User talk:Greyengine5/archive

Newest Archived material at the bottom, oldest at the top.

Mediawiki:airlistbox

releases
I can't see any advantage in having "releases" of a standard table. All this could lead to is a further proliferation of different tables on different aircraft pages - i.e. no standard at all. This is why I'll continue to insist on a standard (any standard, even one I may not personally particularly like).

It would be a very different story if wikicode worked like CSS, allowing changes to the table to be made on a system-wide basis, all at once, but it doesn't. This means that every new "release" of the table creates work to go back and revise older tables to bring them in line with the new. I feel that that's time better spent on actual articles. --Rlandmann 02:33, 2 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Table - There's my ideal version of the table - as you can see, just a trimmed back version of what we've got now. Personally, I feel that's all that's needed for a general readership.

Footer - I don't see standardisation as making the footer serve itself - just presenting information in a coherent way and allowing the reader to know what to expect from one article to the other. I think that the categories we've come up with are general enough to fit practically any aircraft well. Rather than keep changing it, I'd like to see us keep what we've got until examples show up that show that it's problematic for some reason. As a matter of priciple, I'd rather not anticipate vague problems. If a specific difficulty can be foreseen, it's a different story of course...

Benchmark - Please by all means go and add - that's why I put it up. In the Wikipedia 1.0 discussions it's even been suggested that all specific aircraft articles be excluded. I am hoping that by the end of 2004 we can have sufficient articles of high quality about famous and significant aircraft so that no-one would even consider that. Right now, it's a real mixed bag, there are very major aircraft that have no coverage at all. In my contributions, I want to use that list as "chores" to add aircraft that are significant even if I'm not personally "into" them (while still contributing articles on my favourites as well...)

Pictures - the only pictures that we can definitely use are those that we've taken ourselves, or which come from a source that explicitly states that they're public domain (like NASA), or which the copyright holder specifically allows Wikipedia to release. Most governments don't own copyright on documents or images, which means that many military aircraft photos from official sites will not be copyright (exceptions include some British government photos, protected by "Crown Copyright" and USAF Museum photos, for some reason). Really old photos, say WWI era, it's pretty safe to assume that if copyright ever existed, it's probably expired. With WWII Luftwaffe subjects, I'm proceeding on the assumption that copyright does not exist (and probably never existed) on photos that belonged to the Nazi government. For some more modern aircraft that I've contributed, I haven't been able to find copyright-free images, so haven't used any.

Advancement - the Wikipedia admonition to "be bold" works well on an individual article level, particularly on an article that no-one else seems to have shown an interest in for some time. On the other hand, on a larger scale, (say a WikiProject) or in areas where other people are currently working, unannounced sweeping changes will tend to provoke resistance. Not to make this too personal, but as a harmless example, your decision to suddenly change the colour of the table when there were (and still are...) already a large number of articles out there with the old colour is something that should probably have been discussed first. We might then also have avoided having pages with colours that not all browsers supported too... (and there are probably plenty of those out there still as well.) I have to admit being immediately curious about the ideas for tables or aircraft goals that you mention. I think that discussion and open-ness is the key here.

Anyway, I've probably exceeded your "novel" by now, so off to actually write something... --Rlandmann 07:41, 3 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Hope I didn't hit you with a lot of edit conflicts on List of masts; I'll stay out of the article now. - Hephaestos|&#167; 01:30, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Greetings. Thanks for all your work on aircraft and on the 1942 mods! About separate pages for those mods: When generating lists of sub-components of a larger topic, like Experience WWII and other mods to Battlefield:1942 -- especially when they will never be linked to outside the context of the larger topic (in this case, the original game) -- try to keep the detailed entries on the same page as the original article.

If at some point you find it's necessary to make separate articles for these mods, please preventatively disambig the titles (e.g., Experience WWII). Notice how most of the blue links in your long table of mods (at Battlefield:1942 mods) link to articles that have nothing to do with the game?

Over and out, +sj+ 07:25, 2004 Apr 1 (UTC)

List of aircraft box
Re: the list of aircraft box that you're adding to a number of aircraft pages now, could you put that in the MediaWiki namespace so that it can be called from (or whatever) instead of just copying and pasting the code into each article? This way it can be easily reused or modified if ever necessary. Appreciate it. R ADICAL B ENDER &#9733;  22:21, 3 Apr 2004 (UTC)


