User talk:Quiddity/Archive 11

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presentations

Have you seen meta:Best practices in giving a Wikipedia presentation? I uploaded my librarians presentation to the meta (see link to presentations). Meta no longer accepts presentation files... sigh. Hmmm.... --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 16:27, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Outlines part n

Talk page comments

Please don't make untrue accusations or state falsehoods about other editors having "misunderstood" in talk page discussions. I had thought it was beneath you. Verbal chat 08:04, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

I'm baffled. You said at User_talk:Karanacs/Outline_RfC_draft#Naming_convention: "the EB had to remove theirs from the main encyclopaedia for example" and when I said that this was mistaken, you said, "Yes, they removed it and replaced the plain index" which is still not true! Then at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Mathematics#Outline_of_mathematics you said "The point about strong precedent is also wrong, as I have shown elsewhere", which I assume was referring to our first discussion.

The EB never, ever, ever, removed the Propaedia.

The plain alphabetical index was removed in 1974, and replaced in 1985. See History of the Encyclopædia Britannica#The current 15th edition and Propaedia.

Possibly you could point towards the information that has led you to believe the Propaedia was ever removed? -- Quiddity (talk) 17:46, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

DeltaQuad

Hello, Quiddity. You have new messages at DeltaQuad's talk page.
Message added 21:29, 27 July 2010 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

(archived to User talk:DeltaQuad/Archives/2010/July#Discussion)

Contents of Bonsai article

Thank you for your comments on my notes regarding the Bonsai article's contents. I have been wondering whether the "non-cultural" content may best be split out into one or more articles, and I am not sure whether, or how, to proceed. I have posted a brief outline of my questions on another user's Talk page, and I wonder if you have any advice to offer. Sahara110 (talk) 05:56, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for your feedback and for your advice about contacting RJBaran. Sahara110 (talk) 20:53, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Hat tip

I haven't been active on Wikipedia for a long time. On a whim, I decided to login and check my talk page. Thanks for the nearly year-old notice of Microsoft appropriating the Ambox design. It blows my mind to think that the work of a lowly, anonymous, amateur designer has influenced the UI design choices of an international mega-corporation like Microsoft. It's just... bizarre. – flamurai (t) 08:29, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for the easy-on-the-eyes design. :)

I may have even helped get the design implemented. I responded at Wikipedia talk:Template standardisation/article#Anyone here? and pointed it out to violet/riga at User talk:Violetriga/archive9#Wikipedia:Manual of Style (lists of works), who then got the ball rolling a few months later at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (article message boxes)/Archive 1#Template standardisation. :)

Note: talkpage stalkers, or future self, see User talk:Flamurai#Ambox design appropriated! and Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (article_message boxes)/Archive 9#Microsoft Ambox? -- Quiddity (talk) 05:51, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Borges

Hi Quiddity, Thanks for your experiments with the Borges article. I am slightly puzzled as I am not detecting any changes on my revisions (on a laptop) between one column and three they always seem to appear on this article as one. I've never seen refs in anything more than one, I would have thought there was too much info in refs to double up, unlike works etc. No doubt I am missing something, but I am interested to learn more about formatting. Best wishes Spanglej (talk) 19:55, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Hi. It's all browser-dependent. Columns only work in a few browsers, and notably not in Internet Explorer. See Template:Reflist#Browser support for columns for details. -- Quiddity (talk) 20:17, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Secret pages 2

Because you participated in Wikipedia talk:What Wikipedia is not/Archive 34#Does WP:NOTMYSPACE apply to secret pages?, you may be interested in Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Secret pages 2. Cunard (talk) 07:03, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Accessibility thanks

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Re: Portal:Björk

No problem! Sorry for the pre-mature addition to the directory. I just established WikiProject Björk and plan to bring the Portal up to speed as soon as possible. I will be sure to re-add it once it is in better condition. My goal in listing it in the directory was merely to direct potential participants to the page. Thanks for the notification! --Another Believer _(Talk) 21:56, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

I am guy who added to espalier article

Moved to Talk:Espalier.

Is there a utility to strip out red links?

Removing them manually is very tedious.

A utility to strip them and place them in a file would be even better.

I look forward to your reply.

The Transhumanist    01:19, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Not that I know of, but I don't use any of the fancy tools (awb, wikiEd, etc).

I'd suggest asking at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Red Link Recovery and/or Wikipedia:WikiProject User scripts/Requests, but give them examples of exactly what you need (eg a page before and after).

Where Why are you removing redlinks from? Indexes should have redlinks. Outlines not so many. (imo). HTH. -- Quiddity (talk) 02:00, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Berkeley Breathed

Hi! I'll look at the Berkely Breathed thing at some point today or tomorrow.. I'll compare the text and see... WhisperToMe (talk) 22:03, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

• Wikipedia:Copyright problems says "If there is a clean revision in the page history, revert to it." - What I could do is revert all the way to the 2004 version and then see if I can piece in what is not copyrighted from the current revision. WhisperToMe (talk) 01:49, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Do you know if it is certain that the guy in 2004 copied from him, or if he copied from Wikipedia?

I am checking http://web.archive.org/*/www.berkeleybreathed.com/pages/About.asp - I want to see how far back this goes, but I have been getting errors related to the page. WhisperToMe (talk) 03:34, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

You are welcome :) WhisperToMe (talk) 08:58, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Re: WikiProject Screencast

Not to worry! I just made the tabs so that the structure would be there--I am open, and expected, them to change as the project developed. I've got hundreds of pages on my watchlist, so a few more changes won't hurt me at all! :p Thanks for your assistance with the project. I am anxious to see the results of the Screen Spring and the project in general. --Another Believer _(Talk) 02:13, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Quiddity, it was a pleasure meeting and working with you this past weekend. Perhaps we will work together again in the future--until then, best wishes! Oh, and thanks for keeping up with the design of the WikiProject. It looks fantastic, and I look forward to watching it continue to evolve. --Another Believer _(Talk) 18:50, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Poems by Edgar Allan Poe

Curious about Poems by Edgar Allan Poe - This revert you did: I seem to have stray characters in the Wikisource box. Are you seeing that too? --Midnightdreary (talk) 19:01, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Whoops, my mistake! Thanks for fixing. Looks like it must be a syntax cludge, of some sort. Good thing I didn't userwarn the anon with a uw-test template :) -- Quiddity (talk) 19:09, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Reviewer permission

Hello. Your account has been granted the "reviewer" userright, allowing you to review other users' edits on certain flagged pages. Pending changes, also known as flagged protection, is currently undergoing a two-month trial scheduled to end 15 August 2010.

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If you do not want this userright, you may ask any administrator to remove it for you at any time. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 23:22, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

Opinion request

Could you give your opinon here? Thanks in advance. Candyo32 01:33, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Orphaned non-free image File:Screencast - Screen shot toomanytoolbars.png

⚠

Thanks for uploading File:Screencast - Screen shot toomanytoolbars.png. The image description page currently specifies that the image is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, the image is currently orphaned, meaning that it is not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).

If you have uploaded other unlicensed media, please check whether they're used in any articles or not. You can find a list of "file" pages you have edited by clicking on the "my contributions" link (it is located at the very top of any Wikipedia page when you are logged in), and then selecting "File" from the dropdown box. Note that any non-free images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. Skier Dude (talk 03:52, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Nomeansno graphic timeline; general thanks

Thanks so much!! I'm so glad you liked the Nomeansno timeline graphic - I was wondering if anyone else would think it was worthwhile, considering their tiny number of lineup changes : ) Colinclarksmith (talk) 00:49, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Angry birds

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02:04, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Template:Infobox classical composer

Hi Quiddity. Now that the new composer infobox has been moved to template space and survived an AfD, perhaps it's time to revisit the documentation? The admin closing the AfD made some construtive edits and made some suggestions in the edit summary. I think we really need to go further. For instance, I wonder if we actually need that many examples? Perhaps just keep Riley and Chopin and move the others to a subpage of some sort? There are other things that could be tidied up, too, without losing the sense of the arguments for a minimal infobox to be used minimally. Indeed, "less is more" is kind of the point... =) Any thoughts? --Jubilee♫clipman 22:06, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

I completely agree (specifically and generally). I'll take a closer look once I get a dent into my watchlist check. -- Quiddity (talk) 17:43, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

Will, I haven't a great deal of time at the moment either. Anyway, we should involve the Composers project folks, obviously (without dragging the whole bl**dy debate up yet again, if we can help it...). No rush, therefore... --Jubilee♫clipman 20:15, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

Time

It is part of the responsibility that anyone who has been around the site for a while, and who has certain positive qualities, should accept being an admin. You are calm, level headed, helpful, intelligent, polite, knowledgable and experienced. Just the sort of person who should accept the role. I'm sending you an email. SilkTork *^YES! 20:10, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Replied privately.

Navigation RFC

In reply to queries at User talk:TheGrappler#Insights

I don't think you've got something ready to take to RFC yet but you do have sufficient community interest to hammer something more coherent out. To stop it degenerating, I think you ought to try and boil it down to a simple, clear, workable proposal - there have been more than 8 years of argument over all this and anything that allows too much complexity and nuance, is going to produce an incoherent discussion with no clear consensus. We both clearly think alike - I don't like simple solutions either, I'm far more holistic, and I like to see things in their context. But unfortunately the Wiki collective decision-making process doesn't work that way! What the proposal you present should be, I'm not sure. A proposal for a well-defined Index namespace and a statement of what should be moved there would be one idea but of course it isn't the only possibility. (Until someone pointed out it was a copyvio, we actually used to have an Index to Wikipedia articles by Dewey Decimal Code! Don't know if you remember the rows about that one?)

At some point I will be brave and suggest that Wikipedia should build a Micropedia based around an article description system like on Citizendium... but not yet :-) TheGrappler (talk) 20:30, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

replied at User talk:TheGrappler#Insights

Citizendium

I wasn't thinking about their workgroups actually! They're interesting but we do have effective counterparts here, and ours are probably more scalable (as they have to be!)

