User talk:Thumperward/Archive 57

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Template:Talkback

In your recent modification to the above-named template, you mentioned in your edit summary someone with the name "Edoktor", who unfortunately has made no contributions to Wikipedia and has a red-linked userpage. Can you please indicate to me who the real person is and where the discussion for it is located? I'd like to take a stab at changing the template myself, and I'm afraid of changing anything that you've implemented in your discussion. :| TelCoNaSpVe :| 02:54, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

It's user:edokter; sorry for the typo. What is it you're looking to do anyway? Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 12:48, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Man you goofed up all my changes. After all those hours I worked on making it substable, and you just barreled right in and didn't noinclude the comments or even put all the logic under safesubst. What gives? Magog the Ogre (talk) 16:08, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, I thought I'd copied all those into the sandbox previously? Why does it need to be substable anyway? Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 16:19, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Well, if it's not critical, I might just have to make it subst'able again! I won't undo your changes. Anyway, it should be subst'able because talk page messages should appear in the archives as they originally appeared. This also allows for easier changes in the future, both for appearance and for performance reasons (a changed page with thousands of transclusions creates thousands of rerenderings). Magog the Ogre (talk) 01:23, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Sure, go right ahead. Sorry for messing up your edits. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 06:43, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

"Breaching experiment"

I just wanted to say that your comments on AN/I have been a refreshing breath of sanity. I'm surprised there are so many people who can't or won't recognize this for what it is, but heartened that there are at least as many who can clearly see what's going on, and aren't afraid to say so. Take care. 28bytes (talk) 18:42, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Cheers. It's not the sort of thing I usually get involved with at ANI, but IMO the case here is rather more clearcut than a casual reader might think from skimming the discussion. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 18:45, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Same here; I'm normally thoroughly uninterested in discussions on ethnic/religious issues, but after reading that article and the jaw-dropping Mein Kampf business I felt compelled to put in my 2¢. I'm much happier writing articles on pop songs and video games, but after coming across something this blatant it didn't feel right not to point out the obvious. 28bytes (talk) 18:54, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Horizontal lists in navboxes

Many thousands of Wikipedia articles have navboxes, in which lists of links are presented, horizontally, without using list mark-up, but instead using {{·}} or suchlike as a kludge. This is semantically poor and has implications for accessibility.

I created {{Flatlist}} in an attempt to begin addressing this, but previous discussion (two-and-a-half years ago) petered out before various concerns were resolved. Now that CSS an browsers have moved on, I'd like us to find a solution. Please contribute to centralised discussion on MoS (accessibility). Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 14:04, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Replied there. I can see how it should be possible, but let's see what the current technical / implementation concerns are. Any chance of popping by the discussion on {{collapsible list}} with further input? Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 15:26, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

A favor

I recently got my father in law interested in Wikipedia and he is writing a new draft of Boyer–Moore string search algorithm. the draft is at User:RMcPhillip. I figured you might be able to pop over and offer some help on getting the tables for his examples to work properly. I think he has them about 90% there but I figure that someone like you may be able to give some pointers on the more arcane bits of table/template syntax. Or if nothing else you may be able to say hi and leave a comment about the draft (in general) on his talk page. Thanks. Protonk (talk) 20:27, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Sure thing. I've left him a note, along with a sandbox with some work on the tables. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 21:07, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your help, Chris. RMcPhillip (talk) 00:18, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Chris, I'm having trouble getting the 'arrow' to align with the text below in Example 1d and 1e. The space template seems to be adding too much text. Any thoughts? Perhaps there is an easier ways to get lines of tt text to align? Thanks for your help. RMcPhillip (talk) 00:54, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

You can signal that the entire content of a row should be preformatted by leaving a space at the start of the line. I've edited your user draft to illistrate. Sorry for not getting back to you sooner! Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 20:24, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Beautiful, thanks. RMcPhillip (talk) 20:36, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Move comment

Talk:Free election (Polish throne). Does it mean you support the move? I was considering putting it as speedy, should have done so. Sigh. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 16:00, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes, the move argument sounds logical to me. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 16:01, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