 * If you want to create the box, all you have to do is create this file: MediaWiki:Airlistbox . That puts the content in the MediaWiki namespace and allows you to reuse it everywhere by typing  .  If you need an example to look at, check out Template:Sopranos which I created to use on character pages from the TV show The Sopranos.  Hope this helps!  :) R ADICAL B ENDER  &#9733;  22:40, 3 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Just wanted to say a big thanks and congrats on implementing this box. The more I've looked at it, the more useful it's seemed. At the risk of making this sound like an object lesson, I'll note that the reason this works so well is (as you youself observed) - it's a reflection and standardisation of something already happening "in the field". --Rlandmann 23:16, 4 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I'll happily take a place in the line of congratulants, but I also have a gripe: could you please put in a small comment in the Summary field when inserting the box, so we won't have to check each and every one of the aviation articles on our watchlists just to see exactly what is changed? --Wernher 15:32, 6 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Pre-1920 benchmarks; Aircraft by name
On other subjects - I'll try and get a pre-1920 benchmark list up in the not too distant future. Meanwhile, the list of aircraft by name is moving slowly - the process is something like typing out a small phone book, and about as much fun... :S --Rlandmann 23:16, 4 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Aero Virgin Islands
Hi! Take a look at Aero Virgin Islands.

Thanks and God bless you!

Sincerely yours, Antonio Real High Martin

Aero Engines data box
Look forward to your comments here. --Rlandmann 01:17, 7 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Footer
Responses in RL's talk.User_talk:Greyengine/footer_related_ comments_in_RLtalk User_talk:Greyengine/footer_related_ comments_ofRL_in_my talk

Continuation/second track of a debate on WikiProject_Aircraft/Footer.

Aviation interest
Hi Greye: I see you have great interest in aviation. Same as me, only two other things interest me in this world as much as aviation (not counting God, of course, my supreme love). Those things are sex and boxing.

How did you become interested in aviation? I enjoy reading people's background in aviation, as they remind me of my own. For me, it was on October 10, 1980, day in which I got into a Delta Air Lines Lockheed L-1011 to fly for the first time. Ever since, and until now, it has been a must to go to the airport at LEAST three times a year to catch the birds, and the mpre international airlines my airport has, the better.

I wanted to ask did you want to get involved in posting photos of airliners at wikipedia? I dont have the memory to do so but I have copyrights to about 20 photos of airliners and airports. Arp has been of great help in this regard too.

Thank you and may the Almighty Lord bless you!

Sincerely yours, Antonio Loose Life Martin

List of aircraft
Just a suggestion - it might be useful to distinguish between turbo-props and piston-engined propeller-driven aircraft.... --Rlandmann 04:49, 12 Apr 2004 (UTC)


 * Yes - if and when we ever reach consensus on the footer issue, I'll be able to finish off the List of aircraft by name. List of aircraft should probably eventually become a set of redirects among lists by name, category, nationality, etc. --Rlandmann 08:14, 12 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Just wondering why you have redirected 9-801 to BMW 003 rather than BMW 801 as implied on List of motors of WW2 Luftwaffe Aircraft. Is this a mistake? --Keith Edkins 07:24, 12 Apr 2004 (UTC)
 * Yea, just a mistake.  Greyengine5 20:13, 12 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Modern USAF Aircraft table
I'm concerned about your latest addition to many of the U.S. Air Force pages (1 2 3). I'm concerned first off that the additional information is now drowning out some of these articles. I think there's now too much information in many of these pages; it's too much information to manage (for both editing and viewing). On some pages we now have statistical data on each craft, a section of "General Characteristics" (which is often duplicate information), deployment information worldwide (including wings and home bases), a box with links to lists of aircraft articles and now a table with every aircraft utilized by the U.S. Air Force. It's all just too much. To manage the data better, at best there should just be a link to a page like List of United States Air Force aircraft or something.

Secondly, I'm also concerned that I can't even alter this without altering all of the articles because you just copied and pasted the table to each page.

Please, I'm happy that you're working on the aircraft pages, but can we talk about some of this stuff at WikiProject Aircraft. Some of us have other ideas, too. R ADICAL B ENDER &#9733;  02:37, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)


 * Is just a sub- series so people can know which are the current USAF aircraft and quickly jump between all of them- a niche between the current footer and the more general footer-box which has the general link you speak of. As the articles grow I suspect the drowning out issue will become less of problem. Aircraft articles in general though are usually pretty 'drenched', i.e. []. In the future I suspect short articles for a main type followed by links to subtypes containing this more in-depth information, with smaller type not needing either at least somewhat fixing the problem.  Greyengine5 03:00, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Since you know that your adding such tables is contentious, I'll ask you to stop adding large new footers until the outcome of the mediation is known, and to remove the "Current USAF" footers that you've already contributed, until and unless the mediation process comes down favouring your approach. --Rlandmann 03:30, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)

(archive note: Rlandmann has sine recanted this postion )

Hi

I have made a suggestion for a revision to the aircraft table at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Aircraft/Table Bobblewik 19:47, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Can you clarify what you mean by 'exact table coding' and the '5-segment system'? I have seen two methods out there, one with | characters and one with etc. I have used both.