The "related articles" section does indeed correspond to a) navboxes, b) "see also" sections and (to some extent) c) links to Portals [we're not that big on portal links but on fr: wikipedia, they seem to be compulsory everywhere!)

But I think the CZ related articles sections are better for several reasons. They're more structured than our "see alsos" - often they are subdivided e.g. a section for basic treatment, other sections for more technically difficult articles or articles grouped by particular parts of the subject. That kind of structuring does happen on some of the larger navboxes, but navbox bloat is often described as ugly and they do get a fair bit of criticism. Finally the addition of the article descriptions makes their related article lists far more instructive to a user - some of our "see also" sections contain lists of names, which without further introduction, are largely useless to a reader who doesn't know who those people are.

I know what you mean about WP:LEAD and I do use popups, but actually it's my experience with popups (and seeing less-than-useful results on google searches!) that makes me think that CZ has got this spot on. What's needed is a clear definition of the article subject, and a brief summary if possible (sometimes e.g. for list articles that isn't possible, but a clear definition would be helpful; whereas for biographies there isn't so much difference between a definition and a summary!). Our leads are often too long to be useful for this purpose. Our leads also attempt to be all three of definition, summary, and introduction, and for worst offenders sometimes "place to cram other random stuff that doesn't fit anywhere else" - though that's a flaw of implementation not structure. If we attempted autogenerated disambiguation or "see also" sections using automatically extracted leads in the same way as popups, it would look awful. I really think they're onto something there and they don't seem to be making best use of it either! [For what it's worth, I think it's better if disambiguation pages are manually written - and that CZ are overusing definitions there - since the style can be adapted to make it clear exactly what is being disambiguated between the articles, rather than just what the articles are about in general... nevertheless I find that disambiguation pages are easier to navigate when you have popups installed, since seeing the fuller preview often makes it clearer which article is the one you want.]

Have you ever seen http://www.pepysdiary.com/ - that's a brilliant example of useful textual annotation. CZ would really benefit if they made hover-over definitions appear for their internal links in articles. One reason popups isn't implemented for the entire readership here is that it's a bit of a resource hog, I am not a technical expert enough to judge whether using CZ-style definitions would ease resource-strain and make the equivalent possible here, but it seems plausible. Another area it strikes me that definition fields would be valuable to a reader, is when using the internal search, browsing categories, or looking at special: pages.

CZ haven't explicitly produced a "micropedia" option where you can see all their definitions in alphabetical order but I suppose there's no particular reason to since nobody browses in that manner. They have essentially got all the material for one. (Special:Allpages with hover-over definitions enabled would basically be it, I guess.)

I wonder if something like that will ever be implemented here - I can't recall prior discussions about it, but I may not have been hanging around the right places! TheGrappler (talk) 17:20, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

replied at User talk:TheGrappler#Insights

Double-Tongued Dictionary

What the L? Why do you keep changing "Wrester" to "Wrestler"?[1] It's NOT "Wrestler." There is no L in the name, there never was an L in the name. There's even a note on the entry telling people not to spell it that way. Pay attention! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.107.91.230 (talk) 13:23, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Ack! My initial revert was because you undid my entire edit, in which I had added in 3 references, so I assumed it was either vandalism or a mistake. I should have checked closer the second time, and perhaps re-read the source I'd added. However, there was no note in the article until you added it, and it was spelled "Wrestler" when I made my first edit to the article. So it's not all my fault!

Thanks for following up. -- Quiddity (talk) 17:00, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Outline cleanup

I think I found a solution for country outline cleanup. See Outline of Saint Helena and its talk page. The Transhumanist 01:07, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Looks good. And is much much better than creating a slew of redirects to subsections of the main article. -- Quiddity (talk) 01:20, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

espalier page

I finally was able to log in using my name as my username. If I want to change how I am referred to on the espalier page can you tell me how? Andyvancleve (talk) 22:49, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

It took 6 attempts to log in

I am Andyvancleve my IP address is 74.67.19.152

Is there some way to change where I have used my IP address previously and replace it with my username instead?

I am partially paralyzed in my hands so I often flub the password. Its very difficult to get through the red tape.Andyvancleve (talk) 23:42, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Replied at User talk:Andyvancleve. -- Quiddity (talk) 00:30, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads up...

...about my typo at Talk:Legendary. — AjaxSmack 04:20, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks on God of Carnage (film)

I am now engaged in a conversation with someone with the Film projects.IBS101 (talk) 21:35, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Spencer Wells

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• BTW, I saw the JLB box on your user page and was pleased to see that it was indeed the acronym I hoped it would be; I'm reading a nice collection of his that includes The Aleph (I'd never read him before) and last night was thinking about writing the article for the concept--if Pokemon can be totally in-universe, then this should stand a chance also. Happy days, Drmies (talk) 15:35, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

first run at boldness and links tutorial

Howdy! Let me know if you have suggestions for improving this: File:Boldness and links tutorial.ogv.--Sage Ross - Online Facilitator, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 01:07, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Fantastic! Good pacing (for many demographics), clear and smiling voice, well-animated examples of the growing code-structure, and I grinned at the arrows-to-wikilinks slide. I have no suggestions for improving the existing content. :)

The only addition I can think of, is a high-speed example at the end, to show how little time it actually takes to complete an edit. A 15-slides in 5-seconds sequence, type thing. However, I'm not sure how difficult that would be with your software setup.

(I'm still stabbing at success with my microphone component... Stab stab stab!)

In later videos, we'll probably want to emphasize using the preview button, but that's an unnecessary complexity for this early core intro.

What software are you using apart from OOo? (shortlist format is fine - I can extrapolate :) -- Quiddity (talk) 04:40, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! I'm using: Ubuntu 10.04 inside VirtualBox to make the screenshots (it might as well at least look like I'm using free software), cropping them with GIMP, OOo for the slideshow, Quicktime to record, iMovie to trim the beginning and end of the clip (and excise any mistakes/redos in the middle if necessary), then Firefogg to convert to ogg/theora. I had a lot of trouble with my attempts before I got this Mac with getting listenable sound; I had to extract the audio, de-noise it with Audacity and re-add it to the video, and even then it sounded terrible. Once I figure out how to get Linux on this machine, I'll test it to see it was hardware or software that made the difference.--Sage Ross - Online Facilitator, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 13:19, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

POV

I've moved the thread to Talk:POV#Privately Owned Vehicle so that anyone interested in that page can give feedback. -- Quiddity (talk) 17:48, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks

Hi, thanks for the ISBN link. Good to know. Best wishes Span (talk) 21:38, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2010 October 23#MediaWiki:History short

Hi Quiddity. Because you participated in Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/MediaWiki:History short, you may be interested in Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2010 October 23#MediaWiki:History short. Cunard (talk) 06:49, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Outlines status report

Quiddity,

We're trying to get some sports-related outlines started/completed, to provide an example/inspiration to the various sports WikiProjects.

Currently under construction are:

• Outline of basketball
• Outline of cricket
• Outline of motorcycles and motorcycling
• Outline of tennis

These need help.

Other outlines undergoing substantial development recently include:

• Outline of British Columbia
• Outline of Saskatchewan
• Outline of forensics
• Outline of epistemology

An editor named Thruxton went the extra-mile with respect to the motorcycle outline, by developing and placing a template banner on talk pages of articles for which a link was included on the motorcycle outline.

I'm applying the concept to the basketball outline.

Your comments and contributions are welcome.

Just a heads up, The Transhumanist 00:32, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

What do you think of Outline of meteorology?

It's currently an excellent mid-range-quality/completion outline. The footer templates at Meteorology#External links would be worth going through, for missing items. With more content, and more structure, it'll be up to Outline of cell biology levels. :) -- Quiddity (talk) 04:08, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

Outline of motorcycles and motorcycling is heading in that direction. The Transhumanist 00:48, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

help contents draft reply

Bobrayner has replied to a discussion in Help_talk:Contents/draft#A_related_issue:_The_first_step_towards_help (in case you missed it). Lee∴V (talk • contribs) 11:43, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Signpost update

Thanks, I forgot about it :) --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 18:23, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Outline WikiProject needs an overhaul

And I need your help.

If you undertake it, I'll be happy to assist. The Transhumanist 23:24, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Will do. Hopefully tonight or tomorrow. -- Quiddity (talk) 00:00, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

User_talk:Ocaasi#sidebar

cheers--Ocaasi (talk) 15:21, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Outline of culture

Since the previous outline was renamed to "List of culture topics", I created this outline to fill the void in the outline set. I scoured Wikipedia with Google, and browsed manually, to find everything I could on culture in general. I hope you like it.

The topic list was just a stub, and a crappy one at that. So I've merged it (redirected it) into the outline, which is much more comprehensive.

The structure may need some work, as I wasn't sure where to put the elements, or even if they should be called elements. What is "cuisine" and "sports" in relation to culture? The Transhumanist 05:02, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Need help recruiting

My free time is about to dry up, and so I'll be scarce again for an indefinite period.

If the outline system is to continue improving, it is going to need some new blood.

Please help find some. The Transhumanist 05:02, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Talkback

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18:25, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Centrifugal force XKCD joke

Hello. I happened to remember this thread from a few months ago, and looked it up - it looks like it tailed off a short while after you said "I'd appreciate some sort of response to the points I've raised just above, before the link is edited out." What did you think to my comparison to Larson's "blah blah Ginger" cartoon? --McGeddon (talk) 19:19, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Hi. There is a pdf now freely available [2] of the more useful of the two The Physics Teacher mentions of this strip. It's part of footnote #3 (embedded just under figure #3). It's not a core part of the paper, but the authors obviously thought it was worth mentioning.

Regarding Ginger, if scholars consistently mention it (over 40 papers is a lot), then we could and should do so, too.

As far as concerns about opening floodgates, WP:OTHERSTUFF should cover that, and any addition at any other article would still need either prior citation, or some sort of consensus.

I'm glad we can discuss this calmly, now that W has left. :) -- Quiddity (talk) 19:51, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Can't find the page

I'm looking for the talk page for Special:Statistics, the page that comes up when you click on the article count on the Main Page. The Transhumanist 18:51, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

I don't think there is one. Try Wikipedia:Statistics or Wikipedia:Statistics Department. -- Quiddity (talk) 19:38, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

Which ones are the best?

