User talk:Gene Nygaard/2006Mar-2006Apr

Archived talk

Zion tons

OK, I'll admit I jumped to conclusions without going off to try to research it. I'm beating myself now with a red pencil to teach myself a lesson. Ouch ouch ouch.  :-) Elf | Talk 05:07, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Olympic conventions

I just responded to your post on the Olympic Conventions talk page. Whether this will change anything depends on whether or not you want to get into a revert war with Jared. I fully support your point of view that there really isn't anything that's been resolved yet, but I haven't felt like going at it with Jared.

Please see discussion at: Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style_(dates_and_numbers)#spaces_before_unit_symbols. Regards bobblewik 13:33, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Mr. Nygaard, I think your objection might have been written in haste. Although the Modern Games no longer use the word "Modern" in most contexts, they were established with that title in use, and most reference works I know distinguish entries by referring to the "ancient" and "modern" games. I wasn't meaning to impinge your territory or anything, but I want to leave the way clear for my fellow historians to do what they should be doing. See my response at talk there, if you haven't. Best wishes, Xoloz 16:22, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

indexing

FYI, just want to let you know that when indexing Arabic/Persian names, there are prefixes which are not equivalent to first names. For example, Mirza, Mulla, Haji, and Siyyid are all common prefixes that give information about the person, but are not names. So the standard for indexing Arabic/Persian names is to leave them out. Mirza Abu'l-Fadl should go under "Abu'l-Fadl, Mirza", and so on. Also, usually names will have a suffix, which is not a last name, but an indication of what city they come from, so Mirza Abu'l-Fadl-i-Gulpaygani means "Mr. Abu'l-Fadl of the city of Gulpaygan".

Cheers Cuñado - Talk 05:59, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

I have no problem with skipping titles in indexing, no matter what the language. I'll generally do so when I recognize them as such. Of course, it helps when they are identified as such in the article.

Of course, when I see five or six "Mirza" in one category with only about 20 entries in all, and all of them are already indexed under the M, that looks like a pretty good course to follow.

The toponyms are of course names too. Whether or not they should be used for indexing is sometimes debatable; sometimes it is traditionally done differently not only in different geographic regions, but in different fields of activities. It can also vary in different categories, and it can depend on how a specific person is generally known in English. This is, after all, the English Wikipedia.

Now, will you help with stripping the diacritics and the like to get proper indexing?

What do you think about ' and = and spaces in the indexing?Gene Nygaard 06:26, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

BTW, in most cases, titles don't belong in the article's name, so we may have some issues about proper naming of these articles, too. One problem is that there are a zillion subpages under Wikipedia:Naming conventions to wade through to see how it should be done. Gene Nygaard 06:36, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

apothecaries'

Hi! I can't see what your unicode symbol says, but you seem knowledgable. Do you think £ was ever used for the unit of weight? And does lb not belong in the table too, as the more usual symbol? And can you give some examples/references? Not wanting to be a prick, but I really want to know, and be sure. Thanks. Skittle 19:04, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

I think the £ symbol may well have been used for that apothecaries pound, which is now obsolete, by some people—but I didn't bother putting that one back in. The other one is a crossed "lb" with a horizontal bar going through the upper part of the letters. If you want to see the ℔ symbol, you should be able to add a unicode font and set your browser to see them. The Wikipedia Technical help FAQ has a link to this site for help on that [1]. Gene Nygaard 19:21, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. I didn't think there was a reason to add it, but I didn't know whether you had or not. Skittle 17:55, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Indexing of Māori pages

Hi Gene. Any reason you’re adding the page name to the category listing for pages such as Category:Māori people? I thought the index defaulted to the page name, so it seems redundant?

e.g. Māori people has [[Category:Ethnic groups in Australasia|Maori people]]

I added macrons to the indexing for that page and Rāhui, but now wonder if this is linked to the passing mention of sorting above? Barefootguru 17:48, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

You are damn lucky you didn't catch me when I was fuming mad, and let me cool down a bit. They need to be indexed according to the English alphabet. You still see all your squiggles (or bars in this case).

If you want to make yourself useful, go to Category talk:Maori and start cleaning up the mess there. Category redirects work only imperfectly; someone trying to go view the category that is a redirect get sent to the one redirected to instead, but that doesn't keep people from adding items to the category which is a redirect, and those items are not seen in the category redirected to.