OR at DeFRaG page

Hi, you've put an OR template at the DeFRaG page. Can you provide some more informations which claims needs to be verified and referenced? Thanks in advance. Visor (talk) 17:19, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

The entire Gameplay section contains exactly three proper references, two of which never mention the article's subject and one of which is from the subject's website. It is impossible for the reader to trust that it isn't the personal research of whoever wrote the page in its current format. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 17:35, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Noleander

The AN/I thread agaisnt Noleander has been closed, and an ArbCom page opened. I just added my statement. I had no choice, and I never wanted this to be reduced to a conflict between me an Noleander. But I think I am a polarizing figure.

I think a key element is just to explain to people how to recognize anti-Semitic editing. You have made astute comments in the past and I hope you will follow this case. Slrubenstein | Talk 19:33, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm keeping an eye on it. It's encouraging that ArbCom took it; when conflicts get to that point (where the majority of new observers write the entire issue off as a personal battle immediately) ArbCom is really the only form of DR likely to actually produce results. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 19:52, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, but still - ArbCom is traditionally for personal conflicts among users and I do not really view this as an edit conflict between me and Noleander and it certainly is not personal. Some people on the talk page are saying that all evidence should be conined to clear violations o NPOV, NOR and V but that essentially takes a pattern of anti-Semitic editing off the table and disolves it into fifty different compaints about fifty different edits at fifty different articles (or something like that).

Well, if you see an opening for a constructive intervention at the ArbCom evidence pag, I hope you will contribute. Thanks, Slrubenstein | Talk 20:28, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Merging You've Got Mail

It would be great if you and Train could merge in the Tweet option per this. Thanks! Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 00:44, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

I started a thread at Template talk:You've got mail#Different contact types for this a few days ago when it became obvious what the preferred solution was. Just waiting to get feedback now. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 06:45, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

afd economic history of the jews

I was trying to figure out how you !voted but despite your many comments in the afd, I couldn't find an actual !vote from you. 75.57.242.120 (talk) 10:22, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

You probably want to start reading the parts of people's comments which aren't in bold, then. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 12:47, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

I did read your comments, but in AfD's it's traditional to make a bulleted recommendation if you have a view on the matter, as AfD closings (despite "not a vote") tend be influenced heavily by counting the keep vs delete recommendations. 75.57.242.120 (talk) 18:36, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm unsure what the point of this comment. It is traditional to make a "vote", but at the same time voting unduly influences the outcome. Are you suggesting that he perpetuate this bad outcome to hold with tradition? Protonk (talk) 18:40, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

That "tradition" perpetuates this "!vote" idiocy where people go around head-counting and treating the thing as a vote in everything but name. I opted out of it a few years ago and I'm glad I chose to. Would that more did the same. It is trivial to work out where I lie on the issue by reading my comments and I would expect any competent closing admin to be able to do so. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 19:33, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, your points about !voting make sense. I've been trying to tabulate various commenters' viewpoints on the AfD as a way of understanding the policy analysis in it, and it's a little bit easier to do that if the, recommendations are clearly marked. But that type of meta-analysis is secondary to the intended purpose of an AfD, so no prob. 75.57.242.120 (talk) 20:50, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

No worries. Sorry if I was a bit sharp, but this is a pet peeve of mine. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 21:06, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Moves, etc.

What would be the best place to lobby for restricting "move" authority to admins-only? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:40, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Kwami IS an admin. Unbelievable. Still, it's a fair issue to raise. Why do we even bother having a "request for moves" page when so many of us regular editors can just go ahead and do it anyway? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:42, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

I think the original RM idea was technical--pages where the target was something other than a redirect needed the bit to complete the move. I guess it has morphed into a wide ranging forum for sorting out contentious moves and I'm not surprised to see that it is undersubscribed. Protonk (talk) 22:46, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Regardless of Kwami's he-ought-to-know-better series of moves, I've seen some lengthy, bitter battles on this general subject, very few of which actually have anything to do with improving wikipedia for the only ones that matter, which are the viewing public. So, where should I take this issue? Or is it likely to get shot down before it gets off the ground? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:58, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

