User talk:Jack Merridew

Featured lists

WT:WikiProject Accessibility#Featured list candidate and accessibility --RexxS (talk) 13:52, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Hehe, I wondered how long it would be before you rapped me over the knuckles for adding font-weight:normal. But from that thread you can see the dismay that bold row headers causes. I just hope TheDJ's proposal for an extra 'wikilist' class gets taken up, as that would give us freedom to get on with adding row headers (which is the big improvement that we can make), and just applying the extra class to restore the visual status quo. Is it time for a Village Pump discussion on what the default format for a row header cell should be? --RexxS (talk) 23:26, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

and I knew you knew it was less than ideal. I'm not keen in The DJ's proposal as-is. I see that there's a strong push-back and I think some DISCOG pages got their own take on some of this stuff implemented, which sparked the threads that TRM started. Thing is, row-headers both are appropriate semantically and they should, for the most part, have the look of headings so people understand their relationship to the rest of the row; that means bold and a tad darker background. We want Googlebot, user agents and users to be aware of the role of these cells. Hiding the styling indicative of their role is less than helpful (it's lying, really). Cheers, Jack Merridew 23:36, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

I expected no less. So how do we convince the rest of Wikipedia that bold/darker is the right way for row headers? By the way, I still think that we need the ability to override those visual effects because of tables like this: List of Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves recipients: 1942. As you can see, from a database pov, the unique key is actually the first column (the number of the award), but it's much less useful to a screen reader than the second column (name of the recipient), even though that's not guaranteed unique. My instinct would be to mark up the second column as the row headers; I know WCAG accepts that, and JAWS deals with it without problems. If that's the case, then I think having the second column bold and dark would cause uproar, so it might be a worth a tiny white lie in those circumstances.

Have you seen this page, btw? A nice, clear explanation of how a screen reader is used to read a table, and the malarkey needed to get any sense out of a table that's poorly marked-up. It adds some weight to the argument for having table captions as well. I've only just got it clear in my mind that a JAWS user can call up a list of all tables on a page and jump straight to one that they select - but that is only going to make sense if the table has a caption. Finally, I've been experimenting with table summaries, but I think that those are going to be as hard to sell as ALT text on images. Any thoughts? --RexxS (talk) 02:29, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the interesting link. As for table summaries, you're making a wrong use of them, so please don't go any further in this direction. See Data tables tutorial#Providing a summary. A table summary is meant for complicated tables, when they have to be used in a particular and unexpected fashion. In this case, the table summary is meant to explain how the table should be used. It is completely different from a table caption. When a table summary is used, there is still the need for a table caption: they are complementary. Yours, Dodoïste (talk) 13:55, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

Careful, Ralph, your diff will end up immortalized as a thinly-veiled personal attack on that MOS tutorial. Jack Merridew 14:15, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

No there is no offense nor personal attack. But there is a difference between discussing best practices and making experiments, and showing potentially wrong examples to users that will reuse them in good faith. The risk is that the user sees opposing best practices, and people at WP:ACCESS with confusing guidelines and all. Users might then distrust the WP:ACCESS guidelines. And trust here is already fragile since the disaster with alt text. So let's be careful, please. Yours, Dodoïste (talk) 14:26, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

It's all in the eye of the offended and the intent of the offensive. Jack Merridew 14:35, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

It's true that those edits to List of Denver RTD light rail stations were in the nature of an experiment on how summaries may be used, but I'd flatly refute the assertion that I'm making a wrong use of them. WCAG only suggests where they are most useful, and is not proscriptive of where they may be used. In each case, the summaries provide either (1) a description of the contents of the table, or (2) a description of the table's organization. I accept that H37 prefers the latter, but for tables that have no captions, the former is still better than having neither. Nevertheless, I agree my summary for the legend table was over the top (it was the whole table!), so I'll cut that down. In any case, let's remember that there is a lot of resistance to using captions. We can go some way towards alleviating that by judicious use of summaries, and nobody is going to object to those.

I actually think that the guidance at Providing a summary is good, although I'd alter one paragraph thus:

• "Note that a summary is not needed in most many of Wikipedia's tables. The summary is most useful when the table has a complex structure (for example, when there are several sets of row or column headers, or when there are multiple groups of columns or rows). The A summary may describing the organization would also be helpful for simple data tables that contain many columns or rows of data."

The example there is fine, but it represents only one use of the summary element – that of explaining how to use the table. WCAG only gives that example, so we'd have to concoct others ourselves. In many cases on Wikipedia, we are not dealing with a 'lookup' table - i.e. one containing homogeneous data (as in the example), and we ought to be giving more guidance to editors on how to present screen readers with information about the organisation of the data in the table they are about to navigate. --RexxS (talk) 15:42, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

Yo... man... wow...

This is you. Wow...

Sven Manguard _Talk 05:01, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

seen it ;) Jack Merridew 27:63, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

If you're going to falsify your time stamp, do it right... Sven Manguard _Talk 08:40, 30 February 2011 (UTC)

Oh, and thank you for archiving that monster of a page. I can actually click on the scroll bar now! Sven Manguard _Talk 08:41, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Discographies style

How is this "regressive"? Adabow (talk · contribs) 03:27, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

(Pardon the interjection from a TPW) It's because many tables can be made sortable – which obviously becomes increasingly more useful on larger tables. It would need the double header to be resolved for it to work for your table, but you can see what I mean in this cut-down version:

Singles, with year released and certifications

Title	Year	Certifications
"One Love"	1993
"No Good (Start the Dance)"	1994
"Voodoo People"	1994
"Poison"	1995
"Firestarter" (featuring Ricky Nelson)	1996	UK: Gold US: Gold
"Breathe"	1996	UK: Platinum AUS: 2× Platinum
key goes here

But if you have cells spanning more than one row, the sort won't work. I know it's not terribly relevant to the table as it stands now, but spanning the years is a step backward from being able to be make these tables sortable. I'm pretty sure that's all Jack means by "regressive". Feel free to delete this post if it's not helpful --RexxS (talk) 04:12, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure if I should reply here... but oh well. If you are not going to span just so that you can sort the table, here is what you get (try sorting chart positions):

List of singles, with selected chart positions and certifications, showing year released and album name

Title	Year	Peak chart positions							Certifications	Album
		UK	AUS	FIN	GER	IRL	NOR	US
"One Love"	1993	8	—	—	—	3	—	—		Music for the Jilted Generation
"No Good (Start the Dance)"	1994	4	45	—	4	3	7	—
"Voodoo People"	1994	13	24	—	—	7	—	—
"Poison"	1995	15	—	—	—	3	5	—
"Firestarter" (featuring Ricky Nelson)	1996	1	22	1	6	2	1	30	UK: Gold US: Gold	The Fat of the Land
"Breathe"	1996	1	2	1	8	1	1	—	UK: Platinum AUS: 2× Platinum
"—" denotes releases that did not chart.

So what is gained from not spanning? We may be able to sort titles alphabetically, but we create a lot more work, having to make the other columns unsortable, and we make the tables ugly and repetitive with respect to the years. I don't really see the point...

Anyway, if you are going to remove the spanning, at least add the sort function to the model. Regards, Adabow (talk · contribs) 06:08, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

There is no immediate gain, and as I said above, your table would need a modified structure for sorting to work. I was only trying to explain Jack's use of the word "regressive", i.e. if you span the data as well, then you move further away from being able to increase the functionality. If you feel that repeating the year makes the table ugly, then that's a valid personal preference. I just don't think it's a good idea to express that in an example that others may copy and build upon in other tables. Cheers --RexxS (talk) 13:41, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

'merging cells' is presentational effect. What it really amounts to is the omission of data from tables. My undo of your removal of several years from table-rows was a step in the right direction. I *know* that there are other problems with tables such as the broken one you've pasted above. See class="sortbottom", for example. Jack Merridew 18:54, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

Regarding the Edit Summary

"Failed Prototype A: are those Phillips or Flathead screws?"

Clearly, they are industrial rivets. What else would you put on a fancy gold plaque. Seriously though, those are there because I wanted to pad the left and right of the box but not the top or bottom.

As you can see, I am in the market for a new sig (that doesn't annoy anyone on ArbCom.) Let's be blunt though. This is not a rush job at all. That being said, if you have any fun ideas, feel free to float them by me. You do good work. Sven Manguard _Talk 01:25, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Pig head on a stick

Well, it looks like we can all safely worship 'plainrowheaders' in its latest incarnation. It certainly seems to have brought peace to the wiki-world. We disruptives can merrily continue to markup tables properly and nobody need be any the wiser. Except ... the only way to tell they're marked up properly is to examine the output, or change our own myskin.css. Of course then we won't see how it looks to everybody else – but that was the point. Just updated my monobook.css; I'll see how it goes. Shouldn't be too long before somebody marks up every cell in a table as a header.

Speaking of which, I bet you've seen this before, but I just came across it:

Is this a bug

CHa	CHb	CHc	CHd
RH1	Data 1b	Data 1c	Data 1d
RH2	Data 2b	Data 2c	Data 2d

Check the output, <lol />. How did that happen? Unscoped TH, plucked from ... nowhere. My modified monobook is starting to payback the effort already.

You like vertical format, so there's some ammunition. Horizontal screws up; vertical (below) is fine.

This is ok

CHa	CHb	CHc	CHd
RH1	Data 1b	Data 1c	Data 1d
RH2	Data 2b	Data 2c	Data 2d

Of course, it is sufficient to have the !scope= on its own line, but the parsing of the wiki-markup is seriously fubar. --Ralph (talk) 12:49, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Ya, this is one of the reasons the vertical format is better. There may be a syntactic trick I'm missing, but splitting the cell-types make sense from purely a readability perspective. Cheers, Jack Merridew 18:15, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

request

Hey Jack, I'd like help in turning this section into a table that will show the election outcomes. Tea Party movement#Effects on the 2010 election cycle. I'd appreciate any help. Thanks. Malke 2010 (talk) 17:35, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

The Mad Hatter called. He'd like his Tea Party back. Jack Merridew 06:00pm, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Hey Jack, very cool. Is this something that you could put into one of those sortable box type tables like you do for the actors films? You know, alpha by state, alpha by candidate?Malke 2010 (talk) 20:51, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

You're free to use those as example, but I'm not much interested in attending this teabagging party. Jack Merridew 20:58, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

No problem. Looking them over, I was thinking I could probably just copy the template and plug in the information. Thanks again.Malke 2010 (talk) 21:31, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Since you're the table man in town...

