User talk:Rfc1394/2003

Tuesday

26

November

2024

10:05 UTC

Welcome to the archives of Paul Robinson's talk page for 2003.
Main (Current) Rfc1394 (talk • contribs)

All of 2003

This has been moved to allow new comments to show up on my ~~E-Mai~~ userl page. Comments will be moved ~~here~~ as they age.

Welcome to Wikipedia

Hi Rfc1394, welcome to Wikipedia. I've just been looking over your contributions to the Atlas Shrugged articles, good job! I took part in tidying them up a while ago and it's nice to see them being added to (I'd contribute more myself but haven't actually read it...).

Here are some useful links in case you haven't already found them;

If you have any questions, see the help pages, or add a question to the village pump.

Have fun,

Ams80 11:05, 13 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Don't move albums

There's no need to move albums to disambiguated titles unless there is another meaning. For example, The Rhythm of the Saints only refers to the album (unless you know something I don't) and thus doesn't need the (album). Tuf-Kat 18:49, Dec 16, 2003 (UTC)

I also deleted some links to songs that don't have an article, such as at David Bowie. I'm pretty inclusionist when it comes to such things, but I think having these preemptive links is an invitation for bored people to fill the Wikipedia up with articles like Jean Genie is a song by David Bowie. If you want to write an article on one or more songs, feel free to do so and link to it liberally. Tuf-Kat 19:02, Dec 16, 2003 (UTC)

Sorry about the conflict when fixing Paul Simon. I guess Tuf-Kat straightened us BOTH out. --Uncle Ed 19:09, 16 Dec 2003 (UTC)

If I did, I think it was an accident. The three of us seem to have confused each other, but all appears to have worked out well in the end. Tuf-Kat 19:12, Dec 16, 2003 (UTC)

Copying over my Everything2 writeups over

Hey. When you copy your E2 writeups over here, would you make sure to replace the HTML with wiki markup? Standardization eases editing for those who might later want to change the article. --MIRV 21:09, 16 Dec 2003 (UTC)

In Reply: I am attempting to do that.

List of People

Hi, Rfc1394, and welcome. (I'm trying to decide whether your nickname is Rfc, or 1394. [wink, smile].
In any case, i notice you, as i did, became a redesigner, fairly quickly after becoming a user, of List of people by name. I almost reverted your changes to Hb-Hd in the H row, but then realized that the effect is merely on the table's appearance and not on what will happen if those letters ever get used. Still, i'm missing what you are trying to do, there and in the F row, which i did not look at closely, and i'm curious, if you don't feel nagged by my asking.

(In any case, so you don't need to ask me the same question, my philosophy is that the "ligatured" Hb-Hc-Hd suggests to the user the fact that (unless redesigned at the time of first use) Hb thru Hd would be on a single page (almost certainly the efficient way to do it).) And where the pages already exist, they can tell you "don't agonize over whether to look at 'Hc' or 'Hd' first, they're on the same page"

You probably already looked at my recent work on section Table Structure ~~(Tsk! My careless editing);~~ if not it might save you a little confusion and/or research at some point. I'm guessing your work doesn't obsolete it; if you think otherwise, feel free to update or point it out to me if you like.

I also maintain, for my own use, kind of a dummy version of the table at User:Jerzy/List-of-people-by-name Pages i've Organized, a page that is now misnamed but not too badly. Ah, at least briefly i will think of it as a Palantir, since it shows me quickly that you created pages (or redirects) for Ff - Fh, Fj, Fk, etc., and at least obsoleted Table Sructure as to row F being partially populated. (I wouldn't have done, since they are so unlikely to be used, but on the other hand, "WP is not paper".) Look, copy & edit, or ignore, tho courtesy (i think), and the likelihood i'd revert if you edited my copy rather than your own, suggest you not edit it in place.

Finally, i don't know if you looked at List of people by name: Ha, which AFAIK is unique in going to a 3rd level rather than just 1 or 2; again this may or may not interest you, without reflecting on your character. [wink] (If you notice any 3-level ones, i'd be grateful to hear of them; i haven't thought yet how to search for them. Hmm, possible idea.)

Ask questions abt any aspect of List of people by name that is of interest, and enjoy. --Jerzy 10:10, 2003 Dec 17 (UTC)

My Response:

* List of people

This (originally posted at user:jerzy) is in response to your message on my user page user talk:rfc1394. (I don't know what the command sequence is to put a username and timestamp on a page yet.) I also realize I think this should be at user talk:Jerzy so it will notify you of my response, so I'll put it there so you'll get mail.

