User talk:Gennaro Prota/archives/1 (from "the genesis" to May 31 2006 (14:17 UTC))

'''Welcome to my talk page! — Plea z e read this''' I believe in keeping discussions all in one page. If I start a conversion on your talk page please reply there: I'll be watching it for the period of the discussion. Analogously, I'll continue here conversions you might begin here (so in this case be sure to watch me )

Welcome!

Hello,, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers: I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~&#126;); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you have any questions, check out Where to ask a question or ask me on my talk page. Again, welcome!
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P.S. I realize you have already been contributing for nearly two weeks, but I figured a belated welcome was better than none at all. PS2pcGAMER (talk) 18:34, 18 January 2006 (UTC)


 *  Thanks!!! 
 * I was very pleased to find this on my talk page. I am still learning Wikipedia policies and guidelines but I am trying, with a bit of good sense, to contribute even without being a perfect Wikiland citizen, which will take a while, I suppose :) One question I have is: when does a user session "expires"? I have just added to the euro article ("euro" vs. "euri" entry) and the history only shows my I.P. address despite the fact that I was logged in. --Gennaro Prota 23:26, 18 January 2006 (UTC)


 * It takes a little while to get used to the wiki syntax, but it becomes second nature in time. However, I noticed on the "euro vs euri" section you edited on the euro pagε that you included a source, which is GREAT to see since without sources, wikipedia would be in trouble. As far as your problem is concerned, that is very odd.  I haven't had any problems with edits being credited as anonymous, so I can't be of much help.  Do you have the "Remember me" box checked at the login page (assuming that's what you want)?  I guess you could try clearing your cache and cookies and then seeing if the problem is still there.  Also, you can ask at Help desk and I'm sure some there would be able to help solve your problem, as that is something that shouldn't be happening. Happy editing! --PS2pcGAMER (talk) 23:47, 18 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Oh, thank you again. I think there is some sort of time out (the edit took a long time); next time I'll check before clicking on "Save page" so that anyone can contact me if they spot errors or want to discuss my changes. As to the source(s), I strived to find an English translation but I couldn't. Of course both the minutes of the Senate session and the Accademia della Crusca article are something inherently Italian that hardly can be found in other languages. Nonetheless I added them, thinking that an Italian source is still better than no source at all, especially considering that many Wikipedians are poliglot and can "trust but verify" :)

colon links
Hi, thanks for fixing those links to Colón! That was my fault, I didn't check where they linked to after putting them in (I usually do). Cheers, — Johan the Ghost seance 10:14, 28 February 2006 (UTC)


 * You are welcome :) I discovered them almost by chance, after working on the colon (punctuation) article. Take care, Gennaro Prota 09:06, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

redirects
It's at WP:RFD, that page will also explain the process (it's slightly different than AfD). It's really no big deal, a lot of these things are not nearly as obvious as they should be. --W.marsh 02:24, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Videlicet
I'm not sure where to find an online image of the abbreviation in a manuscript, but it takes various z-like forms. It's just a squiggle really, not a z of course, but that's why there is a z in viz now. Adam Bishop 02:24, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

ASUS
Re:
 * Hi, I've checked the CJK ASUS name, it looks correct. I've added the characters for "Inc." as well. Good work. -Loren 16:19, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Hey, thanks a lot! I'll just use character references (&amp;#n;) for maximum portability. Thanks again! Gennaro Prota 16:28, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Windows key
(I posted this on both of our discussion pages) Hi, the article made it look like the key has existed for as long as keyboards have existed, which isn't true at all. When the start menu was created (win 95) the key was used. Would you like to change it to something more detailed? Maybe, "the key was created exclusively for Windows 95 and later operating systems." That way, someone who is reading the article will know that the key has existed since 1995.


 * Hmm... I'm not positive about this, but I think a 104-key keyboard is exactly a 101-key keyboard plus the two Windows keys and the menu key. If so, the fact that the keys didn't exist in the early keyboards is implicit, because they weren't 104 (or 107) key models. However, even if this is true, I think you spotted that the current wording is quite more involved than necessary and beginners unfriendly, and we should consider that such an article is more likely to be read from a beginner than an expert user. I'll try and find a clearer way to express the whole thing. You are welcome to try your own, of course. Thanks for bringing the issue up ;) --Gennaro Prota 19:11, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Signature song/Nessun Dorma
Your idea to add a note about the difference in language is a good one, I think. At the moment, I need to work on something else, but I will think about the exact wording of such a notation and add it as soon as I can.

Thanks again for the idea! Mwelch 21:48, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

I couldn't think of a way to word it in the article text itself that would not be obtrusive. So instead, I put the note into an interior comment within the article. So, if an Italian speaker does begin such an edit, they will see the note at that time. Mwelch 22:59, 18 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Great, that's what I was thinking too. I see that you have already inserted the comment; I'll just fix a misspelling ("calzone" instead of "canzone"; BTW you might be amused to know that "calzone" (though less common than its plural form "calzoni") means "trousers" and is also a kind of pizza :)). Thanks to you for making me learn something new :) --Gennaro Prota 00:42, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
 * In the end I slightly reworded the comment from an Italian point of view. But feel free to change it again if you like! Cheers! Gennaro Prota 00:58, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Re: Text of "Nessun dorma"
Hello Gennaro, can I speak Italian? La mia fonte è il libretto originale Ricordi. Il problema è che tra libretto e spartito esistono sempre differenze. So bene che Calaf ripete certe parole e aggiunge "no, no", ma quelli non sono i versi della romanza. Se tu credi, puoi trascrivere il testo dallo spartito, come hai fatto, ma senza suddividerlo in versi, perché queste ripetizioni e qualsiasi altra modifica mandano all'aria la struttura metrica. Certo, rimane la suddivisione dele frasi musicali, ma questo riguarda la struttura musicale, non quella poetica. Questo tipo di errore si trova, tra l'altro, in quasi tutti i libretti trascritti su internet. Ma se provi ad acquistare il libretto di Ricordi, vedrai che conserva tutte le differenze rispetto allo spartito. In conclusione: se vuoi possiamo trascrivere il testo due volte: dal libretto e dallo spartito. Fammi sapere, Francesco --Al pereira 08:28, 24 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Hi Francesco, yes we can speak Italian, of course :) But I'll also report a short translation, so that others can understand the discussion.


 * Ho capito. Scusa se metto un ultimo dubbio: non è possibile che per convenzione tipografica i puntini sospensivi indichino in alcuni casi di ripetere la frase precedente? Cmq, se non è così, possiamo riportare il testo dal libretto originale, come tu hai fatto, aggiungendo con una diversa formattazione le frasi che vengono cantate ma non appaiono nei versi. In tutta onestà, non riesco a riconoscere una metrica precisa: si parte con un endecasillabo, poi un settenario, poi un verso di 5 sillabe. Ha un nome particolare questo tipo di metrica? Peraltro dopo il tuo revert sono andato a prendere l'inserto di Pavarotti Greatest Hits e il testo riportato lì è identico, inclusa punteggatura e suddivisione in "versi", a quello che avevo riportato io. Non metto in dubbio che tecnicamente vada riportato il libretto, cmq, e che esso conservi delle differenze rispetto al cantato; ma credo anche che questo vada specificato, per i novizi come me :) Un saluto, --Gennaro Prota 12:10, 25 March 2006 (UTC)


 * [Francesco explains that the "verses" of a romance are those reported in the libretto: they almost always have some differences compared to the real sung words, for musical reasons, but the libretto is what is usually regarded as source of the verses. A summary of my reply follows:] I see. Excuse me if I ask but... would it be possible that, as a typographical convention, the ellipses indicate, in some cases, a repetition of the previous sentence? If not, I think we can report the "official" verses, as you already did and add, with a different format, those sentences which only exist in the score. I think its important to highlight the difference, anyway, as not everybody knows it exists. PS: please, do not forget to add the Ricordi libretto as a reference, with its ISBN.