Hey, you know a thing about tables, right?

Okay, so I have two tables on this page, which transcludes to my main user page. Can you force the two tables to have the same column widths? By that, I mean that the "Recipient" section is narrower on the top table than the "Presenter" is on the bottom, and therefore all the other lines don't match up cleanly. I don't mind that "Citation" is wider than "Award", that's acutally a good thing, but I want the "Citation" on the Awards Out table and the "Citation" on the Awards In table to be the same size, etc.

I have a tad of OCD, so this situation bothers me more than it should. Any help would be appreciated,

Sven Manguard _Talk 18:53, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

(TPW) Try that, but I didn't see any transclusion. --Ralph (talk) 22:17, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

I figured out where you were going with it and tweaked with it until it worked. It was simple enough once I knew what I was looking for. Thanks Ralph/RexxS Sven Manguard _Talk 00:15, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Well, almost. If the column contains text, then the best unit to use is 'em' because it varies with the size and metrics of the font being used, while 'pt' and 'px' do not. Not all users see Wikipedia in the same font as you do (since a client-side local style sheet may override the values used by Wikipedia) and different operating systems may substitute the Windows font-family by their own. For images, of course, it is sensible to specify a column width in pixels. --T-RexxS (talk) 00:25, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Well em wasn't working for me, and I'm not sure why, but as long as it looks good, I don't care what format it's in. If you can get it to look nice and use em, please do, I'd rather it work for everyone, if possible. Sven Manguard _Talk 00:37, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Bonjour

Je vous remercie,
Votre utile, donner les moyens,
Et comment votre cœur généreux
Votre affiche désintéressement.

Je vous remercie pour votre gentillesse,
Je n'oublierai pas de sitôt;
Vous êtes l'un des plus belles personnes
J'ai jamais rencontré.

--180.191.54.108 (talk) 17:00, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

terima kasih ;) Jack Merridew 17:04, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Looks like you've pulled, there. pablo 10:09, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

I recommend Philippinas. ;) Cheers, Jack Merridew 16:57, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Filmography Table Fix Question

Hi Jack! Onto more important things than trolls and socks: would you have a look here[1] and see if you could lend your expertise? 1948-49 is all screwed up, and 1962 is wrong as well. Someone added a film incorrectly, and I tried to add it the right way, but obviously something's still very wrong there. I'd appreciate any help/advice you're willing to give, and thanks. Doc talk 06:04, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks :> Doc talk 06:08, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Not done; don't (edit conflict) me ;) Jack Merridew 06:09, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Best AfD ever?

You might get a kick out of Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Aircraft design process. Probably best if you don't comment there since the Colonel and I have been at odds today and I don't want this to be seen as canvassing. Still, it is kind of hard to canvass someone when you have no idea what article has been nominated for deletion. AniMate 06:48, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I did comment, but I'll stipulate that I'd seen it before you posted here and that I intended to get back to it. Cheers, Jack Merridew 16:51, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

I agree with your comments there, and decided to take it to drama board. AniMate 18:38, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Ah, AFD...like RFA only an article gets torn to shreds instead of a person. N419BH 18:45, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

It's all of a piece; we call it the toxic-wiki. Cheers, Jack Merridew 18:46, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Looks like Jimbo's trying to change that. Read his talk page as of late? Oh, I wrote my first article from scratch (other "new" article so far was a redirect). Scope clause, have a read when you feel like dealing with not-drama. :) N419BH 18:54, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

I've read some it; enough to have a post in one section. See John's comments, though; it's the wrong venue and that skews the whole thing. I'll bookmark the article and have a read. Cheers, Jack Merridew 18:59, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

aren't you daring ;) tip: drop the vandal-fighter verbiage as it doesn't sell well with many. It's been overplayed and is part of how we got some inappropriate admins. Best wises, Jack Merridew 17:54, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Cannot center something

Would you mind centering this for me? I'm an idiot at these things. Thanks!--Chaser (away) - talk 03:50, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. That made it much more prominent.--Chaser (away) - talk 15:57, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

glad to help, Jack Merridew 07:33, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Thank you

I appreciate your "nits" at Wikipedia:Improve the junk. :) Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 21:20, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

is mah job ;) Jack Merridew 07:33, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

odd find

No idea now how (or why) I got there, but this discussion looked strangely familiar; 4 years ago! Plus ça change ... pablo 23:41, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

so, what is the rotational period of teh wiki? ;) Jack Merridew 07:33, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Default font size used by Infobox

See here. Thanks! Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 14:40, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

*That's* interesting; methinks the whole wiki needs the font-size bumped up; will read through it an opine; thanks. Cheers, Jack Merridew 07:33, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

content fork

Was it that obvious that Blessed Virgin Mary (Roman Catholic) is a content fork? Malke 2010 (talk) 04:03, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

it was the hatnote what gave it away ;) Jack Merridew 07:28, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

You're speaking of the bit when you open the page to edit and you see all those embedded instructions? Malke 2010 (talk) 15:55, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I know hatnote. I was thinking about WP:OWN when I wrote the above. That's a bit of a problem over there as well.Malke 2010 (talk) 16:52, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

both; the WP:HATNOTE... and the embedded text makes it crystal-clear. I can see how ownership issues would manifest themselves on such topics. The core issue, however, seems to be the seeking of an escape-hatch to WP:NPOV. Jack Merridew 17:52, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Yes, that's the real problem. I was thinking making it an Afd. We've already got the Mary (mother of Jesus) loaded up with Catholic views and we've also got Catholic views on Mary. Also btw, thanks for cleaning things up there. Appreciate that.Malke 2010 (talk) 17:58, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

consider an RfC ;) Cheers, Jack Merridew 18:13, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

In case you wanted to answer

I reverted this user's (most likely inadvertent) blanking of your talk. In the event you want to respond I'm re-adding their post. If I've erred, let me know. Regards Tiderolls 21:23, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Hi, why did you undo my edit to the Asquith article? Thanks. Woobarcat (talk) 21:18, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

I've just replied to their query on their own talk. Thanks, Jack Merridew 21:24, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

and dude's blocked; ya might add WP:NLT. Cheers, Jack Merridew 21:31, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

I'm on pins and needles waiting for unblock decline rationale. Tiderolls 21:35, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

It's pretty funny, and not Kiera Wales. Cheers, Jack Merridew 21:38, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Time of year to give Thanks

		The da Vinci Barnstar
		To: Jack Merridew for fixing things and inventing sorting tables and color coding, and all the rest of it. You are appreciated. Thanks. Malke 2010 (talk) 02:15, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks... but I didn't 'invent' sortable tables, I just see good uses for the functionality, and I rain on gratuitous uses of colour... but I get it — same same / terima kasih, Jack Merridew 20:37, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

Ta failte romhat.  :) Malke 2010 (talk) 06:23, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

tech help

Hi Jack,

Here's a tech question. The size of the automatically generated map in the info box on Vassieux-en-Vercors is causing the info box to be huge and take up a lot of space. Is this something you can slim down? Malke 2010 (talk) 17:07, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

Here's the template: {{Infobox French commune}}. Any help is most appreciated. Thanks. Malke 2010 (talk) 17:09, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

That template has '270px' baked-in at several spots, without much in the way of overrides-on-offer. It looks as if that's the 'standard'. You might start a thread on the talk page or ask Plastikspork or Dr. B., who've been actively working on it. Cheers, Jack Merridew 17:40, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for looking into that. I'll do as you suggest.  :) Malke 2010 (talk) 17:50, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

Why?

Why do you choose to openly insult me by referring to a specific diff in the past, which I later corrected; it was corrected because I had a misunderstanding about the word. You've done it several times now, is there a reason?— Dædαlus ^Contribs 21:46, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

I don't intend it as an insult, I see it as self-disclosure of an issue. Given that you state, now, that it was a misunderstanding of the word, I'll strike that line. I did just point you at WP:STICK, which seems really apt. You do need to drop things at earlier stages. Jack Merridew 21:54, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

Alright; I only asked as a user previously thought this to be an issue with mental health(exact quote: (who states clearly that he has a problem with "perseveration")). If that isn't enough, here they do the same on my talk page, insinuating that I was mentally ill and wanted to 'play'(exact quote: I am not only an historian, I also know more than a little about mental health. Wikipedia is not the place to beg someone to scratch the itch of your boredom to boost your low self-esteem. I will not come out and play as you requested.(emphasis mine)); this is why I took issue with your replies.— Dædαlus ^Contribs 22:17, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

I've no idea what went on re Transubstantiation and those talk pages, although I see the fellow is gone; a well-bitten n00b, perhaps. I'm seeing *far* too much Catholic stuff this week, as it is↑↑. My impression of you is that you're an editor focused on the drama, not the core goals of the project. I've already noted your over-focus on ANI, and then there's the endless pursuit of socks, which is how you brought yourself to my attention. You need to drop the stick a lot sooner and not even pick it up in many cases. Please read the sidebar on this talk page and be sure to read what the first link goes to. Jack Merridew 22:37, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

I work in the area of sockpuppet hunting because I am not good at writing.— Dædαlus ^Contribs 23:49, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

Bzzt. That's not a good reason, or the only alternative. "sockpuppet hunting" is all about seeing Wikipedia as a Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game. Read Lord of the Flies (the book, not that article). Wikipedia editors, even the socks, are real people, not prey that you hunt. Do you understand why I chose this user name? There are too many editors here for the hunt:

"If there's a beast, we'll hunt it down! We'll close in and beat and beat and beat — !"

Jack Merridew 00:03, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

In answer to your question...