Hi, Paul; glad to hear from you.

Re signing:

The syntaxes you're looking for are
~~~

which creates just the link, and
~~~~

which creates the link and the familiar time-stamp.

The most useful standard form for me is
--~~~~

as a sig-line on a Talk page. (But on Wikipedia:Cleanup, plain
~~~

is requested.)

(You'll want to look at this passage in an Editing pane, in order to see how i used the special nowiki tags to suppress intepretation of these syntaxes.)

Re notification and mail

First and foremost, you should realize these are two facilities that have in common only the fact that they depend on the Wikipedia (WP) user account system.

The notification makes no use of EMail as far as i can tell; rather, it is simply a matter of a user X's view of many pages (i haven't paid attention to which kinds) including a field that changes in response to any other user editing user X's talk page.

The mail facility is of use only between two users who both have specified an EMail address to be associated with their respective accounts. A user can see their own EMail address (on their Preferences page, i think) but no other user can, except (probably sysops and) the user who is sent an EMail by another. Note that if you send me EMail, i see your EMail address, but you don't learn mine unless i reply via WP mail. (Note i could choose to reply directly, not thru WP, via another EMail address and you still wouldn't know my WP EMail address.) You can send WP EMail to yourself which will give you some feel for the process.

User vs User Talk pages

I'm not surprised you suffered confusion abt that. Check out Wikipedia:Namespace even if you're no longer confused, and ask questions.

In adding the extra letters, it was my thought that either the original block table should be fully populated, or if it was not, that the pages it links to be properly indexed even if no entries were present. Seeing 'red' on the missing items (pun intentional) items made me consider that this was inadequate. Either a block of entries should be connected together - the way the letter X is - or they should be empty but properly cross-indexed.

If there are no entries for a particular page, the answer is to cross-link to one of the other letters before it that does exist, have it add the empty letters, and link back to that page so that there are no nonexistent links.

I understand your approach somewhat, and don't find it crazy tho i'm not sure i agree either. You'll find all kinds of responses in areas like this; i'm kind of a "trust the marketplace of ideas to sort it out" advocate on such infrastructure issues, rather than a "prescriptivist"; you'll eventually meet more of each kind, in this context or others.

IMO you'd be wise to spend a while watching for reactions to it at this point (and i noted after my 1st draft of this didn't get inserted, you have raised it on an appropriate talk page), i.e., (as Buckaroo Banzai said to New Jersey during brain surgery) "Don't tug on that! You never know what it's connected to." Many things are very easy to put back, but deleting a page whose existence turns out to be awkward is an attention-intensive thing that it's worth avoiding being the cause of. I.e., edit boldly: add text, throw away anything you don't like (bcz its pretty easy for anyone to put it back if you screwed up), but think hard before you create a new page! See Vfd to understand why.

Once a two-letter gets 'big enough' to have some entries, then it can be split off into either its own page or its own plus whatever follows it. The question on how big is 'big enough' is arbitrary, but I'd say if an entry has at least 1/2 a page, say ten items or more (unless the items before it have less than ten each) then it's probably time to split it. Also if the page gets above 20 entries then definitely split it (subject to the provision that there be some entries in the letters before it.)

Half a page! Dream on, buddy. I created the third level under List of people by name: Ha bcz it had gotten up to about 80k bytes. IMO not enuf of the List of people by name pages have headings and ToCs, which i think can help with the ease-of-access issues i think you are concerned about.

Do bear in mind that you have been looking at least somewhat at random, and therefore in a sense atypical, pages: most letter pairs lack any names starting with them, and most always will (tho, for instance, Thabo Mbeki should have caused List of people by name: Mb to be created). The pages that matter, bcz readers and editors consult or add to them frequently are a small proportion; List of people by name: Ha is an example. We surely need List of people by name: Sz and IIRC List of people by name: Zs, but energy spent making them work well is (forgive my blatantly judgmental opinion) a sad waste when the really big and therefore heavily used ones are as neglected as they are.

For my part, i've mixed looking for articles that interest me (and others less interesting that are related to them) with stumbling on things, and even clicking "Random page", and i've also started paying attention to Wikipedia:Cleanup and Vfd (tho not yet Wikipedia:Pages needing attention or Wikipedia:Requested articles). IMO there is plenty of intersection between most editors interests and what has value to substantial numbers of users and editors, but IMO it is not easy to foresee what those intersections will be.

