User:Reify-tech/sandbox

Articles needing work
User:Reify-tech/Draft

Fashion accessory -- restore, with stronger refs; possible DYK candidate

MIT history -- huge lacuna 1916-1940, no coverage of move from Boston to new Cambridge campus

William Barton Rogers -- general improvements, attitude towards slavery, Harvard-MIT relations

MBTA -- maps, Arts on the Line, public art collection guides (PDF); Open Data, GTFS and third-party apps, former practice of using farebox revenues as unaudited ridership source

Coaxial power connector -- cleanups

Henry Kloss -- see Talk

Franz West -- Austrian artist

Muriel Cooper – early life, general improvements

Margaret Livingstone – stub, needs expansion

Felice Frankel – scientific photographer

Paul Matisse – needs major expansion with secondary sources, potential DYK article

Doug Fitch – installation artist, set designer, producer (general updates)

William Everett Potter – MIT civil engineering, Disney World mosquito control

Fran Blanche – self-taught electronics designer and YouTube educator

Steve Dunwell - photographer

Articles needing specific work
Kresge Auditorium -- add integral calculus Time-Life Mathematics book ref

Seatbelts -- maintaining control during violent evasive maneuvers, automotive racetrack requirements

Glutamine -- muscle wasting, body builders, marathon runners, immune system vs. muscle tradeoff

Garlic -- Halitosis, Juice vs. Pulp

Cam out -- improve refs

Biodegradable plastic -- particles harder to see, but still present

Vacuum cleaner -- add coverage of industrial vacuums, including French railroad track vacuum, NYCTA vacuum railcar

Davis Museum and Cultural Center -- incident which caused accidental negligent loss of artwork

Norfolk County Correctional Center -- originally proposed by MIT students, potential DYK

Graffiti -- add mention of literary/textual/written graffiti

Karst spring -- Gustave Courbet, also Ponor -- Done

Evolution of mammalian auditory ossicles -- add Automatic gain control via a specialized muscle?

List of common misconceptions -- electric current is not exclusively the flow of electrons

MIT Senior House -- Wired magazine article

MBTA -- State Transportation Library (status unknown)

Erie Canal — glacial carving of Mohawk Valley (also Champlain Valley)

General Electric — Add-Venture educational kit series, GE Educational Projects Kits series

Things of Science — pointers to underlandia.com, ecg.mit.edu compilations and scans of booklets

Slide rule – add MIT Museum collection

MIT – early ARPAnet, high bandwidth, early Guest access to wireless Internet, jis@mit.edu (Jeff Schiller)

List of mnemonics — MUSTY/MUSTIE guidelines for library weeding/culling

Articles to be created
All-door-boarding -- add refs; possible DYK candidate

tuck-box (2 meanings)

Roy Allison -- electrical engineer, loudspeaker designer

Barry Blesser -- electrical engineer, pioneer of digital sound technology

Hofmann's Iron Law -- exists as pointer to single sentence in Loudspeaker

Rosamond Wolff Purcell -- photographer

Usher signal -- silent gesture signals, like umpire hand signals? NYT 2014-07-19

MITERS -- need reliable third-party sources, start at Traditions and student activities at MIT

History of attempted Harvard-MIT mergers (timeline writeup)

Comparative stereotype jokes (e.g. doctor, lawyer, engineer, etc.); European heaven/hell

Keyed connector -- physically keyed connectors

Dick Polich -- art foundry (Polich Tallix Inc), metals fabrication, MIT alum

John F. Kennedy Memorial Park – near Harvard Square

Green Center -- MIT Building 6C

Product launch -- rollout, introduction, announcement

Skinny House (Westchester) -- NYT article

Vinyzene -- fungicide, bactericide

Hidden hardware features / Hardware Easter eggs -- e.g. HP-45 timer mode

Chemical Education Material Study (CHEMS) -- 1959 secondary school chemistry curriculum reform

Chemical Bond Approach (CBA) --  1957 secondary school chemistry curriculum reform

ESCP Earth Science, ISCS, IPS -- see "The Golden Age of Science Education, 1950 - 1977" (http://artofteachingscience.org/mos/3.5c.html)

Shih Chieh Huang -- modern hitech sculptor, Worcester Art Museum 2017,

The Oesper Collections in the History of Chemistry -- U Cincinnati

Robert Silman — structural engineer 1935-2018

David Beck (sculptor) — ‘’Curious Worlds: The Art and Imagination of David Beck’’

Chinese Immigrant Memorial Boston — Mount Hope Cemetery, Mattapan?