Me. I'm running the show. Along with Tony1 and Skomorokh, who ran it last year, and a wide assortment of respected users with various advanced permissions. Neither of those two editors were eligible, however we made the decision not to delete the pages, simply not to transclude them or put them in the voting list. To be completely honest, to say that I am running the show is a drastic overstatement of my part in this, but I had to answer in mirror prose. For more information, the coordinators are listed here, and the rest of the staff are here. Cheers, Sven Manguard _Talk 02:41, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

I had seen that you were running trials on things... but forgot. I did see that Skomorokh had removed those two as ineligible, and that's when I cut my comment. I was rushed for dinner, and didn't look first. You know just what the stage manager does? Places hand on actor's back and gives 'em a shove towards the stage at the right time. Some use tasers. Cheers, Jack Merridew 02:47, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Thank you. I've been out of commission for most of the past two days, so I have no idea what's happened recently, but if what I was told last week still stands true, I'm going to need those tasers. Sven Manguard _Talk 02:58, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

and see my user page in about 4 hours for a kewl use of gaffa tape ;) Jack Merridew 03:07, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Cattle prods are more in favour this side of the pond. --Ralph (talk) 23:57, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Hi; I owe ya some more talk: been busy. There's always the cattle gun. Damned effective on disruptive editors ;) Cheers, Jack Merridew 00:31, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

I thought of you just now

...when I saw this user box. Cheers, --Diannaa ^(Talk) 04:25, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

This user is a sockpuppet of a sockpuppet.

I have a sock that that will fit ;) User:Gold Hat. He doesn't get to edit, though. Terima kasih, Jack Merridew 04:37, 23 November 2010 (UTC) (I had to fix the damn thing, though;)

License tagging for File:Subject-delta-bioshock-2-artwork.jpg

Thanks for uploading File:Subject-delta-bioshock-2-artwork.jpg. You don't seem to have indicated the license status of the image. Wikipedia uses a set of image copyright tags to indicate this information; to add a tag to the image, select the appropriate tag from this list, click on this link, then click "Edit this page" and add the tag to the image's description. If there doesn't seem to be a suitable tag, the image is probably not appropriate for use on Wikipedia.

For help in choosing the correct tag, or for any other questions, leave a message on Wikipedia:Media copyright questions. Thank you for your cooperation. --ImageTaggingBot (talk) 05:05, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

Hi, bot. I removed an inappropriate tag from an image that's about to be deleted as an orphan once the corresponding article dies the AfD-death; I uploaded a reduced-sized image, in the meantime, in order to comply with WP:NFCC. It's got a FUR on it, so go stick some FU tag on it, ok? ;) Jack Merridew 05:26, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

Mysterious code artefact

Take a look at 2000 IIHF World Championship Final - at the top there's a </noinclude> that doesn't belong, but I can's see where it comes from (probably a dodgy template). Is your code-fu up to this challenge? pablo 10:48, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

 Done

hi ;) an anon is editing a lot of templates, and left a loose-end.

Cheers, Jack Merridew 11:11, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

Ta - I thought it probably was, but am too lazy to do it myself not entirely comfortable with template code. pablo 12:01, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

Hmm...

By your edit to my userpage and the edit summary you left with it I'm guessing you were the first one? I was just panning through my userpage history and found your edit. Mr R00t ^{Talk 'tribs} 00:27, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

I certainly recognized part of it; code gets around — enjoy it ;) Cheers, Jack Merridew 01:26, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Why?

[2]?

Is there a policy or guideline that says we have to place the embarrassing blocked and sockpuppet boilerplates on the user page of a user who requests something different? I'm genuinely curious as it seems to run counter to my understanding of WP:PUNITIVE, but I may be missing something here.

jps (talk) 20:38, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Hi. I didn't place the sock and banned tags; others did and they were richly deserved. Loosmark seeking 'retirement' instead of his due-fate amounts to evasion of of what he did. Happens all the time around here; I'm surprised you've not seen this many times, as you've been here a while. fyi, I'm a sock, too, and have little tolerance for Loo's sort of behaviour. Cheers, Jack Merridew 02:04, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Colonel Warden RFC/U

FYI - A request for comments has been started on User:Colonel Warden. Since you participated in this ANI thread which preceded this RfC/U, you might be interested in participating. If so, please see Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Colonel Warden. Thanks. SnottyWong ^communicate 00:58, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Favor

Can you edit pictures? The software I use to edit my pictures has packed up, or more likely I have done something to it, can you edit them? I think you can. I need the top advert from this image [3], cut out and straightend up for my new page. I had a go myself here, but I can't get it square. Can you help? I would be very grateful.  Giacomo  17:08, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm sure Jack can edit pictures, but I've made a humble attempt, Excellency. How does this look? File:TrenthamBalustrade.jpg - would you like it cropped tighter, or any colour/balance changing? --RexxS (talk) 18:33, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

this work-out? I haz Photoshop, too ;) Cheers, Jack Merridew 04:51, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Cross namespace, html table, parserfunction fun

Check out this one. Cheers. Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 04:39, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

ick; I made it go away. You see what I ran into the last couple of days: manned spacecraft infoboxes. Seems there's no template for them and folks are hard-coding tables with appalling markup. colspan="1" was a hoot. cellspacing and cellpadding on td an th elements, too. And I was reverted. SpaceX Dragon, and Talk:SpaceX Dragon. But it's all over; the NASA, Russian and Chinese vehicles, too. These are mostly really early wiki articles; before templates existed. I also expect they're all a tad different in their structure. It's a mess. Cheers, Jack Merridew 04:50, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Some standard infobox would certainly be useful there. It looks better than it did before, with the switch to the standard infobox class. Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 05:38, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

My intent was to kick it the right direction and then go find whatever standard template... which I found didn't exist. And I've been reverted by the fans of orange on Dragon one. The Chinese craft are in orange, too'; the American skyblue. I think the Russian ones are fairly normal. They work pretty reliably, too. Cheers, Jack Merridew 05:41, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

There is {{Infobox spacecraft}}, but it may require some additional features to use it on the pages in question. Beyond that there is the list in {{Spaceflight infoboxes}}. Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 01:18, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

I was looking at that one; it seems geared for space probes, not manned craft. I've been nosing about and getting a feel for what's out there. Mostly a project for next year, as I'll be away. Cheers, Jack Merridew 01:27, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Sounds good. FYI, I did some prodding here, and on other state infobox template talk pages. Will see where it goes. Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 02:38, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Thank you

I don't intend to respond directly, but thank you for your characterization of Sandians. Cheers. 134.253.26.6 (talk) 22:46, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

You're most welcome ;) Jack Merridew 22:48, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Thank you

Um, any chance of making the banner a bit narrower? It extends past my right margin, and perhaps a reduction of around 10-15% will allow it to sit nicely on the page? Thanks again... LessHeard vanU (talk) 23:32, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

 Done — Jack used max-width, which should work for ya ;) Gold Hat (talk) 00:21, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Trolling?

Since when was pointing out disgraceful breaks in logic, | "trolling"? His vote was good, his comment was ill-considered. Pointing that out was not wrong. I'll not revert, but "les administrator" is still not an offence around here. Unforunately, every time someone acts like it is, it hurts the project.120.19.89.128 (talk) 01:44, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Festival de Cine Iberoamericano de Huelva

There's something weird going on with the film festival infobox. I copied it from the Sundance one yesterday and it looked fine, now it doesn't; there's some sort of woo-woo going on with the image. I've tried different things, at least it displays now, but there's some extra text which doesn't belong. If you get time, could you take a look?

Cheers pablo 09:50, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

•  Done, but I had to envaginate the implementation and refactor the syntax to use pure virtual destructors for the thumbnails. Hope that helps ;) Jack Merridew 09:57, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

  Of course! It seemed odd to me that I was using the same same syntax as at Sundance, which does use user-specified thumbnail destructors (thumb|200px) but the results were not the same. May have been a problem with the human interface though. pablo 10:10, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

  I'd not realized it was a new article; looks nice. You been? I also poked Sundance. Cheers, Jack Merridew 10:27, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

  see: wikinews:es:Presentado el XXXIV Festival Iberoamericano de Cine de Huelva. Jack Merridew 10:32, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

  Sadly not - I have a friend who goes most years, she's been to Cannes and Sundance too but likes the atmosphere at Huelva - less hype, more relaxed and (apparently) a nice place. It's on my to-do list (along with many, many other things!) pablo 10:33, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

  I stumbled into one in Montreal about 10 years ago, and saw a few. It was cool; whole city is. There was one in Bali and I passed. It was down the hill and I avoided that area for the most part. The mountains are nicer. See Ubud. Cheers, Jack Merridew 10:40, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

View by Kww

Yes, thanks! —Nuujinn (talk) 20:48, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Good; I almost let it go... nb: I further tweaked your sig ; Cheers, Jack Merridew 21:00, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Old net admins prefer full hex, sorts better. (; —Nuujinn (talk) 21:36, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

and all-caps, it seems. underscores (and tabs) are evil, semi-colons are precautionary and em dashes are about scuttling ASCII. Cheers, Jack Merridew 21:50, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

how about?

I'd rather you just tell me what you want me to change, rather than changing it for me. You definitely do not have my permission to edit my user page. Otherwise folks will just think I'm your sock. —Nuujinn (talk) 21:35, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

but it had an edit link on it and this is a wiki ;) it's not worth the bother to explain such fixes, though, so I'll leave it alone. your sig would be a tad better as:

• <span style="text-shadow: 0.2em 0.2em 0.1em #ddd;">—[[User:Nuujinn|Nuujinn]] ([[User talk:Nuujinn|talk]])</span>

I edit user pages all the time; mostly it's appreciated. Arbs, 'crat's, Founders, Fellow Travelers. I've been known to edit case pages and decisions, too. I also like editing articles just before they're deleted. Cheers, Jack Merridew 21:45, 12 December 2010 (UTC)^{(Nuujinn's another of my soks;)}

I'm sure you do a very fine job, and I know I'm just way old school. I still use innerHTML and bold tags, vi. I write my diary in cobol. I remember usenet. I think I met you there a few times. --Nuujinn (talk) 21:50, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

And center-elements? At least your sig isn't using <font>. your user page is mostly safe from me as I never put much effort into userboxes and barnstars. I built my first code out of wood, using chisels. Been there, but not with this ID. Cheers, Cheers, Jack Merridew 21:57, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, center elements and frames, with lots of animated gifs. Chisels? I'm assuming you mean the stone ones, I remember when they came out. I wrote my first code in dino splat with a dull stick. I miss that stick, it was sweet. (; --Nuujinn (talk) 22:15, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

You youngsters! Who do you think made the dino splat for you? --T-RexxS (talk) 22:41, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

bishzilla _ROARR!!, of course ;) Gold Hat (talk) 00:21, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Bu.. but... my sigs use <font>! [Checks.] Uh, well, not really, I guess... they just use </font> a lot, haha! How dare you impugn the Bish family coding skills, sir? The darwinbish will be furious! Just watch her filing her sharp little teeth! [4]

[Nostalgically] And I remember when Bishapod tumble down Reichstag, go splat... ! Fishapods no-good climbers! Bishonen | talk 01:24, 13 December 2010 (UTC).

