User talk:Phil Boswell/Archive2005

hp-stub (Harry Potter) stub
The abbr. hp can confuse people. Wouldn't it be better to use something like potter-stub? -- AllyUnion (talk) 02:26, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)
 * Or even harrypotter-stub. Doesn't really bother me, I was just going for a quick-and-dirty instant fix, rename it if you like. --Phil | Talk 16:20, Jan 4, 2005 (UTC)

Beam Piper
Hi, I noticed your change to H. Beam Piper. I always thought it was Horace. Don't remember where I read that. There seem to be about ten times as many Google hits for Henry as for Horace. Do you know pretty definitely? Do you know where "Horace" came from? Thanks, Tualha 00:14, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * Check out the various biographies reachable through the External links section. All of those that I could find said "Henry". I have no idea where "Horace" came from. HTH HAND --Phil | Talk 17:49, Jan 4, 2005 (UTC)

Malloreon/Mallorean
Geez, I feel like an idiot now. I did check the book talk pages for any discussion, but didn't think to check the David Eddings talk pages. I understand the testiness... I've dealt with newbie-type problems before, and I'd certainly be a lot more pissed than you if some newbie came along and did something that was already argued against a long time ago. Not only that, I just went over to check my books (certain it would be "A"), and I can't believe I didn't see the "O" there. It must be one of those optical illusions. Anyways, once again, I apologise. I was planning to "Be bold!" in these pages eventually, and doing something I didn't think was bold turned out to be a real idiotic thing. Once again, my apologies to all involved for acting like another dumb newbie, and I hope my future contributions to these pages won't be as idiotic. I would have been happy to undo the damage caused, but alas, I was sleeping when you guys fixed it. -- Deathphoenix 14:42, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)


 * That'll learn me for clicking "Replace All" instead of "Replace". :-P -- Deathphoenix 15:29, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Thanks
Thanks for covering my lack of template savvy on the link Universe --Eddie | Talk 13:41, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Your copyright question
I noticed your question on Wikipedia talk:Copyrights. For a picture to be usable on Wikipedia, it has to be in the public domain, fall under the GFDL or a Creative Commons license, or be justifiable under fair use. The author appears to be licensing it under a noncommercial use only license, which is not allowed on Wikipedia. If you have personal contact with her, ask her to license it under the GFDL or a CC license. --Slowking Man 04:43, Jan 21, 2005 (UTC)

Great Googly Moogly
Thanks for the formatting fix on Great Googly Moogly. I knew there had to be a better way than what I had done. --RoySmith 19:42, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

A las barricadas!
You're a brave, moderately suicidal man, Mr Boswell. Be that as it may, all help is appreciated. For my part, I tried before, and have tried again before resuming hostilities. Unfortunate, Netoholic does not agree to bring this to a proper closure, the greater community does not care, and I cannot allow him to win simply because he's stubborn. Democracy must prevail. In short, if you were to create a poll, I would be more than happy to participate. It is far more likely, however, that you are quietly unwatching all relevant pages as I speak. You've probably disconnected your computer from the internet as well, just in case. -- Itai 22:35, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Update: Netoholic has kindly started a vote on Templates for deletion. As long as the vote's fair (that is, the template is not removed from all project templates), this seems like a good way to finish this. -- Itai 00:36, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)

If you want my point of view, Itai is really bad at thinking through his template creations. He's made dozens where one simple one would do. He doesn't think about narrowing choices to prevent instruction creep. -- Netoholic @ 10:08, 2005 Jan 28 (UTC)

Part of what you offered at Wikipedia talk:Sister projects is now up for debate at Template_talk:Sisterproject. Please go there and vote. &mdash; Itai (f&t) 22:32, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Timelines
Hi Phil, of course I would welcome any added flexibility, but I think there is no easy solution here. Apparently mediawiki extensions are invoked after template replacement has been executed. I know nothing of MediaWiki internals, and doubt any developer who is, whould give this any priority. Thanks for pointing this out. Erik Zachte 23:48, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)

WikiUser RfC
Thought you may wish to know that WikiUser has called for your comments at his RfC to be deleted, thinking them to be an attack on him (as he thinks most things are) - Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/WikiUser. violet/riga (t) 23:09, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)

unicode for empty set
Hi Phil, can you explain to me the difference between, and or the advantage of, using instead of &amp;empty;. They both display the same thing for me (Safari, Firefox or IE, on Mac OSX). I know that IE on windows often (always?) fails to render &amp;empty; will this fix that? Thanks in advance. Paul August &#9742; 17:16, Feb 7, 2005 (UTC)


 * You hit the nail on the head: on my browser (IE6 on XP-Pro)  displays as an empty box (&ldquo;&empty;&rdquo;), whilst   displays as the empty set (&ldquo;&empty;&rdquo;).
 * You're probably lucky and both display the same.
 * --Phil | Talk 09:18, Feb 8, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. Will this work for everyone using IE on windows? Or are there still font issues? I would dearly like to get rid of the ugly "{}" notation used in some places on WP, see: empty set and talk:empty set. Paul August &#9742; 19:24, Feb 9, 2005 (UTC)

Hugo Awards formatting as table
Got to say, I don't like the look of the current table. This may just be pride of authorship, but what's the advantage over the simple indented list? If you thought the winners weren't emphasized enough, how about just bolding them, or sticking   after them? &mdash;wwoods 17:49, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Logo contest foundation
Thanks Phil, I'm flattered.

Angela's response on her Talk page made me chuckle. I've given similar advice to newbies in other volunteer communities myself. "Someone should make a really cool XYZ." "Oh yeah? Make it yourself!"

I took a half-hearted stab at planning a contest but threw my hands up after viewing the labyrinthine structure over at News. Seems like there are three periods of a few weeks apiece - organizational discussions, nominations and voting?

So that means at least four pages to maintain:
 * messy nominations
 * edited nominations
 * messy voting
 * winner announcement/vote tallies

And a month-long commitment on my part of about 40 hours. Does that sound about right?

