User talk:RexxS/Archive 20

This Month in Education: November 2012
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Sport Diving article- another issue
Hi RexxS, An editor recently added a section that suggests that Sport Diving (known as ‘Competition Scuba’ in the edit) is in opposition to a set of principles & values that apparently apply to scuba diving and that it represents a potential danger by encouraging ‘rushing’. While I have drafted up a response, I would be interested in reading about how you would respond to such a position. Cowdy001 (talk) 21:06, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Hi Cowdy, sorry I was away when you posted. My view is this: Although encouraging "Competition Scuba" might produce the potential for dangerous practices, the reality is that recreational scuba training has been remarkably successful in removing any competitive element from the sport. So much so that there is absolutely no evidence (that I'm aware of) that the underwater sports regulated by CMAS have had any impact on diving incidents. I'd explain to the other editor that we require evidence for controversial claims (point to WP:V) and ask for a reliable source to back their assertions. Failing that, don't edit war, but seek a third opinion - either from WP:3O or from WT:WikiProject Scuba diving. I'll have a look at the article tomorrow and see if I can help directly. Cheers, --RexxS (talk) 01:16, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

Laptop
Any idea where my rucksack with laptop has gone? I'm sure it was in the corner with the shopping in the Ship & Mitre but after you'd gone it had vanished. Perhaps it was taken by mistake?? Any ideas? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bazonka  (talk • contribs) 23:01, 24 November 2012 (UTC)
 * We all blame Brian. --RexxS (talk) 14:31, 25 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I blame C. M. Prasad. Bazonka (talk) 18:16, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

A barnstar for you

 * You're always welcome - it was a most successful day, and thanks are especially due to you and Katie for leading the event. Here's to many more! --RexxS (talk) 20:27, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

Information
I noticed your username commenting at an Arbcom discussion regarding civility. An effort is underway that would likely benifit if your views were included. I hope you will append regards at: Requests for comment/Civility enforcement/Questionnaire Thank you for considering this request. My 76 Strat  (talk) 10:13, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

Precious (in style)
  passionate dedication

Thank you for looking in detail at the aspects of complicated tables, improving their accessability and clarity, and for wise words concerning the spirit within the project!

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:32, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

repeated in br'erly thanksgiving style, thank you that it still applies, awesome Wikipedian of 12 November 2009 and 9 April 2012, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 23:00, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Euro gold and silver commemorative coins (Belgium)
Hello,

could you check whether the tables in Euro gold and silver commemorative coins (Belgium) meets access? Regards.--Tomcat (7) 15:39, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Hi Tomcat. I'm afraid that someone using a screen reader might find it difficult to understand the information in the first table (Summary). It is best to mark up column headers (like "Issues" or "€100", etc.) as headers using the ! scope ="col" syntax, and the row headers (like 2002, 2003, etc.) using ! scope ="row" syntax as shown in the data tables tutorial. That would ensure that modern screen readers would be able to hear those headers with each piece of data if the user wanted. For example a user might set JAWS to 'table mode' and hear "2010, €20, 3" rather than just "3" which isn't going to mean much to them. Also, the "Coins were minted", etc. legend wouldn't mean anything to a screen reader user as they can't hear colours, so they would lose that information completely.
 * The other tables are being used just for layout, so although a screen reader user might find the blank columns irritating, they would still hear all of the information that a sighted reader sees. Those using JAWS wouldn't be able to make use of 'table mode' and would hear the contents of the table as if it were prose, so if you look at the text in edit mode, the order that is in will become the order that a screen reader user will hear it.
 * Hope that helps. --RexxS (talk) 17:08, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
 * And what about the other tables :)? Regards.--Tomcat (7) 22:01, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
 * As I said, all of the other tables (in the sections 2002 coinage to 2012 coinage) are not data tables; they are being used simply to provide a layout for sighted viewers. A screen reader could read them though. If you wanted to make them into data tables, you'd create a table that had all the header info in the first row and use one row for each coin something like this:


 * This would be navigable by a screen reader and would have a database-like structure that could be imported into external applications for re-users. It also would have increased functionality such as sortability, and you could even combine all the tables at the expense of an extra column for "Year". You can see that it's less aesthetically pleasing to a sighted viewer on a medium width monitor than the way the current article is laid out, so you have decide whether you want to retain the current layout or modify the tables for the extra functionality and accessibility. Cheers, --RexxS (talk) 23:11, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research Wikipedia training 2012
Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research Wikipedia training 2012 --RexxS (talk) 23:39, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

message
thanks for the training--Transcriptiongirl (talk) 17:04, 6 December 2012 (UTC) --Pakavarin (talk) 17:24, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

new user
AN nucleus. Thanks for the wikipedia training! Alice--AN nucleus (talk) 17:05, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

cheers
Mchristlieb (talk) 17:06, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