I like tables to be decluttered and it seemed a bit weird to repeat the same symbol in each cell. I am happy to discuss this. Bobblewik 16:41, 7 Apr 2004 (UTC)

The fixed width thing must have been in the code that I copied (possibly from the standard aircraft table because I think it is an acceptable template). I don't necessarily know what all the code does. I would not have made an active decision to fix width if the default unfixed width works fine. I know that people have different size windows and I myself often change window sizes on my own screen. I am only just learning what various elements of the code does.

I can't commit myself to being restricted to unit conversions and I don't necessarily agree that tables need lines for cutting and pasting unless I misunderstand what you are trying to do. If I go to a page using the standard aircraft table and cut and paste details into excel, they go into cells correctly. However, I note your comments and it is clear that you don't like what I am doing. I don't want to do something that is unwelcome. So I will try to work around the things that you have mentioned. Feel free to draw my attention to it if you see something of this ilk (or anything else) again. Thanks for the feedback. Bobblewik 11:31, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I actually thought the alternating grey and white background was a better solution than grid lines (which have a higher cost in terms of clutter). I also agree with you that the best number of rows for treatment of lines or background shading is subjective. My own opinion on this is that an interval of up to 3 rows can be handled quite easily by the eye because a row is either adjacent or uniquely not adjacent to a grid line or background transition. I prefer no grid lines but initially chose an interval of 10 rows but then went back to a 5 row interval arbitarily.

The width=x% was definitely inherited from the standard aircraft table code and so if it works in this case without it, then I am glad that you removed it.

As far as stripping unit symbols off numbers is concerned, it is not something that I seek out. It was just in the particular long list we are discussing, I noticed the long line of repeated symbols. They seemed to me to be redundant and it had not occured to me that somebody might want them to be there. Presumably on short lists the issue is not so important for you or me either way. In any case, I will try to remember that you would prefer me not to remove the units if they are already present and I hope I will respond in a way that is acceptable to you. Feel free to give more feedback on any of my contributions, I learn from challenges (and by challenging others). Bobblewik 10:45, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)

USAF Footers
To me, this is part of the same issue - which is why I stated the grounds for dispute on the footer dispute page as "The current dispute is over how more specialised footers can be implemented in WikiProject Aircraft". I've always framed this argument in terms of broader implictions for the project, whereas (from my perspective) you've seemed to focus just on individual pages that form part of that project - or perhaps more specifially, on the work of one particular contributor to the project.

When someone like Radical Bender weighs in independently giving you the same kinds of messages that you've been hearing about other large footers on the dispute page, that should tell you something. No doubt you're aware of the alternative that I'm suggesting - I've implemented it with normal wiki table code on the Attack and Bomber aircraft pages as an example of how it would look - I'm not rolling it out more broadly than that yet pending further comment from the community. Whatever your feelings towards me, I still welcome any comment you might want to add.

Whether you like it or not, whilst both of us are still working in similar areas of wikipedia, we are going to keep running into each other. There have been plenty of times I've wished you would just go away and keep working on towers or something, and I'm sure that you've wished similar of me on occasion. But the fact is that we're pretty much stuck here in the same boat, so we need to have some sort of communication to avoid exactly the kind of misunderstanding that has occurred here. Having read some of your recent comments, I've come to understand that your implementation of your new USAF footer was not through any attempt to subvert the mediation process, so I apologise to you for saying that it was. I hope that you can stand back enough from your work to see how it might have looked from my perspective and why I might have drawn that conclusion.

"Character issues" "personal attacks" etc - I have never attacked you as a person (as tempting as it has sometimes been) - only ever questioned your level of experience when developing standards for others to follow. I've never set out to insult or offend you, but have always preferred (and will always prefer) to talk frankly. I've always tried to offset telling you what I don't like about your contributions with remembering to tell you what I do like about them. Finally, of course I'll express myself differently when going toe-to-toe with you one-on-one and when negotiating differences in a setting where others are also involved. That's true of practically all human interactions. The way that you disagree one-on-one with a guy at work is obviously going to be different from the way you disagree with him at a staff meeting. I suggest that you stop looking for grounds for offence...

I won't touch the "Fikri's footer" pages until the agreed week is up, but thank you for letting go of an issue that was evidently very important to you. Since you're better than me at formatting such things, I hope that you'll put the appropriate finishing touches to whichever lists need to be created to support the final series footer (probably list of civil aircraft of the Soviet Union and the CIS and list of civil transport aircraft of the Soviet Union and the CIS I'm guessing).

