User talk:Grutness

I QUIT. I shall be continuing to monitor the talk page for a while, but I am taking a break from Wikipedia, at least for the time being, and possibly for good. It's just not worth the hassle right now.

Ahhh. To hell with it... I seem to be doing nearly as much on Wikipedia when I'm "not here" as when I am here. Seems I am addicted. Also, given the astonishing amount of ego-boost I got from well-wisher messages, how could I stay away? {:) Thanks to all those who said they hoped I'd be back soon. I'm still going to be taking it a little easier than I did (I was Wikiing at an unhealthy level, I think), but my gafiation is officially over.

Please add new discussions at the bottom of the page!

Earlier talk

I've moved discussions prior to May 1, 2005 from this page to archive pages (as listed below). A few of the items I've simply got rid of - if I have, it's simply that it was trivial and/or stuff which has been dealt with, and is therefore no longer relevant. The deletion is not a reflection of my opinion of the writers!

Archive pages

• User: Grutness/archive01 - October 2004 to January 2005
• User: Grutness/archive02 - February 2005
• User: Grutness/archive03 - March 2005 to early April 2005
• User: Grutness/archive04 - early April 2005 to early May 2005
• User: Grutness/archive05 - early May 2005 to end May 2005
• User: Grutness/archive06 - June 2005
• User: Grutness/archive07 - July 2005 - to archive

Stub Categories

The full plain-text list of stub categories (formerly at User:Grutness/Stubs) is now at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Stub_sorting/Stub_types, complete with links to the templates.

Lawson Images

Fantastic. I can really got to town on those, especially the chimneys of the boy's school disguised as pinnacles, don't see that very often, it's almost a renaissance trick, so to see it in the gothic is great. Funny to see your trees without leaves forget its winter with you, at least you have a blue sky, looking ut of the window here over Holland Park loads of leaves, but a grey miserable sky - what am I doing here! Supposed to be working at the moment but will have a go at Lawson later on. Giano | talk 30 June 2005 08:36 (UTC)

Briliant one of the back of the First Church exactly the shot required, I've just dumped them on the page for now, played for over an hour, but not happy with them, I know you like (and they are supposed to be) all down one side but it looks (to me) so sterile, also unsure about sizes - have a look see what you think, lot more to write yet, i found a great ols print of the loony bin at Seacliffe, which I'll upload - do you know if it's definitly demolished? Internet sources are at odds. Got to stop now for a few hours while I'm still in employment!! Giano | talk 30 June 2005 12:59 (UTC)

Shit I'm supossed to be working - I see that's a better theory - perhaps best to write the article and then play with the pictures. Right I'm turning this thing off so I can't keep looking at my watch page. I quite like the idea of putting the rear of the church up front, its beter than the portrait of him, but I suppose every one would object to that, anyway I don't think I'm overpopular at the moment with certain people on FA so if we want this on the main page this decade best to conform!!! Giano | talk 30

June 2005 13:22 (UTC)

"Threave". Hate to be a bore, but you said you had an image of Threave, is that a classical house, cos' the page need one to balance gothic Larnach Castle. A nice miniature Buckingham Palace would be perfect! failing that anything with a couple of pillars, failing even that anything with a sash window painted white! any ideas. I can't find anything suitable on the net, once I've got a picture I can b/s for a hundred words - just need one more classical, and its almost there - cheers 213.122.133.127 2 July 2005 09:43 (UTC)

Hi something wrong with the server it keeps logging me out: Giano

Don't worry - just have to do without, don't worry either about the digital camera you just end up with a slow computer full of pictures you never look at, that might come in useful one day - and never do. Giano | talk 2 July 2005 14:31 (UTC)

Your art

Wow, just had a look at your web site and I really like your painting style. --P3d0 July 1, 2005 02:54 (UTC)

Thanks for that! Glad you like it! :) Grutness...wha?

RfA Thanks

Thank you for your support in my recent RfA nomination. I appreciate the vote of confidence you have provided me. --Allen3 ^talk July 1, 2005 14:24 (UTC)

Sigh

Hey there, Grutness. Would you mind visiting either the project's Talk page or the Talk of Wikipedia:Stub and knocking some sense into the guy-with-the-proposal? My success has been quite limited thus far. --Sn0wflake 2 July 2005 17:38 (UTC)

"Merge" template voting

I've set up two separate votes on the "merge" templates' discussion page. One pertains to the templates' wording, and the other pertains to the templates' visual design. Users may vote on neither, either or both of these issues.

Please note that I've posted this invitation on the talk pages of everyone who has expressed a preference for either wording and/or visual design. —Lifeisunfair 3 July 2005 19:48 (UTC)

Thanks!

Hi Grutness, thanks for supporting my RfA. It's encouraging to receive positive feedback, and I look forward to working with you in the future in stub sorting or wherever we run into each other! --Spangineer (háblame) July 4, 2005 03:42 (UTC)

Thanks for your note. I have responded about the Nepal stub category where you indicated. Danny 4 July 2005 10:50 (UTC)

Sorry for disturbing you, being a little tense

I (successfully) created the {{crime-book-stub}}, but it doesn't relay to the appropriate category (which I also created); whre am I going wrong ??? BTW,I must admit I'm a little tired right now, and I'm gonna log off in a minute or so THX in advance Lectonar 4 July 2005 13:05 (UTC)

Fixed (and replied). Grutness...wha? 4 July 2005 13:15 (UTC)

THX for the instant help; regarding the civility: that's my credo...

and may a wager a little recommendation:

- Anno Dracula, and The Difference Engine by William Gibson are nice Lectonar 4 July 2005 13:23 (UTC) alias Sean O'Lochlainn

Template:TOCright

Just in case you haven't seen it, have a look at the revision of W. Mark Felt. - Ta bu shi da yu 5 July 2005 02:11 (UTC)

Also recommend you look at Daniel Pipes. - Ta bu shi da yu 5 July 2005 02:12 (UTC)

And (sorry to keep posting here), see Windows 2000 with the template. - Ta bu shi da yu 5 July 2005 02:14 (UTC)

Well, the Windows one doesn't work because the infobox is above the TOC, rather than the other way round. I agree about the others though - they look really good! Even more reason to keep the template. Grutness...wha?

Look, no offense (I have always respected you and will continue to do so even though I am pretty adamant on this issue), but why should a change like this be applied that is not in the stylesheet? I think it looks godawful - can I change this in my stylesheet? What about the standard practice of having the image on the right hand side of the screen - a standard design principle (look at any advertisment)? - Ta bu shi da yu 5 July 2005 02:39 (UTC)

The feeling's mutual as to the respect, but I see nothing wrong with this. As to standard advertising practice, what of articles that have no lead picture but have nmany sections? It looks far better to have the contents where they are most logical (again, for the reasons chosen in advertising practice, the main text body starts at top left), and certainly we don't need tons of white space at the top of the page. It doesn't work with all articles - it may not work with more than a small minority - but it is a useful option to have. I've tried it on my user talk page, and it clearly doesn't work there, but consider a page like List_of_volcanoes - imagine how that would look without some form of floating right-hand TOC. Grutness...wha?

Bingo. You said it yourself - the eyes look to the left for text. With TOCright, the image will be on the left. Sorry, a bit busy. Will message in a few minutes. - Ta bu shi da yu 5 July 2005 02:57 (UTC)

OK, have had a look at List of volcanoes and agree that it does look better there. However, what about articles that are not lists? Articles that have such a large TOC need to be shortened and split up into subarticles anyway. - Ta bu shi da yu 5 July 2005 03:27 (UTC)

Okay, well two things here - first, the eyes do look to the left for text, which is why having the main body of the text start on the left is preferable to having a table of any sort there. As for "what about articles that are not lists:, well, some of them would work better with the TOC on the right, too. As I said earlier, I'm not suggesting it becomes compulsory, simply that it be retained as an option for the minority of cases where it does look better floating to the right. I think maybe this time we're just going to have to agree to disagree... Grutness...wha?

Of course :-) However, there has been no guidelines on when and when NOT to use this template. For instance, I'd be mighty pissed off if it was used on Windows 2000 - I feel that it would be totally inappropriate. And on Daniel Pipes, there was no need to use it at all because the article is a) not large enough, and b) an article with a picture that is now on the left hand side of the page. Maybe my listing it on TFD was a tad premature: I'm willing to conceed that it might be useful on some pages (list lists), and will make my comments there soon; however without a style guideline I think we're in for some lovely edit wars between editors (don't worry, I won't participate: I will merely stop editing the article). - Ta bu shi da yu 5 July 2005 03:44 (UTC)

Template:stub

Hi. I wonder whether you might be inclined to offer something by way of an explanation for reverting my edit to this template? I get the feeling, with a summary as peremptory as "rv to Netoholic's last edit", that you think my edits are so clearly inappropriate that no reason is necessary, which I am confident is not the case. — Dan | Talk 5 July 2005 04:40 (UTC)

Spanish West Africa

===>Of course, you are right. In addition, I said basically the same thing earlier. I don't know what my problem was... Thank you. Justin (koavf) July 5, 2005 05:32 (UTC)

bio-stubs

Well I must admit I hadn't realized Wikipedia had entered a period of such bureaucratic morass that it was now necessary to receive permission prior to adding new form of categorization. Also beyond simply a means of categorization, it would seem radically POV to mark only some nations as "acceptable" choices for stub categorization. Particularly since it seems clear to me that the root category of bio-stub is choked and in need of additional categories. Frankly I see no reason to think I should need to ask before making such additions, and in fact would much rather abandon the matter entirely than touch the bureaucratic machine. So I suppose I'm done sorting these stubs, and if you would like to nominate any number of my stub types for deletion somewhere, I will not care enough to generate protest. Sarge Baldy July 5, 2005 11:51 (UTC)

Replied - at length. Grutness...wha?

Asia-struct-stub

Sorry, I now realise I should have added Japan-stub , rather than replaced Asia-struct-stub. Kjlewis 5 July 2005 12:07 (UTC)

S'alright. Keeping it as an asia-struct-stub has the added advantage that it makes it easier to tell whether there will ever be need of a separate Japan-struct-stub. Grutness...wha? 5 July 2005 12:15 (UTC)

From Blimpguy re stub templates

Thanks for the fix on stubs. Before using the template, I tried to be a good puppy and did some looking around for the list of stubs categories/templates, but didn't find it. After a while I gave up and just added the closest one I stumbled across in an existing article. You may want to add some information on the style and/or how-to articles for us template newbies. Regards. Blimpguy 5 July 2005 13:52 (UTC)

my message to alkivar

Hi - Sounds like you didn't actually read the message I left for Alkivar. It's distinctly not the standard one. -- Rick Block (talk) July 7, 2005 15:09 (UTC)

Oh, and BTW, although there was a single edit summary there were at least 3 "standard" versions based on previous nominations (including declined offers to nominate in talk history) and current activity based on user contributions. I took about two weeks to work through the list of nearly 300 names BECAUSE I didn't just mindlessly slap messages on talk pages. In case you're having any trouble reading my tone, I'm offended by the implication of mindlessness. --Rick Block (talk) July 7, 2005 15:40 (UTC)

I'm sorry I caused you offence. I had wrongly assumed, since the messages all had identical titles that they would be identical. I still think it wasn't the best timing, but I apologise for thinking that you had stuffed up. Grutness...wha?

