User talk:Franamax/Archive 1

If you're interested in working on local articles, you might want to check out WikiProject Vancouver or WikiProject British Columbia. Cheers, bobanny 04:58, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Tool question
Inserted by Franamax:
 * Hi GWH, I have picked you randomly on my wanderings. I notice in your discourse with 208.65.188.149/"El Jigue" that you claim "I went back 500 edits, then walked forwards..."


 * This seems to confirm that there is no extant tool that would let me pick an arbitrary piece of text and say "who/when/why did this first appear?". Is the only way by human inspection of a series of diff's? There is an evident simplicity in creating such a tool and also evident vast complications. Are you aware of any such efforts?


 * Thanks Franamax 01:59, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Completing the thread, answer follows Franamax 11:34, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

As far as I know of there is no such tool.

To do it right, I think you'd need to have an extension in the MediaWiki server to do it in the database. I've been fooling around with MediaWiki code, but am not up to programming something like that at the moment.

For now... everyone does it by hand.

Georgewilliamherbert 07:00, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

-
 * Inserted by Franamax:
 * Casliber, with ref to Durova's talk page - please tell me there's no such thing as wiki-eavesdropping! You can easily see that I'm new here - one of the huge attractions for me is that so far as I have found, EVERYTHING in Wikipedia is recorded, archived, and open to inspection. There are definitely places where things have been closed off, users deleted, diff's not available, "redacted" if you will. But all those instances I have seen are referenced by some other trace, so I know they have at least occurred. If there are truly black areas of WP, please don't tell me Santa.


 * At my point of development I would rather call it gathering, learning, integrating - but I hope that I can be bold whenever and stick my nose in whenever.


 * As to the tool I describe, no promises, if you wish I will notify you when I have further descriptions of same conecpt on my talk page. I enjoy algorithms and lexical analysis. Any input you may have as to analysis tools, you can put on my talk under Tool question for now. Mayhap I have identified a need which I can fulfill :) No promises. Franamax 12:49, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Completing the thread, answer follows Franamax 11:40, 3 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Haha - tricky all this - like mass blogging. I am wary to only ever write very uncontroversial/straightforward things here as it's completely public. My issue is when trying to work things up for Featured Article Candidacy and everything has to be referenced and someone entered something way back when..like trying to find a needle in a haystack really. Can you imagine trawling through versions of this? Gah! Anyway, welcome aboard.cheers,  Casliber (talk · contribs) 12:55, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

A test of my work on this tool. Franamax 05:44, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

LOL still testing Franamax 06:11, 3 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Gosh! Well blow me down as Popeye said. Just got back from a short trip and will investigate this further. cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 10:29, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Most livable city
I can't imagine that anyone who might've replied didn't because of all the blah blah. But if a discussion gets too messy, it seems to work best to start a new section and even repeat comments if they got lost in the fray without being addressed. People would get PO'd if you altered their comments, but it's also perfectly acceptable to re-organize comments to make the overall discussion legible, such as breaking it up into smaller sections. I find it more common to post a comment on a talk page and have it sit there for many months before getting a response, if it gets any at all. Some of us (especially me and Skookum1 on the Vancouver Project) tend to be long-winded and meander off into tangents, so others might see me as part of a problem that I don't see myself. There are talk page guidelines that some of us frequently break, and it's okay to jump in and remind people to get back on topic or whatever. But it's not like we're in danger of running out of space for these discussions, and personally, I find them more productive oftentimes if they're dynamic and provocative than by-the-book and clinical. It also helps to assume your audience has ADHD. cheers, bobanny 16:23, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Testing a talk subpage User talk:Franamax/sub-page Franamax 18:33, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Testing Section
Here I will try to create some talk sub-pages

here goes

1st one worked, let's try again

A Speedy Question
Regarding New Inn Tennis Courts, I got lucky. I'm a newpage patroller, and when I find something that needs to be speedied, I tend to check users other edits for anything else that needs tagging. In that case the person who created New Inn Tennis Courts had made an edit to the AfD discussion for it. My only suggestions would be to see if your bot can surf their user talk pages (& possibly it's history) for AfD notifications for that article. Good luck with the bot, if you get it running well it'll help stamp out the annoying recreations. Improbcat 15:40, 23 October 2007 (UTC)


 * To answer your questions:
 * 1)I am not assigned a list, I just hit Special:Newpages (I usually use the link from my newpages patroller infobox) and work my way down the list. I pull up everything that looks worth checking in separate tabs and work my way across.
 * 2)Sometimes another person has hit the article before me, it's completely random. Some times everything I load has already been tagged, sometimes nothing. The only way I know if someone else has hit that page is if they've tagged it in some way. Aside for (very rarely) changing a speedy tag to something more appropriate, or adding/removing tags based on my own research I don't care if someone else has been there.
 * 3)I can see where that info could be quite useful, *much* moreso if you can get the output to wikilink to the article, user and previous AfD/deletion log. Perhaps you can create a sub-page of your user page, or a page on the user side of things (one of the ones that start with "Wikipedia:") where this is outputted to. Course at that point it'd need a way to limit how much is on that page. Perhaps auto-removing articles that become redlinked, and having it not re-add articles as users remove them because they are valid (or in their 2nd AfD or whatnot). Not sure how to promote it, short of word of mouth. Manually tagging articles, and putting a link to the page might work.
 * 4)Not a clue, never worked with bots myself so I can't guess where to start. I'm sure there is a page on it if you do some digging around. Improbcat 14:10, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

- - - - - - crPatrol - test output sample

Title: Benjamin page    User: Woodburyu     Date: 06:48, 25 October 2007 FLAG: Deleted at dtm 20071025

Title: Cesari and McKenna    User: Rollinsk     Date: 06:47, 25 October 2007 FLAG: Deleted at dtm 20071025

Title: Zulqarnain zaidi    User: Znzaidi     Date: 06:46, 25 October 2007  FLAG: Deleted at dtm 20071024

Title: Roger Bourke White    User: Cyreenik     Date: 06:43, 25 October 2007 FLAG: Deleted at dtm 20071024

Title: Yamanote Halloween Train    User: Daikanyama     Date: 06:06, 25 October 2007 FLAG: Deleted at dtm 20071024

Title: Rock Instrumental Classics    User: People Week Guy     Date: 05:53, 25 October 2007 FLAG: Deleted at dtm 20071007

Title: NBA Live series soundtracks    User: Adambaker04     Date: 05:10, 25 October 2007 FLAG: Deleted at dtm 20071020

Title: Dustin Haskins    User: Beldingfan     Date: 05:02, 25 October 2007  FLAG: Deleted at dtm 20071024

Title: Giblink    User: Tosshoo     Date: 03:34, 25 October 2007 FLAG: Deleted at dtm 20071018

Title: Glove gun    User: Jamesclemow     Date: 03:13, 25 October 2007 FLAG: Deleted at dtm 20071024

Title: Peter Slowik    User: Just plain Bill     Date: 02:48, 25 October 2007 FLAG: Deleted at dtm 20071025

Title: Alfreda Williams    User: AlfredaW     Date: 02:30, 25 October 2007 FLAG: Deleted at dtm 20071024

Title: Gamma Adventurers    User: Maxgamma17     Date: 02:29, 25 October 2007 FLAG: Deleted at dtm 20071025

Title: TYRO GYN PHI    User: Agustinclan     Date: 02:12, 25 October 2007 FLAG: Deleted at dtm 20071022

- - - End of sample - - - Franamax 08:36, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Don't worry about it
JzG's revert had nothing to do with you. To a new user it may appear that he is reverting you, but that's just a quirk of the differencing page. No experienced user would think it was you he was reverting. It's nothing to worry about. ATren 12:41, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

The diff screen shows the selected revision and the previous revision. There is really no relation between the two - they are just sequential. It is somewhat confusing because there is no guarantee that the newer change is in any way related to the previous one. Think of the left hand side as simply a preview for the previous change - it is not at all related to the diff in question. In effect, the top left rectangle could be eliminated from that screen without losing any information pertinent to the change being viewed - it really is just a preview. Any change you make will make the diffs appear this way. But as I said, experienced users already know enough that the two revisions are not necessarily related (and often aren't) ATren 15:08, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

RE: Metro Vancouver water
The inputs I made has since been edited by User:Ckatz.--Cahk (talk) 09:35, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I've tweaked the wording of it again.--Cahk (talk) 10:26, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
 * We certainly did.--Cahk (talk) 11:07, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I am waiting to see police in action again... last year I remembered seeing a police car parked outside a Shoppers because of water frenzy.--Cahk (talk) 20:46, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the note
Thanks for the note on my talk page. I've replied there. Carcharoth (talk) 12:07, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

RfC or AN/I?
Hi, you just reverted my edits of User talk:Durova without a linked explanation. You left the message "RfC or AN/I" but they weren't linked so I don't know what you're talking about. Scott Keeler (talk) 03:12, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for TALK page note
I've replied there. Good points. Most arguments boil down to epistemology, do they not? "How strong do we know this?" as Feynman used to say. S B Harris 01:36, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

If you can't laugh at yourself, who can you laugh at?
That's what my mother always says. Kevlar67 (talk) 09:38, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

IP range contribution checking
I'll take you up on that client-side tool. Digging around, looks like it's just 4.252.0.0/16, not a 24.Kww (talk) 00:36, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I'll admit to minor stupidity ... I've never e-mailed a user that didn't have an "e-mail this user" button somewhere on his home page, and I don't know how to do it without one. I scanned over those edits, and reverted two pieces of vandalism that got missed.Kww (talk) 21:50, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Re:You Idiot!
It was a practical joke which, in my twisted mind, seemed absurdly funny. Ha Ha. :) Editorofthewiki (talk) 00:18, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

wpW5
wpW5 sounds absolutely amazing. I hope you can pull it off. You should consider it as a commercially-licensed product (for unlimited access) and keep it limited to 5 searches per day for "normal" free subscribers. - Yug Pah Yug (talk) 04:27, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Non-admin Rollback
You valiantly tried to fix the page flow up after I made the mistake of putting a response to an editor in a place where the whole thread was liable to be disrupted. I made a stab at putting a post of mine where I would prefer it to be. Please review and if you don't think it's appropriate, revert what I did. No diff's supplied, I'm sure it's on your watch! Thanks & cheers! Franamax (talk) 04:49, 7 January 2008 (UTC)


 * What you did looks fine to me. Somebody else had really screwed things up, which was what I was trying to fix.  — DragonHawk (talk|hist) 12:26, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Eisenhower
To my great surprise, you are right that his birth name was in fact David D. Eisenhower. I was indeed hasty to label the change vandalism. However, he rose to prominence and was elected president as Dwight D. Eisenhower, and so that is the correct name to use in this context. Nevertheless, I appreciate your correction, and I will try to be more careful in the future. Plazak (talk) 14:57, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Speaking of Montreal islands...
I've got islands on the brain, too. Did you happen to see Hochelaga Archipelago? It's an article I've taken on. (I even created an article for it on citizendium, which will of course never b seen by anyone). As a lifelong Montrealer, I'd never even heard of this until I came across the article. I got so excited I created a cat for it, too. Speaking of which, should BC's own Gulf Islands should be added to Category:Archipelagoes? Are they considered an archipelago? Shawn in Montreal (talk) 04:14, 26 January 2008 (UTC)


 * The feds apparently think so. I don't see a wiki article to add to the category, needs more clicking! Franamax (talk) 04:23, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I just added the category. Cheers, Shawn in Montreal (talk) 04:30, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Good man, I was still looking at windows full of wiki-text trying to figure out how to structure it all without getting CSD'ed! Should it have a master article the same way as Hochelaga does? Gulf Islands seems to cover it. I'll try to copy the format if you don't do it first. Excellent work.
 * I'm gonna concentrate on spilling forth my canoe idea for your consideration, might take an hour though :) Franamax (talk) 04:39, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

The Wiki-Canoe
Every Wikipedia article contains a wealth of blue-links. These are links that will take you to other places in Wikipedia, where you can learn more new things, they are also called hyperlinks. But there is another way of linking things called "looking around" in the real world - what's that over there? I think I'll go check it out.