Seems to me that the idea of specialised footers for sub-groups is pretty uncontentious - and I'm very enthusiastic about them myself. The concern that I (and others) have voiced is based on (a) the size of such footers and (b) the relevance of material contained in them.

In a perfect world, I'd even agree that your USAF footer was a great idea - if the wikicode supported a function that allowed users to expand or collapse sets of navigational links to their liking. Unfortunately, that's not the wiki that we have (yet) --Rlandmann 01:19, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)

USAF Footer
Given that the inventories of air forces don't change that often, there isn't a maintenance issue at all with the shorter footers - and, in fact, with the USAF, they're already ready and could be very quickly implemented. I've reverted your changes on the Attack and Bomber planes - please wait for community comment before reverting these.

Simply put, there is no way that you could neatly add links to that many aircraft in a single footer. Nor (in my opinion) is there any need to.

How is a small box less efficient space-wise than a large box?

Given how contentious the whole footer issue is, I strongly suggest community consultation before rolling out your "other plans". I'll remind you again how smoothly the "standard footer" rolled out - a product of community input before implementation.

To tell the truth, I much prefer contributing articles to getting involved in issues like these, but when I disagree so strongly with your approach at times, (and when, say, my version of the footer has as much "right" to be on the A-10 Thunderbolt II page as yours does), I prefer to actually do something rather than just ignore things that I think are Bad Ideas.

I'm disappointed that you were so quick to defend Fikri's development of the standard footer, but so quick to simply revert my development of the USAF footer. Develop doesn't always mean "expand"...

Finally, if you look under "units" on the main WPA page, you'll note the recommendation to use imperial-first tables only on US and UK aircraft, and metric tables elsewhere. This is actually the practice seen on most pages since the current version of the table has been available - it's what's happening "in the field". Cheers --Rlandmann 21:58, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)


 * In case it helps you see where I'm coming from - my "dream" version of a current USAF footer would display (say in the case of the A-10) other current attack aircraft but with one click, the reader could drop down the complete list arranged in categories. Like I said, sadly, the code won't currently support this. In a perfect world, what would you put there? --Rlandmann 23:35, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)

USAF Footers
Well, at least we're on the same wavelength in an ideal world. In reality, I can't help but feel that it's futile trying to cram that many links into that small a space. I find draft4 the hardest one to read yet - and it's definitely the most compact one you've produced. Anyway - I'd love to be proven wrong on this...

Could you please stop redirecting the List of current USAF aircraft until we have some community feedback on the two approaches? If your way of doing things ultimately proves more popular, then yes, this list will be almost completely superfluous and I'd have no problem with it being redirected or deleted. Would you like to set up a discussion page under WikiProject Aircraft and invite some comment from the community? I'd do it, but since this one's your baby, I thought you might like to. --Rlandmann 03:34, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Moved from front page.

Here is a usaf aircraft series I worked on. In the future there may be army and navy available via a tab, and a way of going to older planes in the expanded tabs, and more unique pages for variants. They are also all mediawikied.

drafts

Here's the one for bombers.

Numerous Individual Tables vs MediaWiki
Please use MediaWiki custom messages to broadcast table-links across related articles rather than individual table-links for each article. I've created a new MediaWiki custom message at: Template:Active_military_aircraft_of_the_United_States and used it to replace your table at list of military aircraft of the_United_States. Please edit or otherwise incorporate your own work into the mediawiki message...one other suggestion though...please do not list variations of the same model aircraft like the C-130 and the C-135...just list it once and let the main article lead people to the variations. Aren't military aircraft just cool?! Happy Friday! B 18:59, Apr 16, 2004 (UTC)

One of the primary reasons for my suggestion to use mediawiki to broadcast table-links is because other wikipedians (including me) will want to modify your table-links, and it will be too burdensome/cumbersome to go back over hundreds of individual table-links even to make a minor edit. I like the table-link idea you have been working on, but its presentation needs to be more amenable to a collaborative process. Regards, -B 19:33, Apr 16, 2004 (UTC)


 * I will make the general one into a mediawiki then. I had not since there was some criticism of it being too large and I did not thing ppl would want to use it.  The more page specific ones gets modified a lot for a page, so I have not mediawikied those yet.


