User talk:Patrick/September 2002 - August 2003

Welcome (Maveric149)
Hello there Patrick, welcome to the 'pedia! I hope you like the place and decide to stay. If you ever need editing help visit How does one edit a page and experiment at Sandbox. If you need pointers on how we title pages visit Naming conventions or how to format them visit our manual of style. If you have any other questions about the project then check out Help or add a question to the Village pump. Cheers! --maveric149 4 October 2002

Superstition (Willsmith)
Hi Patrick, thanks for adding that bit about superstition and 13 (can't remember how to spell the word). Perhaps you could also have a look at the defintion of superstition - terribly biased at the moment. I put some thoughts in the talk page of superstition. 21 October 2002 Willsmith


 * Hi Willsmith, I rephrased the first paragraph and added a link. Feel free to move your remarks from the talk page to the subject page, possibly working them out a bit. Patrick 00:14 Oct 28, 2002 (UTC)

Spelling (Derek Ross)
You were right about "determained", Patrick. Sorry. That was unintentional. I must have hit a key without noticing. -- Derek Ross 22:52 Nov 1, 2002 (UTC)

Dutch municipalities (Jheijmans/Jeronimo)
Hi Patrick, I'll put the data for the Dutch municipalities that I did not yet include here: User:Patrick/Dutch data. - Jheijmans/Jeronimo 13 November 2002

(Name changed from JHeijmans to Jeronimo Jul 4, 2004, see Changing_username/Archive1).

Move page (Eloquence)
Hi Pat, please note that the "Move this page" link in the sidebar is preferred to moving a page by hand, because it preserves the page's history. --Eloquence 2 December 2002

Belgian municipalities, links to villages (Dhum Dhum)
Hi, Patrick, I'm the one who's adding the articles about the Belgian municipalities. I've got a question that maybe you could answer. Would it be worth to wikify the cities and towns constituting these municipalities? I doubt that they all deserve an article in their own right, but on the other hand *something* could be written about them. I'd like to know your opinion because I'll wikify them upon creation if it seems like a good idea. What do you think? To wikify or not to wikify? Dhum Dhum 14:18 Dec 4, 2002 (UTC)


 * Hi Dhum Dhum, I think all these links are not needed. I would prefer to put info about a town in the municipality article, except in special cases where there are two or more towns in one municipality which each have a lot of info, then they (or one of them) may deserve a separate article. If an article mentions a town which is not a municipality I always add the municipality with a link to that, e.g. in the Westerschelde article: 'Currently there are car ferries between Flushing and Breskens (mun. Oostburg), and between Kruiningen (mun. Reimerswaal) and Perkpolder (mun. Hontenisse).'  Patrick 15:28 Dec 4, 2002 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the answer, Patrick. In the meantime I did wikify the towns in the municipalities of West Flanders (ouch!). But what you say makes sense. As a rule, I won't do it for the other provinces unles there's a reason for it. Dhum Dhum 15:47 Dec 4, 2002 (UTC)

Remote viewing (Stephen Gilbert)
Patrick, your see also list at remote viewing is hilarious, yet useful (a rare combination around here!). -- Stephen Gilbert 17:16 Dec 6, 2002 (UTC)

DB Regionalbahn Westfalen (Nevilley)
Hi Patrick, please see query (probably a very ignorant one on my part!) in Talk:Railway platform about Dutch/German railways in or from Westphalia. Thanks very much. Nevilley 23:06 Dec 8, 2002 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the clarification - Talk:Railway platform - Nevilley 08:23 Dec 9, 2002 (UTC)

Cuboid (Heron)
Re the Battery article. I did mean cuboid, which is synonymous with rectangular prism. See http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Cuboid.html. However, since many readers probably think that cuboid means cube, I prefer your version. Heron

Stefan Zweig (Nevilley)
Please see thanks note at Talk:Stefan_Zweig. Nevilley 12:10 Dec 23, 2002 (UTC)

Deliberate self-link (Nevilley)
Hi Patrick,

from List of Musical Topics talk:

>What then is the purpose of a self-link? - Patrick 11:56 Dec 26, 2002 (UTC)

>I haven't got a clue! But I assume that cleverer people than I do, and have asked about the whole subject in the Village Pump. You might want to add your request for clarification to that? It is something to do with it being easier to monitor changes, but I am not sure how. Nevilley 11:58 Dec 26, 2002 (UTC)

Curl (Tarquin)
Thanks for fixing my TeX on Curl. I was so busy making sure I got the x,y,z subscript right in the expansion -- just noticed form a diff I put + instead of -. Aaaaaaaaaarg!!!! ;-) -- Tarquin 14:09 Jan 6, 2003 (UTC)

