User talk:Dr pda

BBA

(award moved to user page)

Thanks! Dr pda (talk) 01:36, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Royal Company of Archers Peer Review

Thank you--Koakhtzvigad (talk) 02:01, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

extractpersondata.stx

Hello - thank you for your persondata scraping work. I am wondering if you could look at the page and see if the script posted is the same as the one you have working. I copied it straight and wasn't able to get any output when using this against the current wikipedia download. I fixed the space in "substring-before" but still it doesn't work for me. Thanks for any assistance —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.120.207.201 (talk) 01:00, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

What you need to do, rather than just copying and pasting the text as shown the page Wikipedia:Persondata/extractPersondata.stx, is to click the "edit the page" link at the top of that page, then copy the text which appears in the edit box. The reason there's a difference is that stx uses the strings > and < rather than the characters > and < when testing for inequality, however when your browser renders the code it displays the former as the latter. Dr pda (talk) 03:21, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

I think I found that the problem that I was having with the stx file is that it references the old namespace xmlns:m="http://www.mediawiki.org/xml/export-0.3/ when I switched this to match the XML 0.4, it worked. Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.120.207.201 (talk) 00:27, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I should probably update the stx file. The reason I didn't come across this issue was I tested the script on an old file. Dr pda (talk) 00:35, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Prose size script

Hi Dr pda, I discovered your prose size script today, and just wanted to say thank you for writing it. Working out numbers of words, minus footnotes, headers etc, has always been a pain, and is now a pleasure. One small niggle is that it doesn't seem to count words in blockquotes, or at least doesn't highlight them in yellow, which I assume means it's not counting them. It's a minor issue as it won't affect the word count that much in most articles, but I thought you might want to know about it anyway, in case you don't already. And again, thank you for writing it. :) SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 07:11, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the thanks! You are correct that the script doesn't count blockquotes. The reason is that when I first wrote the script, it turned out that simply counting the text which was in <p> </p> tags was almost exactly equivalent to determining the "readable prose". There are some occasions when this is not perfect, blockquotes are arguably one such. Indeed there was an argument (in which I didn't participate though my name was thrown around) in December 2008 at Wikipedia talk:Did you know/Archive 36#SIZE over whether blockquotes should be counted as readable prose for the purposes of determining if an article was eligible for DYK. I have just reread WP:SIZE and this doesn't exclude blockquotes from readable prose, so maybe I should make an effort to include them. One other reason I had for not including them was that people often use pullquotes instead of images, e.g. with templates like {{cquote}} or {{quote box2}}, which I thought used blockquote internally, and these should not be included in the readable prose. However on further inspection most of these templates seem to use HTML tables instead. So maybe I should modify the script to include blockquotes. One case where it would still fail would be where articles incorrectly use pull quotes instead of blockquotes, e.g. the lead of Apollo program. I'll see what I can do when I have time; I might just add an toggle to include blockquotes. Dr pda (talk) 00:35, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Hey there

You have email. Best, Fvasconcellos (t·c) 23:14, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Replied. Dr pda (talk) 05:12, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Seasons Greetings and all that ...

		Happy Holidays
		Wishing you and yours a Happy Holiday Season, from the horse and bishop person. Ealdgyth - Talk 16:33, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

And now, for FV's traditional last-minute nonsectarian holiday greeting!

Here’s wishing you a happy end to the holiday season and a wonderful 2010. Fvasconcellos (t·c) 15:14, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Bodiam Castle/archive1

I've replied regarding the plan. Nev1 (talk) 17:08, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

I've read your reply, and also Awadewit's and Elcobbola's comments. It seems this is indeed a grey area. I was just about to add a comment on the FAC page saying that this issue has been satisfactorily addressed, but I found it had already been promoted. Congratulations! Dr pda (talk) 01:53, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Fewer reviewers in 2009

Thank you for such a clear presentation of the situation in the upcoming Signpost. Only one statement (in the pullquote) was somewhat confusing at first: "FAC nominators only up 250%". I did not immediately grasp that you were referring to those that only nominated but did not review. I thought you were saying that the FAC nominators (nominations) "only" increased by 250%. (As if that were a small increase!) But you mean those who nominated but did not contribute to reviewing. Sorry! It might help if you put that figure in the text also, as not all of us quickly realize that 2.5 times translates to 250%. Regards, —mattisse (Talk) 00:39, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your feedback. I used 'factor of 2.5' in the text, as percentages greater than 100% are often confusing, however in the summary box I wanted to be consistent so I used percentages for all the figures. I've now added 250% to the text as well. Regarding "nominators only up 250%", I was trying for brevity in the summary box, though it appears clarity suffered. I have since added quotes around 'nominators only' to make it clearer what I am referring to. Dr pda (talk) 01:20, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. I think that helps. Regards, —mattisse (Talk) 01:34, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