 * After my earlier comment, why are you still working on table-lists for individual articles? Please see WikiProject_Aircraft. B 22:13, Apr 16, 2004 (UTC)


 * Becasue they are going to be media-wiki'd. I was going to wait, but I will mediawiki them right now. Greyengine5 23:53, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC)

USAF Footer
Since one of the points of contention over the implementation of your version of the footer is its size, adding it as well as my alternative version is counter-productive. Please leave the Attack and Bomber aircraft footers with my smaller version to provide more immediate comparison - ie "look at F-16 Fighting Falcon to see what these pages would look like with the large footer, and A-10 Thunderbolt II to see what they would look like with the small one".

Thanks for not only not reverting list of current USAF aircraft but for considerably beautifying it as well --Rlandmann 21:12, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC)


 * OK - well I propose a compromise - leave the short footer (without the big footer) on just a single page (one that also features a "standard footer" - you pick which one, doesn't necessarily have to be an attack or bomber aircraft - choose something obscure if you like) and get rid of it on all the others. --Rlandmann 21:43, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC)

On vandalism
Hi, if you mean can I say which user name that IP belongs to, then no. Administrators don't have access to that sort of information. Only developers do. However, in cases like this, it probably isn't anyone who has logged in and got a username yet. It's likely just an anonymous user. All I can tell you is that was someone with the IP 63.229.215.152, which belongs to US West Internet Services and resolves to 63-229-215-152.mpls.qwest.net. (The IP is available in the page history, and the other information can be found by typing that into network-tools.com). Don't worry too much about it. There is often vandalism from IPs like this but it gets reverted very quickly. If you see any more, you can list it at vandalism in progress. Angela. 06:14, Apr 17, 2004 (UTC)

Glitch in list displays
Hi Greyengine. There's a glitch on List of years in aviation which I would fix but I'm not fully sure what is intended. Look at 1945, for instance, but don't click. Beside the date, it records a B-25 Mitchell bomber crashing into the Empire State Building, but does not mention Vampires becoming the first jets to cross the Atlantic. CLICK on 1945 and it is the other way round -- mentions Vampires but not the Mitchell crash. Cheers Moriori 00:34, Apr 24, 2004 (UTC)


 * Yea its just a updating problem- the info is not all synchronized between the year's listing on the main page and its own page. I'll fix it now though Greyengine5 00:44, 24 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Henri Coandă
You changed "the world's first jet plane" to "the world's first thermojet aircraft." Was there an earlier jet plane? If not, this should become "the world's first jet plane, a thermojet aircraft," or it really diminishes the accomplishment. Please reply either on my talk page or on Henri Coandă. -- Jmabel 19:29, 25 Apr 2004 (UTC)

WikiProject Weaponry
I just made a comment at WikiProject Weaponry, of which you seem to be the only current member. Securiger 01:28, 29 Apr 2004 (UTC)

List of Aircraft
Re: List of aircraft there seem to be vast numbers of duplicates in it at the moment. I'm occasionally tidying up a letter when I create a new article that fits, but do we need the various mark numbers and comments about RNZAF etc? I don't believe these have been consistently noted so they're just cluttering it up. --Keith Edkins 12:16, 29 Apr 2004 (UTC)


 * Oh goodness yes the duplicates need to be cleaned up. Just leftovers from when I assembled them. I had done it for some when with idea air-forces that use a particular plane could list it next to them, but either way the doubles would go. It hasn't really worked out though, espcially since its not even uniformly done. Ill try and get some more of those cleaned up. Greyengine5 15:33, 29 Apr 2004 (UTC)
 * One more thing- having the AF next to some designations (after its reduced to one entry) might still be handy since its the only way to know which designation system is being used for some. This might not matter though, so I guess Im not really sure whats best. Greyengine5 16:11, 29 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I think having something for non technical related avaiation pages would be great. Perhaps something like the "history of country X Series" boxes? And something for rocketry would be good too. I myself put up most of the space shuttle mission outlines and Im now working on adding astronaut bios to get rid of the red links on those outlines. Perhaps for aviation it could be split into technical (for example jet engine) and nontechnical (like aviation history)Theon 17:33, Apr 30, 2004 (UTC)


 * Also, what do you think of integrating Incidents in Aviation into the Aviation History article?Theon 17:44, Apr 30, 2004 (UTC)

Old Empty Tables
I notice that over the last month or so you have been deleting certain versions of the standard table and reducing them to simply a picture. Why are you doing this? I feel it is not helpful at all. If you are going to alter things, then it would be better to put in the standard table, rather than just delete most of it. David Newton 10:00, 5 May 2004 (UTC)


 * When its empty and uses the old table code, it serves no purpose other then to add clutter and make the page ugly. Most of the time the stats aren't available on the page either. It is helpfull to remove them, as the correct standard table code can be added if somone wants to fill these in, even partially. Iv been doing this for more then a month, and will continue do so when I come across them. Note that I have also have updated many pages to full standard table look, and have done a 1-2 tables as well. However, totally empty non-standard tables have no place on these pages. Greyengine5 14:27, 5 May 2004 (UTC)


 * Then substitute the standard table!! If you're going to go to the effort of deleting things, why not spend five more seconds cutting and pasting in the standard table. David Newton 14:50, 5 May 2004 (UTC)

I am editing List of motors of WW2 Luftwaffe Aircraft to include additional engines, as well as use common names instead of RLM designations. I should be done tommorrow (tonight is a pub night). I will be starting a series on the DB engines this week(end?).