Apology accepted. The point of the message to Alkivar was to politely offer him an opportunity to remove the asterisk if he decides he'd rather never go through rfa again (I made the same offer to Eequor shortly after her recently failed nom as well). At a broader level, the point of the whole exercise is to try to raise the general sensitivity to the desires of the folks on the list. It's almost unbelievably ironic to be accused of being insensitive. -- Rick Block (talk) July 8, 2005 00:36 (UTC)

{{merge}}

Hi there! You expressed an opinion on the recent TFD of {{coolmerge}}. A vote is presently being held on which appearance is preferable for the merge template; you may want to join it. See Template_talk:Merge for details. Yours, Radiant_>|< July 7, 2005 18:55 (UTC)

NZ map images.

Hello James. Good to see your maps of NZ localities. I run Netscape 7.02 and Win98. The maps cause the text to be compressed since the image is not right justified even though it has the appropriate parameter set. If I give the image a label the problem goes away ie. the image is displayed to the right. Do you know if this a bug in the Wiki software? I have put a label on the image at Manapouri Alan Liefting 8 July 2005 05:06 (UTC)

Replied, and problem taken to VP(T). Grutness...wha?

I checked the one at Orewa. It does not have the justification problem. I prefer the maps with a border and a caption. They look a little unfinished without a border. Do you think they could also do with a scale? Alan Liefting 9 July 2005 05:50 (UTC)

Thanks!

Thanks for the award. I was wondering when I would get one of those :-D. I shall add it to the 'ol trophy case. Hope I haven't created too much work for you :) --NDP logo Earl Andrew - talk 8 July 2005 09:44 (UTC)

It's amazing what a minor typo edit to an obscure politician can do, eh? :) Well there's lots more work to do, by the time I'm done with the wikipedia, every community in Canada will have a page! muhahaha *evil* Cheers! --NDP logo Earl Andrew - talk 8 July 2005 09:54 (UTC)

NZ Images

hey cool NZ images! I hope you dont mind but i made one for Cheviot, New Zealand using your template.

BTW, what is up with "This user is a fluent speaker of Patent nonsense."???

Supersaiyanplough|^(talk) 9 July 2005 10:25 (UTC)

• Oh bother, my computer doesn't have Geneva. What font should I use, Arial ok? - Supersaiyanplough|^(talk) 9 July 2005 10:39 (UTC)

Abu Qir Bay

Hi Grutness. I noticed you changed "Abu¯ Qi¯r Bay" to "Abu¯ Qi¯r Bay". Why is that? There are lots of Google hits for "Abu¯ Qi¯r Bay" (even with the special characters), but not for "Abu¯ Qi¯r Bay". (I'm afraid I don't know much about Arabic.) – Quadell ^{(talk) (sleuth)} July 9, 2005 14:42 (UTC)

Replied. Same old problem, even with MW 1.5... Grutness...wha?

That's fine. Thanks for the info! – Quadell ^{(talk) (sleuth)} 00:28, July 10, 2005 (UTC)

Vandalism

Well, James, the guy who keeps on saying that I am an anti-Semite has changed his IP address: 81.7.42.175 (talk · contribs). He vandalized my page three times. I wonder why he chose me anyways. Zscout370 (Sound Off) 20:30, 9 July 2005 (UTC)

Template locations

I have noticed you discussed template locations at Wikipedia talk:template messages.

One user has unilaterally been moving templates from articles to talk pages en-masse (over 100 articles are affected during a spate made by the user last night). I have spent some time trying to resolve this issue.

There is now a poll discussing where templates belong created at Wikipedia:Template locations, and a discussion at Template talk:Expansion. ~~~~ 13:59, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

Software engineering Vs Computer science

Hi! I reverted your edits in {{soft-eng-stub}}. Just to make a note, software engineering is a -very- distinct branch of computer science. Hence, it needs it's own stub. Yes, I know it's currently used only in The Tao of Programming, but expect to be used more later on. Project2501a 03:01, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

SFD actions

I wonder, how did you rename Egypt-stub to Ancient-Egypt-stub and change the category? I'm asking because of Template_talk:Cleanup-importance#category name. --Joy [shallot] 23:33, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

Oh, upon more careful inspection, it looks like there was no category change involved in that move. Ignore me. :) --Joy [shallot]

Thanks for offer

Hey Grutness, tks for offering to nominate me for admin, which I gladly accept. I've been part of Wikipedia since middish 2003, and registered October 03. I've sort of plodded along with a v-e-r-y slow computer but now have a newly acquired machine plus broadband so can more quickly get in and out of Wiki. My main goals in Wiki are to contribute informative general knowledge subjects, to improve content that needs editing, and to deal to vandalism. Cheers. Moriori 01:53, July 13, 2005 (UTC)

Page move problem

I tried to move Good Day, L.A. to Good Day L.A. (note the comma removed), but I got the message "Source and destination titles are the same; can't move a page over itself." Do you have any idea why this happened? Out of all the editing that I've done on the Wikipedia, I've only done one other page move, which went very smoothly, so I'm a bit flummoxed. BlankVerse ∅ 07:09, 14 July 2005 (UTC)

doh! I feel like such a noob! That's what happens when I try to do 3-4 things at once on the Wikipedia using a tabbed browser like Firefox. I was also correcting an anon who had marked a bunch of major newspapers such as The New York Times with {{news-stub}}. BlankVerse ∅ 07:39, 14 July 2005 (UTC)

moving Oceania stubs

Thanks for your hard work. I was unaware a new FP stub had been created. I don't know why it was felt necessary to spell out FrenchPolynesia in the stub name, as opposed to simply FP, but whatever. If you need help moving other stubs to appropriate places, let me know how I might be of assistance. I was thinking just the other day that it would be nice to divide up the Oceania stubs by at least micro- mela- and polynesian stubs. I see someone else has been thinking about this as well.  :-p Tomer ^TALK 07:12, July 14, 2005 (UTC)

There is no doubt in my mind whatsoever that the preponderance of FP geostubs in the Oceania-geo-stub cat was primarily my doing, as I think I probably created half of them... :-p Tomer ^TALK 07:24, July 14, 2005 (UTC)

Well, you'll notice a great number of them are specifically Marquesas Islands stubs, for which I created Category:Marquesas Islands... speaking of which, I also created Category:Society Islands and Category:Tuamotu. This brings to the fore 2 almost-unrelated questions. First, where does the 60-articles threshhold for categories come from, and second, what's the proper procedure for categorizing articles? Presently, I believe, all articles within Category:Marquesas Islands (etc.) also contains links to Category:French Polynesia. Should both cats be included, since the more specific extends the more general? Or should only the most specific cat be included? Tomer ^TALK 08:48, July 14, 2005 (UTC)

OK, so (shhhhh!) I'm officially on a wikibreak...but I think it would be more sensible to divide the stubs by political division, and when necessary, by geological/geographical division. I think it would be a travesty to let Tokelau stubs, for example, languish in Oceania stubs simply because there's highly-plausible rationale to believe that such a category will never exceed 20 stubs, indeed I can think of perhaps a maximum of about 40 articles for the group as a whole. Where is the discussion of this properly engaged? Tomer ^TALK 09:02, July 14, 2005 (UTC)

Lawson

It [1] is gradually getting there (slowly), but I think the time has come when it needs a pretty ruthless copyedit, prune and honest opinion - so if you have some time to spare....? I don't take offence very easily so do what you like! (more or less!) I don't want to put the footnotes in until it is finished as things will still move about, is there any way you could check the year he was elected a Vice president of the Otago Institute of Architects. Thanks and regards Giano | talk 11:27, 14 July 2005 (UTC)

Right it is done! At least as far as I'm concerned, it is now open to the public as Robert Lawson (architect) it need some other people etc to look at with fresh eyes and ideas. The fotos look good though. Giano | talk 12:21, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

Peace Dove

To all participants of the WikiProject Kindness Campaign: There is a proposal on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Kindness Campaign for the Peace Dove. Please comment as you see fit. Thanks, Sango123 16:09, July 14, 2005 (UTC)

Algeria stubs

Good work on the new stub cat! I've announced it on the little-frequented Wikipedia:Wikiportal/Algeria. - Mustafaa 16:18, 14 July 2005 (UTC)

checking the calendar

• cough*mid-July*cough* Garrett^Talk 06:03, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

My apologies. I hadn't realised that I was editing an archive.-gadfium 08:44, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

Newfoundland and Labrador Stubs

Hey, no problem, I was just so glad to see a NL stub and then got carried away to move the appropiate articles into it. Hopefully I got 'em all. Wikipedia is relatively new to me, my first edit/article was in May, I really like it and have been enticing others to give it a go. HJKeats 12:34, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

Stubs

I thank you a lot for your hard work with the stubs. Next time you go through them, do you think you could look out for communities that don't have a province following their names? (i.e. if the article is at Kenora, move to Kenora, Ontario) I've had a look at the lists before, but you never know if I missed a few. If you have any questions in that regard, please let me know. (Use discretion, Bytown does not belong at Bytown, Ontario for historical purposes). --NDP logo Earl Andrew - talk 18:07, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

Yes it is standard practice- except for the major cities of Toronto, Vancouver, Ottawa and Montreal. Don't go out of your way to fix them, that's my job- but if you come across one, it would help me out :) --NDP logo Earl Andrew - talk 02:49, 16 July 2005 (UTC)

I should also let you know that neighbourhoods dont need the province following them either. --NDP logo Earl Andrew - talk 02:57, 16 July 2005 (UTC)

re: RfA

Greetings, Grutness, and thanks for the thought. I'm currently officially on a wikibreak, which may end soon, or may not. I may make my splashy return by opening simultaneous RfC's regarding both User:Witkacy and User:TheUnforgiven.

Without reservation, I have to say that Witkacy (who started the thing at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#Jayjg - Tshilo12), is a troll. I don't know if I turned him into a troll or not, but he's been pissed off at me ever since I nominated Anti-Polonism for VfD, and is obviously watching everything I do and say, as well as IZAK and probably a few other editors. He's also keeping track of everything he considers "Anti-Polonism" at User talk:Witkacy/notesik (watch for this edit's diff to show up there in the near future). The problems started with him immediately, in fact, as he kept taking the VfD tag off the Anti-Polonism article so soon and so repeatedly quickly, that he kept screwing up my {{subst|}} tags. Of the rather hysterical believers in "Anti-Polonism", he's the only one who's been a troublemaker. TheUnforgiven's support of him, as well as his other activities, makes me suspect that he may be Witkacy's sockpuppet.

As for TheUnforgiven, he's worse than a troll, he's certifiably insane. Reading Talk:Palestinian#Historical Section and User talk:Witkacy, where you'll find representative samples of his writing, will demonstrate that assertion much more clearly than anything I could say.

User:Sirkumsize isn't really a troll, he's just a single-issue editor with this bizarre idea that circumcision is an impending great cause of antisemitism, if it's not already a primary "cause". Look at his edits, and you'll see that he's obsessed with this idea. He's tried to insert it into a few different articles, most diligently at Anti-Semitism. Perusing Talk:Anti-Semitism and its archives will show that this is his only interest wrt the article, and that consensus against his addition is unanimous. The suggestion has been made that it may be necessary to open an RfC on Sirkumsize as well, but there are enough other people making that suggestion, that I don't think I'll have to worry about doing that one myself.

I've also been involved in the contentious "Eras" debate that started at Jesus several months ago, hopefully in as level-headed a manner as possible.