Bu.. but... bish's are exceptional ;) and sigs can be changed^{(to not use the invalid colour-names cyan and magenta;)}

teh tread hear bee all Abbott kode, sew wii awl shoe hour siks. ankle biter's knead sicks, two? Jack Merridew 01:51, 13 December 2010 (UTC)^{damnit; putt won wong soks sick toddy :(}

hay^{is for horses} —Don't forget that Jack is only twelve years old. He did tell me that he voted for Giano ;) *eye* not even autoconfirmed, let alone 'nuf to vote. must have Jack make most of my edits. you see lil'sister gave me badass userbox? mebbe Kelly come back and delete it ;) Gold Hat aka david 02:30, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Lord of the Flies

He paused and stood up, looking at the shadows under the trees. His voice was lower when he spoke again.

"But we'll leave part of the kill for …"

He knelt down again and was busy with his knife. The boys crowded round him. He spoke over his shoulder to Roger.

"Sharpen a stick at both ends."

Presently he stood up, holding the dripping sow's head in his hands.

"Where's that stick?"

"Here."

"Ram one end in the earth. Oh — it's rock. Jam it in that crack. There."

Jack held the head and jammed the soft throat down on the pointed end of the stick which pierced through into the mouth. He stood back and the head hung there, a little blood dribbling down the stick.

Instinctively the boys drew back too; and the forest was very still. They listened, and the loudest noise was the buzzing of the flies over the spilled guts.

Ch. 8: Gift for the Darkness
Lord of the Flies by William Golding

Jack Merridew 22:33, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Ah, grade school. Good times, good times... --Nuujinn (talk) 22:36, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

A family-size bucket of articles tagged {{unreferenced}}

A point was raised at the Colonel's KFC; many articles cluttering up the "unreferenced articles" categories are the likes of 2004 in Norway, 1562 in basket-weaving, 1960 in trouser manufacture etc.

I do not really see the point of these articles; they seem to be more of a navigational aid rather than anything else. (A bit like those misbegotten "Outline of …" thangs). IF they are merely navigational, they don't really need references as they will contain bluelinks to no doubt impeccably sourced Wikipedia content. In which case they could have the tags removed and make life so much easier for those of us who spend their time a-hunting' and a-fishin' in these categories for articles to source or delete or whatever.

Downside - there are a gazillion of them. So it would require

• agreement that this sort of stuff is reference-exempt
• {{unreferenced}} removing from the article
• some sort of code adding to prevent eager bots from retagging.

Do you think it is worth pursuing this? pablo 23:35, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

The point of such articles is moar articles about subjects already covered elsewhere. They seem to be the product of Wikipedia:WikiProject Years. No one seems to have started the series Midnight in Gwaenysgor, or even Gwaenysgor, but they will. All that's needed is for some idiot to mention the idea. I don't see them as navigational, I see them as collections of trivia. I'd be more inclined to delete such things and focus on the real articles. If I want to know what happened in Norway in 1940, I'll look at Operation Weserübung and re-read The Moon Is Down. If I want to know about centuries of events in Višegrad, I'd re-read The Bridge on the Drina and Mehmed Paša Sokolović Bridge, not 1571 in Višegrad. Sometimes I think the purpose of this site is to demonstrate that the majority is always insane. If I had a Norwegian guest and we were going to host a quiz night, I might review these for trivia, which is probably a better tag for these articles.

I expect others have noticed such articles before; mebbe there's talk on the issue, somewhere. I'd be more inclined to require references for everything in them to increase the burden on those inflicting such things on the project. If a bad idea is easy, people will pursue it, anyway; if they have to do more work, they'll get less harm done. Cheers, Jack Merridew 00:12, 13 December 2010 (UTC)^{Kentucky Fried Colonel, also known as long pork}

I didn't know there was a whole project shovelling these in. Jesus. I was thinking that the harm was pretty much done. A while ago someone (MzM?) produced a sekrit list of unwatched articles and there was an initiative afoot for a bunch of editors to take these onto their watchlist to guard against teh vandal hordes. I volunteered. Because it was early in the game most of the ones that I got began with a number, usually a year, due to the sorting. It was soul-destroying, and I thought at the time that articles should not be named eg 1996 Olympic Games etc but rather Olympic Games of 1996 just so that in a sort they find themselves with other Olympic games rather than other events in the same year (1966 Obstetrician's conference in Seattle, 1996 Oman plane crash, whatever). I did mention this somewhere but can't remember where, nothing much happened anyway. Might have a think and a bash at reform, later. pablo 00:28, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

See also, coincidentally; Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Contents/Outlines pablo 19:47, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

I've never seen any of that, before. It reminds me of the old Yahoo approach to the web, or dmoz. At first peek, I'm inclined to tag it as historical and work up a consensus to redirect them all to the real articles. Cheers, Jack Merridew 21:28, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

carrots and sticks

I love cruft and I know that others...ummm...don't. Nevertheless I am very interested in improving 'core' material. Hence I am pondering some carrots rather than sticks.. Casliber (talk · contribs) 02:48, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Hi. I'll have Jack look. I know he believes in core stuff, too. You see he proposed a deal? It's a good one and some others ought to level-up; do 'em a world of good. Ya caught me in Safari, so... Cheers, Gold Hat aka david 03:02, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

I've been looking. The no-brainers, well, *are*. Skipping over silliness like the Conch Republic and Sealand we have notable sovereign countries that must need work. They *all* should be up to at least GA. The other stuff all seems core, too. I'd be inclined to work on smaller countries. And the issue of Myanmar should be addressed, at some point. We should hurry with North Korea as Julian has documentation of an expected fall in a 2–3 year timeframe.

If you're open to other topics, I've been fussing over some of the articles on manned spacecraft and noted that a lot of them are hurting puppies. I think what happened is that they were started really early in the project and got off on circa-2002 feet. The tables, for example, are crude as can be. This was rather stunning; I expect such goop on places like jv:wp, but not here; I rather expected that to all be gone, long ago, on this project. This is part of why I think we have too many articles; people focus on the non-core stuff far too much and don't attend to what's important. I'm guilty of this, too. Remember, half the people are of below average intelligence. So, would you consider manned spacecraft? There are a lot of red links in some of the navboxes beyond the poorly developed ones that are extant. You followed what The Chinese are planning for manned spaceflight next year? Big things... Cheers, Jack Merridew 04:21, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

POV on FMSF

Hi JM. I note that you've tagged False Memory Syndrome Foundation for a POV check. The article has its fair share of problems, without a doubt – but does this particular tag mean that editors new to the subject will give it a relatively objective and impartial look-over? That might be one good measure of POV as regular editors are probably biased to the extreme, one way or the other... Cheers MatthewTStone (talk) 06:58, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

I would hope the editors will case a baleful eye on some of the claims and counter claims made. It seems to me that this article has some serious issues, and I've pinged another editor for input. I'll be reviewing the history in more detail, but I see that it's thrashed about a bit. Small and controversial topics are frequently hijacked by accounts focused on just them, which is not healthy. The usual solution is to bring in fresh editors that don't have strong points of view. Re-read WP:NPOV ;) Jack Merridew 08:42, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

OK, got the picture. I suspect relatively 'generalist' or 'middle-ground' editors found themselves getting worn down, and finally threw in the towel. There's at least one area that is distinctly biased against the FMSF. If I can think of a way it might be made more even-handed, I'll make a note on the talk page. MatthewTStone (talk) 23:13, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Diff script

FYI - I created a script which automatically converts a diff URL into a properly formatted {{diff}} template. Since you were the one who first showed me the magic of the {{diff}} template, I thought I'd let you know about it. I made a quick documentation page at User:Snottywong/diffconverter. Feel free to use it if you like. Cheers. SnottyWong ^babble 23:10, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Awesome; I was thinking about this very idea the last night. {{oldid}}, too? Actually I was thinking a bot, but same idea and a good way to introduce the idea. Off to look. Cheers, Jack Merridew 23:15, 14 December 2010 (UTC) but due to land, soon

It should be easy to add the functionality to convert URL's to {{oldid}} as well, although I'd probably have to make it a different key combination because a diff URL and a "previous revision" URL look very similar, so I'd rather not mess around with trying to automatically figure out which one you want it to be. Could probably do Ctrl-Alt-O or something. If you give it a try, let me know what you think, and let me know what browser you tried it on (and if it actually worked). SnottyWong ^express 23:25, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Great; it works in Chrome, not on Firefox. Will look further. About to lose connection. Cheers, Jack Merridew 23:29, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Yup, I just downloaded Firefox and it's not working. I think it has something to do with how Firefox deals with selected text. I'll look into it and see what I can find. SnottyWong ^confer 23:31, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Oh good - the message I was getting was

Diffconverter.js: Invalid URL. Ensure that you have selected a valid diff URL, and then press Ctrl-Alt-D.