Discworld Template
Yeah, I get to be the 100th message! Anyway, I was wondering why you haven't changed the DW template over to your new version. I'd do it myself, but I'm sure you have a reason. -Litefantastic 00:31, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * A combination of "lack of time" and cowardice :-) If you reckon there's sufficient agreement on my new format, I would have no trouble with you doing the switch yourself. If I remember later in the day (RL allowing) I'll have a go myself. HTH HAND --Phil | Talk 09:42, Feb 17, 2005 (UTC)
 * Done! Great work there.  violet/riga (t) 10:13, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Thanks. --Phil | Talk 10:22, Feb 17, 2005 (UTC)

Robin McKinley
Hi Phil - thanks for the message - the article sounded interesting and then seemed to run straight out of puff after about 4 lines - just leaving a lot of bullet point/listy type stuff. I'm sure there's a lot of intereting stuff to be added - and I would like to read it. Not being a subject I know anythin about - I can't add anything myself. Kind regards Brookie 15:34, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC)

LOL
That didn't even occur to me when I was listing it. I should have put it in brackets. :) RickK 05:20, Mar 1, 2005 (UTC)

Road-stub in motorcycle articles
Phil- I don't think is the right stub for the Yamaha motorcyle articles. The Category:Road stubs contains roads and highways, and not much else. What these articles really need is a motorcycle-stub&mdash;the regular stub should do just fine until that occurs. --Milkmandan 16:49, 2005 Mar 1 (UTC)

Geo-stubs
Hi Phil,

You wrote: ''You appear to be (sort of) following my fumbling attempts at sorting geo-stubs and refining them.Thank you for doing a good job. I seem to be working off an out-of-date list of geo-stubs: do you know where there is a more up-to-date list?''
 * Thanks for the kudos! There are two that I know of - at the top of Category:Geography stubs, and on one of my user pages (User:Grutness/Stubs), which lists all the stub categories. I'm hoping to get the latter completed and into the Wikipedia proper as soon as I can! As to "geo-stub fumblings", just adding geo-stub is a big help, although learning one or two of the most common geo-stubs (like UK-geo-stub and US-geo-stub) would help more :) Grutness|hello? [[Image:Grutness.jpg|25px|]] 07:44, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * Those ones I can just about handle :-) I hate to feed the "systematic-bias" trolls, but it does seem that North America and Europe are very well-covered...
 * You're right, they are... there are considerably more articles from some of those places... but the systematic bias is at least in part because the English-language Wikipedia is bound to have more people from English-speaking countries. Go to the Japanese Wikipedia, say, and you'll probably find more Far East stubs. As to remembering which one is what, if in doubt try 'Countryname-geo-stub' and preview. If it doesn't work, then just leave it at geo-stub. That will still cut the workload down by a huge amount :). Grutness|hello? [[Image:Grutness.jpg|25px|]] 08:01, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)

ISO 3166-2
Hi Phil,

nice that you do some work there and add sorted by name and so on. Do you think having it bold is a good idea? I do not like it, in other places we do not have bold codes neither regards ;-) Tobias Conradi 18:38, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * Ideally the key column ought to be bold, since that is the column you search on. So actually in the tables "sorted by name", the name column ought to be bold. That, however, can be sorted out later, in true wiki fashion. For now just constructing the tables and shoving the articles into the new category is enough to be getting on with. (BTW I'm going to continue putting them into category:ISO 3166: I don't think we actually need to break that down further.) HTH HAND --Phil | Talk 10:25, Mar 8, 2005 (UTC)


 * I would like to have it in ISO 3166-2, because there are three parts of the standard and they have really diferent focus. Especially part 1 and 3 are different to part 2. The cat for part 1 (or the general) can include one day ISO 3166-1-derived standards, making this cat much bigger. To have extra cat for ISO 3166-2 therefor is not that bad?
 * ok, maybe bold is fine, even if I (currently) do not like it. But there shold be the html-tag for /code/ around it. Making it same lenght for xx-mm and xx-ii. Because no the stuff is centered and not really fast readable, because not aligned. best regards Tobias Conradi 15:04, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)


 * ISO 3166-2:DE is an ISO standard which defines geocodes: it is the subset of ISO 3166-2 which applies to Germany. It covers the 16 states (Länder).
 * that is not true. If at all than ISO 3166-2 is the standard. This writing with :DE is just something I created some years ago.
 * The part of ISO 3166-2 that applies to Germany provides codes for the names of the 16 states of Germany (länder).
 * is more correct. I changed it Tobias Conradi 11:35, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Barnstarpages
Heya Phil. I noticed that you merged Template:Barnstars and Template:Barnstarpages. That's very good, but the former template is getting very large, and the latter is quite small. The result is that is a page only wants to list around tha pages, and not the ever-increasing number of stars (such as the Barnstars on Wikipedia pages) is forced to host a bunch of extra baggage. I rolled back the Template:Barnstarpages, but that damn "template for deletion" banner is still there: can we agree to remove it, because Template:Barnstarpages isn't hurting anybody? Cheers! – ClockworkSoul 15:19, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * The problem as I saw it was that both templates were being used on the same pages, and therefore duplicating effort. I therefore merged the small one into the big one on the grounds that the latter was being used everywhere the former one was already and no information would therefore be lost. The current situation is that Template:Barnstarpages is only being used in one place which is not a supportable situation for a template. Unless there are several more places where it might be needed which do not need the full list, it should be substituted into that page and retired.
 * HTH HAND --Phil | Talk 16:34, Mar 23, 2005 (UTC)

Babylon 5 Widescreen
I understand that contradicting JMS is tantamount to heresy in the eyes of Babylon 5 fans, however, his words on the widescreen subject are contradicted by the reality of the footage.

I would be doing a disservice to the presentation of fact, to wikipedia, and to the people looking up info here if I was to accept JMS' word over the reality that is staring me in the face.

If JMS said the sky was green, it would, in fact remain blue. Similarly, his words do not affect the reality of the widescreen issue.

Thanks for your thoughtful comments rather than just making an edit.

Ibuki 19:13, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Gay Icon Project
I see your point about edit summaries, and I went back today and added to the talk page of every article I categorized an explanation of what I was doing. The list I was merging from seemed to be vandalized, but to what extent I couldn't determine, so except for some ridiculous entries (Condoleeza Rice, Margaret Thatcher), I just categorized EVERYONE on the list and left the work of fact-checking to the people maintaining the articles (who, presumably, know something about those people.) Philwelch 22:55, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Quarto by email
Hi Phil, a new mailing list has been set up to distribute news about the Wikimedia foundation, specifically at the moment to publicise Quarto. I saw your name on the quarto talk page requesting a copy by email, and I think this mailing list is how we're going to do it for the moment. It'll be a html email, which I've added to the Quarto talk page m:Talk:WQ. Mailing list is called Foundation-news-l (We also need translators!) Cheers w:User:Cormaggio

Official Wikipedia motto
The template is supposed to add the category tag for you. There is an unfortunate edit war going on at Template:notpolicy that has resulted in the tag being removed. I believe the edit war will be resolved shortly. The Uninvited Co., Inc. 15:28, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)


