User:Yopienso/Sandbox

Whig history

TWO CHEERS FOR THE WHIG INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY William Cronon | Sep 1, 2012

Other stuff

Thaxton did say that, but it's not all he said. He also "described his reasoning as a more sophisticated form of Paley's argument from design." That is, he himself linked it to the DI usage.

John Haught, plaintiffs' witness in Kitzmiller v. Dover, testified as follows in response to the question, "What do you understand intelligent design to be?"

10 A. I understand it to be a reformulation of an

11 old theological argument for the existence of God, an

12 argument that unfolds in the form of a syllogism, the

13 major premise of which is wherever there is complex

14 design, there has to be some intelligent designer.

15 The minor premise is that nature exhibits complex

16 design. The conclusion, therefore, nature must have

17 an intelligent designer.

He then cites Paley and Aquinas as antecedents, and describe how ". . . intelligent design build[s] upon or modernize[s] this old tradition of natural theology."

There is no reason for us to omit this information. Indeed, it is found under "Origin of the concept."

Here I am!

Yes there you are. And here I am, indented. So on your Talk page I mentioned that standard (and expected!) bibliographic practice (no matter whose style you use, printed or on-line) is to include as much information as possible about your sources. Now you could just type it in as text, just like on the old Underwood:

Bob Ward, "Climate change sceptic Bob Carter continues to ply his trade", The Guardian, Tuesday 30 November 2010 [1] (and so forth).

I have seen editors doing that, and it gets pretty grim, trying to all the parts in the proper order, properly italicised and/or bolded according to some style (MLA, APA, CMOS, whatever), which is probably not the style some other editor is using. A lot of work, and why not let the computer sort out those details of format?

So we have various templates, like {{cite}} and {{citation}}. Here is an instance (with the wiki magic turned off):

{{Citation
 | last = Ward
 | first = Bob
 | publication-date = 30 November 2010
 | title = Climate change sceptic Bob Carter continues to ply his trade
 | periodical = The Guardian
 | url =  http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/cif-green/2010/nov/30/climate-change-sceptic-bob-carter 
}}

Each unit of information gets assigned to a parameter which the template understands. By the way, here I spread it out on multiple lines with extra spaces for clarity. But these are often scrunched together like this:

{{Citation|last=Ward|first=Bob|publication-date=30 November 2010|title=Climate change sceptic Bob Carter continues to ply his trade|periodical=The Guardian|url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/cif-green/2010/nov/30/climate-change-sceptic-bob-carter}}

Less readable, but the software doesn't care. Either, what you get (with the wiki magic) is this:

Ward, Bob (30 November 2010), "Climate change sceptic Bob Carter continues to ply his trade", The Guardian

All the little formatting details done magically! Using {{Cite news}} is nearly the same.

I hope I haven't gone too far too fast. Take at look at this (open it in the editor), and see if you understand what is going on. (Note that we are not using footnotes here! Not yet.) If you want to see more of the "hairy" details, go to Citation templates. (And I will ponder what I have learned in explaining this.) - J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 00:22, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

So this is a new development. I've seen lots of cites like that, but also lots not like that. Lots and lots of dead links.

What you've done here is provided a picture of the finished and partially finished job, but not a step-by-step of how to do it from the beginning. How do you do the first thing? I once had an editor tell me to use some vertical lines, but I had no idea how to create them. I resorted to copying and pasting his--that once. Not something I intend to do on a regular basis--go scrounging for something, copy and paste it. There must be a better way.

Please look at the link I'm about to paste in--here it is--and then at the page to which it links, and tell me if there's anything wrong with my work. I still have no idea what's wrong with the stuff I fixed at Carter after you told me the reflist there would work. I know what was wrong with the bare URLs. It looks perfect to me now. Also, editors in the past have told me not to worry, a good little bot comes along and tidies any little mistakes.

I really don't have the time right now to learn something I'm not sure is even necessary to learn. That sounds grumpy; I'm not feeling grumpy. Just practical. I think they made those little book and chain pictures for people like me to just click on. I do appreciate your willingness to help, but I can't follow your lesson because you start out way down the road. If this is an emergency and I am making an egregious mess everywhere I go, please tell me so. If it's just being unnecessarily high-tech, well, I don't have the foundation for it. Editing really rests on content, in my lame and humble opinion, more than on technology. Thanks, but I'll probably wait till later (or never) to learn this. Yopienso (talk) 09:04, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

  Well, shucks. It appears there are deeper issues here, but good to have learned that. And (not being too terribly stressed at the moment) I wouldn't mind trying to sort those out. I have run into people who are so dense, or stuck in their attitudes, that it is a waste of time to talk with them, but you don't seem to be of that sort. And I might even learn something.