There are probably a zillion subcategories with the same problem (okay, maybe only 10 or 20 or so). I've emptied one of them, but maybe even that one has had something addedd by now, so check all of them. What you need to do is to make sure that the macron or whatever other squiggles might appear is included in the category name but is not included in the sort key, for example, you need to go to article Māori Party and change the indexing along these lines, from

• [[Category:Maori]]
• [[Category:Maori Party]]
• [[Category:Political parties of minorities]]

to this

• [[Category:Māori|Party]] ((Probably best to drop the Māori entirely in indexing this category, but be sure to capitalize the first letter you do use. In this category as in the others, if any of the words have macrons or whatever, strip them in sort key part following the vertical bar, so if you want it under "M" rather than under "P", use "Maori Party".)
• [[Category:Māori Party|*]] (putting a * or a space as the sort key will put the article dealing with the same subject as the category at the top of the listing)
• [[Category:Political parties of minorities|Maori Party]] (applicable in all other situations)

Gene Nygaard 18:08, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, though too much time for me. I’ve already asked for help with the Māori category, so have added a link to here. Barefootguru 18:19, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

There should also be a link to a page discussing the problem with category redirects in that notice which appears in the pink box on Category:Maori and likely the other redirected pages. Gene Nygaard 18:20, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Ronald Collé

I did not just 'slap' a tag on the article. I carefully explained my reasons on the talk page. I was following the trail of an editor who left an insult on User:Academic Challenger's talk page, and who has edited three articles, 50 Cent, Ronald Collé and K.A. Maroufi-Collé. I strongly suspect that the Ronald Collé article is a vanity one, as it looks like the editor who started it is the child of Ronald Collé and K.A. Maroufi-Collé. I also note that the Ronald Collé article still does not have any sources cited. Out of curiousity, how does Ronald Collé meet the criteria of Wikipedia:Notability (people)? -- Donald Albury^(Talk) 03:06, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

My major point is that there is enough doubt there to make it not non-controversial. Use WP:AfD instead; it doesn't belong in this test-stage, as-yet-unapproved shortcut procedure, and if you keep nominating things that might be controversial, then that procedure may never be approved.

We have articles about every fictional Pokemon character, and they appear to be more prolific than rabbits. We have articles about some Bangladeshi cricketer who played one "test match" back in the 1950s.

It's about time the sciences get a fair shake in comparison to sports and entertainment figures.

Where's your evidence that none of the professional journals in which he is published has a circulation of 5,000?

Publishing in those journals is one thing. Isn't being the editor of one of those professional journals also evidence of notability?

Note further that the template itself says, probably not clearly enough, that a way to get it out of this speedy process for non-controversial deletions is to delete the template. Gene Nygaard 22:02, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Fair enough. I share your concerns about the glut of articles about trivia. I'm reluctant to go straight to AfD. I've mostly given up trying to participate there. It was just too frustrating. The question is moot for now, however, as the article has been blanked as a possible copyvio. -- Donald Albury^(Talk) 23:48, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Please see my comment at WP:PROD

I've replied to your comment. I look forward to your response in turn. JesseW, the juggling janitor 03:46, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Please calm down

With reference to your recent edit summaries (here [2] and particularly here [3]), I think you should perhaps calm down a little. I understand that it annoys you when people overlook category sorting, but you should still remain civil. Calling people "incompetents" is not generally a productive tactic. --Stemonitis 12:26, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Sometimes a big two-by-four is the only way to get people's attention. But thanks, you are right, I could do it better. I can understand this being overlooked in an article where there have been no debates about moves with or without "the"; I don't really think there is any excuse for it being overlooked when there have been some debates. How do you propose educating more people of this necessity? Gene Nygaard 13:07, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't know. I was wondering whether a sentence could be added to the screen that you see having moved an article (where it requests the user checks for double redirects), to the effect that he/she should also look at the category indexing. The only problem is that for most moves the category indexing is not an issue. Still, it could be added, I suppose, although I wouldn't know where to propose that. --Stemonitis 13:38, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Template:MedalGold and the like

What in the world were you thinking of in creating this family of templates? Have you ever even looked at the resulting (recently renamed) categories?

There must be some way to include—and use—another parameter, rather than just taking the article name and using that for sorting purposes.

Please respond at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Sports Olympics. I am fuming about this. Gene Nygaard 11:22, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

As User:Stemonitis says, please calm down. Also, check the history of the template. My last edit to it was [4]. I did not add the categories. -- Jonel | Speak 12:30, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Please learn to be civil. I responded to your alarmist post. Staxringold 15:23, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

A Special Thanks

Hey thanks a lot for your edit to Paul Jan Bakker. I created the article but being Indian, was not sure about the Dutch spellings. So thanks for correcting it. (P.S Why dont you archive your talk page? I use Dial-up & it took like a whole minute to load your Page!)

