User talk:MSGJ

Complaint about percieved "kid gloves" treatment of another editor

Re the recent Mechelen-Zuid Water Tower problem. I don't see why I have to treat a temper tantrum throwing kid who can't write in english with kid gloves. This was the state of the article before the editor decided they wanted the article their way. [1] I cannot see any real improvement from that in any subsequent version. I fail to see why any editor should be made to rewrite an article that is already perfectly good because some editor who completely fails at competent english writing wants to edit war. Pretty pissed off about that.

It also seems pretty clear to me that the "somehuman" has a habit of edit warring too. As far as I know they're still under the impression that they have done nothing wrong and there english skills are just great.

For the record I have repeatedly assumed good faith with this editor, and repeatedly explained the problems with their edits - see their talk page, and edit summaries - It really feels like I have been told to babysit them, and not revert what they do even if it makes the article worse... Imgaril (talk) 23:43, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Talk:Mechelen-Zuid Water Tower

Hello. You said you would monitor the page Mechelen-Zuid Water Tower for edit warring. The other editor User:SomeHuman is 'flaming' me and constantly accusing me of various things. Could you talk to them. If not please tell me so I can seek help elsewhere.

Most recent message from the editor after I asked them to stop 'attacking me' and get a third opinion or report the problems they think I have. diff

Imgaril (talk) 22:48, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

Sorry I haven't had time to look into this. I will try to take a look early next week. Of course you are welcome to post at WP:AN if you think the matter can't wait till then. The posted edit does look inflamatory and some warning may be in order, but you both need to comment on the matter at hand rather than chiding each other. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 16:42, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

I would appreciate your thoughtful consideration of my —after an extremely exhaustive series of comments on the matter at hand that I had deliberately restricted to one simple matter— discovery of the above multifold personal attack:

• "a temper tantrum throwing kid" and "babysit";
• "who can't write in english" and "who completely fails at competent english writing";
• [who] "wants to edit war".

Upon my still unmentioned discovery arrived a comment on the article's talk page in which I was once again sent anywhere but there (which that attacker knew to have been resented as inadmissible WP:OWNership behaviour) and followed by the comment "I'm not taking anymore_[sic] of this" by this Imgaril, who —even while I had not edited the article— had continued the earlier criticized misbehaviour and in that comment still continued without any improvement again including types of personal attacks as I had spotted long ago, and who ended with "but you need to read WP:AGF too. Good luck." — If I would have intended to be really inflamatory, it would not merely look like it: I was still using kid gloves but a clear picture of what had been happening was long overdue. Kind regards.
​▲ SomeHuman 2011-09-15 19:07-23:00 (UTC)

WikiProject Template question

Sorry to bug you again but I have a problem that just crept up and I could use some help. In the WPUS template we have project like Seattle that are also associated to Washington. So if an article is tagged with seattle it should also have Washington. I am seeing some cases were this is not the case though. Is it possible to create a category or something can be used to track this sorta dilemna. Like Category:Seattle articles without Washington for example. I am just using seattle as an example, there are currently quite a number of these situations. thanks in advance for your help. --Kumioko (talk) 03:06, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Just a dumb question here: Why not just add {{{Seattle|}}} to the end of |tf 1={{{Washington|{{{WA|}}}}}} to force Washington to show if Seattle is set? -- WOSlinker (talk) 14:02, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Thats a good question and a good solution. Would doing this also force the Washington project to display and place that article in the appropriate category? Also, there are some projects external to this template that we might want to capture in the future without pulling th whole project in. For example, WP Washington Redskins isn't part of WPUS or WPDC and many of these articles are currently not captured under either project. A better example is a hypothetical one of if a state project is supported but a city is not Florida and Miami for example. --Kumioko (talk) 18:05, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Relativity priority dispute revisited

FYI, referring to your intervention and recently this new attempt, I have filed this request. Cheers - DVdm (talk) 18:00, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

A cup of coffee for you!

