User talk:Rich Farmbrough/Archive/2006 February

Myron Evans
Hi, I have just put up a new, shorter and more NPOV version (basically just excised some uncritical description of Evans alleged achievements). I'd love to be able to cite the source for his open letter (?) demanding election fo the Royal Society. IIRC, I found it somewhere, cited in the article, and then you moved it to the talk page? Whatever, I can't seem to find it on the web now at the pro-Evans website where I think we originally found it. Can you help me find the citation again? TIA ---CH 03:44, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Adolfo Farsari
Hi, Thanks for Wikifying the dates in the photographer articles I've been creating. Would you mind reading this article on Adolfo Farsari and suggesting on the featured article candidate page whether you think it's worthy of featured article status or not? No worries if not, but I'd like your sage commentary. Thanks. Pinkville 23:59, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Requests for arbitration/KJV
Hello,

An Arbitration case in which you commented has been opened: Requests for arbitration/KJV. Please add evidence to the evidence sub-page, Requests for arbitration/KJV/Evidence. You may also contribute to the case on the workshop sub-page, Requests for arbitration/KJV/Workshop.

On behalf of the Arbitration Committee, --Tony Sidaway 16:25, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Page name for temperature articles
To avoid flip-flopping between 'degree Fahrenheit' and 'Fahrenheit' or 'degree Celsius' and 'Celsius', I propose that we have a discussion on which we want. I see you have contributed on units of measurement, please express your opinion at Talk:Units of measurement. Thanks. bobblewik 22:09, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Redirect of Leonard Stern (billionare)
Rich--looked at the redirect. Is there a way to rename the article as "Leonard N. Stern" and redirect it the other way. It seems to me that the current title is hardly encyclopedic. Even "(founder, Hartz Mountain Industries)" would be preferable, if the name by itself wouldn't be sufficient for people to find it. Thanks for your thoughts on this--Beth Wellington 23:05, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

I think I follow! Was there no prior discussion on the original billionaire page. If so, it seems to be missing.--Beth Wellington 23:25, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

My reversions
I reverted your two LoPbN edits that i've noticed so far, with a specific reason for each species of change w/in the page. If it's important enuf to you to ask why, i'll explain. --Jerzy•t 23:34, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Obliged
This is the third time I have contacted you about this issue, and you have yet to respond to me. Please stop changing obligated to obliged, the two words do not always mean the same thing. - SimonP 22:30, 13 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Thank you for responding. I had left comments on your talk page twice in the past on this issue, but I guess you must have missed them. I note other users have also complained about these changes. I'm not sure if you are aware but obliged and obligated can have two different meanings. Consider these sentences:
 * He was obliged to her because of her actions
 * He was obligated to her because of her actions
 * They each mean a very different thing. One means he was grateful, the other that he was bound. - SimonP 22:53, 13 February 2006 (UTC)
 * The two words have become quite confused, so each is often now used in place of the other and many consider them as interchangeable. However, there is no reason to make articles less precise merely because you dislike a word. This reminds me of a recent conversation on the Village Pump. There is a natural tendency for the encyclopedia to move to "lowest common denominator English," there is no reason to help it along. - SimonP 23:28, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Responses
Hi, I hope you are not planning on indescrimnate reversion of my edits. It seems this is just the sort of behaviour that you are accused of in arbitration. Please also see Administrators. If you want ot discuss the meanings of the word, you had only to ask, rather than just say "I am reverting a few of your edits" then block reverting. Rich  Farmbrough. 22:48, 13 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your note. The distinction is not as clear cut as perhaps might first seem the case.
 * OED agrees that legal requirement is included in "oblige" (as opposed to obligate), in its lengthy articles. More accessibly the American Heritage Dictionary says " To constrain by physical, legal, social, or moral means." Mirrim Webster has "to constrain by physical, moral, or legal force or by the exigencies of circumstance".
 * Furthermore Webssters 1828 made the reverse distinction, saying of "Obligate" "Until recently, the sense of this word has been restricted to positive and personal acts; and when moral duty or law binds a person to do something, the word oblige has been used. But this distinction is not now observed."
 * There are of course cicumstances where "obligate" is to be preferred, in direct quotes and in the technical senses of the word from finance and more importantly biology.
 * Rich  Farmbrough. 23:23, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Danish 1st and 2nd Divisions
Hey.