Srikeit^{(talk ¦ ✉)} 09:45, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

WP:RM

Please take a look at Talk:Elector of Brandenburg. Thanks! —Nightstallion (?) ^{Seen this already?} 08:09, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Gravitational constant

Thanks for improving my edit re dimensions of G. As you say, it should be length cubed etc, rather than metres cubed. I'll make further change accordingly. Lucretius

Reidar Särestöniemi

Could you please stop reverting my changes to Reidar Särestöniemi? I accept the fact that the accent marks have to be dropped in international categories, but I still steadfastly maintain that in categories specific to Finland, Finnish spelling and Finnish indexing must be used. It is used everywhere else in Finland-specific categories in the English Wikipedia. Are you going to change them too? I propose that a general discussion and poll is started about this to establish a policy. JIP | Talk 19:22, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

It's still the English Wikipedia. The guidelines have already been established.

Gene Nygaard 19:45, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Could you please link to the said guidelines? I have looked but not found. I agree with some of your actions but not others, and a guideline would be nice to have. Thanks. --Eddi (Talk) 02:51, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Furthermore, what do you think? That the Unicode letters are sorted according to Finnish alphabetization rules? I think you've got another guess coming. For example, in Finnish footballers the players are not sorted according to the Finnish language indexing rules, or it would be:

• Simo Valakari
• Alexander Weckström
• Mika Väyrynen

How would you index Kaarlo Juho Ståhlberg in Category:Finnish politicians?

Did you follow Argentine Spanish language indexing rules when you created Nilda Garré just last week, on 14 Mar 2006?[5] No, you didn't:

• [[Category:Argentine politicians|Garré, Nilda]]

Of course, just as you shouldn't be expected to know and follow Argentine indexing rules on the English Wikipedia, nobody else should be expected to know and follow Finnish indexing rules on English Wikipedia.

More to the point, just a couple of days earlier than that, when you did a trivial, meaningless edit of Verné Lesche [6], capitalizing the "C" in Category:Finnish speed skaters, did you fix that sort key even in that category for proper indexing under Finnish language sorting rules? No, you did not. Did you fix the sort key in the other categories in which you made your piddling invisible change (needlessly cluttering up the watchlists of those watching it) so that they sort properly according to English language sorting rules? No, you did not. In the category People from Helsinki which you yourself added, did you fix originally enter the sort key to sort properly under either Finnish or English language sorting rules? No, you did not.

There are only a few Finnish people who appear out of order in their categories; in sparse categories, improper indexing doesn't always show up. Where it makes a difference, several of them have already been properly indexed by people other than me, and likely some by me as well. Gene Nygaard 19:45, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

You are right that Unicode lettering does not always automatically match Finnish indexing, as in the cases you've pointed out:

• V versus W
• proper order of Å, Ä, Ö
• Finnish makes a great point of indexing Å, Ä and Ö correctly but ignores all other accented vowels

But you are using these exceptions as a "two wrongs make a right" argument to justify knowingly and purposefully replacing correct indexing with incorrect, thinking "if it doesn't work for everything, it shouldn't work for anything". I would like you to stop doing that. JIP | Talk 20:35, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Like I said, it is still the English Wikipedia, and the "correct" indexing is still according to the English alphabet. We index things the way English speakers would look for them. Sure, it would likely be different on the Finnish Wikipedia. But so what? Gene Nygaard 20:52, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

When I look in a Norwegian list, I'm not surprised if I find my name listed after Nygren, and let's say after Arne Nygård and before Sverre Nygård. But in English indexing, I might still find myself between the Nygårds but before the Nygrens, or I might be before Nygren but with Nygård indexed as Nygard and between Nygaard and Nygren. Gene Nygaard 21:00, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

I have to take this issue up in a general discussion and poll. I know I'm not the only Nordic person here to want Nordic names indexed correctly. Our little argument is far too little to result in a decision that would constitute a policy. JIP | Talk 21:16, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

WikiProject North Dakota

Wikipedia:WikiProject North Dakota is official! Sort of. Lot of cleanup needed on the project page and plenty of work to do making a decent to-do list, etc. etc., but it all starts somewhere. Thanks for all your help! --AlexWCovington (talk) 05:31, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Jorge Peña Hen

Thanks for sorting out the indexing. The several explanations up above here make sense, to me, anyway. Not sure I'd like to meet you on a dark night, though! Best. GuillaumeTell 14:34, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

One of the problems people have understanding it is that the piping for the sort key works differently from the piping for the embedded links; in the latter it changes what readers see, but for the sort key it does not. Gene Nygaard 15:31, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