 * I believe you are correct, particularly given his recent preoccupation with so-called meta-templates. Of course, transclusion is but one of many features that promote organization, consensus, and uniformity of content which he has opposed.  The Speedy/VFD process, and the custom of retaining talk page comments both come to mind immediately.  The Uninvited Co., Inc. 15:56, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Color info boxes
I thought I'd pop by and mention that your color info boxes are causing some disquiet, with me but others too. I really think the CMYK values in particular should be removed. There was existing talk on Talk:Purple; I also added to Talk:Cyan.
 * I am thoroughly aware of the problem, and indeed have noted it in several places. The best solution is not to shuffle the problem under the electronic carpet but to discuss it openly. I think the likely best solution is to agree on the appropriate range of values to use for Wikipedia articles, and also make sure we agree on the transformation algorithm. I know that some of the articles talk about values between 0 and 1, but I don't think this displays well; also in most places it is the ratio of values which is important, and the scaling is relatively trivial. HTH HAND --Phil | Talk 07:12, Apr 11, 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure of the best place to have this discussion - so let's have it here. The ratios are not really the biggest deal, except that it serves to perpetuate the idea that colors are in the range 0 to 255, which is a world view that can handicap understanding any more detailed discussion. I see several other issues: 1. CMYK conversion. I cannot see anything good in this. I vote to remove CMYK in all cases. By including CMYK values it gives the impression that conversion from RGB to CMYK is some simple fixed function you can look up, rather than a function which needs to take into account the RGB and CMYK properties, printing conditions etc. More harm than good. 2. Color names. For purple, for instance, why THAT purple? Is it a standard? If so, that should be noted. If not, it should somehow indicate "typical" or "exampe". Notinasnaid 08:53, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Thanks! (My signature)
Thanks a bunch for pointing out the error in my signature. I appreciate it! Demi T/C 17:16, 2005 Apr 12 (UTC)

UN/LOCODE
thx for help and fixing my mistakes :-) There is onw more but I do not knw how to solve. In the change-table I put "I" (capital i) but it should be like in the notes the pipe "|" . I do not know how to put "|" in a table. maybe you? Tobias Conradi (Talk) 21:30, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

PlaneShift Screenshots
Captions improved.

Thanks
...for those town coordinates! Lupin 16:52, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Stacking

 * Also answered on talk page.

Phil, did you intend for the images in Stirling to stack horizontally? Putting images adjacent to one another in the wikitext has them stack vertically for the monobook skin, but makes them stack horizontally in classic and cologne blue. The only skin-neutral way I've found of making images stack nicely is to use a table - see Casa Batlló for a fairly minimal example. -- John Fader (talk | contribs) 15:32, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * No, I most certainly did not&mdash; thwacks own head crossly &mdash;sorry about that. There was a nasty gap in the text and I wanted that to close up. Do you think a gallery would be better, given that the locational image is occupying pride of place? --Phil | Talk 15:42, Apr 25, 2005 (UTC)

Wikiproject Color
Hi. I just ran across the Wikiproject Color page and I'm interested in participating (though I'll be slow as molasses getting anything done -- lack of time). I have started an article on the "wiki" standard coordinates, with usage notes and conversion tables; with the idea that the coordinate headers (such as on template "Infobox Color") would link to this article rather than to all the technical color articles. Do you think this article is worth pursuing? Suggestions very welcome (still kind of a newbie). CoyneT talk 00:44, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * I have raised a question here: you will see that my preference is to keep the individual color systems linked to their respective articles, but to link the Color Coordinates caption to an explanatory article, using your draft as a starting point. --Phil | Talk 11:19, Apr 26, 2005 (UTC)


 * Per your suggestion, I have moved my draft page under the project at WikiProject Color/Normalized Color Coordinates (I saw no reason to make you move it). I also added a sub-section to the main project article which includes, among other things, how the modified infobox might look. See WikiProject Color. (I haven't built a template yet; this just incorporates a stripped version of the infobox template source.) CoyneT talk 03:48, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Have you received any response at all to the Village Pump question? If not, is this a don't care? Also: What about, instead of changing the header, remove the "N" subscripts and change the bottom to read "About these coordinates" (mockup here).

Color coordination
Phil, why toss that out to the sharks? I've already learned you get no help that way -- as Toytoy has ably demonstrated.

You are right to think about the problem -- mirrors might, even ought, toss anything other than article mainspace, imagespace, and templatespace. We ought never link from mainspace to Wikipediaspace, except under highly special circumstances.

There are two solutions, either of which seem reasonable prima facie:

1. Forbear to link to the Wikipediaspace page from within the swatch template.

2. Move the page on normalization to article mainspace and "encyclopedize" it.

I like the latter. Once color normalization is covered generally, then it is appropriate to note how normalization is handled "in this project" -- naming no names. A mirror that copies the normalization page will also copy the template itself, and all is well.
 * The reason I asked the question was to forestall any likely problem: let discussion ensue. --Phil | Talk 07:17, Apr 29, 2005 (UTC)

Well, the egg is broken now. I only suggest you might want to float trial balloons quietly -- I have begun to fear the Pump. &mdash; Xiong &#29066; talk 08:09, 2005 Apr 29 (UTC)

Normalisation
Now, I have to insist on some sort of reply on CMYK normalization. You will just never get me to accept 0-255; it must be 0-100%. Please trust me on this and don't make me rake up examples and references. Okay?
 * I think some examples and references would be a good idea for the CMYK article. For example: there is almost nothing about how the color vectors are actually used. What format do they exist in? What software actually uses them? --Phil | Talk 07:17, Apr 29, 2005 (UTC)

CMYK isn't a computer software standard at all; it's a standard process in the larger and older world of printing real ink on real paper, generally with a four-color web offset press. Such printers -- people, not peripherals -- have long standardized hues, screens, and ink coverages; the latter invariably range from 0-100%. I can show that to you if you like. &mdash; Xiong &#29066; talk 08:09, 2005 Apr 29 (UTC)


 * I can go with that, although I think we need to explain it somewhere, if only to stop someone coming along later and blasting them all into [000-255]. --Phil | Talk 16:14, Apr 29, 2005 (UTC)


 * Now that's where your nifty color normalization page comes in. Does double duty as a general information page and something the color project points to as a basis for its normalization. Just clean it up, add some info, and slide it out to mainspace.


 * If you're wondering how to deal with "self-reference", I've just got into a useful little tag: project usage. Hope the sharks haven't eaten it by now. &mdash; Xiong &#29066; talk * 12:39, 2005 May 2 (UTC)

Infobox
As long as we're airing beefs: If you explain your normalization strategy in a mainspace page, there is no need for the annoying little notes right in the swatch template. I'd like to see the whole thing cut down a bit in size -- a smaller swatch (not too small) and a more compact rendering of the coordinates. Do you want me to work up an improvement?
 * If you compare it to the average infobox it's a good size: whay's the point of scrunching it up in the corner? --Phil | Talk 07:17, Apr 29, 2005 (UTC)

Gut feeling here only; the swatch itself just looks too big to my eye, and I run dual 20" monitors, so I'm hardly pressed for screen real estate. Not a point to argue over. The normalization notation below the swatch is distracting; better to use the space to list color coordinates alone, and let interested parties follow a link to an explanation of how and why we normalized. &mdash; Xiong &#29066; talk 08:09, 2005 Apr 29 (UTC)

Spelling
Color vs colour etc.: My position on all such squabbles is, just ignore them. Use whichever spelling you like, don't go out of your way to change others' choices; if someone overhauls something and uses a different spelling, don't get mad. The matter is petty to me. Agreed?
 * I don't think you'll find I've been having any problems with that: where do think I've been getting "mad"? --Phil | Talk 07:17, Apr 29, 2005 (UTC)

Oh no, not at all; my apologies. This must be the part you want me to tone down. I did not mean to imply you were a party to such squabbles, but I've seen them elsewhere -- and the repeated use of "color" and "-ization" just brought the matter to my fingertips. I think you and I are on the same sheet of music here.

