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The Duke of Waltham

Article • User page • Contrib's (edit count) • Private office •
"Auto-formatting is evil" • Westminster Palace workshop and watchlist

His Grace The Duke of Waltham

@

This user can be reached by email.

This user contributes using a typewriter, and sends all contributions via snail mail.

Archives

1. 13 March – 26 June 2007
2. 27 June – 29 August 2007
3. 1 September – 30 December 2007
4. 1 January – 24 March 2008
5. 30 March – 29 May 2008

Greetings, dear Wikipedian. My name is Harold Cartwright, and I am the Duke of Waltham's private secretary. On behalf of the Duke, I should like to welcome you to His Grace's talk page.

Here you may leave notices, announcements, or any other messages that could interest the Duke, and you may flatter him, request his assistance or advice (if you really think he's able to do anything on his own), discuss his actions on Wikipedia, or talk about matters of mutual interest. As this is a free speech venue, your criticism will be welcome as well. To be honest, I personally enjoy seeing negative comments about my employer, as his arrogance would become even more insufferable if left unchecked.

I probably need to clarify that, even though this page exists to accommodate all kinds of "talk", ranging from professional correspondence (i.e. messages pertaining to Wikipedia and the ongoing struggle for its improvement) to light-hearted conversation, it is not meant for discussion of matters in any way private. Messages of sensitive content ought to be e-mailed to His Grace instead, so that the required level of privacy can be ensured.

Please leave your posts at the bottom of this page and sign them with four tildes (~~~~), so that we shall know who is posting what and when. You are warned that unsigned posts do not merit a reply here and shall be summarily deleted; this is wholly within the poster's responsibility, I'm afraid.

Please note that His Grace follows a policy of keeping conversations unfragmented; in other words, an exchange that begins in one talk page should continue in that same talk page, in order to keep the discussion whole and intelligible. If a conversation has begun in a venue other than this, you need not answer here; you can rest assured that I shall notify the Duke about any new messages (through use of a designated watchlist).

You are requested not to edit anything in this page except for your own posts; any other changes shall be reverted on sight. It is also suggested that, if you must edit your posts, you should do so sparingly, as it is generally considered impolite to alter the content of posts that have already been answered to, or even read.

Old discussions are archived with extreme care, even though half of them do not deserve such treatment in the least. But who am I but a secretary, to be judging my boss's gossip. Well, for those interested, the archives are open to the public from 09:00 to 17:00, Mondays to Fridays.

Please don't leave any litter while you are here. There is a dustbin in the corner.

By the way, thank you for not smoking.

Have a nice day.

DYK bot

Hey, I came across Wikipedia_talk:Bots/Archive_6#DYK_Bot.3F. Whatever happened with that? Gimmetrow 09:11, 5 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I see that you are interested in mediaeval history. Let me get my magnifying glass first; the lettering on these manuscripts is always so small... :-D

Hm. I had no idea about this. The situation is arguably rather bizarre. Not necessarily uncommon, but certainly interesting. From ten minutes' worth of digging around, I can tell that this old-generation admin (2004, imagine that), AllyUnion, has generally been editing only occasionally, and that his bots broke at least a couple of years ago due to a lack of maintenance. No wonder why nobody around here knew about the bot, or I am sure that some one would have mentioned it. Last March he received a notification for a conversation here, regarding the de-flagging of inactive bots; he maintained that he was reviewing Kurando-san—the bot once executing the DYK archiving, amongst other things—and that it would be operational again within the following two weeks. Clearly, this has not happened.

So the question remains: What now? Do we contact him for his past experience, in case it helps with building a modern bot adapted to the needs of the current DYK system? Or do we persuade him to deal with the old bot and we collaborate with him in patching it up? It's your call, I suppose; nobody forces you to write our bot. There is no rush, either; the system works fine as it is. All we are aiming for is to make it a little more reliable and to rest a few of the people working there.

PS: Why do you keep an underscore in your signature? I hate the whole lot of them, grrrr...