 * Hi Gennaro, I own the original libretto. So, I can give you all the 1926 singers, and even who played the English Horn .... but not the modern ISBN! Anyway, the number of the edition is 119773. As regards the ellipses in opera librettos, they don't indicate a repetition. Actually, librettos and scores are two different things. I agree that it would be better to quote the lines from the score (informing the reader!), but the problem raises when the differences spoil the metric structure. In this case, we can transcribe the text also from the score, but explaining that this isn't neither the text of the libretto nor a text in verse (maybe in musical phrases). In the case of "Nessun dorma" I would also suggest a division between strophe and refrain. Strophe A) Nessun dorma - Refrain A) Ma il mio mistero è chiuso in me - Strophe B) Ed il mio bacio scioglierà il silenzio - Refrain B) Il nome suo nessun saprà. --Al pereira 13:08, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

I forgot answering about the metrical division! The aria begins with Italian typical "endecasillabi sciolti" (endecasillabi mischiati a settenari e quinari) but the refrain begins with "novenari tronchi" (Mail mio mi ste roè chiu soin me) and then comes back to endecasillabi sciolti. Ciao :) --Al pereira 13:13, 29 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Ok, providing the original libretto text is IMHO the best thing to do. Just two notes: the adjective "sciolti" refers to the absence of rhymes; it doesn't mean that the endecasillabo is mixed with settenari and quinari. As to the distinction between "strophe" and "refrain" I would omit it if it doesn't appear in the original libretto. Cheers. --Gennaro Prota 17:15, 29 March 2006 (UTC)


 * The mix between endecasillabi, settenari and quinari is typical of italian metric, because both settenari and quinari are part of the endecasillabo: "Nessun dorma" (quinario) + "Tu pure o principessa" (settenario) = endecasillabo. However, I have omitted any info about the metric. I could add it in the body of the article, but I prefer not to write in English. As regards "strophe" and "refrain", feel free to change, even if this is the structure of "Nessun dorma". I think that an article about a romanza, should talk about his musical and formal elements more than about its use in the media. I have appreciated your recent changes to the article. --Al pereira 19:20, 29 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Eccomi qua. Dunque (poi tradurrò la risposta in Inglese, sono un po' in a hurry :)), ho riformattato un po' il tutto mettendo fianco a fianco i due testi. In verità la mia intenzione era di mettere il testo del libretto originale in un infobox ma gli a capo negli argomenti dei template creano molti problemi. Una soluzione (credo... sono solo due mesi che uso mediawiki, e non è che ne abbia fatto uno studio sistematico) è quello di portare il testo in una sottopagina, che non è poi malvagia (il testo rimane comunque perfettamente accessibile). La proverò appena posso. Se tu puoi fare una scansione della copertina del libretto (che è in ogni caso usabile sotto fair use, non ci sono problemi di copyright) viene una cosa veramente carina, perché la mettiamo nell'infobox. Per la metrica ho capito che in cinque anni di liceo scientifico non ci hanno spiegato una cippa. Mi toccherà senz'altro acculturarmi un po' di più in materia. Se tu sei un musicologo potresti, anche se solo sotto forma di abbozzo che poi continuiamo noi, darci dei riferimenti bibliografici e scrivere qualche paragrafetto di livello professionale. Sarebbe molto bello avere delle osservazioni sulle scelte stilistiche di Puccini, sul fraseggio etc., un po' tipo questo:
 * http://www.puccini.it/bollettino/morte.htm


 * Ciao,
 * Gennaro Prota 20:06, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Musical Artist Wikiproject renamed
The project has been moved to WikiProject Musicians (or shortcut WP:MUSICIAN). I wasn't sure if you're watch list was automatically updated for the move, so I just wanted to let you know.  B. Mearns * , KSC 21:15, 30 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks :) Actually I haven't seen the change in the watch list (but it is quite long today, and I'm working to some articles, so I may have just missed it). Frankly, if "musician" means what we call "musicista" in Italian (someone who professionally plays a musical instrument) I think the new name is worse than the old one. But it doesn't matter. Thank you again for the notice! --Gennaro Prota 22:22, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Pi image
Hi! I noticed you improved I uploaded; how did you do that? Is there some software I ought to know about? Cheers, Melchoir 23:22, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Oh, and for background, I've been using Adobe Illustrator to generate SVGs. Melchoir 23:24, 31 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Hi! I don't know if there's any software that can do these sorts of things. I did it manually, as SVG files are simply text files with a description of the drawing. Basically I kept the part in the path element, which is the actual drawing description, and removed all the non standard stuff. As you may have noticed, this thing alone reduced the file size by 90%. If you open both SVG files as text files you may easily see what I changed. It's really simpler to see than explain :) Cheers. --Gennaro Prota 10:29, 1 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I see. Thanks! Melchoir 19:27, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

re: lowercase c
Ruud wrote:  Hi, well all the userboxen on programming languages use the file extension in lowercase as the code that is displayed (see for example my user page, I have several other boxen there).

That's, so to speak, accidental. BTW, Tcl has an uppercase 'T'. In any case, I think the most common spelling should be used. The arguments of consistency is important for the template name, not for the text shown.

 I agree that C++ is a bit om an exception in that is doesn't use the extension (people would be fichting over wheter is should be cpp, cc or cxx) but for consitency reasons I do think it's better left in lowercase.

Of course a C++ source file, *if* corresponding to a filesystem file, may have no extension at all. The argument about file extensions is moot. I respectfully think you are turning a coincidence in a rule (again, I'm speaking about the text that appears on screen, not the template naming convention).

 If you personally have a strong a preference you can "substitute" the template (basically making a copy on you userpage) and modify it to show C++. If you need any help with that I'd be glad to assist you. Cheers, —Ruud 15:21, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Why? You seem to assume that your opinion is in some way more legitimate than mine. I'll change 'c' to 'C' in all C and C++ templates. If a revert war will occur then we'll try finding a consensus. --Gennaro Prota 16:02, 2 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I'm not going to revert war over this, becaue revert wars are lame. Of course you are free to do so, but you'll need to find a consensus with other people over it, not with me. —Ruud 17:01, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Latin Phrases
The removal of leges sine moribus was indeed unintentional. As for mala tempora currunt, the reason I changed it to "running" is that Silence, who has been the main maintainer of that page, tends to prefer translations that err on the side of literalness. But I wil lhave to admit that admit that I misunderstood the explanation you gave in the notes. We'd better tclarify that section. However, neither "Bad times are going" nor "Bad times are running" are particularly good translations if the meaning is indeed "Bad times are upon us." So we'll need to come up with a better compromise. --Iustinus 03:40, 4 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Very good. Well, my dictionary deceived me again. Definitely the meaning is "the *current* period is bad"; not "bad times are going away", "passing", "finishing". It may help to say that the verb "currere" is in fact at the origin of the English word "current"; see e.g. http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=current. --Gennaro Prota 03:57, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Infobox Wrestler
Well pretty much the only difference anymore is the padding of the box, which is 0.5 instead of 0.2.

The template started as Pwstatsbox, which was originally based on some other infobox I guess. The style of the box evolved to a nice state through a discussion in the Professional wrestling wikiproject. Since that time the codebase has changed twice, due to the if functions becoming obsolete.