WikiProject Color
Now, on to a more substantial issue: I'm starting to have grave concerns about the whole direction of WikiColor. Toytoy, I have to admit, has a point -- he's got the wrong end of it, but he has a point.
 * I see you have voiced your concerns on the talk page: we can talk there further. --Phil | Talk 07:17, Apr 29, 2005 (UTC)

Too many pages
What is starting to upset me is that the HTML color "lime" points to RGB 0,255,0. That is difficult, but it is a reality. I think we may have too many color pages -- Lime and Green should be merged, and so on down the line. I don't think it's helpful to have a distinct page for every shade in the rainbow.
 * Check the articles again: lime and green are different, disctinct web colors, which have different RGB values: they should not be treated as the same. Wikipedia is not paper: there's more than one meaning to normalisation. --Phil | Talk 07:17, Apr 29, 2005 (UTC)

This whole issue is fraught with difficulties. I'm not sure I have a solution, but I see a problem.

When a user looks for the article on "green", what does he seek? Can we be sure? Can he be sure? Should the "lime" link from {web colors} point to lime or to green? Look at that template; since you and I worked on it, it's very nice -- but clearly, each table column contains two different things: the word and the swatch. Should they be made to point to two different articles?

Lime is a kind of green; so is forest; navy is a kind of blue; so is teal. It would be possible -- easy, in fact -- to have literally hundreds of color articles, and each one could be defended on grounds that a shade of that name is notable. I think this is the wrong way to go. Neighboring colors are very closely related to one another, so much so that some people will use one word for this color, others for the next to the left.

I think it might be much better to have a fairly small number of individual color pages, with multiple swatches on each one. Note, for example, Orange (color), with swatches for safety orange and burnt orange. This is the right path.

Perhaps we should have a slew of color disambiguation pages, but they would really only be subsets of the one grand navigational color wheel -- q.v. &mdash; Xiong &#29066; talk 08:09, 2005 Apr 29 (UTC)

Navigation
What do you think about a navigational color wheel? Never mind if we can do it or not; to the persistent, all things are possible. &mdash; Xiong &#29066; talk 04:01, 2005 Apr 29 (UTC)
 * If you can cook one up, it should be used as a complement to the existing pages, rather than as a replacement. That would be a help, yes please. --Phil | Talk 07:17, Apr 29, 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you imagine one could "replace" with a navigational color wheel. Ideally, the thing would be a template present on every color page and on Color, etc. Since image maps are banned from the wiki, it will be something of a challenge -- but I imagine something basic can be cooked up. It would be easier, of course, with fewer color pages. Let me ruminate. &mdash; Xiong &#29066; talk 08:09, 2005 Apr 29 (UTC)

IMNSHO
IMNSHO, naturally: sorry, I hadn't realised there was a link for it. HTH HAND --Phil | Talk 08:51, May 4, 2005 (UTC)


 * TA. IJHA.  TANNCTEASYHTLTUOG,WCT15MOS,YK?  KOA;LT.  :-) - Omegatron 13:47, May 4, 2005 (UTC)

Mirror Image
Welcome to Wikipedia.

You should be aware that your choice of user-name might be regarded as offensive to many users: it appears to be a combination of filbert and asshole, neither of which is likely to endear you to many participants. Your use of the abbreviation HTH or Hit this Hungarian is not likely to mollify any offended parties.

Boswell Your list of contributions shows that you are not afraid to waste your life away: describing the reversion of POV edits as "hovering on the edges of honesty" is hovering on the edges of personal attack; your defense of the pejorative use of islamofascism in Wikipedia and reluctance to view zionism the same way looks to be your own sick POV or maybe just ignorance, or both; your comment about my comment on Talk:Timothy McVeigh could be taken to mean that you think the FBI is heroic for burning down a building with children in it at Waco.

I would warn you that Wikipedia has a long history of dealing with so-called "POV Warriors" and mechanisms are already in place to do so again. We have ways of getting rid of people we don't like. It's like a club. We control it. You are on the outside and I hope you stay there. "No Niggers Allowed" Please consider changing your user-name and moderating your tone. I don't like you.

I am not an administrator: I have no special powers. I am just trying to make this project reflect my own POV without having to deal with your opinion or anyone else's opinion that I don't like. --Spaz 22:27, 4 May 2005 (UTC)


 * Sorry to see this Phil - not nice at all. Your concerns notified to Angela look well founded! Brookie:The grass on the hill 14:46, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

Possible problem user
Hi. I think your tone was fine. rv pov isn't the sort of edit summary I'd expect from a new user. If they continue, mediation might be a useful step. Angela. 16:51, May 5, 2005 (UTC)

Transit visibility table
Good job with the transit visibility table. I'll need to read up on how you defined it because I don't yet know. The good news is that the Transit of Venus page has become a featured page, the bad news is our work with the transit visibility table has been temporarily taken away due to vandalism so our recent work cannot be seen. Better luck next time! I plan to undo some of that damage in the next week if time permits. --  B.d.mills  (Talk) 13:58, 7 May 2005 (UTC)

disrupting wikipedia policy vote
You voted once for the policy at Don't disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point. Despite a 75% support that vote was rejected by the minority. A new vote has been called with a two week limit at Wikipedia talk:Don't disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point. Please take a moment to participate. Thanks. - T&#949;x  &#964;  ur&#949;  16:56, 13 May 2005 (UTC)

Standard template style
While WP:TS is a good thing, we should not include a 'standard' template in every other template as this is an unreasonable server load. I've subst'ed it out in a number of occasions, and there's discussion on WP:TFD to ask what should be done with Template:STS. Yours, Radiant_* 11:40, May 18, 2005 (UTC)

VfD Template
Thanks for pointing me to this; had looked for such a thing a while back and didn't find one. Mindspillage (spill yours?) 03:46, 30 May 2005 (UTC)

WikiProject Harry Potter

 * Also replied on talk page

nice work with the Templates sub-page. EvilPhoenix 17:22, Jun 3, 2005 (UTC)
 * You're entirely welcome: I was a little worried I was being too bold :-). --Phil | Talk 17:35, Jun 3, 2005 (UTC)

imdb company
Thanks for fixes on the description page of the template. As concerns linking to the list of companies at the imdb, it seems, that one cannot get into the company page directly from there - if you click on the company's name in the list, just a search for films, produced by the company, is performed. I think, it should be some notice about this on the description page, however all candidates I've thought of, could at the same time cause some confusion. Have you any ideas? Cmapm 12:51, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