You can not change links and template boxes for Danish 1st and 2nd Divisions to first and second. There are created a lot of articles for those two divisions and EVERY SINGLE PLACE are there standing 1st and 2nd, so it isn't that easy changing it. If it should be with letters, the F and S in first and second must be capitalised. Kalaha 15:56, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Skyblue70707
His name is Skyblue70707, almost all his contributions seem to have been related to whatever Skybluz is. He seem to spend more time on his User: page than actually contributing real content to real articles. Maybe he is confused about what Wikipedia is. His name and that almost all he edited is related to Skybluz indicate that he have an agenda, and maybe he is only interested in promoting something with a direct relation to him. He seems rather silly and suspicous. Frap 17:40, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Wikify dates
I noticed your date wikifcation at University of Texas at Austin, and I reverted the change because it is not consistent with the examples given at WP:CITE. Generally, dates aren't wikified unless their wikification will add something to the article. I noticed that you have made this change to many articles. I was hoping that you might hold off for a second and come discuss the policy here. &mdash; Scm83x talk 23:52, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Be careful if you're using a bot or some other tool to wikify dates - one of the edits to United States Army changed "On 17 June 2,200 troops under Maj. Gen." to "On 17 June 2 200 troops under Maj. Gen." &mdash; Rebelguys2 talk 23:02, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Ah well spotted. Rich  Farmbrough. 19:49, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Also note that items should be linked only in their first instance, as per your edits to Type 209 submarine and Politics of Uruguay, to name a few. Note Manual of Style (links) and, to a lesser degree, Make only links relevant to the context. &mdash; Rebelguys2 talk 23:09, 29 January 2006 (UTC)


 * See Manual of Style (dates and numbers). This is to allow date preferences to work. If you set them you will see 11 September and September 11 ( 11 September and September 11 ) the same way. Rgds. Rich   Farmbrough. 19:49, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

The wiki style sheet [] says that 20th century is preferred over Twentieth-Century. Why the recent changes? Rick Norwood 21:12, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

That's a lot more work than I would be willing to do on the question of whether 20th or Twentieth is preferable. Rick Norwood 23:51, 8 February 2006 (UTC)


 * While I appreciate that wikification of day and name allows preferences to work, I find it annoying to find extra links. I would have thought the preference would work something like Commonwealth versus US spelling.  In Australia it is 11 September.  In the US it is is September 11.  The wikification to set up preferences runs counter to the beginning injunction at Manual_of_Style_%28dates_and_numbers%29 although I appreciate that they go on later about preferences.  Is it necessary though - or is it distracting?  I think the latter.--A  Y  Arktos 00:48, 9 February 2006 (UTC)


 * At some point wikisyntax may allow date preferences and other regionalisation to work without links. Rich  Farmbrough. 10:31, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Please revert all the wikifications of dates done on references. It's not only confusing but useless. Jclerman 00:08, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

I noticed a problem with your edits to the Are You Are Missing Winner page here. One of the dates you wikified was emedded inside an external link (to a review of the LP), so 25 Nov. 2001 became 25 November 2001. The original format complied with that suggested at WikiProject Albums, so I reverted it. I appreciate the effort you're putting into this project, though - I guess that's another pitfall for you to worry about ;) Flowerparty ■ 16:17, 11 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Hi this edit also wikified a date in the title of some meeting minutes, ie within a web reference link, - not at all appropriate to my mind and I hve reverted. Regards--A  Y  Arktos 20:02, 11 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Hi Rich. You wikified the "accessed on" dates in the References section of Thomas Brownrigg, BBC Regional Programme and BBC General Forces Programme. I've reverted these wikifications, (a) because WP:CITE doesn't support linking of dates in the References section; and (b) because the wikified dates there are very confusing for anyone wanting to follow up the references supplied... which is the point of supplying references. Just wanted to let you know. Cheers! ➨ ❝ R E  DVERS ❞ 11:13, 12 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Hi again Rich. I've reverted one of the two changes you made to History of ITV, because WP:CITE doesn't support linking of dates in a references section and because wikified dates there are very confusing for anyone wanting to follow up the references supplied. Cheers! ➨ ❝ R E  DVERS ❞ 18:47, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the wikify date updates on some of my recent contributions - will get it right going forward. --Damate


 * While the wikifying of is important, in many/most cases the year should be linked, according to WP:Dates. I'd expect, for example, that a biographical article would wikify the birth and death year but few, if any, others. Perhaps the Margaret Thatcher article might have her start and end years as PM wikified, but not the year in, say, the date of a particular meeting. &mdash;Whouk (talk) 12:31, 15 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Ah, that's clearer now. Thanks. &mdash;Whouk (talk) 13:00, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Dates and Numbered lists
Thanks for wikifying my articles & for the tips! Akina66 22:34, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Lots of edits to be had
You have been hitting a bunch of my pages recently with date fixes. If you are looking for a lot of pages that need date fixing go to my user page under pages I have created and you will see many that need help. I figured I'd throw it our there while you were on a roll--Looper5920 12:16, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Leonard Stern (publisher)
Both Sterns have been publishers. The latter is Leonard B. Stern. There was no article, only a deadlink, so I researched and wrote one. Maybe you could do your magic and rename it and do the redirect? Thanks! --Beth Wellington 01:28, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