Atomix (toy) – educational toy

Boot dryer — footwear/hat/glove/winterwear dryer

Alexander Kira – Cornell professor of architecture and sanitary engineering, author of The Bathroom

Muller Museum — Art Museum of Boston College

Fidelma Cadmus Kirstein — painter, wife of Lincoln Kirstein, works are at the Met

Plumbing Museum – Watertown, MA

MIT Schwartzman College of Computing

Museum of Illusions (MOI) – NYC

Hanna Rose Shell – professor

Richard Bertman – architect, kinetic sculptor

Aurora (clock) – Kirsch-Hamilton, ChronoArts, Prisma, etc

Chris Dempsey (planner) – MBTA Open Data, No Olympics Boston,

Karen Aqua – filmmaker, animator, artist, Boston area

Ken Brown (filmmaker) – artist, filmmaker, cartoonist, caricaturist

Forbes Pigment Collection - spinoff as standalone article

Foam rot - plastic plague, plasticizer migration, cellulose acetate butyrate

Reciprocal admissions program -- NARM, ROAM, MARP, ASTC Travel Pass, etc

Wikimedia to upload
Picture of loudspeaker surround foam rot

MIT Museum -- new facility

WikiProjects to be created
Health and Safety -- closest match is WikiProject OSHA

Security -- nothing useful yet, just some police-oriented WikiProjects

Entrepreneurship/Startups --

Templates needing work
Template: Water -- Plumbing and Water related articles

Template: HVAC -- Done

Template: Building technology and systems -- Wikipedia project? Building science

Template: Boston attractions -- see Template: San Francisco attractions

Template: Electrical Wiring Sidebar -- index disparate articles

Template: Geodesy -- convert from Geodesy article "See also"?; side box vs. flat (info bar)

Template: Vehicular safety features -- Seatbelt, Underride guard, Airbag

Template: Television detective series

Template: Borders and boundaries

Template: Drafting and drawing tools

Proposed merges
Gas leak detection into Gas detector -- Done

Spoil bank into Spoil tip (into Tailings?)

Science center into Science museum

Plumbing / Tap water / Piping, etc.

Novelty item / Executive toy / etc.

Hairpin turn / Dead Man's Curve -- not a merge, but a sorting out of US content into the latter?

Implementation of bus rapid transit by country / List of bus rapid transit systems

Ferrous metal recycling / Scrap

Fire control / Fire class

Template:Machine and metalworking tools / Template:Metalworking navbox/tool

Editing issues
Template:Anchor

Overspecification of image sizes and  attribute in Galleries. See Picture tutorial, WP:IMGSIZE, Manual of Style/Images, etc.

Omit borders on images uploaded to Commons and elsewhere -- see Preparing images for upload and Upload Wizard

MOS:NUMBERSIGN – specifically allow use for numeric designation codes (not numeric counts or ranks), e.g. #47 bus route, serial numbers, etc

Hidden editorial notes
List of soups

List of breads

List of mnemonics

List of eponymous laws

List of Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumni

To learn/document
Fluent use of Checklinks, Reflinks, ProveIt, Dabfix

Proper use of templates?
An editor of the Urination article recently "simplfied" some subsections by partially or completely removing their contents to specially created templates. I only discovered this when I tried to clean up a simple page layout problem. Clicking on the "edit" link showed me this (and nothing more):

Canidae
This is somewhat baffling to me, and makes it difficult for me to understand the integration of the material into the rest of the article, or to search for specific material in an article. This "subroutinization" of a chunk of text also makes it more difficult to edit the article as an integrated whole.

Is this a recommended usage of the template mechanism? If so, please point me to more information so I can learn about it. If not, can some editors more experienced with the use of templates help to guide the editor who created the template as to the recommended way of achieving his intentions? I don't yet feel very competent to discuss this in depth, having not created or extensively modified any templates, only having used a few of them. But I haven't seen this usage of templates before. My intuitive impression is that this was not an intended use, and that it risks breaking up a Wikipedia article into an intimidating maze that will deter potential editors without much Wikipedia insider expertise. Your guidance would be appreciated. Reify-tech (talk) 21:57, 24 March 2013 (UTC)
 * This isn't typically the way things work; however, in this case, since the content in that section is used in more than one place (see Special:WhatLinksHere), the template helps keep it up to date in both places. You're right, though, in assuming that it deters new Wikipedians...I don't think there's ever been an explicit consensus (or even a discussion) expressed among the Wikipedia community...other help desk volunteers, prove me wrong! —Theopolisme  (talk  ) 22:10, 24 March 2013 (UTC)


 * WP:Transclusion is a useful feature when the same information has to be presented on more than one page. It's not terribly complicated to follow the links to the page that contains the text – if you use WikEd (enabled on the Preferences->Gadgets page), you can Ctrl-click on any such link while editing to open the target link or template in a new page. Just like having to go to another page in a book because there isn't room for the information on the current page. —&#91; Alan  M  1 (talk) &#93;— 23:57, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

Mothballs
After years of suspicion, scientists may have found a "smoking gun" link between mothballs and cancer: http://www.physorg.com/news70042017.html

A brief overview of mothballs, from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mothball

Article on paradichlorobenzene (p-DCB, PDB, PDCB), major ingredient in mothballs, urinal cakes, so-called "air fresheners": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradichlorobenzene

Article on naphthalene, an alternate, "traditional" ingredient in mothballs: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naphthalene

Wikipedia article on Tineola bisselliella, known as the Common Clothes Moth: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Clothes_Moth

Notes from UC Davis on Integrated Pest Management (IPM) of clothes moths: http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/PESTNOTES/pn7435.html

Some general references to chemical properties and toxicology of mothball ingredients: http://npic.orst.edu/hottopic/mothball/chemprop.html

Mothball ingredients are also cataractogenetic, i.e. they cause cataracts. Ophthalmic surgeons routinely use them to induce cataracts in research animals (typically rabbits) to have animals models for research:

However, this common knowledge among research ophthalmologists is not widely known among public health and Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) professionals. I have surprised attendees at meetings of the IAQ Subcommittee of the Boston Society of Architects (BSA) by pointing this out, and they have subsequently confirmed that they are investigating this lead:

Exposure to mothball vapors can induce cataracts, and this technique is deliberately used to induce the disorder in laboratory animals for surgical studies.

