User talk:Danger/Archive 4

This is me Agent KH
How do I respond to your recent comment of 11 Jan 2009 ca.07:25 PST? For I've never had anyone "talk" to me...I need help--I uploaded an image here, and it was accepted but when I tried to upload the logo for her company, it said on Wiki Commons that the image will be certainly deleted, yet the image of the logo for CASL was accepted--this is hard for me to understand--both are logos; I am not promoting or defaming either--just unbiased reportage of facts and want to be complete and offer detailed info .... please reply. No one is here to help me but you. If you click on all of the links in Liu Chaoying's page, you will see what I am talking about--the mother corporation, as is the Hong Kong subsidary, are both government corporations. Also someone made a mistake on the one company page-CASL and the name of the China Aerospace Group was mistranslated.Is this what you mean by signing this thingy?Agent KH (talk) 15:30, 11 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm not well-versed on image or copyright policy, so I'd suggest that you take your question to one of the editor help venues that are linked in the message I left. --Gimme danger (talk) 16:11, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Information regarding Shugden on the Dalai Lama page
I can't even find a single instance of the characters "Shugden" on the Dalai Lama page. Surely there should be some references to the Shugden controversy on the Dalai Lama page (24.80.236.14 (talk) 13:48, 16 January 2009 (UTC)).
 * The Dalai Lama article is about the lineage, not the current Dalai Lama. There are references to the controversy in that article, where it is relevant. --Gimme danger (talk) 17:29, 16 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Gotcha, thanks (24.80.236.14 (talk) 02:53, 18 January 2009 (UTC))

Hello and thanks!
Thank you for the welcome! By the way, what's an adoptee? ("Adoptees should email with any and all questions.") Terrierhere (talk) 20:01, 18 January 2009 (UTC)
 * An adoptee is a participant in the Adopt-A-User Program. I highly recommend it. --Gimme danger (talk) 01:18, 19 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Oh, that looks interesting! I don't want to get into that right now, but maybe when I get into the nitty-gritty. Thanks for explaining it. Terrierhere (talk) 22:31, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Progress report: Country outlines
Development has been slow but continuous:

Penubag has done a fantastic job on the images for the awards we'll be using for our project's collaborations and contests. We now have 3 awards: a medal, a trophy, and a race ribbon. They all look tight. The trophy needs a small adjustment, but other than that, all 3 award images are complete and ready to use to create awards with.

Spartaz has warned us of (threatened to take) G4 (speedy delete) action if we run a competition that resembles the previously deleted Awards Center page. So whatever we do, any contests we run must differ substantially from the methods used there.

One type of competition I've been exploring is edit racing. I'm in the process of working the bugs out of this concept - the first race didn't work as expected - you see, because we only had an award for first place, the opponent didn't think it worthwhile to continue once it was clear who the winner would be. And since editors are in different time zones and usually need to start the race at different times, we need to base winning on personal start times - he who completes his assigned edits in the least time (rather than first), wins. And last but not least is quality control. What good is winning if your edits are ripe with errors? So I'll be exploring possibilities such as using a referee (whoever is overseeing a particular race), having participants watching each other for errors to knock them back, etc. I'm not sure yet.

Rich Farmbrough has been applying his bot expertise to filling in blanks in the country outlines (the population and area entries). I'm amazed at the number of edits he pumps out each day on a myriad of projects - ours makes up but a small time slice of his activity, and yet he has saved us many hours of manual work. Perhaps we should look into how he gets so much done. :)

Zlerman has chosen to work on one outline at a time, and is taking on Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. He also has been keen on noticing and reporting design issues pertaining to the whole set of country outlines. Keep up the good work!

Highfields has been filling in the names of capitals, and is our first race winner. Check out the award on his user pages.

As you probably know, this project has expanded to include working on any and all sets of pages that are linked to from the country outlines. Once the set of country outlines go live (in article space), traffic will likely increase for all the links included on them. The quality and usefulness of those pages will reflect heavily on the country outlines (the outlines, which are essentially lists of links, are only as good as the links they present), and therefore we've branched out to solve the biggest problems with those as well. So far, we've taken on:
 * The creation of disambiguation pages for country adjectivals ("German", "French", "Taiwanese", etc. About half done.)
 * The clean-up of the CIA World Factbook statistics on the "demographics of" country pages. We've been renaming those sections to provide a key string that AWB can use for targetting (for skipping and filtering).  Once that's done, we'll be able to break the clean-up down into simple AWB search/replace tasks, because we'll be able to target just those pages that include the CIA stuff.
 * Renaming the "Cuisine of" articles to their adjectival forms ("Chinese cuisine", "Italian cuisine", etc.)

Blackadam2 and Thehelpfulone have been helping out with the "demographics of" pages mentioned above.

And we have a couple speed addicts (addicted to wiki-velocity, not drugs)...

Both Robert Skyhawk and Thehelpfulone prefer (and excel at) simple AWB search/replaces. Robert hasn't actually joined our team yet, but he has been helping out quite a bit from the sidelines (via the WP:AWB/Tasks page. Unfortunately, there has recently been a non-AWB chore that has been holding things up on the AWB front - an edit to all the the headings which had to be reverted before too many new edits were made, because any new edits would make the reversion more difficult.  The headings have been restored, so now the way is clear for AWB operations, and there are many search/replace tasks in the queue.  AWB assignments have started again!