Whenever I posted an edit request to a protected template, it was you who responded. I appreciate your work. Fleet Command (talk) 19:33, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the appreciation! — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 15:18, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

A few things

1) Thank you for syncing my changes to the usern templates, 2) we now have {{user-multi}}, which could become a backend for all of these templates, and 3) I have put in more requests (see template talk:UserSummary for example). Frietjes (talk) 23:44, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

Will take a look shortly. Cheers — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 15:17, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

Designation list

You're right, of course. My concern is the NHSC designation is being treated entirely differently from the rest of the template, and that the discussion was going to wind down again with no resolution of the larger issue (but with NHSC stuck in this interim situation). When you changed the editprotect template, it seemed like you were once again turning "the lights out" on the discussion (and, fairly or unfairly, your earlier "Those discussions involved about a dozen editors. This request was just from you. You are trumped I'm afraid" comment suggests you had paid only cursory attention to those prior discussions, and had already tuned out yourself). I had lost track of the fact that the templates in question were not protected, and therefore the template itself was irrelevant, and that's my fault. But I honestly wasn't trying to be disruptive -- I just didn't want to the discussion to fall back into limbo, and I didn't feel at all that my concerns had been resolved. To be honest, I was a little taken aback to be accused of being disruptive. I do admit I was mistaken.

I must also say I am a bit bothered too by your accusation of edit-warring. I am not sure how one edit constitutes edit warring. I am allowed to disagree with your edits, and I am allowed to revert your edits. You are, similarly, entitled to revert me. Had I continued to revert, that would presumably have been edit warring. But I am allowed to make one edit when I see, in my good faith opinion, rules being misapplied and a very inappropriate edit being made, as any editor is. I'm not trying to wikilawyer here, or split hairs, but I do feel that reverting someone once ≠ edit warring. I appreciate that I was probably causing frustration for you, and I am sorry for that, but again disagreeing with someone is not edit warring.

Lastly, notwithstanding today's events, I do want to thank you for your assistance with the template. You were trying to help me with my request, and undoutedly would have preferred not to be dragged into this argument. I hadn't foreseen this argument/issue, so sorry about that too. --Skeezix1000 (talk) 21:35, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for this message. It's getting late for me now, but I will return to the issue and respond tomorrow. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:50, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

I'll try to respond to your points in order:

• Sorry if you felt I was trying to close the discussion, but nothing could be further from the truth. In fact I will do everything I can to push this discussion forward and see if we can get this issue resolved.
• You're right - we should try to get all of the colours sorted rather than treating some differently. But Moxy was quite within his rights to oppose the single change.
• I did not read all of the discussions in depth, but I did skim Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 83#Link colours and saw quite a number of editors arguing against garish colours, and generally supportive of Moxy's viewpoint. Therefore I gave this discussion more weight than a request by a single editor (yourself).
• About the "accusation" of edit-warring (although I'm not sure I did: my exact words were "continuing to apply your preferred version is edit-warring". Allow me to try to explain:
  • If editor A makes a change, editor B reverts it, and editor A makes the same change again, then I view that as edit-warring as it does not follow the accepted BRD procedure. (This may be a harsh interpretation and perhaps not everyone would agree with me.)
  • In this case it was slightly different as I had made the initial change based on your request, but I think the same reasoning holds.
  • You've got to accept WP:BOLD both ways. I was happy to make the change for you, without requiring you to get a consensus. The flip side is that you must accept the right of other editors to oppose the change, and to revert it while the discussion continues. Anyway let's not dwell on this.
• So back to the discussion. Yesterday I was a little worried where this was leading, but now I am sure of a good outcome. From my experience, Moxy is a good editor and I am sure you will find him/her easy to negotiate and compromise with.
• PS, who could have thought all this was about a colour in a template??

— Martin (MSGJ · talk) 19:52, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your note, and taking the time to write it. I don't think I agree with all your points, but reasonable people can agree to disagree, and I do agree that there is little reason to dwell on those issues. I know Moxy and have always liked him (I have never had an issue with his primary concern here), and I too expect there will be a good outcome. Cheers, --Skeezix1000 (talk) 17:28, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

50 000

Congrats in advance - as a suggestion , Talk:Louie_Gohmert#Accusation_that_Obama_is_helping_international_Islamic_caliphate this edit request (now supported, no objections) would be a good one for such a landmark, regards and thanks for all your contributions to improved the project. - Off2riorob (talk) 22:22, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

50,000? I make it 52,638 but thanks anyway! Yes it looks like consensus over there; I'll be along shortly. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 07:58, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

How strange, when I look at your sig I get 50 003 now, anyways its all good, Thanks for judging the consensus there and for making the edit - regards. - Off2riorob (talk) 16:57, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