OldVfd
Good morning. I noticed that you recently switched a VfD notice I made from text to the template:oldvfd. I am not convinced that was a good move. I am not yet comfortable with that template. I and others have expressed our misgivings on the template's Talk page. Those concerns have not yet been addressed to my satisfaction. Specifically:
 * 1) The template dynamically pulls the page name in order to create the link to the VfD discussion page.  This will break under several conditions, causing the VfD discussion to become lost.  Here are just a few of those conditions.
 * 2) * When the article is moved to a different name
 * 3) * When the talk page is archived
 * 4) * When the article is nominated a second time
 * 5) * When the VfD discussion page has a typo in the title so it didn't exactly match the page name
 * 6) * When the VfD discussion page was a consolidated entry (like Kanji articles)
 * 7) The use of the colored box draws greater attention to the VfD discussion than is necessary or appropriate.  Old VfD discussions that result in a "keep" decision are no big thing.  They are important at the time and should be preserved but it is not important that every future reader/editor look for or read the discussion.  This is different from the other colored boxes that are in use.  If an article is tagged for clean-up, every editor should read that.  If the neutrality or fact-base of the article has been challenged, every current reader should see that.  But those boxes come off when the problem is resolved.  The oldvfd box will be preserved forever.  It is a distraction to the reader.
 * 8) The template does not provide an indicator for the date of the discussion.
 * 9) The template does not easily allow the discussion-closer to sign the edit.
 * If, despite all these concerns, you are still going to use the template, it should only be used as a "subst", never as a transclusion. (Subst, by the way, will solve some server-load problems but will not solve the naming problem in bullet 1 above.)

I'm not going to revert the change you made but I'm also not convinced that the template is ready for use. Rossami (talk) 13:56, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Template:FLC
Well spotted. Thanks. -- ALoan (Talk) 10:52, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * PS - sorry to be picky, but do you really need to tranclude your talk archives? It takes an age to load up to section 129! -- ALoan (Talk) 10:55, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

LOTR Infobox
Thanks for the tip, Phil! AreJay 16:47, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Red link recovery project
Howdy, Topbanana here, back after an extended absence. I've decided to round up a few of my more useful reports into a project with the goal of converting as many "red links" (links to non-existant articles) into "blue links" (links to real articles). As you've been active in fixing similar things in the past, I thought I'd let you know in case you're interested in joining up. If not, I won't be offended - we've all got lots todo here :) - TB 11:38, 2005 Jun 23 (UTC)

HTML entities vs. Unicode characters
Thanks for letting me know, and for giving me a cogent reason. The anon was just wholesale reverting the changes I made, claiming entities were "safer", and when I asked about it at Village pump (technical) I was told to go ahead and keep replacing entities with characters if I want. But if entities really are safer, I won't convert any more pages, and I won't undo the anon's reversions if he keeps it up. --Angr/undefined 30 June 2005 15:17 (UTC)

Category:UK Wikipedians
Hi, just to let you know that the list of UK participants at the UK notice board was getting rather long, so I have replaced it with the above category which I have added to your user page. -- Francs2000 | Talk 30 June 2005 20:38 (UTC)

Thank you
Thank you for making the mathematical domain table. It is much appreciated. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Guardian of Light (talk • contribs) 16:22, July 1, 2005

Unicode fonts
I was just doing some work on Bulgarian language when, all of a sudden, I couldn’t see what I was doing anymore. When you moved the fonts around, the Cyrillic in, for example, the following sentence turned into blank boxes for me: "the letters yat (Ѣ, ѣ) and yus (Ѫ, ѫ)...." Was the previous order that worked so well causing a problem? &mdash;Stephen 7 July 2005 10:41 (UTC)

Invitation
Hi Phil, you showed clear interest in EasyTimeline in the past. I would like to invite you to read and comment on my project proposal for a Grand Unified Timeline of Human History. Cheers, Erik Zachte 8 July 2005 23:26 (UTC)
 * This is a killer proposal, btw. Everyone should go comment now.  :-) +sj  +  16:19, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

"^" template
This was part of a set of templates associated with a short-lived "half-decent articles" concept. That project may be reintroduced someday when there are enough people to flesh it out... but it is currently deleted (check deletion history, if interested :), so the template should be too. Thanks for the heads-up. +sj +  16:19, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

WP:IDRIVE templates
I appreciate that you only made subtle changes to the templates. But I wish you had at least waited, given that they are not listed among "Included templates" at Template standardisation and that I had asked at Wikipedia talk:Template standardisation for a pause in standardization for discussion. Maurreen 03:05, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Replied on your talk page. —Phil | Talk 07:17, July 20, 2005 (UTC)

Robbot answer

 *  also answered here 

I answered your question at User talk:Robbot. I'm sending you this message because it was some time since you asked, and you might have stopped checking. - Andre Engels 09:01, 10 August 2005 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I'll pop over to that policy proposal you mentioned and see what's occurring. —Phil | Talk 09:10, August 10, 2005 (UTC)

Flying Spaghetti Monster

 * Also replied on talk page

You recently edited this article, for formatting. Please adhere to the standard Wiki-code when you edit pages. Using and is not necessary, and referencing pages outside of Wikipedia is usually done by means of a reference-link, like so:.
 * Please see here with particular reference to the section describing the uses of the BLOCKQUOTE tag. As you will no doubt have discovered, the functionality of the BLOCKQUOTE tag is just as different from the standard wiki-syntax COLON markup (which uses a bastardised form of the DD tag) as is the semantic import. (Sorry to be blunt but you have caught me on the down-side of a splitting headache at the end of a bad day :-) HTH HAND —Phil | Talk 17:46, August 15, 2005 (UTC)


 * Also replied there

Template talk:? &mdash; Xiong &#29066; talk * 22:24, 2005 August 15 (UTC)
 * You're quite correct. Since I now cannot recall why I created this, you might as well nuke it—I can't, I'm not an admin. HTH HAND —Phil | Talk 11:00, August 16, 2005 (UTC)


 * Should you be? I could nominate you on WP:RfA. -- ALoan (Talk) 12:03, 16 August 2005 (UTC)
 * That would be kind. I would be interested to see if anyone even recognises my handle :-) Being an admin is "No big deal", it just makes some things easier to deal with. Thanks, let's see what occurs&hellip; —Phil | Talk 14:14, August 16, 2005 (UTC)


 * Done. Please signify acceptance of the nomination on WP:RfA. -- ALoan (Talk) 15:36, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

Congratulations!
Congratulations! It's my pleasure to let you know that, consensus being reached, you are now an administrator. You should read the relevant policies and other pages linked to from the administrators' reading list before carrying out tasks like deletion, protection, banning users, and editing protected pages such as the Main Page. Most of what you do is easily reversible by other sysops, apart from page history merges and image deletion, so please be especially careful with those. You might find the new administrators' how-to guide helpful. Cheers! -- Cecropia | explains it all ® 16:15, 23 August 2005 (UTC)


 * Well done! Not a bad result for my first nomination at WP:RFA, if I do say so myself.  Enjoy using the Infinite Cosmic Powers (TM). -- ALoan (Talk) 16:52, 23 August 2005 (UTC)
 * logging in from Dorset Thank you very much. I look forward to returning from holiday. Phil | Talk 14:31, August 24, 2005 (UTC)