There's a similar bottleneck on the "Demographics of" pages (the "keying" mentioned above), but that's almost cleared too. :)

With my internet access somewhat crippled, I've been finding it difficult to keep up with you guys. However, I expect to be accessing a Linky-capable workstation on a faster server (I'm on it right now, as you can probably tell from my contributions list for today), and so I should really pick up speed. Feels goooooood. :)

Recruiting has been a bit slow (but steady), due in part to my crippled access, and because we've been waiting for the images for the awards to be completed. I expect the team to grow more rapidly as the bottlenecks are removed.

Well that's what's been happenin', and here's what's in the pipeline...

I'm about to begin work on a set of lists that corresponds to all the standard links on the country outlines, and these will be presented on the Topic outline of countries which will be organized exactly like the country outlines. Aside from being an extremely useful navigation aid, it will allow editors to easily see the state of country coverage on Wikipedia. I'll provide you with a link once I get up to speed on this.

In the meantime, keep up the good work!

Cheers,

The Transhumanist 05:42, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Kent Hovind Page Edits
Just a brief word about the Hovind page: The guy has been thrown in prison for his tax crimes. There is no need to weld the door shut by vilifying him in his wiki bio page. Zen ni wa zen no mukui; aku ni wa aku no mukui. (Goodness is the return for goodness; evil is the return for evil.) Just my $.02 worth. Trasel (talk) 05:56, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Thank you
Thank you for the welcome. !!! Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 07:09, 14 February 2009 (UTC)
 * You're welcome, er..., perhaps not the best phrasing. --Gimme danger (talk) 07:18, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Much Appreciation
Thank you for your opinion posted here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Ray_Joseph_Cormier

I have been alone for so long defending it against the same small handful of Editors who have been trying to have it deleted for months. Peace

DoDaCanaDa (talk) 20:54, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

If there are any articles you are working on that need improvement with grammar, punctuation, or sentence structure, I would be happy to help. DoDaCanaDa (talk) 23:54, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I'd most like you to stop spitting in the soup, but there is an immense backlog of articles that need to be wikified. If you'd like to do me a personal favor, please wikify the articles in the "R" section of . --Gimme danger (talk) 06:37, 18 February 2009 (UTC)


 * When you posted your Keep, you wrote: An editor involved has apparently pissed someone off, but that's not an argument for deletion.


 * The Editor spearheading the deletion effort. is still pissed off, and has edited my BLP so that it makes me look like an undisciplined thug troublemaker. I can´t do anything about it, so I have to depend on the good will of other Editors.


 * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Ray_Joseph_Cormier#Development_and_Improvement Peace DoDaCanaDa (talk) 02:05, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
 * If you believe that there is libelous material in the article, I suggest you remove the section that you consider libelous and take the matter to the BLP Noticeboard, where an uninvolved editor can mediate the dispute. My suggestion to you is to then step back, and truly recuse yourself from the article about you: no more posting on the talk page, or user talk pages of editors you've had disputes with over your article.
 * I am sympathetic; I edit articles that I have strong feelings about and I often have to take breaks to avoid becoming an angry mastodon. If you would like more guidance, I have slots open for adoptees. I realize that you have already been adopted, but perhaps my style will complement Jade Knight's. Cheers, Gimme danger (talk) 05:40, 19 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Thank you for your message. I will not make any edits to the Article itself. That is the best policy and I fully support it. There was no activity at all by anybody in my BLP and Talk since mid December when the few editors who have the article on their watch list were pushing for deletion then. It was dropped then because the consensus was Keep. Naturally I check in periodically to see if any editors, besides the few constant detractors, made any improvements. There haven´t been any, so I will stand guard until someone comes forward. Several editors stated their intention to improve it, but never followed through.


 * I´m more interested in knowing your thoughts on the changes that were made just today?