Between this time the infoboxes were unified, and as such the person who updated the codebase also altered it to match the regular infobox style, which was inferior in my opinion. The style was reverted by me and has stayed that way since then.

The infobox class depedency was removed by me also a while ago because the style was (temporarily) altered to being horrible. I didn't want to wait, and removed the depedency. After your changes this method no longer works since for some reason the qif formatting you made doesn't work with style data (I have no idea why). These were the fix tries that didn't work. But since the infobox had actually evolved to be more like the Wrestler infobox I returned the infobox class depedency to make it work.

Of course it would be ideal if the regular infobox class adapted the larger padding, but I haven't taken part in the infobox altering and discussion, since I've felt that I don't have the time for it.

Hmm, that was a long answer for a short question.

↪Lakes (Talk) 13:13, 13 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Well, but it was a clear answer, which is much preferable to a short one :). My goal instead, besides removing the "hidden structures" was to use the infobox class for the common parts and only specify the differences, so that users with different skins could have the style they preferred.


 * As to why the style elements didn't work for you I guess it is because of the missing quotes. Anyway I think the code is ok now, no need to change it again except IMHO for this:


 * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Lbmixpro#Template_Infobox_Wrestler


 * I asked because in the end I couldn't see off-hand what was the actual difference with my version :) Thanks for your reply. --Gennaro Prota 18:58, 13 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Yeah it was the missing quotes, you get blind to these things. I usually edit with an external editor (vim) which colors such errors, but this time I used the regular submission box.
 * ↪Lakes (Talk) 19:14, 13 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I like the new description setting, but the problem was how templates with undefined fields show the variable tag instead.


 * I'm afraid I'm missing your point. You mean when the image argument is not provided? In that case no alt text is given either (everything is under a qif on ).


 * The alt text was just a default.


 * Now it just has a fixed format. The image_description parameter was introduced by me, but in the end I don't think anyone would have updated the about 1000 articles which use the template just to provide an argument for it :)


 * As for the birthplaces and dates, the musical artist one is similar to your idea, where you type both the birthdate and place in the same field. Usually I put "January 10, 1970 in Somwhere, earth". But as you said that might break the template, so I wouldn't want to do it without consensus. I like the qif templates anyways.


 * Thanks. It's just that everything could be much simpler.


 * --Gennaro Prota 10:46, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Image:Winzip-logo.png
I've just marked Image:Winzip-logo.png as an Orphaned unfree image, as it is fair-use and not in use on any pages. Thought you minht want to know. SeventyThree(Talk) 18:58, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

CoffeeCup and Slipstream
The person hacking your page is doing it against all ASP members. (Association of Shareware Professionals) CoffeeCup Software did coin the phrase back in 1996 and we want that noted. We have over 18,000,000 users in 87 counties and are one of the most respected software companies on the Web. How can Wikipedia let such slander effect the facts? I am sure you read his orginal comment and it was clear what he was doing. He should be banned from Wikipedia and our definition re-entered.

Nicholas Longo CEO CoffeeCup Software www.coffeecup.com

Signature song category
That's probably a good idea. There's still room to wind up being seen a bad guy in regulating the category. 8-) But since people seem to want to add to the list no matter how long it already is, it probably does make more sense to have it category form.  Mwelch 09:21, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Moving "Nessun dorma"
Yes (I don't know where that capital letter "Dorma" comes from) --Al pereira 14:52, 25 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Sigh, never do that again, please :-( This way all the article history is lost (and you didn't even fill in the edit summary!!) --Gennaro Prota 14:56, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

I understand the problem, sorry. I also hope that the article would be moved soon, since the title is just wrong. --Al pereira 19:16, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

reference desk laptop question
Please, answer me that question about my toshiba laptop. The thing was regarding to removing or not the batteries while changing the RAM. Thanks.

Windows key
Hi, thanks for your comments about Windows_key. I will try to think of a better phrase. I will also try to cleanup the article. Bye. --Starionwolf 01:36, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Template talk:Infobox Journal
Please take a look at a problem I have put on this talk page. Thanks. --Bduke 03:00, 1 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Hi, I'm in the middle of a major update to the punctuation article. Are you saying it worked, as written, before my modifications to the ISSN template? Off-hand I can't see any difference, but I'll look into it tomorrow (well, actually today: it's 5:14 am here :)). I could add a workaround in the meantime, if you want to. --Gennaro Prota 03:16, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
 * No hurry. I think it was OK when I put it on some journal articles some weeks ago. I have just written 6 articles and noticed it was wrong. The J Chem Phys B article I mentioned is an old article. I think it used to work, but does not now. I'll check them all out later in the week. --Bduke 03:42, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Ok, it's 6:30 now but I couldn't resist having a look. I restored a precedent version and it works, but that's just because it doesn't link the ISSNs :) I forgot this detail. There are various ways to fix the issue. I'll think to the one having the simplest impact on the user (AFAIK the template mechanism doesn't allow me to parse the string and insulate the ISSNs, so the user must separate the parts that will act as a link from the parts, such as "(print edition)", that will simply be reported as text). All the best, Gennaro Prota 04:32, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Re: Qwerty.svg
Thanks for noticing. I'm actually quite confused, because the article says 105-key, the image description page says 102-key, you say it's 103-key but it should be 104-key. :) But I'll try to add the AltGr key there. –Mysid 07:21, 10 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Yes :) The description is just wrong. What article says 105? It actually depends on the national variety of the keyboard. Normally, when referring to IBM PC keyboard layouts, the US layout is (implicitly) considered, so the possible choices are: 101, 104. I assumed the one you depict here has a US layout (though some characters seem oddly positioned from what I remember). If so then it should have 104 keys, but as an oversight it lacks AltGr.


 * Just to clarify, my Italian keyboard, has 105 keys; it is the Italian equivalent of the 104 US, it just has more keys because of the accented wovels (à, è, é, ì, ò, ù are directly accessible; that in turn causes other characters to have a different arrangement compared to the US version) but it's not rare to see it listed as "Italian 104-key keyboard" in catalogues etc. In most cases European equivalents of US layouts have 1 more key (101->102, 104->105).


 * In short, the issue is much simpler than it appears at first: we all use the 101-layout as a base. If we also have the two Windows keys and the menu key, introduced with Windows 95, then it is 104 (this is the only difference between 101 and 104), and if it is a non-US variant it may have more keys (as far as I've seen just one key) than its US counterpart. -- Gennaro Prota &thinsp;(talk) 12:16, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Re: A question, a request and an offer :)

 * Thanks for your input&hellip;
 * Regarding your question, this issue has been discussed over here: Featured_picture_candidates/Personal_computer where I also state my view. The older versions 1, 2 and 3 are not as good as 4 and 5 (and shouldn't be used), but I guess that they still should be kept for the FPC archive.


 * I agree with you that the laptop article could benefit from a similar illustration. Unfortunately I'm quite busy right now and therefore doing such an image could take some time (probably more than a month with my current schedule)&hellip; I'll think it over during the week and make up my mind.


 * Oh, and I just assumed that the output from Inkscape (which I use) was valid SVG, but after trying it with Batik's validator I realize it's not. Adding a DOCTYPE and some attributes in the  -element fixed it. So even better than fixing my svgs would be to attack the source of the problem and fix Inkscape (or at least make the developers aware of the problem)&hellip; :) Thanks for your offer!


 * Speaking of SVG and coding, something I liked to have for a long time is an SVG optimizer. My SVGs are filled with stuff like style="stroke:none; stroke-width:5; stroke-color:black..." (the stroke-* are redundant) and x="15.0000000000"</tt> (the zeroes could be trimmed). Are you aware of any open software that can do this? An optimization script would be much appreciated by me (and probably by other SVG contributors on Wikipedia).