Happy birthday
Happy birthday Phil! =Nichalp  «Talk»=  07:23, September 4, 2005 (UTC)
 * Thank you. Phil | Talk 06:45, September 5, 2005 (UTC)

--User:Jenmoa 03:58, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

SuperShadow VfD
Greetings: pawing through the SuperShadow edit history, I noticed you've edited the page in question before. I thought you'd want to know it is now the subject of a Vote for Deletion, at Articles for deletion/SuperShadow. If you want, you could stop in there and cast a vote. --Maru 22:09, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

Popups tool
Congratulations on being made an admin! I thought you might like to know of a javascript tool that may help in your editing by giving easy access to many admin features. It's described at Tools. The quick version of the installation procedure for admins is paste the following into User:/monobook.js: // User:Lupin/popups.js - please include this line

document.write(' ');

popupAdminLinks=true; Give it a try and let me know if you find any glitches or have suggestions for improvements! Lupin 01:54, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

Science pearls
Hello,

Since you contributed in the past to the publications’ lists, I thought that you might be interested in this new project. I’ll be glad if you will continue contributing. Thanks, APH 09:27, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

Gallery articles up for deletion!
I noticed that these articles:
 * Gallery of Nintendo Entertainment System screenshots
 * Gallery of Super Nintendo Entertainment System screenshots
 * Gallery of Sega Mega Drive and Sega Genesis screenshots
 * Gallery of Sega Master System screenshots

that you worked on in the past are now are up for deletion. Would you vote in favor of keeping these articles? They show the history of the advancement of video game graphics over time and are useful as a source of images for graphics for video game articles. --ShaunMacPherson 20:03, 23 September 2005 (UTC)
 * I looked at the history for these articles and I appear nowhere. I'm not certain why you thought I would be interested. You do understand that it is not the images themselves which are up for deletion, but simply the gallery articles which are displaying them in a manner not appropriate for fair use? —Phil | Talk 07:23, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
 * It's maybe slightly embarrasing (:0)) for you that say you 'appear nowhere' but do in fact appear in the history of Gallery of Super Nintendo Entertainment System screenshots (second on the list): 15:59, 21 March 2005 Phil Boswell m (Fix table or curly braces - Please return the favour by clicking here to fix someone else's Wiki syntax), thus I contacted you.
 * I have more on my own talk page about the copyright issue. Since it's up on the copyvio deletion list that is where most of the talk is taking place. I would hope that people push for fair use rights rather than surrendering them, especially when the works appear to me, and I gave arguements, that the screen shots, even in a gallery, fall well within fair use in the United States. --ShaunMacPherson 18:53, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

&lt;includeonly&gt;
Also answered on your talk page: I was wondering what the effect of the tag was? I saw you add it to Template:Todo, and was just curious! &mdash; Matt Crypto 16:26, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
 * The effect is that stuff inside the tag is only displayed when the template is transcluded. So whilst there is a Category in the wikicode for Todo, the template itself does not appear in that Category. HTH HAND —Phil | Talk 16:36, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
 * OK, that's quite useful. Thanks for the explanation. &mdash; Matt Crypto 16:47, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

Old deletion discussions
Oh my, that shouldn't have been deleted. Anyway, I've restored it. I did try to skip deleting pages that were discussions on deletion, but I supposed its inevitable that there were some mistakes when going over thousands of talk pages. If you find any more similar deleted pages, just restore them. (Though, to be frank, the discussions are so old hardly anyone would really notice either way) Coffee 13:01, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

Re: ISBN template
Yeah, I know about Special:Booksources, that's where I found the link. I just though it was a nifty service and figured it would be usefull to add directly to the bibliography next to whatever ISBN number was used in order to save time and clicks. I'll agree that it didn't look too great though, too bad there is no way to add a title tag to the links, if there where it could have been just a numbered link with a toolip explaning what it was, but alas, that didn't work so I had to spell it out... Oh well I'll just TFD the template then, it servers no purpose without that link to xISBN as it takes longer to type than a plain ISBN link. --Sherool 13:10, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

David Mertz
I notice you've made some edits to the article about me, presumably following having seen the AfD on it. Thanks for the work on it. Since you've expanded the specific titles of several older philosophy articles I've written, I think the article would also benefit from mentioning the probably more notable recent papers I've done on electronic voting systems and associated computer security issues. Either the Google scholar link on the AfD, or the talk page to the article give you citation information.

Obviously, it's up to you, I'll defer to your editorial judgement. But the newer things are more related to my actual reasons for noteriety. Thanks. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 16:45, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

AFD List
Thank you for providing this service: it's very useful. Would it be possible to add a link to the relevant log page when creating a new section? If I were to start the ball rolling by adding a link to this article to the top of this section and so on, would this screw up the bot, and/or would the bot remove the links? —Phil | Talk 06:52, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
 * The bot would remove the links. --AllyUnion (talk) 08:47, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry... run that by me again? You want me to link each sectional date to the appropriate date log?  If you were asking for that, it already does that.  Or are you asking me to place a link to the AFD List on each log page for all the 7 days? --AllyUnion (talk) 08:50, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
 * Don't mind me, I'm just working out how to humiliate myself by asking the most stupid question with the most obvious answer. Need more coffee! Quiet! back to work! Sorry to bother you, I'll be hiding under the desk...although your new suggestion—which arrived whilst I was adding this—sounds good. —Phil | Talk 09:10, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
 * Me and my big mouth... --AllyUnion (talk) 09:20, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Templates with red links
Per your comment, I'm removing Template:Album from Templates with red links/2005-09-09.1-2 - the purpose of the project is to provide a list of templates that can be completed by the removal of red links, which Template:Album can never be. Thanks for pointing it out! Cheers, BD2412  talk 17:55, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Thanks
A sunflower for IPA-ing and unicode-ing Yoruba language. Thanks! I'll try to remember to use those more consistently when I'm expanding the article. Cheers, &mdash; mark &#9998; 11:40, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
 * Also, thanks for doing the reference template cleanup work that you're doing. Jkelly 16:44, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Re:Please rephrase your comment
Yes, well, my comment was a bit too harsh when I look at it now :( About rephrasing it... hem I'm not sure if that would be really OK, I'm not really fond of deleting (of messing with) posts on talk pages... it can lead to censorship and other nasty stuff.

I have another idea.. let's verify if this person really works at the Philosophy faculty in Belgrade, or not. It could easily be checked.. only yesterday I visited building of this faculty (and since I live in Belgrade, I can go there again), and this kind of information probably is open for public.

If it appears that Aleksandra Selakovich is an employee of this institution (and that it is the same person that works on Wikipedia), I will give my deepest and most sincere apology because of my unfair attack. If however she doesn't work there, then it is true that she is a notorious liar, and my comment should stay, so other contributors and visitors can be aware that everything that comes from this person (who is ready for an identity fraud) should be checked twice.