Maury 12:28, 18 May 2004 (UTC)

Battlefield: 1942 Mods
I have some concerns over the List_of_Battlefield_1942_mods page. Please read my post in the discussion. Paitum 15:05, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Television towers
You have recently created a number of short stubs about varous communications towers, such as Fernsehturm Dresden-Wachwitz. Would not be "Dresden-Wachwitz television tower" a better name? Naming conventions (use English). Also I am not sure whether these articles really have a potential to grow, but I am not an expert in this area. Maybe it is better to merge them to one article, such as "Communications towers of Germany"? Brona 23:06, 17 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Order and parentheses
Hi,

I notice that you edited Shillong but put the existing metric units secondary to the non-metric units that you added. I have been chastised when I did that and so I stopped. Did you find a source for the non-metric units or were they just calculated? It is not a big issue, but I am curious since I got a hard time for doing it. Bobblewik 19:05, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for your response. Points noted. Bobblewik 08:36, 22 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Directed Energy Weapons
There was an AP Newswire article recently on Directed Energy Weapons. I pasted it into the Talk page for the article. It didn't quite fit in with the rest of it with a simple edit. Since you wrote the original article I thought I would draw it to your attention. --jaymin 03:13, 2 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Rock the vote
A vote has been initiated on the standard template for computer and video games. As a member of the WikiProject Computer and Video Games, you are being solicited for input into the proposed template. Please cast your vote any make any comments at Rock the vote! As the hallowed initiator of this project, I thought you'd like to know. :-) Thank you!  &mdash; Frecklefoot | Talk 14:22, Aug 6, 2004 (UTC)

Aermacchi AM-3C
Yep, I originally had the article at AM-3C, but rlandmann changed it to AM-3 later on. Tell me, how do you move articles like that without modifying the contents? Impi 19:57, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Hehe, I feel rather stupid now. I've looked at that Move button dozens of times. :-P Thanks, Impi 20:07, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Halo vechicles
Hi - I recently made some rather large additions to the Halo page, adding the backstory and weapons information. I think the various vechicle pages should be consolidated into a single page on Halo: Vechicles, in order that their characteristics can be more easily compared. Do you think this is a good idea? User:EastNile

V1 --> V-1
Hello, see the reply on my talk page (I like to keep Q&A threads in one place). --Wernher 23:50, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * Ooops. Sorrysorrysorry. I don't know what might have been happening in my 'top floor' at the instant I did that -- i.e. neither do I know what I'm doing at all times. I seem to remember that when checking the history of my talk page I found your name at the relevant edit. A mistake on my part, no doubt. Oh well, hope we're still wikifriends. I know I appreciate all your contributions in the aerospace domains, which is one of my great interests as well (and job, for that matter). And thanks for supporting me on the V-1 vs V1 issue. --Wernher 01:41, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC)

(response on his page)

WikiProject Aircraft
1. Text vs table. Discussion over which approach is best has taken place over the course of nearly a month, with support for specifications in text form emerging as the clear favourite. It makes no sense to persist in promoting a dead format, when everyone who cares enough about the issue to have made a comment wants to move away from that format.
 * I like the text format. This comment demonstrates your inability to understand what I said in the forum.

2. General information about units is of too broad a nature to belong on a WikiProject page. It is useful to people working on this project, so a link is helpful, but cluttering up the main page is not.
 * Its so usefull its not clutter.

3. The mediawiki information is obsolete - this has been replaced by the Templates. In any case, its admonition about not pasting huge chunks of duplicate material on large number of pages was levelled at you - the only project participant to have done this (first with your initial version of the airlistbox, until someone explained Mediawiki to you) and then with various incarnations of your USAF footer. This is no more relevant to WikiProject Aircraft than a paragraph explaining how to make a wiki link.
 * Its not 'obsolete', as mediawiki is still used for some things categories cannot yet do. As for posting things to pages, thats what people are supposed to do on the wiki - improve it.

