User talk:NDCompuGeek/archive-2006/archive-2006 December

Strategic Air Command wings
Not a problem on the 2nd BW edit. I'll change it. But if you're interested, the info came out of the Strategic Air Command wings page, which is far too big, and I'm currently reducing in size by farming out sections to smaller articles. You're very welcome to help me if you like. Cheers Buckshot06 08:10, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Buckshot06, I'd love to help you out with that! I can get started soon, and hopefully things will go smoothly. How do you want to mark that the wing has been successfully moved - with a link (probably)? NDCompuGeek 08:47, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes, that's what I did with the 310th Bomb Wing. Much appreciate your help; be aware that the original editor, user:R. E. Mixer, did a bunch of work here but has produced a number of looong pages, and others that don't really sit right with the way wikipedia is laid out (like Organizational Order of Battle). They'll have to be cleaned up at some point as well. Cheers Buckshot06 21:39, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

I would like to know the reasoning behind removal of the 2nd Wing. R. E. Mixer 00:14, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Hi NDCompuGeek - great work on the SAC Wings page. Do you want to lay out your reasoning, probably best positioned on the article talk page, on why you're moving some wings, but not others? (I assume it's because they have pages of their own, but would like to be sure). Cheers Buckshot06 08:53, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Hi there Adoptee
Hi NDCompuGeek

Thought I would drop by and see how you were doing. Good luck on getting AWB - I am sure you will if you have enough edits. Anyway send us a message if you need - though I am sure we are on to the stage of more the philosophy of wikipedia i.e. how to deal with difficult situations/users or when to know when to take a break back into the real world:):) See ya later Lethaniol 18:42, 5 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Hey I see you are still editing frequently. If you don't need my help anymore just say or remove the adoption userbox. Either way saw that you have discovered monobook.js and some of the useful tools including Lupin's tools - are very useful. Also I use these to help with editing User:Cacycle/diff, User:Pilaf/Live_Preview, User:Cacycle/wikEd, - you might like them. See ya later Lethaniol 19:19, 7 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Hey thanks for the Barnstar - it is my first :):) I am having a rubbish day at work - none of my chemistry purification is working - sigh. I will take it that you have been happy with your adoption - which is great. Cheers Lethaniol 16:40, 8 December 2006 (UTC)


 * uuf-da.... I thought my work was tough "rass'lin" (wrestling) with HTML and FoxPro / Oracle junk....  NDCompuGeek 16:43, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

AutoWikiBrowser
Thank you for your recent application to use AutoWikiBrowser. Regrettably, I have declined your request as you do not have 500 mainspace edits. You are welcome to apply again at a later time. Feel free to contact me with any questions, Alphachimp 02:05, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Re:A-a-U question
Greetings,

Although I am adopted by Lethaniol (and VERY happy about it, he has and still is helping me a lot!), I thought it would be more appropriate to ask you then him. My question is this: with all the discussion going on over at the A-a-U forum and talkspace, would it be appropriate as an adoptee to put my two cents worth in every so often?

On a side note, what in the world are Chiangus? My neighbor has a decent herd of this breed, and in the course of trying to find out what is the difference, I haven't found out much - except that you don't want to be downwind from the farm when they're mucking out the barns.... 8^P

Thanks NDCompuGeek 12:38, 10 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Hi!
 * Firstly, you can DEFINITELY put your two cents worth over at the discussion. After all, the discussion is to find out what's best for the program for the adopter/adoptee relationship, we need all the input we can get.
 * Chiangus are Chianina crossed Angus cattle- (and I know what you mean about the smell, it takes a while to get used to!). Here's a few links if you want to know more-, , ,.
 * Anyway, once again, definitely go over to the discussion and put in your opinion- it will definitely help! Happy editing-  Cat tleG irl  '' talk 06:03, 11 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Hi there ND - thanks for your comments at WP:ADOPT - it is very useful to have comments from Adoptees as it is their feedback we really need to help improve/develop the service. I hope you will continue to input - and I think in the near future you should think about becoming an Adopter yourself - although I will always be happy to answer any questions of yours (if I can). In terms of WP:ADOPT I am hoping in the next week to set up an Adoptee's area - similar to the current Adopter's area, where useful things for Adoptees can be found e.g. useful resources, links, Adoptees' experiences, how to get get the best out of your adopter etc... any further ideas you could give would be great.