 * I did look at one of the R articles you suggested I look at. It is about about dams in Bavaria. I´ll look at them all and find one to try and improve.DoDaCanaDa (talk) 06:04, 19 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Please, how do I get arbitration on what Hipocrite is doing to my BLP. He is now deleting not only sections, but References as well. It is deletion by subterfuge, and I can´t do a thing about it because of COI. MY hands are tied behind my back. I need objective Editors with a NPOV to step in. DoDaCanaDa (talk) 19:31, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I have taken some time to get back to you because I wanted to mull over what I wanted to say. The first thing to remember is that you must stay calm. Wikipedia is, by nature, a long-term sort of project and successful editors are those who can remember this. Nothing is every really deleted; the only thing that changes is what is seen in article space. The sources about you are out there and you've taken steps to make them more available by uploading them to the internet. Someday, probably not tomorrow, but someday, someone will write an article about you that's really good. (This is the wikiphilosophy of eventualism.)
 * The second thing to realize is that your presence does not appear to be helping the situation surrounding the article about you improve. Are other editors behaving badly in the situation? Probably. We are all human. It's very frustrating to deal with autobiographies and it takes up a great deal of many Wikipedians' time, so sympathy is difficult to muster. I seriously suggest taking a few days off to not think about Wikipedia. Have a bubble bath and a cup of tea or whatever it is that Prophets do for fun. On Monday or Tuesday, come back and see what's transpired on the article about you. If you have any objections then, weigh carefully the pros and cons of involvement versus letting the community process take its course (provided there have been no errors or libel introduced). If you decide in favor of voicing your concerns, then do so in a concise note on the talk page, without any accusations of wrongdoing implied. If you need help drafting such a note, let me know and I will be glad to help you.
 * Because you have a personal interest in the Wikipedia project, I highly suggest that you involve yourself more closely in other aspects of Wikipedia besides the article about you. I suggested the R section of that category somewhat flippantly, since wikification is something that I do sometimes. There are more interesting things than dams in Bavaria to be done. If you would like help figuring out what activities on the wiki would best suit your interests, I would be happy to help, as would, I'm sure, Jade Knight. There is a Community Portal where you can find things to do. There's also a very active WikiProject Christianity which may interest you. Cheers, Gimme danger (talk) 21:44, 20 February 2009 (UTC)


 * As in the Cream song, I so Glad! I´m Glad! I´m Glad! I´m Glad! Standing guard over my BLP for the last 8 months waiting for anyone, finally, today, it has been improved. It´s not perfect, but it´s good. It will get better.

A major daily newspaper is going to do a Feature story on me in the near future which will be online.

The dam didn´t excite me, but now that all threats of deletion to my BLP have subsided, I am ready, willing and able to help. I will check out the other Rs if you wish, or any specific article you want me to work. Thanks again for your support. Peace, and God Bless you. DoDaCanaDa (talk) 22:30, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Need your help about redirect a link
Hello there. I would like to ask your opinion about a link on Tibetan people, in the info box at the top right corner, where it says (claimed by Central Tibetan Administration), while some people on the talk page opposed to put the claim there because the page is about an ethnic group that lives around the world, instead of a politically disputed location. Some others support to have the claim on the page. I do not know much about Wikipedia's style of editing ethnic group pages. I would like to hear your professional Wikipedia advice. If it is to be left there, i would also like to point out one thing i find incorrect. In the info box, when click on "Central Tibetan Administration", it directs to Tibet, which it should direct to the Central Tibetan Administration page. I asked this on talk page over a week ago, but no one has answered it yet. I think we can take the well developed Taiwan pages as examples. Republic of China (govt of Taiwan) claims mainland China and Mongolia, but when we click on Republic of China, it doesn't direct us to China, it direct us to Republic of China as it is. I am not sure how to redirect the link, I am wondering if you can help redirect the link back to Central Tibetan Administration if you think the claim should be kept in the info box. Chadsnook (talk) 23:11, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
 * The linking error was an artifact of the "flag" template. You can go to Template:Flag to find documentation of how the template works; it automatically links whatever text you enter into the template to the entity the flag represents. I've substituted the flagicon template, which does almost the same thing as flag, but without linking any text. If a template is giving you trouble, checking the documentation will usually solve the problem or let you find the developer, who should be able to fix it. (I blush to be called a professional. Before looking at it, I had no clue what the problem was and had to fiddle around with the preview feature several times before even figuring out that the template was creating the error. I just want to document the process so that you can replicate it next time.)
 * Regarding the claim, I would support keeping it on the page. Nearly all ethnic groups have undergone diaspora to a certain degree, but in our main articles on those groups we focus on the origin area. That the Tibet region is a) much larger than the TAR, b) politically disputed and c) claimed by an outside group are all critical enough to understanding the Tibetan ethnic group to keep in the infobox, especially when that information can be distilled so efficiently. --Gimme danger (talk) 01:33, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Thank you very much for all the trouble you went through to find the solution and your explanation on both the technical problem and regarding the claim. Chadsnook (talk) 03:31, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
 * You're quite welcome. --Gimme danger (talk) 05:40, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

New team member
Be sure to welcome our newest member, User talk:NuclearWarfare, to the team!

See his talk page for the task he's taking on.

The Transhumanist 00:02, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

The project may be catching on. Take a look at this!
Someone not on the team has come along and moved one of the country outline drafts to article space. This is a great sign, as it means the set of pages is attracting attention.

It's Topic outline of Romania.

Please help complete it ASAP. Here's why:

It's got some awkward stuff in there, including blank links, redlinks (that need to be bluelinked by creating redirects), and apparently irrelevant entries (kept for comparison purposes, that need to be filled in with "none"), etc.

Many editors tend to remove awkward stuff instead of complete it.

We should finish up Topic outline of Romania before they remove anything.

Thank you.

Good luck.

Have fun.