The other big brawl I've been involved in recently, is the fracas at Apartheid, where, again, a single-issue anon, against overwhelming consensus, was insisting on inserting text. That incredibly long plodding discussion is at both Talk:Apartheid and User talk:Jayjg/Jews did Apartheid editor

Tomer ^TALK 18:58, July 15, 2005 (UTC)

Addendum: I neglected to address your inquiry regarding the nature of "the Igor test". IMHO, the Igor thing was implausible enough that it should inspire a wikimovement to get all policies regarding noteworthiness, reliability of sources, etc., moved to a new place: Wikipedia:The Igor Test. It comes out of the same old tired discussion with Sirkumsize, who thought he'd really hit paydirt when he found an 8 or 9-line userpage at some circumcision site, written by a guy named Igor. The relevant discussion begins at Talk:Anti-Semitism_(archive_18)#I_am_tired_of_your_bullshit. There's a bit of commentary that references Igor elsewhere on Talk:Anti-Semitism. Tomer ^TALK 19:41, July 15, 2005 (UTC)

Circumcisioninfo.com/igor.htm is where it is at! El_C 05:14, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

My RfA

Hey Grutness, although I'm unfamiliar with you I would like to thank you for giving me a yes vote :D My RfA is looking pretty good... me and Essjay had a bet over whos RfA will end up looking better :) With Respect, Redwolf24 01:41, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

nobility stubs

Ashur-uballit_I, an Assyrian king, is put into the nobility stub category, which is interesting. If you sample the active pages listed here, Kings_of_Assyria, you get a very irregular categorization. I'm not wiki-wise enough to tackle this issue, but there is a problem with consistency. They are certainly kings. And yeah, you need to archive.--FourthAve 06:56, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

replied, and yes I do. it's nearly two weeks since I last did that. add another hour to the day and I'll consider it! :) Grutness...wha?

The deeper meaning of liff

I wonder if you are aware that Douglas Adams defines Grutness in The Deeper Meaning of Liff as;

Grutness (noun)

The resolve with which the Queen sits through five days of polynesian folk dancing.

Bluemoose 08:59, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

:)) I didn't know that (I have copy of the original version of the book, but not the bigger version). That makes sense, and is apt for someone living where I do in NZ. Thanks for that! Grutness...wha?

Category rename?

Hi, I need a little help. I moved all the spacecraft stubs out of {{rocket-stub}} to {{spacecraft-stub}}. But the category for rocket-stub is "Rocket and spacecraft stubs". Do you know how to rename that? Once that's done, I can update the stub type list and do some other cleanup. Thanks!......A2Kafir 22:33, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

Mm. To be honest, I'm not certain. User:Grm wnr might be the best person to ask - he does a lot of that work for sfd. Grutness...wha? 01:11, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

{{Broadway-stub}}

I created this stub as part of a WikiProject that I started, WikiProject Broadway. I haven't been working with the project in a little while, but I've been intending to go back and get the stub used on more articles. There are a fair amount of articles (and articles that need writing) on Broadway Theatres, Broadway shows, and other topics (actors, notable Broadway directors and designers), that I've been planning to work on, and was hoping to use the stub for. I apologise for not submitting the stub for consideration to WP:WSS/C, I hadn't been by that page previously, and didn't realize that was expected. If you would consider rescinding the STfD, I would be delighted to submit the stub for consideration, however I do not want to submit the stub concurrently with an open deletion vote.Thanks for your time and consideration. EvilPhoenix talk 03:06, July 18, 2005 (UTC)

replied Grutness...wha?

Well, I think that splitting out by type of play has certain limitations that using the stub I created addresses, which I have made a brief discussion of on the deletion debate page. EvilPhoenix talk 06:30, July 18, 2005 (UTC)

stub templates

Thanks for your note. I wasn't sure of the hierarchy of the stubs (i.e. which ones are subsets of which other ones), or which one was most suitable, so I added a couple. -- pne 11:45, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

Can't remember where to report this

Hi,

Sorry to put this on your page, but I noticed the other day that you seem to know what's happening in this community (voting on RfA, etc).

There's a user I'm concerned about - 212.44.58.161. I noticed what they did on the Teletubbies page on 18th July - changing the female characters to male and using the word d!ck where inappropriate.

Looking at some of their other posts, I am very concerned about the change to the Arcade Game page - changing the year on Space Invaders. Maybe they corrected this year, but I have no idea.

Do you know where I should report this?

I will revert the Teletubbies changes.

--JimmyTheWig 12:17, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the advice. I've reported it as an "incident".

Wasn't totally by chance I picked you. I noticed that you made a change on Barnet F.C. and wondered what else you did. --JimmyTheWig 13:51, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

Please stop using an unsafe browser, now

Please stop using the Macintosh version of Internet Explorer to edit pages. It damages both text and links. As such, it could be seen as damaging the encyclopedia’s integrity, and your persistence in doing so might even be seen as bad faith. You shouldn’t be lumping it with Windows IE either; as far as Wikipedia is concerned, they are quite different.

Don’t go on about “browser-unsafe characters” either; direct characters are there so that anyone editing the source or comparing versions can see what’s going on. MediaWiki 1.5 allows the nearly all Unicode characters to be used without entities, and this is the normal and expected way to enter them. There are bots such as Chobot and RobotE stripping entities out of interwiki links, and there will probably a more general bot soon.

If you’re stuck at a computer without a safe browser, you could trying using the “Show changes” button for all edits; however, you will to be very careful never to save unless you’re satisfied that you are only making the changes you intend to make. Otherwise, you will really need to wait until you can find a computer that is safe to use. Susvolans (pigs can fly) 12:32, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

I am using Mozilla Firefox, and have been for some time. I read wikipedia with IE, but I edit with Firefox. Grutness...wha?

Lawson (yet again)

Please change what you like, I have never even seen a single one of his works in real life - you have. Regarding Salisbury, take a look here [2] which is the one I favour (ignore the two spires and the flying buttresses just foreign ostentatiousness!) I think this may have a greater similarity than Salisbury, and this (slightly un-English style was the inspiration. Compare with the rear views you took of First Church. Please edit heavily where you think necessary, I've stared at the page for too long which is why I've dumped it in proper article territory. Regards: Giano | talk 20:46, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

Great copyedit - good job. The faults I see are that the lead is too short, and his death sounds too perfunctory and abrupt at the end, but I suppose that's how sudden death is! I couldn't find out much more anyway. Do you think its ready for FA? I've seen worse there, but I am just not that happy with it, I can't quite put my finger on why - perhaps it's too long, but it's good information, and would be a shame to weed it out. I just don't know. Giano | talk 06:22, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, have you time to put it there now, I've a train to catch, if not I'm back in a few hours. I think its the length, while the subject is fascinating to me,I suspect it is probably less so to others. Cheers 213.122.216.18 06:56, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

• Don't worry about peer review for now, I've seen what's wrong, it needs to be explained that Lawson's work can be evaluated and explain d through a description of the 6 buildings in the text and why, than a bit about his style and talents regarding each building rather than just the present architectural description, the problem will be keeping out my POV - I really do prefer Petre's work Giano | talk 11:55, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

Right, I've made a few changes and think I'll nominate it for FA, (a) because in my experience no-one reads long pages at peer review. (b) I like to live dangerously, (c) after the next few days I shall probably be disapearing for a month or so, or at best on reuced time, so here goes, if you feel like it muster the Kiwis, I want a NZ architecture 3x on the main page in a year. Giano | talk 18:47, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

• Thanks for the plug and kind words. I seemed a good idea to nominate it last night after a coupe of glasses of wine, this morning perhaps a bit premature - Oh well what the hell Giano | talk 07:25, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

• Yeah, I agree completely, I think the problem is, as I had ro research everything, it is probably better sourced, but that somehow hindered the spontaneity of the writing, perhaps a;so there is too mucgh info - I suppose encyclopeically its probably the better article? Giano | talk 13:01, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

AR-geo-stub

can you arrange an AR-geo-stub for Argentina? Tobias Conradi (Talk) 22:42, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

did it myself, hope this is fine.

nooo! Grutness...wha?

little known? I think every internet user in Argentina knows AR. lot of people in geography will know it as well. Arizona can only be the idea of US-centric people. Aruba? Please compare size of Aruba and Argentina. There is also US-geo-stub. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 01:38, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

Armin Rotenbauch is known by me as AR. Do I think I can use this in wikipedia as abbrev. for him? I know, some people in the US tend to think the US is all and then maybe cannot imagine there is anything else in GEO-STUB with AR. use of ISO 3166-1 is something that can be done worldwide. type AR in google, first is Arkansas followed by lots of hits in Argentina. No Aruba anywhere. I saw you talking for BrColumbia. What's that? Shall we use arg-geo-stub? would be fine for me. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 02:08, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

All replied to. Grutness...wha?

you are wrong: British Columbia is not known as BrColumbia througout the world, at least not here in my flat. Why AR? Why BrColumbia if there is a perfectly usably British_Columbia-geo-stub possibility? What is that? I mean why do you handle BrColumbia different to AR? What about UKW wales? Tobias Conradi (Talk) 02:53, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

maybe you can reply to this UKW/UKS thing at Category_talk:Geography_stubs Tobias Conradi (Talk) 02:58, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

Your concerns have been addressed. If you wish, Argentina could have a redirect at SouthAmericaA-geo-stub, since that would keep it in line with the others you mention.

after this post I think talking with you is nonsens. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 11:01, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

Nonsense begets nonsense, my friend. However, at least my nonsense followed logically from your arguments. Grutness...wha?

Re southern Maori

Tks Grutness. Reads much better. Moriori 03:17, July 19, 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Bernwood Forest

I gotta love your comment. Made me chuckle anyway. Back to hitting trolls with sticks... -- Francs2000 | Talk File:Uk flag large.png 19:43, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

WPSS-cat

Hey there, Grutness. Would you mind explaining me what exactly is Template:WPSS-cat? DESiegel has been inserting some information regarding it into the guideline, but I sincerely have no idea about the use of the template to actually give a proper reply to him. Cheers. --Sn0wflake 22:43, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

New stub sorter...

Hi - Im new at wikipedia and want to help with things like. Ive had a look at the stub project and your name seems to be everywhere so I thot Id ask what you think would be a good place to help? BL Lacertae 09:00, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

Welcome to Wikipedia! There are all sorts of things that you could help with. Best place to start might be having a look at two of the project's pages, WP:WSS/C (which is where new stub types are proposed) and WP:WSS/ST, which is the big list of all the stub types there are (don't be put off - it's a huge list!). A lot of the categories listed there are very big and have a lot of smaller sub-categories. Just shifting some of the things from the big parent categories into the right subcategories is the main stub-sorting task (like moving things from Category:People stubs to an occupation like Category:Writer stubs or a nationality like Category:Canadian people stubs). Other than that, keep an eye out for the ideas being suggested at the criteria page (WP:WSS/C) to see what new suggestions are coming up. Hope you enjoy being a Wikipedian! Grutness...wha? 09:09, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

Wisconsin

Hey Grutness (do you have a less abrasive sounding name?), you may or mayn't have noticed I created Template:Wisc-stub and a corresponding Category:Wisconsin stubs, based off Texas-stub and the corresponding category. If that was completely out of line, please thwap me GENTLY. Tomer ^TALK 09:19, July 21, 2005 (UTC)

Consider this a gentle thwap, then! You should go through WP:WSS/C, and at the very least keep to the naming guidelines. Which would make it Wisconsin-stub (hope you don't mind - I've redirected your template there). I've added the new template to the big list, though. Most of the geography and regional type stubs are more hassle than they're worth to get rid of once they're made. Just make sure you don't use it for geographical items, only for items relating to the state in general, in the same way as Texas-stub and the like. Geographical templates are all XX-geo-stub, and are all much more strictly controlled as far as their creation is concerned. Oh, and it's James, BTW. Grutness...wha? 09:34, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

