User talk:Bobblewik/unsorted archive

google units

what is this "units possibly using google converter" i keep seeing? you should make the edit summary a link to a short description. keep in mind that google converter is wrong sometimes, notably with calculations involving kbps. convert with care. - Omegatron 13:58, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)

As you can see, I do a *lot* of conversions rapidly. I do try to take account of the many constraints that people request but it is impossible to comply with all of them. In general, think that I do convert with care. However, there is always room for improvement so I am keen to here more. I don't understand what you mean by a 'link'. Are you suggesting that I put a web page in there?

No, I mean write up a little thing on your user page and then enter your edit summary as [[User:Bobblewick#Conversions|units, possibly using Google converter]], like I do for [[User:Omegatron#Spell_checker|Spell checker]] - using US English - Omegatron

I am editing pages at an extremely fast pace and it is easier to use an identical summary. I thought that you were suggesting different summaries for each page but it is clear that you aren't. Know that I understand it, your suggestion is an excellent idea. I will do it. Thanks. Bobblewik  (talk) 14:32, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Just saw your edits on Snow cannon diff and got confused from your edit summary, until I looked here to see your method. For instance, on that edit you only changed &deg to a degree symbol (excepting one) and removed both links to Celsius but left one to Fahrenheit. Your edit summary left me wondering what you saw wrong in the first place. I would appreciate if you changed it to be a little more descriptive or linked to an explanation. Thanks a lot. --NormalAsylum (t) 15:47, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

You ask what I saw wrong in the first place. There is no such unit as 'Celcius'. It is a mispelling of 'Celsius'. That is what I saw wrong. In addition, there should be a space between digits and unit symbols. I removed the mispelt word and added spaces. I hope that sounds reasonable to you. If not, feel free to revert it or revise it to the way that you think is best. Thanks for your feedback. Bobblewik 16:00, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

I am also interested in what you say about it being wrong. I know that the google horsepower conversion is only the American one. I have never tried google with kbps but would be interested to hear of the issue. Can you expand on that? Bobblewik  (talk) 14:07, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Ah. As you might know, units like kilobit are ambiguous and can mean either 1024 bits or 1000 bits (which google calculator doesn't mention; it just assumes the 1024 values). In context of kbps, it is always 1000 bits, though, and google still returns 1024. Other calculations like this have the same problem, so just be careful. There might be other errors lurking... - Omegatron 14:14, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)

I did not know that google did that. Interesting. Thanks. I have not used google to convert kbps at all. I have done plenty of replacements of the *unit term* 'kbps' to 'kbit/s' and 'Kbps' to 'kbit/s' (note lower case 'k'). I have done the same with mbps and gbps. I have also tried to convert 'K', 'kb' and 'KB' to 'kB' where I am fairly sure that is what was intended. I cannot recall an instance where I modified the associated numerical value. So what I have done is in line with what you say.

I am sensitive to the possibility of Google being incorrect. It is also possible that I will make errors. But I hope that an assessment of my performance overall would demonstrate a very low error rate. You will note that I say 'possibly using google converter'. I want to make people aware that google can help them with conversions. If they see this summary often enough, they might try it for themselves.

In many cases I don't use google at all, I am just suggesting that I *may* have used it. I have done so many conversions that I know many of them by heart. In addition, I sometimes don't use google to convert the units, but use google merely as an arithmetic calculator using the conversion value in official sources. For example, UK unit conversion values are defined in law at: http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si1995/Uksi_19951804_en_2.htm Bobblewik  (talk) 14:35, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Yeah. Remember it's kbit, Mbit, and Gbit. Kibit is capitalized though, since it was defined that way since computer people always write "KB", they will always write "KiB". You can link to the articles for each as you do it, too. That would be helpful to tie everything together. units like kilobit, gibibyte, megabit per second, and kibibit per second all have articles.

Of course if you make an error the wiki will fix it eventually, anyway, so it doesn't matter.  :-) - Omegatron 14:52, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)

Make instructions to editors invisible to ordinary readers

Hey hi there...what are you doing by removing the fill in instruction? I was editing everything and you came in and all my info got lost...regards

The issue of visible comments for editors has been debated a few times. See what the Manual of style has to say. If you disagree with it, feel free to revert that particular change. I won't object. Keep up the good work. Bobblewik  (talk) 29 June 2005 12:26 (UTC)

nope bob, i am not against it...mind if you do me a favour by reverting it back.. i am on to inserting many of the info... ps: i request that u revert it back because i don't know how to do it...am still a newbie in here...thanks! regards!

I have reverted it back to the version with fill in. I put back your spelling correction of 'Febuary' too. You could replace 'fill in' with <!-- fill in --> and that would make it invisible to ordinary readers but visible to editors.

Incidentally, Welcome to Wikipedia. You seem to be doing very well. Please feel free to create a login account for yourself. If you sign your comments using 4 tildas (~~~~), Wikipedia will automatically put your ID and date, just like you see with mine. Bobblewik  (talk) 29 June 2005 12:59 (UTC)

yup thanks for the welcome...you are the second to welcome me in here...maybe this only happens to me but i sorta think pple in here aint quite friendly. sorta a little self centred. i feel that editing wiki shld be because one feels that it is his respnsible to put facts right to allow pple to know and not to GAIN recognition in here... yup thanks for the welcome btw! take care...hoping to chat with you soon

Like everywhere, there are friendly people and unfriendly people. Even if you are here a long time, you will experience both types. That is the price of open editing. You will see people quote principles that are meant to defuse tension like assume good faith and be prepared to have your contributions mercilessly edited. You will soon pick up your own methods of survival. Regards. Bobblewik  (talk) 29 June 2005 13:13 (UTC)

opps forgot to put the 202.156.2.170 29 June 2005 13:39 (UTC) sign...anyway...yup...i see lots of people editing posts for the recognistion they will recieve and some are even trying to get into good books of admins in here to gain high ranking or whatsoever....anyway where are you from?you sound friendly!

are you there?165.21.154.114 3 July 2005 08:47 (UTC)

Yes. I am here. Sorry for not getting into a chat. To answer your question, I am British. Bobblewik  (talk) 3 July 2005 20:10 (UTC)

External Links vs. References

Bobblewik,

You recently updated a page I started (Big Stone Lake) with unit conversions (thank you) and by changing the "References" section title to "External links" (no thank you). I labeled it references because those were the sources of information I used to write the article; therefore they are formatted as references and properly called such. "External links" is the same thing as "further reading"; those items are ones that may be of interest to someone wanting to learn more, but not necessarily used as an information source for the article. Therefore this change was inappropriate, and I have changed it back. Please don't make that change again unless you confirm whether or not the items listed were actually used as references.

Thanks, Bantman 19:42, August 14, 2005 (UTC)

The change from 'References' to 'External links' was a minor point for me. My main motivation for editing that page relates to units. I take note of your comment and understand your point. I do not mind at all that you have changed it back. I will not promise to constrain myself to confirm future changes with other editors, but I will certainly be less inclined to make this change in future and will be more likely to think of the point you have made. I hope that is in-line with the spirit of what you ask.

I appreciate the constructive way in which you have brought this to my attention. Thanks. Keep up the good work. Bobblewik 18:06, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

Thanks. I know your "bread-and-butter" is units and so I suspected the other edit was an add-on. I'm happy to hear you will be more cognizant of the issue in the future; all I wanted to do was raise your awareness. And thank you for your kind words. See you around! - Bantman 18:52, August 15, 2005 (UTC)

Units in drip irrigation

Bobblewik, please read Talk:Emitter. Summary: the scientifically respectable metric units aren't the ones normally used in practice in metric countries. --Macrakis 20:14, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply in Talk:Emitter. I have answered there. But I also wanted to reply to a more general statement you made there:

As a matter of philosophy, Wikipedia is an international resource, written by international contributors and targetted at international readers.

I certainly agree with this statement. However, just because it's international doesn't mean that it should exclude points of view or usages that are restricted to some part of the world. Quite the contrary: the philosophy of NPOV encourages us to document a variety of points of view, but also admonishes us not to inject our own preferences about how things ought to be. PSI and kPa are both ways of talking about water pressure that are actually used in the world at large; lbf/in² is technically correct, and appropriately used in some technical contexts, but much much rarer. It is POV to deem it superior to PSI and systematically expunge that usage. --Macrakis 04:14, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

Bobblewik, I've looked over some of your other edits to understand your philosophy of units. If I'm not mistaken, it is to prefer SI units rather than other metric units, e.g. 1.20m rather than 120cm or 1200mm. This is a very sensible philosophy in some contexts -- notably physics articles -- but I do not think it makes sense in general. Different fields have different practices in their use of units in metric countries. For example, furniture designers in Europe use mm, whereas architects use cm. The size of plots of land (house lots, parks, cities) is usually expressed in hectares (hA) -- sometimes in ares for small lots --, not in m² or km², but floor space is always expressed in m². Beverages are usually measured in cl, not ml or l, while gasoline/petrol is measured in liters. Gasoline mileage of automobiles is expressed in liters/100 km, not in km/liter. etc. etc. --Macrakis 23:13, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

I'll throw my two cents worth in on a couple of points.

• Millimeters and centimeters are SI, even if you'd spell them -re. Though centimeters (and anything else using the prefixes which are not powers of 1000) are SI, they are of limited utility and should not be used where there use is not well established, or where it is clearly a holdover from old cgs usage
• It's okay to revert Bobblewik when he changes hectares. But use the proper symbol, ha, not hA.
• Centiliters/centilitres and deciliters/deciliters are totally foreign to much of the world, and decreasing in use in Europe. Use the universally understood milliliters or liters. Gene Nygaard 04:07, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

Thanks to all of you for your feedback and interesting points. I hope I do not miss anything when I respond as follows:

• just because it's international doesn't mean that it should exclude points of view or usages that are restricted to some part of the world. Quite the contrary: the philosophy of NPOV encourages us to document a variety of points of view.
  Good point. Inclusiveness is part of my motivation. Changing a single non-international format to a single international format increases inclusiveness. A change in the other direction decreases it. Additional supplementary formats optimised for particular languages and regions seem unnecessary if the international version is comprehensible. But I have objection in principle to supplementing an international format with a variety of additional non-international formats.

• your philosophy of units. If I'm not mistaken, it is to prefer SI units rather than other metric units
  That is a fair summary, although not as I would put it. My primary preference is for SI instead of non-SI. People seem to agree about the definition of SI but not about the definition of 'metric'. For example, since 1968, the SI authority has said that SI is the 'modern form of the metric system'. It may no longer be 'modern' and you could interpret their statement as meaning 'SI' and 'metric system' are synonyms. Other than the SI authority, there is no metric system authority. But that may be an esoteric point. Your summary should predict my edits. If somebody writes 2.2 quintals claiming the 100 kg version of quintal is 'metric', I would change it to 220 kg.

• SI units rather than other metric units, e.g. 1.20m rather than 120cm or 1200mm.
  Not quite. All three (1.2 m, 120 cm, 1200 mm) are correct SI and are consistent with my primary preference for SI. I have a secondary preference for powers of 1000 in unit formats. I think it can be traced to an ISO standard. The newer SI prefixes are consistent with that but not the older ones. As you might expect, I care more about my primary preference than my secondary preferences.

• Different fields have different practices in their use of units in metric countries.
  Indeed. I am glad you mention that. It is a popular misconception that the USA is 100% wrong and 'metric countries' are 100% right. Even 'metric countries' differ. Many have widespread non-compliances that would be criticised if it were America e.g. use of 'dunams' and 'quintals'.