The Transhumanist 03:44, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Joke
I told a joke today that you wouldn't find funny. I then thought of Chris. I then wondered if I should edit the article on Dante's Inferno so that it described Satan as holding Jack Bauer's family hostage at the center of hell. I then decided that instead of doing so, I'd just tell you about it on your talk page. I then realized that you wouldn't find it funny, and that Chris has an explanation for why. Go figure Szfski (talk) 08:07, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks and a request
Thanks for signing up at Peer review/volunteers and for your work doing reviews. It is now just over a year since the last peer review was archived with no repsonse after 14 (or more) days, something we all can be proud of. There is a new Peer review user box to track the backlog (peer reviews at least 4 days old with no substantial response), which can be found here. To include it on your user or talk page, please add. Thanks again, and keep up the good work, Ruhrfisch &gt;&lt;&gt; &deg; &deg; 04:44, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Country topic coverage
Hi there, sorry that I've been absent; the real world has been interfering with my virtual life again. Reading your update, it seems like everyone has everything under control. I'd just like to offer up my vast quantities of free time. I have OS issues with AWB and Linky crashes my browser, so if you have any sticky exception type task that need a human to sit through the tedium, I'm well suited for that sort of thing. Cheers, Gimme danger (talk) 03:32, 21 February 2009 (UTC)


 * But is Firefox fairly stable on your system?


 * Because WikEd is perfect for a lot of the tasks that need to be done.


 * If not, then there are plenty of tasks that can be done manually. But if we can speed them up with any degree of automation, we should attempt to do so.


 * OK, one more question: do you have a macro program? Macro Express is the best one I've found so far, but it costs (around $40).  A popular free one is AutoHotkey, though I've never used it.


 * Macros can really speed things up.


 * I've got lots of manual tasks that need work right now. Let me know, and I'll get you started!


 * The Transhumanist 22:06, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Here's your first assignment
(But I still need you to answer the questions above).

On each of the pages listed at User:The Transhumanist/Country outlines

Fill-in the empty link in this line:


 * Commander-in-chief:

With the name of that country's current commander-in-chief.

For countries that do not have a commander-in-chief, link to the page that says that and type "none" for the link's pipe.

If you can't find the info for a country, skip it and move on to the next one.

Some of them have already been done. Check those for accuracy.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask, and I'll gladly help make things more clear.

Good luck.

Have fun.

The Transhumanist 23:53, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

P.S.: The information can be usually be found in the pages listed at User:The Transhumanist/Militaries of present-day nations and states. -TT

January-February 2009
A tag has been placed on January-February 2009, requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under the criteria for speedy deletion, because it is a redirect to a user page from the main/article space.

If you can fix the redirect to point to a regular Wikipedia article rather than a user page, please do so and remove the speedy deletion tag. However, please do not remove the speedy deletion tag unless you are fixing the redirect. If you think the redirect should be retained as is for some reason, you can request that administrators wait a while before deleting it. To do this, affix the template   to the page and state your reasoning on the article's talk page. Feel free to leave a note on my talk page if you have any questions about this. MuffledThud (talk) 21:12, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Wheels?
You got put on wheels! Forgive me for finding this highly amusing Szfski (talk) 15:41, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Article on Ecsite
Hello! I work for Ecsite, the European network of science centres and museums. We are linked to on Wikipedia, but as yet, no article exists. Since an article exists for ASTC, our US equivalent, and since our network represents 385 member institutions across Europe, we think this warrants inclusion! We would like to draft an article, and to avoid a conflict of interests, submit it to you to see what you think. How does this sound? Michael Creek, Ecsite 87.65.225.111 (talk) 14:47, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Help?
I just translated the Adel Karasholi article from German Wikipedia. But I'm pretty sure it's messed up every which way. Szfski (talk) 20:19, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
 * There's nothing particularly wrong with it, but needs to be wikified and written in more standard English prose (ie. less wordy than the original). You should add an interwiki link at the bottom of the article — it should be Adel Karasholi if there are no special characters in the original title. It also needs to be categorized. Did the original copy have references? If so, they should be imported into this article, with a note indicating their language (probably German). I'll be around this weekend IRL if you'd like me to do it for you, but otherwise, this is what needs to be done. --Gimme danger (talk) 22:06, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Country outlines project update - 2009/03/08
Things have been slowing down again, so it's time for a big push...

We've gone live
This project needed a shot in the arm. Also, its draft pages have been littering Wikipedia's categories for months. The time seemed right to move all the country outline drafts to article space.

WHAT???

Well, the drafts had been sitting in Wikipedia space for a year.

WHAT???

Development has been moving at a snail's pace and we could use the help of the Wikipedia community at large (who are more likely to find these if they are in article space).

WHAT???

Yes, we've gone live. :)

This puts pressure on us to get the blatantly incomplete elements of these outlines done. The only glaring problem is the government branches sections. These need to be corrected ASAP.

I've mentioned THE GOVERNMENT BRANCHES SECTIONS many times to many people over the past year, but the problem just doesn't seem to have been taken seriously. So let me put it another way:

HELP!!! I need your help on this now. Almost all the countries have a government with an executive branch, a legislative branch, and a judicial branch. The links for these branches need to be completed for each country outline:


 * Here's a convenient list you can use WP:LINKY on to access and edit these quickly. Please copy the list's link to the top of your talk page so that you can access it easily.

If you spot any standardization in links, and ways we can automate parts of this process, or for groups of countries that have links in common, please let me know!