I've no idea where you'd take that sort of thing, but I think it's pretty much a nonstarter anyway. That said, I'd assumed you were aware that Kwami was an admin. I'm personally dead-set against moving more privs to admins (even though I've got the bit myself now) as there are enough admin backlogs just now already (and perfectly competent non-admins to carry out technical but not especially privileged tasks). As for why we have an RM process, page moves are very often controversial and only admins can move pages back over redirects if they have anything more than one revision (which allows for easy undo of moves straight away but breaks it in all other cases). I'm personally happy with that system as it is. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 23:54, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

It appears that Kwami's moves were in fact controversial. Maybe he didn't expect controversy. But to me, this tedium of changing punctuation and stuff is of no benefit whatsoever to the viewing public. And today is by no means the first time I've brought that up on ANI. It was by no means "random". It's a sore subject. And the shortage of admins is a function of the ridiculous selection process they use, and if they really wanted to fix the shortage, they would change the process. And if y'all don't want to change the move process, I have to assume y'all enjoy seeing these issues come to ANI time after time after time. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:09, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

On the other hand, a general nihilism about presentation/punctuation/etc doesn't actually give us an operating procedure. If we all agree that no reader cares about X, does that actually tell us how to handle when someone (an editor, maybe not a reader) actually cares about X? Does the lack of reader concern mean that we make changes? Don't make changes? Protonk (talk) 00:21, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

It means they should be discussed first. ALWAYS. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:31, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

If you'd seen my (three) RfAs, you'd know I'm hardly a fan of the process myself. And while I would very much like to see either finer-grained user privileges or a less political RfA process, I'm not going to accept responsibility for the current system. Anyway, the important points here are that a) people get very worried about article titles on Wikipedia, b) Kwami has a less than stellar record when it comes to conflicts of opinion, and c) where these two collide we have a problem. b) and c) are ANI material: a) isn't. ANI is mercifully short at this exact moment in time and I'd dearly love for it to stay that way, which can only happen by people not adding material to it which doesn't relate directly to immediate admin action. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 00:24, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Once was more than enough for me. The comments from admins voting 'no' were generally useful. The ones from the malcontents (most of whom have since been indef'd) were of no value to the process at all. But not getting it was a blessing, frankly. As far as article titles, it's Kwami and the ANI complainant and guys like that that "worry" about it. To me, with or without hyphen is fine either way, because it doesn't matter. As a systems analyst, when I see a problem occurring over and over again, my inclination is to propose a way to fix the problem. What I'm seeing on wikipedia is (1) recurring problems; and (2) an unwillingness to do anything about fixing the root cause. That is what I "worry" about. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:31, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

As am engineer myself, if I could see a technical solution here I'd work on it. I'm inclined to believe this is a social problem. This is the largest encyclopedia in history; I dare say more than a few compilers of the previous claimants of that title earned themselves black eyes in the process. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 00:36, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

There's no question it's a social problem. A few years back, it didn't seem like we had so many vandals, trolls, malcontents, etc. As the visibility of wikipedia has increased, so have the problems. The root cause of that problem could be at least partially addressed by requiring registration, like every other site in the world does that allows reader input. But there's no apparent interest in changing that situation. In fact, I sometimes think that wikipedia itself is a grand-scale social experiment being conducted by Wales and others. I would just like to see some changes that would improve wikipedia's reputation. I know folks who call it "wackypedia", and that's just one of the printable insults. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:46, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

I'm not inclined to give Jimbo a great deal of credit for any of the project's development (social or otherwise) for most of its duration other than having the sense (and courage) to let it happen; that the social aspect is entertaining enough to lead people to spend their whole time either participating in or observing it is an unintended consequence IMO. And I'm strongly against sticking up further barriers; I got this deep into the project because I didn't have to ask for permission too often, and now I'm responsible for having written an infobox which has something like a hundred thousand transclusions. And I've fought tooth and nail to ensure it still isn't fully protected. As for popular perception, my experience is that as far as most folks are concerned it's on a similar footing with Google resource-wise now; there are plenty of kooks who hate Google too (indeed, the most infamous are dual haters) but they're not in the mainstream. While I wouldn't say that you have to look far to find a bad article, you're as likely to get good content on a subject from Wikipedia as you are from a Web search on it these days in most cases. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 00:57, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