Central Park (Tarquin)
(from User talk:Tarquin)

Hi Tarquin,

Why did you delete the Central Park link??? It is the most well-known city-park in the world and it has a separate article. - Patrick 23:35 Jan 7, 2003 (UTC)


 * Can you prove it's the most well-known in the world? It seemed to me it was another case of assuming the reader is from the USA -- Tarquin 23:37 Jan 7, 2003 (UTC)


 * You can better add other well-known parks, outside the US, if you like to make it more balanced. - Patrick 23:46 Jan 7, 2003 (UTC)


 * But then everyone will leap in and add some, and the list will grow while the text stays static. Then we'll prune off the list fo a List of parks page, and we'll have YetAnotherListPage and a stub. :-( -- Tarquin 23:50 Jan 7, 2003 (UTC)


 * I think it is silly to have objections against a link to a related article, I have put it back. If you write an article on another park, we can link to that too. - Patrick 03:21 Jan 8, 2003 (UTC)

Gobbledygook (Nate Silva)
Hi Patrick,

Is gobbledygook really necessary? The entry is a dictionary definition and the topic seems more worthy of Everything2 than Wikipedia. --Nate 15:16 Jan 11, 2003 (UTC)


 * I have moved it to Plain language and changed it accordingly. It is just a stub, but can grow. - Patrick 15:45 Jan 11, 2003 (UTC)


 * Sorry, I see that you had redirected it and someone else made it into a defintion. In any case, it looks like a real article now. Thanks. --Nate 18:43 Jan 11, 2003 (UTC)

Paradise Lost (Koyaanis Qatsi)
Heh, nice catch at Paradise Lost. shamefacedly, Koyaanis Qatsi

(refers to correction of typo in [[Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills)

IRC (Pels)
Hi Patrick, What made you decide to enter the definition of IRC? Grtz, Pels


 * With a name like "IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre" one wonders: Is this part of IRC? If so, what is IRC? Or is IRC the original name? If so, what did it mean?. - I have tried to partially answer that. Please correct if it is wrong, and/or extend. - Patrick 22:02 Feb 5, 2003 (UTC)

Minor edits (Pcb21)
Hi Patrick,

Thank you for your note about minor edits. I have to admit I didn't really know what constituted a minor edit and haven't been using it consistently. I will use it more sparingly in future. Thanks for taking the time to let me know. - Pete/Pcb21

Answering below question or on the other's Talk page (Pcb21)
On a separate note, if someone writes to me on my talk page should I reply to them there, to keep the conversation in one place, or reply to them on /their/ talk page, so that they are more likely to see the reply?

Pete/Pcb21


 * Both occurs, but I prefer to keep it together. One may assume that the other sees it. I have set my preferences to watch pages I have edited, so that it is not likely that I miss it. Patrick 15:28 Feb 19, 2003 (UTC)

Line break tags (68.36.152.197)
Patrick, STOP Changing the information for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey! It is correct and does NOT need to be edited. Stop putting links where they shouldn't be! It is set a certain way and you keep SCREWING it up so STOP IT! - 68.36.152.197


 * Why are you putting line break tags in the middle of a sentence? That may be harmless (though normally not useful) for a particular font setting and browser, but for others it disturbs the lay-out. And what is wrong with the links? - Patrick 14:27 Feb 25, 2003 (UTC)

I am putting break tags in because part of the sentence is coming to the end of the browser page and some people don't always have their browsers open to the full 640x800 and as a result the text doesn't always look good because it crawls over and sometimes can leave a big line gap, So by putting a break tag your leaving an opening space so it doesn't run over! Again I ask DON'T change my edits leave the break tags ALONE!! - 68.36.152.197


 * I do not quite see what you mean.

I got:


 * miles radius. In 1972 the name of
 * the agency and it's form of operation were changed to it's present name and form.

with this ugly half line due to the line break. Without the line break it looks normally good, also if your browser window is not the full width of the screen.

