User talk:Lightmouse/Archives/2007/June

Minor edits
I'm not certain if I'm the first to address this, but you may want to turn off the option that lists all of your edits as minor by default. I am guessing that you have this feature on because of a quick glance at your history, but correct me if I'm wrong. You recently posted to the WP:FILM talk page with an edit of +6,331 bytes, which is, to put it lightly, the opposite of minor. :) I personally like having the feature turned off so that I can review my edit for size as well as for possible consensus issues and make the choice myself whether or not it's minor, without having to remember to uncheck the "This is a minor edit" box.  If you aren't aware of how to turn off the automatic minor mark-up, just go into My Preferences (next to My Watchlist), click on the Editing tab, and then uncheck the box next to "Mark all edits minor by default."  I don't intend to sound pushy or rude, but I know it would greatly help the rest of us out in picking out the minor from the non-minor, especially since you are seemingly making quite a few changes.  Thanks for the consideration.  María ( habla  con migo ) 19:38, 30 May 2007 (UTC)


 * To put it succinctly: Help:Minor edit. --Jtir 20:02, 30 May 2007 (UTC)


 * You aren't the first to address it. And I don't think you are pushy or rude at all. Your comment sounds very polite. I left the option off because I did not want to offend anyone. To be honest, I think all my edits are minor but others claim that even small edits are major. I assumed that if I left it off I was safe. But user:Greswik asked me to turn it on (see above). So I did as he asked, but told him I was worried about complaints. Lo and behold, people are complaining. Off, On, Off, I really don't care. Will turning it off allow me to stop thinking about it? Will it stop people accusing me of using the setting for bad faith reasons? Sorry for the rant but I wish this option did not exist and I am somewhat frustrated with it.. Read what user:Greswik says above plus the complaints about the setting by Chrisch and Petri Krohn. Then let me know if you still think I should turn it off. I will do whatever you decide and no doubt somebody else will tell me that is wrong. Which is the 'Does not care' option? Begins to lose sense of fun... Sigh.... Lightmouse 20:17, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
 * FYI, SmackBot, which does year delinking, flags its edits as minor. Personally, I almost never use the minor flag and don't find it particularly helpful.
 * When to mark an edit as minor has more and citing it might spare you some whipsawing.
 * BTW, there are few secrets in the glass house. --Jtir 11:08, 31 May 2007 (UTC)


 * At your suggestion, I have turned the default off. No secrets, account access denied by forgotten password. Thanks for the 'whipsaw' link, I did not know there was a word for it. Lightmouse 11:52, 31 May 2007 (UTC)


 * OK. Glad you like the link — it's a great word and a bad feeling. There were clearly unfounded suggestions of sockpuppetry at WP:ANI, so it might help to put something on your user page saying that you used to edit as Editore99 but forgot the password. I have seen other editors do something similar. I must compliment you on your programming style. A link on your user page to User:Lightmouse/monobook.js would inform interested editors of the power of JavaScript and regular expressions and probably quell suspicions about your speedy editing process. (AFAICT, only the owner of the monobook.js page can edit it, all others can "view source".) BTW, I use WP:POPUPS. --Jtir 16:21, 31 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I have done as you suggest on the user page. Take a look. Thanks for the compliment on my programming. I stole most of it and would be happy for others to steal from me. I looked at popups but they did not do anything for me. Lightmouse 18:08, 31 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Ah, you _had_ been here before. It was what I suspected. About that minor edit thing: you can, as I said, change it in the indiviual edit. When I suggested you should use it as a default, I assumed you would stop for the two seconds to remove it on the bigger edits. But as you forget to do that in the ones you not make a minor edit, you cannot use it as a default- I'm totally with you there, so by all means: leave it as it is for now. Also, I say you have a higher success-rate than 51 %. ;-) And that's good. Cause a success rate that low would have been disastrous for the project: It's not a race you know. Someone should write an essay about that one day :-) Greswik 19:37, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm glad there was no offense taken, and that it all worked out in the end. My suggestion was built upon by my own lesson learned by laziness; I always forget to uncheck the stupid little box, and so it's much easier for me, personally, to have it unchecked. Then, of course, I always forget to check it for real minor edits, but I suppose there's no magic answer after all. :) Take care!    María ( habla  con migo ) 20:17, 31 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks. I had just now thought some more about this. I was just writing about it now and you got in first. I think there is something interesting about your (María) complaint.


 * The impression that I get from Help:Minor edit is that is aimed at protecting the main article space. If I understand it correctly, people want to check non-minor changes and ignore formatting or typo correction. María's complaint was that I made an edit in the talk space and that was not formatting or typos. Firstly the issue of protection of the encyclopedic content does not apply to talk space. Secondly, the talk space is for ... talk... not formatting. So any contribution to the talk space is likely to be non-minor. The setting does not (or should not) matter for edits in the talk space.


