User talk:Rich257/Archive/2008/January

OK, please help me understand this...
About those warnings that you placed on this article:

--NBahn (talk) 22:01, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
 * 1) What isn't notable about it?
 * 2) Precisely how does this constitute original research?

The Wikipedia article states that there was controversy about this article, but there is no reference to state that there was controversy. We can see that it was discussed in the blogosphere, but you might expect that. The Summary section isn't backed by citations so appears to be original research.

It may be non-notable because it appears that a columnist wrote a piece and it triggered a response — but I thought that's what columnists were there for: to sell papers and make their own names. Whether the material is true or not doesn't really come in to it, there are blatant lies and extreme opinions published in papers round the world day in and day out. As per WP:SPS blogs are not normally considered reliable sources and it seems the article relies mostly on blogs.

Overall I think the article fails mostly for not being an article. I can't read it as it doesn't read, it's a list and in format terms, a mess, which doesn't help. It would seem that this could be condensed to a paragraph. It seems a case of not having time to write a short article, so it's a long one.

I hope that helps, Rich257 (talk) 12:06, 6 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Well, thank you for your time and effort in explaining things.
 * --NBahn (talk) 13:01, 6 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Sounds like you have done the research needed, so if it is actually a controversy (I don't know as it's US domestic politics), then a shorter description as part of the writer's already existing article could be a useful contribution. Rich257 (talk) 13:36, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Region (disambiguation)
Hey, Rich, I truly understand your point on this dab page, but let me explain why I created it, before we decide what to do with it. I had gone to the article Region, and found that it looked like this. I don't know about you, but the top of that page looks hideous to me. My first thought was, "Is it really necessary to provide clarifiers for those things? I mean, maybe the Tolkien thing, since it's actually called "Region", but the bank?  And the Amtrak line I thought was ridiculous.  So I was considering deleting all of them,, but rather than step on someone's toes (those ostensible dab links may have been capriciously created, however it's conceivable that they might actually have been created as a result of someone's experience), I decided to chunk them all onto an actual dab page.

So here's where I'm at: I don't want for Region to return to the condition it was. Nonetheless, I could live without the dab page, if, after you've heard all this, you've decided it needs to go anyway. The only thing is, someone out there thinks that some type of disambig help is needed with these terms. Not me; probably not you. I'm going to remove the prod, but if you want to put it back, I won't remove it a second time. Cheers. Unschool (talk) 22:01, 5 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Looking at what other related articles there are it seems there may be a role for a dab page. However I think Region (disambiguation) should link to Regional  the dab page and not the Amtrak article alone. For Regions, if you look at Regions Financial Corporation's see also then there are a number of other Regions xxx articles.  Region also has a see also to Region (Europe) that should go in.  Perhaps also see also to subregion.  Regards, Rich257 (talk) 11:47, 6 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Well, I've just had a chance to tidy things up over at Region (disambiguation). Thanks for your suggestions, I've tried to incorporate them.  Mind having a look and lending any comments? Unschool (talk) 06:14, 23 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Very comprehensive, good work! One improvement is that the linking rules for disambiguation pages are a little different to article pages — there should only be one blue link per line, please see MOS:DAB for details.  Regards, Rich257 (talk) 08:50, 23 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the comment and the suggestion. It's done! Unschool (talk) 18:16, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Navbox styling
I orginally reverted your edit to Template:Magic Circle which you reverted back. I've created a couple of navboxes in the past and I was wondering if you could point me to the appropriate style guidelines/polcies which I could work by in the future. Previously I was just going by my experinece of seeing various boxes styled to fit the topic they describe (such as Template:Matrix, Template:Botany, etc.). Regards, Guest9999 (talk) 14:24, 8 January 2008 (UTC)]]


 * In general the boxes have the standard page background colour and a coloured title or border, so I think the Magic Circle one should follow this. The botany one uses the background colour and also has a "ledger" style for the rows.  It also has a colour for the row headers.


 * The other issue is with the Magic Circle styled box the link for the article doesn't go black when you are on that article and the visited articles don't go purple (in my theme), instead they all remain the styled colour. Those other templates don't style the article links, but the Magic Circle one does.  I think this is significantly out of kilter with the norm.  I hope that explains the areas where the Magic Circle navbox could be improved. Regards, Rich257 (talk) 16:28, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the response, will definately bear your comments in mind when editing in the future. Regards, Guest9999 (talk) 16:32, 8 January 2008 (UTC)]]

Questions on Dou Di Zhu modification on Links
Why do you think the Dou Di Zhu article's "pack" should be a general link instead of a specific link to the Playing card? Was it a better style? Would it have been less convenient to convey the essential meaning of the word, pack? Thank you for your contribution. Balabinba 17:28, 11 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Pack is a disambiguation page and linking to disambiguation pages is discouraged because it may not always be clear which link is intended. The match on the dab page that best matched was playing card. Rich257 (talk) 20:56, 12 January 2008 (UTC)