Administrative support for outlines
There has been growing pressure on me to write up the administrative pages for outlines - their instructions, guidelines, etc. Therefore, I'm now in the process of composing these. Fortunately, it is mostly a matter of gathering material from messages I've written to you guys over the past year. Still, this is taking up most of my time, and I will be buried in these for the foreseeable future.

Traffic control
The next big task after the government branches sections are cleaned up is link support for the outlines.

There's quite a list of links and notices that need to be put in place around Wikipedia, providing access to them to readers, and alerting editors to the need to develop and maintain these pages. This will keep our bot people very busy (and happy).

But the most important thing right now is to get the government branches sections completed. So please, put your bots aside, roll up your shirt sleeves, and start typing.

Thank you.

The Transhumanist 02:30, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Your input on South_Asia
Hello, another user user:Aditiya Kabir is trying to convert this section into a prose section from a list section. I have argued this format is very difficult to read. As a regular editor of South Asia, I am calling on you to give input on which format you feel is better.

Here is his revert diff 

Sincerely, Thegreyanomaly (talk) 05:11, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Geography WikiProject update - 03/15/2009
The award images are complete!

After months of toil and attention to detail, Penubag has completed the set of images for this WikiProject's awards!

There are five race ribbons:



There's an engraved medallion:



And by far the hardest to create, a golden trophy:



If you have any ideas about awards these images can be placed upon, and how to award them (to show appreciation and to attract participants), please let me know.

And be sure to pop by Penubag's talk page to let him know what you think of his graphics artistry.

The Transhumanist 21:20, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Advice
Some wacker with an IP address keeps adding unsourced weasel-worded crap (albeit in good faith) to one of my articles. I keep reverting, and he keeps adding as though he hadn't a care in the world. When is it okay to yell at someone for this? Szfski (talk) 09:52, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Redlinks in country outlines
To browse the links of the country outlines by topic (to see which ones are red), take a look at the lists listed at User:The Transhumanist/Lists by country.

The Transhumanist 01:10, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Links
I added four or links to a web site which i run, and this was considered promotion. While I really understand the no spamming policy on Wikipedia, 3 of the links were to in-depth question/answer interviews which would definitely be of interest to people wanting to know more about the subjects: John Byrne (Scottish Artist); Alasdair Gray; and Phillip Pullman. I am new to this. Is it necessary to refuse these links? JennieRenton (talk) 10:21, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
 * In general, when you have a personal connection to a possible source, you should leave a post on the talk page of the article that you think it would enhance explaining why you think there should be a link. This allows editors without a conflict of interest to evaluate the link and add it if they feel it would be helpful. Cheers, Gimme danger (talk) 19:12, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Tibet
Look on the article under the Tibet under the People's Republic of China section. There are three pictures there and all three of them are pro-Dalai Lama. We need a pro-Chinese image to balance the section. That's why I put the Chinese flag there, and I would put another image there if I had one, but unfortunately I don't. Also the Tibetan separatist flag is displayed on the article but the Chinese flag is not. --Tocino 01:16, 28 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I really don't see your argument that the images are pro-Dalai Lama. We need to illustrate the section with key people and events from Tibetan history post-1959. The Dalai Lama is a key player, clearly. The Dharamsala picture is of rather poor quality, so the section could probably do without it. Perhaps a picture of the railroad would be acceptable? Something else that's mentioned in the text? In fact, any image that's relevant to the article would be preferable to the PRC flag. As Bertport noted, the article about Kansas doesn't feature a U.S. flag. The Tibet article isn't even about the Chinese autonomous region, but about the cultural and geographical region of Tibet, which has at various points had various relations with China Proper. It makes no sense to put the PRC flag there. And of course the Tibetan flag is displayed on the article. Not only was it in use when Tibet was de facto independent, it still is a cultural icon relevant to Tibet. --Gimme danger (talk) 01:36, 28 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I have just found an image of the rail service on Commons and have added it to the article: I hope it's acceptable. --Tocino 03:33, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

I didn't read the anger in your edit summary. I've said a lot worse, believe me, so there is no need to apologize. My cleanup was not a mass deletion, it was a shortening of a mass section that is questionable as to whether it has anything to do with the subject. What I did was I took the section and shortened it into a small paragraph. --Tocino 22:04, 29 march 2009 (UTC)

Thank You
Thank you so much for your input on our page. We really appreciate that you took the time to edit and better our article. Thanks, amahajan17 (talk) 05:05, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
 * You're quite welcome. I find your class's project very interesting. --Gimme danger (talk) 12:16, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Outline of knowledge project summary, and future direction
In response to a friend on Wikipedia who was wondering about how I've been and what I've been up to, I got to spewing about our little endeavor, and well, I got so carried away I pretty much told him everything. :) The message turned out to be a pretty good summary of what we've accomplished so far and the overall plan.

See User talk:The Rambling Man

The Transhumanist 22:59, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Do not read this one - The Hunt - Outline of knowledge WikiProject - 04/17/2009
While surveying libraries, their outline-related resources, and our coverage of them, I came across something funny...

What subclass is the Bible in the Library of Congress Classification?