Which are the best country outlines? The Transhumanist 21:45, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

You know them better than I. (Quick note, please put your signature in the same line as your comments. It's the standard! Thanks) -- Quiddity (talk) 23:49, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

The problem is, there are so many, that I can't remember them all. So I'll skim through them and start a list below. Let me know what's missing, and especially mark those that you don't believe fit their classification, so that we can explore any differences of perception. Here it goes...

Dismal:

• Outline of family and consumer science

Poor:

• Outline of performing arts
• Outline of cartography

Due to their extensive use of embedded nav footers, I don't know how to grade these:

• Outline of Africa
• Outline of Asia
• Outline of Europe
• Outline of North America
• Outline of South America
• Outline of astronomy

Good start:

• Wikipedia:WikiProject Outline of Knowledge/Drafts/Outline of tropical cyclones

Good coverage, and fairly clean:

• Outline of Akrotiri and Dhekelia
• Outline of Åland
• Outline of Somaliland
• Outline of artificial intelligence
• Outline of critical theory
• Outline of cryptography
• Outline of fiction
• Outline of forensics
• Outline of free software
• Outline of hydrology
• Outline of meteorology (place links from nav footer)
• Outline of mining
• Outline of nuclear technology
• Outline of photography
• Outline of space exploration
• Outline of the visual arts

Well-developed, but need touch up:

• Outline of bicycles (place links from see also section in the outline)
• Outline of Canada (remove infoboxes, after placing links)
• Outline of China (redlinks)
• Outline of military science and technology (footer block)
• Outline of probability (linked headings)
• Outline of transport (linked headings)

Well-developed:

• Outline of the United Kingdom
  • Outline of England
  • Outline of Northern Ireland
• Outline of Saint Helena
• Outline of British Columbia
• Outline of Saskatchewan
• Outline of agriculture
• Outline of anarchism
• Outline of Buddhism
• Outline of classical studies
• Outline of chocolate
• Outline of computer science
• Outline of epistemology
• Outline of festivals
• Outline of history
• Outline of library science
• Outline of motorcycles and motorcycling
• Outline of physical science
• Outline of sharks
• Outline of thought
• Outline of wine
• Outline of World War II

Well-developed, with good picture support:

• Outline of France
• Outline of Gibraltar
• Outline of Iceland
• Outline of Japan
• Outline of Taiwan
• Outline of Thailand
• Outline of architecture
• Outline of kayaking and canoeing
• Outline of water

Well-developed, fully annotated:

• Outline of cell biology

Well-developed, with full annotation and pics

• Outline of forestry (I think this one might be the "best of breed")

Let me know what you think.

The Transhumanist 03:54, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Redlinks in country outlines

I'm not sure what to do about the redlinked country outlines. The redlinks were removed from Iceland months ago. But yesterday I found that most of them had turned blue. It took hours to put them back in. The Transhumanist 03:29, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

A bit rough, but a nice start...

A big gap has been filled in the religious section of Portal:Contents/Outlines:

Outline of Judaism

I'm guessing it was IZAK's response to this: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Judaism#Outline of Judaism. The Transhumanist 22:54, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

I'm having the same trouble with France as I did with Iceland

Outline of France was stripped of redlinks, and now it's taking hours to put those that have turned blue back in.

Just thought you'd like to know. The Transhumanist 06:01, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Are you sure? I can't see any link removals in the history. Ditto Iceland. -- Quiddity (talk) 06:33, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Crap, it's worse than I thought. I upgraded the country outlines in late May 2008 with an expanded skeleton (like this), and I apparently skipped some of them. I must have run short on time or something. Now I have to track down which ones I missed. Thank you for looking deeper. The Transhumanist 19:25, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Merge complete

Outline of geography - I like this new structure better, as it integrates everything (from basic topics) together as sub-branches in the topic hierarchy. The Transhumanist 05:00, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

The difference between prose articles and outlines

The Geography / Outline of geography pair now exemplifies the difference between prose articles and outlines very well. It would be extremely impractical to include the outline's material in the geography article, as the outline is almost twice its size. But, the outline would more than double in size if it were expanded into prose for insertion into the geography article. The Transhumanist 05:00, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

Entering final content phase

Even though the previous phases are not anywhere near completion, it looks like we've moved into the last phase of manual filling and formatting. The outlines are evolving into a hybrid of topic outlines and sentence outlines. The form they are morphing into has now become obvious: structured glossaries. Though country outlines don't lend themselves to this form since they are filled with "Foo of country-x" entries, which are self-explanatory and for which descriptions would be superfluous.

I think the best approach for now is to focus on outlines of core (major) topics, whether they exist yet or not: cleaning up and completing existing outlines, and filling in the most blatant gaps in the collection with new outlines (preferably by recruits). On the existing outlines, I've been manually working my way down from the top, alternating with semi-automated tools (AWB & Linky) to implement improvements across the whole set or large portions of it.

Once the collection reaches 700 to 1000 well-developed outlines, I think it will be diverse enough to be useful as a general navigational interface to Wikipedia. At that point, I will probably feel comfortable with shifting over to development of software-enhancement of the outlines via outliner features. I would do so now, but the outlines need to be solidified (improved in quality) first, since it would be unwise to let them sit around in such rough form. The Transhumanist 05:00, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

Paper house

Thanks for your help Re: this addition. Despite looking through WP:NOTE I wasn't quite sure how to confront the editor with regards this addition. Tomayres (talk) 21:40, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

I've left further comments at the user's talkpage. Hopefully that helps. -- Quiddity (talk) 21:54, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

File:Screencast - Screen shot wikiprefs1.png missing description details

Dear uploader: The media file you uploaded as File:Screencast - Screen shot wikiprefs1.png is missing a description and/or other details on its image description page. If possible, please add this information. This will help other editors to make better use of the image, and it will be more informative for readers.

If the information is not provided, the image may eventually be proposed for deletion, a situation which is not desirable, and which can easily be avoided.

If you have any questions please see Help:Image page. Thank you. Sfan00 IMG (talk) 21:48, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

File:Screencast - Screen shot wikiprefs2.png missing description details

Dear uploader: The media file you uploaded as File:Screencast - Screen shot wikiprefs2.png is missing a description and/or other details on its image description page. If possible, please add this information. This will help other editors to make better use of the image, and it will be more informative for readers.

If the information is not provided, the image may eventually be proposed for deletion, a situation which is not desirable, and which can easily be avoided.

If you have any questions please see Help:Image page. Thank you. Sfan00 IMG (talk) 21:51, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Contents/Outlines

See Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Contents/Outlines. ==SmokeyJoe (talk) 13:11, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

File:Screencast - Screen shot wikiprefs2.png listed for deletion

A file that you uploaded or altered, File:Screencast - Screen shot wikiprefs2.png, has been listed at Wikipedia:Files for deletion. Please see the discussion to see why this is (you may have to search for the title of the image to find its entry), if you are interested in it not being deleted. Thank you. SchuminWeb (Talk) 15:36, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

File:Screencast - Screen shot wikiprefs1.png listed for deletion

A file that you uploaded or altered, File:Screencast - Screen shot wikiprefs1.png, has been listed at Wikipedia:Files for deletion. Please see the discussion to see why this is (you may have to search for the title of the image to find its entry), if you are interested in it not being deleted. Thank you. SchuminWeb (Talk) 15:36, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Where oh where have you been?

You've been sorely missed. When will your wikibreak be over? The Transhumanist 07:24, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Contents pages navigation proposal

A proposal to add topical links to all of the contents pages has been made. As part of that proposal, the navigation bar at the top of these contents pages would look like this.

Please respond to the proposal, Portal talk:Contents#Adding topical links to contents pages navigational headers and footers, as you see fit. Regards, RichardF (talk) 13:44, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Category:Infobox Infoboxwatch template

Hi, back on 15 June 2008 you added the "The Infoboxwatch" template to Category:Infobox templates, which displays a CFD cleanup notice. This seems stale/wrong... ok to delete? Thanks, Rostz (talk) 14:22, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Some template messages about non-free images, collapsed by a passerby to keep Quiddity's talk page looking tidy.

Orphaned non-free image File:Screencast - Screen shot firefoxtoolbars3.png ⚠ Thanks for uploading File:Screencast - Screen shot firefoxtoolbars3.png. The image description page currently specifies that the image is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, the image is currently orphaned, meaning that it is not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media). If you have uploaded other unlicensed media, please check whether they're used in any articles or not. You can find a list of "file" pages you have edited by clicking on the "my contributions" link (it is located at the very top of any Wikipedia page when you are logged in), and then selecting "File" from the dropdown box. Note that any non-free images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. Courcelles 04:11, 12 February 2011 (UTC) Orphaned non-free image File:Screencast - Screen shot firefoxtoolbars4.png ⚠ Thanks for uploading File:Screencast - Screen shot firefoxtoolbars4.png. The image description page currently specifies that the image is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, the image is currently orphaned, meaning that it is not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media). If you have uploaded other unlicensed media, please check whether they're used in any articles or not. You can find a list of "file" pages you have edited by clicking on the "my contributions" link (it is located at the very top of any Wikipedia page when you are logged in), and then selecting "File" from the dropdown box. Note that any non-free images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. Courcelles 04:11, 12 February 2011 (UTC) Orphaned non-free image File:Screencast - Screen shot firefoxtoolbars2.png ⚠ Thanks for uploading File:Screencast - Screen shot firefoxtoolbars2.png. The image description page currently specifies that the image is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, the image is currently orphaned, meaning that it is not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media). If you have uploaded other unlicensed media, please check whether they're used in any articles or not. You can find a list of "file" pages you have edited by clicking on the "my contributions" link (it is located at the very top of any Wikipedia page when you are logged in), and then selecting "File" from the dropdown box. Note that any non-free images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. Courcelles 04:11, 12 February 2011 (UTC) Orphaned non-free image File:Screencast - Screen shot firefoxtoolbars1.png ⚠ Thanks for uploading File:Screencast - Screen shot firefoxtoolbars1.png. The image description page currently specifies that the image is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, the image is currently orphaned, meaning that it is not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media). If you have uploaded other unlicensed media, please check whether they're used in any articles or not. You can find a list of "file" pages you have edited by clicking on the "my contributions" link (it is located at the very top of any Wikipedia page when you are logged in), and then selecting "File" from the dropdown box. Note that any non-free images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. Courcelles 04:11, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

Robotics infoboxes

Hi

I am soliciting some opinions on my first attempts at designing infoboxes and wondered if you might have time to help.