One of the easiest ways of exploring throughout human history has been to just follow the rivers. One of the best human inventions for following rivers is the canoe, you can follow the water at your own pace and see all there is to be seen along the way - or you can put your head down and get somewhere fast.

My proposal is to create pages for river systems so that Wikipedia can be explored by water. Every river system is rooted at an ocean. From the ocean, one can paddle upstream through gulfs, bays and deltas, past the tideline, into river systems. As you paddle up the river, on each bank outlets of tributaries appear. You can choose to paddle up any of those tributaries as well, and paddle up all the streams that join.

Of course, all the other river-related things on earth eventually show up here. Waterfalls, islands, rapids, lakes, marshes, cities, ports, dams - you will see them all from the canoe.

All Wikipedia articles on inland water-related features can in principle be grouped, water always goes somewhere and usually only goes one way. There are five(?) endpoints (oceans), the trick is to create not-too-large pages to contain expandable/linkable navigation loci; the canoe icon on each article would pop you into the right part of the tree, you could click upstream or downstream and paddle away.

Initial (borrowed) concept statement, this goes much further, please hack away. :) Franamax (talk) 05:11, 26 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I think it's a truly creative idea. But I don't know if what you're talking about -- with expandable icons and the like -- can be contained within this current Wikipedia project or would need to be an offshoot project of its own, a fork, using Wikipedia content. Is there a rivers discussion group? There must be. I suggest you raise it and see what the reaction is. cheers, Shawn in Montreal (talk) 05:27, 26 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Trying to keep the idea simple, this would just be a basic page of wikilinks going upstream-downstream, so it would just be line-after-line of Saguenay River,Richelieu River,Trent River,Niagara River,Nipigon River. Tributaries would be expandable/collapsable with "show/hide" templates, I think they're called hats. I think it could definitely be done within en:wiki and I have posted at the Rivers project. Once people have put together the river system data onto various pages it then becomes amenable to lots of different software massage to accomplish presentation formats (which I'm good at :) But the raw pages themselves will be useful for navigation.
 * I guess the first step is to build a page myself, throw some stuff in and see what it looks like. You were my first on-wiki ask, thanks for the encouragement! Franamax (talk) 05:48, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
 * This sounds a lot like the geotags that are combined with maps (eg. Google Maps) so you can link on places on a map with Wikipedia articles. But the river idea is much more poetic. How would it be different to using a wiki-linked map? Carcharoth (talk) 02:42, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
 * This would be a system to navigate wiki itself, just another way to explore. If for whatever reason I find myself at the Hells Gate article, it would be interesting to see what's next, kind of a forward/back thing. I'd like to be able to go up the Danube river and maybe go up one of the tributaries. In wiki itself, there doesn't seem to be any convenient way to encompass all the articles pertaining to a large river system right now, and there is no comparable resource to jump to, Google Maps doesn't organize its information in an encyclopedic fashion, it's just a big heap.
 * Pick any lake you've ever swum in, shouldn't there be some easy way in Wikipedia to get to the ocean and see the sights along the way? Franamax (talk) 04:04, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Ah, so like navboxes. Have I ever swum in a lake? The sea, yes. Lakes, no. I fell in a river once. Does that count? :-) Carcharoth (talk) 04:36, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Ah, seashore-dweller eh? Nyuk, nyuk. (Twists nose with pliers) There's a perfect example, obviously you got out of the river but what if you hadn't? Wouldn't it be nice to check Wikipedia to see what cities your corpse would drift by? Find out if it would be tropical fish nibbling at your remains?
 * Yes, the navbox idea would be the way to to hide/show the tributary systems, at least at first. They would have to be nestable, Mississippi->Ohio->Allegheny->etc. and clickable to omit cities, islands, depending on the view you want. The box wizards can figure that stuff out. Compiling the river system data will be the first step, in some regular format that can be reprocessed later but is in immediately usable form. Franamax (talk) 05:43, 27 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Oh. I was hoping for Cinemascope Surroundvision (I think I made that up) and gentle music to accompany me as I drifted down the stream. Maybe that will be in version 2.0? As for the river, it was very small and shallow, so no danger there. I did get run down by a boat once while swimming, but that was entirely my fault. Carcharoth (talk) 05:57, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Re:Mirrors & Forks
I remember a while ago hearing people that would contact these guys about forked material without attribution, but it may have been on the mailing list... if I don't get a response, I'll either post to the mailing list or just contact them myself. Either way, I'll let you know. Thanks, Deathphoenix ʕ 14:50, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Sorry
No, sorry, I don't generally copy/paste code multiple places. —Random832 00:47, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Browser errors
Thanks; very kind. I'll do some digging in this direction. I took the twinkle error back to the Twinkle owner so hope that that one will be solved that way. --Tagishsimon (talk) 21:50, 30 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Emailed. Don't feel obliged - only if you have time. thanks --Tagishsimon (talk) 22:00, 30 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Oh - and the errors were from IE7 ... you may need to know that? --Tagishsimon (talk) 22:02, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Whoa
Looks like they're all Twinkle errors, having just removed Twinkle from my monobook.js. User:AzaToth has indicated that he's not interested in getting Twinkle compliant with IE, fullstop. So perhaps that's as far as we need take it. I was merely concerned that all IE users were getting the same errors. if it's just twinkle users, well, they should be using firefox anyway :). Thanks nevertheless. --Tagishsimon (talk) 22:10, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Attima
Yes I do know him and no he doesn't have an article. I take it that you know him as well. CambridgeBayWeather Have a gorilla 11:48, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Geostationary orbit allocation
Thank-you for adding this section to the geostationary orbit article! The material you added was so good I copied it into the space law article as well. I'm not sure if there's some way to maintain and improve it in both places. (In my opinion this topic might even deserve an article of its own!) Anyway, thanks again for providing well-referenced coverage of this topic! (sdsds - talk) 07:23, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the compliment, Geostationary orbit is the site of my first ever wiki edit (as an IP) and I got hooked very quickly after that :) I'll keep both spots in mind for future changes. I was a little surprised this issue hadn't already been covered somewhere and you may be right that it deserves its own article, it's certainly notable. Franamax (talk) 07:47, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Reference sections
Just would like to let you know: you could spare yourself some work by not taking time to add those reference sections to Kansas articles. We're in process of getting a bot to do it. Of course, not to say that it's not good to do it :-) but you might not want to bother with so many little edits. Nyttend (talk) 05:48, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the heads up. I just did that one county then posted to WP:USA suggesting a bot. Good to know you're already on it. Franamax (talk) 06:08, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Montreal
There have been controversies in the past in the article. Both Kinshasa and Abidjan are more populated than Montreal. It all depends how you count French speakers (1s language speakers only? or also 2nd language speakers?). What's uncontroversial is that Montreal is the second-largest French speaking city in the Western world (neither Lyon, nor Brussels, nor Marseille, nor Québec City have as many inhabitants as Montreal). Any worldwide statement is controversial due to Kinshasa and Abidjan. Godefroy (talk) 04:30, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Help desk help pileon
And an additional comment; if you'd like a template to be clickable, so that people can go to the page without it being transcluded, then include the parameter prefix undefined. For example, helpme results in helpme. Sorry to keep bothering you! Cheers, Master of Puppets   Call me MoP! ☺  05:27, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Love the pile-on, gives me a chance to learn and keep asking questions! To wit:
 * I thought I'd be able to use the tl template in this post but it seems to insist on injecting "Template:" in before my "User:Franamax...". What's up with that?
 * And why, when you click to my test template (which needs two parameters) does it look so funny: User:Franamax/Test2? Permalink is here in case I keep changing it. Thanks for the help! Franamax (talk) 20:30, 7 February 2008 (UTC)


 * In the case of a page with a User: prefix, use ul; for example, creates . Also, I'm not sure about the template page itself; it seems to work for me when I use all the parameters. Hope that helps, and feel free to contact me if you have anything else that needs answering. Cheers,  Master of Puppets   Call me MoP! ☺  00:38, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks...
...for letting me know. It is appreciated! :-) — BQZip01 —  talk 19:15, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes, thanks for the message. I was still working on that.  I have posted a diff now.  Thanks, Johntex\talk 22:39, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Information condensed in the User RfC per your request. Peruse at your leisure. BTW, just for the sake of feedback, better? — BQZip01 —  talk 22:53, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Yeah, as much as I disagree with the comments in that section, the discussion of the content shouldn't have been there in the first place. Good move. — BQZip01 —  talk 23:12, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
 * IMHO, it doesn't matter where incivility happened. Users cannot go around making up lies about other users just to discredit them; personally, I believe that is one reason (however not the only reason) my RfA had such a hard time. I have no problem with people disagreeing with me. I'll go with consensus, no prob, but lies are another thing altogether and they poison the discussion process.
 * As for a beer, I'm there...figuratively of course I have to get to Canada first...and I'm from Texas! we sell our beer by the KEG! :-)
 * If you want to serve as a mediator between CC and I, I would be happy to have you do so and show us the error of our ways. — BQZip01 —  talk 23:40, 10 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Hi Franamax, thanks for your message. I'm feeling pretty good about the latest developments.  I'm looking forward to BQ coming back online and seeing CC's offer.  Hopefully we can end this whole sordid affair soon and get on with happier and more productive things. I thank you for your attempts to help the situation.  Best, Johntex\talk 15:54, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Your answer on Jimbo's talk page
Hi Franamax, your answer to the person asking for advice on using Wikipedia was excellent. Thanks! Crum375 (talk) 00:14, 15 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Aww shucks ... but thanks. I couldn't watch a question from a twelve-year-old scroll off into outer space because they weren't important enough to warrant an answer from all the watchers, not when they're probably checking once an hour for a response. Especially when the answer is so easy... Franamax (talk) 00:31, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
 * It's so easy, yet so many, including teachers, get it wrong. Thanks again, Crum375 (talk) 00:39, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Hope your suggestion of statistical correlation between myself and Samiharris was kidding
Anyway, the idea of telling new spouses apart by the methods now being applied by ArbCom, is very droll. Weiss went to India to get married, and his "sock" who did his bio, went with him. Well shut me up. The two must be the same guy. --Sherlock. S B Harris 04:26, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Reply crossover, I always type too slow! Franamax (talk) 04:41, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Mine was intended to be a humorous question, with a little extra humour on the statistics. Yours is a valid and serious point however I think there is a concerted effort here to avoid speculation on real-life identities. Incongruous as that is in any case where reality comes into play on Wikipedia, especially in this case where real identities and activities are at the heart of the matter and being alluded to in the evidence, I will always defer to Wikipedians' attempts to skirt the issue. I think you raised a valid point, and I think that point was shut down with equal validity. There was nothing particularly silly about it other than the entire silliness of pseudonymity. That happens to be the basic foundation of the project within which we all must work, regardless of how silly it gets. We are each and all free to create our own projects with more accommodating rules. I'm sticking with this one.
 * Anyway, I was just making a little joke about names and statistics, three hours after I read your post yesterday it hit me. No seriousity intended. Cheers!
 * Okay, no harm, no foul. Anonymity has been the source of much evil on Wikipedia, as well as (ironically) some of the passion of Wikipedians to write about other people's lives (BLP) and other people's livelihoods (articles on publically traded companies, which which there isn't nearly as much consideration shown as in BLP). This is madness. These problems are not going to be solved with WP:V and WP:Whatever. Opinions will always differ. That's why related wiki problems in arguing about contentious topics like religion or ethnicity or whether or not JFK was killed by one sniper, have to be presented as in court trial, with a concerted attempt to be (somewhat) fair to all points of view (except extreme minority ones). Even the Catholics choose a devil's advocate, when putting somebody up for Sainthood. The worst criminals get defence attornies, and so on. Wikipedia has not learned this at all levels, and that's why the Overstock-type wars are destined to keep going, and to get worse. Why can't everybody see this?? The stock market operates on ads, which are closely kept track of by the SEC and FTA. In opposition are consumer reports and stock analysts. Nobody censors anybody, really. If you wish to "pump and dump" a crummy penny stock, there are many ways to get around the rules. And naked short selling is a potent way to counteract such bull. We need both. So, we should discuss both fairly. If Overstock needs a puff page, with a summary of criticism on it, AND a separate criticism page, with a summary of the puff page, well, that's within policy. We did it with the Apollo moon landings and the Apollo moon landing hoax accusations. What prevents us from learning the lessons we learned THERE, and applying them HERE? S  B Harris 05:18, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

