User talk:Thumperward/Archive 38

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Regarding your icon removal

This [1], I find the icon clearly identifies the connection, in the future its possible we'll incorporate more connections in the infobox, and these icons are already in use in over 100 articles that are part of Oslo Metro including the Good article Sinsen_(station), you can see all the icons (I think) being used at Jernbanetorget (station).--Crossmr (talk) 13:44, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

The icon didn't even have alt text, which makes that field completely unusable to visually impaired users. I'm well aware that we have a great many templates which are useless to the visually impaired, but we should not be exacerbating that problem. Furthermore, the term "bus routes" is considerably more expressive than an image of a bus anyway. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 13:49, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

I've now cleaned up {{infobox T-bane station}}, which should resolve this on the pages you've mentioned. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 14:05, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

If the no alt-text was a problem, give it alt text. That is a very weak argument. I've noticed your change on the Oslo Metro template, and I think you've just made it more useless. You replaced the airplane with the word "Air" but it isn't an air connection. Its actually a connection to the airport itself. i don't agree at all with your change because I don't see any of these being used purely for decoration.--Crossmr (talk) 21:56, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

So make it "airport", then. The use of icons to replace text is handy in video games, but where used interchangeably with text in infoboxes it is entirely unnecessary and does nothing to clarify the content. In the infobox in question the use of icons dates back to 2006, when there was very little focus on basic accessibility compared to now. I'll ping WP:ACCESS and related projects tomorrow to gather input, though. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 22:15, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

If you're citing access as a concern, then the alt-text takes care of that. If you're citing decoration as a concern I don't see them being used just to make the box look nice, they're serving a functional purpose.--Crossmr (talk) 04:46, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't believe they make the table any clearer; were there a compelling reason to use an image instead of text (easier localisation, or a pressing need to conserve space) then I might consider the loss of clarity and the incongruity of having some fields text and some images to be worth it, but there doesn't appear to be any such reason IMO. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 07:57, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

I've now added a comment to template talk and pinged a couple of pages which are watched by users who might be able to provide more input. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 08:09, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm in agreement with Chris here. Icons are almost never a good substitute for plain text, and do not provide the same level of clarity. I'm not seeing how their use is advantageous here. PC78 (talk) 09:35, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

morton scorers list

Could you explain why you've deleted these, the whole thing is in a section about Morton post administration. Salty1984 (talk) 17:27, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Articles are not meant to be almanacs. The article was previously dominated by huge lists of statistics obviously extracted directly from primary sources. There is no need to include every piece of available statistical information, and doing so is to the detriment of the article's readability. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 17:52, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Template:Infobox bridge:

Can you edit this template?

put in "carries road" or something under "official name" and a "commonslink" at the bottom, then stack the info in this order "open" under "official name", "length" before "Longest span" and "Number of spans" underneath "Longest span". --Snurre86 (talk) 22:12, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Somewhat belatedly (sorry), I've carried out some of this work. the {{{carries}}} parameter already covers "carries road", and I'm not really sure what you mean by a "commonslink" (if you mean an attribute to display a link to Wikipedia Commons, such things belong in the article footnotes), but the rest is done. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 09:39, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Augustus Caesar Buell

Funnily enough, it was precisely because I found it difficult to make the mangled sentence work without reinstating something like my original words that I chose in the end to revert and let you sort out the mess. Sorry, but I was annoyed. David Trochos (talk) 17:30, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

No worries (belatedly). The current version is fine. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 18:00, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

I realize that this occured a long time ago...

...but when I saw that I immediately connected the two. So, did you think that I was engaging in meatpuppetry?
--NBahn (talk) 04:12, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

No, I didn't. I was just pointing out that restoring that text was unproductive, without prejudice as to why you might have done it. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 09:25, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Template:Infobox Clan

I undid your edit: [2]. your adjustment made the boxes push the text in all clan articles with a picture following, to start after the boxs (in Explorer). According I undid your revision. Please note that the Template:Infobox Clan has a sanbox: Template:Infobox Clan/sandbox, please use this befor trying adjustments as the edits effect dozens of articles. Yours ever, Czar Brodie (talk) 10:49, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Sorry about that. I've made some significant changes to the code which should have resolved this, tested them in the sandbox and deployed them. If you still see issues then please let me know. Thanks. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 17:01, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

thanks for taking time to tidy up, but there are still issues. Problems still in explorer (with an image that follows the infobox), see Clan Farquharson, Clan Cochrane, Clan Hamilton, Clan Leslie, Clan Ramsay, Clan Sempill, Clan Swinton, and Clan Macfie. My past solution to this was to use "div". Your experience shouldd help in findding a better solution. Yours ever, Czar Brodie (talk) 19:26, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