I made a post a few days ago at robotic infoboxes concerning the first attempt I had started, an proposed expansion of the current Template:Infobox_robot.

As no-one has replied I was hoping that if you had time you might be able to have a quick look and perhaps comment on the discussions page.

Thanks Chaosdruid (talk) 18:42, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

Outline collaboration

Here's the latest addition to the religion section of Portal:Contents/Outlines. Wikipedia has rich coverage on this subject. Very interesting, especially from sociological and historical perspectives.

• Outline of Sikhism

This is a call to all members of the Outline WikiProject and outline aficionados to help refine this outline. It needs annotations, missing topics added, and the entries in the general concepts section placed in more specific sections.

Come join in on the fun and get acquainted with members of the Outline WikiProject!

User talk:The Transhumanist 04:42, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Tree Shaping -> Arborsculpture RFM 2

A second request to move the article "tree shaping" to "arborsculpture" has been opened. Since you have previously been involved in the subject, you may wish to participate in the discussion. AfD hero (talk) 19:20, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

Your participation would be most welcome. Martin Hogbin (talk) 15:49, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

This user has been inactive since December 2010. --Elonka 15:16, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

List of English words containing Q not followed by U

Hi Quiddity,

I noticed that you did some good work on List of English words containing Q not followed by U in order to address concerns and save its featured list status from being removed. I am currently endeavouring to get the list up on the main page in the "Today's Featured List" section and certain concerns have been raised about the nomination here. Any help you would be willing to provide in addressing these concerns would be greatly appreciated.

Neelix (talk) 19:25, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

Mystery

Please solve this mystery if you can...

On September 23rd, traffic to Portal:James Bond doubled, and has stayed at the new level since then. I can't figure out what happened.

See http://stats.grok.se/en/201109/Portal%3AJames_Bond

Traffic to Outline of James Bond stayed the same (though it was at the higher-level already), which leads me to suspect changes made somewhere in Wikipedia.

See http://stats.grok.se/en/201109/Outline%20of%20James_Bond

I'd like to find out what happened, in case it reveals helpful link placement tips that can double the traffic to outlines.

I look forward to your reply. The Transhumanist 22:19, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

P.S.: Quiddity, keep in touch.

Lists of Russians

Per your comments here, would you care to comment at Wikipedia:Bot_requests#Help_removing_a_template. There is an editor who seems to believe we need this template at the bottom of every article about every Russian. Thank you. 198.175.175.57 (talk) 23:41, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

P.S.: I had no idea this religion was so extensive or that it had so many followers.

Tree shaping

There is a proposed Topic Ban for Blackash and Slowart on Tree shaping related articles at the Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents As you have had some involvement with these editors in question, you may wish to comment. Blackash have a chat 00:02, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

File:Wikipediareflistoverlap.gif listed for deletion

A file that you uploaded or altered, File:Wikipediareflistoverlap.gif, has been listed at Wikipedia:Files for deletion. Please see the discussion to see why this is (you may have to search for the title of the image to find its entry), if you are interested in it not being deleted. Thank you. Calliopejen1 (talk) 17:36, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

File:WikipediaScreenshot-AmboxAlignmentProblem.png listed for deletion

A file that you uploaded or altered, File:WikipediaScreenshot-AmboxAlignmentProblem.png, has been listed at Wikipedia:Files for deletion. Please see the discussion to see why this is (you may have to search for the title of the image to find its entry), if you are interested in it not being deleted. Thank you. Calliopejen1 (talk) 17:36, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, Quiddity. You have new messages at Talk:Crayola.
Message added 23:10, 24 February 2012 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Puffin ^{Let's talk!} 23:10, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Richallege

CORPORATION

82 alwin (talk) 20:10, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:Cto

Template:Cto has been nominated for deletion. Template:Cto creates a conditional topic overview linkbox for the See also section of an article with links to (1) the topic article, (2) the outline of the topic, (3) the index of topic-related articles, (4) the bibliography of the topic, and (5) the Wikipedia book on the topic. You are invited to comment on the discussion at Wikipedia:Templates for discussion#Template:Cto. Yours aye,  Buaidh  19:58, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Books

I get the definite impression that the above named project is more or less inactive, at least in terms of it as a group actually doing anything to improve relevant articles; its guidelines and such are another matter entirely. Maybe something should be done to try to generate some interest. I proposed some time ago that maybe we could try to find the top 100 or 200 non-fiction books, something along the lines of WP:BIOGRAPHY's "core" biographies or WP:NOVEL's top-importance rating. Would you have any interest in maybe working with me, as much as I am able to do so, to maybe try to reactivate the project? John Carter (talk) 21:46, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Very interested. I'll see you over at the wikiproject talkpage (sometime this week). :) -- Quiddity (talk) 03:32, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia books

Yo, Q. I think you might have a better idea of how to assemble books than I do. Walkerma suggested that I try to assemble a few for comparison purposes, but I personally don't think I am necessarily the best person to do that. Having said that, I do think that having a few "samples" around might be useful. To my eyes, there are maybe three basic types, and maybe having one of each available might work best.

• 1) the overview - this would be a biography of an individual, a history of a subject, maybe a how-to book, that sort of thing
• 2) the encyclopedia - this might be something similar to one of Scarecrow Press's "Historical dictionary of (whatever)" books. If you have access to any such, they are I think maybe the best examples of this type. They would tend to contain comparatively long basic "articles" on the primary subject, and then a large group of short entries on the various subjects of lesser importance associated with it.
• 3) other - because I can't think of what else to call them, or, at this point, of any particular examples.

Anyway, if you can think of any other kinds, let me know. If not, maybe, if I can impose on you, you might have a better idea of how to create example books of the first two types than me.

Oh, yeah, and I know I'm not as popular as the last guy, but I really have to question one of the "toys" you gave me last time. Gelignite suppositories. Really, really unsubtle. ;) John Carter (talk) 17:01, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Is it necessary/helpful to create new examples, or can we just draw on what is already available?

(I've never created a book either (oh, wait, I did, but it was just a test, and someone else created a better "official" version later , so I deleted it (User:Quiddity/Books/William Gibson if you'd like to glance. I don't recall how incomplete it was)) [I have a problem with parentheses. I'm getting it looked at... ;) ])

The only examples I've stared at for very long are Book:William Gibson, Book:Cats, and Book:Canada. They generally seem to be a selection from (or full copy of) the topic's footer navbox (eg Template:Gibsonian).

I'll think about your basic types idea once I've had more coffee...

Gelignite "cannot explode without a detonator, so it can be stored safely" in any area HMG sees fit. Should I have warned you to not ingest detonators? Even the drink should be safe. Really now Carter, I wouldn't try to kill off one of our best agents, despite the way you treat our equipment... -- Quiddity (talk) 18:58, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Veterinary terms

Hi. Regarding Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Animal and veterinary terms in Karimojong, could you check the deleted article, to see if there were any references in it? If there were, please userfy the article for me, and I'll try to determine where Wiktionary might want the content. If there were no references, then I don't have time for it. Much thanks :) -- Quiddity (talk) 23:35, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Done, User:Quiddity/Animal and veterinary terms in Karimojong; tag it {{db-userreq}} when you're done. Stifle (talk) 08:02, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Signpost

Hi Quiddity, I have seen you making small improvements to Signpost artices on various occasions during recent months, thanks for that! I was wondering if you would like to contribute more directly during the writing process, before publication? We could especially use help for the "In the news" section, summarizing media coverage of Wikipedia/Wikimedia. It usually has more than a thousand readers [3] and is linked in the Foundation's monthly reports, but unfortunately we are currently short on good writers for it, and two weeks ago we had to drop it for first time since May.

Even if you are not inclined to write a full story, a short summary of a news story or new research paper (may just be one or two sentences) can be very useful. Work on the section is coordinated in the Signpost newsroom, where there are some suggestions listed for the upcoming edition (Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2010-11-01/In the news - to be published tomorrow at some point during the day, but currently still empty...).

Regards, HaeB (talk) 22:05, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

I'll add some pages to my watchlist, and will jump in if I can help. Probably not this week. (unless I consume far too much coffee tonight; though, with the screaming teenagers outside, that might just happen...) -- Quiddity (talk) 22:17, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks in advance! The upcoming ITN has quite a lot of material already, but some entries still need fleshing out and most need polishing. Especially with this issue, help is also welcome for "News and notes", which is still almost empty.

Regards, HaeB (talk) 21:40, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Hi

Hi Quiddity,

You probably don't remember me, but back in August 2006 when I was a wiki-newbie, you welcomed me. I'm still active, having made over 8,000 edits, and have welcomed over 100 newbies myself. So I guess you've got 100+ "wiki-grandkids", if that makes sense.

I've randomly come across your name several times since, and you've always struck me as a sensible sort. Recently I've read of some valuable Wikipedians departing, and on a whim, I decided to check whether you were still active, and noticed you haven't edited this year. So I just thought I'd say that I hope you're well, and that I hope you come back soon. Though if real life takes you elsewhere, then I wish you all the best.

Also, I never thanked you for welcoming me. So... Thanks.

Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 15:48, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

p.s. I collapsed a few template notices above to keep your talk page looking tidy.