 * Oh by the way - I am not just the God of Adoption - I am the God King Ruler of the Universe - lol - Lethaniol 15:48, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

ND
Hey I just noticed you're from ND. You know what the state tree of North Dakota is, right? The telephone pole. ;-) --ScreaminEagle 13:17, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Proposals on Air Force organizations
Thanks for the heads up (on my talk page) about your proposals. I have read and commented on them. Roachmeister 20:44, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

PockBot
Hi, I am currently monitoring all usage of my new bot PockBot with a view to gauging use and people's opinions of its output etc, since it is only recently released and I am looking to continue developing it. If you have any comments on its functionality, its output, any improvements you want to see or anything, please let me know. Many thanks - PocklingtonDan 18:06, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Wikiproject Automobiles Notification
Hi NDCompuGeek, you were on the list of members at WikiProject Automobiles and we are introducing a new way of listing members, as the old list was becoming too long. Our new method involves having all of our members in a category.

To add yourself to the category just add the userbox to your user page by putting   where you want the userbox. Alternatively if you don't like the userbox you can add   to your userpage.

If you no longer wish to be a member of the project, simply don't add the userbox or category, there's no pressure. Thanks for your time, James086Talk 04:13, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Re: "Units and formations of the United States Air Force" category tree renaming
Looks okay to me. You could probably have gotten away with using speedy renaming for just about all of them, though, as the by-country convention for military units has already gone through CFD in all its glory. ;-) Kirill Lokshin 03:22, 18 December 2006 (UTC)


 * See WP:CFD. Kirill Lokshin 04:44, 18 December 2006 (UTC)


 * I think I see what I did - I didn't finish reading the section (it helps if I read with my eyes open, I guess ). I flagged them right on the category page, but I didn't put them into the speedy rename section.  Time to do a little more editing!!  NDCompuGeek 04:51, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Your Air Force Doctrine Center article
Hello, concerning your contribution,, we cannot accept copyrighted text or images borrowed from either web sites or printed material. This article appears to be a direct copy from. As a copyright violation, appears to qualify for speedy deletion under the speedy deletion criteria. has been tagged for deletion, and may have been deleted by the time you see this message. If the source is a credible one, please consider rewriting the content and citing the source.

If you believe that the article is not a copyright violation, or if you have permission from the copyright holder to release the content freely under the GFDL, you can comment to that effect on Talk:. If the article has already been deleted, but you have a proper release, you can reenter the content at, after describing the release on the talk page. However, you may want to consider rewriting the content in your own words. Thank you, and please feel free to continue contributing to Wikipedia. -- PsyMar 04:30, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Re: Speedy Deletion? (urgent)
Nope, just looks like someone not making the connection from seeing the .mil extension on the site it was a "copyvio" from. ;-) Kirill Lokshin 04:44, 18 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks - I was worried that I had done something VERY wrong there.... Copyvio's are serious business here, if I read the warning and subsequent pages correctly. Again, thanks for the help. (whew!) NDCompuGeek 04:47, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

How is this not a copyvio? The text is copied directly from the Air Force military site, just re-ordering the sections. There is nothing on the site that says it is public domain. What connection did I not make? PsyMar 04:51, 18 December 2006 (UTC)


 * I did make some changes (more than just the "wikifying", that is). I tried to not have it a direct copy from the website.  And, like Kirill mentioned in the comments, the USAF ".mil" extension makes it public domain.  If you can please give me suggestions to improve and otherwise change this article to make it better and keep it, I'm all ears (well, actually eyes since we're not quite talking, but you get the idea ....)!!  Thanks, PsyMar!  NDCompuGeek 04:56, 18 December 2006 (UTC)


 * I didn't see many changes -- it was still enough that the website came up when I googled. I have no source that says the ".mil" extension makes it public domain.
 * As for ideas for making the article better, the first thing I noticed is that "a direct reporting unit reporting directly to him" is redundant. PsyMar 05:00, 18 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Edit: Sorry, just found the page where it says it can be copied.  I'll add that to the talk page of the article so further disputes can be avoided. PsyMar 05:03, 18 December 2006 (UTC)


 * 'K - not a problem. Like I mentioned to Kirill, I think it's better to be safe than violate one of the main tenants of Wikipedia.
 * BTW - the term "direct reporting unit" is actually a type of unit that reports directly to the Chief of Staff, USAF. I should have rewrote that section a bit, I guess. Thanks for the extra eyes there!  Being from the military myself, sometimes these terms that civilians probably don't quite always understand get filtered right through me without the need for further explanation.  Would you recommend I copy it back to my userspace and work on it a bit more, or can I leave it in mainspace and just flag it "underconstruction" to let others know it's still a work in progress?  I'd love to collaborate with you on this - I'm still a newbie and working on the finer points of "Wikipedia-itis"!  NDCompuGeek 05:08, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Magazine
You have a good question - which has been raised before here Wikipedia talk:Citation templates. I would have suggested using the journal template, but advice there suggests against it. Using the news one may work in the interim. I tell you what, if you tell me the parameters needed extra to the news one (and any that need to be taken away) I will help you write a new template - which is obviously needed.