OK, then, James. I think it should be pretty clear from the work Sasquatch and I have done, that the Wisconsin template is not meant to be a substub of US-midwest-geo-stub. I highly doubt that the time will ever come that there will be enough Wisconsin geo-stubs to ever support an independent geo-stub cat. That said, however, I don't think it's beyond belief to imagine that there are potentially sufficient stubs to warrant a separate Wisc-stub. That said, I only chose Wisc-stub instead of Wisconsin-stub bcz Wisc is basically univerally recognizable (for people who care, at least) as a shortened form of Wisconsin-stub and in that light, as a convenience to contributors, I went with it. In that light, while "Texas" is pretty-easily spelled, I would be willing to guess that the vast majority of Americans would be befuddled were they asked to spell "Wisconsin", to say nothing of "Massachusetts" (Massatwoshits), "Connecticut" (Conneddicut), "Tennessee" (Tennis Sea), and/or even "Rhode Island" (Road Island). Without going out of my way too far to belittle American typographiqueurs, nor wishing to stand trial for my belittling certain (Mass of Two Shits) states, so I chose to go with an abbreviation that is not only widely used, but almost universally recognized. Where do you live, btw? Kwinslund? Tomer ^TALK 09:45, July 21, 2005 (UTC)

Oh dear... I'm already in trouble with one Argentinian because I put his redirect at AR-geo-stub up for deletion... It's just standard stub-sorting practice to use the full name... and Wisconsin's certainly no more difficult than many states and places. "Universally recognised" is always a tricky one, too, because you may think so, but I'm sure that a lot of people in different parts of the world have never heard it used. I've had a look at the category, and there are a lot of geo-stubs there I'd ask you if possible to do the same thing I've asked at Texas stubs and other categories like that - double-stub. Wisconsin could well eventually get its own geo-stub category, but as stub sorters we won't know it needs one unless the geo-stubs are in the US-midwest-geo-stub category to be counted sorry - didn't notice you'd done that - well done, thanks!. Wisconsin's got over 40 geo-stubs, and we're using 80 as a cutt-off mark, so it's already more than half way there, and stubs are created at a huge rate. Also, a lot of people search for articles to improve based on geography, so it's useful for the editors. if you want to mark them as wisconsin items too, that's fine. But as for "Kwinslund", that's a gross insult! Never accuse a New Zealander of being Australian! Bleargh! (I'm from here) Grutness...wha? 10:01, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

If I were a less-seasoned contributor, I'd take your most recent comments on my talk page as "insulting". Disregarding their "you should do it our (mysterious) way, instead of the way that you (in your incomprehensible ignorance) considered logical" tone of your comments, allow me to re-clarify. I did not mean to make a substub of US-midwest-geo-stub, but rather simply a WI-stub, for stubs pertaining to Wisconsin, Wisconsin-based interests, and Wisconsin-based locales. I would include the putative WI-geo-stub in this, were such a stub cat to ever be invented (although given the granularity of Wisconsin municipalities, I don't forsee that ever happening, except perhaps should the Rivers and Lakes stubs get out of control...) Now, back to my real point...the reason I named the stub cat "Wisc-stub" was not because I wanted to flout WP convention, but because I tried a dozen stub names looking for "the right stub cat" before I realizes that nonesuch existed, and "Wisconsin-stub" was most definitely not among my "most logical choices". While such a convention may make perfect sense among the seasoned stubsorting community, it (I can guarantee you almost to a wo/man) is unnecessarily demanding for those who are just trying to add a simple stubcat to an article. Anyways, I'm about to tip over. Good night, good sir.  :-p Tomer ^TALK 10:03, July 21, 2005 (UTC)

Sorry, I misremembered your location. Dunedin's a beautiful town (if somewhat out-of-the-way) in a striking setting. I'd envy you somewhat were my own location not even more beautiful.  :-p and :-D Tomer ^TALK 10:08, July 21, 2005 (UTC)

Apologies if my tone seemed insulting - it was not intended to be so. And it does look like everything about the category and the way it is used is perfectly good as far as everything stubsortingesque is concerned, for which much thanks. I still believe that Wisconsin-stub is a more natural name, since the state's full name is the one most likely to be recognised everywhere, but it looks like we'll have to agree to disagree on that. The easiest way to see whether a category exists, BTW, is to look at the list of stub categories, either at WP:WSS/ST or Wikipedia:Template messages/Stubs, or in Category:Stub categories, rather than using trial and error on a template name. (More beautiful than Dunedin??? Heretic! ;) Grutness...wha? 10:14, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

You goddamned enzedder!! You misspelled "recognized"!!! :-P I'm kidding, I hope "obviously"... Anyways, I don't think our disagreement is substantial. I'm more than content to have Wisc-stub renamed Wisconsin-stub. If there's precedence to support it, in fact, (I'm a Jew, and, as everyone knows, all Jews are laywer-prone) I'm happy to support precendence. That bit of self-deprecation in favor of idiotic prejudice notwithstanding, I'm still not sure that your argument about "go here to find this, go there to find that" really holds much weight, and would like to see some sort of (subtle, if necessary) language included into stub tags regarding where to go to find a collection of similar stubs. WP, IMHO, suffers from a horribly "insider" vs "outsider" dichotomy, where the "insider"s consider things to be "obvious" to "outsider"s that simply aren't even remotely obvious. For example, I don't consider myself especially stupid, but I was editing regularly on WP for over a year before I even SAW Categories on the bottom of articles, and it was another full year before I realized that they were meant as a guide to direct me to related articles. That's actually why you'll find me to be such a strong proponent of templates as opposed to categories, but that's really neither here nor there. When can I move to Raoul and establish my own republic, w/o interference from the Commonwealth? Tomer ^TALK 10:24, July 21, 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, you're right - it would be easier if there was some sort of link to all the templates/categories, but there's only so much you can do to a stub template before it gets unwieldy. it does link to Wikipedia:Stub, which has all the info, but it's sort of "click here to click there so you can link to that", which isn't exactly the best way of doing things. As to lawyer-prone Jewish support for precedence, can I that plead my support for what doesn't instantly seem logical is due to my irish ancestry? :) (I thought you were going to bed...) Grutness...wha? 10:31, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

Going to bed laddy? Woat in bloaddy ell da geeven ye det eddia? ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ  :-p Tomer ^TALK 10:37, July 21, 2005 (UTC)

thanks for supporting me

I made it, I'm an admin at last! Thanks for all your help along the way, I doubt I'd have gotten there in the first place without all your support and guidance. Thank you so much. :) Garrett^Talk 09:37, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

Canadian regional geo-stubs

More than reasonable: civil, accommodating, and attentive. Cheers! DoubleBlue (Talk) 07:00, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

I'll echo DoubleBlue's sentiments. Thanks for the changes... Mindmatrix 12:50, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

Slovakia geo-stubs

I have answered on my talk-page (You can copy the answer to the other page if you want)Juro 17:04, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

geo stubs (july)

relax: e.g. Category:Ecuador geography stubs reached very easily 78 articles this is more than your 60-limit. Why be so bureaucratic with "go through process". Make easy rules and people will follow them. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 23:06, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

Grutness, if you want to RfC Tobias, I'm sure there will be no trouble in gathering friends. I'm just not sure what the proper grounds would be. Please, please don't let this guy, who seems to have no respect for process, consensus, and multilateral editing, get the better of you. We'll fix it somehow. What confuses me is how he's managed to get away with it so far. I've seen too many people get in fights with him and simply give up - myself possibly included. --Golbez 00:05, July 24, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks - I shall consider it, but a few days with a low wiki profile will probably do me good (I've still got a little work to do here - I took some photos over the last week which I want to upload, for one thing). I've never used rfc before, so I'm not sure of the mechanism, but it's definitely worth considering. See how I feel in a couple of days. Grutness...wha? 00:18, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

PS, there's already an RfM on Tobias. I'm just letting you know this, and then bowing out - I've probably stuck my nose where it doesn't belong, I don't know all that's going on here. --Golbez 14:53, July 24, 2005 (UTC)

That was me. I requested this RfM, because of conflict with NoPuzzleStranger. ... Tobias Conradi (Talk) 23:33, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

I have no respect for silly process. Grutness told me 60 is the rule. I could not find the rule but did my best to stick to this rule. Bolivia and Suriname stubs where not created. Peru existed already! but the geo-stub police has not mentioned it on their page. So what? And why go through a process if there where 60? No respect for multilateral editing? Where do you learn this, dear Golbez? Are you shy? BE BOLD. Please show me any open article dispute. But it seems you once again spread bad words without (I call people stupid eh?) before looking at the things in detail. Sorry I have no respect for this kind of behavior. It's close to defamation thx Tobias Conradi (Talk) 00:29, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

I was wrong about 60 - the stated rule was 100-300. Grutness...wha? 00:34, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

if you would have looked at Category:Paraguay_geography_stubs you might have found 60. So what? And that someone created Slovakia-stub and not Slovakia-related-stub is due to the inconsistency in the stubmsgs. So whom to blame here? Tobias Conradi (Talk) 00:33, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

Quite obviously the person who created the new category without checking what needed to be done first. Grutness...wha? 01:10, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

I don't think so. The Slovakia guy maybe needed something and created it like other <countryname>-stubs he found active. If there would have been nothing active this way the problem might have been avoided. If wikipedians would have to read all the rules that emerged in the last months and years before contributing - ... - there would be considerable less contribs. Make stuff more intuitive. And I know you/(the team) already worked on that. We had this AR debate. The country names are intuitive. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 23:51, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

Can you imagine that people that are not "member" of the stub team have problems with WP:WSS/C#Proposing_new_stubs_-_procedure - a section which does not say anything about critiria, as the name implies? Instead the criteria are at Wikipedia:Stub#New stub categories. Can you imagine people are confused? Tobias Conradi (Talk) 00:56, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

I can imagine it, but I can't imagine why they should have. It quite clearly says that new stub types should be proposed on the page before creation - standard procedure. The page is called "Criteria" as it is the page where new proposals are checked to see whether they meet the criteria, which are listed on the main stub page at Wikipedia:Stub - the most logical place for people to look if they want to create new stub types. Grutness...wha? 01:10, 24 July 2005 (UTC).

Category:Peru geography stubs has 150 and YOU did not have it on your geo page. And than a Golbez comes around and wants RfC and you think this is nice. I don't get it. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 01:00, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

It was on the stub page. It was both on the main stub list at WP:WSS/ST and in the appropriate category at Category:South America geography stubs. Theseare the two places that should be checked for stub categories - the list and the immediate parent category. And it has far fewer than 150 stubs, but still over the threshold. I know - I created it. Grutness...wha? 01:10, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

I fixed 150 to 105 last night, unfortunatly due to editconflict your edit reversed my fix. [3] :::If a page is called criteria i would expext criteria and not ONLY debating fit of criteria.

peru was not at [4] a page where only few time later you did delete peru along with others notably colombia what I added but not created the same as it was with peru [5]

If you say peru was in the two places it had to be, that I wonder 1) why there is a list at Category:Geography stubs and 2) you yourself are editing in this list? It is confusing. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 21:54, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

Your wikiholiday

Have a good break from Wikipedia. It's certainly a good idea to take a break occasionally. So far I haven't needed one, but I do change my pattern of activity on Wikipedia every few months so I don't burn out on any one thing. I've enjoyed working with you. Hope to see you back here in a while.-gadfium 23:41, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

Have a good break. I certainly hope it isn't permanent. I cut back recently, and it did me a world of good. I just decided to watch but not edit for a couple days. It helped. I got over some of my monomania - there are lots of other people who can fix things. Sometimes it's helpful not to "deal with a problem" for a few hours - if someone else doesn't fix it, you can, but at the same time, it helps to get some perspective. Use the "no personal insults" rule broadly and delete insults. Abusive users will either figure out that they have to be civil if they want to be heard, or they will escalate (and get themselves blocked/RFAr'd).