Much thanks for the thoughts, and the cleanup! It was a good but overextended wikibreak; 'm glad to be back. :) -- Quiddity (talk) 07:15, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

Use of colors

Hello there. Please see this suggestion of mine about a subpage of WikiProject Usability. Thanks! -- Hoary (talk) 07:43, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

Please comment

Please comment at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style_(article_message_boxes)#Categories. I have updated my answer considerably. It is unfortunate that discussion in that whole large section which discussed so many important additions to the template was restricted to two people mainly. Debresser (talk) 15:00, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Calvino - Baron in the Trees

Hi Quiddity. An IP address editor (geolocated in Rome) continues to remove sourced info at Baron in the Trees despite my several attempts to make him/her understand Wiki policy on sourced info. This editor refuses to discuss the matter while repeatedly removing the info. It's now down to simple vandal editing on his/her part. I'd be grateful if you had suggestions on what to do. I'm ready to request blocking him/her but is that the best procedure? And if so, who should I contact? Thanks for your help. --Jumbolino (talk) 14:03, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Minor Edit

Thank you for your contributions. Please remember to mark your edits, such as your recent edits to Wikipedia:Be Bold, as "minor" only if they truly are minor edits. In accordance with Help:Minor edit, a minor edit is one that the editor believes requires no review and could never be the subject of a dispute. Minor edits consist of things such as typographical corrections, formatting changes, or rearrangement of text without modification of content. Additionally, the reversion of clear-cut vandalism and test edits may be labeled "minor". Thank you. Ibicdlcod (talk) 09:27, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

Pointer to cause. Eyeroll. Back to work. -- Quiddity (talk) 21:43, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

re comment on TP

Hi Quiddity, thanks for the message. Please see here for a reply to your comment. Thanks. -- Cassianto^Talk 10:13, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

Wikibreak (2011 + a bit more)

I (Quiddity) took a wikibreak in December 2010 to concentrate on other IRL projects, that continued for far longer than I had hoped. It wasn't until July 2012 that time made itself available. I've got a lot to catch-up on! -- Quiddity (talk) 04:07, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

Thank you!

Thanks so much for that table of Community portals on other Wikipedias – it's actually really useful to see the different design structures that have been chosen by different projects. And if we find something that works particularly well on EN, it would be good to share findings with the other communities who have a CP, in case any of them have run into the same problems and want a better page. Maryana (WMF) (talk) 00:39, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks :)

Note to self: meta:Research talk:Community portal redesign#Comparison with other Wikimedia CPs.

Thanks for fixing up Glossary of chess

I wasn't aware of the nice templates available to aid in marking up glossaries. Your pointer to MOS:GLOSS was very informative. Quale (talk) 03:56, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

Glad it's appreciated. It took quite a while, and is a long diff to look through. I feared a BRD cycle ;)

I didn't add the {{defn}} templates in yet, as they make the raw-text very hard to navigate, but I might do so later. Will ping on the article's talkpage before I do. -- Quiddity (talk) 04:09, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

I was gonna ask if you did it w/ an automated tool. (And if so, could you please also do for Glossary of chess problems.) But "it took quite a while" makes me fear ... manually, letter by letter? (If so, I won't ask you to do for the other glossary. Please advise, thx.) Ihardlythinkso (talk) 07:51, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

Halfway between.

• Copy to textpad
• search&replace a number of things (multiline search&replace required)
• copy the "x" from "|content= x" into "term= x"
• check every single entry manually
• paste back into editwindow
• preview and check things dozens of times
• hit save.

All while listening to podcasts (TTBOOK and Radiolab). (So I'm not plain crazy ;)

(It would cut the time in half, if I'd just get around to learning regex properly... >.> )

I'm almost done Glossary of botanical terms, and it's taken about 2hrs. I'll do the chess problems next, now that I've gotten 2 (!) pieces of positive feedback. Thankee! -- Quiddity (talk) 08:26, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

Thx for the explain. Better if you do (for consistency). Thx for your efforts. Ihardlythinkso (talk) 08:48, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

I stopped by to say thank you too, for the changes to the two chess glossaries. The reason that we had a subsection for each term was so that other articles could link to that term (and that still works). None of us knew about the changes you made. You really cleaned it up; and I think it loads faster too. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 22:53, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

Just FYI, MOS:GLOSS's template-structured glossaries are all-or-nothing. The <dt>...</dt> markup embedded in the {{defn}} template is required or the markup is invalid. If you're finding that it creates reading problems, do it like this:

{{defn|1=


Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.


}} instead of:

{{defn|1=

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.

}}

Hope that helps. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 06:13, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

Glossary of ancient Roman religion

I may have questions as I work with the new format, so I'm hoping you'll watch the talk page for a while. Thanks! Cynwolfe (talk) 22:09, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

Definitely, and for years to come. -- Quiddity (talk) 22:15, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

Re: Thanks for everything

(begins with my msg, copied from talk:The Transhumanist)

A belated thanks (I have time! Finally!) for the notes on my talkpage wishing me well, during my wikibreak. They were much appreciated when I finally had time to login again. In general, I'm glad to see that nothing horrendous has occurred, though the indexes appear to be sliding into projectspace (which seems reasonable). I'll be working on glossaries for a little while, but hope to get caught up on outlines and start assisting with them again, soon. Best wishes, -- Quiddity (talk) 04:15, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

Wow. I was worried that you weren't coming back, and you were very sorely missed. It is a great relief to see you back again!

What on Earth have you been up to?

My outline development participation has shifted to perl programming and may include C++ programming soon. The prototypes are being developed offline for the most part. The two main avenues of development so far are one that involves using the external program calling feature of AWB, and the other is the use of standalone scripts on Wikipedia data dumps.

This endeavor has turned out to be even more technical than I thought it would, with a rather long learning curve. There are two of us working on this, and I'll pick up more programmers as I can find them.

We decided to avoid accessing MediaWiki's API directly from scripts due to bot policy and approval bureaucracy, and to avoid burdening the WP servers.

Perl was a natural progression from using regex, and wasn't as painful as I thought it would be, though it has turned out to be very time consuming.

Unfortunately, I haven't had as much time as I would like to devote to this, but when the programming projects are completed, we should get a solid productivity increase of at least a factor of five, but I'm hoping for a magnitude. In time, I see no reason why we can't get two magnitudes.

The goal is to be able to build outlines similar to Outline of cell biology, Outline of forestry, and Outline of chess, (or even better), using program support to speed up the process. While keeping a human editor in the loop before posting to WP, of course. Not likely this year, but very likely if I can manage to put a whole year of uninterrupted development time into this.

Regex only goes so far, but with Perl, we are currently at an automation ratio of about 80% of content, when the right conditions apply (when adequate prerequisite materials are available). The last 20% is a killer, and has really bogged us down. The magnitude mark would be 90%, while the 2 magnitude mark is 99% automation.

Unfortunately, the current "80% automation" achievement picks off only the low hanging fruit. The items it misses are those that already took the human editor the longest time to process. So it's not the 5x productivity increase I was hoping for. Eighty-percent of content does not equate to 80% of the labor. We've got a lot of tweaking and conceptual blockbusting to do before we will get there, but I'm highly optimitistic.

I'm 100% certain we can achieve 5 x productivity, i.e., a human editor being able to build a finished quality outline in 1/5th the time, using program support. I would love to achieve 100% automation, but that will require heuristic training architecture, or beyond, and we're a few years out from diving into that ocean.

We're currently on a break, but we will be back up and running within the next 3 or 4 weeks.

In the meantime, I'll be dropping in from time to time to keep an eye on the outline watchlist, etc.

Cheers, The Transhumanist 22:55, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

Keep Wikidata strongly in mind; it should become amazingly important over the next few years.

(As a scratching-the-surface-example, it should eventually contain all objective relational-data ("x = born on date = y", "country x's population = y in year z", etc) therefore: instead of updating all 150+ articles (de: fr: es: ja: en: etc) every time the official population count changes, each wikipedia just transcludes the data from {{wikidata:France:Current Population}}. (Grossly oversimplified example).

See meta:Wikidata for current details, and meta:Wikidata/Archive/Wikidata for oodles of historic notes and discussions and related projects.

Separate, but possibly converging later on: "Excerpts". - Years ago, I was looking at the excerpts that google provides in its results (usually 140-160 characters, 20-25 words), and now their new knowledge-graph feature (seems to provide the first complete sentence, eg search:mozart ). And Relatedly, the synopsis embedded in WP:Popups. - I was wondering if we could use the same/similar method, to pull definitions out, for use within outlines and glossaries. This would introduce a bunch of new problems though (arguing over how long, how detailed, how biased, the 1st sentence in an article could/should be, etc etc etc). But might come to pass.

Addendum: *

And whilst I'm tangenting, Simple English. I'm constantly wondering about ways to hook en: and simple: together in more efficient ways. Nothing concrete yet, but ideas mulling on the burner.

ttfn, -- Quiddity (talk) 23:48, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

* Addendum: I'm sure I recall someone suggesting, or starting a template or project for this, or something... Possibly related to disambig definitions? ("how do i word it?" "just use the first sentence from the article", "yes, but not always suitable!" "we should make a new template, inside every single article, that gives a 1 sentence summary", "the horror!", etc ... ). Can't find it of course. Getting grey hair, too... -- Quiddity (talk) 05:05, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

Rich Farmbrough tried templating the leads of articles, and using the templates to standardize the leads in articles and outlines, to keep them in sync. This turned out to be impractical, because it hid the leads from newbies. Also, we needed a truncated or condensed version of the leads for the outlines. On a side note, unfortunately, Rich has been banned by the Arbitration Committee from using any automation on Wikipedia until they decide otherwise. On the bright side, this makes him more available for answering technical questions.

The outline-related work I find the most interesting is the research being done at the University of Washington concerning automated taxonomy-building. They submitted a bot proposal a couple or so years ago to automate the construction of articles from scratch. They were turned down because nobody knew who they were (i.e., they had no history or reputation developing Wikipedia). At the core of their technology was the construction of topic taxonomies by a heuristic algorithm "trained" by humans. Taxonomy of topics = Topic outline.

After an extensive search, I could find no examples of articles being built using this type of thing. Instead, the research focused on building infoboxes, not articles. Very much WikiData-ish. More semantic web than Wikipedia-like. But much of the technology in that area should be applicable to outline building and maintaining.