The fact is that this contributors only actions up to now were in order to create a hoax. To say that Zlatiborian language exist would be similar to the statement that there is a such thing as Bexley language for example. -- Obradovi&#263; Goran ( t al k  12:30, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

bot request
Your bot request will finish over night, hope it helps! regards Martin  23:52, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

Déjà vu, can you confirm this is what you wanted to be done. thanks  Martin   17:14, 8 November 2005 (UTC)


 * OK it seemed fine so I did it, there are a handful left, I assume they have some kind of problem.  Martin   20:06, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for both of those: that seems to have worked a treat :-) —Phil | Talk 08:04, 9 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Sure thing, Bluebot is always ready for action!  Martin   11:44, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Book reference template
Thanks for the tip about noinclude - I didn't realise it existed. Hope you agree that some sort of helpful comment in the source is required though - the template is now monstrously complicated! Pcb21| Pete 15:42, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Also replied on your talk page:
 * Personally I think the best advice is don't fiddle :-) —Phil | Talk 15:46, 10 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Actually I was talking about using the template, not even dreaming of seriously editing it! Am I sure I am not alone in looking at template source to figure out how to use them. This is becoming steadily less useful as conditional templates become popular. Instead we need to write documentation on how to use a template on its talk page. (Or, now that I know that noinclude exists, the documentation could even go on the template page itself, which would be quite neat). Pcb21| Pete 16:24, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
 * There is extensive documentation on the talk page: this might actually be one of the best-documented templates around. Maybe the comment should include a pointer there: what do you think? —Phil | Talk 16:32, 10 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Oh I agree that the documentation is good - I will be using it as an example to foster documentation on other templates. A pointer from the actual page would be fine. The point is that people are not currently in the habit of checking the talk page for documentation (because it is not normally there!) - so we have to make a pointer. noinclude allows us the option to put documentation on the main page instead if we wanted to but I don't demand this. Pcb21| Pete 17:35, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Guardians of Time
I updated the project page to show the changes (project banner in discussion page)

One of my images is still marked orphaned fair-use (Image:The_Key.jpg linked on The Key) (I already fixed the project banner on that page)

Should there be a disambig article on The Dark now since there are 3 different references? (The Dark, Fightball and The Dark (novel))

--Htl2001 15:09, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
 * HTH HAND Phil | Talk 15:28, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

Love those tables
Thanks for tablifying Names of the Jewish people. Looks so much better now! &larr;Humus sapiens&larr;ну? 00:11, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Template wizardry
Hi, Phil. From book reference I gather that you are an initiate of the dark art of template syntax. At language (see it in action at Nafaanra language), we have had a discussion some time ago about the 'ranking' component of the language box. This ranking is only relevant for the about hundred or so most widely spoken languages, so many editors don't like it for smaller languages. Now, I did not know that if clauses existed in template syntax until I came across the optional parameters of Book reference. Would it be possible for you to apply the if-wizardry to the 'ranking' component of the language box? Please let me know what you think. Thanks in advance, &mdash; mark &#9998; 08:23, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Phil, I should have checked out language myself first. Apparently, it has fallen from my watchlist and I just didn't notice that another wizard had fixed the problem already. Kudos for your great work at Book reference, anyway! &mdash; mark &#9998; 08:26, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Hello Phil - I would like to create a navigational template, but it will need to be able to branch depending on the name of the article it is in. I know the "toccolours" class causes the template to vary its behavior this way. What I would like to do is have a "title" in the template which jumps you up the heirarchy, and a list of topics one level down from the title, of which the article you are in is one. It should be in black, indicating "this article" but then for this article only, I would like a list of subtopics to appear. So the logic would be like "if this article is named "xxx" then display the following list of subtopics". Is there a way to do this? Thanks for any help - PAR 22:28, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Thanks a lot ...
... for your message about my font colours. It's awfully nice of you to try and find a solution to my signature problems. I'm in a hurry now, but I'll try out your suggestion ASAP. I used to have it the way you describe it, but at How to fix your signature it explicitely says: "It's also a good idea to put the tags outside the link if possible." So that's what I did. All the best, &lt; K  F &gt;  09:33, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

ISO 3166-1
Feel free to add your support to get the ISO 3166-1 nominated in the featured lists: click here. Bart l 18:20, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Booleans
I susspect you know a lot of such things, please take a look at Category talk:Boolean Templates, and give a comment. :) --AzaToth talk 15:23, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

Ping!
let me know if you want any more bot work done. Martin 19:43, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

BING-BONG! Martin 14:40, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

Unicode templates
The first batch of these that you nominated has been (or is being) deleted. I have left the second list you mentioned at Templates for deletion/Unicode chart…default fonts, as I presume you plan to nominate them soon. If you don't, it might be appropriate to userfy them. -Splash talk 01:15, 25 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Nominated. Thanks for the heads-up. —Phil | Talk 09:18, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

Switch
Made a switch statement (rather trivial now when I see it) switch AzaToth talk 04:49, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

Unicode thanks!
Thanks for your contributions at Níðhöggr. You're doing good work with that unicode template. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 12:45, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

arXiv template

 * Also answered on your talk page.

I think your template is brilliant. One suggestion: to make it quicker to use, perhaps it could be set up to work as follows { { arXiv | hep-th/1234567 } } ? Why is the redundant archive = and id = notation necessary? –Joke137 16:36, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
 * The idea of using a template for links to external sites like this is to future-proof the linking. If arXiv decided to change the format of their URLs, we can simply alter a single template and every link which uses that template changes to suit. The reason for explicitly separating out the archive and id components is to allow them to be combined together any way we like. Another reason is that it would, at a later date, be possible to search all uses of the template for links to a particular archive. HTH HAND —Phil | Talk 17:12, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Fair enough. I was just looking for excuses to be lazy and avoid some extra typing when using your template. –Joke137 17:27, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Measurement problem problem
Also on your talk page: Hi, Phil,

I saw the change you made to the references section to the Measurement Problem article. I'm glad you're doing this, but I wonder whether there may not be some way of fixing things so that the links do not appear as a jumbled set of incomprehensible abbreviations (?).
 * I'm assuming that you refer to the DOI ("") and arXiv ("") links. Unfortunately the abbreviations used are the standard nomenclature: those are the actual labels used in the relevant conventions. We provide the links to the DOI and arXiv article to explain what is going on, but it would be pointless simply duplicating the title of the paper in each link.
 * My current role is converting as many "references" as possible to use the standard templates: this allows more consistent formatting and makes it possible to catch inconsistencies between entries that should be identical.