Hi AN nucleus (talk) 17:22, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the training! --Panagisf (talk) 17:25, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

I was the "demonstrator"
Hi Maproom (talk) 17:24, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the training--Melania85 (talk) 17:25, 6 December 2012 (UTC)--Melania85 (talk) 17:25, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks
− Thanks for the training! Blue Phoenix--Blue Phoenix 77 (talk) 17:27, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

This Month in Education: December 2012
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Happy diving!
Happy diving, keep an eye out for the icebergs and the bears! Bishonen &#124; talk 14:32, 8 December 2012 (UTC).
 * Will do, thanks. T-RexxS got very excited at the prospect of meeting some new mammals as he's getting fed up with his current diet of goats, lawyers and small children. Disappointingly, the water temperature here is 23 C and all the local bears migrated north millennia ago.
 * Speaking of goats, I'm actually on one of the larger Canary Islands, quite near to Sicily. The locals share many of the Sicilian customs, but last year while attempting to immolate the Satanic Goat (to the tune of Arthur Brown's Fire), they accidentally set fire to half of the island. Might be worth a mention somewhere. --RexxS (talk) 23:27, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Yo Ho Ho
It was good to collaborate on that training thing, maybe we can do something similar next year? 

 Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  is wishing you Seasons Greetings! Whether you celebrate your hemisphere's Solstice or Xmas, Diwali, Hogmanay, Hanukkah, Lenaia, Festivus or even the Saturnalia, this is a special time of year for almost everyone!

Spread the holiday cheer by adding to your friends' talk pages.


 * Season's Greetings to you too. It was great to do that work with you - I'd love to join in again in the new year. Cheers --RexxS (talk) 19:50, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

