User talk:Superm401

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Please sign your comments when posting to my talk page. Also, be aware that I clear this page occasionally without notice. Old conversations are available in the page history and through the links below:

Talk Page Archives:

Archive 1, Archive 2, Archive 3, Archive 4, Archive 5, Archive 6, Archive 7

--Superm401 - Talk 02:37, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Welcome

Hello, welcome to Wikipedia. Here are some tasks you can do:

You might find these links helpful in creating new pages or helping with the above tasks: How to edit a page, How to write a great article, Naming conventions, Manual of Style. You should read our policies at some point too.

If you have any questions, see the help pages, add a question to the village pump or ask me on my talk page. If you made any edits before you got an account, you might be interested in assigning those to your username. I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian!

  • You can sign your name using three tildes, like this: ~~~. If you use four, you can add a datestamp too.
  • If you ever think a page or image should be deleted, please list it at the votes for deletion page. There is also a votes for undeletion page if you want to retrieve something that you think should not have been deleted.

Take Care
SimonMayer 20:18, 25 Apr 2004 (UTC)

[edit] MSU Interview

Dear Superm401,

My name is Jonathan Obar user:Jaobar, I'm a professor in the College of Communication Arts and Sciences at Michigan State University and a Teaching Fellow with the Wikimedia Foundation's Education Program. This semester I've been running a little experiment at MSU, a class where we teach students about becoming Wikipedia administrators. Not a lot is known about your community, and our students (who are fascinated by wiki-culture by the way!) want to learn how you do what you do, and why you do it. A while back I proposed this idea (the class) to the community HERE, where it was met mainly with positive feedback. Anyhow, I'd like my students to speak with a few administrators to get a sense of admin experiences, training, motivations, likes, dislikes, etc. We were wondering if you'd be interested in speaking with one of our students.


So a few things about the interviews:

  • Interviews will last between 15 and 30 minutes.
  • Interviews can be conducted over skype (preferred), IRC or email. (You choose the form of communication based upon your comfort level, time, etc.)
  • All interviews will be completely anonymous, meaning that you (real name and/or pseudonym) will never be identified in any of our materials, unless you give the interviewer permission to do so.
  • All interviews will be completely voluntary. You are under no obligation to say yes to an interview, and can say no and stop or leave the interview at any time.
  • The entire interview process is being overseen by MSU's institutional review board (ethics review). This means that all questions have been approved by the university and all students have been trained how to conduct interviews ethically and properly.


Bottom line is that we really need your help, and would really appreciate the opportunity to speak with you. If interested, please send me an email at obar@msu.edu (to maintain anonymity) and I will add your name to my offline contact list. If you feel comfortable doing so, you can post your name HERE instead.

If you have questions or concerns at any time, feel free to email me at obar@msu.edu. I will be more than happy to speak with you.

Thanks in advance for your help. We have a lot to learn from you.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Obar --Jaobar (talk) 07:26, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

Young June Sah --Yjune.sah (talk) 21:02, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

[edit] Invitation to events: bot, template, and Gadget makers wanted

I thought you might want to know about some upcoming events where you can learn more about MediaWiki customization and development, extending functionality with JavaScript, the future of ResourceLoader and Gadgets, the new Lua templating system, how to best use the web API for bots, and various upcoming features and changes. We'd love to have power users, bot maintainers and writers, and template makers at these events so we can all learn from each other and chat about what needs doing.

Check out the Chennai event in March, the Berlin hackathon in June, the developers' days preceding Wikimania in July in Washington, DC, or any other of our events.

Best wishes! - Sumana Harihareswara, Wikimedia Foundation's Volunteer Development Coordinator. Please reply on my talk page, here or at mediawiki.org. Sumanah (talk) 16:22, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

[edit] Copyright?