PPS: Might I inquire as to your gender, if I am not too indiscreet? Not knowing is a little awkward for when I want to talk about you behind your back. :-) It's one of those double-edged swords in the English language, I suppose; Greek doesn't use pronouns in sentences like "He enjoys drinking red wine". Waltham, The Duke of 01:07, 6 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Used hooks used to be placed in a section at the bottom of Template talk:Did you know, where AllyUnion's script would find them and move them to Recent additions. Although AllyUnion still edits, the process now is slightly different. The underscore doesn't seem to matter except to some bots, and you can talk behind my back with my username. No pronoun, no need for gender.

So while I'm thinking this through, what do you think reaction would be to recreating all the achives by month, like WP:Recent additions/June 2008? Gimmetrow 03:01, 7 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Personally, I'd love to see the archives re-organised. About other people's reaction, now... I guess it would be popular with people searching hooks by date, which is probably the usual form of searching, given that in the relevant message boxes in the articles' talk pages there is the date (but not the hook). My only concern is that of size; each month, between 90 and 120 sets of hooks are published, and each set has at least five or six hooks. Currently, the archives list 50–100 items each, which is long enough already. Perhaps weekly or ten-day archives might prove more practicable? Other than that, I cannot say much. I'll ask Mr LaPella for a second opinion; I am not that involved in the DYK process, after all... Waltham, The Duke of 05:42, 7 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm deeply involved in proofreading DYK, but not in archiving. So I had to look at the existing process to know what Waltham was talking about. The existing archives of 50-100 items each come out every 5.2 days on the average, based on Wikipedia:Recent additions 162 (291 days ago divided by 56 archives ago). So why would we change it from 5.2 to 31? I think the bot would be just as happy making 5 day archives as 31. But loading the 80-90K files would be slower if they became 500K files. There might be an advantage to labeling archives by date instead of just a sequential number, to help find a hook from last year, but the files wouldn't have to be monthly to do that: Wikipedia:Recent additions (June 6 2008). Art LaPella (talk) 15:00, 7 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I hadn't noticed that. Still, we are looking for opinions here; your contribution is valued, and if you know someone whose input to this discussion you think would be useful, feel free to invite them.

Monthly archives would be huge. I hadn't done the maths quite thoroughly before, but I now realise that even weekly ones would probably be rather large, especially if we start including images, which, as we all know, make downloading slower. I can therefore see a point for five-day archives, even though it looks rather random. People don't count time in five-day intervals. Daily would be nice, but it would create a mess (too many pages).

Or would it? Waltham, The Duke of 15:33, 7 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

PS: This might be an opportunity to change the name of the archives. I like the idea behind "recent additions", but I suppose clarity has higher priority in Wikipedia than historical conservation. (sigh) Waltham

An argument against daily archives, and for longer archives in general, is to consider how they would likely be used. I have only used them once: to answer someone who claimed a hook had been done before. I looked for a similar hook in the archives. Naturally I didn't know the date, although I had some idea how long it had been since I had read something similar. So I searched every archive in the approximate date range for some keywords that were probably in the hook. That process would be made easier with longer archive files. On the other hand, does anyone else ever use the archive files in the first place? Perhaps the archives' main function is to give hook authors a misplaced feeling of satisfaction that all their work hasn't disappeared in 6 hours (the Buddhist attitude that nothing is permanent but change seems more relevant here, given how many people see the Main Page.) Art LaPella (talk) 04:23, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Nothing is permanent on Wikipedia anyway, if you consider the state of constant flux in which all articles are (at least in the ante-flagged-revisions period). It does bother me from time to time, you know; I enjoy stability more than the average person. Most people appreciate stability to an extent, as a result of natural instinct, which is why the idea of printing Wikipedia is not completely ridiculous. The Signpost ran a story several weeks ago about a German publishing house planning to produce an almanac of sorts based on Wikipedia. It could be successful; the article certainly let an amount of optimism come through despite the editors' diligent efforts to remain neutral.

But I am digressing... I agree that the searching method you employed would benefit from larger archives, but it seems more likely to me that the archives would usually be visited by people seeing the DYK notes in the talk pages of articles with the exact dates, which they could then use in their search for the exact hooks. Still, I have an idea to serve us both: what about using the system of the anniversaries? There, there is a page for every day, and there is a page for every month transcluding said day pages, and there is even a page for the entire year (which I have never really seen because I cannot download it on this slow connection); this exists for the express purpose of searching events in order to avoid bolding one article more than once. My point is that we could have our short, daily archives which people could search when knowing the date, and we could have larger archives, say weekly or biweekly, transcluding them for special searches. Four- or five-day archives, although convenient in size, are simply weird.