Discussion at Template talk:Multiple issues#Remove "Citations Missing" parameter

You are invited to join the discussion at Template talk:Multiple issues#Remove "Citations Missing" parameter. Funandtrvl (talk) 15:46, 28 September 2011 (UTC)Template:Z48

Template:user-multi

Just to let you know, I didn't intend this template solely as a meta-template. That's why I introduced substitutability. I will re-add this feature. — This, that, and the other (talk) 05:21, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

I've also re-added the synonyms, for the same reason: if it were nothing but a meta-template, they would be unnecessary. But that was not the intention. — This, that, and the other (talk) 05:36, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

Please discuss this on the template talk page where I've already started a thread on this. I would be very interested to hear what possible situation it would be beneficial to substitute a template like this. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:23, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

Related change

Regarding this recent request, could you please also update {{Portal/Images/Visual arts}} to use WPVA-khamsa.svg rather than the current PNG? --Gyrobo (talk) 19:29, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

 Done — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 19:30, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks! --Gyrobo (talk) 19:37, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

José Eduardo dos Santos

Hello MSGJ: could you please explain what the change of template in this article concretely means. Mind you, I am rather bad at these technical things. - I take the occasion to insert an explanation of the situation of this articles which I wrote a few days ago on Courcelles' talk page: "Thank you, and let me take the occasion to sum up how I see the situation: As it stands, the article is not at all bad. It is, of course, never finished, as (a) it is about a living person, so that info about new developments have to be added, and (b) additional sources about his biography may turn up. For both reasons, self-confirmed editors should in principle always have access to it. The problem are two kinds of snipers. On the one hand those who cling to the official (MPLA) party line and eliminate anything which diverges from it; as JES has become (in Angola) the target of violent (verbal) political protest comparable to that against Mubarak, this category of snipers is in particular bent on not letting personal criticisms of JES appear in the article. On the other hand there are those who, for a variety of reasons, are against the MPLA regime and its key representative, and introduce partisan texts and references critical of JES; one example is User:Gabirro. The few of us who follow a neutral line have thus to "fight on two opposite fronts", so to speak. Mobilizing some more people who are neutral and familiar with the subject matter is certainly a good idea - but don't you think that, in the end, the only solution consists in spotting & blocking the snipers? After all, they are not legion.... Best -- Aflis (talk) 12:39, 27 September 2011 (UTC)" This means, of course, that we are not speaking of "settling a dispute", because we know from experience that the "snipers" cannot be convinced. The question here is how to guarantee that people interested in serious work have a chance to contribute without partisan interference. NB: On the BLP noticeboard there is an appeal intended to mobilize more editors. -- Aflis (talk) 11:29, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

Template:Infobox_planet. Request for addition of new section - "Proper Orbital Elements"

I am contacting you as you are the administrator who has been applying edits to the protected Infobox_planet Template most recently. A consensus has been reached (among those who were interested enough to contribute, anyway!) as to the desirability and format of a new section in the template - Proper Orbital Elements. POEs give values for orbital parameters which are free of short- and long-term periodic variation. This is particularly important for asteroids as, because of perturbations from Jupiter, their "instantaneous" orbital parameters can vary very considerably and so the value at a given moment (epoch) may not be representative of the long-term value. It is this long-term value which must be used in any calculation seeking to derive results applicable to the "general" motion of the body. This value is also that which is most reasonably defined as "the" value of the parameter (such as orbital period) for reference purposes. There is an extensive discussion of the issues involved in Template talk:Infobox_planet

The code for the proposed new section now exists in Template:Infobox_planet/sandbox, and this has been tested within the Talk page. Those making this proposal would thus be grateful if you could now transfer this code into the "real" Template. Many thanks!
—AstroSteve (talk) 17:24, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

---

Very soon after I posted this request, Ruslik (who was involved in the discussion on the new section) kindly stepped in and did the update for me. No need to for you to do anything, therefore - sorry for bothering you! You could have a look at the page for Ceres though - it now shows the new section.
—AstroSteve (talk) 19:46, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

Template:toolbar

Hey. I see you made a modification to the toolbar template last week. Not sure what happened, but the template appears broken now at WP:GAN. Any way to fix this? Wizardman _{Operation Big Bear} 17:22, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

I've had a look at Wikipedia:Good article nominations but can't see anything wrong. Can you be more specific? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 17:25, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