In 2007, you communicated with FreeDictionary.com, I believe about their use of enWP article Albania under free-use license. I saw your comments on specialpage Wp Mirrors and Forks. Maybe you can clarify something for me. I just looked at one of their encyclopedia articles, which they credited to Wp, stating "using under GNU free-use license..." but immediately adjacent, I found ©2012 Farlex, Inc." Is that kosher? It's my understanding of free-use and share-alike, that each "publisher," in turn, must allow free use also, or what is the point of the licensing. Can Farlex, whoever or whatever they are, claim copyright to info they obtained via GNU Copyleft or CC-by-SA? Just thought I'd ask. Ragityman69.171.187.83 (talk) 23:16, 18 February 2012 (UTC) [currently I can't log in, but you can respond here, or on my talk page. I raised the same point on the Mirror page, but thought you'd not still be watching that page, it's been so long.]

No, sites may not claim copyright for someone else's work. If they add to or modify the actual article, they own the changes, but the original author still owns their prior work. Further, you are correct that for copyleft licenses, any changes to the article (as far as I know, Farlex does not make any) must be licensed under the original license (GFDL in this case). They do own unrelated parts of the FreeDictionary site (logo, etc.), and possibly a compilation copyright. They should be careful to phrase the copyright statement, but not all sites are.
A separate issue (see Wikipedia:CC-BY-SA Compliance) is that some Wikipedia articles are only usable under CC-BY-SA. I don't know if that applies to what FreeDictionary is mirroring. There are also other compliance issues, like linking to an off-site GFDL. IANAL. TINLA. Superm401 - Talk 03:22, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

[edit] Advice needed

Hi Superm401. I need some advice about headers and sub-headers. I thought I had read and retained the general gist of the talk page guidelines, but I do not seem to be in step with my latest efforts. If we get that cleared up, the next useful topic might be transclusion and subst. Sorry if I take too long picking this up, but being without a computer for so long has put my learning curve a bit bent. Cheers, reply here or there, no matter to me. NewbyG ( talk) 12:12, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

OK I will try to get a bit organized here, with specific questions:
  1. Mostly, do not put links in a header, they go underneath usually?
A good rule of thumb
  1. Except for certain exceptions, do not put user names in a header?
Correct
  1. Do not praise, or condemn in a header:comment on edits, not editors?
Yes. Specifically, focus on how to make consensus edits that improve the encyclopedia (including policies that help the encyclopedia run)
  1. Use headers that describe what the post is about?
Yes
  1. A header such as "This article is wrong"or "Big problem here" are unhelpful?
Both of those are vague, but they can be in good faith. In fact, sometimes people are vague on purpose to be tactful.
  1. Sub-headers can be added at any time, they do NOT "break up" conversations?
No. Generally, you should have a good reason to add a sub-header (e.g. the conversation veered in a totally different, but still appropriate, direction). If in doubt, seek consensus.

<newbyG further Question> Consensus, I love it. And if the state of the talk page is clearly unhelpful, and the correct solution is to follow our TPG, then consensus would seem to be fairly assured? So, be bold. It is a wiki here. Yes?