The whole thing...
...is going to end up RFAR, based on this. Lawrence §  t / e  07:11, 17 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Drop it man, drop it. It's the talk page of an RFC, brought after an MFD, brought after an RFA, one huge piece of drama. Some ANI's in there and a BMF besides. There's enough rope out there, let it form its own noose. One thing I've learned around here, there's always someone else to take up the battle if the cause is right.
 * What will be the Arb finding? All members of the community should conduct themselves accordingly? Just let it go, there will be better times. Franamax (talk) 07:17, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Oh, I'm dropped, trust me. Either a one-way flame out, a mutual one, or a community-enforced or Arb-enforced "stay away from each other" solutions will come of it all. This was just a last observation.  Lawrence  §  t / e  07:20, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
 * OK that's good to hear. I do agree that the "this" you link above is very disappointing, I expressed that elsewhere. Lets pick a bench where we can sit and watch the fire, I'll see if there's any beer left in the cooler. Cheers! Franamax (talk) 07:31, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

AfD nomination of Muhammad (no images)
An editor has nominated Muhammad (no images), an article on which you have worked or that you created, for deletion. We appreciate your contributions, but the nominator doesn't believe that the article satisfies Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion and has explained why in his/her nomination (see also "What Wikipedia is not").

Your opinions on whether the article meets inclusion criteria and what should be done with the article are welcome; please participate in the discussion by adding your comments at and please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes ( ~ ).

You may also edit the article during the discussion to improve it but should not remove the articles for deletion template from the top of the article; such removal will not end the deletion debate. Thank you. BJBot (talk) 14:59, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Re:Broken Link
Thanks for catching that. Yes, this edit fixes it properly. Cheers, --Be happy!! (talk) 21:42, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks...
I appreciate the catch. Darn frustrating, to be sure, and I certainly don't like leaving a mess for others to clean up. Thanks again. --Ckatz chat spy  07:59, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Deletion review of Category:Wikipedians who support Hezbollah
Hi. I noticed you took part in the debate at Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents/Hezbollah userbox and I was wondering if you might want to participate in a debate I have started at deletion review of this category and accompanying userboxes here.--Cdogsimmons (talk) 02:27, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Responded. Franamax (talk) 03:26, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Betacommand RfArb statement
Nice statement! Do you think it would be helpful to provide links or diffs, especially to stuff not mentioned or linked by others? One thing, BC and BCB are pretty clear, but you might want to make clear who MMN is. Carcharoth (talk) 09:04, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I was thinking of PM'ing you before posting that, to be sure I wasn't being a complete idiot, so thanks. I'm relatively sure everything I spoke of is clear in the minds of at least one of the involved persons, at this point I'd prefer to strike any item challenged rather than defend it. It's a request for Arb, I'm trying to provide some background for the Arb's to accept/decline, they can make their own decision on unsupported allegations. I don't really want to make a career out of assembling cogent diff's for a case soon to be rejected. (Note my "happily uninvolved" header) I'll add a little disclaimer to clarify things. Cheers! Franamax (talk) 09:28, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Cobden, etc.
I've never lived outside of Ontario in my life. I know the municipal amalgamations of the Harris years are unpopular — I grew up in "Greater" Sudbury, attended university in Ottawa, and moved to Toronto just in time to watch the whole megacity affair, so I've literally spent my entire life living in cities that still curse the ground Mike Harris walked on. But like them or not, as long as the amalgamated municipalities are the municipalities that actually exist right now, they have to be the primary priority precisely because they actually exist as incorporated municipalities — famous or not, artificial or not, they are the entities that actually govern those municipalities right now. Until I started merging smaller hamlets early this year, about 20 per cent of the municipalities in Ontario were still redlinks, which is really unacceptable.

And for what it's worth, I'm also getting very tired of the common belief that Wikipedia should privilege popular perception over the reality of things as they actually stand right now (such as by calling every settlement a town whether it actually holds that status under law or not.) And I'm sorry, but as far as I'm concerned the notion that Cobden should be a higher or even equivalent article priority to Whitewater Region fits right into that little bugaboo, because it's basically an assertion that Wikipedia should treat some municipalities as subordinate to their communities — and since we don't treat all municipalities that way, it basically sets up a dual class of articles based on a completely artificial, ideological and not-obvious-to-most-readers set of reasons that fail NPOV and OR. So until Whitewater Region either (a) has a long enough article to merit division, or (b) gets dissolved by a future provincial government, it has to be the higher priority article, because it is the actual municipal government in that area. Bearcat (talk) 08:37, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
 * OK thanks Bearcat, I understand a lot more where you're coming from now. I did that whole Ontario thing too (farm, small town, country, bit of city) - you might want to check Vancouver, I've been shovelling sunshine the past few days, how's 'bout you? :)


 * I'll back off right now on any statements about "towns" or "villages" or "hamlets", I use those pretty much interchangeably. When I use one of those words, I'm thinking about "the place I'm going to to buy stuff".


 * I think maybe that's where we disagree? You seem to be structuring along the lines of political/municipal entities and I am thinking along the lines of places you drive through and stop to check out the main street. Aren't both of those encyclopedic? Franamax (talk) 09:05, 10 March 2008 (UTC)


 * In private casual conversation there's nothing wrong with using town or village that way — I do it myself, too. But in an encyclopedia, we have to privilege accuracy over common usage, and only call things towns if they actually have that legal status — because a reader from Britain or South Africa might not understand the distinction between hamlet-town-as-in-Cobden and incorporated-town-as-in-Newmarket.
 * Sure, the municipal entities and the communities are both potentially encyclopedic, but in priority terms the incorporated municipalities need to come first since they actually have mayors and councils and defined boundaries and documentable census populations and so forth. (Very few things on Wikipedia make me angrier than edits which provide "approximate" population figures, usually inflated by at least 1,000 more than reality, for unincorporated communities that have no actual census data published on Statistics Canada's census data site — have people entirely forgotten the part about referencing this stuff?)
 * You don't wanna get me started on the weather right now. I actually cursed Jacques Cartier the other day for not discovering Cuba instead of the Gaspé. I am such a geek. Bearcat (talk) 09:20, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Alright, I may understand the approach of structure and rigour that you're advocating. I'm less clear on why exactly that's the correct approach. As we both know well, municipal governance comes and goes. We also both know that if you drive into Cobden, there's a place to buy gas, a place to buy milk, there's a main street, and there is a whole bunch of history in those buildings and those people. I'm having trouble understanding why that should be shoe-horned into the governance of the day. Settlements have inherent notability by their existence. That's my impression anyway.


 * Now to your assertions on priority, governance vs settlements - I accept what you say as an organizing principle, the hierarchy of articles gives precedence to the organizing groups. This is inconvenient for Wikipedia when a province decides to establish regional municipalities rather than counties, or decides to rename GVRD to Metro Vancouver - but helps us all boost our edit counts.


 * My sole concern, and maybe the reason you were noted at AN/I, is loss of information. I'm not OK with making a merge/redirect where any single byte of information is lost. I don't buy the argument that the article is still there under the redirect and can always be resurrected later. There is nothing about a redirect to indicate there is a suppressed article needing improvement. If you were to merge and include a permalink to the article version before you changed it to a redirect, I'd be fine with that. But if you change an article to a redirect, in my view, you're effectively deleting it.