  I would suggest that this is important stuff, because content that is not properly sourced (cited) is valueless. Content here needs proper citation every bit as much as any term paper, and generally along the same lines. (All those cites you've seen not like the one above, that lack all the details, are the bad cites.) You could just type the details in as straight text, but that would get ugly. The "technology" here — specifically, the various templates — are for making all this better and even easier. That it does not seem so to you might be because you've straddled the horse sideways. I should like to see if we can sort that out.

  I sense discouragement and even frustration when you ask "what's wrong" with your link (above), so let's look at that for a moment. As a link there is nothing wrong with it: it links exactly where it is supposed to go to (right?). But it is only a link. That is the problem with the Carter links — they are only links, with no other bibliographic details ("hair"). Consider this (and for the moment just completely ignore how any of this stuff is done): what if the bald link in the Carter text was replaced with the filled-in citation template I set up above? Don't do it, don't even think about how it's done, just consider the difference between the "bald" link (http link alone) and the "citation" as demonstrated above. Then tell me: do you understand these difference between the two examples? And if you start getting frustrated, take a break and brew some tea. - J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:41, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

I understand that one is a link and that "hair" belongs in a footnote. The link whooshes you to the indicated site, whereas the footnote tells you how to get there, what it is, when it was retrieved.

  Not exactly. The "hair" (bibliographic details) belongs to the citation. Or perhaps I should say: the citation record or reference. Which is typically put into a footnote. But could be put into the text (ugly, rarely done), or even in a "References" section.

• Here's a bald url, right? http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/01/ Never good.
• Here's a bald link, right? Perfectly fine when linking to another WP article or when linking to anything from a talk page. Right?
• The tricky part is the footnotes, right? I agree the content must be supported.

  Strictly speaking, both of these links (Internet urls inside of single square brackets) are fine as external links. In the second case you used the option where the text is linked, but essentially the same thing. (Note that these are distinguished from wikilinks, like the one I just put in about external links, which use double square brackets, and also the vertical bar character.) "Bald" refers to a link used as a citation, without any other bibiliographic information.

  I think that footnotes, defined as the result of using the <ref> and </ref> tags, are actually simple. And indeed, you already know how to create those. What confuses people is when they say (or hear) "footnote", but mean the contents of the footnote. Which could a citation, or just text, or whatever. The tricky part is creating the citation record.

It would help if you would answer me with specifics instead of generalities. Let's try these two questions again, and I'll add a third. Please look at the link I'm about to paste in--here it is--and then at the page to which it links, and tell me if there's anything wrong with my work.

Three questions:

1. Is the link I just pasted in correct on a talk page?

  Sure. Both as a working link, and for use on a talk page. Nothing wrong there.

2. Are the links I pasted into Cuchullian's talk page correct?

3. Is the link I pasted into Q #2 correct?

  Let's take #3 first: probably not. At "User talk:Cuchullain/Archive 2" (and I hope you are not editing any archives!) I see nothing by you, or about Jacksonville. However, I do see what you added at User talk:Cuchullain#Jacksonville. So although this wikilink worked ("technically correct"), what you wanted is slightly different. The external link you had there is fine, no problems.

More questions:

1. Is what you want me to learn a relatively recent development at WP?

  No. Proper citation has been a requirement (and an issue!) from the beginning.

2. Will clicking on the little book with a ribbon in it and pasting in the url make a proper footnote? If so, what's the problem? If not, why's it there?

  Yes, it makes footnote. But a footnote is just one of several places where you can put a citation. The icon does not create a citation.

I really do have LOTS going on in real life. If I don't get back here soon, it's cuz I'm busy. Cheers! Yopienso (talk) 06:46, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Life? what's that?   :-)  - J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:26, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Trial run on Robert Carter

• Robert M. Carter, geologist, researcher at the Marine Geophysical Laboratory at James Cook University in Australia (publications), According to Bob Ward, policy and communications director of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at London School of Economics and Political Science, he "is one of the world's most prominent voices of climate change denial and one of the very few who has published his views in academic journals.... Carter will no doubt continue to be feted by climate change sceptics because of his academic credentials, but as with many of the other voices of denial, it appears that his views may say more about his politics than the scientific evidence." Carter maintains that the human impact on global warming is negligible.