Are you a physicist? There are a few articles that could really use help from someone who (1) is well grounded in physics, and (2) is willing to try to make the articles accessible to other than physics majors. There are several articles that might attract the attention of bright high school students trying to get information that goes beyond pap being fed to them, but they come nowhere near the standard of Greene's writings on deep issues for the non-expert, and I see no reason why they have to be written only for people who would be better advised to pick up one of their fourth year physics texts for a refresher anyway. P0M 19:13, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Sorry, my physics is a good few years out of date. I might be able to get back into the stride of things with a good run-up, but I suspect you'll find a good many people much better qualified than me :-) —Phil | Talk 09:06, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

touch request/hebrew letters
Hi Phil, those templates don't have much linking to them, so touching didnt really do anything.

Also, in regard to the hebrew letters substing, there are lots of templates inside other templates, I have substed quite a few, but many remain, I assume it is the right thing to do to subst: them all? and then subst: all the template occurances in articles. Martin 10:57, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Bluebot's capabilities
Hi Phil, at the moment Bluebot runs a plain old pywikibot, so its functionality it limited. However (by coincidence) last night I uploaded the first development version of my new AutoWikiBrowser which should ultimatly be able to help. At the moment it may be able to help a bit, as you could semi-automatically iterate through all the articles in a category (and soon on a "what links here") and make any necessary changes (be that by hand or by a find and replace, or both). It can also do other stuff, and in the future a lot more stuff. thanks Martin 12:47, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
 * No its not an installer, you will need the .Net framework version 2 for it to run, I am working on getting "what links here" articles as we speak. let me know if there are any problems. Martin 12:59, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

hydroxide template
Hi - just noted your formula templates in serpentine and benitoite and there is a problem with the hydroxide - puts the subsc. inside the parens. which is incorrect, should read (OH)4. Please fix. Vsmith 13:02, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Have an idea, instead of using if, you could create a gereric element template containing: |

and call like this (all params must be defined):

→ Aza  Toth 13:58, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Another template specialist
Hi Phil. In case you haven't seen him already: I think I have scouted an additional template specialist: user:Patrick. More beautiful template woodoo :-). It's interesting (no pun intended). I'm still puzzeling. See m:template:Equal. Our template:booleq - used in book reference, but is not affected - has a bug when parameter 2 has value 2 . I'm watching what Patrick is doing. Maybe he can fix template:booleq (as he seems to have been inspired by it). Or I copy what he's done in MediaWiki (when I'm finished puzzeling :-). – Adrian | Talk 20:12, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
 * There is a new help page on meta that havn't been transwikied yet, that might help you all understand: m:Help:Parameter default → Aza  Toth 20:23, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

156.63.87.28 blocked indefinetly
You were among the people who this anon tried to change the password of. So you know, I've blocked the user permanently. I'll likely unblock the IP later, once I thing they're full discouraged. -- user:zanimum

Your involvement in the Harry Potter Project?
Howdy, I was hoping you might have a look at User:Reagle/HPP_Questions -Reagle 16:29, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

UK-actor-stub
Hi. Thanks for sorting the stub out. --Whouk (talk) 15:40, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

WP:AUM violation
By changing Template:See also to use meta-templates, and then "migrating" articles to that, you are directly failing to abide by the request from our developers to not use templates in that particular way. Please stop, and indeed reverse, your efforts. -- Netoholic @ 14:28, 16 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Even if you are not satisfied that the AUM discussion is final, you should be willing to stop and back off your recent changes for the time being. Openly defying a guideline is not the way to handle this. -- Netoholic @ 16:10, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Police: see5 template

 * You asked on my talk page:

Regarding your edit, please note that see5 is not migratable to see, since it's designed to take more than one (five, to be precise) argument. Shinobu 15:33, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Yes, well…I had just updated see to handle up to 9 arguments. Unfortunately there is a certain editor who has a bee in his bonnet about particular usage of templates and we ran foul of his latest mini-crusade. I am in the process of lodging complaints in the appropriate places: I might even be found to be occupying the moral high ground (not necessarily my usual stamping ground ;-)). In the meantime, it should be possible to undo your reversion unless he strikes again. HTH HAND —Phil | Talk 15:46, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks a lot! And a virtual twinkie for the new template! I've reverted my reversion, so it's okay now. Shinobu 16:01, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Netoholic
The ban is, I believe, still operative, although I do not expect that to remain the case, nor do I really support it remaining the case. Raul654 has specifically asked for leniance in enforcing the ban as well, and the matter is before the arbcom as an appeal. As for AUM, Netoholic remains completely correct about this, as it is a guideline stemming not from the community, but from the developers, who the community has no right and never has had a right to overturn. Phil Sandifer 16:25, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

My understanding is the above as well. I have no personal opinion on it, and chose not to press the issue when Raul654 made this post in response to my block announcement on WP:AN/I. Ral315 (talk) 16:29, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

touch request
I'll start touching all those articles soon then, but it may take a long time! Also, I found the root of the problem you highlighted here. thanks Martin 12:36, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

These templates have been touched, but probably still contain template:if


 * Template:ATCRow
 * Template:Azido
 * Template:Boolnand
 * Template:Boolne
 * Template:Boolnor
 * Template:Boolnxor
 * Template:Checktemplate
 * Template:Elink
 * Template:Family (band)
 * Template:GAA League
 * Template:Iftrue
 * Template:Mountain infobox
 * Template:Raster
 * Template:S-chi
 * Template:S-mar
 * Template:South Holland Province 5p

could you check them out, as this will make the touching more effective. Martin 11:33, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
 * I've struck out the ones I've checked so far: busy touching their clients now… HTH HAND Phil | Talk 12:45, 22 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Yeah, it's going right now, initially >15000, now there are ~7800. should be done by this evening. Martin 14:15, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Put on TfD. Thanks to Martin for the bot work and to Phil for finishing what I had begun. – Adrian | Talk 09:53, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Sorry Phil
You litle edit on my links page does not work ,the empty line must be present there so the title is not intterped as code :) → Aza  Toth 15:17, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

qif without qif
Please have a look at what MrWeeble did at Infobox TV channel. There is hope for book reference... Adrian Buehlmann 22:05, 28 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I mean this version. Adrian Buehlmann 06:46, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Hi. Sorry for having shocked you. I understand I probably drove you to that "so brain-wrenchingly stupid as to cause spontaneous cerebral hemmoraging" state which snowspinner coined in this edit ;-). But I must say as long as book reference or web reference do call qif boolor et al. we are strictly speaking no longer allowed to add book- or web references to articles, due to WP:AUM. Neto's opinion (as I know so far) is that book reference must not be used anyway. So as soon as he removes qif from book reference, we have to quickly remove book reference from articles. We cannot revert him due to WP:AUM. Neto has been quite successfull with his CSS trick (which breaks lynx), but it is not as versatile as qif. So there is a small chance that we can do something similiar with book reference, but I fear at the cost of a massive cut down on features. Adrian Buehlmann 10:23, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

See. Adrian Buehlmann 10:40, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

You wrote "Nuf said: I rest my case". Sorry my english is too bad to grasp enough of the finer points of that. Could you write that for a disabled one like me :-)?

Ok. thanks. Adrian Buehlmann 11:28, 29 December 2005 (UTC)