Do you think they'd like this one at WP:DYK? (Nope. They didn't.)     :)

Libraries
For months, I've been sitting at a terminal in one of the largest libraries in the country, and I haven't even looked around at the available resources.

Until a few days ago.

I'm overwhelmed.

When compared to libraries, Wikipedia is small. (See Digest of Education Statistics 2008, Chapter 7:Libraries and Educational Technology Libraries, and turn to page 617).

But is that a fair comparison?

Yes.

Why?

Because we have growth potential. :)

And we cover everything, including libraries!

Guess what else I found?

Hunting for outlines
I began to study libraries and librarians, since they are experts in organizing knowledge. And of course I turned to Wikipedia to see what we had on the things I came across...

And while doing so I kept running into outlines on Wikipedia that are not (yet) part of the Outline of knowledge.

When I come across non-OOK outlines, generally I rename them, and reformat them to our standard outline format. But there is the occasional exception.

Here are some outlines I just added:


 * 1) List of energy topics --> Outline of energy (it converted great)
 * 2) List of Dewey Decimal classes --> Outline of Dewey Decimal classes (no conversion)
 * 3) Library of Congress Classification --> ??? (no rename, no conversion)

The last 2 are outlines by their very nature, and so our standard outline subheadings didn't seem to fit. So I left them as is.

I renamed the first 2, but the last one is the name of the outline, that is, the topic itself is an outline, and that outline is presented as the article's content, so I left the name as is. For now. This needs more thought.

Of course, that's not all. Concerning those last 2 outlines above...

Alternate outlines of knowledge
...not only are they outlines, but they are outlines of knowledge! Well, the top few levels, at least.

Uh, so?

What happens if we linkify them? :)

That is, what happens if we linkify their classifications to Wikipedia's outlines? :)  :)   :)

They become alternate top ends to the OOK
Yep.

What can you find?
I challenge you to find some "hidden" outlines.

I dare you to take a look around Wikipedia for hidden outlines (that is, outlines not yet hooked into the OOK), and add your kills to WP:WPOOK.

My trophies are already there.

May the hunt begin!
The Transhumanist 20:08, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Article deletion
Somebody slated an article I like for deletion. How can I prevent it from being deleted? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tantrapa (talk • contribs) 18:18, 21 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Hello again! I think that the answer that Clay Collier has given is a good one. Essentially, to keep an article when consensus is toward deleting it, as in this case, you need to improve it so that it meets Wikipedia standards. If the article ends up being deleted, I would suggest asking an administrator to userify it for you. A copy of the article will be moved to your user space where you can work on bringing it up to Wikipedia standards. Then you can move it back to article space. I hope this answer is helpful to you. If you have any more questions, please feel free to ask. --Gimme danger (talk) 05:47, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Hunting outlines
Hi TT. I've done a little work hunting hidden outlines and I hoped to get a little feedback on what I've done so far. I've ignored the indexes of articles that seem rather common (For example List of sexology topics) because they aren't properly outlines, but if those are also what you're looking for I could include those in my search. Perhaps a list of them should be collected to move to Wikipedia space, since they mostly function as worklists with red-linked articles and would be redundant after OOK is more complete. Cheers, Gimme danger (talk) 21:45, 22 April 2009 (UTC)


 * You are right, alphabetical topic lists are not outlines. I've changed the name of List of sexology topics to Index of sexology articles.


 * Good job! The pages you listed are outlines. I've checked 'em out, and they all look easily convertible to our outline formats.  Cornwall, and other administrative subdivisions will need a new outline format devoted to them (similar to the one created for the states of the United States), but that's easy.


 * Speaking of Cornwall, it is a county of England, and presents us with a potential lead to more topic lists that might be outlines. It might be worthwhile to look and see if the  other counties of England have topic lists.  (Hint: to make a hunting list, find and copy a list of the counties, and then use search/replace to change the links to List of ___ topics.  If any exist, they'll turn out as blue links on your hunting list.)


 * Another way to search for topic lists is by using Google to search just Wikipedia, and search for pages with "list of" and "topics" in their titles (the titles-only feature is in the "Advanced search" settings of Google).


 * I hope you find my feedback and suggestions helpful.


 * Keep up the good work.


 * The Transhumanist 00:18, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Keep up the good work
Nice job.

The Transhumanist 05:00, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Outline of knowledge WikiProject update 05/10/2009
Development is moving steadily forward. We haven't created any new outlines lately, but a lot of editing of our existing outlines is taking place. Take a look at Buaidh's contributions. :)

I'm impressed.

I can safely say we now have another fanatic working on the project.

Importance of watching
A big danger to new pages or pages that have low traffic are prods. These are deletion proposals that don't have to go through AfD. If a prod sits on a page, any page, 5 days without opposition, the page can be deleted without discussion.

Such pages can be undeleted without discussion too, but there's usually a delay, especially if you don't notice the page missing right away. Prods create undesirable gaps in the subject coverage of list sets.

I just caught one the other day, so keep an eye on the outline pages!