You are liked and respected here. You are immensely valuable to the project. If you need help dealing with problem users, ask for it. If you need time to get some perspective, take it. But don't let people force you out. Guettarda 01:22, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

It isn't much of a holiday when you can reply in 5 minutes ;) Guettarda 01:35, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

You shouldn't leave, James. The Wikipedia needs you. I know that at times it can get hard to find motivation to deal with such issues, but think about all the people that support you. If this comes to extreme consequences (you know what I mean), there will be many supporting your every action, be sure of that. Cheers and rest as much as you want, but be sure to come back. Best regards. --Sn0wflake 05:15, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

• I do hope that your Wiki-absence ends up being a break, rather than a departure. You've done wonderful work, and the encyclopedia is the better for your presence. Joyous (talk) 05:18, July 24, 2005 (UTC)

• I agree and I can relate. It works wonders, believe me. Also, I understand your frustration with the user who set you over the edge. He seems well-meaning if a bit clueless. Please don't make this permanent. You are needed here more than I can express. - Lucky 6.9 06:01, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

• Grutness, take whatever time you need, or just dip your toes in the vacation pool like I've been. As others have said, it would be a shande for WP to lose you over this. Tomer ^TALK 06:04, July 24, 2005 (UTC)

• Echo of all the above. You've given me a lot of help and support, I should hate to see you go. You are not alone in becoming seriously pissed off at times, take a look here [6]. See you! Giano | talk 06:14, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

• Take a break, James, but do please come back in a few days, a week or two, or even a month. You're doing good work, and actually achieving something. -- Hoary 06:45, July 24, 2005 (UTC)
• Ditto what everyone else said. Don't let stress get to you. Taking a step back always does the world of good. Come back soon though. :) --TheParanoidOne 11:07, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

I took a break that I thought might be permanent, but came back for reasons stated on User:Ceyockey. One possibility is that it's time for you to consider moving to another area of activity. For instance, I've pretty much stopped working on WP:WSS for now in favor of starting a Wikipedia-related research project and participating in a new WikiProject (Wikipedia:WikiProject Disambiguation). I find WP:WSS a good place to work, but I felt I'd contributed quite a bit and was interested in trying some new stuff. Give it a think; much better than leaving permanently in my opinion. Courtland 14:27, July 24, 2005 (UTC)

• In that vein...there are a tremendous number of NZ red links and stubby articles that could use instantiation and/or expansion... It might even be therapeutic to look outside and write about your beautiful part of the world more.  :-) Tomer ^TALK 22:39, July 24, 2005 (UTC)

I presume you realise that Grutness has already written more New Zealand-related articles than probably any other contributor?-gadfium 23:05, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

Indeed...I was just pointing out that if he's trying to gain perspective about whether or not it's all worth it, that there's a lot to be done with NZ articles...I, for one, have learned a lot about NZ by reading articles he's created or expanded upon. Since his current stress level was caused by problems over stubsorting, I thought it might be therapeutic to go back to writing about iwis and kiwis. Tomer ^TALK 04:40, July 25, 2005 (UTC)

Thank you all for your embarrassingly kind words! My wikibreak seems to be less of a break than I intended, but I am largely steering clear of policy-type areas and Wikipedia pages at the moment. I was three quarters of the way through tallying the 4000 UK geography stubs, and it seemed like too much work to waste, so I'm completing that task, and I have been doing a few odds and ends apart from that (and will have some photos to upload in the next couple of days with any luck). Anyone who monitors UK and NZ geography articles (e.g., River Great Ouse, Clutha River) will have seen a few things cropping up from me, as well (and I think I just saved an article on the Beatles' song I'll Get You that was at vfd). As far as monitoring new stub types is concerned, though, it's like the old story of hitting your head against a wall being good for you because it feels great when it stops. The break has also allowed me to start moving on my art again (about time, too - I have an exhibition coming up in March!). I suspect I'll be back to full Wiki work again soon, but this "reduced energy mode" is fine for the time being. Grutness...wha? 05:59, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

In the past few weeks I've seen several good editors leave. I hope in your case that it is just a wikiholiday and you'll return. BlankVerse ∅ 09:19, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

agronomy-stub

also posted on my talk page

• User:TheParanoidOne removed the listing from the stub types page to the criteria page and posted a note at the creator's talk space, just to let you know. Courtland 14:18, July 24, 2005 (UTC)

Ken Rutherford

Thanks :) Thanks to you as well for expanding those NZ cricket stubs. Just a shame I made an edit conflict for you...they are a pain sometimes, aren't they? And yes, I am a cricket fan from Norway - it's all a bit weird, but suffice to say I got charmed by a sport which looks to be the most complicated thing in the world from the outside. And then I sort of stuck in, to the point where I'm now helplessly caught in the net (or should that be nets?). Sam Vimes 11:13, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

Article of interest

Man, it will be hard having you not here. To perhaps lighten the mood, I found this article on the NZ flag. Zscout370 (Sound Off) 01:56, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for that - I'm likely not gone for goos - in fact I'm still involved in low-level activity here. Just not as prominent as normal. I need a bit of time for real-world things, too. Grutness...wha? 02:57, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

Geography list naming question

As a resident expert geography-article wielding/creating/organizing Wikipedian, you might be able to provide salient input here. There is a discussion going on at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style_(disambiguation_pages)#Series_boxes_for_geographical_dab_pages where a proposal for a list-of-place-names-starting-with has been made. I'm wondering if you'd be interested in making a suggestion as to the name of such a list as that is being considered (among other things). Thanks for "checking your messages" while on holiday. Regards, Courtland 23:37, July 26, 2005 (UTC)

Clayton's

I'm sitting idle here at my job, and I've been on new page patrol for a bit now. Your Clayton's article is very interesting and broke of the monotony of nominating things for speedies and adding stub tags. Glad to see you didn't quit after all. Fernando Rizo T/C 03:43, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for that. No, consider it a "Clayton's resignation" :) I've cut back on my wiki work by about 75%, and I haven't done anything in the admin/policy area for a while. I think I'll probably be back fully sometime in the next few days, though. Grutness...wha?

Don't worry about Clayton's getting VfD'd, it's obviously notable and a fun bit of Kiwi trivia. In the words of the immortal Kris Kristofferson, don't let the bastards get you down. Fernando Rizo T/C 04:16, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

Neil Diamond can write Latin? As in nil carborundum bastardum? ):-. Moriori 04:31, July 28, 2005 (UTC)

Category:People stubs

Migrated from User page How does one ever wallow through all of the subcategories and sub-subcats and find the one you want? I am tired of slapping bio-stub on articles I submit, but it's easier than spending an inordinate amount of time digging through the bio cats. I have been importing EB 1911 stuff, and discover I spend far more time rooting thru categories than I ever spend on copyediting and adding links. The temptation to slap 1911 on at the bottom and leave it at that is overwhelming. The problem is not the proliferation of categories, but a way of easily locating them in the first place. --FourthAve 06:11, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

Replied on FourthAvenue's talk page. Grutness...wha?

at this wiki page, which seems to be decaying. (It pays to save links offline) What's a special page? This leads to Royalist, the grandest of all disambigs: it refers to a disambig which nicely disambigs itself -- and all the pages that lead to it. Who wrote this page.

It writes itself. Anything that links to the page Royalist will automatically be listed there. All pages have them - click the "What links here" link to the side of any page and you'll get a page like that. Pages of this type for disambiguation pages usually slowly deprecate (i.e., "decay"), as people realise that they have linked to a disambiguation page rather than their real target page. Special pages include pages like this which are created as editing tooks within the Wiki but which are not articles, templates, categories, user or talk pages. Grutness...wha? 07:34, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

nice to see you back

hi james, nice to see you back. Regarding your user page I tend to regard the geography stubs as "my baby", - I can understand this. And I think you have done a great work if the naming scheme is there thanks to you. I saw edits of you reverting Czech-geo to Czechia-geo, seems like lot of stub-fixing-work. And even if there are some cases where I had another opinion regarding naming (e.g. NI [ forget AR/argentina, I ate this ;-)] ) what is that regarding possible 140 country-geo-stubs and even more in geo-stubs in general. If I can help you in the geo-section I will do so. Best regards from DE, - not Delaware -- Tobias Conradi (Talk) 13:31, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

Czech/Czechia was a unique case. There was a big edit-war going on over what the country should be called, Czech Republic or Czechia. As soon as one name was decided on for the stub template and category, someone else would come along and change it back. Which may seem like no big deal, but when articles are categorised by way of a template, any change in the category name requires null-edits to be made to all the articles. In the end, a compromise name (Cz-geo-stub) was used for the template, and the category was protected from moving.

A lot of the geo-stub naming scheme is down to me, but not all of it by a long way. And, as with the AR business, I and the other stub sorters do try to avoid using abbreviations, as they can be ambiguous. Where the abbreviation is a country's initial letters, though, most of the time there's little confusion. People talk about "The U.S." or "The U.K." worldwide, and the same is true, albeit to a lesser extent, with the others that initials have been used for (and I do admit that Northern Ireland is perhaps the one where this is least the case). Basically, we want the stub names to be easy to remember - and if abbreviations are used, they should be the sort of abbreviations that are instantly recognisable by anyone. The problem with using ISO codes is that they may be well known by people who use them regularly, and a few codes may be known by many people, but the same two letter codes are used for subdivisions within countries, and may be ambiguous to sorters who don't know the code. ML-geo-stub might refer to Mali, Malaysia or Malta, but with Malaysia-geo-stub we all know where we stand. As for redirects, we're slowly trying to reduce the number of them, becuase they make a little more work for the servers every time one is used rather than the standard template. There may recently have been a server upgrade, but with the speed Wikipedia is growing, the less strain that gets put on them the better. Right now I don't want to think about it too much - I'm still easing myself back into the work. Grutness...wha? 13:52, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

not having AR is totaly fine. I ate this. I mean it's part of myself using Argentina-geo-stub. ;-) -- Tobias Conradi (Talk) 13:58, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

Glad to see you're back James. WP has a rudderman again.  :-) Tomer ^TALK 13:40, July 29, 2005 (UTC)

Rudderman? Oh dear...does that mean I've got more work to do? :) Grutness...wha? 13:52, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

Glad your back - I've some spare rugby boots if you require them just ask! Giano | talk 14:00, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

{{horseracing-stub}}

First, a big major awe-inspiring WELCOME BACK! (though it seems you didn't actually leave the building, just stepped back-stage and took a few steps past the green room... ). "Don't let the bastards get you down" as the song goes. There's a heck of a lot more good people here than there are nasty people. If you run in to too many nasties, go do something different. Somebody eventually will fix what the nasties did, and usually very quickly. Oh, by the way...for your wiki-fix, I hear you can get an IV tube now .

Second, on the {{horseracing-stub}}; thanks for the support and creation of the stub. Unfortunately, I am as of Monday officially on holiday, heading off to Canada for a week of sailing (here: [7]). So, don't despair that the stub's been created and the major proponent of it suddenly vanished! I am vanishing, but only long enough to sail my 505, hopefully like this [8]. Once I get back, I'll get to sending those 225 articles to the new stub. If you want to start in on it, feel free. Just do me a favor and do it in sequence and maybe put a marker on my User:Durin/Horseracing-stub page to tell me how far you've gotten along. One other thing on this; I created a horse racing icon black on white just for the purpose of the stub. I'd like to replace the photo that's on the stub with the icon if it's alright with you.