 * Hmmm - too much thinking, not enough typing. The places where the buildings and inhabitants are - they're more important than the people who will tell you they're in charge. It's all encyclopedic, but some of it has a more enduring presence, we need to reflect that. I'd rather see links in the municipal article, pointing to the geographical stubs/badarticles, than see anything get covered over by a redirect. Sleep now :) Franamax (talk) 11:09, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

On Beta
Thanks for the note. I don't know if I appreciate being lumped in an "I hate Beta" crowd, when that's not the case for me, and for many--if not most--of the critics. But here's my thoughts: at one time, I thought perhaps there was a way forward outside of arbcom. In the last week or two, Beta has convinced me there's not. If there isn't some kind of sanction saying, "Here's how you have to treat people, and how you have to use your bot in the community" there's no way Beta will change. He has reached a point where he seems to feel like he has a kind of special user status, and that needs to be dealt with, in my view. What are your thoughts on the whole thing? Bellwether B  C  14:23, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
 * My apology for any insult I may have inadvertently made has been placed on your talk page.
 * One thing in particular that has struck me is the massive confusion resulting from so many interested parties commenting on so many different issues, to the point where no one issue ever seems to get addressed. I would have suggested creating some kind of structure to segregate the issues: if you want to complain about Beta's civility, press 1; if you want to question bot policy, press 2; if you want a better non-free use warning template, press 3; please do not mash the keypad.
 * It looks like this is headed to Arb in any case, which is unfortunate. I think the whole mish-mash of issues is going to happen there too, only writ large. Franamax (talk) 07:32, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Other options
I've been working on images now for a couple of months and thigns just seem to have gotten worse. I've racked my brain on this one, and don't see anything than an Arbcom at the end. Even WP:AN/B replaced in my mind, the WP:RFC process. Look at Dispute resolution, is there anything other than binding arbitration that would make both sides happy?  MBisanz  talk 22:08, 15 March 2008 (UTC)


 * I, unfortunately, have to agree with MBisanz here. I see problems on both sides, and, a community that is at present incapable of resolving the issues on it's own. An independant, unbiased third party really seems to be required at this time, otherwise it's just going to keep going on, and getting worse as time goes on. I'd be happy to help, however, in any way I can, if you need it. SQL Query me!  05:45, 16 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks both for the response. I've been watching this for quite a while and positions have become quite entrenched. It looks like it will go to ArbCom anyway (I go away for a day and the whole place goes to hell:). However, I'm not really clear on what exactly ArbCom is even going to resolve. Declare that BC has been uncivil? I think Beta could write that finding himself! Declare that BC has been provoked? I'll race ya to be the first to propose that FoF. A list of "this issue must be resolved by the community"'s? Whether it's now or at AC, what are the several issues, how do we separate them, how do we resolve each one? Thanks for your comments anyway! Franamax (talk) 08:06, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Offer of help
I should be OK with the non-free images. My worklists are in the page history at User:Carcharoth/Image clean-up galleries (and the talk page). I imported a load of image names from some categories, so should be able to work from that, and the contribs of the admins who deleted or ImageRemovalBot, to identify the article where it isn't obvious. I want to concentrate on book and magazine covers (I actually think there is a good case for first edition magazine and book covers, rather than the generic "any old cover" that is used at the moment - purely because there will, in general, be more that can be mentioned in the article about first edition covers, and because they will usually become public domain before any of the other possible covers). I also do historical images. Speaking of which, one of the categories I never got hold of a list for is discussed here. I don't think it is possible to find out what the images were in Category:Denver Public Library images that got deleted (if any), but maybe you could look through Morven's image uploads to see if you can find which ones got deleted? Or any other ideas you might have? Carcharoth (talk) 10:01, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Actually, scrub that last. He has a very small upload list. I'm checking through it myself. Will add to my worklist. Could you consider how to find other images in that category that other people may have uploaded? Carcharoth (talk) 10:11, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Requests for arbitration/Betacommand 2
An Arbitration case in which you commented has been opened, and is located here. Please add any evidence you may wish the Arbitrators to consider to the evidence sub-page, Requests for arbitration/Betacommand 2/Evidence. Please submit your evidence within one week, if possible. You may also contribute to the case on the workshop sub-page, Requests for arbitration/Betacommand 2/Workshop.

On behalf of the Arbitration Committee, Daniel (talk) 15:40, 16 March 2008 (UTC)


 * I think this is what you were looking for. Ping me about the other questions if I forget. Carcharoth (talk) 01:22, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Experienced
Since you've been around awhile now. I figured I should point you towards some useful editing tools. WP:TW is a great tool for vandalism reverting. WP:AWB is great for long sequences of edits. WP:ROLLBACK is also good for vandalism (drop me a line and I'll assign the rights to your account, ditto for AWB). WP:NPW is a good tool for WP:CSD editors. WP:FRIENDLY is good for welcoming new users. WP:FURME is good for image FURs, especially for the most common categories. And if you ever need anything undeleted or doublechecked, I'm willing and able to serve.  MBisanz  talk 08:13, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanx MB, I'll reserve the right to call you on any of those offers. I've been thinking for awhile of recanting my vigorous objections to rollback for non-admins during the (discussion)'s and I still haven't convinced myself that it isn't better to eyeball every case separately, though I run the risk of losing out on edit-counts when someone else beats me to the revert. I do always try to keep an eye on the vandal IP or user for a little while to see if they're on a spree, would Twinkle help me do that?
 * I'll check out FRIENDLY, I always just use W-graphical and follow up with another message to address the reason the new user caught my attention. I probably should get much more familiar with using various userpage templates in general such as vandalism warnings, but I'm much more comfortable with leaving an informal note, which pretty much always does the job. In general, I feel good approaching any user on my and their own terms.
 * I've tried to stay away from images 'cause it's "not my thing", but I've been watching, and ID'ed it as a problem area about six months ago. Some of it doesn't seem that hard, I'll try to keep an eye out, although the big storm will probably have rolled over very soon.
 * I'll take you up on AWB, I've eyeballed that for a while and I'd like to check out what it can do. I won't necessarily use it regularly but I'd like to explore the capability. Sign me up!
 * (Wavering on rollback - damn that increased functionality!) Franamax (talk) 08:59, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
 * AWB granted. Have fun.  MBisanz  talk 09:16, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

A cookie


And, I'm sorry for my impatience earlier; as that was unfolding, I had about six people hitting my talk page at once with problems, in addition to dealing with the lies posted about me an AN/I ... so now that the day has settled a bit, I do appreciate your help for a fellow editor, as it was one less thing for me to solve :-) Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 03:00, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Nitrogen
See answer on my talk page. S B Harris 21:46, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Second comment on my page. S  B Harris 04:30, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Broken link
I used that long ago, back when I was a little more instrumental in trying to clear up the backlog over at Editor Review... Your French was alright, I got the main point! (Une) catégorie is a feminine noun, and perhaps, (although I'm not completely certain,) the correct term for dead link would be "lien mort" or (red link) "lien rouge." Cheers, --wpktsfs 17:17, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

On April 1
You'd probably want to do it with javascript, since with the other way to do it (parser functions) you run into caching problems. However - I'd also like to say that this is probably not a particularly good idea. --Random832 (contribs) 03:54, 6 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the quick(!) response to this, even before I could clarify I meant Site Notice (which is overlapping UTC date on Talk:Main Page btw).


 * When you say not a good idea, do you mean: operation-wise; within the context of the recent discussions; or as a potential opener for wider disruption? You can see here for some of my views, I (really, really) like to laugh but I do recognize some limits. The recent activity doesn't seem to me to be just all good fun. Franamax (talk) 04:07, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Hollow Point Sniper Hyperbole
That is great but I can't find this album. I must have. the_undertow  talk  05:30, 6 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes it is great. I've only heard it on edge.ca, which I still listen to because here in Vancouver where I've moved, they mix in too much crap. (&beware edge plays a solid rotation of BeastBoyz lamely for some reason) I think USS is the new emergence of Newfie hip-hop or something, "I'se the bye that builds the boat" is a really well known Newfie folk song, and they cite Bonavista and moose. And there's a utube vid from the Cameron House! That's a down'n'dirty Toronto spot, I think this is discovery phase right now. Franamax (talk) 05:54, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
 * init srch: eml to stat mus dir re alb nm. rslt as avail. Franamax (talk) 06:32, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Two things
(1) I took the liberty of posting your suggested question for RfA's from the Village Pump and put it here. I thought you might like to know it seems very well received.


 * If that question gets asked at RFA, all the better I suppose. However, thinking about it a little more, I suspect that the end result will be narrowing down the pool of admins - those who indicate creativity and an ability to think freely will gain automatic opposition from the subset of editors and admins who feel that everything should be narrowly prescribed and who in fact would like to decorate WP:IAR with a series of rules on how to ignore rules. I really think IAR is probably the most fundamental wiki policy and certainly the most difficult to understand. In fact, it can never be understood, it can only be approached, is has very few right or wrong answers, it is a constant exhortation to keep on improving and never be satisfied. For some people, that is just plain scary. Better to have the fears out in the open maybe... Franamax (talk) 18:50, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

(2) I notice you seem to create "read-only" bots dealing with diffs. Would you be interested in helping with a bot request ( my first, so be kind ) I recently made here?

-- Low Sea (talk) 08:13, 16 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I'll put that request on my "long-term" list. What particular tags are you interested in, and what kind of analysis would you be thinking of? The first thing that comes to mind is IIRC there are 240K mainspace edits/day, or three per second - that's a whole lot of analyzing. Lets say ignoring bots and "rvv"'s cut that to one/second, still an awful lot. Could you get the same results with two-day snapshots, random samples, article subsets? Franamax (talk) 18:50, 16 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I have an amateur interest in pattern analysis and trend analysis. Unfortunately sampling would not be a workable solution for this purpose. This is one of the reasons why I would want to run this off the wp:toolserver space. It would be acceptable for the data to be "old" at least for now. -- Low Sea (talk) 10:50, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Tagging conflict
So, the great cross-tabbing is done and there is a list of 700 images at User:Betacommand/Sandbox 3 that show images classed as both free AND non-free. Obviously, an image can only be one of the two, so if editors could go through and correct the images, striking them out on the master list it would be great. Thanks.  MBisanz  talk 03:04, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Half right on that image. You gotta put the Right license from Image copyright tags/All in the image.  So in that case, you'd replace the PD-italy, with Non-free historic image.  Every image must have a license, and all non-free images must have a license and rationale.  MBisanz  talk 04:01, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Correct, an exact representation of a 2-d image conveys no additional rights, so no need for a PD-tag. Now 3-d images or manipulated (stretched, wording added, etc) 2-d images, can sometimes gain extra rights, really a case by case basis.  Yea, it is hard.  The fun ones are screenshots.  Cause if it just includes the free program with the Windows "File, Edit, View" formatting, it can totally free, but if it includes the Start bar at the bottom, then its non-free and should be tagged as Disputed Fairuse Replacable.  You did the right thing with the logo and I took care of Image:Grand Rapids MI Seal.jpg.  Thanks for the help so far.  MBisanz  talk 06:26, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Update on the "flaming drink" question
I just thought I'd tell you (Franamax, StuRat, hydnjo, Atlant) how the flaming drink thing went. Well, mixed results. It's all made, but sometimes it works and some times it does not. What makes it extra odd, is that it works 100% of the time for me, but only about 50% for the girl that has to do it. So far, three shows with an audience and it only lit once. UGHH!!!

What I did: I made a fire place poker out of mostly thin PVC pipe. In the handle is a gas grill starter with wires going inside the pipe. Franamax - You mentioned the handle idea and I had already thought of that, but I didn't want to steer people towards what I was already thinking. I guess it's just a case of great minds thinking alike. ;-)

All of it is painted with "Hammered" spray paint made for outside plastic furniture. Here's a shot of it close up without the flame. http://wonderley.com/shows/2008/FarmersDaughter/Photos/Page01/shots/2008-04-17~069.jpg That's me on the couch. In the sort of V shaped tip is the igniter at the tip and the other wire coming at an angle. My invention sparks 99% of the time.

In the coffee mug is a metal jigger that I raised to the level of the top of the mug with a piece of PVC pipe. That was a mistake. I made the level of the jigger come to the level of the top of the cup so that the most amount of the flame would be visible. It should be raised, but not all the way to the top. I have to pretend to drink from this cup and the jigger (which gets scolding hot) is hard to NOT touch if the jigger is too high.

I scuffed up the inside of the mug and the other side of the jigger to get the glue to stick to it. The fact that the jigger is metal does not appear to have any effect on the spark.

In the jigger was originally only about 1/16 of an inch of "Golden Grain" booze - 95% alcohol. At my house, it ignited every time. But, not for Cheryl. I later thought about it was having it on my kitchen counter. That's higher up so I was holding the poker at more of an angle on the mug rather than straight down. So, we changed the jigger to about an half inch on alcohol. Soon before going on stage with it, she moves some of it on the side of the jigger for even more surface area.