They have been classified as a "probable carcinogen" by the WHO, and are strongly implicated in white blood cell cancers.

BJW. kids AMW, kids TCW Aunt May MACI Fitch

Thanks / Adding references
Thank you for your constructive edits and additional references. You may find the article Help:Referencing for beginners useful in learning how to build complete and well-formatted references in Wikipedia. The methods shown in Using refToolbar are particularly handy for enabling efficient cut-and-paste construction of a proper Wikipedia reference. The refToolbar method is very useful, because it uses a simple form to cue an editor to include the most important parameters (for example, author, date, publisher), while it takes care of the formatting details automatically. You can skip the later section in the tutorial, on manually building references, until/unless you need to "look under the covers" to make custom modifications.
 * Basic referencing is easier than it looks, especially if you use the refToolbar template method. If you read the tutorials and try some test edits in a WP:SANDBOX, but are still having trouble, leave a message for me here (I'll watch this page) and I'll try to lend a hand.  Your work is appreciated; please continue!

I have fixed up your recent edit to the above article. Please look at it to see how to format Wikilink references properly. You may find the article Help:Referencing for beginners useful in learning how to build complete and well-formatted references in Wikipedia. The methods shown in Using refToolbar are particularly handy for enabling efficient cut-and-paste construction of a proper Wikipedia reference.

Also, please note the Help and Tutorial links in the Welcome message above. It takes a while to learn how to edit properly. If you have unanswered questions about editing, ask them at the WP:HELPDESK. Cheers! Reify-tech (talk) 21:15, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

Thanks / Adding references (longtime editor)
Thank you for your constructive edits and adding a reference to Streetcars in North America. Another editor and I have already cleaned up some formatting and WP:MOS style issues, and appreciate the substantive content you have added.

You may find the article Help:Referencing for beginners useful in learning how to build complete and well-formatted references in Wikipedia. The methods shown in Using refToolbar are particularly handy for enabling efficient cut-and-paste construction of a proper Wikipedia reference. The refToolbar method is very useful, because it uses a simple form to cue an editor to include the most important parameters (for example, author, date, publisher), while it takes care of the formatting details automatically. You can skip the later section in the tutorial, on manually building references, until/unless you need to "look under the covers" to make custom modifications.

On second look, I see that you have been around a while, editing from time to time. I hope you can add further constructive edits as your time, interests, and knowledge permit. If you have any comments or questions for me, add them here; I will watch this talk page for at least a month. Cheers! Reify-tech (talk) 16:55, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

Adding references (with Template:RefPage)
I am glad you got to meet some local Wikipedians at yesterday's Wicnic, and asked some questions regarding your current attempt to finish your first article. Lots of help is available online, both in prewritten documentation and introductory tutorials, as well as from other editors. My initial impression of your draft article is that its content and references are good, but you just need some basic help with formatting.

I recommend editing the Wikipedia source code either in the traditional editor ("Edit source") or in Visual Editor, if you prefer. Many longtime editors prefer the traditional Wikipedia editor, or use both as needed. Editing in Microsoft Word introduces a lot of overhead and extraneous formatting which needs to be removed, and is not generally recommended for Wikipedia. An exception is if you are expert at using Word macros and need them for specialized automated editing. Wikipedia itself has a number of automated editing tools, which are designed to work with the traditional editor interface. These tools and shortcuts are not enabled by default, to avoid overwhelming new editors, but are easy to enable if and when desired.

You may find the article Help:Referencing for beginners useful in learning how to build complete and well-formatted references in Wikipedia. The methods shown in Using refToolbar are particularly handy for enabling efficient cut-and-paste construction of a proper Wikipedia reference. The refToolbar method is very helpful for both novice and experienced editors, because it uses a simple form to cue an editor to include the most important parameters (for example, author, date, publisher), while it takes care of the formatting details automatically. For websites, books, and academic journals, many fields can automatically be filled in, and only need to reviewed for accuracy.

You can skip the later sections in the tutorial, on manually building references, until/unless you need to "look under the covers" to make custom modifications.

I would also like to point out a technique used in Wikipedia to show the page numbers in footnoted references, without triggering an absurdly large number of nearly-identical full citations. The abbreviated format is described at Template:Refpage, which was designed specifically to handle this problem. This and other useful techniques for efficiently formatting references are explained at Help:Referencing for beginners.

If you have questions now or as you progress in editing, please feel free to ask me on my Talk page, or on your Talk page here. I will be monitoring here for the next few weeks, in case you post any questions here. Best wishes, Reify-tech (talk) 19:11, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

Hidden editorial note on how to reference
See Wikisource:

Template RP
I also noticed in the hidden Wikisource that you foresightedly took the trouble to preserve the cited page numbers, which would greatly improve the usefulness of the cites. I would like to point out a technique used in Wikipedia to expose the page numbers, without triggering an absurdly large number of nearly-identical full citations. The abbreviated format is described at Template:Rp, which was designed specifically to handle this problem.