Conveying appreciation for assistance with teach'em-a-lesson templates
Enjoy! See cool santa morning star hat!  darwin bish  BITE 20:50, 23 December 2012 (UTC).
 * here again, I came to congratulate on the GA "1950s ...", great collaboration, teaching refs, GA, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:11, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Bernard Lee filmography
Hi RexxS, I've opened a peer review on a relatively new article, Bernard Lee on stage and screen. It's fairly similar in scope and layout to the Peter Sellers on stage, radio, screen and record article you very kindly helped out on previously. If you have any spare time, would you be able to look it over and pass comment, particularly on the coding aspect? It's not a problem if you are too busy to be able to get round to it. All the best - SchroCat (talk) 18:29, 27 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Sure, I'd be happy to help, but I'm only just back home from two weeks away scuba diving, so I'm catching up with a huge backlog of email and jobs. I'll get to Bernard in the next few days if that's ok with you? Cheers --RexxS (talk) 19:47, 27 December 2012 (UTC)
 * That's great - many thanks indeed. There's no rush on this at all, so whenever you've got the time it will be very much appreciated. Many thanks - SchroCat (talk) 22:14, 27 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I've made a few comments at Talk:Bernard Lee on stage and screen, but the article is already in excellent shape, and there's very little I'd want to see changed. Well done! --RexxS (talk) 19:48, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Hi RexxS, Many thanks for taking the time to go over this - and for your comments. I'll have a play around with the column size as you suggest and see what it looks like on a few screens first. There s no rush on getting this to FLN - I have to wait for a little while as I have John Le Mesurier on stage, radio, screen and record going through the FLC process at the moment and need to wait a little longer before Lee can go on the list too. Thanks again for your invaluable help: it really is much appreciated! - SchroCat (talk) 04:08, 5 January 2013 (UTC)
 * I've now reworked the tables along the lines, but with one modification: I've forced the first column into being 30em wide, rather than auto. With the JLM filmography list I was advised to try and keep the same columns the same size on the various tables. With forcing them film/programme/production to all have the same width, the uniformity is achieved, without any issues I could see on the two systems I am using. Please ket me know if this is an issue on yours, and if it's OK I'll replicate the sizes onto the JLM article too. Many thanks! - SchroCat (talk) 05:47, 5 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Using 30em for the first column is ok as well. I actually used that initially but found that the notes column would sometimes wrap onto 3 lines - which I thought was ugly - if I made the browser window very narrow, but if I let the first column wrap as well, no column wrapped to more than 2 lines at any sensible resolution. You only see this on narrow screens, so it's not a big deal and you're probably better off trying to achieve some uniformity in widths across different tables from an aesthetic point of view (as you were advised). The trick of mixing fixed width with variable is quite useful for keeping some consistency between tables and you may find more articles where it can be useful. Cheers, --RexxS (talk) 03:08, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Goochie or Gucci...
Hi RexxS, happy new year, hope you're well. User:Goodraise has raised a comment at the FLC regarding the "uniqueness" of row scopes. I wonder, if you have a moment, if you would pop over and give us your thoughts? I'm struggling with the idea of potentially creating an arbitrary visible column of data just to ensure a unique entry exists in every row. Cheers, The Rambling Man (talk) 08:11, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Happy New Year to you too, TRM - I hope you're at least as well as I am (and I'm in rude health, thank you)!
 * While it is nice for the row header to uniquely identify the given row, it isn't absolutely essential, as the person navigating about a table will often be able to "visualise" roughly where they are in the table as long as it's not too large, and the duplicated row headers are not too numerous. I wouldn't recommend adding an extra column just to make an unique identifier, as an artificial ID (like the ones you make when creating an MS Access database) simply won't sound useful to a screen reader. I've left some thoughts about Goochie's centuries at the FLC page, but there's no right answer - it's your call in these sort of cases. Cheers, --RexxS (talk) 18:46, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks so much, as ever RexxS. I've left a comment there about your sandbox example where you keep the score as the target of the row scope.  I'm tempted to keep it as is right now, but between you and Goodraise, I'm now starting to see even more the pitfalls of attempting to keep the ACCESS side of the tables in check.  Difficult sometimes....!! The Rambling Man (talk) 18:50, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Technology Committee
Hey Rexx - I'm pinging everyone who said they might be interested in being on the Tech Committee to ask them to comment on the talk page about a first meet-up! Check it out and throw your hat into the ring when you have a mo? Katherine Bavage (WMUK) (talk) 14:43, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Help please
Hi RexxS! I hope the water didn't freeze solid around you when you went scuba diving! I've added a fine userbox for membership of a project to my page, but it's supposed to sit on the right and not mess with the text. Help, please? Re the section above: perhaps I could be on the Tech Committee? Provided they have a cool userbox! darwin fish 18:11, 9 January 2013 (UTC).
 * (just passing) I fixed it for you; you need two more templates to make that one work properly (wouldn't you know?)! HJ Mitchell  &#124;  Penny for your thoughts?  20:00, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Thank you, kind sir! The boxtop and boxbottom… right, now I remember my sister did that on her page, but [embarrassed ] I thought she was sort of making it up as she went along. Are you by any chance a member of the Antarctica Highways project? Very informative! darwin fish 22:27, 9 January 2013 (UTC).

Hello
Hi there from Shauna!--Monkmans (talk) 14:45, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

Pantomime performances of Dan Leno
Dearest RexxS, would you be able to take a look at the above and offer some advice on the technical stuff? My plan is to make it a FL and proceed to make Dan Leno a featured topic. On my Safari stuff, the images look great, but I have been advised by my astute colleague that the pictures on a bigger screen offers loads of ghastly white space. I have since taken the pictures away, but my plan is to have them on the left side of the table similar to this. Is there a fix for this and do the tables currently come problem free? Hope your well! --  Cassianto Talk    12:42, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Oxford Meetup 3
Thank you for attending the second Oxford Meetup, and it was a pleasure meeting you. We hope to keep this as a regular event, every two months, on the first Sunday of the month (in order not to clash with London [second Sunday] and Reading [third Sunday]). I have created a page about the third Oxford Meetup; please sign up if you think that you are able to attend - if the date or venue are unsuitable, please comment at its discussion page.

