User talk:Wikid77/Archive 1

Welcome to Wikipedia!!!

Hello Wikid77/Archive 1! Welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. If you decide that you need help, check out Wikipedia:Where to ask a question, ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. Please remember to sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. Below are some recommended guidelines to facilitate your involvement. Happy Editing! Kukini Getting Started Wikipedia Tutorial How to edit a page The five pillars of Wikipedia Manual of Style Be bold in editing How to write a great article WikiProjects Getting your info out there Cite your sources Neutral Point of View Point of View Verifiability Uploading images Image use policy Getting more Wikipedia rules Policy Library Getting Help New contributors' help page Where to ask a question Help Desk Frequently Asked Questions Getting along Wikiquette Civility Sign your posts Wikipedians Conflict resolution Getting technical Pages needing attention Peer review Utilities Village pump

Kukini 03:39, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Brokeback Mountain

Hi, I've undone a couple of your recent edits to Brokeback Mountain-related articles. I'm not sure how to explain, so for now I'll just refer you to Wikipedia:Avoid self-references, Wikipedia:Disambiguation, and Wikipedia:Manual of Style. Cheers, Melchoir 12:25, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps I should try to be more specific:

1. Don't use HTML commented-out comments.
2. Top-level sections have two = signs, not three.
3. Section titles aren't capitalized, except for the first word.
4. Italicized notes at the top are for disambiguation between articles with the same name, not for explanation of content.
5. Good formatting doesn't use extra spaces, and they are routinely removed by other editors.
6. The "See also" section is for links that are relevant to the article but aren't mentioned in the body.

For example, see the featured article V for Vendetta (film). The articles V for Vendetta (soundtrack) and V for Vendetta do not link to each other, and neither has a "See also" section. V for Vendetta has a disambiguation notice at the top only because someone typing in "V for Vendetta" to the search box might become confused upon visiting the article. V for Vendetta (soundtrack) links to the film in the first sentence, and does not link to it again. Note also the syling of the sections and the use of blank lines in the source code. -Wikid77 18:04, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Generally, since you're new, and the style guides take time to learn, you shouldn't worry too much about this sort of thing. Just focus on content and generally try to imitate existing articles. Other editors will clean up the style issues-- and trust us when we do! Melchoir 14:57, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

RESPONSE 30-May-2006: To Melchoir: Whatever defense you wish to say, you have been vandalizing my contributions to Wikipedia, by blanking whole sections, without an attempt to open a prior dialog with me. Since you are new to this, let me remind you that you should seriously consider talking with a previous-revision editor before deleting, or reverting, within hours, several articles that had been expanded, in a good-faith attempt, to improve information. In general, let me advise you that "form over substance" is usually a very bad policy for information distribution. However, you are not the only person who is vandalizing Wikipedia articles, but just the latest causing such ridiculous problems in thwarting the use of Wikipedia. -Wikid77 18:05, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

You seem to misunderstand the Wikipedia editing process. Please see Wikipedia:Be bold in updating pages and Wikipedia:Ownership of articles. Other users do not have an obligation to discuss minor changes with you before implementing them, and these are indeed minor changes. If you believe in subtance over form, I invite you to reflect that I have not removed any actual content from the articles themselves, just the way they are packaged.

Well-intentioned people disagree over such matters all the time on Wikipedia. Please do not resort to crying "vandalism" over it. See Wikipedia:Vandalism for what that word really means. Accusing other users of vandalism is the surest way of pissing them off, and I advise you to find a better way to express your frustrations in the future.

Well, let's start over again, shall we? The most important items are the italicized notes at the top; they are distracting and out of place. See Wikipedia:Hatnotes. I'll remove them again, and wait for you to absorb the change. Melchoir 21:30, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

30-May-2006: I don't understand why you feel compelled to edit those articles before I have even responded to your misunderstandings. The top-note form that I have been using is shown in the "Wikipedia:Hatnotes" article as the example: "This article is about USE1. For USE2, see PAGE2." I hope you can understand the example and that the article does NOT say hatnotes are solely for disambiguation of overloaded terms.

Since the proposed restrictions about the hatnotes are not even official Wikipedia policy, I suggest you retreat from harrassing me further about these very legitimate changes to an entire set of related articles.

Wikipedia is a social forum, where people interact, and people expect to find information, rather than deletions to information. Please re-think your behavior concerning my legitimate updates, why you felt compelled to re-delete my additions 3 times, and also, please question your own motives as to why this has happened. Thank you. -Wikid77 22:26, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Because if we just sat here talking, nothing would get done. I've seen it happen: discussions can become drawn-out arguments, and the participants forget all about who's proposing what changes to which article. People quickly lose their sense of scope and context. It's much better to stay active. I've been careful not to simply revert you; this way we have a focused pair of edits to discuss.

It's true that there is no official policy that hatnotes are reserved for disambiguation. The Wikipedia community actively resists developing new policies on such small matters. But I hope that from reading that page, especially the "Examples of improper use" section and the talk page, that community consensus strongly discourages using them for anything else. I can honestly tell you that I have never seen an article that uses hatnotes for the purposes you propose. What I have seen is the occasional user who inserts such a note, and someone else always takes it out later. I hope you appreciate, at least, being told why this is happening.

My own motives are simple: to improve the encyclopedia. Today's issues aren't a big deal. You'll feel better if you focus on something more productive, I guarantee it! Melchoir 22:50, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Brokeback Mountain cinematic analysis

I was very disappointed to discover the 'Brokeback Mountain cinematic analysis' article had been deleted. I enjoyed reading it and learned a lot. If possible, can you send me a written copy? Thank you. Shamir1 07:43, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Image copyright problem with Image:GMax_JesusHealingSick.jpg

Thanks for uploading Image:GMax_JesusHealingSick.jpg. The image has been identified as not specifying the copyright status of the image, which is required by Wikipedia's policy on images.

An Inconvenient Truth bestseller dates

You found a funny URL that points to the Aug. 20 list. Note that Aug. 11 isn't even a Sunday. If you go to this link you can see the Aug. 13 list, which has An Inconvenient Truth at number one after 9 weeks. If you just navigate from the website to the bestseller list it will take you to the most current, i.e. Aug. 20 (this coming Sunday). Crust 19:46, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Cite web

Please learn how to use the {{cite web}} template for making reference citations. Thanks. --Golbez 03:03, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Your edits to Hurricane Katrina

Please stop. Your edits are actually, contrary to what you may think, NOT helping the article. You keep saysing that you're making it NPOV - replaced "substantial" with "total devastation" as a more accurate NPOV? That's hardly more NPOV. I will be reverting your changes right back to the last version, please DISCUSS your planned changes on the talk page and wait for CONSENSUS, or an RFC will be started against you - your edits are hardly NPOV. – Chacor 12:23, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Your continued terming of reverts of your edits as vandalism is not acceptable and violates WP:OWN as well as WP:CIV. Continued violations of these policies is blockable. I will say this, prepare to answer a request for comment soon. You should always discuss major edits, especially to the extent of the edits you made. As for who I am, I've been here since September and am a former admin. – Chacor 12:50, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

WP:CIV, WP:3RR

Please deal with other contributions in a polite and constructive manner. Rude behavior is discouraged by Wikipedia policies. See Wikipedia:Civility. Thank you. Please refrain from undoing other people's edits repeatedly. If you continue, you may be blocked from editing Wikipedia under the three-revert rule, which states that nobody may revert a single page more than three times in 24 hours. (Note: this also means editing the page to reinsert an old edit. If the effect of your actions is to revert back, it qualifies as a revert.) Thank you. – Chacor 13:35, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

You appear to have already violated the three-revert rule on Hurricane Katrina. Please cease further reverts or you may be blocked from further editing. —AySz88\^-^ 13:43, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

You have been blocked 24 hours for making four reverts to Hurricane Katrina in a period of only 47 minutes. Please remember that basing a new, unrelated edit on a non-current version of a page, especially your own, is still considered a revert, as it has the effect of undoing any more recent changes by other editors.