Do you think we should create {{horseracingbio-stub}} too?

I'm also working on a {{yachtracing-stub}} proposal. You can see the support page in progress at User:Durin/Yachtracing-stub. There's a lot more work to be done before it can be proposed though, but I think I'll find plenty of material for it.

Related to the above; in digging through every A, B, and C article in {{sport-stub}} (I did a lot of sport-stub sorting today...~60 articles I think), I've come to realize there are a number of sports which lack stubs. For example, competitive swimming and gymnastics. I think there's room for such {{sport-stub}} children. If you like, I can start putting together similar pages to the user pages noted above for such sports as I work my way through the remainder of the {{sport-stub}} category. --Durin 03:19, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

Replied here. Summary of reply: Thanks for the welcome. Feel free to replace the icon. Horseracingbio might well be worth doing once horseracing is populated. Yachtracing... maybe yachting in general or sailboat racing in general might be better. Sounds like a similar project with sports to what I've done with geography. My advice - find a good number of stubs, then take it to WP:WSS/C - few will object if it's a natural category with a large number of stubs. Argument would be mainly over name and scope. Sport-stub and sportbio-stub do need splitting, so it's worthwhile. Grutness...wha?

• I replaced the icon with a black/white icon. You can see it at {{Horseracing-stub}}. I think the bio stub needs to wait until the stub cat gets larger. There are a number of articles that are candidates, but not enough just yet to justify the category. I've tagged all articles that I proposed as candidates at User:Durin/Horseracing-stub. The sub cat now has 243 articles in it. I think it is a success.
• On {{yachtracing-stub}}; within the sport of sailboat racing, the term "yacht race" is used to describe all levels of the sport, even for boats being raced that people would never describe as "yachts". Thus, for people familiar with the sport, "yachtracing-stub" would be readily identifiable and does not carry an connotation of being only used to describe big boat races.
• Re: {{sport-stub}}. I've been working my way through that stub to sort out articles into more appropriate stub cats. I've scanned 451 articles so far. I know the number because I am keeping an external list to allow me to rapidly identify articles that have been added to {{sport-stub}} since I last scanned the cat. The cat used to be bordering on 7 pages, but is now just barely into the 6 range. I've scanned all articles through K so far. By the time I'm through the initial scan, it will be down to 5 pages.
• In doing the scanning of {{sport-stub}}, I've come to realize there are a large number of sports for which there are no stub-cats. The three most prominent in terms of the number of articles lumped into {{sport-stub}} are rowing, volleyball, and handball. I keep running into articles on those almost every time I scan a new letter section. Honestly, I'm not sure I have an interest in pursuing stub-cats for those. I got hooked into the whole {{horseracing-stub}} stuff because of one article I found missing on an important horse (Spectacular Bid). That led me to find the absence of the {{horseracing-stub}}. It was pulling a thread on a sweater. I have other work in the pedia that I set aside temporarily while pursing {{horseracing-stub}} and really want to get back to that. While stub-sorting has dramatically increased my edit count (not a goal for me), I'm more interested in completing work in other areas (see User:Durin#What_I_work_on if you're really curious). Though, I will keep tabs on {{sport-stub}} ballooning and compare it against my already scanned list to help keep a lid on it. --Durin 15:24, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

Thanks - but I must wait and see...

I deeply appreciate your confidence in my ability to weild the mop, but... I'm starting my new IP-lawyer job on Monday, and I'd like to see how that affects my Wiki-time before I seek any new responsibilities. Besides, the projects that I'm working on don't demand admin powers, and they fairly fully occupy the time I have now! -- BDAbramson ^talk 17:08, July 30, 2005 (UTC)

Stubs

Whoopps. Please don't do any more. I will do them all, SqueakBox 23:22, July 30, 2005 (UTC)

I would prefer doing them. Am enjoying the multiple edit task, SqueakBox 23:27, July 30, 2005 (UTC)

I have done them all. Won't be making that mistake again, SqueakBox 00:48, July 31, 2005 (UTC)

I am happy to put one it when it comes up. Let me know. May add to other CA countries as well, as the mood takes me, SqueakBox 00:57, July 31, 2005 (UTC)

What do I do?

Sorry to bother you, but I have a bit of a problem. I found someone with a somewhat inappropriate user page. It's not gruesome or anything, but eh... I don't know. I came to you because I know you are an admin, and I know you are currently on. The user is Someoneinmyheadbutit'snotme. It's probably meant to be a joke, but some people may be offended. I hope I did the correct thing by coming to you. Ryan 04:56, August 1, 2005 (UTC)

• Thank you. Ryan 05:16, August 1, 2005 (UTC)

NZ map scale

I just wanted to thank you very much for taking on the problem of the NZ map scale. Your solution is excellent. There's more discussion of this at : http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image_talk:New_Zealand_map.PNG (from anonymous, grouchy old git)

Thanks. It just seemed logical - the miles looked like the right kilometre numbers. And since I've been doing a lot of NZ maps lately (for locations of NZ geographic features), it was easy enough to crank up the changes. Grutness...wha?

Thank you!

Thank you for your support on my RfA! When I submitted it, I was unsure of how I'd do, but the support was great. I promise that I won't do anything too stupid with the trust you've given me. humblefool®^{Deletion Reform} 19:35, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

P.S. Stop by Wikipedia:Deletion reform!

HI for Hawaii

Actually, HI is the postal abbreviation (and thus usual abbreviation) for Hawaii. Aside from that, I do agree that it is otherwise unclear and the HI-stub can safely be deleted.--Mitsukai

OK - didn't know that - thanks. Wonder why HI was chosen... it's hardly the most likely choice for a second letter... Grutness...wha? 01:29, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

A flavor

I've never asked a personal favor from an admin before, but I've reached the end of my rope trying to appeal to Wikipedia offial procedures. There is a user Ronald20 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), who also edits from a Los Angeles Unified School District computer at 204.108.96.10 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) who keeps adding nonsense to articles. For example, he add stubs to large articles like the Los Angeles Times, and removes them from small articles. I'm convinced that it's a teenager with some sort of learning disability or behavioral problem such as OCD or Asperger's. You can read some of the gory details at WP:VIP, and WP:AN/3RR where I've made appeals but had no response. There is also more info on Ronald20's talk page, where I show that a couple of the school IPs that he uses have already been blocked for vandalism. I've done everything that I can, including leaving comments for him in the articles that he regularly edits—which I know that he's seen because he's deleted many of them. I would really appreciate it if you would block his User account and the single school IP for 24 hrs. He will still be able to edit as an anon from his home dialup account, but maybe it will show that we are serious. If that doesn't work, I guess the next step will be to protect the couple of dozen pages that he regularly edits for a few days. BlankVerse ∅ 19:03, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

Done. First time I've ever blocked anyone - I hope I did it right. Grutness...wha?

Replied on my talk page.-gadfium 02:37, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

THANK YOU!!!! I am sorry to have laid such a heavy task on you, but out of all the admins that I regularly deal with, you are the one that I trusted the most to do the right thing. I've also left messages at User talk:Gadfium and user talk:Lucky 6.9. BlankVerse ∅ 08:53, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

Thank you very much for that compliment! As far as vandalism patrol and things like that are concerned, they're not areas I deal with regularly - I tend to rely on a few more senior admins like Gadfium in the same way as far as knowing they'll do the right thing. Glad I was able to help! Grutness...wha? 09:00, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

I lied

I decided that I will accept adminship after all. See Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Zscout370. Zscout370 (Sound Off) 04:08, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

categorized deletion

Just a few thoughts: I was just a bit, hmm, let's say surprised, about your opinion on categorized deletion at the probably invalid vote (and changed my vote appropriatly) about the vfd....first of all: since the breakup into dayly portions, it isn't in one place any more and second: I see categorized deletion as much as an, ok let's call it an editing tool as stub-sorting; getting the right people to look at the right things Lectonar 12:33, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

I see your point... I guess I think of it as still being in one place because of the way I use it - I go to WP:VFD and click on the latest day, then go back through the previous few days by simply changing the last digit of the page's name. It does have an advantage over a category in that you can see what items are new, though. Grutness...wha?

New Zealand DYK list

Thanks for restocking this - you have a remarkable ability to phrase an interesting snippet from an article.-gadfium 08:45, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

:) I used to set pub quizzes - you learn quickly there how to word an odd fact in one easy to understand sentence! I'm not totally happy with the "Did you know" facts, but it was a case of finding some quickly since we'd run out. Grutness...wha?

Vote changing

Actually, I didn't change my vote. I began by changing a few exceptions to follow the prevailing X-related pattern. Then it became apparent that X-related is an exception to the general stub pattern (which I had noticed but it was a defacto standard). Nobody else proposed removing "-related", so I made that proposal. The discussion on the proposal was obviously becoming entangled and difficult to judge, so I added Approve/Disapprove subsections and I voted Approve. Someone changed the subsections and my vote ended up under X-related even though the proposal was to remove -related. I put my vote where it belonged...and modified proposal phrasing slightly to avoid further pronoun trouble as to what is proposed. (SEWilco 13:55, 5 August 2005 (UTC))

Adminship

Can you nominate me for an admin... ...again? :) - Darwinek 15:57, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, 'spose so :) Grutness...wha? 01:08, 7 August 2005 (UTC)

CFD

Hello. Can you go here and express your opinion about those Ecuadoran volcanoes categories? Your opinion will be appreciated. -- Darwinek 17:55, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

I'll have a look. I'm tempted - in 42 years, no-one has ever asked me to express an opinion on Ecuadorean volcanoes before. Grutness...wha? 00:38, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

RfA

Thank you for supporting my RfA. I will do my best to serve the Wikipedia community as an administrator. Flcelloguy | A note? | Desk 20:23, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

Barnstar, w00t

Happy barnstar. Redwolf24 05:18, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

Thank you! I've moved it to my user page :) Grutness...wha? 05:50, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

{{Radio-stub}}

I edited {{Radio-stub}} to make it more general, while most of the stubs are about programs, I felt the stub should encompass all of radio, as I was also tagging a radio station article with it, and there are a few other radio station articles tagged. Best wishes, Ëvilphoenix ^Burn! 09:45, August 9, 2005 (UTC)

Requested move

Hello again. Can you go here and express your opinion about requested move of one Indonesian volcano? Your opinion will be appreciated, again. -- Darwinek 10:45, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

You have always edited many geography-related articles, so I think that your opinion as an experienced user is important. - -Darwinek 13:15, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

BaronLarf's RFA

Thanks for your support. I'm glad that you came back, and I applaud all of your work on the stub types; as someone who's messed up the WP:WSS/ST listing a few times myself, thank you for your patience with us and your dedication with that project. Please let me know if I can help with any particular administrative responsibilities, or if you have any problems with the way I use the admin tools. Cheers. --BaronLarf 01:06, August 11, 2005 (UTC)

Func's RfA :)

Grutness, your Hayeuppp on my RfA was music to my ears! Thank you very much. :)

Please never hesitate to let me know if you have concerns with any administrative action I may make.

Func( t, c, e,  ) 03:44, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

Thanks and request

Thanks for supporting my RFA. I think, from many users, that I should have asked for this months ago.