 * So I could claim that is because I have not made any changes to *article* body text. My whole focus is merely formatting/typos/layout and discussion on the talk pages. However, I am just as likely to 'forget' about it because I don't care about it. It seems that the not caring is no longer an option so I will have to watch out. Even if I do care, I am also likely to forget. As I say on my user page, my error rate is indeed between 51% and 100%.


 * With it off, I am back where I started. I think 'off' is the safest, as you suggest.


 * The other complaints were not about the byte count. They were more philosophical i.e. "I don't like what you did so it is major to me". I think it is a defect in the guidance that it does not say why the option exists, perhaps that could be addressed. Lightmouse 20:25, 31 May 2007 (UTC)


 * You can comment at Help talk:Minor edit. Thanks for adding the informative user page. (Editore99 is not linked, and you can give yourself permission to edit User:Editore99.)--Jtir 17:51, 1 June 2007 (UTC)


 * I see at Help talk:Minor edit that somebody raised the same issue 2 months ago. I said that I would add some text but now I see This is a copy of the master help page at Meta. Do not edit this copy.. I do not want to get involved in meta-wiki so it looks like the end of it for me. I linked the user name. Is there any benefit in reviving old accounts? Lightmouse 09:54, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
 * I didn't see that caution — how inconvenient. If you feel that someone might have a question about an edit done as Editore99, a link there might help them. --Jtir 18:59, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Please do not do this
In Terry Wogan, you unlinked dates like this one: July 1776. Do not do this. There is nothing in the MoS saying you shouldn't have these linked. See here. The talk page has a GA review where the reviewer specifically said that they should be linked. You really should read the talk page before making major edits like that, that have a high chance of making some people angry at you. I will be relinking all of the dates, manually, since, because of recent edits, I can't revert it. -- Psych less Type  words! 17:09, 2 June 2007 (UTC)


 * I do not understand. Can you explain where you saw the date July 1776 on Terry Wogan? Lightmouse 18:20, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Seems like the date was in fact July 1969. -- Petri Krohn 00:12, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Piped years
Is there a good reason why you delink piped links to years in (some topic)? You apparently decided here that 1982 in film is a bad page to link to from Blade Runner. It does seem a decent link, though; perhaps you should cite something other than WP:CONTEXT if you want to remove links like this one. Kusma (talk) 12:46, 30 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Yes there is a good reason. Hiding links behind routine terms does not help the reader at all. I do not think anyone believes that readers hover over or click all mundane year links to reveal what is hidden. As far as the reader is concerned, it is just another out of context link to a year.


 * That is why the people over at the music project say:
 * Do not use piped links to "years in music" e.g.  1991 , instead add (see 1991 in music) where you feel it is appropriate.


 * That suggestion makes sense more generally than just for music. Perhaps it would be worth raising it in the film project.
 * I hope that explains it. Lightmouse 13:04, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
 * That would make more sense than removing the link, then. Kusma (talk) 18:53, 30 May 2007 (UTC)


 * See Wikiproject Films. I discovered that they discussed this very issue before, so I took the liberty of quoting it. Feel free to join the debate there. Regards Lightmouse 19:08, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

All I can say is please stop!¨. -- Petri Krohn 13:38, 30 May 2007 (UTC)


 * It seems it's not just me that Lightmouse has aggravated by removing wikilink dates. You have been citing WP:CONTEXT as the reason for doing so.  Please note that a) WP:CONTEXTis a guideline and not policy and b) WP:CONTEXT does not support the reasons you are giving."Stand alone months and days of the week should generally not be linked. Stand alone years do not need to be linked but some users prefer it, and some users prefer to link (with a piped link) to articles formatted as 'year in subject' such as 1441 in art, 1982 in film, and 18th century in United States history."
 * So yes, go ahead and remove isolated days of the week or months of the year - but please don't remove wikilinked years. Someone has added them for a reason - quite often to allow the reader to quickly view the context of something in its time. Or if you prefer, help to improve the article by changing the simple date wikilink to a piped link. It looks like you're fairly new here - don't assume that everyone uses Wikipedia in the same way that you do. DrFrench 12:20, 5 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks for raising this here. It would be interesting for the debate if you could quote an article that you have in mind.