You have been blocked an additional 3 hours for hostile edit summaries in which you refer to other users' edits "vandalism", apparently because you happen to disagree with them.

Your block expires August 27, 2006 at 16:42 (UTC). Have a nice day. —freak(talk) 13:56, Aug. 26, 2006 (UTC)

Your edits to Meteorological History...

Hi! I noticed that you added a section to Meteorological history of Hurricane Katrina. I think that the kind of synopsis you are trying to achieve is already covered by the Storm History section of Hurricane Katrina. If you still think you need to add some additional information to the Meteorological history article, please add it into the respective sections. Also, please avoid stuff about impacts (beach houses, ships listing...), as that's the function of other articles (i.e. the "Effects of Hurricane Katrina on..." articles). —AySz88\^-^ 03:34, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for your message

I am a fan of Cole Porter, so no bad reflections. I thank you for not taking it that way. There is such a double standard around here it is exhasuting. So I thank you, and your points are well taken. You are right - just desert controversial pages as those pushing a certain point alwaays get their way because they are sophisticated in the ways of doing so. I thank you for a rare moment of encouragement. Usually when I get the "message" banner I dread it. Most of the time I don't know what the heck the messengers are talking about. So thanks! Timmy12 02:56, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Image tagging for Image:Hurricane_Katrina_1200utc29Aug_col4deg.png

Thanks for uploading Image:Hurricane_Katrina_1200utc29Aug_col4deg.png. The image has been identified as not specifying the source and creator of the image, which is required by Wikipedia's policy on images. 07:11, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

trailer

I suggest you rename the article "FEMA temporary disaster housing", or some such, and re-write a bit to expand the scope. Unfortunately, but logically, it's usually the case that people interested in deleting hang out in AFD. I'll never understand the deletionist mentality. At any rate, it's one way to eliminate the stated reason of many delete votes before the debate closes. Derex 05:40, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Re: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/FEMA Trailer

Please refrain from making insults against Wikipedia and its community on Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/FEMA Trailer. This is incivil, and is a violation of policy. On another note, you don't have to reply to and/or attack every single delete argument - if you feel the article can be fixed, just fix it and say you fixed it on the article. While sarcasm is not usually incivil, most editors do not appreciate it. --Coredesat 08:40, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Ernst Haeckel

Thanks for the hard work, and letting me know about it. I was originally going to translate it from German, which proved difficult due to ongoing edit wars on the German Wikipedia. I think the article we now have is much nicer in many ways. I nominated it as a good article (see article talk). Best wishes, Samsara (talk ·  contribs) 11:12, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm concerned that the statement that Haeckel considered politics to be applied biology is unsourced. Do you know where this is from? - Samsara (talk ·  contribs) 23:18, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

WikiProject Georgia Tech

As a current or past contributor to a related article, I thought I'd let you know that I've started WikiProject Georgia Tech, a collaborative effort to improve Wikipedia's coverage of Georgia Tech. If you would like to participate, you can visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a list of open tasks and related articles. Thanks! —Disavian (talk/contribs) 19:04, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Hermann Klaatsch

Thank you for contributing this article! I have announced it at the Germany-related announcement page. If you create more articles about German scientists, please list them there and consider contributing to the Germany WikiProject. Thanks again, and happy editing, Kusma (討論) 22:58, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Did you know?

On 6 December, 2006, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Hermann Klaatsch, which you created. If you know of another...

--GeeJo ^(t)⁄_(c) • 15:32, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Request for assistance: reference on Google proximity searches

I'm constructing a tools page. I was wondering if you could provide me a link to documentation on the web (preferably from Google itself) about using Google's wildcard operator for proximity searches. I'd like to provide a link to an authoritative source on my tools page, but so far I've found conflicting information: your example in proximity search (text) contradicts the explanation in this link provided in the external links section:

• http://www.staggernation.com/cgi-bin/gaps.cgi - Google Proximity (at most 3 words' distance) Search

I can't seem to pin down how many words the asterisk can be used to represent, and need to find documentation on whether it's one word per asterisk, or some formula. I'd really appreciate your assistance. Thank you.  The Transhumanist   12:07, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Orphaned fair use image (Image:Gustav-Holst-The-Planets-Leopold-Stokowski-LP-album.jpg)

Thanks for uploading Image:Gustav-Holst-The-Planets-Leopold-Stokowski-LP-album.jpg. The image description page currently specifies that the image is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use.

Orphaned fair use image (Image:Gustav xxx)

Thanks for uploading Image:Gustav-Holst-The-Planets-Simon-Rattle-LP-album.jpg. Note that any fair use images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described...speedy deletion. Thank you. This is an automated message from User:BJBot 07:52, 2 February 2007

naval battles query

Hey, thanks for the work on that! You asked about naval battles in the period 0-500 AD or so. If I could find accounts of battles for that period I'd put them in but I haven't been able to! I'm not sure what culture would have ahd them... maybe the Chinese? I added all the naval battles I could find from reference books and "list of naval battles" books and have been filling in details of these battles from time to time, so that some of the links haven't worked but I put them in anyway to save time later. SpookyMulder 11:28, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Image:Sudan map narrow.jpg listed for deletion

An image or media file that you uploaded or altered, Image:Sudan map narrow.jpg, has been listed ... for deletion. Thank you. —Bkell .. 23:58, 23 February 2007

I have listed this image for deletion again; please see Wikipedia:Images and media for deletion/2007 March 22#Image:Sudan map narrow.jpg. —Bkell (talk) 17:05, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Mississippi counties map 280px.jpg listed for deletion

An image or media file that you uploaded or altered, Image:Mississippi counties map 280px.jpg, has been listed at ... Thank you. —Bkell ([User talk:Bkell]) 22:13, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

JPEG, GIF, and PNG

Hello, Wikid77. I've noticed you've uploaded several images that are duplicates of other images, the only difference being the file format. You seem to have a confused idea of the difference between JPEG, GIF, and PNG.

The JPEG format was designed for photographs, and is best for photos, paintings, and similar images. It is not very good for maps, flags, graphs, charts, diagrams, screenshots, line art, and other similar images that have sharp edges and well-defined blocks of solid colors, because it introduces compression artifacts into the image which, while practically invisible in photographs, are highly visible in these other types of images. Additionally, the type of compression that JPEG uses performs poorly on maps, flags, diagrams, and so on, so a JPEG version of a map (for example) will have a much larger file size than the same map saved as a PNG.

You seem to believe that JPEG files resize much more quickly than PNG files. I have never heard this claim, and I can't think of any reason it would be true, but even if it were true it's irrelevant here on Wikipedia. The server software does all the resizing of images, and it saves the results, so each image that is resized to a thumbnail only goes through the resizing process once. So it doesn't matter whether the resizing takes 10 ms or 100 ms.

The GIF format has several limitations that make it inferior to the PNG format. Both of these formats use lossless compression, which means that they do not introduce compression artifacts into the image, so they are appropriate for maps, graphs, and so forth. However, GIF images are limited to only 256 colors, while the PNG format can represent a full 16 million colors. Furthermore, GIF supports only binary transparency (i.e., every pixel in the image is either completely transparent or completely opaque), while the PNG format supports an alpha channel, which means that pixels can be partly transparent.

The primary advantage of GIF over PNG is that GIF supports animation, whereas PNG does not. For non-animated images, however, PNG is superior to GIF.