4. The project is currently using the external web-board for discussion. Pasting archived discussion on the talk page is only going to confuse matters by suggesting that discussion is currently going on in both places, when it's not.
 * Its not 'past archived' it was the most recent discussion leading up to the forum. The idea was to leave the most recent talk there for a couple months until actually was 'past'. I'll cut it back further as a compromise.

Please stop trying to fulfil your own personal agendas, and try to gauge which way the Project is heading. No-one but you has expressed any problem with the updated Project page. --Rlandmann 02:53, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC)
 * My 'personal' agenda here is executing the goals of the of the project, and the only 'problems' are reasonable concerns-the same as everbody else. Greyengine5 07:37, 2004 Aug 15 (UTC)

Full spec
(This section a transcript from rl's talk page, of a joint discussion)


 * Good catch on the full spec table. Seemed like reasonble way to preserve the data, didn't know were not supposed to use those. I think if you stick reasonable objections like this, we might just have chance at cooperating again (Such as on the jetcruzer, which has turned out well). I know we'v had our differences, but I suppose I must congratulate you on your fantastic work on categories. Greyengine5 04:07, 2004 Aug 17 (UTC)
 * You left the archiving stuff on the project page but put the pages that did on delete? If you think its ok to leave that then we shouldn't delete other pages, obviously. If your were waiting to ask me about removing it, feel free to do so unless you think it actually is ok and did the deletes for some other reason. Perhaps there's another way to preserve the tables (on the talk perhaps?) to avoid subpages. Greyengine5 04:21, 2004 Aug 17 (UTC)
 * Ah ok you took care of it. I think Ill stick a reference to putting it on the talk page just for archiving's sake. Greyengine5 04:27, 2004 Aug 17 (UTC)

Archiving obsolete tables

 * You left the archiving stuff on the project page but put the pages that did on delete?

It's not usual to delete links to a page pending deletion until it's actually deleted. I would have been very surprised if those pages had survived the VfD process, but now that even you are no longer advocating keeping them, that chance is approximately zero and I've removed the links.

Can I ask you why exactly you're so adamant about keeping the (obsolete and misleading) "Mediawiki" advice in the guidelines? It really had no place on the project page in the first place, and was only placed there in reaction to your activities (I seem to recall the user who placed it there placing a similar message directly on your user talk page). No other WikiProject Aircraft participant has been involved in pasting large amounts of identical text around Wikipedia, and don't seem to need to be warned not to do it.

In any case, since there's now a direct link to the Style and How-to Directory, and since that document contains accurate information about implementing reusable text (as well as lots of other potentially useful stuff), there really is no reason that I can see why it should be left here.

What other random pieces of advice do you think belong on the page? "Don't run with scissors" maybe? ;) --Rlandmann 04:41, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Where tables have been replaced by text specifications, they are already archived in the history of the article. What's the need to place them somewhere else as well? --Rlandmann 04:43, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * I can't imagine you having a problem with pasting text everywhere as thats what you do as well with categories, the airbox, etc.- and I mean in the sense thats part of improving the wiki and something I agree with. If it was a mistake, then its one your guilty of to.
 * Mediawiki is quite usefull and should at least have a reference, the incorrect advice should of course be removed. Greyengine5 04:55, 2004 Aug 17 (UTC)


 * I forgot- as for the archiving its just to make it easier to see. It will just be buried under potentially hundreds of edits and lost to wikihistory. Its not to important either way, but I think its pretty reasonable to leave them there. Greyengine5 05:09, 2004 Aug 17 (UTC)


 * It's not text per se that was the problem - it was the masses of identical text that you (and only you) were adding to a large number of articles. The biggest problem with this is of course that if that text needed updating, then it would have to be individually changed on hundreds of pages. Plus, of course, it was tables that you were pasting everywhere, which by their very nature look messy to anyone editing the pages.


 * 1. Since the advice was only specific to one participant in the project (you - although it wouldn't matter if it were me, or any other one person), it really isn't relevant here. There are lots and lots of handy hints and tips about editing pages in Wikipedia, but unless they're specifically or especially useful to WikiProject Aircraft, WikiProject Aircraft really doesn't need to devote "airtime" (ahem) to them.


 * 2. Reusable text is no longer implemented through Mediawiki - it's done through Templates.


 * 3. The only use that reusable text has ever seen in WikiProject aircraft is in implementing "horizontal" navigation, a function that is now provided by Categories. In time (a long time from now), I fully expect that we will be able to replace the links in the airlistbox with links to Categories (when we have many more articles than we do now).