Page numbers in references
I would like to point out a technique used in Wikipedia to show the page numbers in footnoted references, without triggering an absurdly large number of nearly-identical full citations. The abbreviated format is described at Template:Rp, which was designed specifically to handle this problem. This and other useful techniques for efficiently formatting references are explained at WP:REFSTART. I have consolidated a number of redundant refs in the article; you can look at the Wikisource to see how I did this. Cheers!

Overlinking / Referencing for beginners / Refpage
I have noticed that you appear to be adding a lot of Wikilinks to articles. Please read about the problems that can be caused by WP:OVERLINKING. You may also want to read the broader perspective in the rest of the article MOS:LINK.

You may find the article Help:Referencing for beginners useful in learning how to build complete and well-formatted references in Wikipedia. The methods shown in Using refToolbar are particularly handy for enabling efficient cut-and-paste construction of a proper Wikipedia reference. The refToolbar method is very useful, because it uses a simple form to cue an editor to include the most important parameters (for example, author, date, publisher), while it takes care of the formatting details automatically. For websites, books, and academic journals, many fields can be filled in automatically, and only need to reviewed for accuracy and completeness. You can skip the later section in the tutorial, on manually building references, until/unless you need to "look under the covers" to make custom modifications.

I would also like to point out a technique used in Wikipedia to show the specific page numbers in footnoted references, without triggering an absurdly large number of nearly-identical full citations. The abbreviated format is described at Template:Refpage, which was designed specifically to handle this problem. This and other useful techniques for efficiently formatting references are explained at Help:Referencing for beginners.

It takes a while to become fluent in Wikipedia editing. Your efforts are appreciated, and I hope you can contribute effectively to this project. Cheers! Reify-tech (talk) 21:14, 6 April 2019 (UTC)

Extended general and MOS welcome
I'm glad you took these suggestions in the helpful spirit they were intended. You seem to be eager to learn the various Wikipedia formatting techniques (which is commendable), but then you also need to be wary of overusing them. When you first learn how to use a hammer, everything might look like a nail (Law of the instrument), but you soon discover the damage you can do with a new powerful tool. The WP:MOS is the main guide for use of the powerful Wikipedia formatting tools. Keep in mind that the overarching goals of Wikipedia writing are clarity and readability, and many of the guidelines were decided with that in mind.

Wikipedia follows the recommendations of MOS:LQ. The Wikipedia Manual of Style may differ from what you have been taught in school, or are used to doing. The Wikipedia policy on "logical quotations" has been thoroughly discussed by editors, and the MOS presents the consensus that they have reached. Note that the English language Wikipedia is an international collaboration, and does not automatically follow American (or British or Canadian or Australian or South Asian, etc.) style conventions. If you encounter an unfamiliar style, please check the MOS before making wholesale changes.

Although the guidelines in MOS:SERIAL are complex and subtle, I recommend using the serial comma whenever it improves clarity, which is most of the time. There are a few odd cases where omitting a serial comma actually improves clarity; these are an "exception that proves the rule".

Another stylistic trend in Wikipedia is to reduce excessive use of periods, when they do not contribute to clarity. Examples include Ph.D./PhD, M.I.T./MIT, U.S./US, D.C./DC, p.m./pm, Jr./Jr, and Dr./Dr – this is an area where the often conservative British are actually ahead of the American writers. Excessive periods are still retained in verbatim quotations, such as "The Man from U.N.C.L.E.", but they are retained for the same nostalgic reasons as a sign that says "Ye Olde Grogge Shoppe".

Every edit to Wikipedia is recorded and publicly viewable, whether anonymous or under an identified username. The easiest way to look at other edits made by a user who has made a recent edit to an article in your WP:WATCHLIST, is to click on "contribs" in parentheses after the username. This is a way to follow the activities of a vandal, a misguided novice, or an editor whose work you want to follow and learn from. Wikipedia policy strives for openness and transparency, except when privacy or other concerns may overrule this.

When you first encounter a deliberate vandal or a badly misguided novice, you may not know what to do. There are powerful tools for undoing bad edits, but they must be tempered by good judgement and WP:DONTBITE. There are some nice tools to add polite but firm and clear warning messages on the Talkpages of wayward editors, but it takes a while to learn when to use them, and when and how to report a runaway editor who is doing major damage. In the meantime, it is best to just revert bad edits, and to always give an WP:EDITSUMMARY to explain what you're trying to do.

You will come up to speed more quickly than you might think, and soon will find yourself able to help out other novice editors. On the other hand, you will never know everything there is to learn in Wikipedia, but you should take this as an inspiration and not a restriction. We all have a lot to learn about Wikipedia and the wider universe of knowledge. Cheers! Reify-tech (talk) 21:10, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

IP editor Talk page blanking
If you really want your own page, get your own account (Why create an account?). If you want the account to remain usable without being blocked, then edit in a constructive manner, and you will be welcomed. See Here to build an encyclopedia.
 * Note that all edits on Wikipedia become part of a permanent record. However, the previous warnings on this User Talk page are now  compressed, so that new messages are more visible.  Do not remove the information regarding a shared IP address, which should be visible to anyone who may be temporarily assigned to it for a time.
 * Avoid insults and destructive editing, and you will get a more positive reception here. Or just go elsewhere, and other Wikipedia editors won't bother you. Cheers!