I've implemented a fix for this. Sorry for the disruption. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 23:01, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Template:Infobox Rugby biography

The change you made to this infobox is causing some to display incorrectly. Specifically, if a player has played for the British and Irish Lions and then for another representative team, the year and appearances figures are misplaced. noq (talk) 15:34, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

I've posted a workaround on the template talk page. The correct fix for this will require significant work to create a replacement infobox design; this work is essential in the long run, as detailed at Wikipedia:WikiProject Usability/Infobox accessibility. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 16:43, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

malwarebytes misinformation

Chris: I see you wrote some notes about this program's entry on Wikipedia so I thought I would drop some information on you that you may be unfamiliar with. I got infected with Save Defense which is an irritating multi popup piece of malware that is designed to annoy you until you buy something from them. I found Malwarebytes Anti-malware program (MBAM) that claims it will remove SaveDefense and even shows a screen shot where SaveDefense is being found for removal in a MBAM window. I fell for it, and installed MBAM. It destroyed my computer and I had to put in a new hard drive. It prevented me from opening any browser (as soon as they opened they would close again, both IE8 and Firefox). It prevented me from running McAfee Security (that also closed instantly). It allowed me to run AdAware, presumably because that program will not affect MBAM (it didn't). It freely allowed me to send and receive email though. When I connected to the internet, I could see it was sending out bytes so I went to disable my wireless connection. For the first time ever, I was prevented from disabling the connection in a window that informed me that I could not disable this connection at this time. The whole thing seems designed to prevent the user from doing anything to protect himself against this evil piece of dreck called MBAM. It disturbs me to see Wikipedia hosting an article which is basically an ad written by a vicious hacking company. Since I don't have time to take another PHD, this time in Wikipedia editing (the learning curve is intimidating if not prohibitive for ordinary mortals) I am writing to you in hopes you have an interest in this topic. Paul Palmer paulp@sonic.net (I am not anonymous) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.130.51.224 (talk) 18:05, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

My experience was the exact opposite: I was initially skeptical (especially considering that the article is regularly rewritten in more glowing prose) but I've had nothing but 100% positive results from actually using it. I can't speak to your experiences (having long gotten out of the business of discussing malware infections with anyone without money changing hands), but I wish you the best in resolving your computer problems. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 18:13, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Template:Infobox UK heritage station/doc

Please see the page history - it's a work-in-progress. The doc page as you left it three months ago was pretty scanty, I gave up waiting. So yesterday, I added all the fields, with the intention of determining what the proper ones were, and which deprecated. Today I split it into sections as per Template:Infobox GB station/doc and Template:Infobox UK disused station/doc. Tomorrow I was going to add example text, and caveats such as "don't use both |image= and |image_name=".

The ultimate intention was to get the page looking something like the other two, the second of which you will see has a Complete blank version.

Unfortunately, you've reverted my version to my previous version. --Redrose64 (talk) 20:00, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Further: your comment "all attributes are optional anyway" is untrue - try leaving out |locale= or |borough= --Redrose64 (talk) 20:10, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

I'll leave you to it for now, then. Sorry for the disruption. As for the mandatory attributes, all infobox template parameters should be optional; I'll try to work on that later as well. Cheers. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 20:19, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Pedant17

You're right, I've encountered this editor on the Talk:Alien (film) page, and there does seem to be a pattern of making E-Prime "copyedits" that degrade the article, then skirting the subject when challenged (he appeared to be confusing editors for months on the Alien talk page, by repeatedly rejecting suggested first-sentence compromises for not being "optimal" or "NPOV", without ever explaining that he simply wanted to see the word "is" removed). He seems to be filibustering quite heavily on Talk:Outrageous Betrayal at the moment (posting a long list of how "justified" each and every comment against him has been, and talking up the semantic confusion over whether "eliminating passive voice" correctly describes his edits, rather than discussing the merit of the edits themselves), and I'm concerned that he's misinterpreting WP:SILENCE to mean "if the editors who disagree with me stop replying, that means I now have consensus".

