User talk:Thumperward/Archive 59

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Infobox football biography

Just out of curiosity...Once User:Petan-Bot has finished the deprecated parameters run, is the plan to remove said parameters from the template to prevent them creeping back in to multiple articles due to well meaning editors not realising things are no longer as they were?--ClubOranje^T 11:13, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Yep. There's still some resistance to this from a few editors, but I think that will wither when 100% of our biographies use the new formatting. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 17:31, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

2 templates

Hi, any chance you can make the following 2 templates, Template:Infobox LDS biography and Template:Infobox Canada electoral district less bulky? Thanks, Connormah (talk) 01:12, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Sorry for the (huge) delay. The LDS template is mostly normal now and the code should be simple to work with in future. The Canada one is still a bit of a mess, but it's a little more readable internally and a little more consistent externally. I'd have to dive into some pretty hairy conditional code to improve it further, and chances are it'll end up being merged into a more general template in the long run anyway. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 18:37, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, much appreciated. Connormah (talk) 00:50, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

Electoral district test cases

For what it's worth, I think I like your changes to the infobox; reducing the size of the party colour bar next to the incumbent MP's name is an especially good idea, because it's far too intrusive under the current design. Bearcat (talk) 01:24, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. I've redeployed these changes, seeing as nobody else seems to be able to reproduce the problem Noname2 alluded to. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 10:41, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

Template:Infobox cemetery

Hi, do you remember you said that you'd take a look at Infobox:Cemetery? We would much appreciate your skills to sort out the formatting of the 'gravesite' attribute. (Or is there somewhere we can learn how to do it ourselves?) Thanks. Ephebi (talk) 13:37, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

The last time I looked at the talk page it still wasn't clear that there was consensus on exactly what edits should be made. I'll try to have a look again soon. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) - talk 11:10, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

Hi, I think we are agreed now. Best regards Ephebi (talk) 07:57, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

I've (finally) done this. Please follow up on the template talk page. Cheers! Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) - talk 08:06, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

arther watson

I would like to point out to you that Arther Watson was mixed race.Just who the hell do you think you are telling me, a mixed race person that Arther was black. He was mixed race and I will continue to change his page until you white people acknowledge that the world is not just black and white. How dare you call mixed race people black. This is 2011 for heavens sake, not 1950. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Andrewlongworth (talk • contribs) 10:59, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

Barack Obama is mixed-race, but he's also widely considered to be the first black POTUS. Race is, as the talk page says, a social construct, and the important element here is the perception that Watson was black rather than precisely how "black" he is (which is what is really 1950s-ish). Go and do something productive with your time rather than using Wikipedia in an attempt to right society's wrongs. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) - talk 11:09, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the cleanups on the RISC OS related articles

Thank you Just a quick note to thank you for the tidying, tagging, etc. at RISC OS and related articles. I'm publicising the WikiProject and hope to get a few more contributors joining in soon to address the outstanding issues. --Trevj (talk) 20:35, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

My pleasure, and thank you for your diligence in that area. I've got a couple of articles on Arc games to write in the near future, and then I might have a go at a proper Acorn Archimedes games or the like to tie them together. It's one area which has very little coverage on Wikipedia despite a fair few aficionados back in the day. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) - talk 20:47, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. Acorn Archimedes games would certainly be interesting, especially if it includes any by TBA Software, who've recently returned to the scene. A major (general) problem is references, but I have a few old printed magazines at my parents' so plan to have a good search through later this year. --Trevj (talk) 21:04, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Horizontal TOC by odd years

Hello. I need a horizontal TOC at the top of the page, by odd years, beginning in 1925 and ending with the most recent odd year. Can you help out? The article (right now) is in my Sandbox at User:GeorgeLouis/Sandbox. I would very much appreciate anything you can do or direction you can point. Sincerely, GeorgeLouis (talk) 03:06, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Easily done with {{TOCyears}}. Howzat? Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) - talk 09:37, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Thank you so much!