I see. And despite the "wackypedia" syndrome, I still tend to go to wikipedia first to find out information about a given subject. That's part of the reason I've got so many pages on my watchlist - from stuff that I've looked up and may want to look up again. Sometimes I'll try to find something and it isn't there. The solution then is to create an article, or try to. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:52, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

I boxed up the side discussion because you said it was off-topic. If you want to leave it visible, that's up to you. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:38, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Yours was off-topic. Mine pertained to Kwami's history (at least in part). I've got a bad habit of not splitting my comments up around threads, but that's what happens when I reply to off-topic posts. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 02:42, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

I disagree that my comments were off-topic. As for the boxing, I was only trying to defer. I should know better than that. :) It will disappear in a few days anyway. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:53, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

LOL - hey Bugs and Chris - I just now spotted this thread of you guys. Very interesting. I was the dude who got the latest bloodletting going over Kwami's hyphenating and moving stuff at ANI in cancer articles. And to be honest with you guys, I'm not sure exactly WHY it was I got so enraged. And I mean MAD as HELL, to the point where if anything like that had happened to me in 4-D space-time, I'd have been KICKING some ass SEVERELY! LOL! Chris, you are a Scotsman, correct? I freaking KNOW you understand that "kick ass" sentiment - it's in your blood :-O LOL! (BTW, I'm of German extraction - enough said! LOL!)

Best I can tell, with me it's a combination of (a) his attitude of "by God I'm just gonna do it no matter WHAT", (b) his pathological refusal to give ANYONE a point, no matter how small, (c) he's jacking around with stuff he knows NOTHING about, (d) his outright lying and falsification of opinions and sources when the tide goes against him, (e) the smug comments he makes, and (f) the way he ignores you altogether when you got him trapped logically, and tries to pass it off as "being above the fray" ... stuff like that. GRRRRR ...

At the bottom line, in my opinion, he's just a Class A asshole with a mop to boot, and I never liked people like that, and am just used to taking them out behind the bar for a quick lesson in "Manners and Respect 101". LOL! Worse still, apparently the dude has done this often, for quite some time, and NOBODY DOES SQUAT ABOUT IT.

Hey - do me a favor, guys, and keep these "manly" opinions of mine to yourselves. I've darn near got permanently blocked over fighting with this douchebag, but just couldm't resist posting here when I read your thread! LOL! See you guys around. Peace/out.

Best regards:

Cliff L. Knickerbocker, MS (talk) 20:21, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Infobox horse

Hi Thumperward,

Thanks for helping us fix the horse infobox. However, can you also put the proper colors back in? (That kind of weird beige we had) Also, I am a little curious, is there a way we can see the actual template on the template page so that new folks know they have the correct one? (We occasionally get mixups between the breed one and the "horse biographies" one). Thanks! Montanabw^(talk) 19:25, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

I've added a sample of the infobox to the template documentation, which is the modern way of doing it. The "weird beige" colour, as you aptly described it, has no obvious relation to the contents of the box and was removed as per our guidelines on the use of colour in templates. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 12:25, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

I guess I'd like you to discuss it at the talk page for WP:EQUINE. We have another user who is doing up a whole new one, and so if we are getting crosswise on the infobox MOS or trends, it might be wise for us to know this. Thanks! Montanabw^(talk) 00:05, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Replied over there. I'll monitor the proposals over there and edit the infobox to match as they are approved. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 02:16, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

FYI, somewhat related is {{Infobox sheep breed}}, {{Infobox chicken breed}}, {{Infobox goat breed}}, ... In a thread on my talk page, Andy suggested that we could create a {{Infobox livestock breed}}. I would say what you did with the horse box could be a good start, and then just add some switches for the below part. Thanks! Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 00:53, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