I was hoping to drag the talk page back to discussing actual edits, to see whether he's here to improve Wikipedia or just to remove the word "is" from it, but given this morning's "copyedits" to Dell, you're probably right that this needs a stronger mode of resolution. Let me know if there's anything I can do to support that. --McGeddon (talk) 11:21, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

He is, in general, here to add article content, but he has repeatedly refused to compromise on his dogged insistence on E Prime. In every forum where he's tried to argue his case he's been shot down, so I take that as license to undo those changes now (which is what I'm currently doing over his last few months' worth). I'm not sure whether it's worse that he repeatedly returns to the same articles (Dell, nVidia) to restore his layout against mutliple objections or whether it's better because it makes it easier to undo. I've tried finding middle ground with him, encouraging him to use his skills on articles which could really do with a bit of copyediting and trying to get him to discuss the issue again at WP:LEDE (where it's previously been rejected, although not prohibited as such, which he takes as carte blanch to continue). None of it's worked. The next step really has to be a user conduct RfC on the same grounds as NYScholar (namely, that users do not simply get to repeatedly restore their content because it isn't explicitly prohibited by policy, and that steamrollering debate is unacceptable). Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 11:36, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

In answer to....

...your question. Me, as youy could easily have found from the article history. SpinningSpark 19:51, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

It was really a rhetorical question, but while you're here I don't suppose you could humour me on your rationale? Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 19:52, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't really have one - at the time I wasn't aware of the singular title convention. I would say there is more than one class of these things so plural makes more sense, but whatever. SpinningSpark 22:30, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

No problem :) Sorry if I came across as questioning your judgement - it was just the third or fourth such example I'd seen that day and I shouldn't have whined in an edit summary. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 22:46, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Deletion of talk pages for Alien (film)

I'm not sure what to do now, so I have to pass the buck. Can you post this at WP:AN or such? No hard feelings if it is undeleted. Bearian (talk) 19:55, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

I suppose I'll stick it on ANI then, though I'll wait until Illazilla deigns to tell me why keeping archives to a manageable length was such a bad idea in the first place. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 20:03, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

restored. I also restored to version prior to the deletion tags, but only after page restore - that way entire page history is maintained. — Ched :  ?  11:23, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Cheers! Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 11:24, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

MoS - Infobox infobox naming issues

Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (infoboxes)#Naming issues may be of interest. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 22:47, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Replied, though I really think you're only on stage 1 of the discussion here. Would be a good idea to disengage from editing the policy page for at least a few iterations of discussion anyway; as noted, people aren't paying attention to the current MoS wording anyway, so updating the MoS right this minute isn't really necessary. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 23:01, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Splitting vs merging refs

Yo Chris, regarding this; I combined those refs originally because I didn't think I could use them anywhere other than for that particular point. Editors sometimes get annoyed when there are multiple single-use citations in a particular place, because it clutters up the text for the reader and doesn't provide any extra information. I don't think there's a hard and fast rule either way, but just thought I'd mention it. Regards,  Skomorokh  14:32, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm not a great fan of refspam either, but I'd rather that references were marked up individually for the sake of maintainability. Cheers for mentioning it though. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 14:37, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

No worries. Do you it's overkill to have seven refs for "The phrase "Disneyland with the death penalty" became a famous and widely-referenced description for the nation."?  Skomorokh  14:44, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

If they're good references then we can't get enough of them. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 14:47, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Re: Blanka

No offense meant, just I've had my share of editors jump my case over using "black" or "white" in an article in terms of race (just recently someone tried changing black to "person of African descent" in Barret Wallace...)--Kung Fu Man (talk) 00:43, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

None taken. I would be curious to know who took offense to the term "black" as an adjective but not "negro" though. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 00:47, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Regarding user comment for abhinav777

You stated abhinav777 deleted templates, you mind expanding on this? Looking at the edit history did not reveal any sign of deletion. Abhinav777 (talk) 04:21, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Please accept my sincere apologies - I've stricken the comment from your talk page, as I had mistakenly attributed this edit to you. Sorry about that! Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 08:10, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Thank you! No harm done. Please continue your work, it's what makes Wikipedia a possibility! Abhinav777 (talk) Abhinav777 (talk) 03:47, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

WP:REFUND template request

Chris,

I have been trying (with minimal success) to emulate the preloader that WP:AN3 uses (See the bottom of the 3rr template header) at Requests for undeletion. I have the preloader link down, but I would like to use something like {{drv2}} but still be able to leave it in the preloader. If I substitute drv2 I get something that looks nice in the edit window (basically I get a section header and the {{DRV links}} with room for arguments, but it ends up like a total mess if the arguments aren't filled in completely and correctly. Is there some way I can make a template to add a section header w/ the title of an article as an argument, add links to the article, history, xfd (and so on) but still fail gracefully so that if none of the arguments are filled in it doesn't look like a mess? Thanks, Protonk (talk) 00:27, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

{{DRV links}} could do a better job of failing gracefully, but other than that it looks like you've basically gone for the right approach. It's always going to look broken if people simply don't bother to replace the comments with their own text unless you put your own example text in there, which is still going to lead to people messing up and there being links to things like Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/YOU MUST REPLACE THIS TEXT or the like. You could wrap the DRV links up like:

:{{DRV links|
|xfd_page={{{<!--Place the name of the "article" or "miscellany" for deletion process here, if you know it-->|article}}}
|article={{{<!--Place the name of the article here-->|example page}}}
}}

Even then, if the user doesn't delete the comment markup, or accidentally deletes the pipes or the curly brackets, it's going to be hosed again.