GeorgeLouis (talk) 14:13, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Damage to title name

So it's source software that's free and open, is it? If you are an expert in this area, please take note of what I've said on my talk page in response. And please do not proceed on a campaign to remove punctuation from titles and text that will make it more difficult for general readers to understand this topic. The fact that most google search hits have no hyphen is neither here nor there: experts tend to get lazy about it because they're used to the strings. Normal people are not, and that is the target of WP's articles. Tony (talk) 09:06, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Replied over on your talk. I would note that it's a neat case of psychological projection to accuse one of going on a "campaign to remove punctuation" where such punctuation didn't actually exist until it was put there by the accuser. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) - talk 09:18, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Reliable sources, I'm afraid, are often anything but reliable on matters of punctuation. Take this, for example, in which they got it right in the main text (like "short-term sales dollars" below it, but didn't use the hyphen in the title (probably out of influence from their title "Open source initiative"—which they've also got with and without initial caps in the header. However, the psychological issue is from the perspective of our readers, not experts. Definition Tony (talk) 09:24, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

And just to reinforce this inconsistency in their own text, further down on that page:

"4. Integrity of The Author's Source Code

The license may restrict source-code from being ..."

Oh, and Mac, whether you're against it or for it, usually gets high-class professional editors in for their text. Like this.

Do we want WP do sink to the lowest level or to maintain professional standards of typography? Tony (talk) 09:30, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

I didn't say anything about reliable sources: what reliable sources do and do not use may influence consensus here, but it's consensus that influences what we use. And consensus has long been that we treat "open source" as idiomatic and thus leave it unmodified. Wikipedia is presently largely consistent on this matter, and as far as I can see it is entirely consistent with "free software". Undoing that in a piecemeal manner is not productive. Incidentally, "Mac" is a product line (or an abbreviation for one); the company is called "Apple". Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) - talk 09:36, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Where is this consensus? Can you diff it, please? And ... VideoLAN association: "open-source multimedia solutions" Tony (talk) 09:38, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

I'm doing just that at the moment; bear with me. And yes, of course the external world is inconsistent: that does not mean we have to be. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) - talk 09:42, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

• I'm not saying it's not a decent issue you've raised, though. Now, while we're at it, The Economist, January 2011: they know there's something unsatisfactory about "open source" as a compound adjective ... first try, oops: "open- source software"; second try, next para, "Others lionise open-source stars, such as Linus Torvalds, who wrote the first version of Linux". We get a link in the "related topics" box: "Open-source software". Another one in the main text: "open-source movement" (but a glitch in the em-dash spacing just after). Then, "More importantly, open-source software has ...". "open-source software", "open-source developers", "open-source and proprietary programs", "open-source advocates", "although open-source programs are not always free" (a good reason they didn't want to imply "open programs", and nor should we), and another "open-source software". Now, The Economist may be a newspaper, and not an academic source, but it's widely read by professionals who are not assumed to be IT experts or programmers or developers. More. Tony (talk) 09:53, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

If you don't mind, let's keep this discussion in one place (your talk): I'll hopefully get back with links this afternoon. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) - talk 10:00, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Moving Bash

Why did you do this? I think this should have been discussed first. If it was a good idea, it would still have been a good idea after some discussion. Msnicki (talk) 12:09, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

I was being bold. We use (software) as a disambiguating term in almost all cases: it was free here, so it seemed like a low-cost win. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) - talk 12:37, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Okay, do you mind moving it back and asking for discussion, first? This is how it should be done. I don't think there really is any clear convention and I don't think this is better. We have software topics disambiguated as "computer programming", "programming language" and in all kinds of other ways that (presumably) make sense to the editors working on those articles. It's case by case as editors try to make good choices. "Software" could not possibly be less illuminating. "Unix shell" is very clear and it fits exactly with what Bash is, from the opening sentence, "Bash is a Unix shell ...". Msnicki (talk) 12:50, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

The title is not supposed to be "illuminating"; it's supposed to be a simple label for the subject, ideally as simple as possible. See WP:NCDAB:

If there are several possible choices for disambiguating with a class or context, use the same disambiguating phrase already commonly used for other topics within the same class and context, if any. Otherwise, choose whichever is simpler. For example, use "(mythology)" rather than "(mythological figure)".