• As far as hectares are concerned, this has been discussed at length and I don't think there is much new to say. Hectares are widespread when addressing certain audiences. In some cases either unit is used for the same area, sometimes a piece of text will include both. But they are not as comprehensible to the general public as SI units. If I understand Gene correctly, he will tolerate hectares for areas less than 10 km².

• For example, furniture designers in Europe use mm, whereas architects use cm...Beverages are usually measured in cl, not ml or l,
  Hmm. It is not true to say that 'European architects use cm' and drinks are in cl not ml. The European architects that I have encountered use mm and not cm. I expect for the same reason that I do. The suggestion that drinks throughout Europe are always in cl not ml is also unsupportable. I do notice that countries differ in this respect. Some countries use 'dl' and in others it would be regarded as incomprehensible. Perhaps you could name the European country you are thinking of.

• Gasoline mileage of automobiles is expressed in liters/100 km, not in km/liter.
  I know. This does not fit with the idea that multipliers should be on the numerator. SI expresses volume in cubic metres and length in metres and we could reduce it to units of area. Then we might suggest that fuel should really be in units of energy just like it is when you recharge an electric vehicle or fuel your home.

I 'touch' a lot of articles at a fairly high rate. So it is inevitable that lots of people see my edits. There are a lot of weird and wonderful formats used but there are a few people that try to raise the quality of unit formats throughout Wikipedia. I hope that number of people is increasing. Hopefully, responses such as 'hmm that edit seems odd to me' or 'that edit is wrong' are less common than satisfactory acceptance. Bobblewik 14:13, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

What is the issue with the NYC subway cars?

I noticed your RfC and went to take a look, and it seemed like a big mess. Have you tried to communicate with the anon contributor? What's been the result, if any? —Morven 04:36, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

I have not tried to communicate. I guess that as a matter of etiquette, I should have done that before mentioning it. Mea culpa. It was just one of those experiences that makes me sigh. My main priority, as I am sure you know is correct use of units. The has been no real opposition to correct use of units. So I am reluctant to enter into a debate with a user about issues that do not rank first on my priority list. I should let it go, as I did the first time I was reverted.

I suspect that the contributor is an enthusiast. The content is apparently valid but the format is bizarre and there is resistance to change if done by other editors. I remember a similar experience with Ford GT90. It is no big deal but I thought that the best way of addressing it would be to allow others to see what is going on. Bobblewik 11:19, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

See Talk:R142A (New York City Subway car). Should it be moved to Category talk page? Gene Nygaard 17:07, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

I did notice that you had written that. Thanks for joining/launching in the debate. Incidentally, you have a stray inches in the table rather than in.

As you suggest, it does not really belong at the individual car page. Perhaps the category page or maybe better at the talk page of a parent article such as New York City Subway. Bobblewik 17:13, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

an old edit to Holungen introduced an unknown Unicode character

Hello,

In this edit to Holungen, you introduced the Unicode character &#61664; which is an undefined "private use area" character. I have now edited it out, but I am curious what text processing program you used to produce such a character. -- Curps 10:32, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

Aha. I think this is what I did:

• copied the text into Microsoft Word.
• Add a comment ending with the characters '-->'
• For its own reasons, Microsoft word automatically changed those characters into something else.
• I copied the text back into the article
• I then noticed that the characters '-->' are not there so I added them.

This automatic change by Microsoft Word is an irritation because it happens frequently. I have not done anything about it. I suppose I can look it up in the autoreplace settings. Bobblewik 10:31, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

Aircraft specs policy

Several weeks ago, you voted in the WikiProject Aircraft Specifications Survey. One of the results of the survey was that the specifications for the various aircraft articles will now be displayed using a template. Ericg and I have just finished developing that template; a lengthier bulletin can be found on the WT:Air talkpage. Naturally, we will need to begin a drive to update the aircraft articles. However, several topics in the survey did reach establish consensus, and they need to be resolved before we implement the template. It is crticial that we make some conclusion, so that updating of the specs can resume as soon as possible. You can take part in the discussions here. Thanks, Ingoolemo ^talk 05:57, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

The Library, Trinity College

Hi, I've reverted the lowercase in Library as it plays a specific and histotical role in the College (and indeed, country). Dlyons493 Talk 20:09, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

If you are suggesting that it is a proper noun rather than a common noun, that is fine. Thanks for your feedback. I see that common nouns in other section headings are capitalised. Did you recapitalise those too for some reason? Bobblewik 23:00, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

ndash vs 'to'

In the Miles Davis article, why convert "(date) – (date)" to "(date) to (date)"? As I understand, ndash is the appropriate typographical mark to indicate a range of something. But "to" is more readable. - Shadowhillway 15:24, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

I prefer to avoid associating digits with anything that looks like a minus symbol. See:

• Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style_(dates_and_numbers)/archive26#Use_of_hyphens_and_dashes_in_number_ranges. A discussion.
• Manual of style says it is often preferable to write this out (for example, "4 to 7" or "four through seven") to avoid confusion with "four minus seven".
• US NIST guide to avoid possible confusion, this Guide strongly recommends that the word "to" be used to indicate a range of values for a quantity instead of a range dash (that is, a long hyphen) because the dash could be misinterpreted as a minus sign.

The reader should know that a date cannot be negative, but my style is to avoid dashes with any numbers. It is not a big deal. If you prefer another style, go ahead and use it. I won't mind. Thanks for mentioning it here. Keep up the good work. Bobblewik 15:44, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for those links. I hadn't even thought about consulting the MoS. In my editing so far I've just been using common sense and a general feeling for what WP should be from reading articles. - Shadowhillway 15:25, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

You are welcome. Best wishes. Bobblewik 15:41, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

My two cents. In the case of dates of lifespan (or some other things such as regnal dates) immediately following a person's name, that is one situation in which replacing an en dash with the word "to" is really stupid and should not be done. I agree with the replacement in the case of many measurements, but this particular usage is well established, conventional, and nearly impossible to confuse with a minus sign. I will revert such changes whenever I run across them. Gene Nygaard 15:48, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

This makes a whole lot of sense. Thanks for the tip. - Shadowhillway 22:23, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

Columbine High School massacre

Thank you for uniforming the units and links on this article, but I've restored the tables you changed. Basically, when u turned the tables into lists, it ended up distorting the continuation of the article. The tables were placed there as a sidenote to the reader since several people complained of not being able to keep the victims straight as they read, they're not ment to be lists with their own section, but sidenotes; the list of victims has its own article. Also, the location of pictures has caused a distortion in which half the list was off center than the rest. Most of all... it just made the article look ugly (no offense). Your other edits are still there, since I thought they were great and I appreciate them, but just wanted to let you know about the lists/tables. Thanks! PRueda29 18:58, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

The table edits were the lowest priority of my edits. In fact, I started editing the table partly to because I thought it would be better to replace the top style section with class="wikitable". I also thought the text was a bit small to read. Then I considered that mandating left-align is redundant because that is the default.

After various changes I just thought that a single column is hardly a table, it is a list. I then noticed that the layout was messed up and I did not want to get further involved. Sorry about that. I don't mind at all that you reverted it. The other edits were less dramatic, but actually I think they added more value. Thanks for the feedback. Keep up the good work. Bobblewik 19:09, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

Duplicate pages

We already have pages on resistor and capacitor. I suggest you merge this page into those. Also I think circuit design is too general a title for asingle article.--Light current 01:02, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

When you say "... this page ...", what page do you mean? Bobblewik 01:05, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

Circuit design--Light current 01:06, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

Oh I see. Well, I did not create the article title or the content. I merely did a few changes to format such as changing the title from word case (Circuit Design) to sentence case (Circuit design). These format changes could apply to any article and do not require knowledge of the subject matter.

I would prefer not to get involved further. Your suggestions seem reasonable to me. Feel free to do whatever you think is best. I appreciate you bringing these issues to my attention. Bobblewik 01:22, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

Please don't create double redirects

They don't work. A redirect that points to another redirect will only take you as far as the second redir, not to the article. There are several reasons for this, one is to prevent loops, another is for performance, another is just to encourage tidiness. Anyway, that's the way the software works, and I don't think there's any proposal to change it.

Three redirects already pointed to watt electrical, and were broken by your making it into a redirect, affecting a long list of articles that linked to them. So before making an existing page into a redirect, please check for redirects that already point to it, and change them to point to the new target. You don't need to change the articles, just the existing redirects. Then no links will be broken. I've fixed these ones. TIA. Andrewa 06:24, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

I know that double redirects should be fixed. For some reason I did not fix them in that case. Mea culpa. Sorry. Thanks for fixing them.

Incidentally, there a big cleanup and reorganisation of units of measurement articles. This is being discussed at Talk:Units of measurement. The changes to watt subarticles is part of that. SI unit (candela, watt, farad, seconds etc) articles explain their own multiples (microwatt, milliwatt, kilowatt, gigawatt etc). However, Megawatt is unique amonst Category:Units of power in having its own article. I tried to create a redirect but was reverted. If you have an opinion on the cleanup/reorganisation or just on Megawatt, I would be happy if you would share it in Talk:Units of measurement.

Thanks again for fixing my oversight. Regards Bobblewik 11:38, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Sorry if I was terse above! Lots of issues here. The discussion on redirects seems to now be at Talk:Units of measurement/Format of articles about units, so I've joined in there. Andrewa 14:04, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

Redirects to Orders of magnitude (area)?

Where was this discussed? Why did you redirect all pages? -- User:Docu

See: Talk:Units_of_measurement/Format_of_articles_about_units. Search for '17:42, 11 September 2005'. Bobblewik 13:20, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

The discussion there seems a bit vague to me. Not even sure if it's about the order of magnitude pages. For previous discussion, you may want to look at Talk:Orders of magnitude. -- User:Docu

If you want to raise the matter again, feel free. Simply reverting what I do feels like a slap in the face. Bobblewik 13:45, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

Please excuse if you felt so, but I did request your comment on the matter, besides, redirecting and removing the pages built by others may seem the same to them. -- User:Docu

I will survive. I will join you in open discussion if you want the people that spoke about it last time to clarify their statements. Bobblewik 13:55, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

(back to margin)Yes, Bobblewik needs to be aware that there is little clear consensus for anything in those discussions—and a certain wait-and-see attitude among those willing to consider the changes. There is ongoing discussion, with many areas not really agreed upon. You, Docu, should jump in with whatevery you have to say about it. It is an ongoing process; as various attempts at reorganization are attempted, there are often new little problems which crop up. Eventually it will probably sort itself all out.