 * –Gustavb 13:31, 10 May 2006 (UTC)


 * ...continued on Gustavb's talk page &rarr;

Windows Key
On my Windows XP system, I do not need to press the ESC key after pressing and releasing the Windows key. I press and release the Windows key and then press the Tab key. This sets the focus on the Taskbar. One does not use the Alt+Tab combination to move the focus to the Taskbar. Itazula 06:39, 11 May 2006 (UTC)


 * This is yet another confirmation that this information must be "externalized", as I said here: Talk:Windows key. On all Win2K flavors I have used I had to press ESC, but God knows if that holds for *all* Windows 2000 versions or not. And at least some (all?) XP versions are different, as you notice. Microsoft changes these sorts of things continually, so the only way to serve our users with accurate information and avoid a maintenance nightmare is to link to their site. Oh, and I was talking about Windows+Tab, not Alt+Tab :) In any case the edit summary was written in a hurry, don't take it "word for word", so to speak. Even Windows+Tab could have exceptions, who knows (Microsoft? ;)). Upon re-reading it, I realize that my edit summary could appear a little aggressive. Sorry for that, it turned out that way because I wrote it in a rush; that was absolutely not my intent. -- Gennaro Prota &thinsp;<sup style="color: #006400;">(talk) 06:55, 11 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Okay, I see your point. Surprisingly, there is a "wild west" flavor to this subject.  But even Microsoft can be deficient in their editing -- in their latest summary of keyboard shortcuts for Windows XP (see http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q301583 ) they list ALT+ENTER twice with essentially the same definition.  By the way, I tried Windows+Tab.  It worked nicely!  (But now I'm wary... maybe that's an exception.)  Anyway, thanks.  Itazula 07:17, 11 May 2006 (UTC)


 * What do you mean by "wild west" flavor? :) (I'm not a native speaker, sorry). Yes, one should be wary of everything which works, as it is just a lucky combination of bugs ;) BTW, Windows+Tab focuses the first *application button* on the taskbar, instead of the Start button, so it's slightly different from what you were using, but of course once you are "on the taskbar" you can navigate it with Tab and arrow keys. About the duplication of the Alt+Enter description... maybe MMC have had a different shortcut at some time, or the general section and the MMC section have been edited by different persons, who knows :) -- Gennaro Prota &thinsp;<sup style="color: #006400;">(talk) 07:37, 11 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Actually, the Alt+Enter combination appears twice in the general section and it's been like that for a long time. I was just taking a small jab at MS -- even if we link back to them, there's no guarantee that they are authoritative.  Software has a life of its own, beyond that of its creator.  O_-  I probably should have said "Wild Wild West."  It's an allusion to the outlaw days of the American West where sometimes the only rules were the ones you made up.  Itazula 09:27, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

SP2
I answered you on my talk page. -- JLaTondre 13:06, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Saluti anche a te...
... io invece visto il nick non avevo dubbi sulla nazionalità :) C'è più di qualche italiano che scrive regolarmente su en.wikipedia.org, speriamo che gradualmente la copertura del nostro paese migliori! rispetto ai polacchi, ad esempio, siamo dei principianti :) GhePeU 13:36, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Template:Infobox_President
I have removed the George W. Bush test. When I went to various President's pages, I noticed about three lines of white-space at the top of every President's page. When I determined it was the fault of this template, I tested my theory by removing your GWB test, and the whitespace disappeared. Sorry to revert you so soon, but I just want the Presidents to not have any whitespace. Perhaps you can try making your own sandbox? Thanks! -- RattleMan 23:12, 11 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Oh yes. One could remove the blank lines without removing the test but it doesn't matter now. I've thought to a much better way to test templates during development, which I'll use next time. Thanks for fixing! (Oh, and BTW templates should have regression tests. Ever.) -- Gennaro Prota &thinsp;<sup style="color: #006400;">(talk) 10:58, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Napolitano
The link was twice there. Arrivederci. - Darwinek 21:59, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Re: Hi!!!
Late answer to : I was more active in the past. The sheer number of articles and vandals and lack of effective tools makes WP pretty frustrating after some time. I am pretty much doing what I did always in Boost, picking a promising project and helping it to survive through the general disinterest. Pavel Vozenilek 23:22, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Btw, C++ related articles I saw here are generally in poor state - either students wrote them or their professors. One student had recently revived the WikiProject C++.


 * Yeah, I noticed the lack of tools too. And C++ articles are awful. But, in all honesty, Boost made me frustrated as well. I have rewritten the whole dynamic_bitset library without even being mentioned in a little note; proposed substantial improvements to the is_convertible template, highlighting serious logical fallacies in its very definition, but I was totally ignored; and my comments about it were used in the official ISO proposal without acknowledgment (which is the smaller of the evils: I would have been much happier to have my version used in the proposal, without credit). Another thing that has frustrated me about Boost is that the review process is not as effective as it was before, with the effect that, generally, newly accepted libraries are of lower quality compared to the early ones. And some libraries have an enormous level of coupling, especially with the template metaprogramming library.


 * But you speak about "general disinterest". Do you think Wikipedia is subject to general disinterest? What I have noticed about Wikipedia is a sort of Bicycle Shed Effect: lot of edits tend to concentrate on secondary aspects of the article and this not only clutters the article with unimportant details but give others the impression that it is complete, by judging from its length. If one looks for instance at musician articles they have nothing more than biographical data and info about how many records they sold. Similarly for operas etc. But what is Madonna's vocal extension? What technical characteristics does she have as a singer? What musical devices were used in the Turandot to mark the contrast between Liù's death and the love scenes between Calaf and the Princess? These are all questions which Wikipedia doesn't answer to.


 * -- Gennaro Prota &thinsp;<sup style="color: #006400;">(talk) 13:21, 13 May 2006 (UTC)


 * About Boost: I guess you may take the proverbs "every good deed is punished accordingly" and "the genius is recognized only by future generations" as proven. Boost struggles with shortage of people - around half of the libraries are not maintained and number reviewers is small. By "general disinterest" I mean when someone asks on mail-list "I have such and such library, is there room for it in Boost?" and no one answers.


 * About WP: it is empirical rule that articles with high number of contributors degrade accordingly. Specialised articles with single or few knowledgeable authors do not suffer from this effect. "Stable versions" feature that would allow to systematically increase quality has been promised for years - untils that dream comes true I would not expect many changes. Getting details as Madonna's vocal extension requires public view of Wikipedia as throroughly resilient against vandals and ignorants, thus encouraging experts. Pavel Vozenilek 14:34, 14 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Hehehe, relief from what? I take it as relaxation here, add articles about Czech Republic related articles here or there. Nobody really cares about them, including vandals and warriors. Pavel Vozenilek 22:09, 14 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Hmm, I'm more or less on the same track :) Many (most?) of the articles I have edited get very low interest. And now that I have contributed to Giorgio Napolitano (my first "high traffic" article, so to speak) I have seen how stressing it can be to work on an article attracting everyone's attention. I have never been able to finish an edit without a conflict, even after semi-protection. Semi-protection however has greatly helped improving it. The difference is enormous with respect to the first days, when everybody could modify it -- Gennaro Prota &thinsp;<sup style="color: #006400;">(talk) 22:21, 14 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Yup, that's common experience. If you wish I can recomend several articles where you can discover your limits of your endurance. Pavel Vozenilek 23:21, 14 May 2006 (UTC)