(software) is both the most commonly-used disambiguator, and the simplest. If you're insistent on drawing this out then by all means move it back and I'll jump through the appropriate hoops for the formal move request, but the guideline is pretty clear here and this shouldn't be a controversial issue. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) - talk 13:07, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Well, here's the real problem. All the rest of the Unix shells actually have "shell" right in the name of the article, c.f., C shell, Bourne shell, Z shell. Perhaps because it's awkward on the tongue with the repeated "sh" sounds, no one says, "Bash shell", they just say "Bash". It doesn't make sense to dab with "(shell)", so that's why it was it was. Another problem with "software" is that software developers also talk about bug bashes where the idea is focus on fixing bugs, not adding any new features, so it doesn't even dab very well: Which software bash are we talking about?

More to the point, I don't think this should be debated here just between you and me. If you're right, you will easily win an immediate consensus on the article talk page. Who knows. People may congratulate you for having been so flexible in dealing with such a difficult person as I must seem to be over such a trivial thing, especially when you were so clearly right. Will you do that, please? Msnicki (talk) 13:19, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

The reason it's not affixed with "shell" is not because it's awkward; it's because it would be tautological ("Bourne Again Shell shell"). There is nothing stopping you from moving the page back yourself if you're still not satisfied by this, but as a point of principle I'm not going to self-revert an edit which I believe is correct simply for the sake of bureaucracy. It's not the wiki-way, so to speak. Again, I'll happily raise an RM if that happens. As for bug bash, that's an orphan for a rather banal term (surely "bash" there is being used in the sense of "party", and thus could be applied to a hundred different things) and could probably be safely deleted. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) - talk 13:32, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Okay. Can you guide me, please? Can I simply click the undo on a move just like any other edit? I've not tried to undo a move before. It probably is time I learn. Msnicki (talk) 13:37, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

You can just click on Move and then put the old title in. So long as a redirect a) points to the article that's being moved over it and b) has only a single revision, the software will let even non-admins move the page. Nevertheless, I decided that I was being unnecessarily rude here and have self-reverted. I'll raise an RM. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) - talk 13:39, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Thank you. Msnicki (talk) 14:19, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

too short tag

Holy cow, I hope you're not littering articles with introductory tags just to help plan your editing schedule - what a way to trash up wikipedia. Those of us who are on the site a lot WILDLY underestimate what a turn-off those tags are to casual readers - you know, the people that the site exists for. Put the frigging tag at the bottom of the story, if you need a reminder; don't junk up the very first thing that readers see.

Having said that, and acknowledging that I'm too lazy to take this to the endless debate about whether a tag should exist, I will in the future only move them down out of the way of the readers, unless of course I think the tag is appropriate. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 13:15, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

There is a strong consensus that tags should be placed at the top. It has been challenged and subsequently upheld several times over the years. It is not appropriate to edit in contradiction to that consensus simply because you don't agree with it. Editors in good standing are supposed to edit with respect to prevailing consensus, and being "too lazy" to challenge it is hardly an excuse not to do so. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) - talk 13:27, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

Eh, ah, pffft .... oh, all right. But I still think you and many others have gotten Tag happy because you don't talk to non-editors of wikipedia and hear what a distraction they are.- DavidWBrooks (talk) 13:37, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

I actually talk to non-editors quite a lot (usually when it comes up that I'm an admin). Truth be told, I can't ever recall anyone even mentioning cleanup tags to me in a discussion about Wikipedia: I suppose I'd assumed that readers simple skip over them much like they do with any other warning label. :) Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) - talk 13:42, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