All this, of course, would be done automatically, so no added maintenance effort there. Now, if you find the archives less than useful, that is a different thing, but I am a person who likes archiving for the sake of having archives anyway, and I am pretty sure there are many people like me. (You see, I am very representative, due to an ego equalling the combined egos of all my subjects. :-D). Waltham, The Duke of 05:27, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I found the monthly anniversary page. I didn't find an annual anniversary page, but it doesn't matter because if it can be done monthly, it can be done annually. Yes, that system would work for my application, which I have done once, and for your application, but have you used it that way once? Have you ever looked at a talk page, seen its DYK note, and then looked it up? (Looking up a DYK you wrote yourself doesn't count, because that wouldn't be representative.) If you haven't, then we're inventing a lot of programming for an illusion. Surely you didn't mean to say that there are many people like you, your Grace, but it's the best indication we have at this time. Art LaPella (talk) 07:01, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The annual page is linked to from the instructions (Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/All). Urm, no, I have not used the archives in this way, but it was theoretically plausible. To be honest, I have no idea what people do (I was joking before). Perhaps a survey would be in order? Seriously, we need to know what the editors want so that we can respond to their needs. This insular mentality of making decisions based on limited experience and educated guesswork has caused many problems before and should definitely be avoided. Let's get organised. Waltham, The Duke of 13:00, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia talk:Did you know#Who uses the archives? and Wikipedia talk:Selected anniversaries#Annual list Art LaPella (talk) 19:28, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting, Mr LaPella. I had not considered notifying anyone about the "hidden page". I just tried a trick: entering straight the URL for editing individual sections. There is no text before the first heading; the first section shows today's anniversaries and the ToC, the next next one shows January's anniversaries, and the final one is for December (there are no subsequent sections). I wonder if the page really has a problem, or if the combined mass of data makes it impossible for most people to download it in time. I am not sure it is really so extreme, though.

The other discussion merely serves, so far, to corroborate both our points, but with a twist. If it is simply a matter of finding which articles have been honoured with DYK hooks, then we could easily keep detailed daily archives, and for each month have a list of the articles sorted chronologically and/or alphabetically (a sortable table might be used to avoid redundancy, if a bot can edit it), linking to the appropriate archives. It is my previous idea taken one step further, but it would combine maximum search-capability effectiveness and high downloading speeds with minimum repetition of information.

PS: I should prefer not to see the hooks included in the talk-page templates, but direct links to the daily archives would serve as well. Waltham, The Duke of 20:40, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

So far, Wikipedia talk:Did you know#Who uses the archives? suggests these uses:

1. To find hooks relevant to the Organized Labor portal or the Film portal. Each hook would have to be skimmed through to determine if it relates to the subject, so the length of the archive file wouldn't matter.

2. To see what the hook was after seeing a DYK notice on a talk page, as you suggested. In that case, the date on the DYK notice would give the approximate date of when the hook appeared, so it shouldn't take more than a couple minutes to find the hook using ctrl-F in daily archive files, although longer archive files would be a little easier. This use ended with the words "More importantly", suggesting this use isn't important.

3. The archive file can be located using "What links here". That would also work no matter how long the archives were.

So in each case, it doesn't matter much how long the file is. None of these tasks would benefit from a list of all articles that had DYK hooks, so I don't know why we would want that. Art LaPella (talk) 21:28, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It was just an idea... I see file length mostly as a factor affecting loading speed; pages with more data take longer to appear, and sometimes too long. There is also the matter of images to consider. Do we want images in the archives? I find that it would make them more complete and informative, and more true to the original hooks, as well as make the "pictured" tag—which remains in the archives, image or not—meaningful again. However, images delay loading significantly.

Perhaps daily archives with images and weekly archives transcluding the daily ones but without displaying images? Would that be possible? (Or, if we are to start talking about technical issues, a way to simply search the archives?)