As per your request, moved the article to "Leonard B. Stern." First time I goofed and left (writer and publisher) in move, but fixed that and edited the disambiguation page to show the new article name. Hope I did everything right. This is the first time I've ever moved an article. If you find an error, let me know.--Beth Wellington 22:37, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

I just tried to edit the redirect as per yur instructions. Would you mind checking and see if it's right. Never encountered droodles Leonard B sounds nicer than Leonard N!Beth Wellington 21:35, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Karen Dotrice
Hi! I had to repair some of your changes to this article; dates are automatically linked in refs, and your edits made the brackets visible (for example, [[18 February ]] ). Write me with any questions :) Radio  Kirk   talk to me  00:11, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Well (and quickly) spotted, web reference templates are more of a problem for me now that references appear in the middle of articles as well as at the end. Rich  Farmbrough. 00:20, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Thank you! It just so happens, I wrote the article, so it's on my watchlist; the ref templates were changing in the middle of my efforts to win FA status, so I'm familiar with the confusion ;)
 * Incidentally, see my question on Talk:Matthew Garber. Rgds, Rich  Farmbrough. 00:21, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Did, and replied already ;) Radio  Kirk   talk to me  00:26, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Droodles
Thanks for checking the redirect. Sorry the last note lacked punctuation--the sticky keys option invoked itself at the library and I would have had to reboot and lose what I was working on to get rid of them. Droodles are fun. There are a slew more at the droodles homepage. Did know Stern had published them, since I wrote his entry. Didn't realize Price was born in Charleston, WV. By the way, your note to the Hartz pr woman was very nicely done.--Beth Wellington 00:28, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

External link(s)
The last time I looked, the MoS was neutral between singular and plural, explaining that though using the plural when there was only one link was inaccurate, many editors preferred it. Has this changed? I can't remember where in all the mountains of material it was. --Mel Etitis ( Μελ Ετητης ) 18:34, 20 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the link, and sorry to have made you late... Now that you're back, the section I was thinking of was External links:


 * Some editors use the header "External link" if there is only one link, but others use "External links" in all cases. There is currently no consensus on which is better.  Editors who always use the plural form may prefer it for any of the following reasons:


 * experience shows that future editors often add links without changing the section heading
 * people may be dissuaded from adding links to a section titled "External link" since it seems that there should only be one link
 * using "External links" gives greater stylistic consistency to Wikipedia


 * The converse arguments are:
 * Wikipedia's community-editing leads to prompt correction of such oversights.
 * There is no evidence that a significant number of people would be dissuaded from adding links. Besides, additional links would often be redundant.
 * Use of "External links" to head a section containing a single link is fundamentally incorrect, a poor precedent to set in an encyclopedia

--Mel Etitis ( Μελ Ετητης ) 18:51, 20 February 2006 (UTC)


 * "Wikipedia's community-editing leads to prompt correction of such oversights." Yes, I thought that that was a touch optimistic (although I've corrected a fair few singulars to plurals as I've wandered around the place). --Mel Etitis ( Μελ Ετητης ) 23:16, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

My responses to Mel
Thanks for the comment. I'm just going out, so I'll check when I get back in. Rich Farmbrough. 18:40, 20 February 2006 (UTC)


 * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(headings)#Standard_headings_and_ordering (I'm going to be late now!) Rich Farmbrough. 18:45, 20 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Well "Wikipedia's community-editing leads to prompt correction of such oversights." is certainly dubious at best, there are at least 8,600 "External link" sections with more than one link! I'll concentrate on those, and a bunch of other things for now. Rich Farmbrough. 23:06, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Some stuff from Trey
I'm very confused. Judging from your contribs, you seem to be running a bot to change "External link" to "External links", but you didn't post your intention on Wikipedia talk:Bots to do so, and you're using your regular user account and not a bot account. Am I right on these points, or am I missing something? --TreyHarris 09:51, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