I can think of three times I've heard from three different people (in meatspace, not online) that they *hate* those tags, and I think it's because the tags convey a message that they're entered a project being done by an in-group and they're an outsider. An introductory tag is only appropriate if it conveys important information to the reader, not just to editors - e.g., it raises concerns about objectivity, or says "there's a discussion about whether to delete this article" or points out "this is lacking footnotes ... so be careful about believing it" (it took me a while to be persuaded about that last one). Tags that are just notes to ourselves about ways that we think articles could be improved do far more harm than good. In my not-so-humble opinion, of course. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 14:00, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

A contrary opinion is that they help to draw readers into the editing process by outlining specific ways in which they could help. One's first steps in the community can be difficult, but if a reader can submit a "quick fix" for a style issue then they will hopefully feel more confident in making bigger edits in future. We're trying to turn as many readers into editors as possible, after all. And when it comes down to it, tags really aren't as common as they're sometimes made out to be: I believe I saw a study which indicated that only 8% of our articles have any cleanup tags at all, and of course these are weighted towards our lower-quality articles (one GA criterion is that candidate articles must be - legitimately - free of them). Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) - talk 14:10, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure {{Cleanup}} helps draw readers into the editing process by outlining specific ways in which they could help...—WFC— 14:16, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

"This article is pretty rubbish. If you dive in and make it better, it's not likely anyone is going to try to stop you." Or at least that's how you would hope it to be taken. It may be that there's support for doing something with the wording after the TfD even if it survives. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) - talk 14:20, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

I agree that the number of different tags, and the number of them placed on articles, has declined (happily) in the past year or two as the process gets refined. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 15:33, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

User talk:Lecen

...he had already been notified about 3 threads above yours :-) (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 13:07, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

Bah, just skimmed for a header and missed the comment. Cheers! :) Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) - talk 13:13, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

Hi

I reference you in a ANI discussion here.--Hodgson-Burnett's Secret Garden (talk) 17:33, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

Awesome. Good luck with that. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) - talk 17:40, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

Location maps

Many thanks for for that --Epipelagic (talk) 19:16, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks! It's been a long time coming. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) - talk 22:12, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

Location map template

Could you double check your sandbox version before replacing {{Location map}}? I've had to temporarily revert your change from yesterday, as it caused a significant number of location maps to suddenly float left (and bumping text down so that the article started below the map) instead of right/wrapped. If you know how to fix that so that they stay to the right, then by all means switch it back. Thanks. Bearcat (talk) 06:15, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

Can you provide some test cases? Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) - talk 06:23, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

I first encountered the problem on Saint-Maxime-du-Mont-Louis, Quebec; the location map was at the top left of the article with the body text beginning below it. I thought perhaps it was just missing a parameter to align it right, so I checked Orchardville, Ontario, which I knew had previously been "correctly" aligned because I came across it a day or two ago, but its map had also shifted to the left. Unfortunately, because of my revert they've both shifted back to the right now, so the problem can't be seen at the moment unless you do a test revert of my reversion (well, actually, Orchardville's is still left in my browser, but that may just be my own cache; I've since made other edits to Saint-Maxime.) Bearcat (talk) 06:49, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

It looks like this was an uncaught bug in the new {{location map+}} code. Fortunately the fix was trivial. We should be good to go in rolling this out again. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) - talk 09:00, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for getting on that. I think we should talk at Template talk:Location map as in the past. –droll [chat] 15:18, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

Replied over there. I think we're good here, but if you want a little time to test I'll hold off on syncing {{location map}} for a day or so. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) - talk 15:24, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

Correct script

For some reason your autocorrecting script (or whatever it is you used to modify the page here uncapitalizes the "File:" in image embeds. What's up with that?—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 22:36, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

That edit started as a revert, and I imagine what happened was I just undid both revisions rather than cherry-picking the last but one. Seeing as capitalising the letter F in file: links is completely pointless, though, care to explain why you're running a script to do this in the first place? I thought the use of (semi-)automated tools to make edits which don't do anything except change the case of templates and the like was frowned upon. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) - talk 23:01, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