I assume this was the same for you. Browser is Mac Firefox.
With Safari on the Mac I get an alert box thus:

function getSelection() { [native code] }

then the "invalid URL" alert. pablo 23:42, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

• Ha! You were using the script while I was trying to debug it. I think I've gotten it to work on both Chrome 8 and Firefox 3.6. Try clearing your cache and try again. I'll try adding the {{oldid}} functionality momentarily (and I believe I can easily make it work using the same Ctrl-Alt-D key combination). SnottyWong ^gab 00:34, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

• Ok, the oldid functionality seems to be working now too. So, if you copy and paste a diff URL it'll create a {{diff}} template, and if you copy and paste a revision URL it'll create an {{oldid}} template. Let me know if you run into any problems. SnottyWong ^babble 00:44, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Works in Chrome, nifty. Will try others. pablo 01:01, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

� Safari - no. Firefox - yes.  pablo 01:08, 15 December 2010 (UTC) Success all round. I have only tried the diff version. Cheers pablo 01:10, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

what the hell character did you paste in front of 'Safari'? “�” Curious, and not gonna look, yet. Cheers, Jack Merridew 06:13, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

No idea - I had three browsers going, each with an active edit form on this page, for testing, and typed - something in one, copied and pasted it to Firefox, and got that. Haven't seen that character for ages, it used to crop up a lot ... pablo 09:06, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

I see this sort of thing in emails. I believe those are cross-platform issues coupled with differences in character encoding settings of email clients. Pasting from Word can do this, too. Cheers, Jack Merridew 01:11, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Works on Camino and SeaMonkey, but not on Opera, which seems to not even be running the script. Will look further... Great tool, Jack Merridew 06:13, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Nice.  ;) SnottyWong ^talk 06:18, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

I did another one. It would be *really* cool if you could highlight all of:

• [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents&oldid=260715425&diff=260715588#Bambifan101_related_protection_requests discussed this before]

and have it drop the brackets, space, and use the link-text as the LABEL. This is going to have to be publicized and the rationale re WP:Secure server and Firesheep explained. Terima kasih, Jack Merridew 06:24, 15 December 2010 (UTC) and off, I'm beat

think on this, grins Jack Merridew 06:43, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

I hope the script didn't create that diff... Also, I'm confused by the URL you posted above. I could see why you'd want the script to get rid of the trailing bracket and use the link text in place of LABEL, but when would you ever have a diff link that ends with something like "#Bambifan101_related_protection_requests"? I'm going to work on cleaning up the script later today, and perhaps add the ability for it to determine if you've just selected a bare URL or if you've selected a URL in square brackets with link text. SnottyWong ^gab 14:58, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

No, I pasted that-up myself to demonstrate what happens when you swap the numbers (you swap the diff left/right which could also be viewed as reversing time.. This other was this, which I reverted. That was from the script. This is an odd link because Kevin seems to have viewed a diff and then clicked-down to the section heading. It works as a raw URL but the script malformed it. I'm not sure {{diff}} can handle this and doubt it's very important. I'm mostly not here, so good luck. I'll try the new version a bit. I really only care about Firefox, but supporting the others would be nice. I care the least about Opera, and not at all about IE. Cheers, Jack Merridew 01:06, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Does happen; it's a link to an anchor section on an old page. pablo 15:12, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Do the {{diff}} or {{oldid}} templates support that? SnottyWong ^confabulate 15:45, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

dunno ... trying ... seems that the diff one does. pablo 16:18, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Seems they do pablo 16:23, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Oh, I see... and I see that I should read the whole thread... Jack Merridew 01:06, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Ahh I see, so you have to re-attach the #anchor part of it to the article name. Weird. Ok, I'll see what I can figure out. SnottyWong ^{spill the beans} 17:26, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

• Ok, I updated a bunch of stuff. I think the script is getting a little too cool. You can now use diff links with anchors, and you can now select previously formatted diff links (select the square brackets and all) and the script will convert it to template format and preserve the link text. Selecting Jack's example URL above will now create a properly formatted template. In the process, I created a bunch of bugs, and I think I caught them all, but there's probably still one or two lurking. If you see anything weird, let me know. Thanks! SnottyWong ^{spill the beans} 20:56, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

One thing that seems odd, and could be problematic on big pages if the same diff is quoted more than once, it seems to target the first one it finds. See User:Pablo X/difftester.

Jack's been gone a while while we make ourselves at home here, wonder if there are any beers in his fridge. pablo 21:54, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, good call, that is weird. The script definitely does look for the first instance of the selected text rather than the actual location of the selected text, mostly because I've found that working with selected text is really annoying because every browser seems to do it a little differently. Let me see if there's a better way to do this. Perhaps a piece of this pie from Jack's fridge will help me concentrate... SnottyWong ^speak 22:42, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

teh pie's in Josette's fridge, next to teh beers. Cheers, Jack Merridew 01:08, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

YFixed, although that change may have broken other browsers, I'll check. SnottyWong ^chatter 22:47, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Seems to still work in both Chrome and Firefox, which is all I really care about at this point. SnottyWong ^gossip 22:51, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Anchors

How I get links to anchors (may be a long way round) is

• Find the version you want in the page history
• Click on 'permanent link" in the toolbox on the left of the screen
• Click on the relevant section header in the TOC
• Copy that URL , which will look like

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Article_Rescue_Squadron/Archive_49&oldid=401739615#Can_somebody_check_the_Lars_Pearson_article_please.3F

This then works perfectly with the script to give

Optional LABEL, something about elites

Nice and tidy, nasty underscores all gone, so moar barnstars @ SnottyWong.  pablo 21:18, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Do you know...?

I was somewhat aware you'd run into a big bump, so to speak, but when someone later edits in ways that don't stir up kerfluffles, the bygone tends to slip my mind. It's true, coming back from those kinds of restrictions is a long hard slog and doesn't happen often at all. For editors with strong outlooks on topics, WP has a very steep learning curve which, while not that tall, if not heeded, is enough to bring forth hard stumbles :) Gwen Gale (talk) 10:24, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Hi, Gwen. Ya, it's a long slog, and rare. I support that, as most should not make it back. As I see it (and have said), I've been defending the project's best interests all along. Enough see that, and have said so. The whole process has been a net-positive, as I leveled-up and understand the projects far better for it. The projects have matured during this time, and I maintain that I've helped with that.

There's a complex allegory behind my choice of this user name. Some see the surface layer, and stop peeling back and so miss the core. I made this comparison about a year before James Gleick did. Cheers, Jack Merridew (have a read of my talk page's sidebar) 16:20, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Oh, maybe that's why, when I first saw it, I may have thought I'd seen the name before! Since you brought it up, I think Lord of the Flies is very bad anthropology and I believe, should only be shown to kids, if at all, with a warning that it's meant to trick them into thinking they can't get along with each other on their own, the whole thing ending with them being "saved" by a man in a white uniform. Awful, wrong. There can be one or two bullies in a group, but they most often get handled by the group one way or another, if the group is allowed to do so. The closest things historically to LotF, that I know of, happened on Clipperton Island and Pitcairn. On the former, one bully ran amok for awhile, then was stopped, with no outside help. On the latter, some bullies and thugs ran things for a time, wiped each other out and of the last two standing, one killed himself, the other being killed. By the time the outside world found them, a band of mutineers on the run with kidnapped women and men had shifted into a peaceful group of women, children and one man, doing much to abide in faith. Gwen Gale (talk) 14:57, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Of course, the contributions that Jack makes to Wikipedia, improving markup and spreading the gospel of good practice, is the very antithesis of Golding's vision – and a direct rejection of his misanthropic view of humanity. There's more than a small amount of intentional irony in an editor, whose goal is to bring order to Wikipedia, choosing the username "Jack Merridew". Despite what Jimbo would have us believe, Wikipedia possesses many of the sociological aspects of the situation that the characters in Golding's novel find themselves in, and it's a tribute to the civilising instincts of the majority of participants that we've gone as far as we have. --Ralph (talk) 15:31, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Where this gets muddled fast, is that so-called "civilization" mostly tends to reward, draw in and institutionalize the bullies, who are the few, with the mossy, scammy lie that they "protect." I don't think Golding's sociological/anthropological outlook, as put forth in LotF, was sound. One could still draw irony from taking on a character name from the novel, but I don't know if that's what JM had in mind. Only chatting, BTW. Gwen Gale (talk) 15:43, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm rushed, so brief. Pitcairn we all (should) know; know the more recent history there? I'll read Clipperton Island, at first gloss, it looks interesting. See In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex, started by my sock-sibling User:Moby Dick; that user name was inspired by David Gerard calling me a “notable dick”. Golding's story isn't really about children at all; It's about adults acting like children: the alpha-monkey claiming the highest branch, thus being able to shit on those below. Children seek limits and too often, there are few (they want the Happy Meal toy, and their pathetic parents cave, beaten by a six year old).

fwiw, my choice of “Jack” as my current user name is not really intended to refer to myself; it's commentary on what I see. And note that “Ralph”, above, only signs that way when chatting with me. Wikipedia is awash with amok users who see it as a place with “no grownups”. The serious people are rather hobbled by a surfeit of AGF in the face of abundant evidence of gross misbehaviour. Read Life of Pi, too. Oh, I saw the original film long ago, and again this year. While good, it does not really convey the fullness of the story. I have a User:Jack Merridew/Quotes and some are wired into this, which is dynamic.^purge There's also q:William Golding, and b:Lord of the Flies.

Cheers, Jack Merridew 18:30, 18 December 2010 (UTC) should have time for a better chat, next week

Anyone can edit an article, anonymously, hit and run. From the very beginning that has been Wikipedia’s greatest strength and its greatest weakness. The result is often what you'd expect from reading “Lord of the Flies.”