After looking over the types of sources available, I came to the conclusion that we could do a pretty good job building outlines with a non-heuristic algorithm. We could always make it "intelligent" later.

More later.

Sincerely, The Transhumanist 20:36, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

Ping

You may have missed my reply to you at User talk:Br'er Rabbit#Infoboxes. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 01:34, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

I did see, but I wasn't sure how to reply in a way that avoided turning it into a rehash of that entire procedure.

I will emphatically note, that the word "duped" is an exact example of what I'm concerned about.

That word has a number of very negative insinuations (gullibility, stupidity, naivete, etc).

I'm not insulted, but only because I know how to interpret your writer's voice (because I grew up in England, and I can "hear" your accent and I can grok the nuance that you (probably) intended); However a lot of people would be insulted, and that word-choice would then become a focus of the discussion. As I said at the ANI thread, communication-style is the core of the current, and most of the past incidents. (More details/thoughts in my email to you). Best, -- Quiddity (talk) 02:12, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Ps. I meant Grantchester, not Granchester ;) -- Quiddity (talk) 03:54, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

The No Spam Barnstar

	The No Spam Barnstar
	Many thanks for your diligence on the Simplified English COI case and for keeping Wikipedia clear of spam and other nonsense! --Hu12 (talk) 10:40, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

Thankee =) (pointer note: current or archive) -- Quiddity (talk) 19:19, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

Thank you

... I tuypo a lot. KillerChihuahua^?!? 03:45, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

np. (For me, I pretty much always get there/their/they're wrong the first time, if typing at speed. ;) -- Quiddity (talk) 04:24, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

Ditto. Thanks for that, I guess I got tilde-happy. BigNate37_(T) 23:03, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

np. I often do the same. C'mon liquidthreads! (or whatever it is we're waiting for, this year). :) -- Quiddity (talk) 23:08, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

International English

Hi. I decided to revert your edit to the lead section of the International English article. Your edit summary said you were worried about phrasing, but actually there's already a disambiguation of Globish in the main text (within the section on English as a lingua franca in foreign language teaching), with a link to Globish (Nerriere). Unfortunately, because of all the commas and parentheses the sentence has become almost unreadable, and as this particular addition is redundant I thought it best to simply take it out. I'm quite inclined towards subclauses and parenthesis myself, so I promise this isn't a stylistic judgment, just one of accessibility. — JRYon (talk) 20:29, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

No problem. For context, I was cleaning up Template:Frequency list, and reading some of the refs in scattered articles, and in that case I couldn't determine whether the way Robert Crum had used "Globish" was a widely used definition, or his own personal extrapolation of the Nerriere controlled vocabulary (mixed with his understanding of "international English"); and Globish (Gogate) certainly doesn't help the confusion! Anyway, I'm happy to leave it to you (and anyone familiar with the article's topic). Thanks for the note though :) -- Quiddity (talk) 20:36, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

A cup of coffee for you!

Thank you for your kind words. Best, MistyMorn (talk) 09:33, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

Bug in GLOSS software?

Would you know why Glossary of chess#Piece shows up as "Chess piece" in the glossary? In the same P section, "Pawn and move" shows up as "Handicap in chess", as well. (Does there seems to be a bug in the s/w to replace name= with content= !?) Ihardlythinkso (talk) 21:14, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

Hi. That can be fixed/changed by normal link-text piping. (Done)

For explanation: The {{term}} template uses "|term= ... " to make the subsection-links work (caps-sensitive), and also to create the default name that is displayed; but if we want to make the term itself a link elsewhere, or add more variants (with an {{anchor|alt1|alt2|etc}} template), then those things need to be added to a "|content= ..." field.

Hence, the easy

{{term|term= Piece}}

or the complicated

{{term|term= Piece |content= [[Chess piece|Piece]] {{anchor|piece|pieces}} }}

Hope that clarifies everything, do let me know if anything is still unclear. :) -- Quiddity (talk) 21:36, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

Ok I get it, thanks! (I guess I'd thought the s/w would automatically pipe, knowing term= already [otherwise, what's the function of term= if simply overridden by content= ?]) Thanks again. Ihardlythinkso (talk) 08:44, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

The best way to understand it, is view-source. (View->Source in most browsers, often ctrl-U. In Firefox you can highlight some text, and rightclick to view-selection-source).

Here's the 3 types (with different words for clarity):

• {{term|term= Piece}}
• {{term|term= Piece |content= [[Monkey|PipedMonkey]] }}
• {{term|term= Piece |content= [[Monkey|PipedMonkey]] {{anchor|pizza|cheese|olive}} }}

And here's what those 3 create:

Piece

PipedMonkey

PipedMonkey

("may the source be with you!") -- Quiddity (talk) 02:33, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the explain. I guess the function of 'term=Piece' when 'content=[[Monkey]]' is specified, is for establishing link with Glossary of chess#Piece !? Thanks again, Ihardlythinkso (talk) 02:46, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Exactly. In the source an "id=..." is the within-page-link. Our ==headings== automatically create id=headings and the {{anchor}} template just creates more id's

The other method for creating within-page-links (outside of Wikipedia), is with a named anchor tag. eg <a name="foo">.</a> would let you link to this line via http://.../thispage.html#foo

So, if you ever want to link to a subsection of a webpage, you can just view-source, and hunt for an id= or name= and then stick that after a #

:) -- Quiddity (talk) 02:58, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Precious

	return
	Thank you for returning and trying to make other quality contributors return, with a rarely simple invitation: "Try to work/smile/love/laugh/work alongside the other humans", - you are an awesome Wikipedian! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:34, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

Thank you! and Thanks for reading all the way to the bottom of my userpage! That stack of navboxes is intimidating, but I'd hoped the commentary would lure some people in... =) -- Quiddity (talk) 18:10, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks for the link to the wikipedia Editor Lifecycles research: I had looked many timesfor something like that! --Squidonius (talk) 03:12, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

No problem :) I'm continually fascinated by archetypes.

Note to self (and talkpage stalkers): Wikipedia talk:WikiFauna#Cute but.... -- Quiddity (talk) 18:25, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, Quiddity. You have new messages at The wub's talk page.
Message added 09:53, 10 September 2012 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

the wub "?!" 09:53, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

WP:UPDC

Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:User page design center

Please change your vote to "keep". I'd appreciate it. Thank you. The Transhumanist 01:18, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

Replied at thread. —Quiddity (talk) 22:18, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

Potential mobile features we might build

Your input would be most appreciated here. Talk page stalkers also welcome :) Cheers, Maryana (WMF) (talk) 19:29, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

 Done

Thanks

Hey there -- thanks for the help with the archive box, much appreciated! Hope all's well with you. -Pete (talk) 03:50, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Np, and yes, but busy! —Quiddity (talk) 23:03, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Paul Laffoley

Dear Quiddity,

I am the person who put in the most recent changes to Laffoley's page, which you removed, making the serious, and false, charge that my changes constituted a copyright violation. They emphatically do not. I am an expert on the work of Paul Laffoley. I have worked with Paul since 1989. I edited The Phenomenology of Revelation and contributed the principle essay to the Architectonic Thought-Forms. I am currently working on another project with Paul, for whom I updated the opening paragraph, correcting the narrow focus on his employment with Emery Roth, and instead summarizing the progression to his mature work.

Thanking you in advance for refraining from any further false claims about copyright,

Sincerely,

J M Wasilik — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jmwww (talk • contribs) 16:25, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Replied at user's talk. —Quiddity (talk) 21:49, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

*** to move or not

Could you comment on Talk:*** about my proposal to move *** (novel) to ***? If you note the history, I discussed it briefly, no one seemed to care, I moved *** to *** (disambiguation) and RHaworth moved it back, claiming *** the novel wasn't notable enough in his edit summary. But the criterion WP:DABNAME doesn't rely on notability, but on using a primary topic, if there is one. Your edit suggests that you've noticed *** the novel is the only *** article on WP, so by default, it is the primary topic. Choor monster (talk) 15:54, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

 Done—Quiddity (talk) 23:03, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

iBooks on the iTunes store

Is it possible to add a link for the iTunes bookstore in this list, under the individual booksellers tab?

I'm nervous about trying it myself because I'm a newbie and I don't want to mess up with a bunch of undo's.

But it seems appropriate considering the number of books that are available ONLY on the iTunes store (the new enhanced iBooks for iPad can be sold nowhere else)

I'd appreciate some guidance.

tks — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tortilla2 (talk • contribs) 03:27, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Hi. I assume you're asking about the auto-ISBN links. That seems reasonable to me, however, you should ask at Wikipedia talk:Book sources for more diverse input (and show them the example code you believe to be correct, for others to check). Also, I don't use iTunes, so cannot personally assist checking/fixing the code. HTH. —Quiddity (talk) 08:21, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Re: Term capitalization

Hello. You have a new message at User talk:SMcCandlish's talk page. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 23:49, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Nominated for deletion

Wikipedia:Templates_for_discussion#Template:Logical_symbols

The recently created template Template:Logical symbols, has been nominated for deletion. This may eventually have an impact on the punctuation template, so I thought I would let you know. Greg Bard (talk) 15:22, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

Aside from being a probable violation of WP:CANVASS, Greg added some logical symbols to the logical symbols in the "Uncommon typography" section of {{Punctuation marks}} template, and then deleted them and some others about 4 hours later, on November 21 (UTC). You may weigh in if you wish, but there is no possible connections between the template Greg created and the "Punctuation marks" template. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 17:00, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

Quiddity has not written anything that would indicate what his vote would be on this issue. I am notifying him because he was part of the original discussion, Arthur. Greg Bard (talk) 17:56, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

Which original discussion? At the pronunciation template? OK, I guess. Some (now banned) editors request input about one article on the talk page of an unrelated article, because they think that editors at that article will be favorable to their point of view. I see your point, but your invitation is not neutral. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 18:48, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

I replied at Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2012 November 24#Template:Logical symbols, pointing wearily to the discussion at Template talk:Punctuation marks#‎Logical symbols which should have been more closely considered. TfD is definitely not the friendly or efficient way to figure this out. Silly rabbits. —Quiddity (talk) 21:28, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

A pie for you!