Sometimes we need to push the envelope in order to get something accomplished. But when you know :that you are soing so, some reverts should be expected and taken in stride. Gene Nygaard 14:20, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

Units in two chemistry articles

Hi. Is there a reason for using nanometers instead of angstrem in molecule and intercalation (chemistry)? (which I noticed you changed) In the case of molecule I guess it's quite arbitrary, but in the case of intercalation I think angstrems are more popular - people in molecular biology and chemistry are rather used to angstrems. All in all, I'm for changing everything to SI, although I don't see it as a big concern, so don't take this the wrong way :) Karol 17:38, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

I agree with you that usage is somewhat arbitrary and varies by domain. I think it varies by region too. SI terms are more than valid and commonplace in science, they are universally comprehensible to scientists and specifically encouraged by scientific publications. In any case, Wikipedia is not a specialist publication limited to biologists or chemists. It is a reference source specifically intended to cross many domains and regions. Thus the universally accessible term 'nanometre' is better than a term such as 'angstrom'. That is how I see it anyway. Bobblewik 13:05, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

Hi Bobblewik. Reference texts very often limit themselves to listing the field-specific units alone, with many authors being very reluctant to the SI unit "globalization". A suggestion: whenever you include the SI unit, it'd be both useful and educational if you left the field-specific unit enclosed in a parentheses. Thanks and regards.--Unconcerned 19:23, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

Liquefied natural gas

Bobble, when you redid the Liquefied natural gas table you fliped the Exporters and Importers, making the big users the exporters and the small gas-rich countries the importers. Now why would a gas rich country like Qatar want to import natural gas? And Japan, which doesn't have any of its own, how can it be a large exporter? Be more careful please, and you'll get a cookie. WikiDon 03:41, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

Oops. Mea culpa. Thanks to Sartorius for correcting that. And thanks to you for bringing it to my attention. I will indeed try to be more careful. Bobblewik 12:56, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Mini Merger

It seems strange that you would tag the Mini article for merging and not comment on why you think it should be done. Also shouldn't the merge tag be added to both articles involved? Please comment on why you think this is an appropriate merge. Thanks. --Martyman-(talk) 21:03, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

metrics conversion on carbine

i appreciate your efforts on unit standardization. however, your edit comment is disingenuous. i must insist that if you are going to change capitalization and formatting, that you include it in your edit comment. i would ideally prefer you make two edits, so that i can revert one if need be. please remember that there is no "policy" on style in the wikipedia -- only guidelines. you have no substantive reason to change the things that you did which weren't unit related. be further advised that i, at least, watch pages i edit, and such quibbling over format is not looked upon as insignificant. if you wish to change style, leave a note on the talk page. xoxo, Avriette 03:28, July 16, 2005 (UTC)

Hmm. I thought I had responded to this a while back. Somehow it got lost. Anyway here is my response:

My edit comment is not intended to be disingenuous. My usual motivation for editing relates to units and my summary states that. I sometimes make edits while I am there that are incidental and unremarkable to me.

I was not aware that sentence case headings are seen as controversial. Feel free to format it the way you prefer. And thanks for the positive comments about units, it is good to read things like that. Bobblewik  (talk) 18:24, 16 July 2005 (UTC)

125 mm Smoothbore Rounds

Bobblewik, normally your changes are welcome, however when you made substantial changes to the page 125 mm Smoothbore Rounds you managed to do 3 things

• Remove the bolding (I'm assuming deliberately) on the tables of data (I am trying to follow the standard on Wikipedia:WikiProject_Aircraft/page_content for data tables). Which I have used for weapons pages - AT-3 Sagger SS.11 SS.10 Entac .
• Break the quick reference http links in the data tables.
• Leave several ' marks floating in the page.

The units tidy up however, was appreciated.

Keep up the good work (with perhaps a little more care).

Regards Megapixie 07:39, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

In fact - futher reviewing some of your edits, there appears to be a problem with the way your algorithm/script handles data tables - it also slightly screwed up Browning Model 1917 machine gun (check the brackets on the last line in the data table) could you please review your script.

Thanks Megapixie 07:56, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

Also Anti-tank rifle wz.35 seems to have a hyphen conversion problem which damaged to date year link.

Megapixie 08:16, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for your feedback. Mea culpa. I don't use a bot. All edits are manual but I sometimes use editing tools (e.g. search and replace in a Word processor). So I am responsible for it all, good or not so good. My main motivation is almost always units. I sometimes do incidental things while I am there that I think are improvements, but they are rarely as important to me as the units.

As far as the last line in Browning Model 1917 machine gun is concerned, I don't see the error that you see. I changed it to sentence case and added the metric weight in brackets. I also took the qualifying text out of brackets.

As far as Anti-tank rifle wz.35 is concerned, what I did there was convert a hyphen to the word 'to'. I prefer the word 'to' for ranges because it does not get confused with a minus. That is more important in units than dates. In this case, my manual editing wrote over one of the square brackets by mistake.

As far as the Wikipedia:WikiProject_Aircraft/page_content standard is concerned, I think you are doing the right thing to follow the standard. I happen to think the page is improved by a removal of bolding so that is why I did it. But it is not a big deal for me. I appreciate the constructive manner in which you have given me feedback. Unfortunately, as a human rather than a bot, I cannot reprogram myself to avoid errors but I will try to take more care. Thanks for mentioning it. Feel free to put the articles the way you want, including reverting any of my edits.

Incidentally, that standard is being updated and bold may not be a part of the new standard. We would welcome your thoughts at: Wikipedia:WikiProject Aircraft/Specifications survey. Bobblewik 09:57, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

are you a bot?

Hello. Could I ask you whether you are using a bot or some other form of automated means for your conversions? Just out of interest. 80.255 00:19, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

Hi. I am not now, nor have I ever been, a bot and no bot has acted on my behalf. I do not know how to program or control a bot. All my edits are manual. I frequently make use of Google converter to automate the conversion of the values which I then type into copy. Regards Bobblewik 17:59, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

Lightning-fast edits

I was amused that you edited USS Shasta (AE-33) only six minutes after I posted the article. (You added a conversion of knots to km/h.) You must run some kind of script that monitors all new postings for non-metric units. Thanks for the edit, by the way. I would have put it in the article but I didn't know the conversion factor. ♠ Regards, DanMS 23:21, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

I don't run a script. All my work involves my fingers on the keyboard. Land, sea and air vehicle articles usually contain units so if I see one in the 'Recent changes' list, I may check it.

As far as conversion is concerned, I already know the conversion of 20 knots. But in many cases I use the amazingly easy Google converter. For example, just look at how easy it is to convert: 26 ft 4 in and 20 knots in km/h.

Bobblewik 23:36, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

Wow! That is VERY cool! I didn't know that existed. Thanks for the tip. From now on I will use that instead of calling up Start>>All Program>>Accessories>>Calculator and punching in the numbers. Google kicks a**! ♠ DanMS 03:14, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

Pune

Thank you for your contribution at Pune. Please keep it up!!! - P R A D E E P Somani (talk) Feel free to send me e-mail.

West Coast Range

Brakects at date. Good point made. I cant even remember putting them in! Thanks for your note on this! vcxlor 13:22, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

You are welcome. You didn't add the links, other users did. Keep up the good work. Bobblewik 15:09, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Naseeruddin Shah

Hi, on the above article, u removed the links for distinct years with the edit summary, Reduce overlinking: dates need linking for preferences to work but solitary years and solitary months do not have preferences so don't need linking. However the links are not for the proper working of preferences alone; for example, a solitary year when clicked would lead me to the page of that year which mentions the most important happenings in that year. This gives the reader the choice to understand the temporal context under which those happenings occurred. regards, --Gurubrahma 16:39, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Indeed, the user has that choice. But I don't think that Wikipedia readers are unsatisfied in that urge. Nor do I think links to years are provided for that reason. They almost certainly exist because of a misunderstanding of date preferences.

For example, Americans like to see April 12, 1981 and Brits like to see 12 April 1981. If square brackets are added, the Wikipedia software amends the format so that the sequence matches that chosen by the reader in the preference settings. It should not really be called a 'link' at all, the actual 'link' to the article is merely a secondary effect.

Date elements that are unambiguous across cultures (such as a year on its own: 1981) do not involve date preferences and so do not need the square brackets for reformatting. It is explained (not very well) at: Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(dates_and_numbers)#Date_formatting and Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(links)#Internal_links

This issue is widely misunderstood. Lots of dates get linked on Wikipedia and some people think that means *all* must be linked. However, this is not supported in any Wikipedia guidance. There is no assertion that reader access to date articles is insufficiently satisfied.

I think linking of solitary-years and solitary-months is overlinking. If that is what people want, it is fine by me but I think it has just become one of the things that editors do without thinking too much.

The issue is discussed from time to time. For example at: Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style_(dates_and_numbers)#Dates_linking_convention_currently_ludicrous. Anyway, if you want the links to solitary years in the article, feel free to put them back. Although you might wish to consider whether an article needs more than one link to the same article. Thanks for bringing this here. Bobblewik 16:56, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Linking

So I'm still not clear what software you use to do these conversions. I asked in #google_units that you include a link to a short description in the edit summary (like "Units, maybe using Google converter" that is a link to User:Bobblewik#Units or something), but doesn't look like you have.

Anyway, I started writing some javascript to do automatic unit fixing, and then remembered yours, and don't want to waste my time writing something that you've already written. Is it anything I could use? — Omegatron 01:20, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

For a while, I did include a link to a section as you suggested. Then I gave up.

Google calculator really is simpler and more powerful than any converter I have seen. It is also universally available. You don't have to do anything special with google to get it to convert. Just do a 'search'. For example do a search for '5 feet' and see what happens. Try it. Once you have done that, I will tell you more about what it can do. Bobblewik 09:34, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I have used Google calculator for a lot of things. Do you use any software tools for your unit formatting? I am working on a script to do it automatically. Here is an example of what it does: [1] — Omegatron 03:51, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

Google is the only software tool I use for unit conversion. I don't use any software tool for unit formatting.

I looked at your page and it seems interesting. The reformatting of units in parentheses into symbolic form may be suitable for automation:

• Thus 10 miles (16 kilometres) becomes 10 miles (16 km)

Bobblewik 11:23, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

Ok. I haven't written anything for that but maybe it would be good to do when I am happy with these. — Omegatron 18:31, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Bot

You know... I thought you were a bot at first since I keep seeing "units, possibly using google converter" in page historys. Guess that proves your work is widespread! All I can say is keep up the good work... and perhaps you should get someone to make a BobbleBot? ;-) Deskana 21:22, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Many thanks for the positive feedback. It makes it worthwhile to read that. I would like it if somebody would use automation to help. But I am not able to do it. Regards. 22:10, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

Aircraft Parking

It was probably a mistake to pick that out. The standard airliner parking bay allows for a wingspan of 200' 6" as I understand it (the E350 is 200' 5" wingspan). It would fit in the general rule of "measurements for air, rail and sea transport". Rich Farmbrough 11:42, 31 October 2005 (UTC) Oh right, your change is good. Rich Farmbrough 11:43, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

There is no general rule exempting air transport. Exemptions are specific. There are legal documents that include the requirement for aircraft altitude to be in feet. But no legal document (as far as I know) requires aircraft parking bays to be described in feet.

In any case, such an exemption is unnecessary. The description of an aircraft parking bay in feet and inches is no more remarkable than the description of a bed in feet and inches without reference to metric units. Both are entirely legal. In fact, the article mentions this situation when it says:
Thus, a fence panel sold as "6 foot by 6 foot" will continue to be legal after 2009 but a pole sold as "50 pence per linear foot" is illegal.
It is odd to mention the legal status of something as specific as aircraft parking bays, when something as mundane as furniture has the same status.

Yes I agree. And it's probably not the A350 anyway... However it's not merely a description, I believe it's governed by an international agreement, because of the required interoperability of aircraft and airports, imagine if the parking space was two inches too narrow... And the reason I put it in was that Airbus had (as I recollect) gone to within a very small distance (1 inch?) of the maximum size. But it probably would be better with a source, and in a different article.

Interesting. I really would like to see a source and the details of what exactly is mandated. Bobblewik 15:02, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

PS this page is in Category:Units of power.....

Aha. Thanks for that. It is because a discussion elsewhere on the page happened to mention it and link to it. I have removed the link. Bobblewik 14:38, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

Superscripts in HTML

It's been interesting reading your talk page just now; I've learned a lot. I appreciate your dedication to consistency and reason.

I'm writing because of the changes you just made to Neman River. You changed the superscripts from, for example, km&sup2; to km². Of course I agree the latter looks and reads much better, but I understand the special character to be far less consistent across browsers and platforms than the HTML entity; are you sure it's as accessible? I hope you're right, and I hope you've considered this.