Please spread the word to anybody else who you think might be interested. The next UK meetup is Reading, 20 January 2013. -- Red rose64 (talk) 19:33, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
 * It was good to meet you too - as well as all of the other Wikimedians that I hadn't previously met. I'll do my best to get to Oxford regularly, and I'll try to make it to Reading next week. Looking forward to catching up with you again. Cheers, --RexxS (talk) 00:26, 14 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Hi, just to let you know, the third Reading Meetup has been cancelled because of the weather. To make up for this, the fourth Reading Meetup will be one month early, 17 February 2013. -- Red rose64 (talk) 15:35, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

This Month in Education: January 2013
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Reading 3 Wikimeet
Please note this is cancelled due to bad weather. Rescheduled for the 17th Feb. Please sign up. Thanks. Philafrenzy (talk) 14:13, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

Life Support definition and comment on Mining and Conservation
Hi RexxS: The inclusion of 1st and 2nd person (except as discussed below) references in the Life Support definition was not intentional a modified text follows: - Any living organism requires conditions that enable the continued functioning of essential facets of their being. Factors that limit this function must be corrected in an appropriate time and manner or life will cease. The broad term life support covers all of these factors. The special medical case below is but an example of the depth of intervention that may be needed to keep a single individual human alive. All life forms that depend on a 20+/- 30 degree C temperature range are approaching a time when extreme measures similar to those described may be needed to maintain the function of beings that can not survive if current conditions are significantly modified. The choice to ignore the maintenance of the climate control system that has persisted for the past 10,000 years has already allowed this process of systemic change to take on crisis proportions. There is a convenient misconception that the planet is at risk. This is an error! Earth will be fine, but “life as we know it” will not be possible if this situation is allowed to continue. If change occurs as fast as it now appears to be happening the kinds of life support described below will also be impossible to render because there will be no care givers. - Citation: James Hansen – Hansen coined the phrase “life as we know it” in his many papers, articles, public acts of civil disobedience and books all easily found on Wikipedia as follows: Hansen is best known for his research in the field of climatology, his testimony on climate change to congressional committees in 1988 that helped raise broad awareness of global warming, and his advocacy of action to avoid dangerous climate change. In recent years, Hansen has become an activist for action to mitigate the effects of climate change, which on a few occasions has led to his arrest. In 2009 his first book, Storms of My Grandchildren, was published.[1]

Hansen used the term "life as we know it" so that instance of "we" has been retained in the definition.

Lets get one thing straight - I am not at war with anyone. I have forgiven everyone and am trying to forgive myself for the things I am doing to bring about this tragedy. However, the financial community and most "professionals", my self included, are mining the biosphere for "value" that will not be worth anything if / when there is no life left to appreciate it. There is a similar need to redefine economic reality within the bounds of a finite planet. The current exponential function used to assess all economic activity is impossible for even one individual to achieve. - Fv=PV * (1+i) raised to the nth power - is an exponential function that predicts infinite anything if held for sufficient doublings. Albert Bartlett created many clear discussions of this issue, yet we continue to seek growth to solve our problems - this is FRAUD and we are all part of it today.

REGARDING MINING and CONSERVATION: The Wikipedia definition of mining is similarly deficient as is the definition of Conservation.

I am working on a formal definition of the general term "Conservation" as the term applies to NGO and governmental authorities entrusted with keeping our planet livable. Unfortunately none of the low level authorities are able to respond to issues they are aware of because of the myopic definitions that are currently in place. Your assistance with placing these definitions in a form that you are comfortable retaining for public use would be greatly appreciated.

--- Mining is an activity involving the removal of a scarce resource for the economic advancement of a few. In the best of situations the activity provides some utility to society. Implicit in the term “mining” is the production of undesirable associated outcomes. AlanPage007 (talk) 10:36, 31 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Hi Alan, thanks for taking the time to explain, and I do find your research interesting. Unfortunately, Wikipedia is purely a tertiary source of information and we have agreed that it will only report and summarise information that has already been published in the mainstream. We have "Five Pillars", one of which is "No Original Research" that debars contributions that have not been previously published. The encyclopedia will not accept contributions that cannot be sourced to what we call "reliable sources" and we have guidance on identifying reliable sources that set quite a high standard for what we can use - so much so that Wikipedia does not regard Wikipedia as a reliable source, therefore we may not cite Wikipedia to validate the content we are adding.
 * James Hansen is an interesting researcher and obviously eminent, even if somewhat controversial as an activist. My advice to you is to examine what he has published directly about Life support, Mining and Conservation, and compare that with what other sources in those Wikipedia articles have to say. You will find that it is quite possible to add Hansen's view into those articles by summarising what he has written about them and citing where he wrote it; you won't find it possible to add your own work on those definitions as it is forbidden by our policy of "No Original Research". I hope that helps and good luck with your editing. --RexxS (talk) 19:16, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

