:06, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

All the reason as outline as the mos I linked to but the most relevant point is Icons should not be added only because they look good, because aesthetics are in the eye of the beholder: one reader's harmless decoration may be another reader's distraction but the choice is yours.86.42.82.246 (talk) 23:38, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

I just recently started adding the globe, 86, and I had noticed that it was already on most of the Geographic locale Navbars I'd seen. There are really just a few that don't have it. When I first saw it, I thought it was a good idea, because it is more than just an aesthetic addition. The globe and the "Geographic locale" go together like pudding and whipped cream. I do respect your opinion, 86, and yet I have to go with the many other people who like the combination. Frankly, I don't feel all that strongly about it, so if there is any particular page where you would like to see the globe removed from the Geographic locale Navbar, I certainly won't edit war with you if you remove it.

— ^.`^) Paine Ellsworth ^diss`cuss (^^`. 05:30, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Templates for speedy deletion

So far today, I've had to put up two templates for speedy deletion, this'un, {{African topic}}, and this'un, {{European topic}}. (See my sandbox.)
— ^.`^) Paine Ellsworth ^diss`cuss (^^`. 19:06, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

The Tfd's I posted were both reverted. See below at #Demonym-affixing templates for further discussion.
— ^.`^) Paine Ellsworth ^diss`cuss (^^`. 04:54, 28 October 2009 (UTC)