For many diagrams, the SVG format is the best choice, since it can be scaled cleanly to any size. At the moment, however, SVG editing software is still rather uncommon. One SVG editor is Inkscape.

Please read Wikipedia:Preparing images for upload for more information. Let me know if you have any questions. —Bkell (talk) 22:36, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Image:Mississippi counties map narrow.gif listed for deletion

An image or media file that you uploaded or altered, Image:Mississippi counties map narrow.gif, has been listed at Wikipedia:Images and media for deletion. Please look there to see why this is (you may have to search for the title of the image to find its entry), if you are interested in it not being deleted. Thank you. —Bkell (talk) 01:36, 25 February 2007

Regarding edits made to 1657

Thank you for contributing to Wikipedia, Wikid77! However, your edit was reverted by an automated bot that attempts to remove [WP:SPAM] from Wikipedia. For more information about me, see my FAQ page. Thanks! User:Shadowbot 06:08, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Your userpage

They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery :) I'm glad you liked my layout. I've added some other things (more links to policy pages, mostly) that you may feel like using. Also, a question: you seem to have a fair use rationale for Image:AnnRichards-closeup.jpg, yet you have it under the public domain. Which is it? —Disavian (^talk/_contribs) 17:10, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

I forgot to mention that I discovered {{userinfo}}, which puts a link for edit count and edit summary usage at the top-right of a page. I find it intriguing, and stuck it on both my userpage and my talk page. —Disavian (^talk/_contribs) 17:15, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Images listed for deletion

Some of your images or media files have been listed for deletion. Please see "Wikipedia:Images and media for deletion" if you are interested in preserving them.

• Image:Mississippi Territory dark.gif
• Image:Mardi Gras logo lines.gif
• Image:Mardi Gras logo box white.gif
• Image:Mardi Gras logo box yellow.gif
• Image:Mississippi counties map Katrina flood.gif

Thank you. —User:Remember the dot^(talk) 04:20, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

DYK

On 3 April, 007, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Vienna General Hospital, which you created or substantially expanded. If you know of another...

--ALoan 17:27, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Ada (programming language)‎

Why did you add comb- to structed when there in no definition of comb in the Structured programming page which comb-structed now points to? do you have a definition of comb-structed? Iccaldwell 08:16, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

List of years in art

Thank you for your message. As you know, both of us have done a tremendous amount of work on these lists. I occassionally need to go back and forth between the two in order to edit information and unfortunately your template - (which is terrific) doesn't actually link to list of years in art, so I've been replacing the links. It would be great if the template actually made the link. Thanks again. Modernist 13:03, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks again, Modernist 13:41, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks for this edit... there are several more PNGs in bloating the article that you might want also want to fix. --Gmaxwell 13:32, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Greetings, User:Gmaxwell. I am waiting to see who reverts the "Microsoft Vista" article back to the slow, massive PNG image. There is a group of graphics people actively bloating articles by converting to PNG images. Since WP discourages OR (original research, WP:NOR), I don't know how they justify using PNG files, when the existing research in the Wikipedia "PNG" article specifically warns that JPEG is much faster, and PNG files are often 10x larger than JPEG (sometimes 20x larger for small thumbnails). However, I think the PNG-conversion problem has reached a breaking-point, and we need to actively start contacting each PNG user to stop the PNG bloating. WP articles were formerly over 70% text with JPEGs, now many are 80% PNG-data transmissions. I will try to convert more of "Windows Vista" to quick JPEG images. -Wikid77 13:53, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

1559

I removed a picture that you uploaded to show a hurricane in [1559] which was actually a picture of hurricane Katrina. Try not to make such mistakes in the future, as they detract from the quality and reliability of Wikipedia. User:Patar knight 22:20, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Julian Calendar Tables in Common/Leap Years Beginning on Such a Day of Week

I've noticed that you've added tables to these pages that show which years are of the type in the Julian calendar. The table would be more useful, if it were to include earlier years and cover seven centuries. The Gregorian table has four centuries, because it would repeat every 400 years. The Julian table would repeat every 700 years so should have seven centuries.Karl 08:33, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Sharps and flats

Your recent edits replacing unicode sharps and flats with Bs and number signs are not in line with the Music Manual of Style. If you want to see a broad change made to the style, you should not just suddenly edit it into many pages at once yourself. This is just making work and annoyance for the people who will revert it. Bring it up at the appropriate place, let a consensus be reached, and if the consensus is that it should be changed, the style guide will be changed, and making these edits would then be appropriate. The discussion about this particular topic I believe has been ongoing at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (music) for quite some time. You should take part in that discussion, but please refrain from making these multiple counter-guideline edits that you have been. - Rainwarrior 11:07, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

TfD nomination of Template:Year nav range

Template:Year nav range has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. — Philip Stevens 21:22, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Louisiana edits

Wikid77, I have not heard a response from you concerning the comments you left on my talk page on June 28th and my reply to them. However, your edits to Louisiana municipalities have raised several issues that I think need to be discussed before you continue making edits.

First, you started removing the blank parameters of the Geobox and reducing the size of the map highlighting Louisiana in the United States. Your reason for this was to increase the speed, however the guideline Wikipedia:Don't worry about performance states that individuals do not need to concern themselves with the server speeds, as "there is nothing you can do to appreciably speed up or slow down the site." Therefore, I don't see a benefit to these edits, but I see the following negatives.

First, the presence of the blank parameters will help future editors (whether familiar with the Geobox or not) to add addition information to the Geobox. Second, the USA map should be the same size as the Louisiana map for readability. As Wikipedia is a global community, there are certainly readers from other countries that may not be familiar with American geography. The map is there to provide a better context to the location of the subject of the article. Reducing it in size, makes readability an issue and renders it ineffective at communicating its intended purpose.

Second, you created 3 new templates based on the Geobox for the various types of Louisiana municipalities. This runs counter to the idea of the Geobox which is a consistent template that can be used across municipalities around the globe. The Geobox is customizable enough that it can be applied anywhere without the need to create small regional templates. Additionally, by having one common template, any edits to improve the Geobox only need to be made in one place. If every state and type of municipality had their own template, maintain these templates to consistent standards becomes incredibly difficult, as was the case before the drive to condense such templates earlier this year. The Geoboxes as they were prior to your edits were functioning just fine and had not encountered any of the problems that you cite at Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/2007 July 6#Template:Geobox Lousiana... as your reasons for their creation.

Given my reasons above and the TfD proposal to delete the Louisiana Geoboxes where the the consensus so far is for deletion, I believe that the Geoboxes need to be restored to their previous versions.

Beyond the Geobox edits, I have a few other observations. While adding citations to Wikipedia articles is certainly a positive, I think it's a mistake to replace any US Census data, which is used on all US municipal articles and is a consistent reliable source, with data from City-data. City-data states that their information comes from various sources, but doesn't say which ones. This seems less reliable a source than the Census in my opinion. If there is a difference in data from the Census and City-data, the Census should take priority as that is the official information for any municipality.

Another piece of information that has been changed in most of your edits is the elevation of a town. While I recognize that a town does not have one single elevation value, the numbers listed in the Geoboxes come from the GNIS which is the USGS's database of all geographic locations in the United States. Again, like the Census this is an official source that covers all municipalities in the country and contains the coordinates and elevations for all municipalities. Given that the coordinates already in place in all municipal articles come from this database, the elevation values should as well. I feel that preference should go to the USGS data over City-data values.

Finally, the Louisiana road maps. I am unsure what they are inteded to do. First, the location of a municipality is already identified in the Locator map in the Geobox. Second, the road maps are so cluttered with town names they are hard to read and the actual town it is supposed to be identifying is hard to locate. I'm just not sure what is the purpose of these maps.