WP:BOLD is a good general rule, but when a particular activity has proven controversial in the past, is is worth being cautious and seeking consensus. Superm401 - Talk 21:27, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
  1. Sub-headers should generally be neutral, like "Arbitrary break"?
Sometimes people do that if the indenting gets excessive.
  1. Use a new header, or sub-header whenever a new topic is started?
Yes
  1. Do not just add your post at the bottom, if it's a new topic, put in a descriptive header?
Sometimes. It depends how new the topic is.
  1. If a header is changed, any links that have been established will be broken?
Yes
  1. etc.etc, my brain hurts
  2. what is the connection between transclusion and templates?
When you write {{Citation needed}}, you are transcluding Template:Citation needed.
  1. how and why do you use subst?
Usually a template will tell you to do so. You can check the template page (just "Template:" then the name of the template).
Questions, questions, my brain does hurt. Can you help me out, please if it's not too much trouble, and when you've time. I will watch your page or post to talk:NBG, whatever you wish. Sorry for the trouble, and thanks in advance. NewbyG ( talk) 14:43, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
I replied above inline (sorry for breaking the numbering). Everything I said has exceptions. I would be conservative on the talk page refactoring (including new or renamed sections). Seek consensus ahead of time if in doubt. Superm401 - Talk 17:37, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
Thank you. What does subst look like in the edit window? Too bad about the numbering. See above. Say, whatever happened to Liquid threads? NewbyG ( talk) 19:58, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
An example of a template that should be substituted is Template:welcome. When you first add it (before hitting save), it looks like {{subst:welcome}}. After the save, it contains the actual welcome text and formatting. I'm not sure what the current plan is for LiquidThreads. Superm401 - Talk 21:27, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
Thanks. So it all goes within one set of "curly brackets". Got it. NewbyG ( talk) 23:11, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

[edit] About archiving

What a coincidence. This is the next topic I would like some advice on. Now, I can do archiving, even with this ancient PC, and put in an a bot-archive bit at the top. But there's more to it than that isn't there. Also, sometimes the *Bots* run like clockwork, and sometimes they do not pick up the archiving at all or are erratic. What's up there? NewbyG ( talk) 23:46, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Help:Archiving a talk page has all the information you need, and probably more. :) First, it's important to follow the note there, "Make sure to establish consensus before setting up MiszaBot or ClueBot III on a talk page other than your user talk page." I would extend that to say you should establish consensus before changing the archiving in any way, again unless it's your user talk page.
There are multiple ways you can archive. For my user talk page, I use what they call the permanent link method. This means I have full discretion on when to archive, and I don't have to create separate pages. You can follow that, or use another method. As you noted, it's also popular to use bots for automatic archiving. Generally this means MiszaBot or ClueBot III. There was an issue with MiszaBot recently because a toolserver went down. That may explain the reliability issue you saw. However, User:Misza13 (the botmaster) is addressing the issue by running them manually until the server goes back up. ClueBot III is another option, and runs from separate (ClueNet) servers. Superm401 - Talk 01:19, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
MiszaBot II is a saviour, and perhaps the most civil user I ever get to interact with (present company excepted). I will never criticize MiszaBot.
  1. I use same method as you to archive at talkNBG.
  2. When remarks are removed from an important talk page, if they are edited out, they don't go in the archives. For completeness, why don't we just comment out stale comments, which will then get archived, as a complete record. Not committed to this idea, I think maybe there are "big problems", just raising a discussion point. Thanks for your promptitude. NewbyG ( talk) 02:08, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
I'm quite sure I'm not the most civil user on Wikipedia. :) Remember to assume good faith. The commenting idea is interesting. The problem is that it would be hard to tell at a glance what's commented out, and would make the page longer. Superm401 - Talk 02:33, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
Thank you. You are. <smiley> Perhaps this idea is applicable at places of the utmost seriousness, such as Arb cases, but it would require a huge re-education program, as every user would have to be given new instructions. Anyway, page histories are a complete record, though difficult to search. I don't think this off-the-cuff idea would fly, nor am I in favour, unless convinced by a formed consensus. NewbyG ( talk) 03:08, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
Also the "rate this page" feature came in while I was off-line. Is it now operative, or deprecated or what is it about? NewbyG ( talk) 03:55, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
It's the Article Feedback Tool. I don't know much more than that page. Superm401 - Talk 04:25, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

[edit] Template:Commonscat show2 listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Template:Commonscat show2. Since you had some involvement with the Template:Commonscat show2 redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion (if you have not already done so). MGA73 (talk) 14:53, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

[edit] Redirected user page?

Hi! Superm401. Please see [1] Have I got this right, please? NewbyG ( talk) 17:06, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

I've replied there. Superm401 - Talk 18:20, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Superm401&oldid=479333320"
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