Good article; thanks for your work! I hope you don't mind that I tried to lift the title and opening of the article ... a bit more positive, even though from inside the house it's easy to see the negative side. Tony (talk) 06:17, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

Not at all. That paragraph was largely copied and pasted from the corresponding Dispatch I wrote about this time last year, and I had been in two minds about its tone anyway (introduction vs more journalistic lead). The fact that reviewers gain respect for their contributions is probably something which deserves mentioning, and may entice more people into reviewing! Finetooth's suggestion at WT:PR about a userbox for the number of peer reviews done is in the same vein. Dr pda (talk) 10:13, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

There was a query about including A-Class reviews in the statistics; see this comment. Nice work overall. Dabomb87 (talk) 01:33, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

Replied there. Dr pda (talk) 03:13, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

(Barnstar from TomStar81 moved to user page)

Much appreciated. Dr pda (talk) 22:21, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for cryonics cites and docs

I have them. That was about 1000 times easier than a trip to the library. :D Thank you! 99.22.95.61 (talk) 22:41, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

...and the other. I'm filled with gratitude and appreciation. 99.22.95.61 (talk) 01:25, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

I did get the Fahy et al review, too, and don't need the others. "Directional freezing is useful for macro-homogeneous tissue (e.g., whole single organs) but not heterogeneous collections of more than one organ at a time, so it's of little use for my purposes. Thanks again! 99.191.75.124 (talk) 19:40, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Page size script

Hey Dr pda, I just found your script today that shows page size in the toolbox. I recently switched to the beta version of Wikipedia, though, and the script doesn't work in beta. Is there any way to fix this? I don't know enough javascript to be able to do anything. Great tool! (I've gotten it to work on non-beta). Thanks! --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 23:01, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Hi. The beta version of the Wikipedia interface uses a different skin (vector instead of monobook), therefore any scripts which you have in your monobook.js won't be picked up under beta. Instead you need to install them in User:yourusername/vector.js. I haven't explicitly tested the script for beta/vector but I think it should work without further modifications. Dr pda (talk) 23:45, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Ah ok that explains it. I'd rather not create a new subpage, though.. Do you know if beta will switch over to monobook if it ever becomes umm.. non-beta? haha. If it will switch over, I'll just wait until the switch. --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 05:03, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

An alternative way to run the script without installing it is to go to the page you are interested in, then paste javascript:importScript('User:Dr pda/prosesize.js'); getDocumentSize(); into the address bar of your browser instead of the URL. It's also possible to make this a bookmark, to save having to type it out each time. Dr pda (talk) 10:20, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Awesome.. I bookmarked it, and it works perfectly now. Thanks for the help! --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 14:27, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

If you use Page Size on a page such as a .js page, then it will return "Error: bodyContent.getElementsByTagName("p").item(0) is null". So it's probably best to just hide the link on pages where this might happen. Gary King (talk) 03:31, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for the symbolic regression help

I have that file. Thank you so much. 99.38.151.90 (talk) 09:51, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

PD script question...

Hi, quick question, will your PD script work in the Vector skin? Thanks. – ukexpat (talk) 21:48, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

I presume you're referring to the persondata script? (My first thought was that PD referred to public domain—too much time worrying about copyright issues apparently :) ) Yes it does work. It's possible to test it without installing it in vector.js by using the importScript trick I mentioned a couple of sections above: go to the article, then copy and paste javascript:importScript('User:Dr pda/persondata.js'); togglePersondata(); in the address bar of your browser. This will give you the "show/hide persondata" tab, though you will need to click on the drop-down arrow next to the search box to see it, since vector only shows a certain number of tabs. To get the "add persondata" tab, go into edit mode for the article, then paste javascript:importScript('User:Dr pda/persondata.js'); suggestPersonData(); in the address bar of your browser. Once again you have to click on the drop-down arrow to see the tab. Dr pda (talk) 22:08, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

OK got it thanks, didn't see it hidden away in the drop-down. Thanks! – ukexpat (talk) 14:27, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Happy Dr pda's Day!

User:Dr pda has been identified as an Awesome Wikipedian, and therefore, I've officially declared today as Dr pda's day! For being such a beautiful person and great Wikipedian, enjoy being the Star of the day, dear Dr pda! Peace, Rlevse 00:45, 30 March 2010 (UTC) A record of your Day will always be kept here.