Thank you for looking at my concerns. I hope you hear back from you. VerruckteDan 22:27, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

08-July-2007: I have been responding to the above comments on your talk page. However, the issue of roadmaps I will also cover here. Yes, roadmaps are typically somewhat hard to read due to all the concentrated information; however, the solution has been to display just an excerpt of the whole map, then focus attention by using a set of common direction phrases, such as "lower left" or "top right" or "bottom center" (which are idioms in American English; British English has different idioms such as two-word compass directions: "south west"). Psychological tests have proven that viewing relational maps provides better-remembered information than isolated dot-on references: showing a map with New Orleans east of Metairie at Lake Pontchartrain helps to remember the location of each, rather than a red-dot on a blank map. However, "red-dots" can be placed on roadmaps as well, so that is a wide-open future. In general, roadmaps take a while to understand, so the solution is the kaizen principle: if something is difficult, don't avoid it, practice it more to see if ease comes with experience. Yes, indeed, children are initially shocked at roadmaps, but can become very adept in a short while. Video-game aptitude has proven that children, who could learn arcane video playing fields (such as "Super Mario Brothers"), could also learn to read roadmaps too, once laziness is overcome. The Greeks and the Turks have had awesome maps on Wikipedia, which I helped expand fully, due to the laborious tedium of labeling crowded maps for dozens of famous places. Please don't underestimate the readers of Wikipedia, they can handle roadmaps, really they can. -Wikid77 10:50, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Map of Egypt restored

11-July-2007: The ID "User:Lanternix" (notified) was logged as overwriting an unsourced map image onto a map of Egypt developed by the American CIA, on 19-May-2007 at 1:09 a.m, which has been restored (after 52 days). Map image: Image:Egypt-region-map-cities.gif (view older versions to compare). -Wikid77 06:54, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Wikid77, could you explain why you posted the above on my user page? I don't seem to have ever had anything to do with the image in question and am puzzled as to why you have posted this message to me. Thanks. Bezapt 03:11, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

The above message was sent to you as a member of Wikipedia:WikiProject Ancient Egypt, where the map is displayed in several articles about ancient Egyptian temples and towns. I apologize the reasoning was omitted from the original message. -Wikid77 04:06, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Hello there, You forwarded me this message below but I know nothing about any map for Egypt. Pls send it to the right person. Regards. 11-July-2007: The ID "User:Lanternix" (notified) was logged as overwriting an unsourced map image onto a map of Egypt developed by the American CIA, on 19-May-2007 at 1:09 a.m, which has been restored (after 52 days). Map image: Image:Egypt-region-map-cities.gif (view older versions to compare).

Received with WikiProject: Ancient Egypt. -Wikid77 08:01, 11 July 2007 (UTC) Leoboudv 19:43, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Could you explain to me why I got the message, when I'm not a member of the WikiProject above? - Presidentman 23:14, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Template:State terrorism

Don't create it again, if it was deleted. I actually voted for keep in the discussion. There's also no reason for you to continue calling people psychopaths. That's a personal attack; now knock it off. The Evil Spartan 18:35, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

• Wrong user, that wasn't me. -Wikid77

Image:ImNotSlowingDown.gif listed for deletion

An image or media file that you uploaded or altered, Image:ImNotSlowingDown.gif, has been listed at Wikipedia:Images and media for deletion. Thank you. howcheng {chat} 18:51, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Replaceable fair use Image:AnnRichards-closeup.jpg

Replaceable fair use

Thanks for uploading Image:AnnRichards-closeup.jpg. I notice the 'image' page specifies that the image is being used under Wikipedia:Fair_use, but its use in Wikipedia articles fails our first fair use criterion in that it illustrates a subject for which a freely licensed image could reasonably be found or created that provides substantially the same information. If you believe this image is not replaceable, please:

1. Go to the image description page and edit it to add {{di-replaceable fair use disputed}}, without deleting the original Replaceable fair use template.
2. On the image discussion page, write the reason why this image is not replaceable at all.

Alternatively, you can also choose to replace the fair use image by finding a freely licensed image of its subject, requesting that the copyright holder release this (or a similar) image under a free license, or by taking a picture of it yourself. ... Thank you. -N 21:36, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Recreation of deleted material

Please don't recreate deleted material. Such works qualify for speedy deletion. If you have a problem with the way a deletion was handled, please go to Wikipedia:Deletion review. Thanks. — Rebelguys2 ^talk 10:27, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

list of wiki

Would you consider adding the Pensacola wiki to the list of *all* public wiki? (see User_talk:Disavian/Archive_9#All_those_Wikis). --75.37.227.177 09:14, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I have added "Pensapedia" to the WikiIndex, which links the entry as URL: http://wikiindex.org/Pensapedia. The Pensapedia wiki remains very small at this time, due to lack of editors. -Wikid77 20:27, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Alabama

Please stop inserting Image:Alabama counties Yellowhammer.jpg into the Alabama article. Also, please refrain from using misleading edit summaries such as you did when reinserting the image. You have yet to participate in the discussion on Talk:Alabama, and nobody has suggested the image should remain. Please stop. - auburnpilot talk 04:59, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

That someone would be me, as each username is restricted to one person. The message was not intended to be offensive, accusatory, or demeaning, but as you have yet again missed the entire point related to the image, let me explain further. The copyright issue was rather minor, as the image itself is rather strange. Why is there a bird slapped at the bottom of a map of Alabama? It's a very odd composition, and several editors have expressed the very same concern on Talk:Alabama. Nowhere in that discussion did anybody state the image should be included, making the edit summary "restoring image per discussion on Talk:Alabama" misleading. Please join the discussion before re-including the image. - auburnpilot talk 05:29, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Contentious edits to Duluth article

17-Aug-2007: To User:Appraiser: As I suspected, your action of removing the area map for the "Duluth" article, within 4 minutes of my resizing the map, clearly reveals that you are purposely hacking the article, in a rude, uncooperative manner. For days, I have politely tolerated your contentious antics, as you recklessly reverted improvements to articles. Let me remind you that the Wikipedia project is a community effort, not the ramblings of people with hidden agendas and antisocial actions. This note provides a record that you have been tracked in your hostile activities, and I hope it serves as a warning that such behavior is not acceptable. People who live in Minnesota might not appreciate the need for town maps to locate cities and lakes for outsiders, but being from Minnesota does not give blanket freedom to recklessly delete the work of other editors. Note well, as posted. -Wikid77 01:01, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I care very much for Wikipedia, especially for articles related to Minnesota. On Duluth's talk page I asked that you not resize the pictures until the topic had been discussed. You blatantly ignored the request, restated your opinion, and re-inserted the sizes. This topic was discussed extensively when several of us were working to bring Minnesota to FA status. I carefully considered which graphics might need to be larger than the user's default sizes, and, in the process questioned whether a road map of the entire state was appropriate for an article about Duluth. It clearly is not; and that is the only graphic that could possibly fall under the umbrella of requiring a huge image in an article, if it added anything to the understanding of Duluth. I would hope that you reconsider your desire to size pictures. Although only a few users read WP on handheld devices, there are many sizes and shapes of monitors. You cannot possibly design a page that will look good on all of them. That is why the software allows user-specified sizes. To override that for no apparent reason is arrogant and, if you persist, will prevent Duluth, Minnesota from regaining GA status. Your opinion is in the minority.--Appraiser 01:24, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