Also, I've done a bunch of work on the Infoboxes for rivers and protected areas, and I'd welcome any suggestions from you about how to better represent units in the instructions.

Thanks for your good work, —Papayoung ☯ 16:29, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

I am not sure it is as accessible and that does worry me. Somebody that usually knows about these technical matters does it and I recently started copying them. As part of my consideration of this, I asked a question a couple of days ago at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style#Superscript_and_other_symbols. I would be happy if you could join in the discussion there.

As far as the templates are concerned, I have made a comment there. I would also recommend sentence case for headings as per Manual of Style (Nearest City -> Nearest city). And thanks for the positive feedback, that makes me feel good about the effort I put in. Keep up the good work. Bobblewik 11:45, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Using unicode characters directly in the text is fine. See 1 and 2 and 3.

I think we should have an option to view the edit window in either format (plain displayed unicode or HTML entities) on a per-page basis. I think I shall fill out a feature request... — Omegatron 19:14, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks. I don't understand all of the technical talk. I take it that a superscript like: km² is unicode. My main concern is accessibility. If the solution works for people using Lynx and JAWS, perhaps that is enough. Bobblewik 09:24, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

reply

I would love to fix those errors, but it would probably find too many false positives, I'll keep an eye out for them though as there don't seem to be too man left now. thanks [23:06, 21 November 2005 Bluemoose]

Thanks. Presumably anything between equal signs (==) can be regarded as a section heading. So I can't see how false positives would occur. Although I have no experience of bots. I appreciate you considering it anyway. Thanks. Bobblewik 09:42, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

Follow up: Bug report

I am attempting to organise WP:BUG. You filed a bug report concerning your watchlist, noting that it only showed edits less than a month old. May I ask, does the problem persist? -- Ec5618 13:32, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, the problem persists. It is frustrating.

It is easy to replicate. Find any article that has not been edited in the last month e.g. Malbec, Wretham, Wretton. Add them to your watchlist. They appear in 'display and edit the complete list' but not in 'Show all'. Thanks for investigating this, I appreciate it. bobblewik 16:53, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Film edits and external links

Bobblewik, good job on your spacing work on some of the film pages, but please be careful about uncapitalizing external links, as you did for the Fuji link on Film stock. When the caps are in the file name for .jsp and similar file extensions, as that one was, uncapitalizing the link makes the link invalid. I've changed this part of your edit back; please make a note of it for future editing work. Thanks! Girolamo Savonarola 20:04, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for catching that. I will indeed make a note of that for future. Thanks again. bobblewik 20:07, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

How to get stats

1. Look at the most linked page.

I presume you mean do 'What links here'. That shows 500 per page. It is useful for some articles. But it gets rather tedious after about 5000 and so is not good for checking solitary year articles.

Here and here. Rich Farmbrough 23:58 24 March 2006 (UTC).

Excellent. Thanks. bobblewik 00:00, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

2. Run a scan of a database dump using perl or Bluemoose's tool.

I have never done a database dump. I suppose I should try to work out how to do it.

Download from here. Rich Farmbrough 23:58 24 March 2006 (UTC).

3. Use AWB to build a "what links here" list.

Yes, when I had AWB permission, that is how I did it.

Thanks for the suggestions.

Incidentally did you know you don't have a working email link? Rich Farmbrough 21:19 24 March 2006 (UTC).

Ah it is me then. I did enter an address. When I try to send to people, I get an error message 'No send address'. I thought that applied to the other party. I have now worked it out. It should work now, but I don't check that address unless prompted.

I will check it later today or tomorrow since you mentioned it. But normally if anyone wants to email me, they will have to tell me first. bobblewik 21:52, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

I sent 2 e-mails to you today, but both got bounced. – Quadell ^{(talk) (bounties)} 21:58, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Bobblewik lurks in a ten-story fortress of solitude built solely from year links he's removed from Wikipedia. So it's no wonder he's hard to get ahold of. --Cyde Weys 22:01, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Sorry about the bounced email. I had not checked the account for a long time. It was over the limit and was refusing incoming mail. I have cleared it out now. Feel free to try again. bobblewik 23:11, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Canon EF lenses

Hello, I see you've edited the Canon lenses to update the spacing between the focal length and 'mm'. However, this is not correct, as these are the official lens names Canon give to their lenses and do not have spaces in them as you can see in these examples here (UK) and here (USA). Whether Canon should use a space is another matter, the fact remains they have not; would you please revert or edit the Canon lens pages back to their originals - thanks.

Hi, thanks for your feedback. Is the measurement being used as a description of a characteristic or is the absence of a space an inherent/essential part of the identity? I looked around for other examples but I only found 9 mm Luger Parabellum. It isn't a big deal though. I wonder what other people think. bobblewik 18:28, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Hi again, on examples such as Canon_EF_70-200mm_lens you have moved the article to Canon_EF_70-200_mm_lens. These articles are all about the products that Canon offer, whose actual names (as Canon label and sell them) contain no spaces. Therefore, the articles should all be without spaces (otherwise I guess you could say they're just not canon... *sigh*). As incompatible with SI units as the names may be, and as commendable as going through Wikipedia and changing all SI units is, I feel strongly that Wikipedia cannot (in these instances) just change the name of products as it is quite simply not correct. SynergyBlades 23:29, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

OK. Actually, SI does not mandate a space, although the SI authority uses a space in publications. I think it is a recommendation in ISO 31. I agree with you that names should not be changed. I just was not certain as to whether the space was really part of the name or just the writing style.

You have convinced me. I will revert them, although I can't promise to do it immediately. Feel free to revert them yourself or ping me again after a few weeks. Thanks for the discussionbobblewik 07:22, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Just thought I'd remind you as it's been a couple of weeks or so now. SynergyBlades 13:07, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Done. Thanks for the reminder. Thanks also to User:Rich Farmbrough for helping. bobblewik 15:49, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

THX

Hey, I'll thank you for the effort. If you can make my page look better, that's a better grade for me! Thanks!--Jwilson4 18:49, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

You are very welcome. I appreciate the positive feedback. Keep up the good work. bobblewik 18:53, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

km v kms

Without in any way wishing to detract from your contributions on the subject of metric abbreviations, I would suggest that km if used as an adjective is correct as in a "30 km walk", but if used as a noun it should be "kms" as in "the distance from Athens to Thessaloniki is 505 kms." harfo32 23.57 Eastern European Time, 18 April 2006

I appreciate your feedback. The Wikipedia Manual of style says Do not append an s for plurals of unit abbreviations. Similarly, the official SI authority says: [www1.bipm.org/utils/en/pdf/si-brochure.pdf Unit symbols are unaltered in the plural.] Those seem reasonable sources to me. If you want to see the 's', you could write "kilometres" in full.

But don't take my word for it. Feel free to raise the issue in Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers). I have never heard of a noun/adjective distinction but people there might have. I am sure people will respond to that comment about style. bobblewik 21:17, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Oh, I'll take your word for it! I happily accept your sources - it is not an issue I wish to change the world over! harfo32

Thanks. I appreciate the discussion. bobblewik 20:14, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

mi²

This must be the most barbaric construction since the unlamented dm³. Can you point me at the relevant discussion? Mr Stephen 17:33, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

I don't know where this was discussed. I just saw the term 'mi' and 'mi²' in widespread use on Wikipedia. For example:

• U.S. City articles
• Category:States of the United States articles
• Category:Interstate Highway System articles

It looks a little odd to me too. If you think 'mile²' or another form is better, I might be inclined to agree. bobblewik 17:58, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, that explains why I couldn't find it! I'll look at the articles you suggest. My memory of these US city articles is that they look as if they were all created by reformatting a census (or similar) database, so there may be less separate use of mi² than first appears. Mr Stephen 18:34, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

You are welcome. As I am sure you know, one of the problems with old units is that there are no official symbols. It might be worth discussing this topic at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers). I am sure people there will be interested. bobblewik 18:37, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Sunday Times Golden Globe Race / Friday

Hi, I see you unlinked Friday in Sunday Times Golden Globe Race. Fair point normally, except that I've linked to Friday because there is a specific superstition about sailing on a Friday which is relevant to the sentence in which it is used, so this link actually adds relevant information to the article. So, if you don't object, I'll re-link it, and add a comment in the page source to explain this. — Johan the Ghost _seance 12:33, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Aircraft infobox consensus

I started a discussion on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Aircraft to reach consensus on the non-specs infobox issue. Please voice your opinion! - Emt147 ^Burninate! 17:59, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

SCOTW

File:Chemistry-stub.png

You contributed to the Science Collaboration of the Week that has just ended its run: Orion Nebula - See improvements Thanks, and let's keep improving it so it may become a Featured Article!

Deryck C. 11:00, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Alpha Phi Alpha

thank you for taking the take to update the dates in this article to wiki standards. have a great weekend. Ccson April 28, 2006.

nucmed

What's up with this change to the nuclear medicine article, why did you add those spaces? --Andrel 19:02, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

That was an error. I have reverted it. Thanks for letting me know. bobblewik 19:04, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

Abolitionism

Your changes to Abolitionism simply reverted some of my attempts to initiate wikification as I understand it. The page referred to at WP:DATE is less than clear on this, and I can see no guidance which indicates the reversion of this linking.

I'm more than happy to go by the agreed style, of course, but I can't find any clarity here. I'd be grateful if you would explain your reasons. Many thanks! -- Agendum 22:06, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

It says:

• If the date does not contain a day and a month, date preferences will not work, and square brackets will not respond to your readers' auto-formatting preferences. So unless there is a special relevance of the date link, there is no need to link it. This is an important point: simple months, years, decades and centuries should only be linked if there is a strong reason for doing so. See Wikipedia:Make only links relevant to the context for the reasons that it's usually undesirable to insert low-value chronological links; see also Wikipedia:Manual of Style (links)#Internal links.

• year only. So 1974 → 1974. Generally, do not link unless they will clearly help the reader to understand the topic.
• month only. So April → April. Generally, do not link.
• century. So 20th century → 20th century. Generally, do not link.

I tried to bring the article into line with that guidance.

If you look at the top of your page, you will see 'my preferences'. You can choose to 'January 15' or '15 January'. Thus the date in 'Abolitionism' that is written as [[March 25]] [[1807]] will appear for some readers as '25 March 1807'. That is why people are supposed to put square brackets round the date. It is not because readers need to read the March 25 article to understand abolition in the way that they might need to read the Slavery Abolition Act article. Unfortunately, the mechanism for making preferences work happens to look the same as the mechanism for hyperlinks.