— James Gleick^cite

Filmography sorting - again

Hi Jack, when you have time could you please have a look at the title sorting at Tsui Hark#Filmography. Specifically A Better Tomorrow and Chinese Ghost Story. I can't remember how to add a sort key so that number 1 in each series appears first. You've fixed a similar thing before but the only thing I can remember is that it was a 1940s actor, which doesn't exactly narrow it down enough for me to find. No hurry, but I'd appreciate your contribution when you have a little time. thanks Rossrs (talk) 12:58, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Hi Ross, I've used a {{sort}}: {{sort|Chinese Ghost Story I|[[A Chinese Ghost Story]]}} and {{sort|Better Tomorrow 1|[[A Better Tomorrow]]}}. It probably works on most common browsers, but I'm fairly sure it won't work on Safari4 unless every title in the column has a sort key. Cheers. --RexxS (talk) 14:25, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Hi Rexx. Thanks for updating to sort those titles. I'm using Safari5 and it sorts correctly, but .... I dunno about Safari4. I can think of two filmographies in which Jack introduced a way to fix this type of problem, and for the life of me, I can't remember which articles, but the way you've done it seems different. At least, it doesn't look familiar, but I guess there's more than one way to do it. I have updated the filmography for one Rachel Gordon and added a sort key for each year/date per that other Australian actress who shall remain nameless, but that approach would probably be overkill for film titles, I reckon. Cheers. Rossrs (talk) 14:37, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Well, as we say over here, "Cat-skinning has multiple methodologies". The complication at Tsui Hark#Filmography was that some of the titles already had {{sortname}} to remove 'A' or 'The' from the sort order, but that can be mimicked using {{sort}}. The documentation for the template does recommend that if you use a sort template, it should be used on all entries in the column, but I agree that it's probably overkill now just to accommodate Safari4. Doubtless Jack will find time at some point to tell us how he solved the problem previously. Happy Bishmas! --RexxS (talk) 16:17, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Happy Bishmas to you too! Rossrs (talk) 08:31, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Hi, guys. I'm busy, but a moment. Rossrs, what you're recalling is prolly Diane Keaton (born in the 40s, at least. The part I was fussing with was her appearances in the Godfather movies, and the subsequent ones have Part II and Part III as suffixes while the first omits, and sorted poorly. I used the sort= option of {{sortname}}:

• ''{{sortname|The|Godfather|sort=Godfather Part I, The}}''

I looked at Al Pacino and it could use that fix, too. I believe the {{sort}} amounts to the same thing but find it cleaner to use an option of the same template as is being used elsewhere in the table.

As to dead browsers, no, I don't believe in supporting them except for gross failures (such as the entire page layout collapsing). Safari 4's issues were fixed in a maintenance release (4.1) and in subsequent major releases (5++). 4.0 is fast approaching zero usage and there is no way support for it could be deployed to more than a trivial proportion of the articles involved. Same for the "to" in lieu of an en dash; it's simply a bit of disruptive game-play being used to harass my edits. They should all be nudged back to the MOS's dashes. I'll address these issues in earnest when I have more time. fyi, I don't support IE6 or any of the oddities of the latter version of it; sites should not be built or tweaked to accommodate any specific user agent; the goal should be to follow web standards and if people use a fur-shite browsers, they get what they deserve. Cheers, Jack Merridew 17:52, 19 December 2010 (UTC) (my first browser was Mosaic; I used The Source in 79–80 and an IBM 5110 before that to dial-in to a mainframe. Learned APL on it, too. And I carved code from wood with chisels)

Probably was Diane now that you mention her. Thanks for the assistance. I've updated Mr. Pacino. Cheers. Rossrs (talk) 08:31, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

The names, the places etc

Lokasi Aceh Kabupaten Aceh Besar

The initial issue - and which still stands - is that there are eds who come to the Indonesian archipelago and who dump unsourced crap (there is one 3 year long hoax issue at the moment being looked at :) see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bunaka - and as a result valid potential stubs (in your words inherently notable locations) - are mixed with them - so there seemed to be an issue to raise at the project noticeboard - wah the birds descend and the chinese whispers grow faster than you can say jimbo wales is a man or something similar - the original intent - albeit whether it is lost in some vast project to clean up the regency dump from some time ago - was simply to establish some principles of how to slowly clean up the locality articles in wp indonesia - so we can find the others (hoaxes and rubbish) and expand the current stubs with nothing in them - perhaps too idealistic for this damned jungle of egoes and issues SatuSuro 07:50, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm not buying it all. Every Desa is inherently notable. They're real, people live in them. I'm fine with nuking hoaxes and sorting out spelling variants. Notability tagging them is disruptive; tag them as stubs, which implies a need for expansion. Get the interwiki links right and glean details from id:wp and jv:wp. Take these to AfD and you'll look pretty silly. Jack Merridew 08:07, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

I have put this on every damned talk page and it still gets skewed - I am not the slightest interested in afd or 'n' tagging - I started the ball rolling at the Indonesian project noticeboard to find out where the WP Indonesia project is at in relation to the issues - and ok your view is very clearly spelt out here - no need to try to assume that I either support or object to your view - have a safe christmas - SatuSuro 08:29, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

OK, I accept that. I've not read all the talk I see on a half dozen pages in detail. Notability tagging is off; unref/refimprove would be better. Mostly I'm busy with real-life and am travelling. Another bit is that I view the entire concept of wikiprojects as poor; too often they're about an amok group. Not all, of course. Wikipedia is a unitary state, not a Federation of wikiprojects. Indonesia is the fourth most populous nation on Earth; I'm fine with hundreds of thousands of articles. China and India, even more. This whole project is incredibly skewed towards Western content. Fuck that. Merry Christmas, Jack Merridew 08:46, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Hahahah - re your views of projects - as for the other stuff hope your sense of humour improves - and real life settles down for you cheers SatuSuro 08:49, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

I've had trouble with your sense of humour before; I'll AGF that I've missed something. Off for now, Jack Merridew 08:56, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Ditto I'll AGF your comment at Cas's talk page too - selamat jalan mas! SatuSuro 08:57, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Hey amigo. Lets focus on improving the regencies for now. Jack you are clever technically, I was wondering if you could upload the locator maps of the regencies for Aceh starting with this?♦ Dr. Blofeld 08:38, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Of course the Regencies should get the highest priority. As above, I'm focused on real-life and am away; mostly I'm not here until next year. I'll certainly help, though; maps would make lots of sense. I did about this with at least a hundred id:Lambang while en:banned. Merry Christmas, Jack Merridew 08:46, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Did that one: Commons:File:Lokasi Aceh Kabupaten Aceh Besar.svg. Give me a free afternoon and I'll get most of them moved. Cheers, Jack Merridew 08:56, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

That's great, if you could upload the regency maps of Indonesia by province this would be an enormous help. If you could categorize them as Regency maps of Aceh, Regency maps of North Sumatra etc in the commons this will make them easy to find.♦ Dr. Blofeld 09:08, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Deal, but no time and I'm really off after this edit. Fix that one, ok? I'll follow the pattern or tweak it as needed. Mebbe we need a naming convention... Merry Christmas, Jack Merridew 09:20, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, Merry Christmas Jack! I'll see if somebody else can help upload them if you are busy. Category is at Category:Regency locator maps of Indonesia (and sub cats) in the commons should you have time to do any more. ♦ Dr. Blofeld 09:24, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

intrinsic notability

I just replied to your comment on Masem's talk p. I am thoroughly in accord with your ideas about accepting intrinsic notability for as many types of things as possible. I am so much in accord with this as a principle, that I would accept more restrictive intrinsic notability than I would ideally like, in order to get the principle established as widely as possible. I think we are likely to be have similar views about the content of articles, the quality of referencing, and matters of style. I think we agree on increasing coverage of the non-English speaking world; I think we agree of not including too much coverage of popular entertainers and society figures. I think we agree about making Wikipedia procedure simpler and more representative. In general I think we understand things the same way, but perhaps have slightly different goals: I think you're a little more focusing on improving quality directly, and I on attracting users to improve quality,which has implications for how to deal with less-than-acceptable articles on possibly acceptable subjects. By the by, I expect to be active here over the holidays. DGG ( talk ) 19:30, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

I saw your post; moments after you posted it, actually. I'll only go so far with this, but you'll like most of it. Streams, for example are too far; the planet must have about a billion of them; same for neighborhoods, which would be case-by-case. The neighborhood I first lived is plenty notable without the need for a safety net of intrinsicity. But Indonesian Regencies? If I had time, this month, I'd stub every damn one of them with a terse sentence that asserts notability simply by saying "is an Indonesian Regency" and include an interwiki link to id:wp and jv:wp; su:wp and ms:wp have fair coverage of these, too. This would apply to such things from any country; I'm just less familiar with them. id:wp has most all of them and I've been over them all. I built most of the navigation structure there. There are about 500; Kab are rural the corresponding urban entity is a Kota. The next level is about 5,500. id:wp has many of them stubbed, but not all. I lived in Ubud;^{(oldid; I still rather like the original version)} From our perspective, it's a town; about 8,000 people. But it's more complex than that; there's a Kecamatan named Ubud, too; the town is in it. A Kecamatan is a sub-district; aka a county. These are in Gianyar, which redirects to Gianyar Regency. It has subdistricts, one of which is named Gianyar... and that subdistrict includes a Desa, named Gianyar. This is the pattern across all of the world fourth most populous country: Indonesia; The exception is Papua, which uses some alternate terminology. <POV>Papua is not a legitimate part of Indonesia; The Act of Free Choice; is bullshite. It's about things such as the Grasberg mine (gold, copper). Papua has oil, too. Many Papuans are virtual slaves of the TNI and their masters</POV> See also a few articles such as 30 September Movement, Indonesian killings of 1965–1966, Partai Komunis Indonesia.

Enough for the moment; I should add the these administrative structures are not static; id:gov is regularly splitting big things into smaller chunks; the reorganized Sumba a few years ago. You're retired, so you're time would be flexible. Need a vacation? I'll hook you up with a visa agent and can point you at nice places to stay. You can spend a little or a lot; accommodation ranges from $3/night to $5,000/night. I opted for $6/night (but that was a long-term deal on a place that would be $20/night short-term). Flight-time from NYC is 24h plus a couple of gas stops. +12 timezones; 11,000 miles. btw, editing from the other side means that one sees the wiki drama storms during the lulls while those from the toxic continent are asleep. There's a smaller daily blip on the drama-meter when the Europeans are on-stage; the tone of that blip is different, as they've a different culture.