New Jersey map

I question the broad use of such a large map in articles for individual municipalities in New Jersey, particularly one that is so large (in terms of physical space in the articles and in bytes), that covers the entire state (when only a small portion is being covered) and that includes a tremendous amount of detail on rivers and roadways that are not relevant to each specific article. While I would readily agree that the existing maps do not provide adequate context in many cases, this map simply overwhelms the entire article. Can I suggest that we discuss this in the largely dormant Wikiproject:New Jersey, which might get a better feel for consensus on the issue. Alansohn 17:54, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

New Jersey terrain map

17-Aug-2007: For User_talk:Alansohn: Got your message about using roadmap in several town articles. I will go to discussion page. -Wikid77 18:01, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I have created a discussion paragraph about using roadmaps:

• Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_New_Jersey#Putting NJ terrain map in towns

The discussion could take weeks. I realize that many WikiProjects are skeleton crews (like most of the WP effort), and only a relative handful of people are actively editing the countless thousands of articles. (Many people eagerly join a discussion, then quit WP within weeks, after editing perhaps 30 articles; it's a tiresome effort.) -Wikid77 18:48, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Katrina in Mobile

Hi. Could you please give more information on Image:Hurricane Katrina Mobile Alabama flooded parking lot 20050829.jpg. Were you in Mobile during or just after Katrina? What does your description "Stylized image" mean-- is it a composite or manipulated. Thanks! Cheers, -- Infrogmation 14:32, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your reply. Do you have the original unmodified image, and perhaps any others, that might be uploaded to Commons? If you are not the photographer, can we get credit for that person, and perhaps an identification of the particular location? Thanks and best wishes at the 2 year mark, -- Infrogmation 13:27, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Danish location maps

Hi Wikid77. Thanks for taking an interest in the articles about Danish towns and cities. Unfortunately, the map you use doesn't seem to be correctly aligned. E.g. the article about Langeland shows the dot positioned on nearby Tåsinge, the dots for Odense and Svendborg are respectively too far to the east and west, and the dot for Holbæk is too far northeast. I have a bad feeling that the CIA cartographer made a somewhat sloppy job. The Demis map which you replaced was correctly aligned though. Happy editing. Valentinian ^{T / C} 22:32, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Btw, many of the coats of arms featured on these pages are historical insignia rather than the current municipal arms, most of which remain under copyright due to Danish law. Some towns hold on to the historical insignias, e.g. Helsingør, Odense and Svendborg. Several others have discarded them completely (e.g. Middelfart and Kerteminde) or modified them (e.g. Næstved). Most of these changes are related to a recent administrative reform. Happy editing. Valentinian ^{T / C} 22:46, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

I've gone through your list on contributions replaced the map again where the locator dot was incorrectly placed, e.g. where it was located on the wrong island. I don't quite follow why you wish to hardcode the dot into the infoboxes. One of the main features of the infoboxes is to allow the easy replacement of maps by simply aligning a map once and for all (which was done with the Demis map). The infobox code can then automatically calculate the positioning of the locator dot. That way, any new map can replace the original one provided that it is sufficiently adequate and aligned the same way as the original one. So if Wikipedia one day adopts a common map standard, it will be much easier replacing the many different types of maps with a common standard. Btw, please don't sort the redirects into categories. Doing so creates duplicate entries and European naming convention merely refers to locations by their proper names, e.g. Horsens rather then "Horsens, Jutland, Denmark" or "Horsens, Denmark", so the relevant articles are already listed in Category:Cities and towns in Denmark using their common names. You might also wish to consult Wikipedia:WikiProject Denmark about which map editors prefer. Your map uses the most common colour scheme, but it is less detailed than the old one, and including 30 towns seems to be somewhat much given the limited size of the map. Valentinian ^{T / C} 12:22, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Map of southeast Denmark.

31-Aug-2007: To User:Valentinian: Thank you for your comments of the past 13 hours. I am a computer scientist from Texas (USA). I have been thinking about your ideas about locator maps. The Demis terrain map is fine for the coastline details, but I also wanted to put names on the areas: that was the reason for expanding the CIA Denmark map: I had to find "Viborg" on a map. However, after editing hundreds of map articles, I have noticed that multiple maps are needed for multiple purposes. I have created a subset, close-up Demis map for the Denmark southeast islands: Image:Map Denmark Demis SE islands.gif (shown at right), which shows some coastline detail, as related to nearby islands. It is helpful to have names on maps; however, the Wikipedia blank-map technique has allowed hundreds of towns to be "dot-located" on a single terrain map. Many Americans, due to rampant Interstate/highway travel, are "experts" reading crowded, labelled maps with thousands of names/icons, so a map with 50 town labels is not much of a shock after seeing thousands of names on a map. I am trying to balance the use of named/unnamed maps, against the level of terrain detail, in the manner used by the USA City-Data website (www.city-data.com). Sorry I have so little time to talk. Later. -Wikid77 15:05, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your message. It is actually on my to do list to add infoboxes to more articles, I just never got around to going through the list systematically. I did a few test cases "samples" though: e.g. compare Fredericia and Odense with Fredericia municipality and Odense municipality. You're right that American maps often look crowded. More crowded that we're normally used to here in Denmark. Speaking in general terms, I'd prefer one map for the entire country as long as it comes to the main islands / provinces / cities but smaller maps make sense when it comes to the dozens of smaller islands. Actually, we have a few such images around already, e.g. Image:La2-demis-sjaelland.png, Image:La2-demis-bornholm.png, Image:La2-demis-fyn.png and Image:La2-demis-lolland-falster-moen.png, so Denmark is relatively well covered, except that we're missing a similar map for the Jutland peninsula. A map spanning the entire historical country from Skagen to Hamburg and from West Jutland to east of Bornholm would also be great history articles. My personal preference is to have maps as simple as possible - something like the solution used on da:Viborg and da:København which also pinpoints the location a bit more accurately - but I agree completely that it is not satisfactory to have articles missing such basic information. I'll be unable to do any editing for the next week due to work IRL, but once that's over with, I can begin upgrading the most important articles with infoboxes and locator maps. Happy editing. Valentinian ^{T / C} 21:52, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Cape Sounion

Thanks for your cleanup input on this article, which I largely wrote. In one respect, however, I am not sure that the changes have improved legibility for the reader: repositioning the pictures means that they are no longer level with the text that relates to them-some of them are relegated to the bottom of the page. Is there any way this could be remedied? Best wishes 86.85.44.73 2/9/07 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.85.44.73 (talk) 08:57, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

03-Sep-2007: Hello, glad to hear from you: it is a very good article, and I was troubled when it was drastically rearranged last month, shrinking all images to tiny thumbnails, with Figure numbers scrambled everywhere. Yes, reviewing the pictures, I believe they could be moved, reduced slightly in size to better match the text. The people waiting for sunset could be shown near the top. Also, Figure 7 could be moved below Figure 8 (then renumbered), to allow the 2 temples to be better compared. However, Byron's signature is mentioned in 2 isolated areas; I, personally, would repeat the signature image in both places, the first time as a small thumbnail with no Figure#; however, some image "purists" actively delete repeated displays of images, so the text might just have to refer by figure# to Byron's signature. What do you think about moving the images? -Wikid77 09:22, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Template:Year nav topic

Hi Wikid77, I've noticed that you're quite active on the page in question, and I was wondering whether you, an established editor of said page, approve of my meddling of it on one of my test pages (found here). I was playing around with the template for quite a while, something instigated by my finding the dashes and the eccentricity of the template somewhat bothersome. Hope to hear from you soon on this.