Minor edits in the name of accessability
Just a quick heads-up that I've mentioned you here as probably the one best-placed to explain. If I'm wrong about the effects of line breaks on screen readers (I'm pretty sure I'm not but you know better than me) could you put a note there, to avoid people making potentially annoying clean-up bot edits if they don't have a use. – iridescent  01:46, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the heads-up, and I've commented there. As it happens, although spurious line breaks are often an annoyance to a screen reader (like a blank line between comments in a threaded discussion), this is one of the exceptions: the presence or absence of a blank line after a heading makes almost no difference to the screen reader user. I sympathise with Slim on this one! Hope you're well, and it would be great to catch up soon. Cheers, --RexxS (talk) 02:55, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Replied on the other matter a couple of days ago—let me know if it didn't get through and I'll resend it, as my email has been a little spotty lately. – iridescent  23:38, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Category:Wikipedians who wish Bish and Giano would come back
Category:Wikipedians who wish Bish and Giano would come back, which you created, has been nominated for possible deletion, merging, or renaming. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the Categories for discussion page. Thank you. Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:55, 14 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes, of course, it's done its job. Happy Valentine's day. --RexxS (talk) 22:31, 14 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Bishzilla has supported deletion. I'm sitting on my hands to try to prevent the rest of the conglomerate from weighing in too. Alternative accounts must not be used to give the impression of more support for a position than actually exists. Difficult! The twins are very unmanageable! Bishonen &#124; talk 22:50, 14 February 2013 (UTC).

Infobox proofread
Trouble ! How does that work? Rex fix please?  bish a pod   talk to your inner fish  15:08, 15 February 2013 (UTC).
 * I was too late on the scene, as a reversing almida had already done the job (it just needs the filename on its own). I did another tidy up though. --RexxS (talk) 17:40, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

This Month in Education: February 2013
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List of James Bond novels and short stories‎
Hi RexxS, I hope you are well. I come asking some advice about List of James Bond novels and short stories‎. I've been asked if the use of Book list complies with WP:ACCESS per MOS:DTT. Could you offer your thoughts on this? Many thanks! - SchroCat (talk) 18:29, 16 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Hi Schro, I'm fine, thanks, especially as the weather is improving. If you look at MOS:DTT, it mainly wants us to identify and mark up column headers, which are placed before the Book list template, so most of our efforts to comply with MOS:DTT should be focussed there. I've updated the template documentation to better reflect what MOS:DTT asks us to do, and I'd recommend amending List of James Bond novels and short stories‎ to do the same. In an ideal world, I'd also mark up the title of each book as a row header, but that would require amending a protected template, so I'd want to check the effect that would have on the 92 pages where the template is already used, before pushing that sort of change. --RexxS (talk) 21:22, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Glad to hear the weather's making things better—I hope the joints are enjoying the return to more beneficial temperatures! Thanks very much for the template tweak. I'll have a play around with the Bond tables, but I may do a re-write to move away from the template and into more appropriate (and DTT-compliant) tables, which means I can get row headers in too. Thanks again! - SchroCat (talk) 21:40, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

Mail call
I've dropped you a note. Worm TT( talk ) 09:15, 18 February 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm on it. Give me a day or two. --RexxS (talk) 16:07, 18 February 2013 (UTC)
 * There's no rush, I'm just an information junkie! Worm TT( talk ) 16:09, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

Help at FLC
Rexxs, I noted that you have experince with WP:ACCESS. I have submitted West Virginia List of counties for FLC. One of the comments places was that thetable needed a caption. I reviewed every county list in the USA, no captions. Also I was told that since the table was not complex, row headers were objectionable...I do not know what that means. Can you help at all??Coal town guy (talk) 16:25, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Hi Coal town guy. List of counties in West Virginia is an excellent piece of work for your first nomination, so don't worry too much. It's quite accessible right now, but could be improved a little by editing the templates that are used in the US county article tables. That's the sort of thing you may want to do as you gain experience, but save that for later. I've commented at Featured list candidates/List of counties in West Virginia/archive2 to try to explain in a little more detail. Hope that helps, --RexxS (talk) 17:40, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Many thanks Rexxs, I do appreciate thatand it does help ALOT. Yeah, changing a template is a big thing for me and really any editor at this point. This FL submission has been fun for sure, the rise in standards has made this a learning experience. Feel free to add a support if you want, I have 5 now, but I am happy for the fact that the list has improved ALOT. The first time I got to the list was...not good for certainCoal town guy (talk) 17:47, 19 February 2013 (UTC)