Merry Christmas; I will be about a bit today, but have gnoming on s: to do and said I'd flip locator maps to Commons for Dr.B. Cheers, Jack Merridew 21:00, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, the timezones make for interesting watching. Much happens when I am asleep, and I often wake up on the tail end of it all. Bali is much closer to me, and Indonesia is one of the places I've not been to yet. Casliber (talk · contribs) 23:52, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Missed ya; I can point you at nice vacation spots. And you may run into Brangelina in the market, too. Cheers, Jack Merridew 10:37, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Merry Christmas! Well, ideally we'd have all of the locator maps the same so upload all of the provinces which have them first I'd say. If the pin maps are of half decent quality then they could be uploaded..♦ Dr. Blofeld 10:23, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

I am uploading them all; here and there I'm find some that others have done, and am categorizing them; the cats will need further attention; cuts or additions, but I'm not looking, yet. I think the pin maps will end up gone. The ones in use are plain, don't show the borders and are zoomed way-out. The svg ones are fine. jv:wp, ms:wp, and nl:wp have a lot of these Kab started and can use them, too, now.

• id:Pengguna:Ewesewes/Bengkel Peta

will give you an idea of what's available. The pin maps are already on Commons; see Simeulue Regency for an example that's currently using both. One of the others has the pin out in the water ;)

Merry Christmas, Jack Merridew 10:34, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Subulussalam. Locator map looks wrong...♦ Dr. Blofeld 15:59, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Ya, quite wrong. It's the 'right' image off id:Kota Subulussalam. I'll comment it out and prolly ask that it be deleted off commons, and un tag-the id-version ({{nowcommons}}. Then I'll leave whomever on id:wp a note asking about it. From ,aps.google, I'd say that's Kota Baharu (which is a redirect to a place in Malaysia, not what gmaps is showing me in Sumatra. Good catch; I was on auto-pilot, and there were a lot of e-interruptions while I as doing this. Before some one else does, I'll say we need a feckin' reliable source ;) Cheers, Jack Merridew 19:26, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Comment & question

Your talk page is too wide for my netbook's screen; I have to scroll back and forth.

On an unrelated note, I've taken on User:Barts1a and am acting as his mentor after he almost got himself blocked at ANI. Can't find a userbox anywhere to announce this (I'd like people to bring up any issues with me so I can put out embers before anyone dumps gas on them). Know of any or do I need to make one? N419BH 09:00, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

some min-width or white-space style, I expect. I'll look, but not now. Feel free to muck about; kill my edit notice to get it out of the way. It might be browser-specific... Ya know, it works for my using only half the screen ;)

Surprised re Bart; didn't see the ani but have not been impressed by some things I've seen outta that account. There might be a box off WP:ADOPT. You know I created the WP:Mentorship page? 2005. I figured out the why of the gold and black ;) Merry Christmas, Jack Merridew 09:20, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't know why I bother...

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

For the last time, I am not here 'only to hunt sockpuppets', 'hunting sockpuppets' is just 'the only thing I'm good at'. I never said I only hunt sockpuppets; I do other stuff, I browse for random articles and make minor fixes when I see them, I remove original research that's been unsourced for a year or several months, I keep watch over several BLPs to counteract vandalism, as well as several highly-vandalized articles. I sometimes new page patrol, tag for deletion, or approve. If a source is brought up on an article I watch concerning a specific bit of information, and just the url doesn't look reliable to me, I do check it out, and if I can't find something that signifies a RS, I take it to RSN.

Removed. Don't refactor my posts again.— Dædαlus^{+ Contribs} 09:03, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Restored wo/the big. This is my talk page; you posted it here; it stays. Jack Merridew 09:38, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

For the last time, I am not here 'only to hunt sockpuppets', 'hunting sockpuppets' is just 'the only thing I'm good at'. I never said I only hunt sockpuppets; I do other stuff, I browse for random articles and make minor fixes when I see them, I remove original research that's been unsourced for a year or several months, I keep watch over several BLPs to counteract vandalism, as well as several highly-vandalized articles. I sometimes new page patrol, tag for deletion, or approve. If a source is brought up on an article I watch concerning a specific bit of information, and just the url doesn't look reliable to me, I do check it out, and if I can't find something that signifies a RS, I take it to RSN.

How many times do I have to say that I am not here to only hunt sockpuppets, but hunting sockpuppets is the only thing I'm good at. Large, very very large, distinction.— Dædαlus^{+ Contribs} 06:26, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

I can even make an analogy;

I am only good at 3d animation, however, that does not mean that 3d animation is the only thing I do, I also know html, mirc scripting language, light parser functions, light php, light photoshop, light GIMP, light Cinema 4D, medicore AutoCAD, light woodworking, light electronics, painting, drawing.

"Only good at" does not in the least mean "only thing I do".— Dædαlus^{+ Contribs} 06:34, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Lord of the Flies

“You want a pig,” said Roger, “like in a real hunt.”

“Or someone to pretend,” said Jack. “You could get someone to dress up as a pig and then he could act — you know, pretend to knock me over and all that —”

“You want a real pig,” said Robert, still caressing his rump, “because you've got to kill him.”

“Use a littlun,” said Jack, and everybody laughed.

Ch. 8: Gift for the Darkness
Lord of the Flies by William Golding

---

• “only”
• “hunt”

You're not listening. You're good at “hunting” *people* — sure a lot of socks are disruptive, are trolls, but they're all human beings. This is an encyclopedia, not a fucking game. See also: s:The Most Dangerous Game.^{(The Most Dangerous Game)}

Jack Merridew 08:30, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

You're not listening either, you seem to be stuck on the false assumption that I think wikipedia is a game; I don't. You also are again, assuming bad faith as usual; you're assuming I don't think they're human beings, despite the fact that I've never said anything close to that. Yes, they're human, but that's rather irrelevant in the scheme of things. I call them sockpuppets because that's the terminology used on this website, just as a homicide detective tracks down a serial killer; calling the committee of the crime a 'serial killer' doesn't make them any less human, it simply groups them into a category of similar traits, such as killing in a recognizable pattern, like the Zodiac Killer for instance. It's the same with alternate accounts, 'sockpuppets'. This account that you now edit under is a sockpuppet, so I'm quite sure I don't need to explain to you the name semantics. Do I really need to explain to you why I call a sockpuppet a sockpuppet? Its easy for me to type out, I don't always know their real name.. not like they would give it out, and even if I did, more often than not, 'sock' is much shorter than anything I've seen. Jaraxle.. something. I don't remember his last name, the first 'vandal' of wikipedia, operating through page-move vandalism by moving various titles to 'x on wheels'. Either way, sock, being only four letters, is easier and quicker to type than 'Jaraxle', every single time they are referred to, or even WoW(Willy on Wheels, etc).

To using 'hunt' to track down socks.. again, assuming bad faith, and too much bad faith on a single word. It's a word, it isn't some easily identifiable trait that you can use as an excuse to assume bad faith. I didn't put much thought into using it, it seemed rather natural. I'm sure you know what hunting is... finding your quarry by tracking down the evidence that it was there, the eating habits, the foot prints, the behavior.

I know they're human, but what I know most of all is that they are mentally children, at least by my standards of what an adult should be, such as learning when to drop something.. and on that note..

In various discussions in which you were not involved, you have told me to 'drop the stick'. Well, I have an all-resounding question for you: Why haven't you dropped it. Again and again you bring up your bad-faith, false assumption that I think wikipedia is a game. Why don't you give it a rest and drop it yourself.— Dædαlus^{+ Contribs} 09:03, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

You mean User:JarlaxleArtemis, moar recently known as Grawp, who, by teh way is far from the projects first major vandal. Or Willy. Dae, I've been here more than six years, I've seen moar, and know moar, about this site, it's problems, and it's problematic editors than you can imagine. I know Grawp's real name. As I see an (edit conflict), below, I'll save this. I've not gotten an email, yet, and may-well have no interest in talking with you about whatever you send. You're not convincing me of much with all your running-on here, either. Jack Merridew 09:38, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

..Further, for again, someone who tells others to 'drop the stick', or tells others they are 'treating wikipedia as a game', you are doing both of these things. You are first of all continuing with the bad-faith assumptions on myself, instead of assuming good faith, so why don't you drop that stick. On the subject of 'games', in a discussion that has absolutely nothing to do with you, you make a comment that has naught to do with the topic at hand, by a snipe aimed directly at myself. Perhaps aimed to 'get my goat', to 'piss me off'.

You should try taking your own medicine sometimes; drop the stick, and stop commenting in issues which concern me, only to snipe at me without addressing the real issues at hand. Your bad faith assumptions about what you think I do, and why you think I do it really don't have any place in a dispute that has nothing to do with you.— Dædαlus^{+ Contribs} 09:10, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Against my better judgment, I am going to tell you in detail why I don't like drama, through email, as saying anything on wiki would simply incite more chaos. Despite what you believe, I don't like creating drama, and I'll explain why after I save this post in email to you.— Dædαlus^{+ Contribs} 09:21, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Dae, I got it, and will say it's useful. And confidential. I'll reply. Merry Christmas, Jack Merridew 10:07, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Good choice to continue by email - this mini-drama isn't helping anyone write or maintain an encyclopedia, is it? (Jack: maintenance includes dealing with disruptive users, including sockpuppet issues.) Rd232 ^talk 09:31, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Moments after my last post above, I did receive an email. Yes, I agree with your parenthetical; I do a lot of that, myself. A lot of it off-wiki, cross-wiki, and I certainly can't tell <joke>a mere admin what I mean</joke>. And really, that's a joke; I'm not riffing on ya, at all; it means I can't say. An appropriate 'hat' btw. And both of ya, see my post @Mbz1. I do see a world of problems, there. Merry Christmas, Jack Merridew 10:07, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Jack and I have discussed the above through email, and everything is okay now.— Dædαlus^{+ Contribs} 04:25, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

yup; I've just been focused on other things; we'll do lunch and have a cuppa chai ;) No worries, Jack Merridew 05:56, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Lord of the Flies quotes

You do use a lot of Lord of the Flies (1954, William Golding) quotes, don't you? I'm just dropping by here to point out that the one you used on ANI (copied from the above talk page thread) failed to attribute the source and author. Many will recognise it, but many won't. I see that in the other quotes you use on this talk page, you do sometimes mention the work you are quoting from, if not the author, but in the notice people see when they edit this page (or rather, the quote switch you use), you don't attribute source or author. Would you consider doing that? If you added the chapters as well, it would save me having to look that up in my copy of the book. Carcharoth (talk) 16:43, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Sure, that's an entirely reasonable request. I also have User:Jack Merridew/Quotes which has the chapters; that used to be linked off my user page but was cut when I moved to the dynamic one. I believe all the ones in the switch are right out of that, so the info is at hand. There's also q:William Golding#Lord of the Flies (1954) which I did a lot of.