Also, would you consider archiving some of your talk page? :) Qwerty (talk) 10:22, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Alabama image, again

Again, I must ask you to stop trying to force Image:Alabama counties Yellowhammer.jpg into the "Alabama" article. It has been made quite clear that the image is not wanted in the article, as described by several editors on the article's talk page. I asked you to stop in August, and now I'm asking again. - auburnpilot talk 03:36, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Infobox German Location

Hi there. Thanks for your work on the German Location infobox. The incorporation of English names for all the variables is something I have always planned to do, but it had always been at a rather low priority for me, especially given the extra coding headaches that this can cause, the very low number of complaints with using the German code (since it was designed to simply copy the information from the German wiki), and the low number of articles that use the template incorrectly (see Category:Germany articles requiring maintenance).

As you have commented, there are a number of coding problems that I needed to work around, some a bit less elegantly than others. I'm on a break from Wikipedia at the moment, but if you've got any questions about the template, feel free to drop a note on my talk page. Keep up the good work. - 52 Pickup 15:22, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Possibly unfree Image:Matisse-The-Dessert-Harmony-in-Red-Henri-1908-fast.jpg

An image that you uploaded or altered, Image:Matisse-The-Dessert-Harmony-in-Red-Henri-1908-fast.jpg, has been listed at Wikipedia:Possibly unfree images because its copyright status is disputed. ... Thank you. Calliopejen1 18:13, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Template NRHP

Could you take another look at Template:Infobox nrhp? The images in the infobox don't seem to display at all. Thanks. IvoShandor 19:14, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Template BS

Don't know if you're into barnstars or not but I noticed not a single one on your page.

		The Template Barnstar
		Bestowed upon Wikid77 for much needed, tedious work on Template:Infobox nrhp. Your work is much appreciated by me and the rest of the National Register of Historic Places WikiProject. IvoShandor 04:29, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

IvoShandor 04:29, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Deleting pages

Hello Wikid77. I came across Template talk:Infobox nrhp/doc by chance and deleted it, but your deletion requests are much more likely to be seen if you tag them with {{db|contributor's request; some reason here}}~~~~ or a more specific template listed at Wikipedia:Template messages/Deletion#Speedy_deletion. This places them in the Candidates for speedy deletion category, which administrators regularly clear. —{admin} Pathoschild 15:54:00, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Ybor City edits

Good job on the Ybor City edits. The arguments were getting personal and your work seems like a reasonable compromise. 71.101.18.250 (talk) 20:06, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

German placenames

Hi. I have noticed that you have removed Template:Foreignchar from a couple of articles. The inclusion of this template has been discussed at length at Template talk:Foreignchar but it seems to me that having it is a sensible compromise. I wonder if you would be willing to discuss it at that talkpage before you remove the template from more articles. See also Template talk:Foreignchar#New version. Have a nice day. Stefán 20:49, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

WHICH "Chebyshev's theorem", and why?

At independent and identically-distributed random variables you added a "see also" link to Chebyshev's theorem. Chebyshev's theorem is a disambiguation page. One of the articles to which it links is Chebyshev's inequality, and the others are not about probability distributions. Chebyshev's inequality is normally stated as an inequality applying to all probability distributions with finite variance, and it doesn't say anything about independence or about identical distribution. Can you clarify your intentions? Could you have intended some other "Chebyshev's theorem"? If so, maybe a link to that other "Chebyshev's theorem" should be added to the aforementioned disambiguation page. Michael Hardy 19:24, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

problems of wikipedia

I agree sadly but wholeheartedly with almost everything you described. As a writing teacher, I spent hours reworking a few practically unreadable articles on topics I know well, only to have them criticized as not "fitting in" with some nebulous "wikipedia style". Apparently, they were actually organized and interesting, and some members think that makes them "unencyclopedic". I've cut back considerably on my contributions; it's just not worth the frustration. Zeng8r 02:05, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Orphaned non-free media (Image:FPcapSaucer.jpg)

Thanks for uploading Image:FPcapSaucer.jpg. The media description page currently specifies that it is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. ... Note that all non-free media not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described on wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you.BetacommandBot 15:02, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Could you explain more fully?

Could you explain more fully your decision to deprecate the orthographic projection?

Yes, it is a less detailed map. It could stand considerable improvement. But the map you replaced it with is much less useful at showing where Churchill actually is. That is the most important thing the first map on this article should do, IMO.

Cheers! Geo Swan 18:26, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply. But I am still unclear as to why you think the new map is superior to the old. Even if the new map is called Churchill Manitoba, it is not really helpful for finding Churchill. The old map, for all its flaws, is good at that. Geo Swan 22:19, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Your recent changes to search engine

Hi Wikid, you recently reverted search engine back to a revision that was intentionally changed and moved to web search engine. ... Could you please undo your changes to the search engine topic, and change it back to the above version?

Thanks. —Jfroelich (talk • contribs) 15:42, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

About deleting images

28-Nov-2007: I think when deleting images, you have to consider each image, separately, on a case-by-case basis. If someone found a stolen item in a person's house, that wouldn't be sufficient cause to confiscate all items in the house as being also stolen property. All this takes time, and I would consider delays as justifiable "due process" (reasonable delay to those concerned) to determine which images to delete. Katrina is not exactly a top-dollar photo subject any longer. Unauthorized uploads of new movie photos or TV screenshots would seem a much, much higher priority. Meanwhile, perhaps original photographers should be contacted to find out why the Flickr Katrina images are such low-resolution data and was that authorized or acceptable to the original photographers. Along that line, perhaps those photographers might release other photos for use in Wikipedia, so everyone might benefit more from that approach. Just alerting or warning those photographers might result in some photos released as a kind of reward. However, note that from a photographer's perspective, being noticed in Wikipedia is a type of advertising for them as well, as long as their photos are not endangered, which seems unlikely with such low-quality images. (this note is repeated under User_talk:Infrogmation). -Wikid77 (talk) 20:34, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

29-Nov-2007: I have begun the process of contacting photographers at the Mobile Register to determine the license status of those Katrina photographs on Flickr. I will keep you informed as to availability of photos. -Wikid77 (talk) 12:56, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Great, thanks. -- Infrogmation responded at talk. 14:27, 29-Nov-2007

Delete Mobile Press-Register images

29-Nov-2007: Your hunch about the Press-Register images is correct, and all should be deleted from Wikimedia and Flickr: according to today's written memo (email) from Michelle Rolls, Photography Coordinator at the Mobile Press-Register, all those Katrina photos were made on company time, with copyrights retained by the Press-Register, and released to Associated Press with restrictions on use. Those photos were copied to Flickr or elsewhere without proper license/permission. There is no authorization, yet, to release Katrina images to Wikipedia. Text from memo is below:

Subject: RE: Katrina News photos licensed on Flickr & Wikipedia

Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2007 12:42:42 -0600
From: "Rolls, Michelle"

Thank you for your concern on copyright issues regarding these photos. You are correct that these photos were posted without permission. The Press-Register owns copyright and licensing for these photos. I took the photographs during Hurricane Katrina as media coverage for this newspaper. We released those images to the Associated Press with restrictions for usage.

Michelle Rolls
Photography Coordinator
Press-Register ( Mobile , AL )

The only Katrina-Mobile image exempt is the US-Govt photo of the flooded courthouse steps, so I will use that image instead of parking-lot images. (this is a follow-up to "About deleting images" above, and posted also to User_talk:Infrogmation). -Wikid77 (talk) 21:24, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your excellent work on getting information about this. I've deleted the problem images from Commons. It's a shame we haven't found more free licenced images relating to Katrina in Mobile.