If you think all the links to year articles are important, just revert what I did. I don't mind. Thanks for raising it. It looks like you are helping to make a great article, keep up the good work. bobblewik 09:51, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Unites in the Granville Article

I think you were a little overzealous editing the "8mm" units in the Granville Street article. The units in question were a part of a quotation, and hence cannot be changed, because this is tantamount to tampering with something someone has said. Please pay more attention to the text you are editing. -NeoThe1 08:13, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes you are right. Thank you for the correction. I appreciate that. bobblewik 11:00, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Date delinking

Several of the date links you removed from Epaminondas did in fact lead to date articles with relevant information, and I have relinked them (I may relink more once I go through and add some information that I was surprised to find missing from other date articles). I recognize that you're doing good work, but please do take care to distinguish between useful and superfluous links. If a number of events in an article occur in a given year, it may be worth checking the date article to see if there is relevant context there. --Robth^Talk 17:37, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

OK. Feel free to put them all back if that is what you think is best. I do note content and avoid many articles on the basis of the content. I appreciate your feedback keep up the good work. Thanks. bobblewik 17:50, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Bobblewik, I noticed you have edited several articles in this way. I too am a date delinker; except in special circumstances and to help the formatting of complete dates, they should not be linked. This is, as you know official policy, but I'm not sure if you know there has been some discussion on this and the policy now allows the use of linking years: "There is less agreement about links to years. Some editors believe that links to years are generally useful to establish context for the article. Others believe that links to years are rarely useful to the reader. Some advocate linking to a more specific article about that year, for example 2006". While I firmly agree with your policy (there must be millions of superfluous year links out there still!), I wanted to point this out. My suggestion is that WP:CONTEXT is a better justification for removing superfluous links of any kind, including date links. Anyway, keep up the good work, Guinnog 17:58, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Bobblewik, please stop delinking dates. You chose not to participate in the discussion about delinking dates, but the result went against you - there was a general consensus that mass-delinking is not appropriate, even from supporters of delinking in general. I've rollbacked some now and will do the rest when I'm not running late for a job interview. This is a complete violation of Quadell's remedy, which you signed, and I really don't know what to do anymore. Do I have to propose arbitration to stop you from making these edits? Ambi 22:44, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Your (Ambi) comment seems bizarre to me. You were the only one out of four editors that failed to acccept Quadell's remedy. Having failed to accept it, you say others should be bound by it.

Furthermore, two of the four editors are not editing any more so it is just you and me. A bilateral remedy cannot work with only one side accepting constraints. I still think the remedy is worth accepting and if you now do, that is progress. In the interests of conflict resolution, are you willing to sign Quadell's remedy? bobblewik 18:01, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

I signed the portion of the statement that said I'd accept any consensus on the matter, as did you, yet you're making edits that weren't even supported by quite a few of the anti-date-linking folks. I'd not needed to have anything to do with date links since that agreement was signed until you restarted your against-consensus automated edits, in violation of a portion of Quadell's remedy that you had actually signed. Please just stop. You made a bunch more this morning which I won't revert in the interests of good faith, but if it starts again tomorrow morning I'll begin drafting an arbitration request. Ambi 01:19, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

You said: I signed the portion...

Quadell addressed lack of full acceptance: If A&T were to sign points 1, 2, and 3, and B&Q were to sign 1, 2, and 4, then neither side will have made any concessions, and we'll be back where we started: at an impasse. I'm trying to unblock this logjam, but it will take effort on all of our parts. I'm hopeful.

You will get what you want if you sign. I am hopeful that you will agree to accept Quadell's remedy, as Quadell was. bobblewik 19:00, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Bobblewik: My personal recommendation to you would be to completely stop delinking years prior to 1900, possibly even those prior to 1970 (post-1970 or so being the most heavily-overlinked).

Specifically, i'd suggest changing the post-1970 years to specifics if they exist, and delinking if they dont. eg in your most recent batch, change the link to 2002 in aviation, instead of delinking 2002.

Perhaps, concentrate on delinking only dates that appear in tables (like long discographies, where the excess linking is most vexing), and similar. As opposed to links within article prose.

Or, ignore years and concentrate on delinking weekdays and solitary months, for which there IS a consensus to delink almost all occurances.

I fully agree with you that the excess year links are annoying, but less-so than having to re-argue the point each time. (and ambi is right, you are violating point#3 of Quadell/remedy by resumming mass-delinkings).

There are simply more important and less-contentious things you could be doing with the power of automation (like trans-wiktionary moves), than delinking eg 1683. I hope all this helps. :) -Quiddity 20:22, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your feedback. I appreciate it. Would you encourage Ambi to accept Quadell's remedy as a means of conflict resolution? bobblewik 20:42, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

I've never sought out conflict on this issue. If you concentrate on delinking weekdays and solitary months (and don't go back to this in a month's time), and don't encourage anyone else to start up in your place, there's nothing to revert, and thus no need for #4 at all. I simply refrain from signing #4 in the event that, like this week, you go back on your word and ignore the rest of the remedy. Ambi 00:56, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

I know you don't seek conflict, nobody likes conflict. I note that your offer about weekdays and solitary months, thanks.

As you suggest, Quadell's remedy cannot work if people do not accept it in full. Your fear became self fulfilling. You did not accept it because you feared it would fail through non-acceptance. It failed because you did not accept it.

Please trust Quadell, Talrias, Bobblewik, SlimVirgin, Quiddity, Farmbrough and any other well wishers that it can work. If you accept it, we can bring it to life again. It will end the conflict. bobblewik 17:44, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

I'll sign it on the caveat that it is void if anyone starts making mass edits again. How would that be? Rebecca 04:27, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

If we both start add caveats, we will go backwards, not forwards.

It does not require you to trust others. It merely requires you to accept its complaint mechanism. I would be delighted if you will join the existing signatories and sign Quadell's remedy. bobblewik 07:27, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Ambi: What you said, is indeed the only way it could work. So yes, sign it. It's null if one party breaks it (with intent) first. :) -Quiddity 07:52, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

I notice that Ambi has added a signature with a caveat. The caveat negates the commitment. That won't work. Let us be clear, Point 4 is all about constraints following an allegation of a breach. If an allegation of a breach voids Point 4, then the remedy must vanish in a puff of circular logic. We are so close. Ambi, if you can accept Point 4 without voiding it, that will be very welcome and Quadell's remedy can work. bobblewik 15:35, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Bugatti Veyron

The unit conversions in this article don't add up. Could you check it out? Haukur 19:16, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

I have tried my best. It still needs more attention. Hope that helps a bit. Keep your eye on me please. bobblewik 19:04, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

template/category

Category:Articles_requiring_unit_conversion and {{Unit-conv}} What do you think? Rich Farmbrough 15:46 11 May 2006 (UTC).

A very good idea. Do you think the scope should include units that need attention (e.g. see Bugatti Veyron section above). bobblewik 17:49, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Which is simpler - one or two templates/cats. I guess one, because if you can fix one type of problem you can fix either. So yes, perhaps Category:Articles_requiring_unit_conversion_or_attention and {{Unit-attn}}? Rich Farmbrough 21:28 11 May 2006 (UTC).

I agree with you that one is better. Concise names are better but I will leave that decision up to you. Thanks for thinking of it. bobblewik 13:08, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Category:Articles_requiring_unit_attention and {{Unit-attn}} it is. Rich Farmbrough 21:28 11 May 2006 (UTC).

Units

I note that the guideline for spaces in units asks for non-breaking spaces - if you're adding space en masses, these should probably be non-breaking spaces. —Whouk (talk) 12:47, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I probably should. If I am making one improvement, I should probably make two improvements. However, it is not entirely straightforward. I would be delighted if others wanted to debate/assist me. bobblewik 12:53, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

Units

Hi! I noticed that you made many edits to several pages putting a space between the number and the unit (IE: 8 mm as opposed to 8mm), is this part of an official Wikipedia Style Sheet? Generally, especially in regard to film formats, in technical publications you will see no space 35mm is more commonly used than 35 mm. Just wondering if this is an official style sheet rule that I should be aware of when editing on Wikipedia. LACameraman 05:07, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

I appreciate your response, thanks so much, I will certainly follow this in the future. LACameraman 00:21, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Arlington

What did you do to my page!?!?!?!?! It was perfect until you messed it up! Now I have to start all over! Don't even touch the Arlington, Washington page! Its mine! (Unsigned comment by User:Alexvincent2)

I changed one character: 'lbs' to 'lb', in accordance with WP:MOSNUM. See: Wikipedia:Ownership of articles and please try to be more polite. bobblewik 07:05, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Year delinking

I just wanted to let you know that I think simply referencing WP:DATE in your edit summaries can be misleading (implying that such links are forbidden when WP:MOS-L clearly states that the linking of years is a judgement call based on context). This is not a black and white issue that can be changed in a bot-like fashion: until your campaign against them, most history featured articles included a few year links. — Laura Scudder ☎ 23:56, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

I appreciate your feedback. A few year links would be fine by me if we could get rid of the unnecessary ones. I have no objections to what you did. bobblewik 15:26, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

Re: Date delinking script

Thank you for pointing out your date delinking script on User_talk:Centrx#Manual of style. I inserted the text you posted there in monobook.js, but I see no new tab when editing a page in Firefox or Internet Explorer. - Centrx 21:14, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

Units in image names

Hello again. Looks like a units update tripped over a mm in an image name. You might want to update the script to ignore units in image names.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=ADEN_cannon&diff=51713155&oldid=38794180

Keep up the good work Megapixie 01:07, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Aha. Thank you for catching that. I am aware of the problem and do always visual check. I usually catch them but that one slipped through. It had not occured to me that I might update the script (User:Bobblewik/monobook.js/unitformatter.js). Now that I think about it, I have an idea of how the function might work, but it is at the limits of my ability. If I can get hold of a script expert, I will discuss the problem. Thanks. bobblewik 16:07, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

The dates tab is great!

Hi,

thank you very much for the date tool! I've tried it on a couple of articles and I'm enthusiastic. A real time saver. Incidentally, I'm wondering what does "dontcountme=s" do :-). May I also use your unitformatter? --Gennaro Prota ^(talk) 18:51, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Hi, I replied on my talk page (thought to leave you a notice, just in case you didn't see the disclaimer at the top) --Gennaro Prota^•Talk 19:46, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Yes I am aware of those 'disclaimer' guidelines and usually follow them myself. But on this occasion I didn't. Thanks. I will watch your talk page for a while. Keep up the good work. bobblewik 19:49, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

• I got the date tool working. When I created the dates.js and unitformatter.js subpages the tabs appeared. Thanks! --Atrian 14:54, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Congratulations! I should perhaps have warned you that each time you edit your monobook, you need to clear the cache. That may have contributed to your difficulties. Just follow the instructions at the top of your monobook. Try running the tool on the pages in your watchlist or in 'What links here' for solitary months like December. Keep up the good work. bobblewik 15:01, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Re: Agricultural Land Reserve

Hi - I note that you have (correctly) converted the reference in this article from "4.7 million hectares" to "47,000 square kilometres". It may be advisable to retain the "4.7 million hectares", at least in paranthesis following the 47,000 sq.km. The reasons for this are that (a) official statistics on the ALR are reported in hectares; and (b) those of us involved in agriculture and agricultural land preservation normally converse in hectares or acres.

Thanks for your work! GazzBC 22:20, 17 May 2006 (UTC)GazzBC

It's on again

Bobblewick—Are you aware that Ambi (now renamed Rebecca) has removed the guidlines in the MoS about not linking trivial chronological items? Tony 03:04, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. I will keep my eye on the MoS. bobblewik 19:35, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Muzzle velocities & broken links

Hello, Bobblewick!

I am puzzled by your recent edit to HMS Hood (51). Why is sond better than second?

I have added this page to my watchlist, in case you prefer to reply here.

Sincere regards, John Moore 309 23:38, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Ooo. I know what went wrong. I was fixing a lot of incorrect unit formats. I was replacing many instances in articles of 'ft/sec' with 'ft/s'. I overlooked the 'ond' bit. I have corrected it now. Thank you for telling me. bobblewik 07:54, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for sorting this. I don't know if you are aware that you also broke a link to 15 inch /42 (38.1 cm) Mark I naval gun by changing 38.1 cm to 381 mm. (I've repaired it).