 * I would start with some generalized solution to cover all possibilities and never finish the monster. Diacritics and heavy "reuse" of the names makes a bot almost impossible. For programming I prefere other places. Btw, there was a feature request on bitset few days ago . Pavel Vozenilek 14:42, 22 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Yeah, exactly the same that I would do :) And I would wish having C++ at every character I typed... About the bitset request, I have read it twice without really understanding what it asks for. It seems to me the OP is just requesting syntactical sugar for the common bitwise operations, so that he could write, for instance  etc. As far as I can see it has nothing to do with dynamic_bitset (which would have surprised me, by the way; it's years I don't get a feature request on it!) — Gennaro Prota <sup style="color: #006400;">&#8226;Talk  15:25, 22 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Serialization support could be added as well as ability to extract N bits (N <= bits per ulong) starting with any position in a single operation (this would help, say, to implement tribool_vector where each tribool takes 1.5 bits). Pavel Vozenilek 16:37, 22 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Hehehe... you thought for feature requests yourself to make your friend happy :) Yes, someone required me a "cut" function that would return a new bitset containing a given range of bits. For the case N <= bits per ulong that's even simpler. One reason why I have lost interest in further developing dynamic_bitset is its lack of iterators. It has member functions such as find_first, find_next etc. (by the way, I'm particularly happy of my idea to use integer_log2 for the implementation; did you see it? :)) but, of course, it could simply rely on the various template. Also, I wanted some feedback about implementing the various operations between dynamic_bitsets of different size. And I had some ideas about the reference nested class: first of all making const reference act as a true const reference proxy and not as a mere synonym of bool. Secondly I would have liked to try defining operator& on the nested class, so that &ref would yield an (const_)iterator rather than a pointer. But it seems that nobody is interested to that library. Oh, and I also wanted to remove the constructor from string and the to_string function; they are design errors. A bitset should know nothing about strings and a string should know nothing about a bitset. For textual representation of objects a standard idiom exists, which is string streams. You can obtain pretty much anything those two functions do by using lexical_cast<>. — Gennaro Prota <sup style="color: #006400;">&#8226;Talk 16:50, 22 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Strange that Boost gets discussed here. The "cut" was perhaps suggested by me: I planned to create tribool_vector but I am very lazy and do not want to fiddle with bits myself; so it got postponed. The operator& (if I grasped it correctly): what if someone does the classical &my_bitset[0] to get the void* raw pointer to pass it into C function?


 * The string <-> bitset may be strange but lexical_cast<> is so much  [expletive sniped]  that nobody uses it. It is also completely unmaintained. To my suprise I read that somebody had suggested to add it in C++0x !!


 * As for disinterest: the Multi-Index library was developed over two years almost without feedback (except from me) and its author almost gave it up for this very reason. I guess the disinterest is group behaviour to be expected under given settings.


 * FYI: BitMagic library is something similar to dynamic_bitset, only /much/ more feature loaded. I once suggested the author to submit it to Boost (he answered with an "I am still undecided" reply then). Pavel Vozenilek


 * Yeah, it's strange. It would be better to continue via mail, you know my address (just in case you don't have it handy you can use the E-mail this user link here). I'll implement the cut function if really you need it, just let me know :) The classical &my_bitset[0] doesn't work now because I disabled operator& on the reference class (http://www.boost.org/boost/dynamic_bitset/dynamic_bitset.hpp). But even if you remove the declaration, thus enabling the built-in operator &, &my_bitset[0] gives you the address of *the proxy object* that holds my_bitset[0]; probably not what you want anyway (the same happens with std::vector, as you know). There's not much room for improving: the only way to make dynamic_bitset something else than an experiment which failed (in the context of the standard library) is to relax container and algorithms requirements as to allow proxied containers. It's also important to note that though dynamic_bitset is currently implemented in terms of std::vector there is no guarantee of contiguity. Oddly, I wasn't aware of BitMagic. I've seen now that its first release was around the same time I began working on dynamic_bitset; and I had searched sourceforge at that time but didn't find anything. I've tried now and again I found nothing. That's because I didn't think to look for "bitvector": I always used the word "bitset". And this tells enough about sourceforge search facilities. As to the library I had an extremely quick look... I'll come back to it as soon as I'll have some more time. IIUC, it dynamically chooses the compression strategy for the bitset. That's very interesting. What do you mean when you say "I guess the disinterest is group behaviour to be expected under given settings"? (BTW, I wouldn't object to inserting dynamic_bitset in C++0x; it lacks formatting options, so it's basically only adequate for debugging, but that doesn't mean it's useless. Why would you oppose?) — Gennaro Prota <sup style="color: #006400;">&#8226;Talk  22:56, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Template:Infobox President
Can you please remove the 'Succeeded by' field for cases where the president is in office? Thanks! ☆ CieloEstrellado 05:57, 14 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Hi, "Succeeded by" is only shown if you specify something for the  parameter (even a dash). If you still have problems, please tell me what article you want to be fixed and I'll do it for you. -- Gennaro Prota &thinsp;<sup style="color: #006400;">(talk)  14:18, 15 May 2006 (UTC)


 * I just needed to delete the field as you said. Thanks! :) ☆ CieloEstrellado 03:40, 16 May 2006 (UTC)


 * You are welcome :) -- Gennaro Prota &thinsp;<sup style="color: #006400;">(talk) 03:42, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

Citing newspapers
Try cite news…works for me. Some of the suckers even have online archives. HTH HAND —Phil | Talk 20:38, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

Angela's pages
You're very right Gennaro, they are being vandalized quite a bit. I will put it on WP:RFPP. Cheers -- <font face="Arial">Samir <font face="Arial Narrow"> (the scope) धर्म 22:13, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
 * You know what, I'm around for the next bit, I'll watch her pages and if they get hit up in the next few hours, I'll put them on WP:RFPP. Take care.  -- <font face="Arial">Samir [[Image:Canadian maple leaf 2.jpg|20px]]<font face="Arial Narrow"> (the scope) धर्म 22:19, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Thank you very much :) Cheers, Gennaro Prota &thinsp;<sup style="color: #006400;">(talk)  22:24, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

About the Napolitano article
Ciao Gennaro,

ti ringrazio del tuo messaggio, anche se ti assicuro che avevo bell'e capito tutto quello che mi dici. Ma veniamo ai singoli punti.
 * Il napoletano lo conosco bene anch'io, pur non essendo proprio nativo di Napoli. Ma in quanto esperto di dialetti, mi sono occupato abbastanza del napoletano e per molti anni. Mi ero attenuto alla grafia usata dalla Wikipedia italiana semplicemente per "consistency". Se poi quella grafia era errata, andava e va corretta. Ovviamente, concordo che si debba seguire la grafia usata nel titolo del libro a cui si fa riferimento, indipendentemente da quale delle due sia più corretta in teoria per il napoletano. (E si sa quanto oscillino le grafie dialettali.)
 * Per quanto riguarda "To etc.", il significato "In order to etc." è implicito, in quanto il titolo di un libro, di un capitolo, di un paragrafo, non direbbe mai in inglese "In order to etc." ma semplicemente "To etc." ("To learn more" significa implicitamente "Per saperne di più" e praticamente mai "Saperne di più".) Quindi l'interpretazione "by default" della traduzione inglese "To mimic the downpour" (ho notato tra l'altro che avevo per errore scritto "mimick") è "In order to etc."
 * Infine, ti assicuro che in inglese, mentre, con il verbo al passivo, si dice ovviamente "it can be translated as", "it has been translated as", etc., se si usa "translate" come verbo attivo in riferimento alla cosa tradotta, bisogna dire "it translates to" e non "it translates as". Sarà pure un'inezia, ma è così. Te lo dice uno che fa il traduttore da decenni. Pasquale 23:53, 15 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Ciao! Che bello sapere che c'è un altro italiano nella truppa :) Ovviamente il tuo nick mi faceva sospettare qualcosa, ma avevo più pensato che avessi origini italiane, o che semplicemente simpatizzassi. L'inglese infatti mi pareva da madrelingua.


