User talk:Ekotkie/Archive1

Hello,, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful: I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes ( ~ ); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, check out Questions, ask me on my talk page, or place  on your talk page and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. Again, welcome! -- JHunterJ 10:41, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
 * The five pillars of Wikipedia
 * How to edit a page
 * Help pages
 * Tutorial
 * How to write a great article
 * Manual of Style

Edit summaries
When editing an article on Wikipedia there is a small field labeled "Edit summary" under the main edit-box. It looks like this: The text written here will appear on the Recent changes page, in the page revision history, on the diff page, and in the watchlists of users who are watching that article. See m:Help:Edit summary for full information on this feature.

Filling in the edit summary field greatly helps your fellow contributors in understanding what you changed, so please always fill in the edit summary field, especially for big edits or when you are making subtle but important changes, like changing dates or numbers. Thank you. -- JHunterJ 10:41, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Reply from my Talk
I realized that I hadn't suggested you Watch my talk page after adding to it; this is the response I made there:

Mentor? Nah, just a peer who happens to know the basic interface. I only got the '+' thing myself recently; usually I use the "edit this page" to create a new section. You can click on "edit this page" anywhere you see it (even if you don't want to save any changes) to see the mark-up. Sections are set between ==s, like "== Header ==". It's not a folder, more like an outline level (in Word) or heading level (in HTML).


 * EK> I am quite sure I am responding in the wrong manner and style but here goes...  Since you are looking over my shoulder, I'll still call it, being a Mentor or if that word is too much for you, then "guide", maybe.  The fact remains, this is a powerful place with very powerful tools and I can clearly see that I have been "too close to the edge of the cliff" on occassion.  My first reaction to editing was to make a copy, change it (off-line) and then feed it back to an integrator.  I understand now how that is just not workable.  Instead, I find I am using up lots of ink and paper making hard copies of what I need.  I find myself pausing at each "blue word" checking for applicability.....sigh

Yes, huge novices get to be bold and create articles, absolutely. Go crib the entry for another author and have at -- I just created William R. Trotter earlier today, if you want to use that. All the articles are started by bold schmucks like us. -- JHunterJ 16:59, 2 September 2006 (UTC)


 * EK> BTW, when I intesect my response should I use the four ~'s or is plugging in my initials suffice. This is may 30 year habilt from aerospace.  OK, When (and if) I venture into starting a page for the authors who are missing here, How do I start at the very top line with the authors name?  I know it is something very simple but it just isn't obvious to me at the moment.  What you did for the Trotter page is just about on par with what I want to do with Thomas Perry, except to add his book titles, release dates and ISBN's.  When you made the Trotter page did you do this on-line or off?


 * I am also a bit puzzled as to why Wiki uses the UTC time format? I know what it means, I just mean....application.


 * Thanks again for the support. -- Ekotkie 20:38, 2 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I added a : in front of your paragraphs -- that gives it a nice indentation. I put a :: in front of this one to push it even farther in. That's all you need to do, but I didn't delete your EK> tags either. First, go to William R. Trotter, click on edit this page, highlight everything in the edit box and copy it, then use the Back button (or whatever your browser has) to come back here. There are already Thomas Perry articles here, so you'll want to create Thomas Perry (author). That link is red; if you click through, it will take you into an editor to create the article. Paste the text in and start replacing Trotter's details with Perry's. (The author's name is in sets of three single quotes; that will make it bold.) I drafted it offline, but usually I do everything online. If you want a list of books, use * in front of each line to make a bullet list, put the titles in sets of two single quotes (for italics), and put the ISBN number (with hyphens) after the word ISBN.  The magic of wiki will recognize it and make it an ISBN link automatically. And UTC is just a neutral choice of timestamp, so everything has a proper sequence without giving preference to Eastern Standard, Pacific Standard, or anywhere else (almost). -- JHunterJ 21:34, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