In all my years on Wikipedia, I don't think I've ever posted a "thanks for the good work" and a "warning" at the same time, but that seems to be the appropriate thing for me to do in this case. Your Mobile flood image was clearly from that same AP photo, with a bit of photoshopping. I see the good contributions you make and lots of evidence that you care about this project, so I'd expect better from you than that. I'm particularly disappointed with your dancing around the question when I brought up the source of the image. Copyright violations can open Wikimedia up to legal actions against it, and so can be a serious threat to the project. They also undermine your standing as an editor. If any other images you have uploaded have dubious information or licensing, I urge you to fix the information or request the images be deleted promptly. If I can be of assistance in deleting anything that upon consideration you realize was uploaded by mistake, ask. If in the future I or some other admin might find problem material you added which you had a chance to fix but didn't, I or some other admin may not be inclined to deal with the situation quite so charitably. So, consider yourself warned. That said, if you think I might be able to help you either with information or administrative action, ask. Thanks, -- Infrogmation (talk) 02:58, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Your opinion sought, please

Could you take another look at the Ybor City entry? You helped edit that article and contributed to a discussion about its tone back in early October. Weeks after that conversation was concluded (with minor edits and the subsequent removal of the wp:tone banner), the editor who placed that banner returned and restared the dispute, this time bringing along like-minded partners.

On that talk page, I've repeatedly explained why I think the article was pretty much OK as it was and have asked for anyone to clearly state how it violated any wikipolicy. But the answers are vague ("It just feels wrong", "It seems 'touristy'", etc.), and the wikipolicies cited obviously do not apply. Yet a couple of users went on ahead and gutted the entry anyway, removing or changing important info in the process because they admittedly know nothing about the (relatively obscure) topic.

You seem to share my view that, as long as they follow wikipedia policies, articles should not have to conform to one rigidly standard form. As such, I'd really appreciate your input into the discussion. Thanks... Zeng8r 13:59, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Talk: Mobile, Alabama

The following was crossposted from Talk: Mobile, Alabama by User:Altairisfar: To User:Altairisfar: Your reactions here are all over the board. I changed just 2 sentences, which you have reverted twice, without prior discussion. I did not say the remaining text was incorrect, so why shouldn't I copy some of that into the main article? I checked the sources, to verify accuracy, and adjusted several phrases into the other article, but overall it was okay. Saying the Mardi Gras text in the article "Mobile, Alabama" doesn't belong as a subject on this talk page is really reaching. Then, mentioning "this bone of contention suddenly arises as this article is up for GA review" sounds like you are trying to suppress opinions about the article under review. Please stop, stand back and be objective. There is some kind of psychological situation arising here, and the reactions are way off center. I am not the enemy here. I am trying to correct peculiar, incorrect wording in that article: everyone knows Mobile Mardi Gras starts before New Year's, with society balls, so why keep deleting that? -Wikid77 01:43, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

• Your "small" changes to this article were reverted for several reasons, in addition to the fact that your version changed the context of the heading. I sought and received a third opinion on this after your last revision from User:AuburnPilot, a fellow Wikipedia:WikiProject Alabama member. You also received an opinion regarding your statements on segregation from yet another Wikipedia:WikiProject Alabama member, User:Blaxthos, and then accused him of incivility. The subsection is about the Carnival season as defined by the refereced material. Regarding changing format styles, you should follow the style already present. Per WP:FN: converting citation styles should not be done without first gaining consensus for the change on the article's talk page. Per WP:MOS, consistency promotes professionalism, simplicity and greater cohesion in Wikipedia articles. An overriding principle is that style and formatting should be applied consistently throughout an article, unless there is a good reason to do otherwise. Regarding sources, internet and published, sources must be verifiable and reliable. Per WP:SOURCES: In general, the most reliable sources are peer-reviewed journals and books published in university presses; university-level textbooks; magazines, journals, and books published by respected publishing houses; and mainstream newspapers. As a rule of thumb, the greater the degree of scrutiny involved in checking facts, analyzing legal issues, and scrutinizing the evidence and arguments of a particular work, the more reliable it is.

• Someone reverting contributions without prior discussion? See Talk:Mardi Gras in Mobile. You completely reverted all of my changes in November to Mardi Gras in Mobile using the following line of reasoning, which goes contrary to policy: "I have restored the images that seemed repetitive: they are similar to others (Altairisfar says: They weren't similar, they were the exact same photos over and over.), but also, they function as placeholders for future images to replace them, providing more diversity. To a Mobilian, the images might seem excessive; however, remember that to an outsider, all this is probably quite new. With the popularity of You Tube, the trend to add more visual style, rather than less, is the way of the future. Several wiki pages link to video clips as well as showing images."

• Since when was it appropriate to copy work done by another editor from another article and paste into another? Mardi Gras in Mobile was created and expanded by doing just that, including the references. Of course it's free use, but can't "someone who has worked on over 10,000 Wikipedia articles"(as you stated on Talk: Mobile, Alabama) do meaningful work of their own?

• A psychological situation? Is that a veiled personal attack? I hope not.

• Objective? Your arguments seem to tend toward a confirmation bias. The verbosity of your statements does not verify the facts. You quote Wikipedia policies and then break them at the same time. Yes, I find it questionable that despite my asking for assessments of the article for months and having it up for peer review, you waited until the day it was nominated for GA review to alter it and start making strange comments and rants on the talk page. You seem to go into attack and challenge mode anytime that someone changes or writes about anything that you did as evidenced here, here, and here.

• You said "everyone knows Mobile Mardi Gras starts before New Year's, with society balls, so why keep deleting that". Then why didn't you include a reliable, verifiable reference? As I've stated before: all of my referenced material states that Carnival, of which Mardi Gras or Fat Tuesday is the last day, officially begins on Twelfth Night (holiday). You can find the definition at [1], [2], [3], and [4] to list a just a few.

You may not see another side to this, but that's o.k., I tried.

Willem Kalf

I was looking at this edit and wondering if you knew which of the three David Teniers you were intending to link too. Cheers. User:CambridgeBayWeather 23:31, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Editing State templates

Hello. I was wondering why you are centering the title in the state templates, but not doing any thing with the capital on the next line. To me, it looked better when both the title and capital were centered together. Just trying to understand your plan. Thanks Rocketmaniac (talk) 14:19, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I came to ask the same thing. {{Template:Florida}} looks terrible with the differing alignments, and that template is used on thousands of articles. I haven't reverted it yet, but am seriously contemplating doing so. Horologium (talk) 14:30, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

IRT your question on my talk page, I am using Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.11, and the state title is shifted to the left. Horologium (talk) 15:13, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Agreed, for {{Template:Delaware}}. Elpiseos (talk) 14:38, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

• 14-Dec-2007: I am reverting those templates, and thinking of another method to align titles in both IE & Firebox browsers, but will test in a user-space template, not alter the live templates to center the titles. -Wikid77 (talk) 15:32, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

• Sorry, but in my experience, users come to Wikipedia with different web browsers and different display resolution settings, so trying to pad text with a particular number of non-breaking spaces is not optimal. Cheers. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 16:10, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Actually, additional non-breaking spaces tend to work very well, because space-width is relative to browser font sizes; however, in the case of Template:US_state_navigation_box, the centering problem is being caused by the hide/show box disappearing in some browsers which widen the title area, rather than being offset by a same-size filler when hide/show is not available. Some templates are pyramiding on inconsistent underlying table options (such as the iffy hide/show option), so now getting simple templates to work for various browsers is thwarted by complex underlying implementations. I have written webpages that auto-resize and scale fonts/images for various browsers/resolutions, to make the page seem bigger on high-resolution screens, so I know placement and centering can be auto-adjusted. However, very few websites even try to auto-resize fonts/images, instead forcing edges to clip or scroll on smaller screens (such as 800x600). Anyway, looks like Wikipedia is in a non-portability rut, so I'll be more careful trying to get anything to format cleanly on various browsers. In fact, I was wondering "why no one else had fixed the uncentered state-template titles" after 8 months. Now I know it's another internal wiki-format bug...too tiresome. -Wikid77 (talk) 16:51, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