 * So I ask you: why is the "Mediawiki" advice specifically and particularly relevant to WikiProject Aircraft? --Rlandmann 05:13, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * I forgot- as for the archiving its just to make it easier to see. Greyengine5 05:09, 2004 Aug 17 (UTC)


 * But why? Why should these be made any easier to see than any other replaced text in an article? --Rlandmann 05:16, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * The messages were different in one instance and in the other mediawiki was unkown to me ( but you know this, -no?). Many people have used mediawiki, including yourself so its is relevant. However, what does make it not relevant is the that mediawiki is now supplanted by templates- somthing you should have mentioned sooner. Certainly, get rid of it then!
 * Why? Why not? Because the data table was a concentration of work and info different from regular text, thats more important then other edits. Having that fade away under under hundreds of edits would be a shame. Greyengine5 05:27, 2004 Aug 17 (UTC)

Mediawiki
The messages were different in one instance and in the other mediawiki was unkown to me ( but you know this, -no?). Many people have used mediawiki, including yourself so its is relevant. However, what does make it not relevant is the that mediawiki is now supplanted by templates- somthing you should have mentioned sooner. Certainly, get rid of it then!


 * OK - that was my mistake - I had just assumed that you knew about Templates and couldn't work out why you were persisting in talking about Mediawiki. My bad.

Why? Why not? Because the data table was a concentration of work and info different from regular text, thats more important then other edits. Having that fade away under under hundreds of edits would be a shame.


 * I disagree - the table is dead, gone, and now that I see what a fine job Eric did on the text specifications, I say "good riddance to it". We both put a lot of work into that table (as did many other people), but now that it's been supplanted by something superior, "fading away" is the best fate for it... But let's see what the broader community thinks. --Rlandmann 05:34, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * It already is the broader communities decsion. It said 'if you want to' for a reason there and whether people actually thought it was worth doing would determine what happened. Its not about reviving a dead standard- heck I would have liked to have seen the new standard much sooner. Greyengine5 05:59, 2004 Aug 17 (UTC)

Ok since we both agree we need to see what broader community thinks, I added a message on the page to show that. If thats out of the way now, I was wondering if you wanted to put together a benchmark for conversion to the new standard. I had been gearing up to do a mass conversion (which is why why had been working on the old standard archiving ideas) and think some sort of benchmark would be usefull for coordinating those activities. Greyengine5

Archiving tables

 * It already is the broader communities decsion. It said 'if you want to' for a reason there and whether people actually thought it was worth doing would determine what happened. Its not about reviving a dead standard- heck I would have liked to have seen the new standard much sooner. Greyengine5 05:59, 2004 Aug 17 (UTC)

You appear to have misunderstood me. The "broader community" I referred to is the Wikipedia community at large, in their participation on VfD.

"If you want to" communicates to people that the tables are somehow an endorsed alternative standard. We're having (and going to have) enough people waste their time and energy laboriously hand-coding data tables based on what they've copied from old articles. The less visibility the better now. --Rlandmann 06:53, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * Ok since we both agree we need to see what broader community thinks, I added a message on the page to show that.

Even if that were the case, you don't go taking pages off VfD - you simply add new comments to reflect your updated opinion (many people use the strikethrough to mark old comments that they don't hold to any more).


 * If thats out of the way now, I was wondering if you wanted to put together a benchmark for conversion to the new standard. I had been gearing up to do a mass conversion (which is why why had been working on the old standard archiving ideas) and think some sort of benchmark would be usefull for coordinating those activities. Greyengine5

I would tentatively welcome such a joint effort. One way to approach it might be to pick a group of aircraft (for example, aircraft on the RLM list) and each of us go through the list from an opposite direction, replacing whatever tables we find along the way until we meet in the middle?

I say "tentatively" because I have my doubts about how rigorously you will apply the new standard. For example, when a contributor has modified one of the old tables to include extra data that was never part of the standard, I wonder whether you'll follow the new standard (and move any extra information into the body of the text) or whether you'll start creating new variant tables. Let me know where you stand - I'd welcome the chance to work with you instead of against you. --Rlandmann 06:53, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * Bah, do what you want - I'm tired of you arguing like this. I thought you might have changed and not be so difficult to deal with in a serious debate. I too would welcome the chance to work with you instead of against you (as we have in the past), but its probaly better if we keep our distance, at least for now.  Greyengine5 07:40, 2004 Aug 17 (UTC)

Teamwork
Yep - thanks for the catch on Aero Commander. I always knew the aircraft as the Rockwell Aero Commander, never knew it had a longer history until this morning.

Observation - we work together well on articles. We work together very very poorly in broad policy matters. --Rlandmann 22:44, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)
 * Yea that probably sums it up. ;) Greyengine5 22:45, 2004 Aug 18 (UTC)