Foolproofing it would be possible if DRVs were on their own sub-pages, as shown by the magic of Wikipedia:Requests for mediation/File. But you can't use the {{subst:PAGENAME}} magic just to add headers, so DRV would need to be restructured. (Frankly, I really don't understand why we don't go the individual-page-with-transclusion route with all processes like this.) Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 10:09, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Changes to John Blanche

Hi. I noticed your recent edits to the John Blanche page. Although I see you have removed all the See Also links, and added one to Adrian Smith (presumably due to percieved overlinking - although personally I like having links collected together in See Also secs - c'est la vie), and don't necessarily disagree with the edit, I was wondering why you removed the ref to the gaming wiki I was using to justify the claim that he had illustrated various FF titles in the opening section? Although there is another page referenced elsewhere in the article that shows a contribution to these, it is not anywhere near as comprehensive. . .

Thanks for your time. LSmok3 (talk) 14:55, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Wikis aren't reliable sources. Therefore, we can't use them to reference anything we're adding here. We can surely find a better source? Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 15:12, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Well, I'll see what I can do. Problem is, there is scant biographical info on Blanche available anywhere, and the man has very few books actually on him (I only know of Ratspike, with Ian Miller, which I don't have a copy of and which might contain some biographical info). Other than that there may be something in an issue of Whiet Dwarf somewhere, but I wouldn't knwo. Perhaps the FF official site has some mention of his credits, although he did do covers for some of the non-FF spin-offs too. . . LSmok3 (talk) 16:56, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm certain he must have had coverage somewhere over the last 20-odd years. He did basically invent the visual style of what is now a multi-million pound worldwide wargaming enterprise. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 17:00, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Well, you'd think so :) Sadly, The Black Library (a GW site) only has two lines on him, (I did reference a Black Library interview, but they removed it from their site, so I found a copy), and the official John Blanche website now looks like this. LSmok3 (talk) 18:14, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

XKCD

No just saw the duplicate refs tag from Huggle. Whip it out like a perforated appendix, if that's the right thing to do. Rich Farmbrough, 15:10, 12 September 2009 (UTC).

Ah, okay. Cheers! Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 15:12, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Apologies

I apologize for removing the section that I did. I realized after I did it that it was probably not appropriate to have done that. I appreciate you explaining to me what I did wrong - I'm new to Wikipedia and am still trying to figure everything out! (Hopefully I'll be more of a help than a disruptance!) Sorry and thanks again. —Preceding unsigned comment added by MTPickett1101 (talk • contribs) 15:38, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

No worries. As I say, if you have any questions in future, feel free to drop me a line. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 16:49, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

advert label

Hello Chris, you put a advert label at 17:36, 23 August 2009 on the page Tryton. May I ask you for the reasons, what I can do better to get rid of the label? Udono71 (talk) 16:44, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

A few things:

1. The article consists of little except for a list of features.
2. Most of the references are from the developers themselves.
3. The features sections, rather than explaining what the software does, are just lists of bullet points.

To correct this, secondary sources must be found, the article should be expanded with details on project organisation, history et cetera, and the features sections should be rewritten. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 16:49, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your helpfull remarks to bring the text to a better quality. But I ask me where you find the advert aspect. All topics you name are aspects of the poor quality of the text, but why an advert label? Udono71 (talk) 17:07, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

The article need not look like a paid-for column in a newspaper to read like an advertisement. The {{advert}} tag simply provides the most succinct way of pointing out the article's problems, namely that it is mostly referenced by links to the company's own website and consists more of a feature list than a description of the subject. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 17:11, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Ok, now I got the point. Thanks again. Udono71 (talk) 17:35, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Template

Hi,

Please see teh talk page on template Roman Catholicism. It was discussed at length. Your "tidy" edits need to be agreed on beforehand. Please discuss and wait before changes. Thanks. History2007 (talk) 19:43, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Errr, no. There is no need to get minor style / code tweaks with no semantic impact blessed beforehand. Do not revert edits without an actual reason in future. I'll be re-doing these once you've acknowledged this message. In future, I expect a comment to this effect before you revert non-semantic changes. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 19:48, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Looking at it further, I assume you're referring to a discussion thread from over six months ago after which the template was completely redesigned anyway. I don't consider that relevant. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 19:55, 15 September 2009 (UTC)