When we do get a flame the poker flames a little as well and she blows it out. That actually looks great. The idea of adding salt is awesome - Thanks Atlant. However, I had no luck dissolving salt in the alcohol. I warmed up some alcohol with having hot water all around it in a thin glass and stirred a lot of salt in it. I then let it settle some and used a syringe with a wide tip to suck up some of the alcohol from the middle thinking I'd get the best alcohol with dissolved salt that I could. It did not appear to make any difference in the color of the flame or the ability to light it. However, we put salt in a sugar bowl. Once lit, putting a pinch of "sugar" in the flaming drink was an awesome effect.

I also tried freezing some of the booze so that the 5% that was not alcohol would be solid and use the 100% alcohol that was left - after it warmed back up and it made no difference. In fact, whatever the 5% that wasn't alcohol, appeared to be unfreezable as well.

Thanks again for all of your ideas. If you want to see more about the show, visit Wonderley.com --Wonderley (talk) 09:46, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

John Allan Brown

 * Discussion moved to Talk:John Allan Broun

The article is at John Allan Broun. Discussion moved to the talk page as suggested. Hope you like the article! Carcharoth (talk) 23:58, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
 * More unreliable typography on that medals page! Turns out that "J. I. Hirst" was in fact "T. A. Hirst", who is Thomas Archer Hirst! Sorry, I said I'd keep these back for a list, but it is part-annoying and part-exciting when finding a mistake like that. And better hold off on the e-mails. "Henry Nottidge Maseley" is really Henry Nottidge Moseley. Carcharoth (talk) 13:29, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
 * How very amusing and yet disturbing. I would just automatically assume the Royal Society website would be definitive in all aspects, and it turns out they're doing bong hits like everyone else on the web! Luckily their underlying records seem reliable. Let me know when you've finished any review you might be doing, then I can summarize the errors when/if they respond. Maybe they'll just link to us instead :) Franamax (talk) 00:48, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
 * No worries. And thanks for the Ref Desk help. I actually knew about WikiProject Resource Exchange, but assumed everyone else did as well... :-/ I don't use it much, because if I did, I would be forever using it! :-) I tend to ask people with access to do the editing themselves, though the ocassional resource ends up in my inbox (only about 2 or 3 papers over the last few years). Carcharoth (talk) 06:56, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Re: Vancouver Meetup 2008
Sorry, but being in Courtenay, and having no personal vehicle, I'm way out of range. --  Denelson83  06:31, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Orphaned ref's
Hi. I responded here. Cheers. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 23:12, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Image moving
Firstly, I doubt our CSD tagging is quick enough to delete it, but, when you re-upload, adding should deter most people until its deleted from commons, at which point it can be removed. Just make sure not to add, which will point the bot at the image.  MBisanz  talk 21:59, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Vancouver Page
Of course you do not see that as a problem. Have you heard of what are "birds of a feather"? Thank God I do not live in Vancouver anymore. It is all yours and you guys can continue to make the Vancouver article "tourist-perfect". Jafarw (talk) 02:43, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Academy Awards section
Thanks for the comments regarding my edits. How is the Academy section different from the nobel prize? Understandably, the date reference may be too much, but why not include the listing of awards and winners? I started this project because I noticed there were entries on the nobel prizes and ship events? I was trying to keep things standard across the board throughout all the years.--TravelinSista (talk) 02:34, 10 May 2008 (UTC)


 * HA! I would even go far as to say that a number of nobel prizes were unfounded as well :) But I digress..... It was my full intention to make Wiki better--not complicate it.  Thanks for the feedback.  Cheers--TravelinSista (talk) 03:17, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

I looked over the recent contributions to the calendar related articles. As regular patroller and contributor to calendar articles I would state that valid arguments can be presented on both sides. The notability of 'Best Pictures' certainly meets the criteria, however, it should be noted that the Oscar Awards presented by The Academy are a commercial en devour where as the Nobel Prize is an international award. Also, United States related versus world related. As such the Nobel Prize has more relation to an article about the year (an international common) than an American award for film. I would suggest mentioning the year and number of the Oscars but like the Olympics, not mention every gold, silver, and bronze medal winner. The Oscar awards are heavily written about and the article is strong enough that a wikilink to it is a very substantial source. Think in the terms of a reader. The repetition of the information is not necessary when it's one click away. Mkdw talk 06:58, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Franamax, the AA awards section has been removed. Thanks for your KIND request to remove info. I agree with your argument. Time to find a new project! (Let me know if you have any suggestions) :)--TravelinSista (talk) 02:10, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Adminship?
Actually I thought you would have run by now...Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 09:25, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the compliment (or possibly you're trying to ruin my life, but I doubt that :). I'm not much given to self-promotion, there's something to be said for the spurns that patient merit of the unworthy takes. I've certainly examined the knowledge, culture and ethos of adminship. Franamax (talk) 09:55, 10 May 2008 (UTC)


 * OK then, several months ago it was a matter of keeping your nose clean for a few months and you'd get over the line without too much fuss. Really it boils down to whether one can be trusted with the tools (i.e. haven't done anything grossly silly/disruptive or been blocked), and showing a need. A few of us who mainly contribute content also like to see examples of mainspace contribs. A very quick thing to show good work is to highlight a GA or FA one has worked on, as it shows in about 5 seconds that you can negotiate and collaborate with a reviewer and can handle constructive criticism. Here are your contribs which is interesting. I'd say do what you've been most involved in, though Montreal would be a big ask, if it did get GA it would get you a lot of kudos. Your work with tools etc. and thoughtful comments are a plus. If you wanna get Montreal to GA, lemme know - or another article. A short one of 20kb or so is a good start. Also, what is the worst dispute you've been involved with? Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 10:48, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks!
Hi, just a special thanks for your super-speedy support for my RfA! My fingers are crossed here, not so far from where you're located, as we figured out the other day. Anyhow, thanks again. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 10:25, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Heh, that was a total coincidence of mouse-clicks, but I was actually working up to pushing your name anyway, considering your work with the kids, the fact that SandyGeorgia mentioned you as a possibility for admin elsewhere, and that I was able to verify that you are a pretty solid guy. A lot of it was SG's endorsement, I got lucky on being the first to not-vote. Now deal with the question I left, see if your answer doesn't sink you totally :) Good luck! Franamax (talk) 10:36, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Heh. Thanks again.  And thanks for the question.  I hope my answer is of some help, but feel free to follow up if I haven't covered any issues you'd like me to.  --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 10:57, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Picture box stuff
Hi Franamax, I'd like to help a bit with the LOC images. Unfortunately, although I've done lots of work with Creative Commons and public domain images, I have essentially zero experience when it comes to fair use. For example, with this: Image:Davidson Dunton.jpg, why is a FUR even required if the image can be used for any purpose? I don't understand the problem. Can you point me to examples of FURs that would be suitable for these kinds of pictures? If it's more work to explain this than to do it yourself, do let me know - I won't be offended :) Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 19:17, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Hi Clayoquot, thanks for the offer of help. Here is the deal, as far as I can figure it out. Yes, LAC is saying that use of the image has no restrictions but that's not the end of it. They are retaining copyright, and further they only grant use with written permission and they don't allow images to be modified (see here, which is admittedly confusing, LAC probably has big arguments internally about that too :).


 * In any case, if the work is not completely free, there is a question about whether it can be on Commons at all, if you read through this mail thread, Commons has decided to take the safer course and remove the images.


 * That's OK, we can always fall back to English Wikipedia (a US corporation), where we can claim "fair-use" protection, where the image is unique and so important that we have to use it to give our readers a proper understanding of the topic. However, in order to put a non-free image onto en:wiki, it has to have a proper license and a fair-use rationale for each place it is used. My understanding is that, if we want to use other people's property, we have to have a good reason and make it clear to viewers that it is a copyrighted image.


 * In the case of Image:Davidson Dunton.jpg, the license template claimed that "Redistribution, derivative work...is permitted", which is contradicted on the (confusing) LAC website. I replaced that with a different license tag and FUR, we'll see if it flies or not. This is not all that different from copying a TV station logo, if we use it in the article on the TV station itself, there's not much they can say about it - and as long as we don't draw a moustache on D. Dunton and don't add it to List of Formula One drivers, if I understand the US law correctly, we can make limited use.


 * Hope that helps, I suggest to try one, use Non-free historic image and historic fur as I've done, then we see what happens! Franamax (talk) 20:01, 11 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Hi again. I'm so sorry, despite my intentions I think the chances of me getting to this this week or next are just about nil. Just way too busy and I'll also be travelling. Good luck though! May the Force be with you! Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 04:14, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
 * No sweat, I'm still on the steep part of the learning curve anyway. If I can figure out some comprehensible guidelines, I'll go to CWNB, otherwise I'll just keep plugging away. I'm getting some good expertise with images anyway - like for instance, it looks like we're not going to be able to show pictures of recent prime minsters unless someone will give them away for free. Have a good trip! Franamax (talk) 04:21, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Just to say hai


Tinucherian has smiled at you! Smiles promote WikiLove and hopefully this one has made your day better. Spread the WikiLove by smiling at someone else, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past or a good friend or a new friend. Cheers, and happy editing! --  TinuCherian  (Wanna Talk?) - 09:23, 12 May 2008 (UTC) Smile at others by adding {{subst:Smile}} to their talk page with a friendly message.

Bonavista
Because the plain title Bonavista is a disambiguation page which isn't supposed to be linked to directly at all, not even on talk pages, unless for some reason the dab page is itself the intended topic of discussion. Proper disambiguation maintenance doesn't leave talk pages uncorrected just because they're talk pages. Bearcat (talk) 00:03, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Do you seriously think talk pages are so inviolable that a link that isn't even pointing to the right page for the context of the conversation still has to be left as a link to the wrong page? Bearcat (talk) 08:14, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Getting your Wikipedia Software
Hey, impressive your cleanup of havana. How can I get your software? --Iroko (talk) 11:32, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Fluoridation
Thanks for your message. Yes, I wanted to check out those websites. The government policies may be stated elsewhere. Better to source straight to the governments. What also does not emerge from the list is that some governments don't fluoridate the water because the natural levels of fluorides are quite high anyway. But I'm off on wikibreak for a bit now, so unless you want to return to the fray it will have to wait. Posting a message on the fringe theories noticeboard would attract a number of fair-minded editors. Itsmejudith (talk) 11:01, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Circles
Anything in commons:Category:Plain_circles that floats your boat?  MBisanz  talk 07:43, 24 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I made a hack job of some circles and the gears, its at Image:Bag-test.png for as long as it stays alive. If it's gone by the time you read this, I cam email it. Basically, a grey circle with a bit of a green circle inside, then the gears. It's not really what I was thinking about, but something like that. Feel free to speedy it after you have a look, it's just a piece of crap :) Franamax (talk) 19:56, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