Tangent: Indexes
One of the benefits of reverse outlining is the discovery of problems (gaps in coverage, etc.) with the publication being outlined. We've come across several and have been fixing those as we go. Because hypertext tables of contents are only as good as the pages they link to, we've been cleaning up large sections of Wikipedia. This was something I did not foresee when I started this project.

One of the sets of pages we link to on the outlines is the set of indexes, formerly called "List of x topics". Unfortunately, the lists of topics were divided between 2 different sets competing for the same article names, and this impeded development of both sets. One of those sets were indexes, and the rest are outlines (more about these below).

So I set about splitting up the 2 sets, by renaming the indexes to "Index of x articles" or "Index of x-related articles".

All 450 or so of them.

Nobody has complained about the new names, but 2 or 3 people thought I was way too bold to attempt this without a proposal or discussion first. Just 2 or 3 people. That's about as much opposition as you could expect for moving a single page.

Not bad for a move of this volume.

There are many more indexes out there, but our main concern are those which are provided links on the outlines. Many of those are redlinks (gaps in coverage as mentioned above), and so we need a way to track these and direct editor attention to them so that somebody creates them...

So, I've created a page for the set, that parallels the OOK list:


 * See Portal:Contents/Index.

The complete list of "Index of" articles can be found at User:The Transhumanist/Index, and this list needs to be gone over to make sure each article index listed is included on the portal page above. If you help with this, please put - placed after each entry that you check and place.

Thank you.

To further support the development of index pages, and provide a central place for people to go to find out more about indexes and what needs to be done, I've created the Index WikiProject.

Hidden outlines
There are outline pages hiding all over Wikipedia. They aren't in OOK's formats, but we can fix that. :)

Converting existing outlines and absorbing them into the OOK is a lot easier than creating outlines from scratch, and it avoids unnecessary duplication of effort. But before we can convert them, we have to find them...

A hunt is underway for non-OOK outlines. So far, User:Gimme danger is in the lead and has found the most. See WikiProject Outline of knowledge for more information.

Please don't rename any non-standard outlines you come across to OOK's standard naming until after you reformat them. Renaming them only after they are reformatted helps us keep track of which outlines have and have not been converted.

Thank you.

Converting outlines
The way I usually do this is by substituting the relevant outline generator template at the beginning of the outline, which forces the existing outline to the bottom of the page. Then I add an "under construction" tag, and then move all the links from the original outline to the relevant sections in the standard structure. It is important to finish the conversion quickly, so as not to create confusion. Then I scour Wikipedia for missing links (using Google to do a site-specific search of Wikipedia), to make the upgraded outline more comprehensive than the converted outline. Be sure to check all related categories too. Add a lead paragraph, add external links, and voila!

Better than before.

Where we're heading
The next phase in the evolution of this project is to increase participation by expanding the Wikipedia community's awareness of the Outline of knowledge, its purpose, and what needs to be done for any given subject.

This will entail placing banners on the outlines' talk pages, the talk page for the WikiProject associated with the subject of each outline and of each planned outline, and on the talk page of each article corresponding to each outline and to each planned outline.

Then instructions on improving subject access, including the creation and development of an outline for each subject, will be posted on every related WikiProject page. (There's a WikiProject for the subject of most outlines).

We will also be sending notices to every member of every WikiProject associated with the subject of each and every outline and planned outline.

But before this happens, the outline guidelines and the article draft for the topic "Outline" must be completed. Without these, many editors will not know what an outline is, or what to do to build and improve them.

And that's our current bottleneck.

Once those are ready (the guideline and article), we can take this project to the next level.

Keep up the good work
Well, that's all for now.

Until next time,

The Transhumanist 00:21, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

P.S. (Gimme danger)
Hi Danger,

Find anymore?

The Transhumanist 00:21, 10 May 2009 (UTC)


 * TT, I've been very very busy in real life. I'll get back to searching for outlines when I'm not trying to build weird crap out of duck tape and vegetables. --Gimme danger (talk) 01:53, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

What are the benefits of a tree structure?
The article doesn't say.

I'm interested, because I need to explain the benefits in the guideline on outlines I'm writing. (Outlines are a type of tree structure).

I've also asked the question at various reference desks, and these threads may help to jump start your brain on this question. :)


 * Reference desk/Science
 * Reference desk/Mathematics
 * Reference desk/Humanities
 * Reference desk/Language
 * Reference desk/Miscellaneous

What are the benefits of outlines, over and above regular articles?
What benefits have you noticed?

How are Wikipedia's outlines useful to you?

I look forward to your answers on my talk page.

The Transhumanist 04:32, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

WPOOK Update - 05/17/2009 - Blockbusting!
This project needs another shot in the arm.

So here it goes...

Countries WikiProject Collaboration - Contests!
I've contacted all 59 members of the Countries WikiProject to help in designing and conducting contests for the further development of the country outlines.

You are invited too.

Houston, we have a problem
The guidelines and outline article still aren't complete.

Which means you will be needed to help explain to the newcomers mentioned above what outlines are and how to develop them.

Please participate in the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Countries.

The Transhumanist 22:18, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

A question for you, concerning a possible contest...
To promote work on the country outlines, maybe a contest between country WikiProjects could be run, to see which WikiProject could develop the best country outline.