May be you had a space at the beginning of a line in the edit box? That should be avoided, you get:

miles radius. In 1972 the name of the agency and it's form of operation were changed to it's present name and form.

giving another font and a large spacing between the lines, which is indeed very ugly. - Patrick 17:36 Feb 25, 2003 (UTC)

Amusement park (Ridetheory)
Patrick,

I've never heard anyone refer to a "temporary amusement park" before. Wouldn't that be more of a "carnival"? - ridetheory


 * I've put now "A temporary (often annual) amusement park with mobile rides etc. is called a fun fair or carnival." Is this proper terminology? Or is a fun fair not necessarily temporary? - Patrick 17:10 Mar 24, 2003 (UTC)


 * The proper terminology is "funfair" (in British English) (and I think those are temporary, but I'll have to check with my English to American translating pen-pal) and "carnival" (in American English). I might make a link and a separate listing for each of those, and move your description there, as carnivals are really a different thing from amusement parks -- the rides are designed to be mobile, for instance.  I'll get to this on the weekend, as I'm at work right now, trying not to let THE MAN catch me goofing off.  ridetheory

BBC on Internet (Mintguy)
Hi. Patrick, do you have broadband? I need someone to test something out for me. Mintguy 00:27 Mar 26, 2003 (UTC)


 * Yes, I have ADSL-light. - Patrick 00:31 Mar 26, 2003 (UTC)


 * Can you do me a favour. I just need someone to test something for me. The BBC have a broadband live 24 hour news feed at http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsa/n5ctrl/live/now5.ram but I'm not sure if it's available to all and sundry, I suspect that it may only be available to probable licence payers (i.e. UK ISP users). Does the link work for you? Assuming you've got RealPlayer Mintguy 00:34 Mar 26, 2003 (UTC)


 * It works for me. - Patrick 00:58 Mar 26, 2003 (UTC)
 * Cool! The picture quality is pretty good at 128kbp. What ISP are you on? Mintguy


 * xs4all (Netherlands). - Patrick 01:16 Mar 26, 2003 (UTC)
 * First I was surprised that it was not the same as on TV, but then I saw that it was the same, 45 seconds delayed. - Patrick 01:32 Mar 26, 2003 (UTC)

Possible death of Saddam Hussein (Ed Poor)
Thanks for moving death of Saddam Hussein to possible death of Saddam Hussein. US officials might be eager, but until it's confirmed it's only wishful thinking on their part. Good catch. --Uncle Ed 22:08 Mar 31, 2003 (UTC)

Renaming of Do not use subpages (Eloquence)
Why did you move Do not use subpages? That was absolutely unnecessary, and the new name did not reflect the content of the page. Please don't do that. --Eloquence 11:23 Apr 21, 2003 (UTC)


 * The name contradicts the section on the recommended use of subpages. - Patrick 11:46 Apr 21, 2003 (UTC)


 * These are an exception to the broader rule not to use them in the article space. Wikipedia is primarily an encyclopedia, not a place for people to publish personal materials. Thus, the general maxim "Do not use subpages" holds true. The section on personal pages and archives could be moved elsewhere, but I prefer to have it where people are likely to read it in context. --Eloquence 11:58 Apr 21, 2003 (UTC)


 * It is a naming convention and a feature. As a feature it is odd to call a limited feature an exception to the rule that the feature does not exist, especially for people who do not know this feature yet. Patrick 12:27 Apr 21, 2003 (UTC)

Miscellanious
Thanks for advice on underlining - I saw that option, but I thought it would do something else... not sure why! :) Martin

Pat thanks for your help with Trousers and Tomboy

PMelvilleAustin 09:34 23 May 2003 (UTC)


 * You are welcome, thank you too. - Patrick 10:13 23 May 2003 (UTC)

Apologies for my incorrect editing of windsurfing, my mind was thinking in the wrong proportions. Sned 14:26 23 May 2003 (UTC)

Wow, that's a lot of language links. Anyway, are you making a hearing article? If not, need to skip the redirect from listening, because hearing currently goes to sound. -- John Owens 13:43 24 May 2003 (UTC)


 * Thanks, I have corrected that. - Patrick 13:52 24 May 2003 (UTC)

Sorry about removing your stuff there; I was just about to add it back. Honest. :-) Evercat 13:41 27 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Just like evercat above, I'm sorry about removing your corrections. It was not intentional. I had an edit conflict while writing the article. I had half a page of text to append and the best way of doing that was to save my page as the top edition, then add the corrections that you made. Unfortunately, I missed one. Keep up the good work, corrections are allways valued. They make it look as if I can spel. - - user:mydogategodshat


 * Okay, I thought you did not agree that the spelling is "its". Nice figures you are adding. - Patrick 01:02 30 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Thanks Pat, wasn't sure how to make something out of a flub. I appreciate you helping a semi-newbie. Cool. Dmsar 11:24 26 Jul 2003 (UTC)
 * You're welcome. Nice picture. - Patrick 11:29 26 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Yeah, I bet the inside isn't as nice. Dmsar 11:33 26 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Sunshine (Jedidan747)
"In cold countries most people like sunshine and prefer not to be in the shade. In hot countries the converse is true and the midday hours people preferably stay inside, because it is too hot to go out."