To my request part, can you go to your flag maker and describe to me the flag of Belarus they make? I know what the flag looks like, but I do not know if it looks something like Image:Flag of Belarus.png or it has a red box drawn around the white ornament. Thanks again. Zscout370 (Sound Off) 05:34, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

Block

My apologies for blocking you; that IP was listed on AIAV for vandalism, and since there was a history of warnings with no blocks, I blocked. The warnings are at User:202.180.83.6 and User talk:202.180.83.6. The most recent contribution was this one. I had no way of knowing it was your IP address, and given the situation, I think I acted appropriately. I'm sorry that you were affected, but I assure you my actions were in good faith. If you feel otherwise, please feel free to raise it on AN/I. -- Essjay · Talk 11:11, August 11, 2005 (UTC)

That's okay; had I been in the middle of a rewrite (and I usually do my rewrites with the preview button, so I would have been in the same boat) I would have been upset too. Since the IP is obviously dynamic, I'm sure it will come back around to that same vandal again, but I doubt it will be within the block period, so no need to block it again today. What I'll do is leave a note on the IP's user/talk pages that the IP is shared with legit users, and that any block should be only to stop active vandalism, and should only last a few hours. Hope you didn't lose too much, and if there's anything I can do for you, let me know. -- Essjay · Talk 11:24, August 11, 2005 (UTC)

It very well could be! Do you have any neighbors who seem like the Wikipedia vandalizing type? I'm sure there are plenty of other Wikipedians in your area who would glady help you form a torch-weilding mob. ; - )

I tell you, I'm beginnig to think I should stop using my block button: one of my first blocks was of a school IP in the UK that was doing heavy vandalism; the same IP just happened to get assigned to violetriga about an hour after I blocked it! It was rather embarassing for me (as was this incident). I'm sure it happens to plenty of other users (EvilMonkey had it happen to him a couple times, where he blocked a vandal, and then the same address was assigned to a legit user, usually to the same legit user each time!) Anyhow, you can check the IP by searching for it here, although it doesn't usually tell you much more than the ISP. Good luck with getting your work back together, and thanks for being understanding. : - ) -- Essjay · Talk 11:43, August 11, 2005 (UTC)

Just wanted you to see this. Hopefully, that will help keep this from happening again. -- Essjay · Talk 12:23, August 11, 2005 (UTC)

Don't worry about the H-word; I'm not one of those "Oh my God, what did he say? *faints*" Christians. Considering the circumstances, I wouldn't have been offended in the least if you had said quite a bit more! Now, I'm off to do my penance. ; - ) -- Essjay · Talk 02:59, August 12, 2005 (UTC)

Rwanda-geo-stub

Replied over here. TreveX^talk 15:58, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

Re: Somerset-geo-stub

Thanks! I'm currently way too busy for doing much Wikipeding at all, but having an article for every settlement is still somewhere on my low priority to do list! Joe D (t) 17:46, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

Bearstead

I'm somewhat puzzled as to why this should be have reverted to being a stub. Is there not enough information here now for it not to be so? I would be grateful to have some pointers as to what more can said about what is, after all, a relatively small part of this land of ours. I do know the place quite well, and cannot see the reason for it adding to the already heavy burden on the stub lists ... Peter Shearan 14:45, 13 August 2005 (UTC)

A village should have at least a couple of paragraphs, if not more, before it's no longer a stub. A rule of thumb would probably be one screenfull of text. As for the stub list, it's fairly likely there'll be a separate stub list for Kent soon anyway, so it won't get lost - and in any case the UK and England stub categories are going down in size fast due to subdivision of the larger counties (in terms of the numbers of stubs). As to the article itself, there are quite a few things which could probably be easily added bys omeone in the area (which I guess you probably are) - how big is Bearsted? Population? Area? What's its history? How did it get its name? What age is the church? Is the village connected to Maidstone by public transport? Is it connected to anywhere else (my atlas shows it on the main road to Ashford and close to a major junction of the M20). It lies close to the Downs and the North Downs Way. it's close to a river, a tributary of the Medway. Leeds Castle and Stoneacre National Trust site look to be close to it, too. There's quite a bit more that could be written about it. Grutness...wha?

I am somewhat intrigued by your reply, which worries me not a little! Without meaning to be rude, they remind me of what teaching practice overseers used to do: "it was a good effort but could you not have ....."!!! Of course we could, but time and the enormity of the task (ie teaching 30+ kids!) meant that I didn't!!!! The way I see it in this particular and using your criteria, is that in order to destub such articles as these there is a need for in-depth searching to such a degree that us inputters will get pretty disinterested before too many of the articles are complete. There are some 275 villages in Kent, some very small indeed, and many of them do not have anything like the information available to fill even half a screenful of text. They have no local history society, for example, (a primary source); and, taking your suggestions seriatim:

• what does "how big is ...." mean?
• population: perhaps demographics would be better, but to what purpose? Historical size is often much more of interest, showing changes over time. And with the threat of more and more house-building in Kent the figure will need amending tomorrow!!!
• area: where does that figure come from?
• History: the external link I gave had a pretty comprehensive history, and it seems unnecessary to try to reduce what is there. Maybe a few more facts, but otherwise ...
• how did it gets its name?: in most libraries there are books purporting to explain placename derivations. Unfortunately many contradict others, so the "correct" meaning is often open to doubt
• yes it's on the Maidstone-Ashford main road (A20); and there is junction 7 of the M20 a mile to the west; and the old village site was on the north bank of the River Len
• your final questions all relate to things not within Bearsted itself. Of course we can mention "closeness" in the way you suggest, but that looks suspiciously like trying to fill the page quota! I never quite understand the need to put "places nearby" as often happens, when all that is needed is an atlas: sometimes there is no connection with nearby places except for proximity. Leeds Castle for instance, is never mentioned in connection with Bearsted: its postal address is Maidstone; Stoneacre is in Otham to the south.

Excuse the length of this comment: I do feel quite strongly about cutting the cloth to the material and not the other way around just for the sake of it! Sincerely Peter Shearan 15:34, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

Fair enough - I understand your points. But a simple demographic is a useful addition (the main reason for the "how big" comment). If there are several suggestions for how the name came about, then listing the main ones as possible explanations would be useful. As for external links, it's useful to many readers to have at least a summary of what the external link will give (the policies of Wikipedia do say that we shouldn't just use external links and leave it at that). With the ephemeral nature of websites, there is no guarantee that any external page linked to will survive, so a short summary of the history is definitely worth considering. I'd agree that most small English villages wouldn't merit much (I wrote the one on the village where I spent my childhood, Croughton, and couldn't manage more than a couple of paragraphs), but Wikipedia's not paper, so adding more information doesn't cost us anything more. Grutness...wha?

Thankyou - I'm content! Peter Shearan 06:14, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

admin?

At the moment, I feel that I must decline respectfully and humbly , but thanks for the offer anyway; as I feel you deserve an explanation....

I'm exclusively working at wiki out of my office, as I don't own a computer myself (can you believe that?), so I've only got access to the english and the german wiki (you might have noticed that I don't contribute to the french wiki, although my french is by far better than my english), and no access at all to the "normal" internet, and even the wiki's are only allowed because it's a information source. That's also the reason why I didn't add the asterisk to RickBlock's list, and the reason why I can't add real "quality" material (apart from the translations, which I do just like that without any dictionary).

If you feel that my nomination for adminship could go ahead with these restrictions, just drop me a message, and I'll think about it...thx again Lectonar 11:53, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

UTF-8

You may be using an editor that doesn't deal well with UTF-8. Unfortunate things can happen if you do. It's fixed now, but I thought you might want to know. Rl 12:48, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for that - back then I was having trouble with my browser (see comments here - for some reason my copy of Mozilla was re-setting its preferences every time I started it up). Must've missed that one Grutness...wha?

Video game musician stub type is not specialized

The stub type {{Video game music composer-stub}} is not specialized. There are many places where the stub can be put in, which are articles about video game musicians. There was not enough time to get it specialized. The scope of the stub type is broad enough. There are very many video game musicians listed in Wikipedia. The stub type can also be used as an update. Decimus Tedius Regio Zanarukando 19:11, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

It's extraordinarily specialised. It would be fine for there to be a category for video game musicians, but as a stub type it's terrible. You do know the difference between stub categories and standard categories, don't you? In any case, it's far better you object at WP:SFD than on someone's user talk page. Grutness...wha?

FOTW Images

I just read Marcus's email. While I am partially to blame to uploading some of the images problems on here (I created the FOTWpic template), I am willing to help fix the problems. Zscout370 (Sound Off) 07:18, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

Fair enough - I don't know whether Marcus has done anything about it yet (I haven't because very little of what I've been doing on Wikipedia is flag-related). perhapos it's better if you chat with him about it, see and work out what's the best move. Grutness...wha?

Barnstar

I hereby award you the Barnstar of Diligence for excellent work on Wikipedia. D. J. Bracey (talk) 20:53, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

Many thanks! I've moved it to my user page. Grutness...wha? 00:37, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

I endorse that barnstar. It is well-deserved. Cheers, -Willmcw 00:43, August 23, 2005 (UTC)

:) Thank you, too! Grutness...wha?

fire-alarm-stub

I see that you removed fire-alarm-stub and its associateed category. Can you please respond to the question that I posed on the SFD talk page regarding the stub type. It would be useful to see your reasoning, in case such a situation happens again. --TheParanoidOne 07:00, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

Crown dependency stub

Thanks for the stub work. I now feel liberated to create a few stubby articles on CI topics without risking having an objectionable (to me) UK-geo-stub slapped on them! BTW in response to your comment on the normannité of the islands, over on fr: we're now using fr:Modèle:Ébauche Normandie. À bétôt! Man vyi 08:49, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

WP:CENT

I think starting that discussion was a good idea, the entire point of WP:CENT is to reduce the need for redundant debates. What next? Ah, give it some time, usually a consensus becomes evident, see the earlier concluded CENTs. We've had some good guidelines (e.g. WP:FICT) created in this manner. Radiant_>|< 12:35, August 23, 2005 (UTC)

Apology about hill stubs

• DONT GET ANGRY WITH ME. I went ahead with the stupid thing right after I proposed it because I couldn't find/be bothered to wait for the proposals page again. Kinda thought I was doing everyone a favor sorting out the mess that you guys have got, and it certainly helps some people (see Grinner above). I didn't even put most of the stubs in the stupid category anyway. This was my first attempt at making a category and I sure won't be making any more soon. 'Delete the user'. Huh.
  • Good. I was angry with you because you deliberately went against the procedure. If my anger was misplaced, I apologise, but it caused a hell of a lot of extra work and time, which could have been taken up on more productive stub sorting. As for you not populating the category, no-one would have populated it if you hadn't made it in the first place. Grutness...wha? 08:59, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

Whiritoa

G'day, I'm a bit confused about what this page is all about but I assume its a way of communicating. Well 'twas I who made that Whiritoa article and wasn't aware that I wasn't logged in. argh. Anyway, can you make it an official "location" article? Or am I confused?

Replied on User: Kansaikiwi's talkpage.

Re:Re:Apology

Sorry. I wrote the 'apology' in a tearing hurry. I admit that i did the wrong thing, only trying to help. --Mark J 16:31, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

Fair enough. And I'm sorry that my responses probably just made things worse. Truce? :) Grutness...wha? 23:05, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

Abbeycwmhir

Thank you very much for the correction; when I make a bunch or similar stubs my eyes sometimes glaze over, and I make mistakes. Anyway, thanks again, and I'm glad to see that you're not permanently missing. Ave atque vale, --Merovingian (t) (c) 07:47, August 31, 2005 (UTC)

Indeed, and you're welcome! --Merovingian (t) (c) 07:53, August 31, 2005 (UTC)

canada-edu-stub

Why was this redirected? --File:Ottawa flag.png Spinboy 18:26, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

answered on Spinboy's user talk page

Category:British Hills by Height

The had been an on going conversation about creating an ordered list for British Hills, taller mountains, and a couple of use too the time to implements a Category that did 90% of the house keeping, and created a ordered lsit. Now you are kind of suggesting that this Ordered category be deleted.