I see now that there is more than one reason why people complain about article categorisation, and I suddenly realise why I agree with some of your edits and not all edits. Some categorisation may be less controversial but more difficult to explain. To improve understanding and reduce traffic at you talk page (assuming you want to reduce it), it might help to give a link from the edit summary to a project page with a quick and easy explanation. --Eddi (Talk) 14:17, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Lauren Etame Mayer

He is nearly always referred to simply as "Lauren" - it is the name printed on the back of his shirt (rather than Mayer), and it's how he's called on official club webpages [7]. Category:Brazilian_footballers sorts players commonly known by one name on that name (e.g. Ronaldo, Romário) in amongst players known by their full names (Fabio Rochemback, Evandro Roncatto) with no problem, so why not the same with Lauren? If it helps, I can move the article to Lauren (footballer), to emphasise the fact he is known by one name. Qwghlm 11:55, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

If this character were in Category:Brazilian footballers, you might have a point--for that category only.

I'm usually called by my first name, too. That doesn't mean I don't have both.

What name does he use when he buys a house, or a car? Gets married? Whatever?

I don't particularly care what you do within the category for some specific club. But see, for example http://www.sportscheduler.co.sz/olympics2000.htm (Lauren Etame Mayer) and http://www.the-shot.com/olympics-2000/ (Lauren Etame Mayer). So it would clearly be inappropriate for the Olympics category and the Cameroon national team category, as well as the birth category and the like. Gene Nygaard 13:31, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

In my profession (and in yours, I am sure), I am referred to by both names. In Lauren's profession, he is only referred to by the one. While there is an argument for the births category to use his full name, for the ones relating to sport it should use the (nick)name he is commonly known by. Qwghlm 14:27, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

He is referred to by the full name in connection with the Cameroon national team, gold medalists at the 2000 Olympics. Gene Nygaard 14:34, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

People in the U.S. used to import people from Cameroon and cgive them a first name only. If the British are still doing that, you can go ahead and change it in the Arsenal category. Gene Nygaard 13:38, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

His use of a single name is entirely his own choice; to infer connotations of slavery is highly distasteful and I find that statment offensive. If that's the level you are going to descend to, then I won't bother engaging you in any further discussion. Goodbye. Qwghlm 14:27, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

SmackBot

Fair comment, I will attempt to reduce the occurence of invisible edits, in defence to watchlists. Rich Farmbrough 20:55 27 March 2006 (UTC).

Category:Baseball records subcats?

Hi. I'm the closing admin of the CFD regarding this category, and while I have the reverse merge properly decided...I'm afraid I couldn't figure out what you said needed to be done with the various subcat proposals. I'm contacting you three (Gene Nygaard, Mike Selinker, and Wknight94) who were most involved with the subcat discussions in the hope that between you all the subcat scheme can be accomplished. I'm sorry for being thick. ;) --Syrthiss 15:54, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

TR-3B Stryker II Deletion

Hi, the TR-3B Stryker II is on debate for deletion, well many of us are trying to keep it up, I was hoping you would add a keep to it since you helped it. Right now they are complaining that we are all new users trying to keep it up and it would be nice to have someone who has been around a little longer, make a keep post. Elgae Nacirema 07:46, 31 March 2006 (UTC) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/TR-3B_Stryker

Mertola and Meda

Why that indexing in Mértola and Mêda? I find it strange. Could you explain me the reasons of doing so? Why do you add the names without diacritics in the index? I would like to learn about it. Thanks! Afonso Silva 17:06, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Because they don't come after Murtosa in English indexing (I don't think they do in Portuguese indexing either, do they? But that's beside the point here, in English Wikipedia). Gene Nygaard 17:10, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Do you also find it strange that pt:Meda in the Portuguese Wikipedia doesn't have any squiggly thingies? I do. Maybe we have some fixing to do here, too. Gene Nygaard 17:13, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Ok, thanks for the explanation! I noticed that some time ago, but I didn't remember. The diacritics count as a different letter, it's very very strange for me. I even posted about it on general complaints but I received no feedback. In Portuguese wikipedia happens the same, for example, Sátão comes after Soure. After all, the software is the same, isn't it?