Thanks for re-categorizing all those literature stub templates! I was about to do it, and it was a really pleasant surprise to see you had already taken care of them. Huon (talk) 15:40, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

mMmmm, pie! That'll help me not eat too much batter whilst baking tonight's muffins. Thanks!

(Podcasts + minor manual tasks = productive hours :) —Quiddity (talk) 21:37, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

Misleading statement

In this edit, you referred to a comment I made as being from someone who is an admin and a WMF employee. While it is true that I am employed by WMF (for 5 weeks now!), my statement there was made entirely, 100% in my personal capacity and has absolutely nothing to do with my state of employment. And while it is true that the community has entrusted with the mop, my statement there has absolutely nothing to do with that either. My statement was just that of a normal editor, with whatever respect I deserve from my contributions alone, who thinks PBS should face the fact that no one agrees with him and that this continued tilting at windmills is likely to accomplish little.

In the interest of clarity, I ask you to please remove or redact that statement in your edit. Thanks. Anomie⚔ 03:05, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

Indeed. My apologies for voicing that. I was grasping at straws (because he's an admin, and should know better), in an attempt to convey my frustration, and to defend my usage of the link. 'Twas poor judgement error/taste. Have redacted/struck.

And a belated congratulations on your employment! I didn't realize it was recent. You and ais523 make my most used .js –Quiddity (talk) 07:13, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

If he's an admin, that just proves that adminship doesn't necessarily equate to good judgment when WP:INVOLVED. ;) Thank you, and thank you. Anomie⚔ 11:57, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

Notice of Dispute resolution discussion

Hello. This message is being sent to inform you that there is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard regarding a content dispute in which you may have been involved. Content disputes can hold up article development, therefore we are requesting your participation to help find a resolution. The thread is ""Breast Cancer Awareness" article and talk page".