What do you think?

(I look forward to your reply on my talk page).

The Transhumanist 23:57, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

WPOOK update - Has the shit hit the fan? - 05/25/2009
Maybe...

We've started the next phase
I was experiencing mental block on the article draft for "outline" and on the outline guideline draft. And this was holding the whole project back. Without these (which are intended to explain the type of lists known as outlines in detail), the danger is higher that a controversy could go the wrong way.

I requested help on them, but there was none forthcoming.

So I went ahead and started us on the next phase of operations without those 2 pages...

Our AWB'ers and I have placed about '''1600 notices all over Wikipedia. And the plan is to place several thousand more'''.

This generated only one complaint, but it was a very vocal one, and attracted a few other detractors who seemed unfamiliar with the concept of hierarchical outlines and their benefits. However, just as many or more editors came to the defense of the OOK, and there was no consensus formed. But, dab is still trying to rally opposition to outlines at the Village Pump. See below...

Administrator noticeboard incident and Village Pump policy discussion
It appears that the banner placed on the talk page of the Outline of Switzerland caught the attention of an editor named Dbachmann who posted a rather forceful message on my talk page, another on WT:WPOOK, another at WP:VPP, and still another at WP:AN!

He went well out of his way to use negative hype to cause a stir.

It appears that Mr. Bachmann doesn't understand the nature of hierarchical outlines and their applications. And though he implied that he has never seen an OOK outline before, he was involved with a discussion on these when they were called "lists of basic topics".

His primary argument is that outlines are content forks of articles, and violate WP:CFORK.

But "topic lists", of which outlines are a type, have been around for almost as long as Wikipedia, and fall under the WP:LISTS and WP:STAND guidelines. They aren't intended as forks, as they are lists, bringing the benefits of lists to the corresponding subjects, such as grouping and navigation.

Someone suggested an MfD, but lists are articles, and are within the jurisdiction of AfD. Only the portal page, which merely lists the outline articles, falls within the scope of the MfD department.

The administrator's noticeboard was considered the wrong venue for the discussion, and the discussion was closed.

But the dab's discussion at the Village Pump is still active. Hopefully level heads will prevail there too.

Now what?
Am I disheartened or deterred? Hell no. I say "full steam ahead!"

But we really need to finish the article draft and the guideline. Otherwise there will continue to be confusion.

In a week or two, we'll be posting another 1600 or so notices. It's a good thing we didn't send out 10,000 of them all at once. :)

The Transhumanist 22:49, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

P.S.: Another related thread has popped up at WP:VPR.

WPOOK update - 05/27/2009
Input on the OOK threads at the Village Pump has died down (at both WP:VPP and WP:VPR), and there is currently no consensus on either.

Negative feedback
For the number of notices we posted (over a thousand) the number of complaints we received (the two VP threads mentioned above) was quite low.

Silent majority
Considering most of the outlines are orphans, they get pretty good use.

Note that people who are happy with articles on Wikipedia generally don't say anything, so I simply interpret it as positive feedback.

Traffic, traffic comparison, and increasing traffic
Using Traffic, I compare the traffic of articles, their corresponding outlines, and their corresponding portals from time to time.

Outlines are starting to catch up to portals. Though the main portals, which are included in a navbar menu at the top of most portals are still way ahead of their outline counterparts.

Both outlines and portals are way behind the articles on the same subjects. Articles usually have 20 to 30 times the traffic.

Keep in mind that most outlines are orphans, with the primary link to them being Portal:Contents/Outline of knowledge.

Traffic should improve once we include links on the corresponding subject pages, including the main subject as well as subjects that correspond to subheadings (e.g., History of x, and in the case of countries: Geography of x, Demographics of x, Culture of x, etc.)

I'm convinced the traffic of outlines will overtake portals once we've link-integrated them into the encyclopedia. And since outlines serve as tables of contents for each subject, it seems most fitting to place links to them in the form of hatnotes at the top of each subject's main articles (and the sub-subjects mentioned in the paragraph directly above).

By the way, there's another traffic counter called Wikirank, but I haven't tested it out much yet, but will do so in the coming weeks.

Going for the Main Page
Once the traffic of outlines has overtaken portals, it will be time to replace portals on the Main Page, even if we need to spearhead a new main page redesign! This isn't a far-fetched idea. I was the one who jumpstarted and led the project responsible for the current main page design (until it hit critical mass and attracted other leaders), and I was also the most active editor on that project. I even created the WP:CBB on the Community Portal to promote the main page election. The second time around should be easier.

Back to the here and now
Targetting the Main Page is a few months off.

Right now, we need to continue posting notices and start link-integrating the OOK into the encyclopedia.

I have a whole slew of AWB tasks to assign. I hope you are ready. :)

Spread the word
WP:WPOOK needs members. Tell all your friends about the OOK, and get them to join.

The Transhumanist 02:44, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Why do we have outlines in addition to...?
Outlines was growing so large that I split this section off as a separate page.

I look forward to your feedback and improvements.

The Transhumanist 22:34, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Why do we have outlines in addition to...?
I answered your question there. The Transhumanist 04:30, 3 June 2009 (UTC)