Logical quotation marks
Please read and follow the recommendations in MOS:LQ. The Wikipedia Manual of Style may differ from what you have been taught in school, or are used to doing. The Wikipedia policy on "logical quotations" has been thoroughly discussed by editors, and the Manual of Style presents the consensus that they have reached. Note that the English language Wikipedia is an international collaboration, and does not automatically follow American (or British or Canadian or Australian, etc.) style conventions. If you encounter an unfamiliar style, please check the WP:MOS before making wholesale changes. Cheers! Reify-tech (talk) 05:50, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

Logical quotation marks
You have been correcting "minor grammatical errors", working in good faith to improve Wikipedia. Unfortunately, you have been changing Wikipedia articles in direct violation of the Wikipedia Manual of Style policy MOS:LQ. After extensive discussion, Wikipedia editors have decided to use "logical quotation marks", rather than the traditional American practice of forcing extraneous punctuation inside quotations. This already a long-settled matter, so please do not edit contrary to agreed-on standards for the English language version of Wikipedia.

To avoid inadvertently changing articles to your own peculiar stylistic preferences, make sure you understand the sections of the Wikipedia Manual of Style which may be relevant. Wikipedia is an international publication, and the editors have collaboratively worked out many compromises to avoid wasteful disputes, and in the interest of maximum clarity and readability for all readers.

Please refrain from making any more bad edits to Wikipedia, and please go back and fix the erroneous edits you have made before you learned the policies in WP:MOS. Cheers! Reify-tech (talk) 05:22, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

High Beam / Questia / Oxford University Press

 * 1)  9000+ edits since 2011.  I work on a wide and eclectic range of topics, including science, technology, art, design, architecture, culture, history of technology, museums, transportation, and biographies of people related to these topics. Reify-tech (talk) 22:40, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

Quotation marks
Thank you for your edits, which are mostly constructive. However, I noticed that you have been changing the position of quotation marks in contradiction to the WP:MOS. Please read WP:LQ for details. The general idea is that quotation marks should enclose quoted material with as little unnecessary change as possible from the original source, and extraneous punctuation should not be inserted inside. This may not be what you're used to doing or may have been taught in school, but it is the Wikipedia consensus after extensive discussion among active editors. Cheers! Reify-tech (talk) 14:42, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Way to search many wikis at once?
Does anyone know of a tool that let's one search many wiki's at once? E.g. all the English wikipedias, including commons? Kind of a meta-search tool? Be useful, at least, whenever a template or category move/rename gets suggested. Thanks either way — Lentower (talk) 22:10, 28 July 2014 (UTC)
 * You can use Google search operators to do this. To search all Wikipedias for "Coca-Cola" one can use the search term Coca-Cola site:wikipedia.org.  To limit searches to just the English Wikipedias (there are only two: en and simple) they must be specified separately with an OR operator like Coca-Cola site:en.wikipedia.org OR site:simple.wikipedia.org.  Note that Commons is not a Wikipedia so must also be added separately.  For instance to find "rabbit" on both simple Wikipedia and Commons do rabbit site:simple.wikipedia.org OR site:commons.wikimedia.org.  I left en.wiki out of this last one because en tends to swamp all the other results due to the much larger number of articles, but it can be included with a further OR operator.  Other projects like Wiktionary, Wikivoyage, Wikiversity etc can all be added with further OR operators if required.  If you want to limit to results that only appear in the page title then the intitle: operator can be used: intitle:rabbit site:simple.wikipedia.org OR site:commons.wikimedia.org.  Hope that helps at all.  Oh, just noticed that I lied, there is another English Wikipedia Scots, Wikipedia. SpinningSpark 10:17, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

Wikitable help requested
You seem to be fluent in editing Wikitables, so your help is requested in modifying List of soups to add an "Origin" column, as discussed in Talk:List of soups. I am not up to the task of doing the repeated systematic edits needed, and hope that you have semi-automated tools to ease this, or are simply more adept at doing the mass edits. I am willing to help fill in and standardize the content of the new column, once the structure is set up. Thank you for your anticipated help. Reify-tech (talk) 20:14, 14 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Hi, Reify-tech. Here you go: User:Anna Frodesiak/White sandbox. I didn't know where you wanted the column, so I made two. If the article hasn't been edited, just paste one of those in to replace the old one. If the article has undergone major edits, then just let me know where you want the column, and I'll make it again. It only takes a sec. Cheers, Anna Frodesiak (talk) 23:29, 14 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your quick response! The first alternative was fine, and I pasted it in and started to fill in the new column. Sometime, could you let me in on the technical magic you used to add a new column to the Wikitable? Reify-tech (talk) 00:50, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
 * You are most welcome, Reify-tech. I explained things here. I use basic keyboard macros. They're like a keystroke tape recorder. You name the macro ctrl-J or something. Then you record the steps. Then stop the macro. Then, each time you press ctrl-J, it does what you did when recording. The program I use is called Editpad. It's a freebie, I think. It is basically a notepad with a few extras. You can use Word if you like, but well, you know Word. After five minutes using that program, you'll get the urge to kick your computer down a flight of stairs. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 01:16, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