For a userbox you can add to your userbox page, see User:Rlevse/Today/Happy Me Day! and my own userpage for a sample of how to use it. — Rlevse • Talk • 00:45, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! Dr pda (talk) 22:44, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Thank you

I have the file on jet fuel epidemiology. Amientan (talk) 18:11, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

Toussaint Tyler

I've downloaded the article on Windows Live. Thank you very, very much for it. Just out of curiosity, how did you access it? Thanks again, Mm40 (talk) 11:05, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

My library has access to (half a dozen titles in) the ProQuest Historical Newspapers database, one of which is the LA Times. Dr pda (talk) 11:21, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Resource Request solved

Hello, thank you very much for resources of Zool. Scripta. --Snek01 (talk) 19:13, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Wooden Leg

Hi, you have previously helped me with obtaining New York Times articles and I was wondering if you would be able to get the full version of this book review. I have an article in progress on the book in userspace. Thanks, SpinningSpark 09:53, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Sure, I've put a copy here. As usual let me know when you've got it so I can take it down. Dr pda (talk) 11:47, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the lightning quick service, I've got it locally now. SpinningSpark 12:47, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Superscripts not excluded in prosesize

Hi Dr pda,

Just a quick reminder that it would be nice if superscripts were excluded from the prose count in prosesize and prosesizebytes (previous discussion). Shubinator (talk) 05:33, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the reminder. I'm not sure why I didn't get round to it at the time of the previous discussion. One reason might be that not all superscripts should be excluded e.g. in m². However it turns out that most (all?) of the things like ^{citation needed} are made using {{fix}} which gives the <sup> tag a class of "noprint Inline-Template" by default (except for the case of {{Citation needed}} which uses instead "Template-Fact"; this seems to be the result of a misinterpretation, which I will point out on the talk page). Therefore I excluded all tags which have a class containing the string 'emplate' (to avoid being case-sensitive). There's nothing in shared.css or monobook/main.css which has the string "template" (except templates used, on an edit page), so this shouldn't have any unintended side effects. The script required a bit of tweaking to not highlight these excluded superscripts, because background-color is not an inherited property (it's transparent by default) so I ended up forcing the background-color to white, which may look a bit ugly on pages outside the article namespace, which don't have white backgrounds. Let me know if you experience any issues with the updated version of the script. Dr pda (talk) 11:10, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Works great, thanks! While I was testing I ran into two unrelated issues: 1) text that isn't displayed, like <span style="display:none">hidden</span> is also counted as prose. We could check if .style.cssText == 'display:none' 2) inline coordinates from {{coord}} are counted as prose (see the bottom of Upton-upon-Severn for an example). This one's minor, but we could check if .className.indexOf('geo-') != -1. Shubinator (talk) 16:37, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Oh, and I found a few more inline cleanup templates that don't have the class name "noprint Inline-Template": {{primary source claim}}, {{quantify}}, {{timefact}}, and {{full}}. I changed {{full}} to use {{fix}}. The others all start with "noprint" and have "Template" in the class name. Shubinator (talk) 17:10, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Prozesizebytes.js

Hi Dr pda - this no longer appears to work for me, insofar as the "Page size" link no longer appears on my sidebar. Is this my fault, your script's fault, or somebody else's? I'd be grateful for any assistance that you could provide, because I used to use your script constantly, and it's irritating to have it gone. Steve Smith (talk) 20:27, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

The non-bytes version prosesize.js (which I use) is still working for me, so I wouldn't expect prosesizebytes to not be working. Have you recently changed skins, eg to vector? If so, since you currently have the script "installed" in your monobook.js rather than vector.js (or whatever), the page size link won't appear. Otherwise try bypassing your cache, or alternatively you can run the script by going to the article, then pasting javascript:importScript('User:Dr_pda/prosesizebytes.js');getDocumentSize(); in the address bar of your browser. This can also be saved as a bookmark. Dr pda (talk) 22:18, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

I bypassed the cache and it did nothing. I also tried typing the text in my address bar, and it did nothing (once I hit enter the url of the page I was on just popped back up - I'm using Chrome, if that matters). But then I switched over to prosesize.js rather than prosesizebytes, and that works fine. I'm perfectly satisfied now, but there does appear to be some reason that one works for me and not the other. Steve Smith (talk) 22:39, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Same problem here. Prosesizebytes stopped working for me a couple of weeks ago on both of my computers. Wikipedia default skin was since changed to vector; I moved the content of monobook.js to vector.js, but to no avail. Also, pasting the above code to my address bar doesn't do anything, and neither does the corresponding bookmark. I haven't tried the other version. GregorB (talk) 21:10, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