Cheers Lethaniol 11:12, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Also see Lethaniol 11:15, 18 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Actually looking it in more detail I believe that the Template:Cite news is the correct one to use, I have requested that an extra parameter to be added (ISSUE) here Template talk:Cite news which I think is all is needed for it to work for mags. I hope that helps Lethaniol 16:43, 18 December 2006 (UTC)


 * As always, yes, you have helped greatly, Lethaniol! BTW - how do you (or I) go about writing a citation template (or template of any kind, for that matter)?  I am in the process of trying to write a boilerplate-style template for "United States Air Force units", something along the line of what the WP:Aircraft wikiproject has done.  I figure if I use the style guidelines (both the wiki-wide and the military history wikiproject), this would be a good thing, since there is currently really no stylistic "sameness" (I hate some of the psychotropics I'm on - it causes me to not be able to find the exact work I'm looking for....) to most of the articles under this category.
 * CONSISTENCY - that's the word!
 * I would think (and hope) this would be a welcome addition to the project. As always, your opinions, thoughts, criticisms are greatly welcome and encouraged....  -Dan (aka NDCompuGeek 11:49, 19 December 2006 (UTC))

Right - writing a citation template looks pretty complex - much more so than any userbox template. What I would do is take an existing citation template e.g. NEWS, copy to a subpage of your userpage and play around with it there. In fact you can do that with any templates, good way to test them before unleasing on the rest of Wikipedia. I can check any templates you make it you are unsure. When happy with the template make a new page by copying templates into e.g. Template:SomethingNew and use < > < >. In the case of making a Magazine citation templates would stick with NEWS for the mo, and on talk page help with my suggesion to get other parameters like issue inserted.

Sorry not 100% sure what you mean, I assume when you talk about boilerplate you mean something like the Template:Aircontent is that right? Or do you mean more something like WikiProject Novels/ArticleTemplate, can't find one in WP:Aircraft? Either way the thing to do is tell people in the project what you want to do - generally people won't mind unless there is a specific reason - as you will be helping out. Then, as I am rubbish at writing code but can modify others, I would copy good examples from other Wikiprojects - have a look around see what ideas are good, and make your own. Once made put up on the Wikiproject concerned or your userpage, get people to comment - if happy then use it.

Remember that if is consistency what you want i.e. a style guide like WikiProject Novels/ArticleTemplate, then it should be seen as a guideline not a rule. It is a lot of work to change from one style to another - especially for long articles - I had to do it for Catch-22, and for all articles to conform it either takes one user a very long time or many users a while but with gentle persuasion - it wont happen over night.

What you are suggesting it really getting into the heart of Wikipedia - going from just adding content, to content and style management. The vast majority of users are not interested in such things, or when they are they just point out the problem. What you are trying to do is take article to next level - from being a poorly constructed fact file to a true wikipedia article - and I commend you. Keep up the good work - next you will be getting involved in the meta wiki issues, but that is a dark and misty world.

Any more questions or queries, especially if I haven't answered your questions above, then give us a shout, but I must say you are starting to stretch my knowledge - Bravo - Lethaniol 14:29, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Response on my Talk page
Now that the BooyakaDell affair is over, my talkpage should quieten down - so if you are okay with it I will reply to your questions on my talk page. Lethaniol 13:19, 20 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Cool. I was a bit worried to take my comments as harsh - thanks for not doing so. In terms of the idea and the general structure you are certainly most of the way there. Unfortunately as we all know it is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration - the hard bit is getting it altogether and ironing at those little annoying mistakes - but I am sure you can do it:) Enjoy the holidays and the time with the kids - Wikipedia can wait. When you do get these templates updated, give us a shout and will come give a hand. Merry Xmas - Lethaniol 16:53, 20 December 2006 (UTC) P.S. will be online lots over the Holiday period if you need me :)

Re: War Portal oopsie
Ah, thanks a lot for catching that! (That'll teach me to check what I'm copy-and-pasting! ;-)

As far as the USAF portal: the main thing at this point is getting all of the content put together. I'd suggest setting up some form of auto-rotation scheme from the start; it's a lot easier that way than having to put it into place after the fact. Kirill Lokshin 05:41, 22 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Please feel free to borrow as needed. You might want to only grab the relevant task force lists, though (as in, e.g. Portal:World War I), as that template is getting quite large, and most of it isn't going to be of any interest to someone looking at USAF materials. Kirill Lokshin 06:08, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Military personnel categories
Just a note: I'd hold off on trying to get personnel categories through CFD (particularly via speedy renaming) until the project wraps up discussing the actual convention for them. In particular, it's not really clear, at this point, where in the name the country/branch will be placed; most of the current tree is actually at "Yish X", rather than "X of Y", and I'm not sure we'll be able to change that (as it was tried—and failed—before). :-) Kirill Lokshin 06:23, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the heads up - I'll withdraw the nom.... NDCompuGeek 06:25, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Sockpuppetry
Hi NDCompuGeek,

Issues of sockpuppetry are serious but only in abusive situations. For example if I had two accounts - one for editing knitting related articles, and the other for editing body building articles that would be seen as acceptable. A way of keeping different bits of our lives separate. Also Admins sometimes have one account for Admin stuff and all the rubbish that comes with that, and another for day to day editing. Of course it is frowned upon to have too many accounts.