Image renaming how-to needed
I noticed that you're renaming a lot of image files with more-descriptive names, a very useful improvement. You seem to be using a script to make this otherwise-tedious process more efficient. Could you tell me how you're doing the renames? I probably won't do much renaming on the MBTA articles, since you're doing a great job already. I've been putting off cleaning up filenames in other areas because of the amount of work involved doing it systematically by hand. I'd appreciate any pointers you can offer. Reify-tech (talk) 15:34, 30 July 2014 (UTC)


 * The edit summary doesn't make it very clear, but I'm doing the renaming on Commons and the "script" is automatically updating uses of the file on all wikis. (Until about a year ago, you had to use a bot to do that, so the script actually is very convenient.) For reasons I'm not entirely clear on, moving files requires advanced permissions (quite unlike moving pages and templates) on both enwiki and Commons. It appears you don't have an account on Commons, so you won't be able to do file moves - the usual guideline at commons:Commons:Requests for rights is 1000-1500 edits on Commons. (To date, it's the only advanced permission I've ever sought.) Minor copyedits in names aren't usually grounds for moving (unfortunately - I'd love for everyone to have John Phelan's standards for naming photos); the ones you've seen today were my personal choices (and the requests might be declined my some more conservative filemovers). There's actually an active discussion at commons:Commons:Requests for comment/File renaming criterion 2 at the moment.


 * For the time being, unless you end up joining Commons and making a bunch of edits, the easiest way is probably to just ask me. It takes about 30 seconds to do the moves, so I don't mind doing them. If you think you'll have more than a few, send me an email and I can give you contact info so you don't have to make a bunch of requests here.


 * This all said, I would love to have you at Commons. You're capable of performing the kind of careful work, and have the respect for categorization and organization, that would make you a very useful asset there even if you have no real interest in uploading images of your own. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 16:02, 30 July 2014 (UTC)


 * Thank you for filling me in on the details, which were even more obscure than I had imagined. I will go look at the discussion you mention, and will send you rename requests as I encounter them.  Reify-tech (talk) 17:36, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

Page layout and image defaults
I agree that 30em is a good general default, which scales appropriately with the typefont size on a given display. Many editors habitually work with a single display setup and software, and unconsciously tend to over-optimize page layout for whatever configuration they happen to be using at that time. I use displays ranging from cellphone-sized to 30-inch "cinema-sized", and find obsolete layout specifications like the deprecated "perrow=4" in the Gallery tag (H:GT) to be very annoying. The same goes for overspecifying image size and overriding user preferences, by using a fixed "px" specification (see WP:IMAGESIZE). Editors need to be more aware that readers and other editors use a wide range of displays, and some are also visually-impaired in various ways and may rely on custom-configured setups. The worldwide span of variety in displays is likely to increase in the future. The time when some designers believed that "everybody" used 480 by 640 pixels is long past.

Map help needed
As a trial run, I tried adding a multi-level pushpin map to the article Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. It works, except that I can't figure out how to suppress the superfluous "Location within Boston" captions that seem to be automatically generated. By contrast, the article Fearless Girl lacks this visual clutter, which is most visible when one clicks on the "Show all" radio button in the MFA article. Searching for the word "within" in the Wikisource for the MFA article turns up nothing, so it must be coming from some kind of automatic default option.

I haven't been able to figure out what is different between the two examples, and a quick search for more documentation on Wikipedia's pushpin maps didn't find much of use. I'm hoping you can fix the immediate issue and/or point me to better documentation on how to use this feature. Reify-tech (talk) 14:43, 10 June 2017 (UTC)


 * I also found the article Arlington Street Church, which uses the feature and works well with the parameter "locmapin = Boston#Massachusetts#USA", but when I paste it into the MFA article instead of "pushpin_map       = Boston#Massachusetts#USA", it doesn't work at all. There evidently are some odd interactions which I haven't found documentation for yet.  Reify-tech (talk) 14:52, 10 June 2017 (UTC)


 * Unfortunately, I'm not sure how much I can help. Unlike some other templates (infobox NRHP being a good example), infobox museum doesn't seem to have good support for the multilevel maps. They're both very complex templates and thus beyond my abilities; I would ask for help on the Infobox museum talk page, or at the Technical Village Pump.


 * P.S.: produces , which makes it easier to write out wikisyntax on talk pages. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 17:27, 10 June 2017 (UTC)


 * I guess I've found something to baffle even you! Thanks for the   hint; you are as ever helpful! Reify-tech (talk) 17:47, 10 June 2017 (UTC)

More help needed with maps
I would like to add better maps to a number of articles, in the style of the existing ones at Museum of Science (Boston) and Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. For example, the newly-overhauled articles Rhode Island School of Design Museum and Downtown, Providence, Rhode Island could use better maps that show both close-in detail, and their overall location within the US for the benefit of international readers.

It is very clear that I need to improve my fluency in specifying and searching for suitable maps. Can you help me with these immediate problems, and also point me to a usable introduction to Wikipedia map searching and selection? I don't necessarily want to make my own maps, but I want to be able to quickly find which Wikipedia maps are available covering a given geographic coordinate. Also, if a suitable map of say, Providence RI does not exist yet, is there a way to queue up a request for the mapmaker wizards?

I am also looking for an overview of what kinds of maps are available, and which types are recommended for particular uses. I know that there has been a trend to use Open Street Maps, replacing Google Maps or other sources, but I don't know the extent to which OSM is now recommended or required instead of other sources. For example, I don't know how was created, or how to get such a map created, if needed.