I dont mean to sound arrogant or anything, but I dont think adding that to the article about Solar radiation was a very relevant contribution. What you wrote was your opinion and it is fine, but an encyclopedia should have non-biased factual information. Again, I hope you dont take it offensively, but I have removed it.

Nice to see kind people on wikipedia contributing to articles, and you seem to have done alot of good work.

Jedi Dan 16:39 Apr 23, 2003 (UTC)

Searching (Koyaanis Qatsi)
How did you find the carrots vandal? I've been trying to find the old pages & have been unsuccessful at it. Google doesn't turn up anything. Koyaanis Qatsi


 * Searching for carrots in Wikipedia with Google gives Bad jokes and other deleted nonsense, and the history of carrot gives e.g. . But I did not find grammar like "Have you know what Larry Sanger did?" - Patrick 21:29 May 3, 2003 (UTC)


 * I won't repeate the bit here, because it irritates Larry.   I couldn't find it in the history of Larry's page, and I don't remember which page it was on.  Maybe I could change the question to one less ambiguous and misunderstood: "What will Larry Sanger rule the world with?"  Koyaanis Qatsi


 * I can't find it. they're (maybe) in the edit history of some page that got redirected--the contenders are the Home Page, LMS's page, LMS's many talk pages, and The Cunctator's talk page--but I haven't yet found it.  And it was Scott Brown who will rule the universe with an iron toilet seat, not LMS.  I got my vandals confused.  Oh well.  Koyaanis Qatsi

Dutch magazines (Erik Zachte)
Hi Patrick, why did you restore the remark on Culture of the Netherlands? The publisher is Finnish, the magazines are copies of US magazines that appear in over a hundred countries. So what is the point of that remark in this particular article? Regards Erik Zachte 00:41 16 May 2003 (UTC)


 * I did not see info in Wikipedia on magazines in the Netherlands, so as a start I mentioned a publisher who publishes many. I also linked to articles that we already had on one magazine and on a figure pictured in another one. You should see them as links to related articles, not as main examples. I clarified things a bit now and made it more balanced. Patrick 07:39 16 May 2003 (UTC)


 * It is better now, thanks Erik Zachte 12:29 16 May 2003 (UTC)

Link to song (Korpo)
Perhaps YOU could add a list at the end of the bridge article, containing references on works of art (songs, literature, paintings) featuring bridges or using a bridge metaphor, but please do not put simply a reference to some song (how fine it may be though) under the definition of the term. --Korpo


 * I made a start, but if you mean I have to choose between nothing and a whole list I do not agree, this can grow. - Patrick 12:35 26 May 2003 (UTC)


 * My suggestion is, for it to grow right from the start in its own separate section. ;) --Korpo

Transsexual (Next Paige)
Hi Patrick, RE: your recent edit of Transsexual, it may be NPOV. Could you please see the discussion page for more information? Thank you, Paige 12:11 5 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Watch list
Watch list for 'last 1 day' does not seem to work (works as 'all'). - Patrick 13:50 Jan 12, 2003 (UTC)


 * did this get fixed? Martin


 * No. I just tried http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special:Watchlist&days=1&limit=600, it gives me 600 items, covering 53 hours. - Patrick 21:52 2 Jul 2003 (UTC)


 * The day count option in the watchlist is vestigial and does nothing, please ignore it until it gets removed. :) Incidentally, congratulations, Patrick: you have the longest watchlist in the whole wiki, with 8,434 items watched! Urk... --Brion 23:40 4 Jul 2003 (UTC)


 * Interesting! It surprises me. The ca. 15 people who have made more edits are apparently more selective in putting articles on their watchlist. I put on it:
 * what I have edited (automatically)
 * what I have read and find interesting
 * what looks interesting and I want to read later in more detail.