 * Per quanto riguarda "cupià"/"cupia’" io ho trovato tutte e due le grafie, ma non mi sono mai impegnato troppo in indagini; le cose che leggo appartengono a periodi molto diversi ed è possible che la forma "corretta" sia cambiata nel tempo, che siano accettabili entrambe o altro. (D'altronde questioni analoghe sono a volte sorte con l'italiano e non c'è stato sempre accordo tra gli studiosi. Il forum dell'Accademia della Crusca è pieno di disquisizioni su fatti di questo genere). Ma dato che il libro non l'ha scritto (o non si vuol far sapere che l'abbia scritto) Napolitano, diciamo che per noi la questione è risolta :) Mi chiedo chi sia l'autore ma... forse non lo sapremo mai.


 * Per l'interpretazione di default ti ringrazio perché proprio non lo sapevo. Pensavo la forma "to etc." fosse ambigua e che se si volesse esplitamente "rendere" l'infinito si usasse il gerundio :) Sì, intendo "mimicking the downpour" (che poi può corrispondere a un gerundio italiano, ma non in questo caso, credo). La mia conoscenza dell'inglese è puramente scolastica e sai bene quanto insegnino bene le lingue nelle scuole italiane.


 * Per quanto riguarda la questione "as" contro "to" ti credo, ci mancherebbe altro. Per caso sai darmi qualche delucidazione sull'analogo "elected to", "elected as"? Nel box che ho aggiunto all'inizio dell'articolo, quello che suggerisce di considerare anche l'articolo specificamente dedicato all'elezione a presidente, a me è venuto spontaneo dire "elected as". Dopo un po' però ho avuto il dubbio che fosse più corretto "elected to", e dopo un altro po' ho pensato che "elected to" sarebbe stato più adatto se avessi detto "elected to the Italian presidency", mentre usando "president" è più adatto "as" (spero di essermi capito :)).


 * Un saluto,
 * -- Gennaro Prota &thinsp;<sup style="color: #006400;">(talk) 00:33, 16 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Allora, Gennaro, innanzitutto scusami se non avevo fatto a caso alla tua nota in caratteri piccoli "please, reply here". In secondo luogo, ti confermo che Pasquale è il mio vero nome e che sono italianissimo (tanto che ho votato alle recenti politiche), anche se vivo in America da oltre 30 anni. Terzo, aggiungo qualche altra osservazione sui temi discussi:
 * Il problema di come scrivere gli infiniti apocopati (o troncati) in napoletano non è facile da risolvere. Io personalmente ho una leggera preferenza per l'accento, dato che l'apostrofo si usa già tanto nell'ortografia del napoletano. Lo stesso problema si presenta per il romanesco e altri dialetti italiani.
 * Il gerundio inglese (per esempio, "mimicking the downpour"), specie se in un titolo, corrisponde piuttosto al semplice infinito dell'italiano, nel senso. Ed è anche per questo che l'infinito ("to mimic the downpour") è in genere implicitamente inteso come equivalente a "Per ecc." dell'italiano.
 * Per quanto riguarda "elected to" vs. "elected as", è corretto quello che dici: "elected to the presidency" vs. "elected as president".
 * Saluti,
 * Pasquale 15:37, 16 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Hey, ciao! :) Dunque cerco di rispondere con ordine, anche se sono ormai al pc da più di 24 ore consecutive (vero, comincio a pensare che Wikipedia dia dipendenza) e quindi non mi assumo responsabilità alcuna per quello che digito ;) Per quanto riguarda la nota non notata, ovviamente, non c'è problema. Cerco solo di tenere l'intera discussione in un unico posto (pagina) in modo che possa essere riletta/consultata in futuro senza fare salti mortali. Niente di più. Dunque ti chiami veramente Pasquale e sei campano. Potrebbe capitare di incontrarci per lavoro, io ti chiamerei Pasquale, ma senza sapere che sei il Pasquale con cui sto parlando adesso; e siccome però io sono noto anche col cognome sarai tu a riconoscermi e mi picchiermi per tele-abuso di domande linguistiche. Ok, a parte questa preoccupazione, direi che la questione infinito vs. gerundio è ormai chiara. Per quanto concerne cupià/cupia' & Co., pur senza aver mai indagato, immagino che in generale alcuni dei verbi napo derivino dalla forma italiana e sono quindi effettivamente elisioni o troncamenti. Altri, non so, mi viene in mente "cuffià", nel senso di prendere in giro... non credo esista "cuffiare" in italiano, quindi ci vedo meglio l'accento. Magari la regola è questa, ma c'è anche da dire che forse il napoletano è molto meno "legislato" della nostra lingua nazionale. Chi lo sa. Ai poster l'ardua sentenza! ;) -- Gennaro Prota &thinsp;<sup style="color: #006400;">(talk) 16:39, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

Modifications to NavigationBox
Hi CapitalR, just a veeery quick question. As promised I'll follow up in the next days (when I'll also make a cleanup of the whole discussion). Could please tell me what the purpose of padding: 0em 0em... and then again 0em (-)) is? (BTW, I think Wikipedia should have coding guidelines. I hate when people just remove a semicolon and says "removed unnecessary code" in the edit summary) -- Gennaro Prota &thinsp;<sup style="color: #006400;">(talk) 18:44, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
 * On some versions of Firefox, the template looks very weird without the padding line in there (the padding for some reason defaults to a large value giving a large border around the title). As for the semicolons, having them in there or not doesn't really bother me.  I don't ususally remove them when other people put them in, but User:Markles likes to get rid of them to simplify the code.  I tend to put them in at the end of style statements just out of habit, and don't mind that others remove them. --CapitalR 20:52, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

Hi CapitalR, thanks for your fixes. I was just wondering what browser you are using: I ask because the center element shouldn't be needed (in fact everything works, without it, on Firefox 1.5.0.3) -- Gennaro Prota &thinsp;<sup style="color: #006400;">(talk) 09:04, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Hi Gennaro Prota, thanks for helping with Template:NavigationBox. As for the edits I made to it after you:
 * I use Internet Explorer for my contributing, which doesn't require the center tag here. I put back the center tag just in case any other browser out there required it.
 * You seem to have deleted the margins before and after the template. When an article has more than one NavigationBox in a row, they would have no space between them at all. Thus, I had to put back in the margin settings we had before you changed the template.
 * As for margins for the "List" area, they were lopsided when you changed them (too much on top, too little on the left and right), so I evened them out.
 * For the image, you removed the part "width=1", which caused problems when the "List" area was short. The image would take up more space than it should have, making the template look funny.  I put that piece of code back in to correct the problem.  Essentially, this code keeps the border around the image tight.
 * Finally, I changed the font back to 90%, which is what was agreed upon a while ago through discussion on various related templates.
 * Let me know if you have any other questions, --CapitalR 09:19, 16 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the exhaustive reply. I'll give a quick answer as I spent all night editing and need some rest :) But I'll get back to you. About the first two issues:
 * I intentionally removed the center tag, as it is deprecated, as you know. Maybe we could have waited and see *if* someone had problems without it
 * By "in a row" you mean "in a column"? :) I removed top and bottom margin because I think only the "calling context" can know what they should be. From within the template, we don't have info about "the surroundings", so to speak, so we can't decide.
 * ''(to be continued...)
 * -- Gennaro Prota &thinsp;<sup style="color: #006400;">(talk) 09:33, 16 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Hi again Gennaro Prota.
 * As for the center tags, it turns out you do need them in IE (or some other method of centering other than the center tag). Without them the NavigationBox templates are all slightly to the left of center.  Thus, we need to keep the tag in there for now (or find another way of ensuring center-ness).
 * As for my point #2 above, I meant when you use multiple NavigationBox templates one after the other in an article. For example, the following shows two templates with and without the margin correction I put in (of course, no article actually calls these two particular templates one after the other, but some templates do use multiple NavigationBox templates in a row, such as Tufts University)  The code for the templates one after the other in an article would be as follows:


 * First, without the margin correction:


 * As you can see, this is a problem because there's no space between them. The following shows my corrected version:
 * Above, you can see the small space between the templates which makes it look much better. I think these margins make it very convenient to not have to worry about spacing when calling this template.
 * The next example shows a template without the "width=1" correction in it for the image:
 * And now with the "width=1" correction to the image:


 * Clearly there's a problem with the first image above because the borders aren't tight around it (at least using Internet Explorer). The "width=1" fix corrects this problem (even though it looks kind of funny in the code).
 * I hope this helps. Keep asking more questions if you like,  --CapitalR 09:51, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

Manual of style
I agree with you about date links and have removed many unnecessary ones. If you want a date delinking tab in edit mode, go to User:Gennaro_Prota/monobook.js and add the following line:

winc('User:Bobblewik/monobook.js/dates.js');

Regards bobblewik 15:36, 16 May 2006 (UTC)


 * I have to add the line in another user's monobook? How does this work? And where does my user name get involved? -- Gennaro Prota &thinsp;<sup style="color: #006400;">(talk) 16:43, 16 May 2006 (UTC)


 * You are quite right. I have amended my previous comment. bobblewik 21:13, 16 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Thank you very much, I'm looking forward to try it :) -- Gennaro Prota &thinsp;<sup style="color: #006400;">(talk) 13:37, 17 May 2006 (UTC)


 * I forgot that you also need to create the 'winc' function. You do that by also adding the following:

//Create 'winc' function:

function winc(s) { document.write('<script type="text/javascript" src="'             + 'http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=' + s             + '&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript&dontcountme=s"> '); }


 * Alternatively, just copy User:Bobblewik/monobook.js to User:Gennaro Prota/monobook.js. bobblewik 16:18, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Language icons
Hi there. You might want to take a look at my comment here. Sorry for the fuzz. <font color="#990011">// Halibutt 15:38, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

unit formats
I would be delighted if you use my unit formatter or anything else from me. If you want to make your own versions, that is fine by me too.

I don't always know how the code works (some is copied and some is just trial/error), so I can't answer your question about 'dontcountme'. I always looking for improvements. What is the effect of your change to it? bobblewik 19:29, 18 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Thank you very much :) No, I didn't remove, exactly because I don't know its purpose. I guess it's something related to the web server statistics but... who knows :) Yes, I'm aware of the trial and error approach... that's the reason why I hate scripting languages: not even their creators know what they will do with a given piece of code. It would be nice to organize a code library, accessible to all users; I guess there are tons of duplications in the various user namespaces, with everyone reinventing the wheel or reimplementing something other users have already written and tested. -- Gennaro Prota <sup style="color: #006400;">&#8226;Talk  19:43, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Unexplained Dissapearence
where have you gone? you have suddenly stopped our conversation :S 86.12.230.89 21:47, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Re:Vandalism
Well, as I'm not an admin, there's not much we can do besides reporting hat guy to WP:AIV and wait for an admin to deal with it. Because it's a shared IP, they may not be willing to block it unless it's vandalizing right at this very hour. -→ Buchanan-Hermit <font color="#006400">™ /<font color="#006400" size="1">!? 18:25, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Blue check.png
Hi David,

I was going to vectorize "Blue check.png", but I discovered it is in fact a png-derivative of an already SVG image :) Could please tell me why is it so? — Gennaro Prota <sup style="color: #006400;">&#8226;Talk 23:36, 22 May 2006 (UTC)


 * The MediaWiki software converts all SVGs to 24-bit PNGs, the transparencies of which fail to display for most users (due to a bug in Microsoft Internet Explorer 6). This, of course, is not an issue for images without transparencies.  &mdash;David Levy 00:31, 23 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Oh, I see now, thanks. Maybe a comment explaing this would be nice though, so that others will not wonder as well. I saw this myself when looking at the ASUS article from one my friends' house. I had created the logo myself in svg and it looks ok in Firefox but it has an odd blue instead of transparency on IE6. Quousque tandem abutere, Microsoft, patientiae nostrae — Gennaro Prota <sup style="color: #006400;">&#8226;Talk 00:38, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Qwerty.svg
Hi, I've updated Image:Qwerty.svg as you suggested. Hopefully it's like you meant! –Mysid<sup style="color:#ffa500;">(t) 11:07, 23 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Yup, it's great!! :) Just one thing: with my browser (Firefox 1.5.0.3), many upper symbols in the first row (from the  key to the pipe, with the exception of the hyphen key) appear in part externally to the key area. Does that depends on my font settings? The rest of the keyboard is perfect, excellent work! -- Gennaro Prota <sup style="color: #006400;">&#8226;Talk  13:56, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
 * You're right, that's a bug in the image. I'll fix it asap. –Mysid<sup style="color:#ffa500;">(t) 14:44, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Fixed. –Mysid<sup style="color:#ffa500;">(t) 06:24, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks! I haven't been online yesterday, that's why I didn't reply :) — Gennaro Prota <sup style="color: #006400">&#8226;Talk 08:17, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

How to write a great article
Sure, I understand what you're saying. You may be interested in my new article "How to satisfy Criterion 2a"; however, it's still under construction. It will contain a number of tutorial-type exercises to assist contributors in improving their writing/editing skills. Tony 12:41, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for looking at it, Gennaro, but it's in a complete mess at the moment. Please don't tell anyone! When I've finished it, I'll ask you whether you have time to provide me with feedback on it. Tony 14:41, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks!
Yay! :D Thank you so much for the barnstar, you made me happy! And for the obscure subject line, too. :-) I'll give it a good place on my userpage. –Mysid<sup style="color:#ffa500;">(t) 15:29, 25 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Great :) Well, you absolutely deserved it. It is, by the way, the first barnstar a give :) — Gennaro Prota <sup style="color: #006400;">&#8226;Talk 15:54, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Tnavbar
Yes, your concerns are valid. Please have a look at Template_talk:Tnavbar for the logic of its inclusion. I believe that there are indeed templates that should not have it added to them... but at the same time I would say that this is true in an exceptional way as opposed to commonly true. There's no consensus on adding Tnavbar to the template you've mentioned but I believe once you peruse the talk page you'll better understand why it's not a bad idea. Netscott 18:30, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Hmm... I don't understand how a person who isn't able to understand from the source code of a page that  transcludes the contents of   can make modifications to the code of xyz. It seems to me like leaving a computer case open so that anyone *who isn't able to open the chassis* but *is able to make hardware modifications* can do that :-/ — Gennaro Prota <sup style="color: #006400">&#8226;Talk  18:40, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Yes, I do understand and indeed your logic has merit. Perhaps this sort of thing has already been discussed and a Wikipedia policy or guideline about it is in place. If not then I would sooner say that just like the rest of Wikipedia nothing should truly be off limits to any particular editor unless there's a particular need for it to be so (ie; some templates are perma-blocked due to the general sensitive position they occupy). If there isn't already a policy in place concerning this then perhaps we should open up an RfC. What do you think? Netscott 18:47, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Ah, I neglected to mention that the other part of the logic for including this template on Nav templates is to allow spontaneity for editors who are not familiar with how Template space works. I believe I have already seen this occur since Tnavbar started being put in place. Netscott 19:06, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Template:Infobox Journal
There have been some problems with the ISSN field in Template:Infobox Journal and I know you have been investigating. One thing that has become clear to me is that ISSN search link can't be used by the infobox directly unless it is limited to only one ISSN number; however, some journals have more than one. Perhaps it would be a better idea not to use it directly in the code for the Infobox, but rather allow editors to use ISSN search link for each individual ISSN number they want to see in a particular use of the infobox? There is no reason to keep ISSN search link as a template used only by other templates: if the fact that it is a link to an ISSN search is sufficiently clear, then its direct usage should be allowed too? TheGrappler 18:34, 27 May 2006 (UTC)