I appreciate your quick fluency in creating elegant and simple maps such as, which greatly improved the clarity of the historical section of the Harvard station article. I will still rely on your assistance, but wish to be a little more self-sufficient in the basics of finding and using maps for run-of-the-mill infoboxes. Thanks in advance for your magnanimity! Reify-tech (talk) 18:56, 8 February 2022 (UTC)


 * Always glad to help! Mapframe OSM maps (as seen on RISD Museum) seem to be the general direction things are headed, but the older location maps (as on the MFA) are still very common. For the former, most infobox templates already support mapframes. Often, it will be automatically shown if the coordinates are on Wikidata, or with a single parameter - see here for example.


 * For the latter, you can see an available list at Template:Location map/List. For Providence, we'd need to create a module similar to Module:Location map/data/USA Rhode Island. That just requires a map of the Providence area (SVG preferred, but JPG/PNG is okay too) with the coordinates of the corners precisely known. That's totally doable, but it might not be worthwhile for a relatively small number of articles. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 23:33, 8 February 2022 (UTC)


 * I prefer the maps as they initially appear in Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, since they convey the overall geographic context at a glance, although clicking on them doesn't appear to support panning or zooming within the maps. But although the mapframe, as in Rhode Island School of Design Museum, doesn't convey anywhere near the same amount of info at a glance, it does allow panning and zooming for a much more thorough exploration of the geography. Is there some way to get the best of both methods?


 * As for finding available maps, I recently had discovered Template:Location map/List, but was hoping that maybe there was a more-complete list, or a more-thorough way of searching. I was a bit disappointed in the available selection of maps. For example, searching for Cambridge or Somerville (both in Massachusetts) turned up nothing, as did a search for Providence RI or Albany NY. New York has almost a dozen, including one just for the NYCTA subway system. I wasn't surprised that the San Francisco Bay area has maybe a half-dozen maps covering different areas – did you have anything to do with that? Oregon and Virginia have a lot of coverage, which I assume means that some map editor(s) volunteered to do the work of creating them.


 * As for Providence, there are a fair number of articles that could benefit from a closer-in city map, since the downtown area is quite walkable, and has a lot of sites with Wikipedia articles. How or who does one ask to get an appropriate map set up? A map showing Downtown, Providence, Rhode Island and the cultural district, plus the immediately-adjacent parts of College Hill, Providence, Rhode Island where RISD and Brown University are located would be quite useful.


 * Last but not least, do you know of any introductory or tutorial material in Wikipedia that would be useful for editors wishing to use maps in articles (as opposed to creating them)? Even knowing the peculiar map terminology or jargon would be useful. For example, I don't know what to call the three nested levels of maps (such as in the MFA Boston article), and thus can't even search for more info about them. Reify-tech (talk) 01:37, 9 February 2022 (UTC)


 * I don't know of any way to get the best of both methods, unfortunately. I've done next to nothing with these kind of maps; the Bay Area ones weren't by me. Most infoboxes have pretty good documentation for what maps they support; see Infobox museum for example. You can often find the correct terminology there.


 * For the Providence map, I'm attempting to create one with the instructions at Template:Location map/Creating a new map definition. I'll update you when it's functional. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 02:18, 9 February 2022 (UTC)


 * I've created Module:Location map/data/USA Rhode Island Providence (and redirect Module:Location map/data/Providence to allow use of the shorter name); you can see how to add it here. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 02:48, 9 February 2022 (UTC)


 * Thank you for coming to the rescue again! I thank you in behalf of any future editors of articles about Providence RI. The map you set up was exactly what I had in mind, and it sets the geographic context perfectly.


 * I took a quick look at the instructions for creating a map, and my eyes glazed over. I think I will rely on your help with creating maps, just like I rely on you to deal with railway topological maps (or whatever they are called). We each have our specialties, and I really appreciate your help when needed. Reify-tech (talk) 03:32, 9 February 2022 (UTC)
 * As someone who just moved to Providence, and has an interest in trains, you both have my thanks. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 03:38, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

Need help with possible plagiarism, also map coordinates
Hello Pi.1415926535. When updating the article on the MIT-affiliated kinetic artist Wen-Ying Tsai, I noticed that much of the text seems to be copied verbatim. I pointed this out in the Talkpage Talk:Wen-Ying Tsai, but nobody has responded so far. I need help investigating whether the article text in question is copied from the Tsai Foundation website or vice versa (either with or without permission). I am not sure what to do next, and would appreciate you taking the lead on this, while showing me how to deal with such issues in the future.

I've also been updating the article MIT Museum, and noticed that the map still shows the coordinates of its former location near Central Square, rather than its new Kendall Square location. Can you fix this, or still better, show me how to do this in the future? I need to develop better facility at extracting the coordinates from a map, in a form suitable to cut-and paste into the correct places.

I've noticed that some articles (such as Museum of Fine Arts, Boston) display two formats of maps in the infobox. I think having both formats available can often be helpful in orienting newcomers to unfamiliar geographical locations. Do you have any thoughts on tradeoffs or comparative strengths and weaknesses of the two formats?