About Mêda, it is one of the 3 or 4 naming disputes in the list of the 308 Portuguese municipalities that I recently finished. The Portuguese version claims that Mêda is the former name, and now it is called Meda. But both the coat of arms and the municipality official website present Mêda, so, I decided to mantain the diacritic, or the squiggly thing, as you call it, hehe. Regards! Afonso Silva 17:36, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes, it should work the same in Portuguese, so you could probably show people how to get the categories sorted better there, too. It doesn't work as well as it could; better software could allow changing of order, and in some languages certain diacritics are usually sorted after the letter without diacritics but before the next letter (rather than somewhere off after Z), etc. but at least we can get them closer than they would be without the sort key in the categories. You did notice that this works differently from piping in ordinary links, didn't you? In the regular links in an article, piping changes what is displayed; in the category piping, only the sort order is changed, not what is displayed. Gene Nygaard 17:41, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes, a software change would solve that, but I heard a swedish complaining that it would be strange for him seeing a letter with a diacritic listed under the letter without a diacritic, so, it is a war of opinions, you english don't use that kind of things, so, it's not your fault. Perhaps the solution will come from the cell phone sms and internet chat mania, that is forcing the Portuguese youth (at least a big majority, I'm only 20 and I use them) to abandon the use of diacritics. Of course there will always be someone concerned with the removal of about 25% of the phonemes from our writing and we will continue using them. I would like to change that fact in the pt wikipedia, but my only contributions there are related to the english version, like including "+en" and stuff like that, I dislike the Brazilian Portuguese, and because they are the majority, the pt wikipedia is almost entirely written in Brazilian Portuguese. Anyway, I'm aware that in the category page they continue as they were, with the full name, that also happens when you choose to index an article as "xxxxx, The", but thanks for the explanation! Afonso Silva 18:06, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Indexing in Arabic

Hi Gene,

just noticed your changes to Husni al-Za'im to index it under "a" instead of "z". "al-" is the Arabic definite article, and in academic works in English it's standard practice to disregard it for indexing purposes. (another example is Jamil_al-Midfai) Palmiro | Talk 18:27, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

It is also fairly common English practice to index definite articles in foreign languages. See Wikipedia:Categorization:

• People with multiple-word last names: sorting is done on the entire last name as usually used in English, in normal order and not (for example) according to the Dutch system that puts some words like "van", "vanden", etc... after the rest of the last name. Example: [[Categorie:Nederlands voetballer|Basten van Marco]]; [[Category:A.C. Milan players|Basten, Marco van]] → [[Category:A.C. Milan players|Van Basten, Marco]]
  Exceptions Note that some people are typically called this way in English, for example: Beethoven, [[Category:Classical era composers|Beethoven, Ludwig van]]; similarly: Montesquieu, [[Category:Enlightenment philosophers|Montesquieu, Charles de Secondat, Baron de]]

There really isn't any clear-cut way to do it, and "academic works" is rather indefinite (something which likely varies in different fields of activity) and not necessarily the standard to follow. Can you cite any "academic works" indexing Husni al-Za'im under "Z"? I don't particularly care which say this one is indexed. But in this particular case, al-Za'im wasn't indexed under either "Z" or "A" in a couple of the categories. Gene Nygaard 18:58, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Furthermore, in the case of Jamil al-Midfai, he was improperly indexed under a lowercase a, which I changed to an uppercase A since our categories are normally indexed case-insensitively in the initial letter. Gene Nygaard 19:01, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Academic works: pretty much every one I have at home that has an index, as far as I can recall. Of course they are all specialised on Middle Eastern history, politics or religion, but I think these are the ones to follow. I'll check on them when I get back to the house and get back to you. Palmiro | Talk 19:07, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Which brings up another point; the rules often change when the subjects are world-wide in scope. For example, in Isaac Asimov's Azimov's Biographical Encyclopedia of Science & Technology we find "AL-KHWARIZMI, Muhammed ibn Musa" under A, not under K as someone has put him in all the categories in his entry at Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi. Gene Nygaard 19:19, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Checked the first 12 books that came to hand, and all but one systematically indexed names under the substantive name rather than the definite article. The only exception (which is quite slopply edited in other respectes as well) eliminates the article or assimilates it to "Abd" in all placenames and personal names, but lists "al-qaeda" under "a". The remainder are all published by a variety of reputable British and North American publishers, with the exception of one published in Beirut. Palmiro | Talk 14:44, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Time out

You have been temporarily blocked from editing for 24 hrs for violating 3RR at Wikipedia talk:Reliable sources. Violating 3RR to scuttle the archiving of a page is not just lame, but disruptive. FeloniousMonk 02:03, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Hey Gene Nygaard, I've dealt with SV before and yes the rules are "different" for her. But I have found this through out life, if you cultivate relationships then the rules tend to be bent for you. You can fight it but it is usually self-destructive. Try to play by the rules and even use them to your advantage and you'll be a stronger individual. Catching SV on the 3RR was the right thing to do. But don't push it, just make sure that the hypocrisy is clearly shown but don't push it too far and then go back and demonstrate it again, there will be ample opportunities. --LuckyLittleGrasshopper 04:21, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. Gene Nygaard 04:23, 1 May 2006 (UTC)