You see that I am rather unwilling to have three-, four-, or five-day archives. They just look odd; their day number is meaningless and rather disconnected from any reasonable time-keeping unit. The only alternative I see is to use five-day time periods fixed within each month, with the last archive adjusting for February and the 31-day months. For instance, 1–5 June, 6–10 June, 11–15, 16–20, 21–25, and 26–30. I was hesitant to propose it due to the inconsistency in the last archive, but it might have its merits. Waltham, The Duke of 22:41, 8 June 2008 (UTC), updated 22:53, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know how gung-ho Gimmetrow is for programming such details, but my sense is that the main priority is to automate some kind of archiving and thanking system. Then DYK administrators will have a lot more time for discussing things like what the ideal archiving period should be. Changing 5.2 days to weekly isn't a big change, but what's important is to have it running at all. Art LaPella (talk) 04:33, 9 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I suppose this is why we are discussing this while Gimmetrow is still developing the robot... After we reach a conclusion, I assume it will be relative easy to make an amendment even if most of the 'bot has been written. The point is to create a system which will not need confusing re-adjustments after it starts functioning...

In any case, a difference of two days is around fifty hooks, so it cannot be taken lightly, even if we do decide to go weekly. Waltham, The Duke of 10:57, 9 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Note that Wikipedia talk:Did you know#Who uses the archives? is accumulating new ideas. Art LaPella (talk) 01:08, 10 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Why...? Why wasn't I watching that page? (scratches head)

Ah, well, I am now. Anyway, I think we should move the discussion and start commenting there instead of here. Unless you don't want us to disturb the deliberations of the other editors just yet... Waltham, The Duke of 02:49, 10 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

editing your edit summaries (refactor debate)

~~I am moving one paragraph that you wrote here from "conditional support" to "support," and am also~~ In the debate on being able to edit your edit summaries, I am moving the entire "Short break": section (which contains a comment from you) from its current location (where it appears to be a sub-section of "oppose") to where it seems to belong, which is under "support." If I am wrong then just revert me (being careful to revert only this edit and not the 4 before that). Thank you. 69.140.152.55 (talk) ~~13:39, 9 June 2008 (UTC)~~ 13:42, 9 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It is all right... Although the proposal has probably already failed, I am sorry to say. Waltham, The Duke of 23:07, 9 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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Template:Fishing industry

Thank you very much your grace for your gracious, indeed splendiferous, edit of Template:Fishing industry. I feel profoundly honoured. Please excuse my idiocy, but I have often wondered why the noble knowledgeable ones replace the humble "-" in templates such as this miserable one with the most august "{{-}}", or indeed, as in your case with the even more splendid and regal "{{–}}". May I humbly solicit enlightenment from you (I may pass this way only once, and this may be my only chance!) Yours obsequiously --Geronimo20 (talk) 11:33, 16 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I wish to thank you for your compliments, my honourable colleague, and I shall of course provide you with an explanatory answer to your reasonable inquiry. As states the documentation for Template:Ndash—to which the shorter {{–}}, which I use due to its relative lack of intrusiveness in the edit window, redirects—this template supplies an easy and brief manner of entering an en dash preceded by a non-breaking space (better known as hard space). This allows the dash to remain at all times in its place after the previous word, preventing undesirable separation at the end of a line due to wrapping. I agree with the common view maintaining that leaving dashes stranded in the beginning of lines looks rather inelegant; also, terms at the end of lines might confuse the readers into believing that they are incomplete and continue into the line below if not visibly accompanied by the customary separators (be them dashes or bullets). An improved appearance of the box, combined with better readability, are the undisputed benefits to Wikipedia's readership of using such means as are available to the editing body.

As far as the substitution of hyphens with en dashes is concerned, I find them more effective as separators, and most authorities (including the Wikipedia Manual of Style) deem them more suitable for this application thereof in lists and similar uses.

I hope I have been of assistance. :-) Waltham, The Duke of 13:09, 16 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Oooh...very nice, Duke, I didn't know about that template. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 18:46, 18 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, although all I did was to bump into it while editing another template. :-) It's really useful, as is its bullet counterpart. Waltham, The Duke of 23:48, 18 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

My mini-rant

My mini-rant today on WT:MoS sounds a bit populist or anti-powers-that-be, but it's not directed at you or at anyone, I'm just doing the best I can to generate enthusiasm from a wide audience for participating in language issues. I really think it would help to get people talking, as a prelude to some well-deserved peace and quiet for a few months.

P.S. Thanks for your encouragement yesterday, now I'm ready to stir things up.

- Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 19:12, 18 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]