FYI, these titles are aligned in the center of the field they are in. The image on the left makes that field not centered on the page. It's not a problem and I think it should be left alone. If it bugs you that much, start a movement to have the images removed from templates. Elpiseos (talk) 16:28, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Location template query

Please see my comment. --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 10:29, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the response. I await developments! --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 16:01, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Wonderful. Thank you. Have a good Christmas. --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 20:46, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

County template category

Just so you are aware, we already have a county template category. It is here. I'll move the temps you created to the existing cats. --Woohookitty^Woohoo! 09:44, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Oh and we already have a navigational box cat for Georgia as well. It is Category:Georgia (U.S. state) navigational boxes. It's named differently due to the fact that there is a country called Georgia. --Woohookitty^Woohoo! 09:48, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

My concern is that now we have 2 categories with almost the exact same name. And one is not in any subcats. We now have United States county templates and United States counties templates. I have no problem with putting the temps you are creating into the general United States county navigational boxes cat instead of the specific state by state subcats. But having an entirely new cat with almost the exact same name as an existing cat doesn't make alot of sense to me. Either it should be merged into the existing cat or it should have a name which distinguishes it from the existing cat. --Woohookitty^Woohoo! 03:07, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

I have a possible solution. How about we create a cat called Category:United States state-level county navigational boxes? Would that work? I'd go with navboxes or just templates since these are all navboxes. I can create it and do the populating. If you have a better idea, let me know. --Woohookitty^Woohoo! 05:21, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Somewhat on this topic: you may not need to put all this effort into these new county-by-state templates. Most states' wikiprojects are quite happy to have counties listed on their state templates, even Georgia as far as I know; Texas is different simply because of its vast number of counties. Definitely do not take out the counties from the actual state templates with formats such as your proposed Florida template has, unless you try and get consensus so to do; it will be quite disruptive if you do it simply by yourself. Nyttend (talk) 19:59, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Nyttend. I will say though that Category:United States state-level counties templates sound fine to me as well. I understand about avoiding long names. It's why sometimes even though a cat is for navboxes only, I'll name it just templates. --Woohookitty^Woohoo! 04:19, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

TfD nomination of Template:Illinois cities

Template:Illinois cities has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. — Nyttend (talk) 20:26, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

1345

Thanks for the note. I had actually seen the improved article, but not the talk page. I think that the article is a vast improvement over the timeline - and having the timeline still available gives the best of both worlds, anyway. The article could still do with a few more references, but other than that, it just needs someone to fill out the other 2,500 or so article on years!

We've already had lots of examples of warring versions of articles - the only way forward is to lock the article until consensus is reached. Of course, insisting on references often helps filter out the more bizarre ideas.

Wikipedia is always in a state of flux, and that's generally proved a good thing. I'd be reluctant to treat what are probably good faith attempts to reformat an article as "semi-vandalism", but you raise some interesting points about large article sets. It could be that increased use of templates - as for the recent years - might be a partial aid here. On the other hand, a great problem with something like the year articles is that it may be desirable to take various approaches to the different articles. Some early years have little definite known about them, some years are dominated by a single event but should not be limited to discussing it, other years have a broad spread of events. I agree that standards are a good idea, but I do also like seeing these things evolve. For every nine frustrating efforts to "improve" an article by an arbitrary change in formatting, there's one excellent idea. Warofdreams talk 21:37, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Tables of contents in year articles

I noticed you modified the format of year articles to use a smaller table of contents (back in May '07 for the years I cared to check). Whilst I think that was a good idea, your edits have caused the full table of contents to appear at the end of the articles and I'm puzzled why you kept the long TOC at all. Should it be removed for all year articles? Astronaut (talk) 01:52, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Liberty ship lists

Hi, I noticed your interest in the various Liberty ship lists (List of Liberty ships: D, List of Liberty ships: E, List of Liberty ships: F, etc.). I appreciate your enthusiasm, but would like to ask you to stop removing the date formatting from the articles. Please see the Autoformatting and linking section at WP:DATES for more information about date preferences and full date formatting. — Bellhalla (talk) 12:03, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Hi there!

Not sure what's bothering you in the Oprah article, but all of the claims you feel are unsourced actually have lots of documentation from very reliable, often scholary sources. Please see my comments on the Oprah talk page. SamanthaG (talk) 15:26, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

The problem, again, is that the sources cited in the article are NOT all reliable, pertinent sources: some documents didn't even contain the word "Oprah" - I suggest, for starters, use only those sources that contain the word "Oprah" (OMG that's a pitiful minimum). Anyway, I have also elaborated the concerns on the talk page:

• Talk:Oprah_Winfrey#NPOV dispute January 2008

I realize someone else put the controversial, compact sentence into the Oprah intro, so I'm not blaming anyone. Read and you'll see. -Wikid77 (talk) 16:12, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Article on Maurizio Giuliano

Hi Wikid77. As I see that you have made some (positive) contributions on this (deleted) article, and were involved in the debate about the deletion itself, I would like to let you know that the article has now been moved to my userspace, User:CCorward/Maurizio Giuliano. I am asked to make the article appropriate for wikipedia (which assumes that it currently is not appropriate due to lack of notability or/and lack of reliable third-party sources). I will then have to conatct an administrator (not sure whom, perhaps Jerry who deleted it ?) to move it back to mainspace once it is 'approved'.

I would therefore like to invite you to make any edits you deem appropriate, whether now in my userspace, or later if/when it is moved back to mainspace. Should another debate erupt about its appropriateness, you might wish to comment.

Please note the following:

• From my side, I plan to focus on two issues which I think are sufficient for notability: his Guinness entry, and his books and articles. Both are the subject of third-party reviews and references available online, so I don't see the problem with them.
• As requested by some users, I am trying to upload the Guinness page and one of the articles from non-online media, in the talk page of the article, on my userspace. It is true that the Guinness entry itself is only relayed by secondary sources and only the Guinness Book itself can be the primary source, although I find this concern of some users quite 'obsessive'.
• About his status as a UN official, I prefer to remain neutral, also as I am not familiar enough with that. I do however think that some of the objecting users had a misconception about what "spokeperson" means, i.e. someone who decides what to say and how to say it and then says it to the world, which is not just a "contact person" as someone wrote. I think spokespersons can be notable, and this is so when they are quoted in major world media. Anyway, I'll leave that to other users to figure out whether that's notable, though without affecting the objections to the rest of the article.

Cheers,

--CCorward (talk) 11:14, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Portal/Directory‎

Delinking years - all very well, but only half a job is done now we are left with day and months linked and no year. Are you able to complete. :: Kevinalewis : ^{(Talk Page)}/_(Desk) 15:49, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your response. Just I don't understand it. How is it relevant for the day/months to be linked for entries that indicate when a Portal was established. To me that seems to be the most insignificant part of the date for a mainly insignificant event (the establishment of a wiki portal). By all means have a date recorded against the event but "why" link it at all. Sorry I don't "get it". Just me I expect. :: Kevinalewis : ^{(Talk Page)}/_(Desk) —Preceding comment was added at 16:24, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Template limits

Could you explain the page buffer limit to me in more detail? I'm not sure if it is the same as another limit, with a different name, or a new limit. — Carl (CBM · talk) 01:58, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

I think that you are thinking of the "pre-expand include limit". The mediawiki software has been changed (since about two or three weeks ago) to use a different parser, which no longer counts noinclude sections at all. That limit is no longer even computed. So the issue you are thinking of is no longer a problem. — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:15, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

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