User talk:Tim Parenti/Archives/2011

Pittsburgh event for Wikipedia's tenth anniversary

Hi! Since you have a connection to Pittsburgh, I wanted to invite you to the Wikipedia Tenth Anniversary celebrations we're having in Pittsburgh on Saturday, January 15. During the daytime, we're going to be having a photo contribution drive where anyone can bring in their digital photos or prints and Wikipedians will teach people how to upload them and add them to articles, and maybe introduction to Wikipedia workshops as well. Then in the evening, we'll have fun at the Carson City Saloon. There will be free Wikipedia t-shirts and other goodies, as well. See the Pittsburgh meetup page for more details. I hope to see you there!--ragesoss (talk) 15:42, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

Russian federal subject infobox and time zones

(duplicate discussion from User talk:Ezhiki)

It seems that Template:Infobox Russian federal subject2 isn't handling time zone designations very well, specifically on Irkutsk Oblast and Republic of Buryatia. Neither of these zones are on IRKT/IRKST since 27 March 2011; rather, they're using Krasnoyarsk Time (UTC+8) and the newly-named Buryatia Time (UTC+9), respectively. The template syntax involved is a bit too complex for me to dive into, but I saw you've made several of the more-recent edits to it. Is this something you could take a look at? Thanks. --Tim Parenti (talk) 19:58, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes, certainly. If you could give me a list of which federal subjects fall into which time zone, and the appropriate sources, I will be happy to update the template. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); March 30, 2011; 20:01 (UTC)

I was under the impression that time zones were generally coded into the templates as variables on a per-page basis, to make changes like this easier as they arose. Nevertheless, if you'd rather code it into the template directly, Time in Russia is a fairly extensive and well-sourced article. --Tim Parenti (talk) 20:07, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Actually, it's easier to have all the time zones information in one place and make updates there rather than to hunt down every instance that needs to be changed or to commandeer a bot to do the job. Consider that the time zone information proliferates not only into the federal subject infoboxes, but also into the infoboxes for individual districts (of which there are over a thousand) and the infoboxes for individual inhabited localities (of which there are ~150,000, which is a lot even considering that most of them don't yet have articles). And there's always the issue with the crap people put into the infoboxes with per-page time zone variable—something no bot can catch and which requires hours of maintenance. Anyway, as for time in Russia, I can see the list but not the sources. Would you be able to add them, please?—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); March 30, 2011; 20:16 (UTC)

Also, shouldn't the zone abbreviations be corrected? They are currently still listed for standard/summer time. Thanks.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); March 30, 2011; 20:22 (UTC)

Good point; hadn't thought about that complexity. It's a bit of a work-in-progress with this week's time zone reform; thanks for pointing out the inconsistency. The main source for the information on Time in Russia is the tz database and its mailing list. It wasn't until today that Buryatia Time even had a name, official or otherwise. Seeing that there's still potential for further change, an easy-to-update central source would be great. In the meantime, I'll work on beefing up the ref-sourcing over on Time in Russia. --Tim Parenti (talk) 20:31, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your work, too! I'll update the template tomorrow/after the standard/summer designations are corrected (whichever comes later ;)). For sources, the Russian government is planning to enact a new piece of legislation which will list all of the time zones in one place; for now I'll leave the template unsourced. Please let me know if there's anything else I can do. Thanks!—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); March 30, 2011; 20:40 (UTC)

Just let me know here when you've made your changes, and to what. Thanks. --Tim Parenti (talk) 20:46, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

It's a date.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); March 30, 2011; 20:52 (UTC)

OK, done.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); March 31, 2011; 15:28 (UTC)

Awesome. Now that I see where the data are actually stored, it seems fairly straightforward if further edits are needed. Thanks for your help. --Tim Parenti (talk) 17:38, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Just so you know: it seems Irkutsk Oblast didn't change it's time zone afterall. I've fixed Russian time zones articles and redirected Buryatia Time to Irkutsk Time. GreyHood ^Talk 16:59, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, I saw your changes. The changes I was referring to above already take yours into account. Thanks!—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); March 31, 2011; 17:06 (UTC)

Thanks, that good. The situation with time zones reform in Russia is rather strange.. GreyHood ^Talk 17:12, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

I wouldn't mind it to be strange here in the US, too... See, I hate changing time back and forth... so I'm pretty envious you folks no longer have to do it :)—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); March 31, 2011; 17:18 (UTC)

Time in Russia

(duplicate discussion from User talk:Greyhood)

Your changes to Time in Russia, Irkutsk Time, and Buryatia Time seem to imply that the Irkutsk Oblast did indeed turn its clocks forward on 27 March 2011 along with the rest of Russia, thereby not joining Krasnoyarsk Time and staying on the same time as Buryatia. Do you have sources to back up the fact that this is in fact what happened? All indications I've seen on time zone news sites (such as this) say that Irkutsk didn't shift its clocks with the rest of the country and therefore changed time zones relative to the rest of the country although it didn't change its UTC offset. Any help you could provide would be greatly appreciated. --Tim Parenti (talk) 17:51, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Well, just check various sites showing the time in Irkutsk, for example this. It's UTC+9. The situation with changing the time zone was really vague and controversial, and it seems that it wasn't known for sure, until the very last days before 27 March, if the transition would happen. It is rather hard to find good post-factum sources that say something about why exactly the transition eventually was not implemented. But here are few links from Irkutsk newspapers that say that previous news about the change had been wrong and that there would be no transition: [1], [2], [3]. It seems that federal government decided last moment not to sanction the change, perhaps taking into account that many people in Irkutsk Oblast were against it. GreyHood ^Talk 18:12, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

I would be inclined to say that many (although definitely not all) websites showing the time in Irkutsk are working off of the tz database, which hasn't yet been updated for Russia's year-round observation of DST or Irkutsk's now-in-question time zone change (although that is scheduled to be done tomorrow). So it's possible that, after the next tz update, some of those sites would shift to UTC+8 (KRAST) for Irkutsk. That said, source #1 above (which I read using Google Translate, since I don't know Russian) seems fairly authoritative even if it doesn't give a "post-factum" reason. I'll notify the folks at the tz database of this article and see if they can't dig up more to help sort out what's really going on, one way or the other. --Tim Parenti (talk) 18:44, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Teaching with Wikipedia Workshop at CMU (Aug 15)

Since you are a member of the Wikipedia:WikiProject University of Pittsburgh, I'd like to invite you to the Teaching with Wikipedia Workshop that will take place at CMU on Aug 15 (this workshop is open to general public, and is a joint imitative of CMU and Pitt). There will be another workshop held at Pitt in the Fall as well. It will cover how to include Wikipedia in one's course (WP:SUP) and also how to become a Wikipedia:Campus Ambassadors. Pennsylvania has currently only one ambassador (myself) and it would be great if we could recruit at least several more. Ambassadors help course instructors, showing them how Wikipedia works, and interact with students. Many current ambassadors come from the body of students, faculty and university staff; it is a fun adventure, and adds to one resume/CV, to boot :) If it sounds interesting, feel free to ask me any questions, or to come to the workshop. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 19:33, 9 August 2011 (UTC)