Guide for participants If you wish to open a DR/N filing, click the "Request dispute resolution" button below this guide or go to Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard/request for an easy to follow, step by step request form. What this noticeboard is: It is an early step to resolve content disputes after talk page discussions have stalled. If it's something we can't help you with, or is too complex to resolve here, our volunteers will point you in the right direction. What this noticeboard is not: It is not a place to deal with the behavior of other editors. We deal with disputes about article content, not disputes about user conduct. It is not a place to discuss disputes that are already under discussion at other dispute resolution forums. It is not a substitute for the talk pages: the dispute must have been discussed extensively on a talk page (not just through edit summaries) before resorting to DRN. It is not a court with judges or arbitrators that issue binding decisions: we focus on resolving disputes through consensus, compromise, and explanation of policy. Things to remember: Discussions should be civil, calm, concise, neutral, and objective. Comment only about the article's content, not the other editors. Participants who go off-topic or become uncivil may be asked to leave the discussion. Let the other editors know about the discussion by posting {{subst:drn-notice}} on their user talk page. Sign and date your posts with four tildes "~~~~". If you ever need any help, ask one of our volunteers, who will help you as best as they can. You may also wish to read through the FAQ page located here and on the DR/N talkpage. Please take a moment to review the simple guide and join the discussion. Thank you! EarwigBot operator / talk 20:29, 5 December 2012 (UTC) Talkback Hello, Quiddity. You have new messages at Matthew Anthony Smith's talk page. Message added 21:10, 5 December 2012 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template. Nothing urgent, but I briefly responded to you in my lengthier reply to Matthew. Thanks for catching that! — Francophonie&Androphilie(Je vous invite à me parler) 21:10, 5 December 2012 (UTC) NP :) –Quiddity (talk) 21:50, 6 December 2012 (UTC) File:Wikipediascreenshotthumbnailcssproblem.jpg missing description details Dear uploader: The media file you uploaded as: File:Wikipediascreenshotthumbnailcssproblem.jpg is missing a description and/or other details on its image description page. If possible, please add this information. This will help other editors make better use of the image, and it will be more informative to readers. If the information is not provided, the image may eventually be proposed for deletion, a situation which is not desirable, and which can easily be avoided. If you have any questions, please see Help:Image page. Thank you. Theo's Little Bot (error?) 04:53, 14 April 2013 (UTC) Projects and projects Gday from Oz - I am having a bit of a think about WikiProject Indexes and WikiProject Lists - do you have any current thoughts on where they exist - or whether there is a turf/boundary/function issue? Ot is it my encounter of the I notice also that WikiProject Wikipedia is more or less cactus - I'd like think it was possible to resurrect it to be a history of wikipedia sort of thing. Any thoughts? sats 12:59, 14 April 2013 (UTC) Hi. I'm a bit confused by your incomplete sentence at the end of the 1st para, but.. Wikipedia:WikiProject Lists is ancient, and does what it needs to do, afaik. It's got 11,000 articles assessed, but is probably missing many thousands more. Wikipedia:WikiProject Indexes was created to cover the subgroup of lists that are formatted in a particular way, ie most (but not all, as some are miscategorized or have changed format since being categorized) of Category:WikiProject Index articles. These are vastly more complicated, as some editors feel strongly that they don't belong in mainspace, and some feel that they should be converted into [structured-]glossaries/outlines, and some are content with the existing setup. You can see my incredibly-densely-summarized-overview of the issues involved, here. There are megabytes of discussion elsewhere/summarized-there. (Note that the mathematics index has been redirected, and the old content is now located in projectspace, here.) I haven't thought/read anything about them recently, but I'm generally of the opinion that all 3 (indexes, glossaries, outlines) should ideally be merged into a single type of structured-glossary. E.g. Outline of cell biology is a perfect mix of glossary/outline. E.g.2. Outline of Buddhism is a good mix of index/glossary/outline. Wikipedia:WikiProject Wikipedia I'm aware of, but not involved with. I do see your message on the talkpage though; a few particular points in reply to that: I think the author of the current goals just meant "Keep an eye (and guiding-hand) on the navbox-template and category and outline." There's nothing "technical" about it. (?) Most of the initial hostility towards Outlines seems to have dissipated, over the years. Is there fresh outrage, somewhere? For what it's worth, the Outline of Wikipedia is a good guide to the directly-related-to-Wikipedia content. Clearer (for some people at least) to comprehend, than the navbox-template or category. Overall, I do agree that some tweaks of that project's "scope" and "goals" is perfectly reasonable. But I don't think that by itself will reinvigorate the project at all. The current content is serving as large/abstract/overview goals -- what I suspect you are envisioning is more specific/detailed/article-oriented goals. (?) You wrote, "... resurrect it to be a history of wikipedia sort of thing." - What exactly would be done differently? What specific article-changes are you thinking of as examples? - As far as I can tell, that is basically what the project is/does do already - the only problem is lack of volunteers. Hope that helps. Feel free to ask/follow up with more :) –Quiddity (talk) 21:20, 14 April 2013 (UTC) Thanks for your considered reply - appreciated - that odd sentence got in there by itself I am sure.... Funny I had quite a bit of hostility to the outlines project a few years back as it seemed - from the perspective of sitting inside the Indonesia project the outline seemed to unnecessarily duplicate already present lists, guides and indexes created within the project... But as the project has lost most editors and the activity remains ok - I can see where amalgamation of the two could be very good all round I am very very interested in your (index, glossary, outline) combination - which could rationalise the relatively incomplete and close to inert different projects of sort - a lot of work, but end result would be better all around, editors and readers - any idea the process required to bring that around. Wikiproject Wikipedia I think would be an excellent means for the documenters and/or historians of wikipedia to get a handle on where things are relative to the self referencing is possible in mainspace... Initial reply, maybe more some time later sats 01:05, 15 April 2013 (UTC) The things, that are core to understanding outlines, are: Where they came from. See List of basic physics topics, as it has developed, since 2001 (2001!) See the full list of them, in 2005. (Basic topics = (now) outlines) They're "A Useful List" that appeal to certain archetypes of readers/learners, and certain archetypes of writers/editors. They're also inspired by the Propædia, which is partially where their current name stems from. (And also a few centuries of other topic-primers and topic-outline educational material.) They were growing incrementally, and mostly ignored, from 2001 until 2005, when a group of us were redesigning the Main Page. During and after the Main Page redesign, we were checking/updating/contemplating all the pages that it and the Sidebar linked to, and some of us went on to do redesigns/updates of the Community Portal, and the Help:Contents page, and the Portal:Contents page (and all its subpages), in 2006. See Wikipedia:Category schemes in 2005. User:The Transhumanist (aka GoForIt! back then) and I were highly active through all of that, both of us putting huge quantities of hours into understanding and helping (re)organize the entire existing system. We started WikiProjects for the page types that didn't have them, and began systematically clarifying the designs, and contents, and activities, and objectives. And filling in the many content gaps by creating new articles/lists. The main underlying conflict has always been how prominent to make them (Portals/Outlines/Glossaries/Navboxes/Infoboxes. Same arguments, different aspects). The Transhumanist sees their value (as do I), and wants more editors to help improve them, so that they can be as impactful in pedagogy as we know they can potentially be. They start as simple basic lists, and turn into glorious examples of topic-overviews/primers. In the earlier years, it was the chicken-egg problem of "Do we link it now, so prominently, in its half-finished condition?" that caused so many people to find fault with the project. Transhumanist is optimistic and full of energy, so he put a lot of the effort into keeping it moving forward (interlinking the existing lists in Portals/Wikiprojects/Templates/Categories/Articles, creating & encouraging others to create new/missing lists); whereas, I'm a realistic (pessimistic!) worryer, so spent a lot of time trying to gently slow-down the efforts, and also trying to explain the history&future of the scenario to the other editors (like you, probably) who were hostile/suspicious/concerned about these "new" projects or lists. This is much less of a problem, now that the lists have been worked on and improved for years. (Though everything, of course, needs decades more work!) I know way, way too much about these issues/subjects! I've explained them in so many different ways, to so many different editors, that it makes my head hurt! (This is taking me hours to write, because I don't want to miss too many crucial datapoints, and I don't want to use inaccurate/ambiguous words, but I also don't want to make it TL;DR... Plus it's been a few years since I last tried to get it all out.) Combination: I would suggest that it's a natural progression, and just depends on each editor and how they organise their efforts. A list will naturally grow from: core keyword list --> glossary (core list plus definitions) --> outline (transforming the alphabetical-glossary into a structured-glossary) If the core list starts off as organised-into-subheadings (not plain alphabetical), then it can just skip the "glossary" stage. I wouldn't recommend trying to hurry this process along. Too many people still don't know/understand the history. We've previously had editors try to MfD entire projects like these, and everything related to them (ditto for glossaries, ditto for "articles about words", ditto for indexes, and graphical timelines, etc), and the many weeks (sometimes months) of argument are exhausting and very de-motivating. Worry-worry-worry. (I speak from experience!) Slow and steady wins the race. Indexes are more complicated, because they're (usually) intended to be complete or exhaustive coverage of a topic. I suspect that they exist primarily due to the shortcomings of our category system (e.g. It's a web not a tree so we can't just list everything in the subcats to capture a topic; e.g. We can only reasonably list a few 100 items per page; etc etc). Therefor: They complement (act in unison with) the category system. I suspect the properly exhaustive ones should be moved to project-space, just as the mathematics index was. - The short indexes should/could probably be converted into glossaries/outlines. Wikiproject:Wikipedia - I'm still not sure what you mean. What examples of specific activity, would you use, to demonstrate the new goals of the project? You suggested on the talkpage:- "... narrowing of scope could be an excellent container project for the important outlining and tabulating of the history of the project. [...] ". Hmmmm, do you mean this? "Turn it into a project that cleans up and organizes all the scattered back-room material, i.e. Stop focusing on article-space, and instead focus on the project-spaces, and create more lists/guides for editors around things like WP:MOSR and WP:PERENNIAL and talkpage-archive-indexes (with a bit of WP:SIGNPOST mixed in)." ? (If so, I'd suggest a new project is wanted, not dismantling an old unrelated project). If that is not what you meant, then perhaps you could give me 3 or 4 redlink page titles, that should exist and this new project would cover? Or similar? (Examples, examples, examples, please! As location is to real-estate, examples are to explanations. :) TL;DR - No it isn't! I took hours to write/edit it; please read it twice, and click all the links! ;) –Quiddity (talk) 04:45, 16 April 2013 (UTC) Wow you must be a canuck - this reminds me of a bus trip from toronto to niagara falls - so well explained it made the other side of the border... well I mustnt get derogatory... they are really hurting at the moment. For the effort you have put in the reply - I owe you at least a beer or three or coffee - if we ever by chance meet in real life (not that I will be wandering the streets of Toronto in the near future - and it was 4 years in September that I was there...) sheesh I need to cogitate over most of the above... but, Wikiproject:Wikipedia - nah still misunderstood here -the idea is more like identifying components of the overall project and its history - timelines, explanations - self reflexive point where and how and when the new sister projects are started - big changes - historiography of wikipedia - identifying sources, threads, that eventually became an internal wikipedia history of itself with links, sources fitting together... I think that it should be free of maintenance obligations... idea along the line of: Timelines in the history of each project Major events in the life of wikipedia Responses to changes in format, presentation Internal changes - locations of servers How it works - history - wikipedia - early days Milestones in wikipedia's evolution Languages other than english - projects, etc Processes involved in the creation of wikipedia Relationship with other media Record of wikipedia history History of Wikimedia foundation More later sats 07:19, 16 April 2013 (UTC) Thank you! I'm very glad you appreciate it. (Yup, canuck as charged; though multinational in background, and post-nationality is desired. ;) That new explanation makes complete sense. Those bulleted-items looks like some excellent Heading/Section names, and goal-notes. If you take those, and add this list... I'd suggest putting it in a sandbox/draft-page somewhere, and add notes, and shuffle links, so we can find out what exists already, whilst we build it up over a few days; and then see what directions that leads in. For the title/location, I'd tentatively suggest naming it a 'Task Force' within the scope of the existing project. Or just call it WP:WikiProject Wikipedia Historiography ;) But don't dismantle the old project in order to host this idea; that just makes the history of it all more confusing! It might be helpful if you refactored/edited the thread currently over there, in the meantime, to avoid confusing anyone. –Quiddity (talk) 01:13, 17 April 2013 (UTC) ahah - if anyone was watching, I am sure we lost them long time back... I am wondering to what extent the suggested change of scope (that hasnt been responded to at all) might be archived to the point that the task force is suggested - rather than leave my poorly expressed view there... sats 09:21, 17 April 2013 (UTC) I've occasionally replaced a message that hasn't been replied to, with a single sentence, like "struck, rethinking" or similar. Sometimes including a diff-link to the original content. –Quiddity (talk) 10:51, 17 April 2013 (UTC) Hello. This is a very interesting discussion you have going here. Quiddity, I was drawn to your talk page by a recent outline deletion discussion you participated in, and after I posted a message concerning that, I noticed this related thread. I'm impressed with your summary of the history and evolution of navigation pages, including outlines. By the way, there are over 30,000 articles titled "List of". Sats, they are item lists mostly (listing a particular type of thing), except for those ending in "topics", which are general topics lists for various subjects. The latter are slowly being absorbed into the set of articles entitled "Outline of". The index articles are most useful for checking Related changes (via the Toolbox menu) – that is, each serves as a watchlist for an entire subject. They don't (shouldn't) include extraneous links, like the annotations found in outlines sometimes do. So, they are more focused than outlines in that way, but lack the structure and descriptions that make the best outlines so useful. I agree with Quiddity that the Wikipedia:WikiProject Wikipedia proposal is best achieved by creating a new WikiProject. I've posted my thoughts on the matter at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Wikipedia#Suggested change of scope and goal of this project. I was unaware of the WikiProject Indonesia lists. I'm disappointed and impressed at the same time. On the one hand, I've gone all these years not knowing about them, and I really wish I had (but they are hidden away). On the other hand... Wow. That's a bumper crop of links. I'm tingling all over in anticipation of what comes next (Harvest!) One of the guiding principles of the navigation projects (outlines, indexes) is to make links available in list form to readers to make navigation easy for them. Toward that end, they are displayed in article space, because that's where readers are most likely to find them. "Basic topics lists." That brings back memories. It was a small collection of lists of redlinks intended to identify the main topics in a set of major subjects that needed articles written for them. To do lists. When a link turned blue, that task was completed. All the links eventually turned blue, and the lists were forgotten about — the job completed. I happened along and found the lists to be quite useful, and so I moved them to article space and started building new ones to round out the collection. Lists of basic topics. I was pretty naive to think we could have a set of lists of just basic terms. Pages on Wikipedia are designed to grow, and you can't put a cap on 'em — such limits are simply ignored. It was funny when some of the "basic topic lists" became more comprehensive than the lists that were supposed to be comprehensive. It turned into a competition. We needed a new name. Concerning the observation that the best outlines are amalgamations of indexes/glossaries/outlines, well, it's true. The ultimate feature of outlines are their annotations, to aid in topic selection and speed up the learning process. (All on one page). Sats, in answer to your query about the process required to bring that around: lots of editing. What the outlines need most right now are filling them in with annotations. Below is a list of some outlines in the annotation stage, approaching the complete format. Note that the largest group of outlines in the list below come from the culture section of Portal:Contents/Outlines. The idea is to complete the outlines in that page's top section first, so editors who browse through the section will get a strong sense of what we're aiming at for the rest of the project. Outline of agriculture Outline of Apple Inc. Outline of applied science Outline of architecture Outline of automation Outline of classical architecture Outline of autism Outline of the Bahá'í Faith Outline of basketball Outline of biophysics Outline of canoeing and kayaking Outline of Catholicism Outline of the Catholic ecumenical councils Outline of cell biology   (complete) Outline of chemistry Outline of chess Outline of Christianity Outline of Christian theology Outline of Colorado prehistory   (formatting complete) Outline of community Outline of computer science Outline of cricket Outline of ecology Outline of energy Outline of solar energy Outline of wind energy Outline of fantasy Outline of fencing Outline of fiction Outline of film Outline of fishing Outline of food preparation Outline of forensic science Outline of forestry (I believe this is the best of all the outlines - though the history section is in rough-draft form, undergoing expansion). Outline of The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire   (complete) Outline of forgery Outline of geography Outline of the humanities Outline of medicine Outline of meteorology Outline of the metric system Outline of motorcycles and motorcycling Outline of natural language processing Outline of prehistoric technology Outline of project management Outline of Protestantism Outline of robotics Outline of science Outline of science fiction Outline of sharks Outline of sinology Outline of tennis Outline of theatre Outline of tort law Outline of transhumanism Outline of video games These outlines are what everybody is basing further outline work on. The higher the quality of these outlines, the better the example everybody else has to go on. Quiddity, you pointed out that there is decades more work on the outlines. I'm a firm believer in the principle and strategy of accelerating change. In the next couple of years, I expect more work will be done on outlines than has been achieved over the past ten years. (No, not by an army of editors. Though that would be nice. It will more likely be achieved through the use of productivity tools and automation). Sats, concerning your WikiProject Wikipedia History proposal, it looks like what you need is an outline. :) About the rest of it, to sum up, the most important activity right now for outlines is annotating the outlines in the culture section of Portal:Contents/Outlines. The next most important endeavor is to finish annotating the other outlines in the list above. Spread the word. I hope I've helped clarify things. G'day. The Transhumanist 23:34, 22 May 2013 (UTC) We took the discussion to email, after the above, so there's a lot more that we discussed. It did lead to wm2013:Submissions/''It's Great Music, but...'' though, and our discovery of the older meta:Wikimedia history (and its numerous subpages). I've added a slew of links to the "Sources of information" section there, and now begins the hard work of whittling them down. So many projects/distractions/dreams... –Quiddity (talk) 00:05, 23 May 2013 (UTC) To quote Peter Drucker: "First things first, second things not at all." Always keep the opportunity cost in mind. The Transhumanist 17:38, 23 May 2013 (UTC)