As discussed elsewhere, it's about time to drop this theme and the ties that bind. I'm marinating on ideas for a rename and a new theme and welcome input (privately, lest some /b-tard grabs a name mentioned publicly). I've always been a fan of the work your id's from; the good names must be taken, and I'm not thinking of any those from the dark side. Cheers, Jack Merridew aka david 20:35, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

 Done^diff ;) Rainsford 22:44, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm waiting for a proposal to rename admins 'big'uns', leaving editors as 'little'uns'. Casliber (talk · contribs) 21:05, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

We do have Biguns and littluns. But the bit's not the appropriate division. It's about voice. Who do you *really* listen to? Who's posts do you gloss over a tad faster? Who do you ignore? And who makes sense, and who does not? Cheers, General Zaroff ;) 21:59, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

If you worked on the Disney articles enough, you'd recognise how tempting that truly is, all thoughts of irony aside. Nothing like being locked in a struggle with a seven-year-old child to remind you of your own value to the world.—Kww(talk) 21:20, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Teh WP:RANDY phase of my user page is up, today. Got a cite for his age ;) fwiw, I'll AGF that you *know* Cheers, Jack Merridew 21:59, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for making those changes. I had almost forgotten what happened to Simon! I must try and get hold of a good source that analyses the book and others of Golding's works (I've read Pincher Martin and have but haven't read The Inheritors). Carcharoth (talk) 07:56, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

You're most welcome ;) Simon's key... but what about the boy with teh winestain birthmark on his face? All were responsible, too; just a bunch of feckin' kids running amok absent limits. I've not read the others. fyi, I got some very interesting old letters that I may be posting bits of ;) Cheers, Gold Hat (talk) 08:35, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Happy, happy

Happy New Year, and all the best to you and yours! (from warm Cuba) Bzuk (talk) 15:53, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

Gracias, Jack Merridew 18:20, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

Kota Subulussalam

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, David! I'm Romi by the way. Probably, you search the location from google map/earth (which got some of its data from TeleAtlas, which is in the end, got their data from Bakosurtanal). And yes, you will find Subulussalam, up in the north coast, near Lhokseumawe, which I believe is incorrect (don't know who's to blame). Another simple google search on "peta subulussalam", will direct you to the map created by BRR Aceh and Nias in 2009, to which my map are based on. So, please just revert your edit in Kota_Subulussalam. Thanks for uploading the locator maps to the commons. I didn't have much time to create new maps again, but the chance is always there :). Ewesewes (talk) 17:58, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

 Done I've no wiki time for a bit. We'll talk, later, terima kasih. Jack Merridew 18:12, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

Template expertise and symbols

For all the Talk page watchers: Anybody good with templates who can produce a template for replacing the dagger symbol (†) with an image and optional alt text (default alt text would be "dagger")?

The relevant debates are at WT:Manual of Style (accessibility)/Archive 11#Non standard ASCII (general background concerning card symbols) and Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/Philadelphia Phillies all-time roster (C)/archive1 (specific request for a replacement for the dagger). If nobody's able, I'll have a go at it myself later. Thanks in advance --RexxS (talk) 20:42, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Update: I've made File:Dagger-14.png for use as the image. --RexxS (talk) 21:24, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

What do you want it called? And, all it does is produce [[File:Dagger-14.png|alt=dagger]]? I believe we even have a category for such templates (Category:Image insertion templates). Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 21:46, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

How about {{dagger}}? And yes, that's what it produces, but the alt text is over-rideable with an additional parameter. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:47, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Hey, Jack said to tell you that he knows he owes you a reply. Just busy, is all; Sincerely, Gold Hat (talk) 05:54, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Done. You could also create a shortcut, from say {{†}}, if it makes the presentation in the wikitext less cumbersome. Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 22:00, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Sounds like a good idea. Thanks for your help so far. The Rambling Man (talk) 22:00, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Just for clarification, if the alt parameter isn't used, does it default to alt text saying "dagger"? That's what we're after... The Rambling Man (talk) 22:02, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

I knew Plastikspork would sort it if available. Many thanks! I just experimented with a version at User:RexxS/dagger, but it's nice to have all the documentation and categories (which confuses me).

@TRM: Here's the template in use with no parameter: † and with customised alt text: †. I can confirm that the alt text in the first case is "dagger". and in the second case "wicketkeeper". Looks like a win. --RexxS (talk) 22:19, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

@all, thanks. @RexxS, I've asked KV5 to look at incorporating it into the Phillies list. Fingers crossed. The Rambling Man (talk) 22:23, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

And here's {{double-dagger}} - it looks like this: ‡ with no parameter, and this ‡ with "alt=customised text". --RexxS (talk) 22:30, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

And for completeness the redirect template: {{‡}}. I'll try to open discussion at MOS tomorrow. --RexxS (talk) 22:46, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Just a minor point. The version that you have in your userspace has different behavior if "alt" is specified, but left blank, e.g., {{dagger|alt=}}. The version I created, doesn't allow this, and overrides it with "dagger". If you want to be able to blank this all together (which seems like a sensible option to allow), change the {{ifempty|{{{alt|}}}|dagger}} to {{{alt|dagger}}}. Thanks! Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 23:31, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for that. My instinct was only to keep it simple, using the default switch, rather than testing for an empty parameter. I can see now that my version would allow null alt text, but that's only useful if the image is purely decorative, perhaps when used inside a link together with actual text (like flags, but I can't imagine such a scenario for the dagger). On balance, I think your version is more fail-safe; if somebody actually needs empty alt text, then we know how to do it. Regards --RexxS (talk) 00:21, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Jack's pretty busy, and ya'll seem to be sorting this out. I'll make sure he takes a look at this stuff. Cheers, Gold Hat (talk) 05:54, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

• Note - Okay. Remove this from your page as "trolling" if you must, but I am misunderstanding something apparently (point #4). You are Gold Hat (talk · contribs), and Gold Hat is you. It's your user talk page, and that's great. Gold Hat seems to think "Jack" is a different person, however (point #4 again). If this is an "inside joke" of some sort it is seriously not funny anymore. Socking is "cute": we get it. Alternate accounts: high comedy! Change your user name already... Doc talk 13:16, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

  Doc, ya; you're misunderstanding a lot, so my advice to you is to shut-up and stay off my talk page. There's no horse to beat here, just you and a damn stick. And watch out for the feckin' WP:Boomerang. Seriously, Gold Hat (talk) 18:59, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

  I'd beg to differ, Doc. Gold Hat only posts in places where everybody reading is perfectly aware that he's Jack (like here), so there's really no possibility of confusion. You're perfectly entitled to your own opinion, of course, but I find it quite humorous, and I'm not averse to the occasional faux sig myself at times :D --Ralph (talk) 18:17, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Re: Navigasi ID

Sorry, I've never thought to contact you before I requested deletion of that template. Sorry to reply late. I just returned to my home after a week on a holiday trip abroad. Thank you and happy new year.  Kenrick  Talk 12:46, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Your project's loss. Jack Merridew 08:41, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Help from a div expert

Hey, I hope you had a good new year. I have a question for you regarding position of overlapping images using divs. Basically, I would like to display File:USA Utah location map.svg with File:Map of USA UT.svg as an inset in one of the corners. Now, I have something working in the sandbox for Location map (see discussion at Template talk:Location map), but I'm not sure if it's the cleanest implementation. My initial testing seems to indicate that the div needs to know the dimensions of the width/height of the image if I want to place it in any corner other than the upper-left. However, I may just be missing the full power of the div positioning syntax. This isn't a serious problem, but it does make the code more complicated. I can post a simplified example of each corner case if it helps. Thanks! Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 03:37, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Hey, Plastikspork, I don't know when Jack's likely to check in, but if it's any help, you can use relative positioning for a div by specifying top or bottom, left or right. Is this the effect you want?:

<div style="background-color:#0C0; position:relative; top=0px; left=0px; width:300px;">[[File:USA Utah location map.svg|300px]]<div style="position:absolute; z-index:2; bottom:10px; right:10px;">[[File:Map of USA UT.svg|100px]]</div></div>

You have to make sure the overlaid div is positioned absolute with a positive z-index, and is contained within a div that has relative positioning set. The parameters to change in order to reference different sides are underlined. I'm sorry it's a bit late at night for me to try to unravel the template you're using, but if that's what you're looking for, you're probably the best person to work out how to incorporate this into your template. HTH --RexxS (talk) 05:08, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Great, I think that works (see Template talk:Location map#Inset Maps). For some reason the stuff I was trying didn't work for the right and bottom. This is much cleaner than what I had. Thanks again! Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 05:22, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

What-Ralph-said ;) It also helps to add height: 1%; to the outer div; IE6 gets stupid about bottom and right and positions relative to the bot and/or right of the overall viewport (your browsers client area) without the feckin' height; it's a method of turning on their damn hasLayout. I think this is discussed somewhere on http://www.positioniseverything.net/ and I know it's in CSS-Mastery. See: my t:editnotice, for examples (2 instances). I'm traveling and have no significant wiki-time. Cheers, Jack Merridew 06:31, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Special:Contributions/Gold Hat

Care to explain why it is not a violation of your editing restrictions ("User:Jack Merridew agrees to edit from one account only "Jack Merridew" on all WMF wikis with the exception of an additional bot account approved through the regular process")? T. Canens (talk) 10:53, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

It's been disclosed to arbs; they're not worried and there's an email thread about lifting all the restrictions as water under the bridge. Xeno usurped User:Merridew for me, too. Cheers, Jack Merridew 16:34, 7 January 2011 (UTC)