 * There are several reasons why editors add links. Some editors give reasons such as 'because you are supposed to', 'I thought it was policy', 'it is something to do with preferences', and 'I do it because other dates are linked'. Look at Featured Articles and the review process. The removal of year frequently happens before something gets Featured Article status. Since this is a general policy issue, feel free to raise this issue at WP:MOSNUM where others can join the debate. Lightmouse 13:38, 5 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Well, if you hadn't started to de-wikify teh dates on scores of articles, you might have known what I was referring to. Two articles which just happened to be on my watchlist were Irish Rebellion of 1798 and Durham Tees Valley Airport.  In the former, wikilnks to dates may be useful to some readers (remember none of us were alive then) to put those events into the contect of their time - what else was going on in the world?  In the latter, piping a link to 19xx in aviation would have been more useful than merely deleting the link.  As I said before, it's not a policy issue, it's a guideline issue.  The guidelines at WP:CONTEXT are clear - but allow for a modicum of common sense when dealing with wikilinking years. You appear to be applying a blanket removal policy without actually thinking about the usefulness or otherwise of any individual link. (IMHO such action is bordering on WP:DISRUPT - you should take note of the dissatisfaction shown by other editors here and think carefully about whether you're doing the right thing or not.) DrFrench 16:37, 5 June 2007 (UTC)


 * The points that you raise are of general interest. Please raise them at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers). Lightmouse 17:05, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

San Jose FAR
San Jose has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here.--Loodog 03:32, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Stephens City
Thanks for the corrections on the Stephens City page. I appericate your help. I kinda went overboard with the years.:) - NeutralHomer  T:C 19:28, 7 June 2007 (UTC)


 * And the months....
 * I am glad to have helped. Thanks for the feedback. You have been doing great things with that article. Keep up the good work. Lightmouse 19:48, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Those dam numbers!
Thanks for changing those dam page metric stats. I've never been sure how to convert acre-feet and acres into metric. I've used cubic metres and square km before, but felt it wasn't quite right due to the resulting difference in the size of the numbers (like 95,000 acre-feet as 120,000,000 m³, and 1,668 acres as 6.75 km². So, seeking units more similar in size, I tried megalitres and hectares. Megalitres seemed a rather arcane unit and I had my doubts. Hectares seem more appropriate, but I'm far from certain. In any case, do you know of a guideline for converting units like this? I looked for a wikipedia guideline, but could not find anything about acre-feet. I've love to have something more than my own guesses to guide me in the future! Pfly 04:56, 11 June 2007 (UTC)


 * As with languages, translation is part art and part science. There are various opinions.


 * I avoid 'word-for-word' translations. The French 'pomme de terre' translates word-for-word to 'ground apple' but the correct translation is 'potato'. People just think locally in languages, and they think locally with units. You might think that inches of rain and snow translate word-for-word into cm in both cases, but metric countries use mm for rain and cm for snow. In some cases, translation is a different quantity, so units of volume are replaced with units of mass e.g. in cooking a 'cup of sugar' becomes 'xxx grams of sugar'.


 * Secondly, remember that the metric system is based on frequent repetition of a single unit (metre) whereas the non-metric system has multiple units (e.g. inch, ft, yard, mile). Consequently, the non-metric system has the concept of the 'correct' unit but that concept is much weaker in the metric system. We frequently see examples of people in the non-metric system providing 'internal translations'. For example, it would be no surprise to see '32,000 feet' translated into 'about 6 miles'. But you would be less likely to see '10,000 metres' translated into '10 km' because it is self-evident.


 * Metric maps are marked in kilometre squares and ordinary people know about metres and km. So the sq m and sq km are very appropriate for ordinary metric readers. Volumes of water are measured in either litres or cubic metres, so there is a choice. My impression is that the cubic metre is the default for large volumes (as in the case of irrigation and dams). The megalitre is common in Australia (water supply in Australia is billed in litres) but it is extremely rare elsewhere. Car fuel is in litres, not cubic metres. Domestic gas is in cubic metres, not litres.


 * Engine volume is an interesting example of how US has metricated without much fuss. It was in cubic inches but that is almost unheard of now. However, note that the metric units are not consistent. It is litres for large sizes but cubic centimetres, not mL for small sizes. Hope that helps. Lightmouse 12:43, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Date links
You removed date links from Maurice Couve de Murville citing wp:context. I see from this talk page that you have been asked before not to do this. I am asking you again: please do not do this! Scolaire 08:35, 10 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Could we at least agree that there is no need to link 'February'? Lightmouse 11:43, 10 June 2007 (UTC)


 * I also find this a bit annoying (in my case at reinforced concrete). In the absence of any policy prohibiting single-year links, can I ask you to hold fire until it has been discussed a bit more at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)? -- Kvetner 11:22, 11 June 2007 (UTC)


 * My intention is to improve articles, certainly not to annoy you. Thanks for taking it there. I look forward to seeing the debate there. Lightmouse 13:02, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Indisciminate mass year-delinking is forbidden, just like other stylistic-warring campaigns (e.g. BC/AD vs BCE/CE or "American" spelling versus "British" spelling). Please cease and desist, in the lack of a consensus in your favour. I don't mean to sound unpleasant, but if you persist you are liable to be blocked -- even permanently. -- Lonewolf BC 21:44, 12 June 2007 (UTC)