See Template:Infobox chicken breed/sandbox, which is basically the same up to the collapsed section. I personally don't think that section needs to be collapsed, since it's not that long. Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 01:39, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Hi, I'm that 'other user' mentioned above. Thank you for simplifying the horse infobox syntax, it was far too complicated for my simple mind before (prolly still is). I'd have tried to start it from scratch myself, but didn't want to break a 'microformat', whatever that is. There's not much consensus at WP:EQUINE on what exactly to do, but something has to be done (see e.g., Calabrese horse for an example of how poor the current version looks when there's little data). I suggest that for now we make it look like my /sandbox version (in place at Bardigiano) and work from there. I should be able to fiddle around with it until I get it looking something like that, and as much as possible like the sheep/chicken/goat ones, and would be happy to do so. Or would you like to do it?
Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 11:59, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Speaking for the only other person at WEPQ who has so far weighted in on the topic, and my head having exploded trying to figure this all out, my take is simple: me infobox caveman. me don't get infobox syntax. me think colors pretty and centered, bold text pretty. me don't like blank, no-color infobox. it butt-ugly. me think JLAN right about small infobox. me think someone fix. that someone not me!  ;-D Montanabw^(talk) 22:18, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

If you'll forgive me for saying this, we have bigger concerns than individual aesthetic preferences. The loss of beige headers is hardly insurmountable ("fixing" that is trivial), but should not be done on such grounds as a head-count of edtors who are used to it, nor invective deployed in support of that. There's no rush here, but I suspect in time the best solution will be a global "breed" meta-class which could take in a dozen disparate templates and make them consistent. I'll be sure to keep people posted if there's any progress on that front. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk

Hmm, not quite clear what that means. Are you fixing it, or shall I try to? I'm quite happy either way.
Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 22:32, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Basically, someone came in and altered some template that infobox horse depended on, thus screwing up a template that we at WPEQ had basically been happy with for years. None of us at WPEQ wanted or asked to change it, but none of us know enough about template syntax (except perhaps JLAN) to fix it. So, my question is simple: Can we get our old format back without triggering a crisis in template land? The box as it sits is not distinguishable from the article text, particularly ones where there is no photo. It isn't a question of "individual aesthetic preferences," it's a question of consensus of editors of affected articles and general guidelines of what is and is not good visual layout. I guess the question is this: If we just toss the current version and replace it with one of the designs JLAN created, are you guys gonna come after us for it?  ;-) At WPEQ, three people have weighed, in, all favor some variant on the old infobox and not this bland, colorless new one. So are we bad?? Montanabw^(talk) 19:23, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Actually, what I see from the WikiProject discussion is not a strong consensus for that (only two editors have commented on it at all, and JLAN's response was that he didn't mind either way). Having an arbitrary colour band is unnecessary in distinguishing the infobox from the page, which is why {{infobox}} does not provide one by default. Indeed, the WikiProject infobox on WP:EQUINE's own project page does not use one. I'm going to work on merging the structural (rather than aesthetic) changes from JLAN's new code into the updated infobox, and then on further upmerging the template into the various different breed infoboxes we have elsewhere as Plastikspork proposed. Right now those templates use a variety of different styles, with most employing #d3d3a4 as a header colour rather than the beige of the old horse box. I'll let you know when I've gotten to the point of discussing which, if any, colour should be used, and whether or not we need to distinguish by animal type (my preference there would be "none" and "no" respectively of course). Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 16:19, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

I think JLAN and I were the only ones who cared all that much, everyone else appeared to just sort of shrug and say "who are we to question the wikigods?" (grin). If the goal is some sort of consistency across animal breed infoboxes, I'm not going to get into that (I know there are also wikiwars over which colors to use, which can get beyond silly), just try not to get us too dragged into it, but drop a note at WPEQ if those who care should pay attention to something. And yeah, I don't like that the wikiproject box is clear, either. I mostly edit on a laptop with a small screen, and things like color helps my poor eyes distinguish things. Montanabw^(talk) 18:34, 7 April 2011 (UTC)