Double closing quote, perhaps? GregorB (talk) 21:21, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

Error: missing ) after condition
Source File: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Dr_pda/prosesizebytes.js&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript
Line: 85, Column: 46
Source Code:
  else if(id.childNodes[i].id == 'coordinates'' || id.childNodes[i].className.indexOf('emplate') != -1){

Thanks for posting the error message. There does appear to be an extra quote there, which I have now removed. Hopefully prosesizebytes will work after you bypass your cache. Not sure why the copy/paste doesn't work, it does for me in Firefox 3 (presumably you're correctly not copying the <code> and <nowiki> tags). Incidentally prosesize.js returns the size in bytes rather than kilobytes if the size is less than 10 kB. Dr pda (talk) 03:23, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

Works fine now, thanks! GregorB (talk) 10:15, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

ProseSize and Friendly

Hi, I discovered your prosesize script today from a post at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Films#Useful article size/word count script, however after installing the script, I found that it somehow breaks Friendly on new user talk pages, preventing me from welcoming a new user until I uninstalled your script. Basically all the Friendly tabs disappeared. Any idea how to fix this? I'm using the Monobook skin, if it might be specific to the skin. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 23:32, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Hi, I do not use Friendly, so I'm not sure why it would have this effect. My prosesize script does not do anything with the tags. I've just tried using Friendly to add a welcome template to my own userpage, and this worked. Since Friendly consists of seven separate scripts it's a bit difficult to track down any possible cause, especially since I can't reproduce the bug. Do you get any relevant javascript error messages (e.g. on the Error Console in Firefox, or similar in other browsers)? Alternatively you could run my script without installing it as mentioned in the section above this one. Dr pda (talk) 02:42, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

It only happened on a new user page, when I tried to welcome this user[1]. The tabs disappeared from the window. When I uninstalled ProseSize and refreshed, they returned. I didn't have the error console on, so not sure if it was giving errors. I only use FireFox since Friendly only works in it :-) -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 02:44, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Prozesize error

I just noticed that I get an error when I use prozesize.js. I've got it installed in monobook, which is what I'm using. Once upon a time it did work for me, but I haven't used it in a while and just noticed it not working. The link is there in the sidebar, but when I click it, I get "Document statistics: (See here for details.)" followed by four blank bullets. I get an error notice from IE (8) saying:

Error details

Webpage error details User Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 5.1; Trident/4.0; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; InfoPath.1; .NET CLR 3.0.4506.2152; .NET CLR 3.5.30729) Timestamp: Tue, 15 Jun 2010 13:20:51 UTC Message: Object expected Line: 198 Char: 1 Code: 0 URI: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Mr.Z-man/refToolbar_2.0/base.js&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript Message: Unspecified error. Line: 175 Char: 4 Code: 0 URI: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Dr_pda/prosesize.js&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript Message: Unspecified error. Line: 175 Char: 4 Code: 0 URI: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Dr_pda/prosesize.js&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript

As I was previewing this message, I happened to accidentally hit "Page size" and it did seem to work. So it seems to work when I'm on a page preview, but not when I'm on the actual page. Any ideas what's going on and how I might fix it? Thanks, cmadler (talk) 13:25, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I am not able to reproduce the error in IE 8. I notice that you're also getting an error from another script. Possibly in some weird way this causes an issue with the prose size script. The line number of the error message does correspond to a bit of code which does not get executed in preview mode, so that much is understandable, but the only thing this code is doing is checking the document.filesize property. Since the error from the other script related to an object not being present, I wonder if it somehow has done something to the javascript document object. However I notice that this other script was modified in the last couple of days with a fix of some sort, which may be related to your issue. Therefore I would suggest the following:

• Bypass your cache, to get the latest versions of all scripts, and try prosesize again.
• If that doesn't work, you could try temporarily removing the other script from your monobook.js to see if it is causing the problem.
• Failing that, or as an alternative, you could try running the prose size script directly by copying and pasting a javascript url, as I mention a few sections above on my talk page. (Though that might still not work if the other script is being run when the page loads.)
• Alternatively, try a browser which does not support the document.filesize property, e.g. Firefox.

Hope the above helps. Dr pda (talk) 08:53, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Frankenstein tomatoes

I've downloaded the pdf. Thanks a lot for your help. Unfortunately my faith in the NYT being a reliable source has now gone out of the window! Smartse (talk) 13:36, 3 August 2010 (UTC)