+ vs. edits

 * (posted at both User talk:JHunterJ & User talk:Ekotkie:)
 * Since talk pages are often (mine!) left indecently and dangerously large (in light of old browsers, and, with Google Toolbar, either Firefox or Netscape), editing a whole talk page unnecessarily is a bad habit, even when "+" is unsuitable. I often don't use + for a variety of good and bad reasons, but clicking on the "[edit]" lk to the right of the last hdg on a talk pg is usually no worse than using +, and almost always avoids the whole-page-edit hazards. --Jerzy•t 21:03, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Signatures
By the way, ~ only works in article edits; it doesn't get expanded in the Edit summary box. The edit summary is for a description of your change(s), not for you signature. :-) -- JHunterJ 11:17, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

ISBNs
Hold on before editing that article! I've a fairly long message to type. Rich Farmbrough, 22:32 10 December 2006 (GMT).

OK, ISBNs are, as you say, either 10 or 13 digits (plus possibly X). Lets deal with 10 digit ones first. They are split into 4 groups by dashes or spaces. Spaces break wiki-magic on ISBN so we have to use dashes. The first chunk is the language area, the second the publisher and the last a check digit. Now the important point: only the last is a fixed length block. "Big" languages like English start with X- (0 or 1 for English) "smaller" areas have 2, 3 or even 4 digits. Then comes the publisher. Again the large publishers are assigned short numbers between (in English 0- range) 00 and 19. The rest have more digits, e.g. 200-299. The next bit is a serial number given by the publisher, the number of digits is what's left out of the 10. Clearly under this scheme big pubs get lots of numbers.

13 digit ISBNs are the same except
 * They start with 978- (later will also be 979-
 * The check digit is calculted differently
 * they are identical to the EAN for the book.

Hope that helps. Rich Farmbrough, 22:40 10 December 2006 (GMT).


 * EK> Rich, I understand all that. What does that have to do with what AWP did to the Margaret Truman site?  A good majority of the ISBN's are now incorrectly formatted.  Additionally, EAN is ISBN minus dashes.  Lets not call them "identical".  To be honest, most book locator's don't use the dashes either just as LoC doesn't. I think the Wiki page on ISBN's needs to have someone take a look at for better clarification on the 13 digit structure.  The book industry seems to not care and I suspect they would rather do bar code and forget about ISBN.  Thats not going to happen.  There are many inexpensive database methods that give a small bookstore owner dynamic control over his/her inventory using a low cost scanner. But I digress.  What gives with AWP? Ekotkie 02:15, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
 * No, they are/were correctly formatted, apart from one which was just plain wrong. To quote myself " Now the important point: only the last is a fixed length block. ". so it is not X-XXX-XXXXX-X exccept for a few hundred publishers for the major language groups.  For example 0-3XX-XXXXX-X will be correct but 0-8XX-XXXXX-X will never be a valid hyphenation.  Similarly it will be 0-20-XXXXXX-X. Rich Farmbrough, 21:11 11  December 2006 (GMT).
 * No, they are/were correctly formatted, apart from one which was just plain wrong. To quote myself " Now the important point: only the last is a fixed length block. ". so it is not X-XXX-XXXXX-X exccept for a few hundred publishers for the major language groups.  For example 0-3XX-XXXXX-X will be correct but 0-8XX-XXXXX-X will never be a valid hyphenation.  Similarly it will be 0-20-XXXXXX-X. Rich Farmbrough, 21:11 11  December 2006 (GMT).


 * Oh, yes the transition to 13 digits started 2005, and is supposed to be complete 1st Jan 2007 (i.e. everything should be able to handle both formats). Rich Farmbrough, 22:45 10 December 2006 (GMT).