 * Since there are many articles left that I do not watch it is still useful as distinction. - Patrick 21:53 5 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Link to year in .. (Oliver Pereira)
If a year is linked, it should link to the ordinary year page. That is where anyone clicking on a year page would expect to end up. We shouldn't surprise people by taking them where they are not expecting to go. We do have a policy on this, in the case of the "year in music" pages (which I believe were the first "year in..." pages that we had): see WikiProject Music standards. Other "year in..." pages should of course be treated in the same way as the "year in music" pages". If you want to link to a "year in literature" page, you should make the "in literature" part appear in the link, so that people know where the link goes to. -- Oliver P. 08:00 6 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I've updated Manual of Style (dates and numbers) to extend the policy for "year in music" pages to other analogous pages as well. If you're interested, there is now some discussion of the policy at Talk:Hollywood, California, although it may end up moving to Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers). -- Oliver P. 07:33 7 Jul 2003 (UTC)


 * Okay, I was not aware of this discussion and standard. I added a remark to Talk:Hollywood, California and started Piped link. - Patrick 21:44 9 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Reverting deletions (Viajero)
(see also Talk:Amsterdam)

Patrick,

A couple of days ago you reverted a page, Narcissus, a few minutes after I had worked on it undoing the changes I had made. Naturally, I wasn't happy about this, but I decided to leave it for the time being, as it is a minor page and not a topic that is of great importance to me, certainly not worth getting into an edit war over. Still, I need to say to you that this is not a viable modus operandi, and that you and I need to find a more constructive way of resolving these kinds of issues.

I see from your contributions that you spend a large amount of time and effort gathering material for Wikipedia, and I have great respect for that; this information is vital for the development of a comprehensive encyclopedia. At the same time, I would like you to show more respect for people like me who are interested in the presentation of the material and the structure of articles. As I see it, encyclopedia building is not simply gathering huge volumes of data but also includes the vital tasks of creating hierarchies, prioritizing information, developing a critical eye for what should be included and what not, all with the aim of producing well-organized, well-written, balanced articles containing the right amount and right kind of information.

For me, this means structuring an article in a logical way, placing the more important information at the beginning of an article, and deleting things which are of scant value. (This, by the way, does not depend, as you suggest, on what interests me or not. I am perfectly capable of editing an article I am not particularly interested in, although I will probably do a better job if it is a topic of which I have some knowledge and interest in).

It also means wikifying only words which are only thematically important in the context of an article, not simply plain English words for which there happens to be an encyclopedia entry (I am supported in this by the Wiki page Wikipedia%3AMake_only_links_relevant_to_the_context). This is part of being a critical editor, making these kinds of editorial judgements.

You may not care to make these decisions; perhaps you don't understand the reason for doing so; that's OK. But please don't obstruct those of us that do. I hereby request you in a friendly but firm way to give me more room to edit articles as I see fit. There are pages, like Amsterdam, which I feel still need a lot of work, and I can't have you following me around undoing my edits fifteen minutes later as though I were a common cybervandal. If I make large deletions, I will discuss them in the Talk pages. If I make small ones, I probably won't. If you disagree with the small ones, explain why in the Talk pages, rather than unilaterally undoing them.

I am open to further discussion, but not to the simple blanket injunction do not delete anything. -- Viajero 13:13 27 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Deletions are typically done in the following cases:


 * duplications
 * nonsense
 * copyright violations

In other cases there are the following alternatives:


 * rephrasing while keeping the content
 * moving text within an article or to another article
 * to make an article more balanced, adding more about what you think is important.

If you are not happy with a link, improve the link or improve the linked article. Only in rare cases it is better to remove the link altogether (apart from the case of a duplicate link), see also Build the web. Remember that a linked article does not automatically pop up, it only appears if you click on it. If you want to give selected links more emphasis, there are better ways to do that than deleting the less important ones.

If regular editing is combined with unjustified deletions, it may be practical to repair the damage by reverting the whole edit. This should not be interpreted as objections against every detail of the edit.

I am pleased to hear that, like me, you are interested in the presentation of the material and the structure of articles, but it is rather odd to ask respect for deletions where you undo other people's work just because you do not think it is important enough. A collective work like this is different from writing a book etc. yourself, in which case you can delete pieces of text from your draft version. - Patrick 15:17 28 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Simple English
Hi, I noticed you have contributed to the Simple English Wikipedia in the past. I am trying to revive it a bit as it hasn't been edited very much lately, so this is just a reminder that it's still there and you are very welcome to come and help! Yours views on what to call the "village pump" are also requested. See. Thanks. Angela 11:56, 20 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Mumbai rail
Patrick, with ref. to your recent edit in Mumbai, what does "metro" mean ? Is it the underground railway system ? Mumbai doesn't have one yet. If metro means an independent rail system for a city, thats the sub-urban railway that Mumbai has, and its mentioned in the same line. So the metro word is redundant. Jay 09:19, Aug 31, 2003 (UTC)


 * Thanks, I rephrased it. As http://www.metropla.net/as/mumb/mumbai.htm lists it, I suppose it has no level crossings and can be considered a metro, even though not underground. - Patrick 09:34, 31 Aug 2003 (UTC)