JzG RFAR merged with Cla68-FM-SV case
Per the arb vote here the RFAR on User:JzG is now merged with this case and he is a named party. Also see my case disposition notes there. — Rlevse  •  Talk  • 21:18, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Re:revert to beta arb
Your edit summary shows misunderstanding. The edit was performed to the logs, not the text of the ArbCom case. Deacon of Pndapetzim ( Talk ) 14:09, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I checked that after my edit, you're right as to the closed case. However I don't think you're justified in changing anothers edits, as opposed to adding your own comment or asking a clerk to modify the log. I was thinking of self-reverting because of my edit summary, I decided to let my edit (reverting your edit) stand regardless. If you want I can self-revert, then re-revert with a better summary - then you can revert me :) Franamax (talk) 14:19, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
 * If you have a new or different reason for the edit, then don't self-revert on my account. It's no biggie to me ... the arbs aren't daft after all, but permitting such commentary in what's supposed to be a log of blocks and unblocks sets a bad precedent. I left a note with User:Daniel, and as he will have to deal with such stuff in future, he can deal with this. Regards, Deacon of Pndapetzim ( Talk ) 14:34, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I'm just touchy about changing another editors signed comments, to me my specific contribs with my name attached are sacrosanct, I'll live or die by them. My unsigned, ie main or wikispace edits, tear them apart though - which happens anyway :) Leaving it with a clerk is wise, you're likely right in what you say, but Daniel can figure it out. Cheers! Franamax (talk) 14:47, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
 * See my note here. Thanks, Daniel (talk) 15:07, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
 * See Deacon? I told you that you were likely right! :) All is well. Franamax (talk) 15:15, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Your WP software tools
Just been reading your user page. Am very interested in test driving your software tools. Thanks. – ukexpat (talk) 15:10, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

College infoboxes
I think it is, to be honest, and as long as it's in the infobox, I see no problem with it. Finding a mailing address for a University or College can sometimes be difficult at best, and not everyone readily has access to the internet. So if someone using a public library computer, for example, they have an easy way to contact that College or Uni. Remember, Wikipedia is not censored. GreenJoe 19:38, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
 * So there isn't a field in the box for the address then, hmmm.... GreenJoe 20:05, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Maybe we should just discuss this on the template's talk page? GreenJoe 20:17, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Suuuuuuure you did. ;-) GreenJoe 20:41, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Block log analysis proposal
Would you be interested in this? Carcharoth (talk) 02:40, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

I need a tool.....
Hye Franamax. I am looking for a tool which would modify part of this one   - I was keen to find a tool which lists my mainspace edits by article - bit like the section on this but listing all articles and ranking by number of edits rather than just the top 15. Is it easy/difficult? My aim is to get most of my edtis into articles to reach GA or FAC. i.e. stable points. I hope to have a tool like this so I can see where I have devoted my energy and get everything I have edited alot to GA or FA. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 06:33, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Results at User:Franamax/Ucontribs. Congrats on breaking my initial page-table size of 1000, and further blasting through 2000! Anyway, the 2000 most recent articles you've edited are counted in toto, and I cut the list to 20 edits or more. It's possible that you made 3000 edits to some completely different article early in your wiki-career, I need to investigate more how well my algorithm scales. The top numbers agree well with wannabekate's tool though, as with any of my software, doubt everything, but it looks fairly good. Also note that the tool currently does not identify simple reverts, so this count almost certainly overstates your substantive contribs. Revert-spotting (and edits immediately reverted, which won't be yours to large degree) are on the list. Franamax (talk) 21:36, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Thats' brilliant. That's what I thought. The most edits has been to vampire. very happy :) Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 22:04, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes, Vampire, Lion, Schizophrenia and various species of Amanita, a smattering of Raven and a little Werewolf in there. Hmmm... :) Franamax (talk) 22:19, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
 * The main thing for me is not the exact minutiae between say 146 and 148 edits but gives me a rough idea of what I have dumped alot of edits into and which of those are not at GA or FA (as thse serve as the next-best-things to flagged revisions). I plan to go through and get things I have worked alot on to a 'flagged' state. Now...actually can you get it to tack on GA or FA icons....(like WP:DABS? or is that really tricky.......Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 00:38, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I'll work on getting the article status, it won't be all that tough, since I'm just looking for a template. What strikes me though is you may be more interested in articles that used to be FA or GA and have since been downgraded. That would need a little more parsing of the ArticleHistory template - but could be interesting to see the user contribs vis-a-vis the status milestones. Franamax (talk) 06:47, 7 June 2008 (UTC)


 * PS: I alerted some other content contributors who may be interested and offer some ideas. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 00:38, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

(unindent) Hi, neat tool, but I'm a software illiterate - I can see Casliber's results, but I can't figure out how to run it on my contributions. Can you point me in the right direction please? jimfbleak (talk) 05:26, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, you're not so illiterate, in fact it's a tool I can only run myself at the moment. I just hacked apart my link scanner tool for now. I've run it for you, see User:Franamax/Ucontribs. Who would have thought someone had almost twice as many mainspace edits as Casliber? I need to seriously scale this up a bit to handle many thousands of targets, no wonder this is such a good encyclopedia! I'll update the page as I update the program, and work towards a releasable version. Franamax (talk) 06:47, 7 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Many thanks for prompt response, an interesting tool. Pleased to see that the GAs and FAs are at the top! jimfbleak (talk) 07:09, 7 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Great rating catch so far, but it missed Gorgosaurus, Kererū and Flora of Australia for some reason (Hypholoma fasciculare lacks a template box, which I will promptly rectify). I also re-rated Red-backed Fairy-wren and Banksia to B, and Leaden Flycatcher to start to see if it would 'catch' them next time 'round..Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 00:35, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Strikethrough bugfix/updated, bug-section opened for rem issue. Franamax (talk) 02:11, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
 * kerblammo!Franamax (talk) 22:30, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Working on them, I need to match my program to the way I said it worked :) Forget about Kereru for now, that funny "u" is causing me problems, even though I'm UTF-8/Unicode-compliant. That will be tomorrow's monster hunt, that and ampersands in the page title... Franamax (talk) 00:47, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Commons WikiProject Canada
I got a little itty bitty start to the Canada wikiproject on comons, and someone wants to delete it with a This gallery has been requested for deletion. tag which doesn't make too much sense on a wikiproject which isn't even a gallery. Did you think the start of the wikiproject on commons makes sense and did you want to try joining before it is deleted? Kind Regards SriMesh | talk  02:04, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Sand Lake
I have created the article Sand Lake (Parry Sound District, Ontario). Please feel free to add whatever information you can to this article as I do not know very much about Sand Lake. Enjoy! --Magnetawan (talk) 10:13, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Re:BAG questions
Hi MBisanz, some random questions for you: I don't necessarily want to open a can of worms, I'm mostly interested in the first two questions, so you can consider the rest optional. Thanks! Franamax (talk) 23:09, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
 * 1) My understanding of BRFA is that an editor makes a submission and discussion ensues until one member of BAG is satisfied that the bot should be approved for trial, that one member then approves the bot for trial (usually, sometimes just stamps it through). Is that an accurate perception?
 * Yes
 * 1) Should the standard bot application questions include "location of source code"? This is not to insist on publication, but would allow a little more transparency and selectivity of approval.
 * I like the idea of publishing source code, as far as adding that question, I don't know to what end it would bring. I could answer "The source code is on my laptop" and that would be honest, or I could say "I house it on a secure NASA server".  If, as Bot policy currently exists, we do not mandate disclosure to a specific location, I don't see the benefit to knowing where it is located.
 * 1) Is Betacommand a currently active BAG member? Suspended pending reconfirmation? Waiting for the dust to settle? I'm not clear on the exact status between BAG page and talk.
 * I consider Betacommand suspended from BAG per community consensus, pending a reconfirmation election to begin on June 20th.
 * 1) Pushing it a little bit now, at WP:BAG we have "Members of the group are experienced in writing and running bots, have programming experience...", then at WT:BAG/DHMO we have "I admit my technical knowledge isn't the greatest", followed by "Consensus reached, adding to WP:BAG". Do the requirements for BAG membership need to be rewritten in light of this?
 * We generally require Crats at en.wiki to know how to use the tools, yet I am aware of one crat who recently had to be taught the Rename rules as he had not performed Renames before. If the community feels Giggy is qualified to approve bots, even if he lacks a detailed technical understanding of code, who are we to question the community?
 * 1) And following on that same thread, we see the candidate on 09May saying "I'm absolutely going to take it slow, no question about that. If you wish, I will refrain from making full approvals for a month", instated on 20May and then on 30May we have making a full approval.
 * As you note, the closing crat did not stipulate any restrictions on Giggy's membership, nor did there appear to be a consensus among voters that there should be any restrictions, so I would say the community failed to take him up on the offer to refrain from approving for a certain period of time.
 * Hope that answers the questions, I'm willing to elaborate on any or answer other questions if you'd life me to.  MBisanz  talk 06:16, 6 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Good questions, that deserve a full answer. At class right now, but you will have very detailed answers when I get home.  I recognize that BAG has had somewhat of a reputation of secrecy and hoped when I joined it to make it more transparent.  MBisanz  talk 23:52, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Award

 * Wheee, I got a star! Now if only someone would vandalize my userpage, I could feel like a proper Wikipedian. Then I could have a vandalism counter, then someone could vandalize that too and make a paradox of vandal-counting, just think of the possibilities. OMG, maybe someday I could be brought to --- ArbCom!!!
 * Thanks much for the recognition, sarcasm aside, it is most appreciated. I'll keep developing wpW5 until you can't ignore it anymore ;) Franamax (talk) 22:56, 6 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Yeah, both are really cool. I will give a heads up to the folks who I think'd be most interested and we'll see what happens. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 23:04, 6 June 2008 (UTC)


 * BTW, are you a he or a she? The 'Fran-' makes me think female somehow....Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 00:23, 7 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Nahh, I'm a boy. The Fran- is from my nickname franco. It occurs to me I should ask you the same question, though your Rugby League ubx is a bit of a clue (and note your page design cuts your ubx'es off for me in IE7). Franamax (talk) 05:46, 7 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Yep. Thanks for the heads up. Maybe I should just stick a note telling everyone to use firefox :) Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 07:17, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

List of distinct cell types in the adult human body
If removing the red links to show the article does not exist is still bothering you, you could always put them somewhere in Requested articles. Hopefully you've been able to keep control since the original occurrence. ;) --Emesee (talk) 04:15, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the suggestion, though I may end up stubbing them myself, those are some awfully long lists at Requested Articles :) I do need to get back to that list, it tops google for "human cell types" and "human cells" but its lost it's number two spot for "human cell" - somthing must be done! Franamax (talk) 06:06, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Neat tool
I saw your note at Possibly useful tool about User:Franamax/Ucontribs. I agree that it is quite interesting, but if it is all the same to you I'd rather not be listed there - I like to keep track of stuff I contribute to more focused on article quality drives and such. Thanks for your efforts, Cirt (talk) 05:26, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Done! Franamax (talk) 05:37, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

I came across a link for the tool, and was wondering if you would be kind enough to run it on me? Thank you, regards Matthewedwards (talk· contribs· count· email) 08:11, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Undeleted Commons:WikiProject Canada
Well after much controversy, the Commons:WikiProject Canada is back up again to see what can be made of it. ...I left a note on your commons talk page as well. I wasn't sure which place you check. SriMesh | talk  01:43, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Invite to review a set of articles
Hi there. You participated in this ANI thread. I picked out the names of some editors I recognised, or who had extensive comments there, and I was wondering if you would have time to review the articles mentioned in the thread I've started here, and in particular the concerns I've raised there about how I used the sources. Thanks. Carcharoth (talk) 09:55, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Plagiarism guideline
Thanks for your comments at my talk page. I've proposed we create a separate plagiarism guideline (or rather, how to detect, deal with and avoid it). Please contribute at Village pump (policy). Thanks. Carcharoth (talk) 20:15, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Re: Cmte on Competitiveness
I agree, that's why I tried to help with the article. i've restored the image. Best, UltraExactZZ Claims~ Evidence 00:22, 20 June 2008 (UTC)


 * That FUR actually looks pretty good - I usually end up using the stock template and filling everything in, but this works much better. I'll stop by the project soon, as I was totally unaware of its existance - but it sounds like it's helping, which is a good thing. Best, UltraExactZZ Claims~ Evidence 01:19, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Council page
First of all, sorry I messed up some formatting things like putting posts on hte bottom rather than top, improper signing, etc. I don't know anything about this webpage format, I've been teaching myself how to use Wikipedia by opening up the edit pages of other articles and figuring out what each thing means.