No. I'm correcting the strange edit that you did with a text replacer. Whatever you have on your end is unnecessarily decapitalizing those "File" link things. I understand that it has no bearing on the readout, but normally that feature doesn't exist in all standard formatting things.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 00:47, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

I did it manually. I habitually decapitalise things like that when working on articles because it greatly eases the use of search-and-replace with editors or tools which are case-sensitive. We normally allow editors leeway to do such things so long as they're part of a wider set of changes, which they were in my case. As this makes no difference to our readers, I'm still confused why you did it in the first place, never mind doing it twice. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) - talk 08:39, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

I am confused as to why you decided to make the change from capital to lower case in the first place.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 01:47, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

As I already said, normalising things to lowercase helps in situations where I'm manipulating text using an editor or tool which is case-sensitive. Your turn. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) - talk 07:22, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

"Deletionists"

On ANI you said (sarcastically I know) You've got it all wrong. Deletionists are just rule-mongers on power trips who want to make the encyclopedia less useful for people. At least that's what I hear every day. Since the thread has been closed, (as it should have been) I'll respond here.

In my view, "deletionists" look at the encyclopedia "holistically" and they view "problem" articles the same way a doctor might view a tumor in the human body. It's best to remove it before it becomes "malignant" and turns into cancer. It's a "good faith" view but I don't believe it's one that is shared by a vast majority of our readers. I think that someone who is interested in reading math and science articles simply doesn't give a rat's rump that there are a zillion article on Transformers elsewhere on WP. I tend to take the same view and say "let the fanboys have their cruft" as long as it's verifiable cruft. (though perhaps Wikia might be a better place for that kind of thing) So in that since I guess I'm an "inclusionist" but for "high risk" articles such as BLPs and bands I lean toward the "deletionist" side. Such articles need to strictly meet WP:N or they need to go.

Well, I think I said more then I would have at ANI so I'll close by saying that I definitely don't view most "deletionist" as editors on "power trips" and I think that those who do are doing every one of us a disservice by promoting a "battleground" mentality. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 01:10, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Oh, don't get me wrong: that comment was certainly not meant as a criticism of yourself. I was just blowing off steam. Anyway, the "deletionists" in question were those who work in the realm of fair use images, rather than those who disapprove of our having a separate article for every make and model of Gundam. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) - talk 08:34, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Template deletion

Hi, I appreciate being informed if you nom any templates I have been working on, such as {{Empty section}}. Rgds, Rich Farmbrough, 00:28, 24 June 2011 (UTC).

Sorry about that: I see you're at the DRV anyway. For practical reasons I let Twinkle do the talking as otherwise the effort would be overbearing on commonly-edited templates; furthermore, it's obvious that a general alert of that type is unworkable given the general level of participation at TfD and the well-observed phenomenon that editors who have personally contributed to the particular page instinctively argue to retain it (no aspersions intended of course). That said, I'll try to make a point of checking the edit history of templates I take to TfD and pinging you if you're prominently featured in future. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) - talk 00:44, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, much appreciated. Rich Farmbrough, 02:00, 24 June 2011 (UTC).

X10 accelerated floppy drive

I checked this stub's footnote and external links. It seem it has enough sources. (Though perhaps all of the should become footnotes...)

But I agree with you that notability is an issue. Fleet Command (talk) 10:48, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

A patent, an advert, two resumes and a link to driver downloads? At a push you could call one of those a useful reference. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) - talk 10:57, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Not reliable, eh? No objections here. It is your call. Fleet Command (talk) 11:50, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

By the way, can you please tell me what does "at a push" means? I'm not sure it means what I think. Fleet Command (talk) 11:51, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

At a push. If you put a gun to my head and forced me to pick a reliable one I'd say the patent link, but the rest could quite safely be removed. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) - talk 11:56, 24 June 2011 (UTC)