Nominated for deletion: Wikipedia:Categories_for_deletion#Category:Mountains_by_Elevation_(km)_and_its_subcategories

I have been building this Category up with the help of a couple of others as these was no comprehensive list of mountains by height (yet). Could someone add feedback to Categories_for_deletion. maybe we can do the same thing automatically with a list, but I dont know how.

¢ NevilleDNZ 13:08, 1 September 2005 (UTC) ¢

Well, it's a very cumbersome way of doing it - a list would be much simpler and much simpler to keep organised. It would also make it possible to have red-links showing which hills haven't yet got articles. Having them as categories is a very strange way of organising things, they are listed backwards (lowest first) are likely to get out of order quickly - there are hills in Category:British Hills by Height that are listed as being nearly the same height as Mt. Everest, for instance. I honestly don't know why you're making yourself twice as much work to create a system that is less efficient. As to automation, no there isn't a way, but surely it's far easier to add ten hills - in one go - to a list than to add a category to ten different articles on different hills! Grutness...wha?

I disagree strongly. What you say is correct if the list is created AFTER the pages have been added. But (as is the case of British Hills), when a topic is EVOLVING, then typically the list does not even exist. By imbedding the Sorted Category in a InfoBox Template an initial List simply evolves WITHOUT anyone actually having to create it.

MAYBE later with the Sorted Category has settled a list can be created. But even then and auitomatic Category, that requires little house keeping is a nice xref to see of the manual list is actually compete.

BTW: You are right, the order should be reversed. I could fix that, but that requires chanqing the PHP source code. If I did that I have a few other hacks I would like to see added too.

I will fix the NZ later. After all any new topic is defacto "proof of concept" and unlikely to be perfect 1st time.

¢ NevilleDNZ 13:38, 1 September 2005 (UTC) ¢

You might like to have a look at List of New Zealand mountains by height. It contains five times as many mountains as you have in your category, and took me about 20 minutes to make. Lists are easy. Far easier than categories for this sort of job. Grutness...wha? 14:28, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the list. NZ needed one.

I think the issue is that you start with a list of knowns borrowed from somewhere else. Copy it into wikipedia and anoint it. This leaves entising red items to encourage further adding. This seems useful.

I start with a list of unknowns that grows itself automatically into a sorted catelog automatically. Once a Category has been added into an InfoBox Template, then the elevation sorted Category "grows itself" each time someon else uses that InfoBox.

I agree that a single digit index elevation does not look so good. This is a problem with Catagory index, and there are several proposed ways of fixing this, all better solutions require changes in the source code.

BTW: at least 4 of your elevations in the list disagree with the actual wiki page for the same mountain. This raises the issue of "normalising" the database. Ideally - where possible - there would be only one source for a height.

As an example of the power of Category in a Template, by adding 1 line in the mtnstart Infobox I can create a sorted elevation index page of every country on the earth, and indeed known in our universe. And without the need for a robot. I would like to see you do that in 20 minutes with a list. The only reason I have not done this is because this is a community I wanted to see how the idea develped, and what problem there are before imposing my ideas on everyone else. Hence the various discussion in the wiki mountain groups.

Seriously, if was can change the way a category is handled from just [[:Category:Mountains_by_Elevation_(km)|3000m]] to [[:Category:Mountains_by_Elevation_(km)|Name={{{PAGENAME}}}|elevation=150m|country=NZ|type=volcano|First Ascent=2005/07/31]] then this could easiliy be incorperated int wiki to generate a category that looks list a list/table: eg

Name	Elevation	Country	Type	First Ascent
Mount Victoria	150m	New Zealand	Volcano	2005/07/30
Mount Wellington	151m	New Zealand	Volcano	2005/07/31
Mount Albert	152m	New Zealand	Volcano	2005/07/32

AND better still would be to imbedd some java script so that this table can be sorted ANYWAY that a user desired by clicking on anyone of:

Name	Elevation	Country	Type	First Ascent

I am just a yellow belt in Wikipedia. Such a change in Wikipedia would need the help of a black belt such as your self to recommend it to the developers. Do U want to help me out?

BTW: This conversation started in on you talk page, no need to zigzag it from me to you. Append a "." to your sig on my talk_page and I will come here. Cheers.

¢ NevilleDNZ 15:34, 1 September 2005 (UTC) ¢

One or two of your points:

• BTW: at least 4 of your elevations in the list disagree with the actual wiki page for the same mountain. - that's odd, because - with the exception of the redlinks - I got them all from the Wikipedia pages on the mountaisn. The only ones that came from outside are the red-linked ones.

• My point is, according to murphies law, data that needs to be maintained will become inconsistent. The problem with mountain heights being inconsistent in the new list page is just one example. ¢ NevilleDNZ ¢
  • But any inconsistencies are likely to be picked up quickly there by other editors, and can all be fixed in one edit. Any inconsistencies in a category organised in this way would be harder topick up and harder to correct, since it would need an individual edit for each error. A list is far easier and better for this task.

• Not true, now you will have the original errors AND the errors introduced in the list page. ¢ NevilleDNZ ¢

• Seriously, if was can change the way a category is handled from just [[:Category:Mountains_by_Elevation_(km)|3000m]] to [[:Category:Mountains_by_Elevation_(km)|Name={{{PAGENAME}}}|elevation=150m|country=NZ|type=volcano|First Ascent=2005/07/31]] then this could easiliy be incorperated int wiki to generate a category that looks list a list/table - yes, but doing that might render the category system unusable for normal categorisation alphabetically. Which is why lists are always used for things like heights, speeds, and distances.

• I cannot see the logic here. The change does not effect the original category formating rules. [[:Category:Mountains_by_Elevation_(km)|3000m]], why do you say "might". Is there some other yet to be explained problem with Categorys? ¢NevilleDNZ¢
  • I say might because what you're suggesting is to change the way categories work. neither you nor I can say whether that could have detrimental effects on the way categories currently work.

• This is pure speculation, there are well over 100 pages link in already, and nothing has fallen apart. ¢ NevilleDNZ ¢

• AND better still would be to imbedd some javascript so that this table can be sorted ANYWAY that a user desired by clicking on anyone of: - well, all that information is already in the linked mountain pages, so it's not really needed on the list. Having them in table form wouldn't necessarily be a good idea anyway, as it would take an age for the pages to load (which is why I didn't use {{prettytable}} for it in the first place. Pages like List of volcanoes by nation or whatever its called are horrible to load and could definitely do with having the tables removed from them. And clicking on tables to change the order of items in a list is simply not the way wikipedia works.

• There is a flaw in this kind of argument. eg. nobody has ever climbed Everest, hence you should not try.
  • Well, if that's the sort of argument I was making, it would be a flaw. It's more a case of "we regularly climb Mount Everest- perhaps we could try swimming it next time. With current wiki technology, changing tables are not used - there is no need for them, either.

• It is ironic that you say that the pages are not needed, and then manually recreate them as lists. ¢ NevilleDNZ ¢

• Besides, javascript is builtin to all browsers (eg mozilla, firefox, opera) except the text browsers. And in the text browsers it would appear as a list, and download just as fast. ¢ NevilleDNZ ¢
  • Have you actually tried loading table-heavy pages? Quite a number of them have been or are being changed over to less table-oriented pages, since they cause such a hassle for browsers.

• This wasn't part of your original argument which focused on grammar errors and abbreviation usage. I have no problems with tables.

• Such a change in Wikipedia would need the help of a black belt such as your self to recommend it to the developers. - not really. Just post a request at Wikipedia: Village Pump (proposals).

• ThanX considering it anyhow. ¢ NevilleDNZ ¢

Grutness...wha? 00:54, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

I would be grateful if you were to remove the "delete-me stub" from the Mountain Elevation Category pages, and invite you to join in at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Mountains. There are some good ideas being put forward there on how to manage effectively the growing mountain of Mountian data. ¢ NevilleDNZ 03:12, 2 September 2005 (UTC) ¢

Well, firstly it's not a "delete me" stub - it simply indicates that there's debate going on about potential deletion. It stays there as long as the debate goes on - i.e., at least a week - by wikipedia policy. Secondly, if I removed it (against policy), it might indicate that i didn't want them deleted, but they very clearly should be deleted, since they don't work, are of no use to anyone, cannot be kept in a sensible order, and attempt to do work that categories are not designed to do. By the way, List of mountains on the Moon by height is now in done. Took about five minutes. Grutness...wha? 06:47, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

The term "delete me" stub accurately describes what you added to that and about a dozen other pages. At first I was even thinking that the pages had be vandalised.

ThanX for the moon heights, that list has been missing for some time. Would it be unreasonable to say you managed to introduce another 4 errors? Trying to mirror the same data entered in several different pages is like asking for a $10 parking fine for violating Murphies Law, now "someone" needs to maintain cross references between about 20 pages for the moon.

Actually, all the data I entered was already on a wikipedia page, so perhaps you need to correct List of mountains on the Moon, since that's where I got the data from.

Do you have any plans of doing the British Hills by Height also? The Himalayas and Andes need one also. It would seems to me that an Automatically sorted Category would save you a lot of time. :-)

• Well, no it wouldn't save me any time at all, since that category only lists the first digit, and gets it wrong most of the time. It would be vey quick to check the height listed in each article and make the list. As it happens I have no real interest in hill or mountain articles, and only did those two lists because they were so incredibly easy and it seemed like you were making a pig's ear of the process of making them. In any case, the highest few are already listed by country and by height at Mountains of the United Kingdom.

Please remove the "delete me" stubs from those pages. It was unreasonable to add them in the first place when the pages were actively being edited, and you did even contact the contributors involved. To say it is against policy is silly as you were the one that added the "delete me subs" in the first place. Don't we need to take this to dispute resolution just now. ¢ NevilleDNZ 11:33, 2 September 2005 (UTC) ¢

• They are not "delete me" templates. they are templates indicating that debate is in process. To remove them while the debate is in progress would be a violation of Wikipedia policy. And considering that I feel they should definitely be deleted, I could not justify removing them. Once the debate is over, it will be clear whether the categories should stay or go. if they stay, the templates will then be removed. if you want to take this to disputes resolution, feel free. You will probably be soundly laughed at if you do. there is no dispute here other than you asking me to go against wikipedia policy and me refusing because it's against wikipedia policy. Grutness...wha? 11:56, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

Japan-geo-stub

Hello! Can you put some nice image of Japan to Template:Japan-geo-stub ? Server isn't already overloaded. -- Darwinek 14:13, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

vote for deletion pes

I am casting my vote to keep this page in its revised form and would encourage you to do the same. Having listened carefuly to your constructive criticism I have edited the page and removed some material. The article continues to focus on the role of the Roman foot in the establishment of the Greek Orders of Architecture and their incorporation of many ancient standards of measure into pleasing canons of proportion. This is not original research but represents research that goes back at least to Palladio and Viruvius. It is not a mispelling of PEZ. It is not a reposting of material covered elsewhere. It is just some stuff you may not have learned yet. Rktect 17:36, September 1, 2005 (UTC)