It looks like, based on consensus at Wikipedia talk:Bots, that you need to get approval prior to your edits whether or not you're using bot software once your edit frequency gets fast enough. You made over 500 edits in an hour, so that definitely qualifies. --TreyHarris 11:30, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

ditto to Trey
Hi, no I'm not using a bot, although I probably should be. I got as far as registering a seperate account and looking at pywikipediabot, but it seemed very complicated. What I generally do is open bunch (99) of tabs in Firefox and batch edit the pages - sometimes it crashes Firefox. When I'm working on dates (which I don't think can be simply robotised, to many quotes, URLs, internal links etc.) I let myself get sidetracked on other formatting issues, but these external links I want to get out of the way. If you know of a simpler bot than pywikipeidabot I'd be very interseted (oh, I've looked at AWB as well which is a great tool.) Rich  Farmbrough. 10:06, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Of coure the big advantage with a bot is that it can be throttled to a slow rate (say 1 per min) and left to its own devices (subject to proper testing of course). Rich  Farmbrough. 10:46, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Wikifying Dates is often unnecessary
Hi. I noticed you wikified some dates on one of the essays of Franci Fukuyama (as well as quite a few other articles). I was wondering what was the purpose? I can understand wikifying dates when they are fairly relevant to the item being discussed. In this case, the date of publication is fairly arbitrary (the magazine is only published on Sundays - thus the exact date is clearly arbitrary, and the year 2006 is so common to so many things that it is almost irrelevant) and thus it is unlikely that the user is going to click on that date for more related information. In my experience, going around wikifying dates just beacuse they can be wikified only adds irrelevant noise. It isn't that different that me wikifying random words in a sentence -- while it is possible for me to do this, do you think it adds much value or is it more of a distraction and busywork? (unsigned comment by User:Bhouston)
 * See Manual of Style (dates and numbers). This is to allow date preferences to work. If you set them you will see 11 September and September 11 ( 11 September and September 11 ) the same way. It's cool if you sign messages on other people's talk pages with ~ . Rgds, Rich   Farmbrough. 16:33, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Athletics Weekly
Your article Athletics Weekly has appeared in the Dead End Pages list because it is not wikified. Please consult the Wikipedia Guide to Layout for more information on how to write a good, wikified article. I would encourage you to revisit your submissions and them. Thanks and happy editing! James084 03:09, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

External link vs External links
"Some editors use the header "External link" if there is only one link, but others use "External links" in all cases. There is currently no consensus on which is better. Editors who always use the plural form may prefer it for any of the following reasons:

1. experience shows that future editors often add links without changing the section heading 2. people may be dissuaded from adding links to a section titled "External link" since it seems that there should only be one link 3. using "External links" gives greater stylistic consistency to Wikipedia

The converse arguments are:

1. Wikipedia's community-editing leads to prompt correction of such oversights. 2. There is no evidence that a significant number of people would be dissuaded from adding links. Besides, additional links would often be redundant. 3. Use of "External links" to head a section containing a single link is fundamentally incorrect, a poor precedent to set in an encyclopedia"

My own view is that 'link' looks better where there is only one link; looks wrong otherwise to me. I don't feel that strongly about it; nevertheless I may revert if you change singular ones to the plural description, as I have done in a couple of the Iain Banks book pages. Why not dig out other good links, and change it from singular to plural? Or else try and edit out my POV in (for example) Dead Air which I (and everybody I know who's read it) considers his weakest book. I wrote basically the entire article and I couldn't help let it show in what I wrote.

I've done a lot of work on developing all of the Banks book entries, so maybe you could discuss in talk if you want to change formatting like this? If nothing else I think all the Banks books should be fairly consistently treated. Thanks Guinnog 21:09, 21 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Hi, Mel Etitis had already drawn my atention to these paragraphs, two comments up, and I am leaving singletons alone - there are enough misdescribed plurals(*). I would certainly not take offence at your changing back those in the Ian Banks canon where appropriate. I am afraid I have only read a few Iain Banks books (though almost all Iain M Banks) so I can't help much with that, but will do what I can.  Rich   Farmbrough. 21:23, 21 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your edits. I have retained most of them, and standardised them across all the Banks books. See what you think. Guinnog 22:54, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

The anal wink
Thanks for putting in that link. As a physician I was bothered to see the information about misuse of a rectac exam put into a small article about a normal physiologic reflex, but with the social problem of spurious expert testimony the sad truth had to remain. The linked to article is better than the bit in anal wink. Kd4ttc 16:38, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

I was suprised the articles weren't linked! Good to be appreciated. Rich  Farmbrough. 23:11, 22 February 2006 (UTC)