Oh, and learn how to use the Wiki markups where they can substitute for HTML tags; folks will edit them away & may nag you abt it. Outside of tables, i think i only use the BR, SUP, and S tags, and a notation i don't know the name for, for Fuckengrüven and the like. (I've seen people remove my BRs occasionally.)

But, as usual, i grow verbose. I'm gonna shut up now; don't let that discourage you from putting questions to me. (Heh. More likely my verbosity would discourage you. [smile])

Paul - Rfc1394 - Wed, Dec 17, 2003 13:07 EST / 18:07 UTC(GMT) Update 13:12 EST

Telephone Articles

Hiya :) Great work on the telephone articles! I'm having fun adding stuff to them too... One little point, it's really not necessary to link to generic terms such as "initiate" and "begin", for example. Doing so could mean that "dictionary definition" style articles may be created, which Wikipedia is not.

Thanks, and keep up the good work :) Dysprosia 10:58, 18 Dec 2003 (UTC)

No more future history

Please don't make any more future century articles, these have been voted to be deleted once before. - Hephaestos 04:06, 19 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Jimbo Wales benevolent dictator

I dunno how much value advance warning will have, but i'll let you know i was already mad at you, for deciding already that Jimbo had done something harmful to you, before i followed both the links & discovered your cryptic summary was about the heading having changed, not yr opinion of Jimbo's benevolence. (Others may react similarly, or not.)

Sorry for the bad vibes, if you felt them! --Jerzy 20:26, 2003 Dec 19 (UTC)

Test pages

If you really need to create test pages in different namespaces, please do so on the Test Wikipedia, which has been specifically created for this purpose. Thanks.—Eloquence

I second that. There is no need to create these pages here. Dori | Talk 00:13, Dec 20, 2003 (UTC)

In Reply
I didn't know about the test partition

I was attempting to reproduce a bug in Wikipedia. It is reproducible.

Rfc1394 00:23, 20 Dec 2003 (UTC)

No problem, Rfc, and thanks for helping with the bug hunting process.—Eloquence

I believe the bug you are looking at has been discussed before (in fact I pointed it out too a while back). Sections get counted also if you put one inside comments -- that's how I encountered it). You only need the sandbox to test this. Dori | Talk 00:44, Dec 20, 2003 (UTC)

Public Utilities

Hi! Can you take a peek at what I made of lists of public utilities? Normally stuff is not capitalized, and it's good to add stuff in such a way that it's not focused on one specific continent. Tables make adding stuff a bit inconvenient for most people.
For the rest: keep up the good work! :) Guaka 00:12, 20 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Movie links

Hi. I've noticed that you have added a particular bar of links to the bottom of a lot of movie articles. Is this part of a WikiProject? Have you discussed this with anyone anywhere? It would be nice is we could discuss the form of it first before you start mass-changing zillions of articles. In particular, I object to the hr, and to the use of "See also" as a non-heading. -- Timwi 06:56, 21 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Hi 1394, this is exactly what I wanted to ask you. I'll have a look if your answer is on Timwi's user page. All the best, --KF 10:01, 31 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Okay, I've just read your answer at User talk:Timwi#Movie Articles. It's really just minor things I personally don't like: Why See Also rather than See also? And why a reference to a list of documentaries (which doesn't even exist)? --KF 10:07, 31 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Electric Power Transmission

I deleted the following from the article on electric power transmission:

"In cities it is sent over wooden poles usually known as telephone poles, or buried underground in pipes or a occasional connection room called a vault, which is accessible through an access point called a manhole."

You seem to be confusing high voltage transmission with low voltage electricity distribution. Telephone poles would not normally be used for power distribution due to the technical requirements for electricity being more severe. You might sometimes get a telephone line being strung under a power line. Tiles 22:29, 21 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Hello. In overpass, you used too many capital letters, in one case linking to a redirect page ("Interstate Highway") rather than to the page it points to ("interstate highway" with a lower-case "h"). The first letter of the name of an article is case-insensitive; the others are case-sensitive. Wikipedia articles do not typically use capitals in article titles without specific reasons. Michael Hardy 00:50, 22 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Nylon, village pump & paper (image)

Thanks for your comments on nylon. See Talk:nylon for a discussion of its trademark status.

You also left comments on my talk page about a question at the Village Pump. It wasn't me that left that question.

Finally you also left comments about paper (image); was that directed at me?

Thanks, Samw 17:38, 23 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Sepia

Hello. I moved your sepia entry to sepia tone since there are four distinct meanings for the word "sepia". I created a disambiguation page in its stead. Davodd 00:25, Dec 24, 2003 (UTC)