Sincere regards, John Moore 309 11:57, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

OK. Thanks for sorting the 5.5 inch conversion too. I wonder about 15 inch /42 (38.1 cm) Mark I naval gun, should it really be 15 inch /42 (381 mm)? bobblewik 12:00, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Article move with Trinidad and Tobago Olympic history

Hi, in this edit, you moved Trinidad & Tobago Olympiad History to Trinidad & Tobago Olympic history. I've renamed it again, but for future reference, such history articles usually have the name X at the Summer/Winter Olympics , eg Australia at the Winter Olympics. Thanks, Andjam 02:12, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. That is a much better name. I am glad that there is a convention. Keep up the good work. bobblewik 09:27, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Gramophone record

Hi there. I know you're only trying to help, but if you insist on helping in the fashion you've developed here you're going to have to take a lot more care. Edits like this one actually break things, and that's Not Good. Please be more careful. Thanks, fuddlemark (befuddle me!) 10:48, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Hi, Thanks for picking up the incorrect editing of an image name. I have now edited it again without that error. I actually spotted the image name amendment and thought I had corrected it. Something weird must have happened. You are right it was not a Good thing and I will be more careful. Good job this is a wiki. Regards. bobblewik 10:56, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Date delinking (II)

Hi Bobblewik, could you please indicate why you delinked 1920 one time in the Igor Stravinsky article? ([2]) - your edit summary ("Dates") is not clarifying in that sense. --Francis Schonken 11:04, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

The article 1920 is not remarkable to Pulcinella. See the dates associated with his other works. Regards. bobblewik 11:09, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Who said it had to be remarkable to Pulcinella? Did you even have a clue why it was linked in the first place?

And how would you qualify this edit: [3] - didn't even know you were interested in 19th century ballets. There's always the Wikipedia:WikiProject Dance, participants of that project would welcome you!

Or are you just taking up your old antics again, as can easily be deduced from your 80-odd contributions in less than half an hour, starting 21 May 2006, 10:10 (this is bot speed, if I need to remember you of that)? contribs

I just think think this is stronger than yourself. Sorry, no offense intended, but you can't control yourself notwithstanding prior promises and probations. What suggestion would you make yourself for what the wikipedia community should do to protect wikipedia from this behaviour? --Francis Schonken 11:19, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

If Pulcinella (1920) should be linked, why was there no link in Octet (1923) which was just two words later. Nor in Oedipus Rex (1927) later in the article. Are you saying that there is something special about 1920? bobblewik 11:24, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Indeed, shows you're completely clueless w.r.t. the Stravinsky article. The question was whether you had any clue why this link would or would not be relevant in the context of the Stravinsky article?

Returning to the Sylvia ballet article the edit I posted above ([4]) is plainly (that is: without needing interpretation) disruptive, and it was just the first I picked randomly from your user contributions. If you have no clue why it was "plainly disruptive", that only shows you didn't look at the article, and what exactly your edit changed.

So, I formally request you revert all your edits involving "dates" from 10:10 to 10:40 today (including respect for possible intermediate edits).

I leave you the choice where I report this incident, which could be,

• wikipedia talk:bots
• Wikipedia talk:Admins willing to make difficult blocks
• WP:AN/I

...or any other reasonable proposition you'd care to make. --Francis Schonken 11:39, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

What is so special about the 1920 article for Pulcinella that is not special about the 1923 article for Octet? If you want me to know, then please tell me. bobblewik 11:44, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Erm? Did you read the article?

And why do you avoid to reply regarding the other disruption I mentioned? --Francis Schonken 11:46, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Yes I read it but I am still ignorant. Instead of asking me to guess, just tell me please. We can then debate the point. What is so special about the 1920 article for Pulcinella that is not special about the 1923 article for Octet? bobblewik 11:58, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

This should be clear, shouldn't it?:

---

===The Neo-Classical Period===

The next phase of Stravinsky's compositional style, slightly overlapping the first, is marked by two works: Pulcinella 1920 and the Octet (1923) for wind instruments. [...]

---

If it isn't clear, you're simply clueless. Then, stay out of such articles, and revert the date changes as requested above.

Since you don't seem to have alternate suggestions, I'm by now reporting on the three pages I suggested above. --Francis Schonken 12:18, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

I read that quote before but I remain clueless (as you put it). What is so special about the 1920 article for Pulcinella that is not special about the 1923 article for Octet? bobblewik 12:27, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Date delinking should not be done by the clueless — QED

I'd have gladly explained (but really, you can read that in the Stravinsky article) that that date marks a change in Stravinsky's output, i.e. starting to compose in the neo-classical style. But, really, your interest in Stravinsky seems to be rather shallow to me, only for the sake of argument in this delinking of dates dispute. What you might not know, and that is why date delinking is even more something not to be performed by clueless hillbillies contributors, is that that date (Stravinsky publishing Pulcinella) marks one of the most commented upon career moves in music history. If the Sacre (his last major ballet before Pulcinella) and the neo-classical style of Pulcinella ring no bells for you, then what "point" were you exactly trying to make? --Francis Schonken 12:53, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

You are calling me a hillbilly now. Is that meant as an insult? bobblewik 13:01, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

No, the important point was that you were clueless, as you admitted yourself, so were inable to make an assessment of context. So, please revert all your edits involving "dates" from 10:10 to 10:40 today (including respect for possible intermediate edits) --Francis Schonken 13:21, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

So you are saying that calling me a hillbilly is not insulting? bobblewik 13:25, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Withdrawing the word, with a formal excuse to you, if you might have perceived that I intended that word to apply to you, which was not my intention. Sorry. Should've known better. --Francis Schonken 13:39, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

I accept your apology. Thank you. So now we can continue.

The paragraph about 1920 being a change in Stravinsky's output is interesting and probably belongs in the article. It is certainly not in the 1920 article. None of the other instances of 1920 are linked and nor is 1923. So I still do not see what added value the reader gets from the link. bobblewik 13:45, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Well, pending more details about the career move being included in the Stravinsky and/or 1920 article (but possible deficiencies of the 1920 article is not the *context* of the Stravinsky article), the fact that this date is linked is an indication given to the reader that this date *is* important in the context. That's where it should have stopped you being clueless. But it didn't.

So, we have two persons here:

• a person admitting he's clueless on the issue, insisting the date is not relevant in the context.
• a person maybe not the ultimate authority on Stravinsky, but knowing enough about that composer to know the significance of the date in the context, and insisting the date *is* relevant in the context.

Well, who should accept whose words, given this context?

So, if you can't revert your changes, you should at least admit you should have done, before getting blocked.

Anyway, again, you keep silent about the Sylvia article. If you'd have reverted there, and admitted it was an undisputed disruptive edit, irrespective of the context issue, I wouldn't have pushed the issue. --Francis Schonken 14:22, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

I do not understand your reasoning. You say the fact that this date is linked is an indication given to the reader that this date *is* important in the context. Links are not highlights to indicate value, links are intended to provide access to articles that add value. If the 1920 article does not add value, it is not relevant. bobblewik 14:31, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

I have just taken a look at the Sylvia article. I see now what happened. The dates were linked incorrectly and did not work with date preferences. That is the answer to your question. If you want to discuss how faulty date links can and should be corrected, that is something we can discuss. bobblewik 14:43, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Anyway, what I'm looking for is a commitment to undo the contentious edits as described above. I don't see that commitment. Sorry, I can't help you with your block under these circumstances (if that is what you'd like – I'm not even certain about that). On the contrary, I'd recommend to extend the block to indefinite, there is even no commitment to refrain from such contentious edits in the future, although you've got plenty of people that have explained to you exactly what is so contentious about them. --Francis Schonken 15:04, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Last chance, Bobblewik. I'm fed up with your restarting of the same edits every few weeks in the hope that people might have forgotten, even though it has now been quite clearly established that there is no consensus to make them. One more edit along these lines (at least without some new development on the consensus front, or even some participation from you) and I will begin drafting an arbitration request, and asking for an injunction that prohibits you from making any date-related edits. Rebecca 04:15, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Don't wikilink standalone years

Somebody just undid all the wikilinks of standalone years (like 1975) that you put in gramophone record - and rightly so, I think. Turning a year into a link rarely accomplishes anything, because the "year" articles are so incredibly broad that they usually have no connection to the article you're reading; following them teaches you nothing. Links to year topics (like 1975 in music or 1975 in literature) are useful, and of course links to full date (August 15, 1975) are OK because they allow people's date-setting preferences to kick in. But otherwise, I'd save yourself the effort and not put any wikilinks on standalone years. See WP:DATES for more discussion. - DavidWBrooks 12:48, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

I agree with you. Please check the edits again and you will see that we agree. bobblewik 12:50, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

70 mm

Please be more careful next time when applying units edits. Your changes broke two interwiki links as well as an external web address. Thank you, Girolamo Savonarola 16:01, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

You are right. Thank you for catching that. bobblewik 16:36, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Dates

Hi Bobblewik, right or wrong, isn't there more to wikipedia than unlinking dates (and please don't answer "converting units"!)? Thanks, Andjam 12:32, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Hi need help regarding Tintin pages

I want to start off a collaborative effort to start of Article Improvement for the Tintin pages and related stuff. I am new to here and I need guidelines and people to help me out. Also mention if you'd help me out with this. Thanks, Regards -54UV1K 08:31, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Edit error

Your edit here to correct units broke the link to an image, FYI. --tomf688 (talk - email) 14:05, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

I watch out for those but missed that one. Thank you for picking that up and correcting it. bobblewik 16:26, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Peer review -- Cape Town

Thanks. Your response is appreciated. -- Chris Lester ^talk 19:48, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Lyrics

Hi, I'm brazilian, (sorry with my english), I want to know if is permited in wp:en lyrics of songs. I wait you answer. --Thiago90ap 23:48, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

I don't know. I found lyrics at I Get a Kick Out of You. Why not ask at the village pump. bobblewik 23:54, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

.js

Hi Bobblewik—Thanks for that; I'll work out later how to bypass the cache on Safari. Cheers Tony 00:48, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

I get a message that says: Mozilla/Safari/Konqueror: press Ctrl-Shift-R. bobblewik 00:49, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks a lot, Bobblewik (for some reason, when I tried to bypass the cache for the first time, it didn't work) for helping me with the monobook.js thing. I used to do similar edits by javascript, and I'm sure this will be very helpful. Thanks again, AndyZ _t 13:14, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Should this work in Safari? What exactly should I see after I've added your script to my monobook and cleared my cache? Regards, TimL 15:00, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

I do not know about Safari but I think it should work. When you click on 'Edit' and have the page in edit mode, you will have a tab marked 'dates'. Click on that and see what happens. bobblewik 16:01, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

I got it to work. My .js had bad formatting I guess. Thanks. TimL 16:30, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Editing at bot speed again?

Hi Bobblewik,

Looking at your first 48 hours of editing since your last block expired (from this edit to this edit), I don't know if you were aware, but most of these near to 900 edits were at bot speed, just picking some examples:

• This edit to this edit, 15:44, 29 May 2006: 17 edits in one minute;
• This edit to this edit, 14:20, 29 May 2006 to 14:23, 29 May 2006: 28 edits in 4 minutes (that is, on average, waiting 8 and a half seconds between two edits)

Did you have any comments regarding this behaviour, or are you just trying out how far you can go this time? --Francis Schonken 21:49, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Your guidance about guidance

Hi Bobblewik,

At Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#Small deregulation of 'units of measurement' section. you wrote:

[...] My guidance-about-guidance is that we should only give guidance if:

• the issue is clear and present in Wikipedia articles
• the issue is frequent enough to worry about
• the guidance will result in a change in editor action

If I remember well you've listed these "guidance-about-guidance" principles to your liking more than once on talk pages.