So far, so good. Now try copying one of the {{citation}} templates from above. Just drop it in right here. - J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:38, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't have any idea what you mean for me to do. Yopienso (talk) 23:41, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

(Following re-arranged, with redundant sections removed. - J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:40, 16 January 2011 (UTC))

Sorry, I'm tired of this game. I copied everything from References on down and got this. Yopienso (talk) 23:40, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

What shows up on the preview and what shows up after saving are not the same. I'm bailing. I don't even know how to find this page except by looking through my contributions. This isn't fun anymore. Yopienso (talk) 23:43, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

http://www.clevelandseniors.com/forever/redneck-pc.htm Yopienso (talk) 05:53, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Hey, hang in there! It really is easier than it looks, we just got to get you pointed in the right direction. And I have taken the liberty of adding a link to your Sandbox on your Talk page (just above the table of contents), so all you have to do is click on that, and here you will be!

I am not exactly certain what you meant that the preview didn't match what was saved, but I suspect that you were editing a section with only the {{reflist}} template. So it didn't see the <ref> tags, and was empty. Right? Okay, I am fixing that by removing all the redundant sub-sections, and I am going to save this right now and check it. - J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:40, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Okay, that worked. And you will see that there is a new footnote: I inserted a pair of <ref> tags, and copied in the the citation I created previously. What we have now is a citation that says who wrote the source material, when, where, and the title of the article. There is still a link to the article, but that is now incorporated into the title. Do you see how that gives much more information than just a bare url? - J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:59, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

What I mean by what shows up on the preview isn't the same as what is saved, is that what shows up while I'm editing, not on the preview, which was what I said wrong, doesn't look like what it turns out to be. What's pasted in is simply

. The actual references are invisible. And this is super maddening: I made double braces and wrote reflist inside, and it made the reflist from Carter. Here is is with single braces. {reflist}.

I really came here to tell you I'm adding a footnote at Jeannette_Rankin#Death_and_legacy and wonder how I did. Yopienso (talk) 10:10, 22 January 2011 (UTC) OK, I know how I did--that's what you call a bare URL. I have no idea how to do it differently, and am furious with the format for giving me a tool that some of you believe is inferior. Since I can't make head or tail out of your lengthy directions, and since it's impossible to actually SEE footnote 7 on the Rankin article, I can't follow your directions or copy the procedure used for footnote 7. Yopienso (talk) 10:10, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

  This "invisibility" of the ref in the preview is because the section being edited doesn't contain a {{reflist}} template. If you want to see what the reference will look like while in preview mode just add a temporary {{reflist}} at the bottom of the section. (But don't forget to remove it before saving, or the article will end up with multiple reference lists!)

  The <ref> tags you added to the Rankin article are quite fine as a footnote. But keep in mind that a footnote is not a citation. It is a where a citation can be placed, but don't confuse the container for what is contained.

  A "citation" is the bibliographic details that identify your source. It does not have to use a {{citation}} template, it could be just type text, just like you used to do on the Underwood. And the Rankin article has an example in footnote #2. If you go to Jeannette_Rankin#Death_and_legacy and click on edit, you will see that what is enclosed in the <ref> tags is exactly: "Lopach and Luckowski, (2005) ch 8". Which is exactly what shows up in the footnote. Now this is a very poor citation, as the information is minimal, but from the authors' last names we could conceviably Google the source. And as the citation appears to reference a chapter, we can infer the source is a book. It would be much better to include the title of the book, perhaps the publisher, and certainly the ISBN number. And all of this bibliographical information could be typed in, and manually formatted, just like you used do to on term papers. You might even Google for this particular source, identify it, and add that information to that footnote.

  The {{citation}} template is just a way of organizing the details of the source, and having them formatted automatically. Don't worry about that for now. Just keep in mind that the the footnotes which you have been creating (and quite adequately, too) with the <ref> tags are just a place (or container) for the information ("citation") that identifies your source. Okay? - J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:20, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Mrs. Warren's Profession

.... [Troublesome gobbldey-gook moved elsewhere; explained below. -JJ]

Totally lost and frustrated. Yopienso (talk) 05:36, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Make a pot of tea! Now! Then settle in for a bit, relax, and I will explain what is happening.

First, in order to keep the "gobbledy-gook" here from getting confused with the gobbledy-gook in the section above I have taken the liberty of moving it to a new "sandbox" I have created for you. (I hope you will permit this?) Well, not all of it. Please note that at the bottom of this section you still see the box with "The plays of George Bernard Shaw". If you open this section with the editor what you see is only the line containing "{{George Bernard Shaw}}". This is an example of "wiki magic": that text in the doubled curley braces is a sort of incantation, what we call a template. That particular template tells the wiki software: "replace me with this cool box from somewhere else that lists all these plays of GBS". When you click on "Save page" or "Show preview" (which tells the wiki software to convert your text into a display page) that is exactly what happens: that simple little incantation is replaced with that fancy box. See, it's simple.

So click on "edit" and check that that the incantation below is just as I told you, then pop out and click over to Sandbox2 and I'll explain the rest. - J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 20:18, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

All of the following results from one, short incantation.