 * These things require such care here. There is a definite way to be politically correct on Wikipedia.  I started to monitor anal wink on the random chance of seeing it on articles for deletion.  folks thought it was a hoax, thinking such a bizarre name couldn't be real.  I stopped the deletion with an explanation and it was sitting on my watch list mostly to prevent well meaning mistakes to delete.  Well, you might be aware of how political injustice stories get a passionate following around here.  So to my chagrin the misuse of a rectal exam gets added to the Anal Wink article.  It looks sort of goofy there, but I dared not change it lest the wrath of historically-knowledgeable-wiki-enthusiasts start an edit war.  So now I can clean the article up a bit and get the relevent bits separated and stay Wiki-PC! Thus my appreciation of haveing the better link included.  It was amazing to read about what mischief can be done by an "authority." Steve Kd4ttc 23:24, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

LINKS!!!
Hello,
 * I'm sorry you're having to go back and correct my edits involving External links. I know it should be links - my eyes just aren't picking it up. They will from now on. Thanks. Michael David 18:18, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

ILO redirect
Hi Rich. I noticed that you recently changed ILO to redirect to ILO (disambiguation). Previously it was set to International Labour Organization, and a redirect was on that page. It's no big deal, but are you opposed to my changing it back. After looking at the disambig page, I think it would be reasonable to assume that most ILO enquiries would be looking for the UN body. Cheers. --Bookandcoffee 21:33, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Yeah, you've got a good point about this. It could go both ways, and I'm not bothered enough to change it! (And if I did, then 6 months from now, someone else, who thinks different will talk to me about it, and I'd have to copy your note over to them... :) --Bookandcoffee 05:39, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Missing picture question
Hi there! I have contributed with the picture (that I named), but as you can see, it's gone. I added it to the Hyena article last year. Since I am most active on the Norwegian Wikipedia, I did not see this until today... Can you help me find out why it has been deleted? Thanks!! Could you please answer on my own discussion page? :-) Regards, Helga76 22:28, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Opinionated material in MR-GO article
If you want this material to be kept, you need to provide better source citations for the opinions expressed in it, per the verifiability policy. See Talk:Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet Canal. Dpbsmith (talk) 00:27, 25 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Shome mishtake... My edit was to make the bolded headings into real headings, wikify a few dates and remove a redundant phrase. Well done for improving the layout a good bit more, as to content, although I read one of the references, I don't feel qualified to make  substantive changes. Rich   Farmbrough. 00:38, 25 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Oops, my apologies... the material I'm concerned about was added by 24.252.127.38, not you. Sorry. Dpbsmith (talk) 01:56, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Date links
Since you have taken an interest in date links. Please be kind enough to vote for my new bot application. bobblewik 20:04, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Huh?
Why? Dragons flight 22:30, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Wilbur Ross
I don't even want to start thinking about moving this without help. It seems we should have the main entry under his full name: Wilbur L. Ross, Jr. That was one choice among about 4 or 5 (I may be exagerating) that refer to Wilbur Ross. Or maybe we should leave it at Wilbur Ross, since it's simplest? What do you think?--Beth Wellington 17:18, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation!--Beth Wellington 04:16, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Changing dates
Hi,

Your "date correction" bot has done some damage to Yuriy Yekhanurov. Namely, it replaced parts of correct image name (i.e., within "*" in "*.jpg") with wikified dates. Can you modify the bot so that it does not replace text within tag? Thanks. Sashazlv 04:35, 26 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Hi, Thanks for spotting that. Incidentally it's not a bot, it's search and replace, I always do show changes before saving, and I normally spot problems with image names. I'm not sure if I can improve the search and replace to automatically avoid images.  Thanks again. Rich   Farmbrough 13:48 26  February 2006 (UTC).

Deletion of Shia views
I happened by chance to notice that a user called User:Blingpling is going around deleting Shia views in articles like Abu_Bakr. It's a bit out of my area but I thought you might be interested as you edited this page JQ 05:33, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Rollback
Please do not patronise me. Thank you. Ambi 06:06, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Date Discrepancies
Hello,
 * When I come across a discrepancy in an important date (e.g. Date of Birth or Death), where the date cited in a Wiki Article differs from other reliable sources, I always enter this fact in the Discussion section of that Article, and then ask what others' thoughts are on this. What I am reluctant to do is to unilaterally change the Date myself at that time. What do you think about this? Michael David 15:41, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Alberto Ríos
Rich, help! I created this article and then realized that because of the accent there should be a way to look it up under Alberto Rios but I didn't know how to back that page point back to the original. I recall something about temporary pages etc. but didn't want to muck it up. I just went back there and Alberto Rios is a candidate for speedy deletion. Thanks!--Beth Wellington 01:33, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Nmpenguin had taken care of it and now he's explained how to "do" for myself. Thanks, though.--Beth Wellington 17:09, 28 February 2006 (UTC)