Second, I don't expect you to fix everything up for me, but I certainly appreciate it! Especially things that I haven't quite figured out how to do yet like catorgize things or how to properly site images. I just gave up trying to add an image beacuse I figured it wasn't worth trying to figure out how to properly post the logo, so thanks for doing that for me! I had planned on reviewing the site some more but I was being doing work and havent gotten the chance to look at is as much as I would like. One thing I think I have to clarify is that while I do work for the Council, I wasn't told to do this page/doing this isn't part of my job. I'm doing this on my own time beacuse I was surprised the Council did'nt have one yet.

I have made further edits to the texts, added third party sources (mostly news sources), and tweaked it a little more

Agian, thanks for all your help on this. Take a look and if you still have issues let me hear it.

p.s. I'm not sure what consitutes sending a "message" on wikipedia (like you did to me) so I posted it on my wall as well as both of yours.


 * Thanks, ~G 17:34, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Translation stuff
Have you ever tried the process at Translation? Long ago I requested a translation of Basle earthquake. I've now done Translation/Amédée Guillemin. It's always terribly exciting to now whether someone will actually take on the translation or not! The templates are at Category:Interwiki translation templates. I'll add that to the page. Carcharoth (talk) 09:40, 21 June 2008 (UTC)
 * No, I've never tried that and since I average around one ref per sentence I add (which slows my mainspace edits a lot!), I'm not sure I would - but wiki-life changes all the time. Some image stuff got me over to the Deutsche wiki for a while - those guys have their act together, the presentation factor of some of their articles that I saw puts us to shame. I did have a bit of experience here with a translated article, Kloster Wienhausen - maybe you can figure out what a Brick Gothic "cross-coat" is. I'm pretty sure it's a cloister, i.e. the covered over passage between buildings. Also the Pilgersaal, which is termed as the sanctuary, but I really think it was the pilgrim's hall, as in, a place for travellers to sleep, or possibly worship. Maybe you got a better translation on your tries - but if you can clear those two points up, mighty thanks! Franamax (talk) 10:04, 21 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Not really sure. Pilgersaal does translate as pilgrim's hall, but other than that, I wouldn't have much to add. Carcharoth (talk) 10:13, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

OTRS permissions for images
Hi, Franamax! In regards to your questions yesterday, I'm happy to provide some expansion to my comments. In regards to OTRS, I have found that the more specific the e-mail address, the faster the response to the OTRS ticket. In my experience, the fastest response comes from uploading a free image to Commons, then sending the permission e-mail to. I think this is because the Commons OTRS volunteers spend most of their time handling precisely this type of issue. In my experience, User:Riana is particularly good at answering questions about delayed or unprocessed OTRS tickets.

Regardless of the place uploaded, or the backlog time for OTRS, it may help to place the template OTRS pending on the description page of the image in question, once the e-mail has been sent to the OTRS volunteers. This generally dissuades image reviewers from requesting deletion until a reasonable amount of time has passed.

Please, feel totally free to drop me a line should you ever have a question about image policy - this is what I spend most of my time on, and I am happy to help. I always prefer to find a way to keep useful images rather than seeing them deleted. With respect - Kelly  hi! 18:20, 21 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Belated thanks much for the tips and the offer of future help. The situation seems to have worked out well, the user has his OTRS tix for the image and for his personal identity, and I've learned a bit more about the process. Two happy customers! Franamax (talk) 01:26, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Barren wastelands
See. I told you in winter it was a barren wasteland. :-) Carcharoth (talk) 15:17, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
 * It's not barren, it's just pinin' for the fiords ;) You might be surprised how much activity would be going on there, if it's like the Canadian Arctic, there would be foxes, mice, ptarmigan, all sorts of stuff. An Inuit person would be quite comfortable (especially now that they have snowmobiles). Nice spy pic though - don't take a photo outside the plane, that's cute. Franamax (talk) 01:22, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Ucontribs tool
Hi Franamax, I just found out about User:Franamax/Ucontribs. I would enjoy seeing my own results from the tool, if it's not too much bother. Thanks! --JayHenry (talk) 01:32, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Done. I used the opportunity to add two columns and scan for a little more information. This was another interesting look into how real editors work, one thing I noticed was this failed FL. Would failed status be useful? It would fit in the "Former" column - BUT I would need to know all the wiki-variations on indicating various failures using categories. If you tell me what they are, I can find them. Franamax (talk) 11:26, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Questions from a newbie
Hi Franamax, since you have commented on some changes of mine, I'd like to pose some questions to you, as I am quite new to Wikipedia, having only started to make small changes in the last couple of months. Well, if you arrived here, thanks a lot for reading :) Fpoto (talk) 07:50, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
 * How comes that you commented on an obscure and secondary change about geostationary orbit? Apparently you are a programmer, not an engineer or such, so how did it happen that you noticed my change?
 * Since that page is relatively long and reasonably well written, I would have expected someone to be watching it (maybe taking responsibility for its maintenance) and commenting on my changes, but no one did. Is this normal?
 * At the top of that page, it is classified as Start class. By looking at the class definitions, I'd rather put it into the B class and ask for GA. Should I do that myself or is there anyone that I should ask before changing the class from Start to B?
 * I suppose that discussion pages are meant for outstanding things to be done. So I suppose that when I find an out-of-scope comment or an obsolete discussion I should delete it. Is this the case? What I did in Talk:Geostationary_orbit was to add a couple of lines saying that a given topic is obsolete and that I will delete it in a few days. Is this the correct thing to do? Are a few days enough? Too much?
 * Once I change a page, I'd like to watch it to see if others agree or change it back. In order to do that, that only method I found was to check periodically my watchlist, which I find definitely suboptimal. Ideally, I'd like to receive change digests by email. Are there any methods more efficient than looking at the watchlist every couple of days, and then going through the history of each page to see the changes?
 * Are there any places when questions like these are already answered, that is a FAQ about how does Wikipedia works in general? Or maybe should I ask this someone or somewhere else?
 * Hi Fpoto, it's very nice to see you take an interest in Wikipedia, I hope you stick around for a long time! I see no-one has given you a welcome message, I'll do that shortly, meanwhile I'll try to answer your questions in order:
 * The great thing about wiki is that we can all comment on anything we want. Geostationary orbit happens to be the very first article I ever changed, before I even signed up as a user. Someone had changed the orbit altitude to 9 miles, which was very funny, but I knew I had to fix it. After that I was addicted and I always watch that article with special care. However I try to use the same care on every article I watch (about 600 I think), I try to check every edit to be sure it's good information, well-written and properly referenced - because Wikipedia is an important work and we should all make sure every single little part of it is right.
 * (Also you may think I'm a programmer, but if you need a Fractional distillation or cyanide separation column designed, I can do that too :) I've found it best to judge people on the quality of their edits.)
 * Some articles have hundreds of people watching (like Britney Spears), others may have a few or none. You only learn by experience which ones are well patrolled and which ones you need to watch more carefully. There are probably five or ten people who watch Geostationary orbit, I just happened to be the one who questioned you and I asked questions just because it's what I do, ask questions, try to learn, try to make the work the best possible.
 * For article assessments, you could ask Casliber. He can also help you out with the Good Article process, there are specific criteria it will need to meet. He knows all about that stuff, tell him Franamax sent you!
 * You are doing the right thing by posting to the talk page about things you want to do. You can also be WP:BOLD and make changes whenever you want. I like to post to the talk page and wait a while if I'm going to delete something. If I want to add something, I always make sure I have a source, so I will do that more quickly. As for how long to wait, it depends - for Britney, 1 day, for Geo-orbit, you could wait a week. Remember, there's no deadline, so you can wait - but don't worry about being bold and changing things, everyone knows where the Undo button is :)
 * The watchlist is the best way I know to check up on pages. You can sign up for news feeds of your watchlist but I don't think there's an email notice system for en:wiki. I'll check into it more if you want, but the watchlist works pretty well. I have mine in my Favourites and I keep it up all day and just keep refreshing it and checking back to the last time I looked.
 * There is loads and loads of help on wiki - there is so much help that it is almost impossible to find what you want! Also, the search system doesn't work all that well. Be patient, it is a very complex place. I'll put some basic links on your talk page and also you can always go to the help desk with your questions. They answer fast and are usually very helpful. Don't hesitate to ask there and also come back here any time if you have a question. If I don't know the answer, I probably know someone who does!
 * Hope this helps. Cheers! Franamax (talk) 08:37, 26 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks a lot for your answers and the helpful links you put on my talk page. I'll possibly come back to you for further help, but you gave me quite a while to study and consider. Bye :) Fpoto (talk) 10:24, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia is big and complicated, but don't let that bother you. Keep on working on articles, be bold, be polite, cite your sources and learn as you go. You're on the right track, thinking about what you're doing and asking questions. You'll be just fine, go for it. Good luck! Franamax (talk) 10:41, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Marc Emery
Dear sir, please refrain from making furthe vandalisms to the Marc Emery page. Wikipedia is a forum designed to maintain neutrality and fairness. Please test your revisions using the sandbox before attemption to edit the man article. Thank you, and may you be well. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.66.107.38 (talk) 02:59, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Bot pre-proposal discussion
Since you expressed interest: Pre-proposal for redlink-removing bot - Pseudomonas(talk) 13:22, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

GII
Like I said: its over at ANI, best to talk there, talking past a user on their talk page is usually impolite. No thats not a threat... William M. Connolley (talk) 22:22, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
 * No threat taken. The fact that the ANI thread consists mostly of people saying "let's not talk about it" rather bodes ill though. (If I'm looking at the right thread, since it's Giano there may be several ;) I do think you should consider reducing your block length far towards the original that you applied. I've never been blocked (yet) but I imagine I might drop the f-bomb if I was worked up over an issue. It's Canada Day though, I'm heading down to the beach to see what's up. Rgards! Franamax (talk) 22:32, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Requests for arbitration/Geogre-William M. Connolley
An Arbitration case in which you commented has been opened, and is located here. Please add any evidence you may wish the Arbitrators to consider to the evidence sub-page, Requests for arbitration/Geogre-William M. Connolley/Evidence. Please submit your evidence within one week, if possible. You may also contribute to the case on the workshop sub-page, Requests for arbitration/Geogre-William M. Connolley/Workshop.