 * I haven't actually done any investigation since I "temporarily" restored the old version. Yes, making the user invoke ISSN search link is a solution. We shouldn't hardcode the ISSN search url though: it is a fundamental principle of computer programming and any kind of code (such as wiki markup or HTML code) that what may change has to be separated from what stays. Consider what happens if the url we are using doesn't work anymore: we simply find another url and change it in one place, i.e. the ISSN search link definition. If you use the url directly instead, not only you would have to replace all occurrences of the url (likely to be several thousands) but you don't even have a reliable way to identify all articles which use it!. You see, the usefulness of ISSN search link is not in its definition but in the fact that it is a level of indirection between the user of the facility and its implementation. — Gennaro Prota <sup style="color: #006400">&#8226;Talk 18:50, 27 May 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree 100%! I suspect that I just didn't explain myself clearly :) Yes, it's far better to encourage people to use ISSN search link and definitely not to subst: or hardcode it! I was merely suggesting that ISSN search link should be used for each ISSN given for a journal in the infobox, rather than trying to tie it into the infobox directly... does that make sense? TheGrappler 18:56, 27 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Yes :) Sorry for the misunderstanding. I'll update the ISSN search link docs to reflect this. I had a look and have much appreciated your clever changes. In particular I find the sentence "This template should only be used directly if it is contextually clear that it provides a link to an ISSN search" particularly elegant and professional. Keep up the good work ;) — Gennaro Prota <sup style="color: #006400">&#8226;Talk 13:01, 28 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Hi, I have updated the docs and the template code. I also went though all the articles using the ISSN parameter and fixed them all. Btw, I noticed that just one out of all the articles listed 4 ISSNs; all the others had just one or two numbers (for print and online edition). However, which one comes first and how they are indicated is up to the invoking code. I would like to enforce formatting for these aspects too. I'll think to a backward compatible solution to cope with this. Oh, it also occurred to me why I wanted to keep ISSN search link "private": I was thinking that MediaWiki should recognize ISSN numbers the same way it does for ISBNs. So, I didn't want the template to be used everywhere: it was, so to speak, a temporary device to be used until MediaWiki kept up. After I have participated to some Bugzilla threads however I've seen that MediaWiki developers are very unresponsive to feature requests, even when they are reasonable, consistent with the existing infrastructure and easy to implement. — Gennaro Prota <sup style="color: #006400">&#8226;Talk 20:04, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Alula wikification
Hi - I notice that you have added the wikify tag to the Alula page - can you let me know what on that page is in need of wikification and I'll sort it out if I can. Thanks SP-KP 17:58, 28 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Yes, I'm in the middle of an enourmous update to all journal articles, as there has been a change which affects invocation syntax of the Infobox Journal template. I must have noticed something, probably minor, while modifying the ISSN line. As soon as I'll finish this I'll be back to you :) — Gennaro Prota <sup style="color: #006400">&#8226;Talk 18:02, 28 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Done. As you may see there was no big deal. I would have fixed it on sight, rather than applying the wikify tag, if I weren't in the middle of the update I told you about. BTW, you might want to keep an eye on both Infobox Journal and Languageicon as they could undergo significant changes in the near future. If the journal has no abbreviated title I would also suggest to remove the parameter altogether, as it takes space in the infobox, or explicitly say "none". Please, let me know if you have doubts or if I made mistakes. — Gennaro Prota <sup style="color: #006400">&#8226;Talk 19:51, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

RfA Notification
Hello! I noticed that you have interacted with User:Griffjam who is currently undergoing an RfA and thought that you might be interested in participating at Requests_for_adminship/griffjam. You have received this message without the endorsement of the candidate involved, and this is not a solicitation of support, it is only an effort to make RfA discussions better (for more information see user:ShortJason/Publicity). Thank you in advance for your participation. ShortJason 21:56, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Signature song
Hi. I've been away on vacation for the past several days, so no I haven't seen what has gone on with the article. I just got back home, so I have a lot to catch up on. When I get a chance, I'll review whatever happened with that article, and then I'll write you again with my comments/thoughts.

Thanks! Mwelch 19:10, 30 May 2006 (UTC)


 * OK, I've had a look now. No, I don't think there's any way to change the way categories work.  Any article in there definitely needs to mention for which artist the song is a signature song, though I'd guess most articles would naturally mention that already.  As for the recent edits, I doubt any were meant as vandalism per se.  At least no more so than the edits that have always been there.  For my part, I leave them alone, whether they be an addition or a deletion, unless I know the edit to be wrong.  If I'm not particular with the song or artist, then I cannot act like the article is my personal property.  So if I don't know, I accept the judgment of the editor who made the change.


 * With regard to the edits over the past few days in particular, I can see a couple that definitely should be reverted and some I don't know one way or another. When I get some more time, I may do a bit of Googling on them to see if a solid judgment can be reached.  Mwelch 03:13, 31 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Yes, your position is reasonable. As you have noticed, anyhow, there are a couple of changes (removals of "Volare" and "La vie en rose" come to mind) which are hardly justifiable. What disturbs me is that despite the comment in the source code and the list of unsuitable examples we have on the talk page anyone is editing without respect. And, well, those comment and talk page list were meant to improve the quality of the article, not to censor additions. About categories, I would like to have a sort of "signature song(s) by artist". BTW, one thing I have wondered for some time now: our article says that an artist may sometimes have more than one signature song; wouldn't this be the case for some entries we have on the talk page, such as Mariah Carey's? How do we discern the difference between having to possible signature song with no clear "winner" and actually having two signature songs? — Gennaro Prota <sup style="color: #006400">&#8226;Talk 11:59, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

People leaving
One of the admins is back but 2 others are still gone. Read Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents for the full story. Thanks Jaranda wat's sup 20:25, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Signature code
Heh, thanks for noticing. I was lazy and didn't bother to look up the hex code. Validating your talk page? Sounds strange. :-) Well, the MediaWiki HTML seems pretty valid, now that I did the same thing. –Mysid<sup style="color:#ffa500;">(t) 13:53, 31 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Yeah, I'm lazy too :) But I validate pretty much anything. It's a sort of professional bias. BTW, it would be great if Wikipedia reached at least Accessibility Level 1. For the hex codes, this is handy: http://www.w3schools.com/html/html_colornames.asp. I would like the software to replace the color names automatically (when saving the page, or even when generating the HTML). But, anyway... I think I'll set a script for this :) — Gennaro Prota <sup style="color: #006400">&#8226;Talk 14:17, 31 May 2006 (UTC)