On recent GA reviews started, they look like this: "this article is being reviewed (additional comments are welcome). SilkTork {{toolbar|separator=dot". Those second brackets are not showing up. Wizardman _{Operation Big Bear} 17:40, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

I've checked a few and still can't see a problem. Can you give me a specific page where you saw this? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 18:21, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

On the individual /GA1 pages it shows up fine; it's only on the GAN page itself that it shows up broken like that. You can ctrl+f toolbar and they'll show up. Wizardman _{Operation Big Bear} 18:25, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) See, for example, this edit. --Redrose64 (talk) 18:51, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Okay, I see. Looks like a problem with {{user-multi}}.  Checking... — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 19:10, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

The bot seems to be substituting {{User2}}. Since 21 September that template will not substitute cleanly, and also the bot seems to truncate anything past the first line. I've reverted that template to an earlier version, which should resolve the issue for now. But the best solution would be for the bot to transclude the template rather than substituting it. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 19:30, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

I created a new version of {{User2}} in the sandbox which substitutes cleanly and uses {{toolbar}}. Can we use this version? I added back the "sup" feature, but made it substitute cleanly as well. Maybe it would be good to add the "safesubst:" to all of them? Thank you. Frietjes (talk) 17:33, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

After checking the talk page for {{GAN/preload}}, it looks like there is some desire to cut the "count" link, so I made a change to this template to make it not use {{user2}}, and produce a version which is compatible with GA bot. Also, it won't be borked by any edits made to the various {{user}} templates. I hope this solves the issue. Thank you. Frietjes (talk) 23:49, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for looking into this Frietjes (how do you pronounce that incidentally?) and it looks okay to me. You may know how much I dislike substituting templates unnecessarily, and in my opinion it is good if we can encourage people to stop doing this. However getting a bot reprogrammed may not be possible so I suppose a work around may be needed. Amalthea was working on a complicated system to prevent substitution, by automatically self-transcluding if you substitute a template. (See Template talk:Disambiguation needed#Prevent substitution.) Perhaps we can do something similar. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 10:32, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

See nl:Frietjes. I'm not sure how to to write a pronounciation. Now that the GAN/preload has been changed, I see no problem with going back to the toolbar version. I think that was the only place it was being substituted. Frietjes (talk) 20:46, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

user12

Just in case you were not aware, you removed a feature from {{user12}}, which is the unamed second parameter. I don't think it is really of any major value, so I removed it from the documentation as well. However, a scan of uses of this template in WP namespace does show that it was in use. Frietjes (talk) 15:38, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the note. I did notice this actually, and thought it wasn't of much value either. If it is needed wanted then we could add that functionality to {{user-multi}} easily enough. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 16:03, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

My RFA

Hi Martin; please see comment in this !vote. --Redrose64 (talk) 15:52, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

I noticed this comment at the time, but didn't feel the need to respond. The fact that I'm supporting should be clear enough from the nomination! I believe that RfA should be a discussion rather than a vote, so I certainly do not intend to reinforce the idea that it is a vote. This has come up before (see User talk:MSGJ/2010#RfA nominations and voting) and my opinion remains the same. Regards — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 11:34, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Template:User

I think that the change you made broke the interwiki parameter. For example, here, the simplewiki links have all reverted to enwiki ones. The separator= param also seems not to work. The latter is pretty trivial, but is there a way to replace the iw functionality? sonia♫ 03:33, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for letting me know. It is possible we didn't notice this feature or thought that it wasn't being used. I'll look into it now. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 11:49, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Should hopefully be working again now! — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:24, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Template:Album ratings

I'm contacting you about this since most of the edits on Template:Infobox album over the past year.

I've been looking for the discussion where it was decided that the Reviews parameter would be deprecated. The reason is because I strongly agree that reviews should be covered in the prose. But now I'm beginning to see {{Album ratings}} on album articles instead (the template clocks in at a whopping [http://toolserver.org/~jarry/templatecount/index.php?lang=en&name=Template%3AAlbum+ratings#bottom 36496 transclusions), which appears to defy the purpose of removing the Reviews parameter from the infobox template. Imho, {{Album ratings}} should be deleted, but I'll leave that up to more involved folks. --213.168.73.227 (talk) 16:05, 12 October 2011 (UTC)