Here's my suggestion: please refer to wikipedia:how to create policy#Guidelines for creating policies and guidelines if you want to give "guidance-about-guidance". Your three-rule set seems a bit of a travesty of the agreed-upon guidance to me. Especially the dodging of the "don't be prescriptive" and the "leave room for flexibility" principles if one takes "resulting in a change in editor action" as a goal.

I'm afraid the agreed-upon approach to guideline-writing is quite different from the scheme you try to put forward. Anyhow, I'd recommend to discuss your proposals regarding "guidance-about-guidance" at wikipedia talk:how to create policy, and see if there's consensus for them *before* you go around on talk pages trying to impose your principles above consensus described elsewhere. --Francis Schonken 22:47, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Quick fix of the date overlinling?

AndyZ suggested I contact you: see Wikipedia:Peer review/Józef Piłsudski/archive1. Thanks for any assistance you can offer here! --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 00:54, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Request for your feedback

Hi Bobblewik

Because a few nominators of FACs have appeared to need/desire a formal explanation of how they can improve their prose, I had the idea of writing an article dedicated to this purpose. It would be a complement to Taxman's and Jengod's articles, and "Great writing" and "The perfect article". I wonder whether you'd mind having a look at it and letting me know what yout think, in terms of the overall concept and the effectiveness and appropriateness of the training aspect. I've completed only the introduction and the first area, "Redundancy", for which there are about 30 exercises. The remainder is just a messy paste-in of notes.

I don't want to continue until I have other people's opinions on the approach.

Thanks

It looks fine to me. Good work! bobblewik 18:57, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

JS

Per MOS (Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#Units_of_measurement) the intervening space in numbers should actually be an nbsp. Could you write that into your (very helpful!) script? - Emt147 ^Burninate! 02:48, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks a lot for your assistance! I am finding many usages for the .js subpages. As a side note, would you mind looking over and commenting about User:AndyZ/Suggestions, a guideline that I just recently created for WP:PR and WP:FAC? Thanks, Andy _t 22:36, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

I took a quick look and have no comments about content. A comment about presentation is: it has overlapping lines with Firefox. bobblewik 22:02, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Do you mind quickly helping me with my monobook.js? I've been trying to create a pop-up window for User:AndyZ/Suggestions that has a checklist so that readers can check off what they finished; however, I keep getting an error however I try to fix it. (see User:AndyZ/monobook.js/checklist.js). Thanks, Andy _t 21:31, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Never mind, I have figured it out myself. Thanks anyway - Andy _t 22:08, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks!

Thanks for the js, it's great! - Emt147 ^Burninate! 08:10, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Your javascript rocks. Thanks for suggesting I use it! Bugmuncher 05:28, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Units and gallery images

I just found that your insertion of spaces before units in Telephoto lens broke the filenames in the gallery showing the effect of different focal lengths. If this was done by a bot, please adjust the logic (regular expressions?) so that it doesn't change filenames of media (images, etc). If this was done manually then please preview changes in future. Imroy 11:53, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Ah. Thank you for catching that. It is a script and I check each edit before accepting. I must have missed that one. I will either find a way of changing the script to avoid image names, or watch more carefully. Thank you for the feedback, it is very welcome. Keep up the good work. bobblewik 12:06, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

WP:DATE script?

At least I'm assuming those edits are at least partially automated. An editor operating manually probably would have handled these cases[5] [6] differently. Of course, I don't know how easy those would be to program for... 24.18.215.132 21:20, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

I should make it clear that I am _thrilled to see the solitary month links that I've always considered completely pointless going away... 24.18.215.132 21:26, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the praise. It is very nice to read.

Actually I did notice those errors. But I haven't taken on the task of fixing such errors (with one exception, see below). This is because there is an huge variety of errors. There is another editor that does fix errors and our work is generally compatible.

The removal of the solitary month link will make the error noticable so it will be corrected quickly. As your welcome edit demonstrates.

I do fix one specific class of error that will prevent date preferences working (the use of 'st, nd, th' etc as in '7th July' instead of '7 July').

If you want a 'Dates' tab to reduce date links that you think are unnecessary, simply copy the entire contents of User:Bobblewik/monobook.js to your own monobook. Then follow the instructions in your monobook to clear the cache (i.e. press Ctrl-Shift-R in Firefox, or Ctrl-F5 in IE) before it will work. You will also get a 'units' tab.

Regards. bobblewik 21:40, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Cool. Just wanted to make sure you were aware and/or had some mitigation in place/mind. Thanks for the detailed comments. 24.18.215.132 21:55, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Just wanted to add my two cents - any way to get the script to properly wikify day-month combinations? I caught a couple on the infoboxes for Canyon Heights Elementary School and Braemar Elementary School. Thanks for the work, by the way - I'm also happy to say goodbye to the excessive links. --Ckatz 19:41, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

That might be a question that Rich Farmbrough could answer. He has done some great work on fixing such defects. Could you direct the question to him, if you don't mind? If you look at 'What links here' for January etc, you will see that there are hundreds of incorrect links like that in school articles. bobblewik 19:48, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Units

I have thought about this problem before, and not come up with a fix. But I now think maybe I can. I'll mull it over over night. Rich Farmbrough 22:26 4 June 2006 (UTC).

Just thought I'd let you know I have written a script to solve these replacement problems, it's under preliminary testing. Rich Farmbrough 07:23 9 June 2006 (UTC).

Anachronistic units

• I feel very strongly that this edit was wrong - square kilometers in 1805 is anachronistic ! what was allocated was 5,000 acres, not some approximate metric conversion - the scale of the allocation is implied by the units used too. (imagine AYArktos in tizzy shaking her finger ... :-) I know you are doing a really good job trying to produce consistency across the wikipedia - but it is the distinction between historic references and contemporary units that is important I think. Thanks --A Y Arktos\^talk 02:10, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

If I understand you correctly, you are saying that the article should use the original units of acres. That is fine by me. But I am a little confused, I did not remove the acres, there were none in the article as I found it. Can you look again? bobblewik 20:49, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Units script

The unit script is very useful! Just one thing though. Instead of adding a regular space to 60km to make 60 km, it should add a no-break space (&nbsp;), so the units don't wrap over lines, causing 60
km to appear occasionally in the text. smurrayinchester^{(User), (Talk)} 18:54, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

I understand the reasoning behind non-breaking spaces but I would rather not increase my scope to include them. However, by popular demand I have created an alternate version of the script. I don't guarantee it but feel free to use:

• User:Bobblewik/monobook.js/units_nbsp.js

Regards bobblewik 19:07, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

thanks

I am not at all familiar with all this. I tried to create the monobook.js, but do not know if I did it correctly or what to do next. I use IE, so I did cntl+F5. I see no change when I edit something. Do I have to change my defaults anywhere? Thanks Hmains 21:32, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, things now look better; so much less hand stress. Suggestion for improvement: convert 1900's to 1900s, for example. I believe this conversion would apply everywhere. I also found this that was not converted: 7.7 km&sup2 Thanks Hmains 00:54, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Two excellent points. It will now convert formats like 1900's (linked or non-linked) to 1900s. Please let me know if that works without errors. As far as 7.7 km&sup2 is concerned, can you give me an example article? Thanks for the feedback. bobblewik 13:03, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Incidentally, the 'What links here' pages for solitary months (e.g. December) can be useful to find unnecessary links. bobblewik 13:10, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Look at article 'Montana' for several unit things that might be convertable, though I cannot agin find my origianl 7.7 km&sup2 . Possibilities include changing 'square units' (links or non links) (any kind of unit) to units with a superscript (I don't know how to type superscripts).

Thanks Hmains 18:05, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

I found 7.7 km² in Montana but not 7.7 km&sup2. There were various instances of 'sq mi' in the template. I tinkered with that. I have considered updating the script to automatically change 'sq m' to 'm²' but have not done so yet. I may do in the future. I would find it useful if you wanted to create your own version of the unitformatter and test out ideas like that. I could talk you through the script. bobblewik 21:45, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

I am not a Java coder. Maybe someday. In the meantime, I am sorry I asked for changes; perhaps an error was introduced. Look at the version of the 'History of Kansas' before I made my last changes. Many of the date changes in my version--I had to do manually as 'date' did not fix them. Thanks Hmains 04:58, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

I could not see the multiple errors. I saw one that must have pre-existed where it failed to delink '10,000 BC' because it was inside parentheses. If parentheses are the common theme, then I can probably fix the problem. Can you give me more details? In the meantime, I have reverted the changes. bobblewik 08:16, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

I did some more investigation into what it was doing in 'History of Kansas'. It was not only missing '10,000 BC' but it was missing some decades like '1820s'. It was also doing some other things that I had occasionally seen but not resolved. I discovered a small error in the code that had a significant effect. The error had been there for a long time and your report allowed me to identify it. Thanks. I have now fixed the error. Try running it again on History of Kansas.

The reason that '10,000 BC' remains linked is because the scope does not include years with 5 or more digits. I did not fix that problem and will leave it on the wishlist. Thanks for the feedback, it is much appreciated. Keep up the good work. bobblewik 17:09, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

monobook

You keep telling people about this date thing related with editing their monobook. They are all utterly confused, because you keep telling them in WP:PR where it is not relevant to peer reviewing articles. Can you please stop doing this? — Wackymacs 06:10, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Some editors have taken advantage of the information. So it is not true to say that they are *all* confused. It does seem that *some* are confused, so you are partly right in that respect. I will try to explain it better. bobblewik 11:52, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

You could ask them to add {{subst:js|User:Bobblewik/monobook.js/the page}} to their /monobook.js files, that would probably simplify the "copy the entire thing and paste it..." part. By the way, do you mind helping me again? Andy _t 22:57, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Ooo, lots of information. The 'subst' thing could be useful. I would be delighted to help you. I don't understand your code but what can I do for you? bobblewik 17:20, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

As you probably already realized, I'm trying to write a script that automatically peer reviews an article by searching for problems with the article and then inserting a template onto the peer review to let the nominator discover the problems.

// Determine the usage of commas with dates
// Determine if conversions are included
// Determine if standard abbreviations are used for conversions
// Determine if units are spelled out in text
// Determine if last few sections (see also, references, notes, external links) follow WP:GTL
// Determine if extraneous bolding is used
// Determine if categories and interlanguage links are alphabetized
// Determine if quotes have sources
// Prove that images have proper image copyright tags
// Show that all fair use images have proper fair use rationales
// Determine if all images have captions
// Determine if sections or paragraphs are too short
// Determine if a list is used
// Determine if words in headings are capitalized, outside of the first word

I haven't had much luck figuring out how to do these; I'm wondering if you have any ideas to solve these problems. If I have a general concept in my mind, I probably will be able to write down the code. Thanks, Andy _t 23:42, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes I realised that is what you are trying to do. I don't know how to get your peerreviewer.js to work. I added it to my monobook temporarily to see what it did but it didn't work for me. If I could get just a small piece working, I might be able to help. bobblewik 17:56, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Hm.. that's odd. Maybe its because the link to the review1() function is located in the 'p-personal' area, right next to the "log out" link, not as a tab in 'p-cactions'? (it appears only in edit mode) Andy _t 00:35, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

I tried again. You can look at the history of my monobook. I added it to the monobook, cleared the cache, put a page into edit mode. I saw my 'dates' and 'units' tabs but nothing else. What should I see?