As ever, your help is much appreciated! Reify-tech (talk) 17:53, 16 February 2023 (UTC)


 * @Reify-tech: As far as copyright, this is an interesting case. The Tsai Foundation site had a short blurb with a link to the Wikipedia article in 2014, a year after much of the article was written, so it may actually be copied from Wikipedia. Copyright problems would be the place to ask to get more eyes on it.
 * For obtaining coordinates, I use this tool, though it seems to be broken for most users. Alternately, this tool is quite useful - you should be able to just drop the marker at the correct location and then copy the coordinates. Obtaining geographic coordinates also mentions some other methods. Let me know if you run into any difficulties adding the coordinates to the article.
 * Infoboxes are valuable real estate. While I do recognize the value of the different map styles, the two different types make that a very long infobox. I tend to prefer the mapframe (interactive map) - it's definitely the more popular and modern style. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 21:08, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
 * The first map tool you pointed to definitely doesn't work for me; it crashes immediately without displaying anything. I puzzled out how to use the second map tool, and successfully cut and pasted the coords; everything works. Reify-tech (talk) 01:32, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
 * The interactive map is definitely more powerful, but the older map is better for showing the location at a glance, optionally at 3 different contextual scales. I would guess that lots of casual users never discover/use the interactive map feature, which doesn't give much info at first glance, but must be actively engaged to be useful. Large articles could afford the screen real estate for both, while short articles only have room for one format. Reify-tech (talk) 01:44, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

Guide to referencing
Click on "show" to open contents. {| class="navbox collapsible collapsed" style="text-align: center; border: 0px; margin-top: 0.2em; font-size: 100%; " ! style="background-color: #f90;" | Using references (citations)
 * style="border: solid 1px silver; padding: 8px; background-color: white;" style="text-align: left;" |
 * style="border: solid 1px silver; padding: 8px; background-color: white;" style="text-align: left;" |

I thought you might find it useful to have some information about references (refs) on wikipedia. These are important to validate your writing and inform the reader. Any editor can removed unreferenced material; and unsubstantiated articles may end up getting deleted, so when you add something to an article, it's highly advisable to also include a reference to say where it came from. Referencing may look daunting, but it's easy enough to do. Here's a guide to getting started.

Good references
A reference must be accurate, i.e. it must prove the statement in the text. To validate "Mike Brown climbed Everest", it's no good linking to a page about Everest, if Mike Brown isn't mentioned, nor to one on Mike Brown, if it doesn't say that he climbed Everest. You have to link to a source that proves his achievement is true. You must use Reliable sources, such as published books, mainstream press, authorised web sites, and official documents. Blogs, Myspace, Youtube, fan sites and extreme minority texts are not usually acceptable, nor is Original research, e.g. your own unpublished, or self-published, essay or research.

Simple referencing
The first thing you have to do is to create a "Notes and references" section. This goes towards the bottom of the page, below the "See also" section and above the "External links" section. Enter this code:


 * ==Notes and references==

The next step is to put a reference in the text. Here is the code to do that. It goes at the end of the relevant term, phrase, sentence, or paragraph to which the note refers, and after punctuation such as a full stop, without a space (to prevent separation through line wrap):



Whatever text you put in between these two tags will become visible in the "Notes and references" section as your reference.

Test it out
Copy the following text, open the edit box for this page, paste it at the bottom (inserting your own text) and save the page:


 * ==Reference test==


 * This is the text which you are going to reference.


 * ==Notes and references==



(End of text to copy and paste.)

Information to include
You need to include the information to enable the reader to find your source. For a book it might look like this:



An online newspaper source would be:



Note the square brackets around the URL. The format is [URL Title] with a space between the URL and the Title. If you do this the URL is hidden and the Title shows as the link. Use double apostrophes for the article title, and two single quote marks either side of the name of the paper (to generate italics).

The date after The Guardian is the date of the newspaper, and the date after "Retrieved on" is the date you accessed the site – useful for searching the web archive in case the link goes dead. Wikilinks (double square brackets which create an internal link to a wikipedia article) function inside the ref tags. Dates are wikilinked so that they work with user preference settings.

Citation templates
You may prefer to use a citation template to compile details of the source. The template goes between the ref tags and you fill out the fields you wish to. Basic templates can be found here: Template messages/Sources of articles/Citation quick reference

Same ref used twice or more
The first time a reference appears in the article, you can give it a simple name in the

The second time you use the same reference in the article, you need only to create a short cut instead of typing it all out again:



You can then use the short cut as many times as you want. Don't forget the /, or it will blank the rest of the article! A short cut will only pick up from higher up the page, so make sure the first ref is the full one. Some symbols don't work in the ref name, but you'll find out if you use them.

Example
You can see refs in action in the article William Bowyer (artist). There are 3 sources and they are each referenced 3 times. Each statement in the article has a footnote to show what its source is.

Next step
When you become familiar with the process, the next step is to have one section, "Footnotes", with links embedded in the text, and another, "References", which lists all of your references alphabetically with full details, e.g. for a book:


 * Lincoln, Abraham; Grant, U. S.; & Davis, Jefferson (1861). Resolving Family Differences Peacefully (3rd ed.). Gettysburg: Printing Press. ISBN 0-12-345678-9.

If you're ready to go into it further, these pages have detailed information:
 * Citing sources
 * Citing sources/example style
 * Citation templates
 * Footnotes

I hope this helps. If you need any assistance, let me know.