On behalf of the Arbitration Committee, Daniel (talk) 02:10, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Michael Q. Schmidt
Thanks for keeping an eye out for that page. I haven't really been looking at my watchlist much lately (more of a focus on IfD and AfD cleanup). Your points are completely valid and I don't understand why the case is still even open. Thoughts? (you can just respond here). — BQZip01 — talk 07:16, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Hmm, you tell me why it's still open. I'm not clear on any specific rules on closing SSP and RFCU's, I guess I should read those pages more closely, nothing has jumped out in the past. I think it's maybe an inertia and volunteer time thing, if no-one's poking at it, people move on to other priorities. Lord knows I have, seems you have too. I couldn't even tell you what twigged me back onto it - oh yes, I think Rlevse posted something to the SSP page?
 * I have my watchlist pref's set to store every page I edit, so I get reminded of ancient history all the time. I even have your page on there whoo-ee-ee-ooo :) Does seem bizarre that MQS would be left dangling in the wind though, swing the axe or put it down is what I think. Regards! Franamax (talk) 07:32, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Jacques Cartier Square
This one looks to be an alternate scan of another one, right down to the footsteps. You didn't provide an accession number with yours (tut-tut) so I can't compare them at source, they look similar at upload.wikimedia but yours previews more sharply and I am going to substitute it at Place Jacques-Cartier. Interesting historical photo, I took one in 1990 from almost the identical spot. I'm ashamed to say that Library and Archives Canada seems to have nothing comparable. We still have better beer though ;) If you want to work your magic on that photo, please by all means do so. Based on your previous work, a restored photo can find a place in Montreal and any number of subsidiary articles. Go for it! Franamax (talk) 00:42, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
 * You're right: same image. Slightly more generous crop on my version.  It was just about the only high resolution file of Montreal at Loc.  Durova Charge! 11:37, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
 * And it's "plauss jauchh cartyeh", not "jack carter square". Americans, gotta keep 'em in line eh? I notice you failed to comment on the better beer issue. :) Franamax (talk) 11:54, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Hey, you're the one who lives in a bilingual country. ¿No comprendes nada?  Durova Charge! 22:55, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

FYI
I've added you to this list for whatever arbitrary reason entered my mind at the time. Well, perhaps not so arbitrary ;-) -hydnjo talk 03:45, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I probably qualify, I hang around the Science desk enough to cause confusion. It's one of the really enjoyable parts of Wikipedia. Franamax (talk) 09:51, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Indeed - the fast feedback pace is sometimes refreshing as compared to editing an article and wondering if anyone will ever notice! Like tagging the library building vs putting a notice on the library bulletin board (well, kinda ;-) -hydnjo talk 19:56, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Safety
I simply offered referenced quantitative data on brightness and safety. Your strong comments on safety are unnecessary; the discussion was about the extreme brightness of objects such as lasers, not about people intentionally looking at them and miraculously avoiding eye damage. Everyone knows not to stare at the Sun, a laser, or a welding arc for an extremely long period of time, especially considering the context, but not everyone is aware of the data I provided.

Note that I was not rebutting your advice, hence the weak "rarely causes". If you want to offer safety advice, do so with accurate and sourced information. The science reference desk is about, well, science, and misleading information should not be posted there.

If you would like to respond to the post you're challenging on the reference desk, feel free to do so. --Bowlhover (talk) 08:49, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Copied to orig user talk and responded here. Franamax (talk) 10:11, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Mediation? Definitely.
I would welcome mediation, as the continued incivility against myself and so many others is not only tiring, it is antithesis to the most basic tenet of Wikipedia: "Welcome to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit." This behavior against policy has even caused others to consider leaving Wiki altogether. It is extremely telling that your own inputs, gladly accepted earlier when your reasonings supported that editor's positions, are now called bias because you do not agree with a continued pattern of negative behavior. I am reminded of the very recent example here, where one editor adamently attacked another for having been open-minded and neutral, yet had the temerity to delete that example here when the exposure of that attack would have cast doubt on his own motivations for the later acceptance of that same editor's comments when they concurred with his own... giving the appearance of a major imnpropriety, as if the attacker had been successful in his bullying. Michael Q. Schmidt (talk) 19:03, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
 * It's pretty clear that mediation will not work between yourself and CC, mediation requires multiple willing parties. Future actions will make plain which party is acting in good faith. (This late response is pro forma, events have moved along since you posted, I'm just working backward answering threads :) Franamax (talk) 06:50, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

User and talk page
Thanks for the reverts. CambridgeBayWeather Have a gorilla 15:29, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
 * If the vandal had shown the slightest imagination, I might have let it go. I only checked later on your user page for a vandalism counter. Just think, if I'd reverted vandalism on your page but failed to update the vandalism counter, would I then also be a vandal? Franamax (talk) 06:45, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Reference desk/Miscellaneous
Just remembered to thank you for your extremely funny albeit apt response to anon's question. It's been a while since I've laughed so hard on the reference desk, not counting inane questions like the recent ID question on WP:RD/S Nil Einne (talk) 17:46, 25 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Heh, that does read kinda funny now - that was actually my best attempt at a serious response without asking the OP to attach themself to a light-socket. I mean really, buddy - when the bullets are flying, are you going to ask on Wikipedia about muzzle velocities? I really think today's armies want people who have a clue. But maybe I put just a little humour in there ;)
 * And yes, that question about which body part is intelligent-designed and which part is evolved was a true classic. Beyond words, awe-inspiring. The ultimate straight-line for those sarcastically inclined. I'm glad you brought that up off-page, I'll still fight off the many responses rising in me. God, we could found a wiki based on responses to that one post alone! :) Franamax (talk) 06:41, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

thank you!
Thank you for helping at Featured article review/Iowa class battleship. I don't understand what seems to be a concern for appearances in the review discussion itself; I think what matters is what is in the article being discussed. Also, I appreciate your commenting about that table in WP:CANVASS and everything else you said. I sure am glad that i posted the notice over at wt:plagiarism.

I don't want to concede that there should be no discussion of any practice that can be labelled as a "policy issue", to be discussed elsewhere or never. I believe that policies can derive from discussion of specific articles, and the right time to discuss issues on featured articles is when the articles are up for review. Deductive vs. inductive reasoning. But, perhaps there should be some discussion at the Featured Article Review talk page about the general issues involved, and why (in my view) some weight ought to be given to avoiding use of general disclaimer templates. Laying some groundwork there would perhaps enable more concise discussion in the context of specific articles up for FAR. Thanks again! doncram (talk) 06:10, 26 July 2008 (UTC)


 * No thanks necessary. I'm glad you posted to WT:Plagiarism, I'm going to use the FAR as an excellent case study on when or if the general attribution template should be removed - but a few people are on break right now, I think, so I'll wait a little while :)
 * In general, I agree with you that policies can be derived from discussion of individual cases - or at least, each individual case helps to shine a little more light on the policy. Of course, no single case means that a policy should change, and that's where people start misunderstanding. Many people take questions about their edits to be questions about their character, which is unfortunate. I thought that you were being very careful to talk about "content, not contributor" - but of course I don't know your previous history, nor the other people involved. It's very tricky to promote only your ideas - everyone reads words differently, and some prefer to take offense to one thing, rather than consider all of everything.
 * I'll take a look for general discussions - do you mean WT:FAR? Franamax (talk) 06:28, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Situation
CC, Franamax, and BQZip01, how is the situation that was discussed on my talk page coming along? — Rlevse  •  Talk  • 21:34, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Tons of stone
Hi Franamax, I went to the Dolmen article for another look at claim about a capstone being 150 tonnes -- the dimensions in metres are 2.6 x 7.1 x 5.5 and for this I get feet: 8.5 x 23.3 x 18 -- how much would one that size weigh? Thanks for your help, Julia Rossi (talk) 09:14, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Hmm, from those numbers I get ~264 long tons ~= 264 tonnes. (8.5*23.3*18*163/2200) That's limestone at 163 lb/cu.ft. Something's out of whack here. The density is about right, you'd strain to lift a one-foot cube of stone. An 18 x 23 x 8 foot deep slab of stone is absolutely bloody enormous. I'll have to go back and read the article again... Franamax (talk) 09:32, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Ah, I see, Ganghwa - that's easy. Build up a bunch of dirt, drag it up (or use rollers), then shovel away the dirt. I don't see your 150-tonne ref though - should I be reading it again even more closely? :) Franamax (talk) 09:39, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Hold the phone - yes, I did need to look some more lol. It's a natural shape, so just estimating the space-filling in the rectilinear dimensions, 60% is not unreasonable and that yields the 150 tonnes. I was thinking cut slab, not naturallly shaped rock. It really does help when I look before talking, but it's never as much fun :) Franamax (talk) 09:44, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
 * So happy to meet another who doesn't mind rattling around a bit before concluding anything, playing it hhappy and loose. Way to go, thanks so much, Julia Rossi (talk) 08:03, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

MQS
I'm not yet convinced his version of who is who is correct yet. On the other point, are you saying he is or isn't behaving with his new name, ie, did he return to his old ways or not? Respond on my page. — Rlevse  •  Talk  • 08:23, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Nature article
Hi there. I emailed you back, but sometimes my messages get sent to spam. Might you check? Bstone (talk) 11:25, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Medical advice?
Can you explain why this is medical advice?

"Please do see a doctor or use a pregnancy test. Some areas, including Canada, prohibit abortion after the first 3 months of pregnancy."

Do you object to my suggestion of a pregnancy test, or to the entire post? Reference desk/Guidelines/Medical advice does not prohibit personalized messages recommending the OP to consult a professional. --Bowlhover (talk) 20:48, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
 * My general principle is that when a question is removed under the "medical clause" we should just stop trying to answer the question. If the question stands, then I certainly agree with urging the OP to consult a doctor, in fact I think the best response to medical questions would be for one desker to say "we don't give medical advice, see your doctor". Unfortunately, more people will come along and start answering anyway so we're stuck with the solution of removing the question and using the rd-removed template. In the case where that's done, I think we all need to respect it and back off - solidarity and all that. Maybe you'd agree that we need to have coherent responses to keep the desk respectable? (Or maybe not, it seems to be a bone of contention lately).
 * As far as the specifics of medical advice, IMO it was fine right up to "doctor" then it all went to hell :) Anything about pregnancy is almost by definition going to be medical advice (and there's another area where genetic questions can stray over into medical territory). Anything to do with pregnancy, abortion, Canadian abortion law - man, it's just too damn important. You may be a qualified ob-gyn or a practising Canadian lawyer. I'm not, so I will tend to look for the safe course (hmm, we just had that discussion, didn't we? :)
 * I wasn't trying to poke you in the eye, just trying to uphold a standard as I see it. Regards! Franamax (talk) 21:20, 31 July 2008 (UTC)