 * Rich is well-informed about ISBN structure. And if you don't believe him, believe the ISBN-International.org table, clearly showing the following prefix ranges for group 0 (English-speaking area):


 * align="right" | 00 || - || 09
 * align="right" | 10 || - || 19
 * align="right" | 200 || - || 699
 * align="right" | 7000 || - || 8499
 * align="right" | 85000 || - || 89999
 * align="right" | 900000 || - || 949999
 * align="right" | 9500000 || - || 9999999
 * }
 * The only possible correct hyphenation for any ISBN-10 starting 087NNN… is therefore 0-87NNN-NNN-N. The trailing hyphenation breaks are the same for ISBN-13, namely 978-0-87NNN-NNN-N. --KSmrqT 22:58, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
 * align="right" | 85000 || - || 89999
 * align="right" | 900000 || - || 949999
 * align="right" | 9500000 || - || 9999999
 * }
 * The only possible correct hyphenation for any ISBN-10 starting 087NNN… is therefore 0-87NNN-NNN-N. The trailing hyphenation breaks are the same for ISBN-13, namely 978-0-87NNN-NNN-N. --KSmrqT 22:58, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
 * }
 * The only possible correct hyphenation for any ISBN-10 starting 087NNN… is therefore 0-87NNN-NNN-N. The trailing hyphenation breaks are the same for ISBN-13, namely 978-0-87NNN-NNN-N. --KSmrqT 22:58, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Please revert your ISBN hyphenation changes to the Margaret Truman article
Hello Ekotkie! I'm glad to see an editor take an interest in ISBN issues. Looking at Margaret Truman, however, I must disagree with your recent changes. For example, Murder in the White House was (correctly) shown as ISBN 0-87795-245-0 but after your change it was ISBN 0-877-95245-0. You're aware these groups are not fixed size, right? The example ISBNs in the ISBN article show publisher codes as short as two digits and as long as six digits. The total length of the entire ISBN is fixed, but not the lengths of the individual fields.

For my own editing of Wikipedia the standard of correctness that I use is the ISBN converter provided online at http://www.isbn.org/converterpub.asp. The ISBNs you re-hyphenated are now wrong according to isbn.org. It is well-accepted that the field following the language code is the publisher code. That's the group of numbers which is marked off by the hyphens. Your rehyphenation would imply that '877' is a publisher code. A search at booksinprint.com confirms that the publisher code 87795 is still in use, and now belongs to Harper Collins (which acquired Arbor House, the publisher of the Margaret Truman book). If you look for '877' as a publisher code it finds nothing. In fact, booksinprint.com reports the following hyphenation for a book by Peter Bogdanovich from Arbor House that's still in print: ISBN 0-87795-072-5, confirming that 87795 is a valid publisher code.

Since isbn.org/converterpub.asp (or something equivalent) is used for hyphenating ISBNs all over Wikipedia, it would cause chaos if we replaced that with something not well-attested. Please revert your changes, or respond on this Talk page if you have another opinion. EdJohnston 20:21, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
 * EK> It doesn't seem to matter what my thoughts may have been on reverting the Truman data since it was already done before I even :read this note. From what I have read about the requirements on ISBN-13 some of this will have to be done yet again because as   :done, it is incomplete. I think I will just bow out of this issue since there are too many "experts" here who have the answers down :cold. I wish you folks the best in this effort.  Ekotkie 03:01, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Hello again. If you are interested in ISBNs, please consider looking at the Category:Articles with invalid ISBNs. This serves as a work queue for people who want to fix bad ISBNs in Wikipedia. There are still over 800 bad ISBNs waiting for correction, and few volunteers who are currently active. Leave a comment on my talk page if you are interested.  Note that the ISBN-13 problem is not that serious, since the ISBN-10s will continue to work at bookselling sites after January 1. If it is ever decided to convert all ISBNs in Wikipedia to ISBN-13 (which I personally do not think is desirable), this can probably be done by a robot, so it should not be a large concern. EdJohnston 03:38, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Curious ISBNs
Hi you left the message on my user page, someone kindly moved it to my talk earlier, so here's my reply: It's (more than) fine to put 13 digit ISBNs on. If you get stuck then by all means leave it and move on (but don't remove the template - it doesn't matter if you already have removed a few), alternatively you could raise with another ISBN editor. I am flagging more problem ISBNs now because my bot can spot them better but it takes a long time to scan the 84,000 articles with ISBNs in. At some point I hope to be able to monitor these things the way AntiVandalBot does. Regards, Rich Farmbrough, 22:43 19 December 2006 (GMT).