Sockpuppetry only comes a problem when it is user for the following:


 * 1) To get round the three revert rule
 * 2) To get round a block
 * 3) To try and manipulate votes on wikipedia (meatpuppetry)
 * 4) To try and gain an extra voice in a dispute.

The only one you really have to worry about is the last one. If you are on conflict on one of your articles with someone else, then tread carefully (especially if the conflict is new and the user account was created after the dispute started). Bringing in someone who edits the same articles and backs you up completely in arguments may get suspicious after a while. If as you say there are marked differences in your style - then there is even less to worry about. I hope that makes things a little clearly. Also read Sock puppetry will back up some of what I have said.

In terms of RL, am happy to help if I can - as I am the only person on the planet to use the nickname Lethaniol - I always use this - so email me @hotmail.com - I have written it like this so to try and stop automated bots who scan the internet picking up my email and sending me spam - paranoid or what! Cheers Lethaniol 11:34, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Re: Rotating articles
There's two basic ways of doing it. One is to have a random rotation (see, for example, Portal:War or Portal:Italian Wars). The other is to rotate on a set schedule; I don't have any examples offhand, but I recall that some other featured portals use that approach. The general idea in both is to create a set of subpages listing one article each, and then to have code that displays a selected subpage on the portal itself. Does that help any, or am I making no sense? Kirill Lokshin 21:07, 26 December 2006 (UTC)


 * OK - if I understand you, then I need to make subpages under "picture spotlight", like "2007-01" or something like that, and then on the main portal page make a link that is date dependent to link to the appropriate monthly artidle. Right?
 * Another thing that I was thinking about was adding a link like "nominate a picture" or something like that.  This way all the users that use the Air Force portal can nominate a picture to become the spotlight picture in the future (it'll also lighten the load for maintaning the portal: this way I (or whoever maintains it) won't need to do as much research....)  yes, there is a hidden agenda!  Am I just going to open up a pandora's box, or would this be a good idea?  -Dan (aka NDCompuGeek 21:20, 26 December 2006 (UTC))

Hope you dont mind me butting in here but I just finished learning how to set up random rotation on Portal:United States Navy so I may have some insight here is the short version. I happened to find the long one.


 * The key is this string  


 * You will want to remove the original section that you created that looks like this '''

'''


 * Then click on the red link in the section to create your subpage. once there paste this into you subpage:

'''

'''


 * Thats going to give you 10 articles to create click and create each page with what ever article you want and save. the new article will populate in the selected page like this Portal:United_States_Navy/Selected_article

you need to ajust the max=? in the first string you added to correspond to the amount of articles or whatever you have created and your done.
 * Then all you need to do is add the purge link to the main page  

Good Luck let me know if I can be of any more help --Wilsbadkarma 01:46, 27 December 2006 (UTC)


 * RE: Its not a problem and I understand, I get the same anyway way just let me know when you start work if you have any issues - (more than glad to help) --Wilsbadkarma 03:01, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

The Military history WikiProject Newsletter: Issue X - December 2006
The December 2006 issue of the Military history WikiProject newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you.

This is an automated delivery by grafikbot 23:09, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Archiving
Hi Dan, if that is okay, I shall call you that,

This is quite simple - see How to archive a talk page - not as hard as some of your more recent questions :):) There are basically two methods -

The first is the good old "cut and paste" method of transferring info from your talk page to an archive page e.g. User talk:NDCompuGeek/Archive1. Good for just starting out, but if you have a busy talk page then try the next one...

The second is an automated method, that I have never really got to grips with, but I may need to in the future due to the bust nature of my talk page - damn those adoptees. It is called Werdnabot - see User talk:Werdnabot for instructions. It will basically archive sections with timed signatures after a certain specified time. If you have trouble using it, give us a shout and I (or I will find someone) to sort it.

Next Question :) 20:09, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

WPND membership
Sorry I neglected to include you in the membership of WPND. You currently are not listed under the project's "Participants" section. You might want to add yourself. --Matth e w UND (talk) 00:36, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Quite alright.... I try and contribute where I can (lately I've been very active in the military history areas), and since I live 15 miles NW of Minot, I figure I might be able to add a "rural-centric" POV to rural articles, and maybe a NPOV to others....  NDCompuGeek 00:42, 30 December 2006 (UTC)