Incidentally, have you considered putting the results into the talk page? That would mean it could be used beyond just peer review articles. bobblewik 19:03, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Actually, it doesn't directly insert the peer review text into the PR page; it creates a <textarea> which you can copy to wherever you would like (requested by User:Piotrus). The reason why it is not appearing (probably) is because it doesn't appear as a tab, instead it appears as a link right next to your "log out" link (I put it there because I had too many tabs :-)). Andy _t 21:59, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Aha. Got it! Thanks. bobblewik 14:06, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Months

Thanks, I'm using an old list because some time went into pruning it. Therefore I will be get a new smarter list at the next dump, which will mean I can consider some of your sophistications. But I have also promised a public whitelist, so work will be involved. Rich Farmbrough 23:07 12 June 2006 (GMT). 23:07, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

I am confused. Your response reads like you think I mentioned a list, but I didn't. I merely referred you to code. If there is an assocation between code and list, can you be more specific please. I am interested in the concept of a public whitelist but I have not seen any here. Regards bobblewik 17:33, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

• Sorry, I use shorthand too much. I generated my old list with reference to links to full names only e.g. "Saturday", therefore the value of fixing up "Sat" or "Saturdays" at the same time is slight at best.
• Bad news, there seem to be 332,000 articles with bare years in them....
• In terms of whitelists I should have one for December later today or tomorrow. Where should I locate it, I wonder, perhasp it's time to start a fix-up project. Rich Farmbrough 12:50 14 June 2006 (GMT).

Up from 327,000 3 weeks ago... Rich Farmbrough 15:35 14 June 2006 (GMT).

I don't have a location in mind for a whitelist, partly because I don't know what function it would perform. Let me guess. You are going to say: "I am going to edit the articles on this list in the next 7 days. If you want an article removed from the list, please tell me.". Is that it?

A project sounds like a good idea. It is definitely bad news that there are so many articles with bare years. It is even worse to read that they are increasing in number, not decreasing. I thought the trend was the other way. Does the 'bare years' count include full dates that you have wikified? bobblewik 18:21, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Alison Krauss

Damn! Thanks, that's some nice code. Staxringold _talk^contribs 18:47, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

You are very welcome. Use it, copy it, amend it. Its for anyone. Keep up the good work. bobblewik 19:05, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Units

Hi, Is there a page that discusses WP's standards for unit conversions? The reason I ask is I see you changed Outlaw (roller coaster) to generalize the metric conversions. The one that really made me ask was 2800 feet, which has been listed as 853.5 meters but you changed it to 850 meters. Since the actual answer is 853.44 meters, what level of precision are we striving for? 3.5 meters seems significant to me. I can see dropping the decimal, but was surprised at dropping it down to 850. Anyway, if you can point me to some standards that would be great. --Rehcsif 19:26, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Hi, The page for discussion is:

• Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)

I would be happy for you to raise the topic there. You will get a response. It comes up from time to time.

On the actual page (Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)) the guideline says Converted values should use a similar level of precision as the source value. For example, "the Moon is 380,000 kilometres (240,000 mi) from Earth", not "(236,121 mi)"

Conversion is more an art than a science. If you think it is precise to the nearest metre, just change it to 853 m. Hope that helps. Feel free to discuss this on the above page and I will be happy to join in too. Regards. bobblewik 19:49, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the quick response. I'm not sure if "The Outlaw" is precisely 2800 feet, or if that's just someone's approximation. If it were precise, I'd feel more accurate with the 83 meters. But since I don't know for sure, I'll call your edit good. Thanks again --Rehcsif 20:01, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

OK thanks. I really don't mind if you put 853 m. It was just the decimal that made me wince at the prospect of a wooden structure that long being build and measured to aircraft precision. bobblewik 20:11, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Re: dates tab

Hello Bobblewik, thanks for your tip regarding the dates tab, I'll certainly give it a try!--Kalsermar 20:19, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

You are welcome. Let me know how you get on. bobblewik 20:33, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Dates

• Hello, I gather from reading a note at User_talk:Nmajdan that you have a tool to help bring articles into compliance with the suggestions at WP:DATE, is that true? If so, I would love to know about it. I love any tool that makes the mechanical part of our jobs easier and lets us focus on writing better content! Johntex\^talk 15:22, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes. Simply copy the entire contents of User:Bobblewik/monobook.js to User:Johntex/monobook.js. Then follow the instructions in your monobook to clear the cache (i.e. press Ctrl-Shift-R in Firefox, or Ctrl-F5 in IE) before it will work. This will give you a 'dates' tab to press in edit mode. You will also get a 'units' tab. Use it lots! bobblewik 15:27, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Cool! Thanks! But what if I already have custom stuff in my monobook? I have a few things like Pop-up's installed. I don't think I understand the monobook code well enough to be confident I could integrate them. I guess I could save a copy to revert back to... and suggestions on how to merge the two files together? Johntex\^talk 15:37, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Just add it to the bottom. It should not conflict. bobblewik 15:39, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Awesome. I'll try it out. Thanks again, Johntex\^talk 16:06, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Dashes

While using this tool successfully on the article Netherlands, I noted quite many number ranges using a hyphen as a separator. Since it was recently more or less agreed to advise an ndash (–) in ranges, you might consider to include that in this tool. −Woodstone 19:43, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback. I would prefer not to bring dashes into scope of the unit formatter. However, if you think they should be in scope, feel free to copy User talk:Bobblewik/monobook.js/unitformatter.js to User talk:Woodstone/monobook.js/unitformatter.js. I would be more than happy to help you with the code. bobblewik 19:54, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Ok and thanks for the offer. Meanwhile I have read up on the regular expressions and think I can manage using your framework and examples. Not sure I will try it right now though. −Woodstone 21:40, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

dates

please see what 'dates' monobook does to 'List of battles 1901-2000'. I believe it is removing 'month day' entries that we are not supposed to remove (yet). Thanks Hmains 23:51, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

I presume you are remarking on the fact that it delinks '[[May 26|26]]'. The design objective of the code is that it delinks dates unless the links are used for preferences. The dates in 'List of battles 1901-2000' do not operate correctly with preferences and are 'broken'. So the monobook tool is behaving correctly. It is the article that is wrong.

In fact, the monobook tool should go further and delink more of the article. It should turn formats like [[May 25]]-[[May 26|26]] into May 25-26 because that is the only way it will avoid being broken. They currently look stupid like '25 May 26' with a European preference setting. However, I gave up trying to cope with all the permutations of broken dates.

If you don't understand what I mean, try changing your date preference to the second option (non-US format) labelled '09:12, 8 April 2001'. Let me know what you think.

Regards. bobblewik 00:03, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

monobook

Hi Bobble,

I'm afraid I hit a snag in not knowing the "empty cache" thing on a Mac.

Tony 02:03, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks; I'll work it out after my next professional deadline, 30 June. I'll give you my feedback then; sounds excellent, anyway. Tony 12:06, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

OK. It is good that you keep a focus on your professional work. Wikipedia is always second to that. bobblewik 12:09, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Dates/units tool

Hi, thanks for the dates and units tool. I've just played with it quickly (without saving changes to articles) and it seems very useful — it will undoubtedly save a lot of time. I'll use it when I get time! Neonumbers 06:41, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Monobook

Hi,

I used the code in your unitformatter.js and modified it. It has been very successful. So thanks for that.

Feel free to take a look and use any of the code in there. See User:Bobblewik/monobook.js. Regards bobblewik 16:10, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

I've got a list of things I haven't implemented yet on User_talk:Omegatron/monobook.js

I guess we should really be doing these with nbsp's in between the numbers and units. I wish there were a less ugly solution... — Omegatron 20:59, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

I went down the nbsp route for a while. As you say it is ugly, but more importantly, it made the code more complicated and didn't always do what a human might want. So I took it out of scope. Furthermore, I don't care as much about the issue as other people seem to. If somebody else wants to take that task on, it is still possible.

Please feel free to compare my code with yours. I would be happy to work with you on improvements and then we can share it with the wider community. I have already mentioned it in Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers).

Try adding my 'winc' functions to your monobook and see how they perform. bobblewik 13:23, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

What do you mean by "it didn't always do what a human might want"? The numbers and units should always have a non-breaking space between them, according to SI and our own Manual of Style. The only problem is that it makes the source code for the page ugly and difficult for non-technical types, which is why I wish there were a non-ugly syntax for non-breaking spaces.

I'll check out your additions when I have some time. — Omegatron 15:38, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

To be honest, I can't remember what the other issues were. I just remember that this human (me) was not satisfied with the code. That may be merely a feature of the code and perhaps that is the point i.e. I was not willing to do the extra work beyond the scope of unit formats themselves.

After more people started using my code, I got requests for nbsp again. In response, I created User:Bobblewik/monobook.js/units nbsp.js, but I don't maintain it so it is now out of sync with unitformatter.js bobblewik 16:40, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Incidentally, SI says nothing about non-breaking spaces. bobblewik 16:52, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Huh. I don't know where I got that from. — Omegatron 18:13, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

User:Ingoolemo/Threads/06/06/18a Hey Bobblewik, I've added your monobook script to mine, and wonder where I should see a "dates" tab appear to remove overlinking in articles? Thanks in advance for your help. Harro5 09:05, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Bare years

A word character followed by a bunch of spaces and pucntuation, followed by [[\d+]], followed by a bunch of spaces and pucntuation followed by a word character. I.E. false negatives would have existed. And it was returning about 30% which is consistent with your experience. My main WP machine is down at the moment, or I'd do another run. I have delinked a fair few articles, including some featured articles. I've also made some progress with the days and months, but lots still to do. Rich Farmbrough 22:43 21 June 2006 (GMT).

Links

Thanks for the suggestion, Bobblewik. Tim Ivorson 2006-06-22

Units editing

You seem to be putting in abbreviated units, like "km²" instead of "square kilometres". Formal English entails and the MOS states that the units ought to be spelled out in the body of an article. (WP:DATES#Units of measurement: "Spell out source units in text." —Centrx→talk • 03:06, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Also, changing "percent" to "%" is unnecessary and probably not as good. See Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#Percentages. —Centrx→talk • 06:23, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

You wrote: You seem to be putting in abbreviated units, like "km²" instead of "square kilometres". I don't understand. I am not creating any such abbreviations. Can you give me an example so that I can investigate? bobblewik 20:58, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

You wrote: changing "percent" to "%" is unnecessary and probably not as good. I am not sure that I agree with you but I am prepared to see it debated widely. There are several issues and if you look in the archives, you will see some of the things that were discussed. I would be interested if the current discussion comes up with new recommendations. I am watching Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#Percentages to see what it comes up with.

Thanks for the feedback. I appreciate it. bobblewik 21:10, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

For square kilometre, you are not replacing "square kilometre" with "km²", but you are replacing "hectares", "kms", and "sq. km" with "km²" when in most cases it should instead by "square kilometre(s)"

Aha. Now I understand. I am merely tinkering with abbreviation formats. You want the abbreviations expanded.

There are many cases where I agree with you that the full form would be better. I don't want to take on the task of expanding abbreviations. If you or anyone else would like to do it, that is fine by me. My code could be adapted by anyone and I would be willing to advise on the detail. bobblewik 22:23, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Having searched through all of the archives, and finding the relevant change, [7], and the most recent discussion therefrom, which was [8], a month before you made the change. There was no consensus for that change, with three editors stating positions that oppose it, and three supporting it, one tentatively, one you the implementing editor and one other editor who made a single comment in the discussion. This discussion reached no conclusion, though the last comments were a support of leaving it to individual editor decision and a revert of an edit that contained this change among others. A discussion long after, [9], has two other editors who were not involved in the previous discussion recommending "percent" as standard style.

Please do not change any more "percent" to "%". —Centrx→talk • 22:02, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

I can see that you feel strongly about it. Please propose new wording in the MoS talk page. bobblewik 22:23, 27 June 2006 (UTC)