User talk:Roux/Archives/2009/February

Thanks
Thanks. How peculiar that both questions have one and the same answer. Debresser (talk) 17:08, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Canada topic
Hi Roux,

I notice that you have experience editing Template:Canada topic. I believe that the word "the" should be added into the Northwest Territories' customizable link so that, for example, the Higher education in the Northwest Territories article will be linked directly (and therefore bolded on that page) rather than via the Higher education in Northwest Territories redirect page. Do you know how to make this change to the template? Any help you could provide would be much appreciated.

Thanks,

Neelix (talk) 01:07, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Hiya.. yeah, just find that entry on the template and adjust accordingly. // roux   01:26, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Re:
I saw your comment on Wikipedia talk:Adopt-a-user. While I posted my opinion there following your comment, I do respect your opinion and as such I have declined the adoption. Just letting you know. Inferno,  Lord of   Penguins  22:23, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
 * And that right there shows precisely why you will make an excellent adopter once you have gained more experience. Cheers. // roux   05:38, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Re:BD
I've warned User:Bosonic dressing to tone down his behavior. If there's anything I'd say to you it's that templating a decently established user with a warning is likely to anger the user, which if he's already angry can never help. Regards, Deacon of Pndapetzim ( Talk ) 06:27, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Eh.. he actively ignores being informed about guidelines and editing collaboratively when it's done politely, I figured a template would either grab his attention (clearly did not), or at the very least would be a nice incontrovertible warning for the inevitable ANI which I'm quite sure is coming. His pattern of behaviour here is hardly a new thing; he decides he wants something, other people revert, he throws a hissy fit and quite creatively twists guidelines to serve his purposes. // roux   06:30, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Yeah...oddest use of WP:IAR I think I have ever seen... — Ed 17  (Talk /  Contribs)  06:33, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Remember wikipedia's etiquette and norms seem more natural to some editors than others, and some people have more problem adapting than others. Not that that's your fault or anything, but it is a common reason for such behavior. The templating thing just comes from my experience, and I appreciate it is not obvious. It just does tend to piss established users off, esp. if it comes from the person who was "victim", as it "feels" more like a retort or attack than anything else. All the best, Deacon of Pndapetzim ( Talk ) 06:39, 6 February 2009 (UTC)


 * From the user's other recent activities I'm guessing the witchhunt, if there is any, is probably directed towards me. It's a case of the user wasting their own time only, so don't worry about it. If you think something improper comes up though, feel free to let me know. Regards, Deacon of Pndapetzim ( Talk ) 07:25, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Barnstar

 * Awww, thanks. // roux   19:58, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Technical question
The page Responsible tagging discusses amog otherthing the subject of "overlinking" and it shows the Template:Overlinked. It therefore entered the Category:Articles with too many wikilinks. I tried to prevent that by adding the following text to the template:

That didn't help. I have read all the explanations I could find, but do not understand why not. Can you tell me, please?

Apart from that, is there any other way to prevent a page from being included in certain categories? Debresser (talk) 15:58, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

I also tried

but that didn't work either.

So aparently there is something I don't understand here. Debresser (talk) 16:31, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Nice picture. Excuse me, but did I miss your answer to this question? Debresser (talk) 10:01, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

I experimented a little with an ambox on my userpage and the sandbox. I now know the answer: in the article Responsible tagging the NAMESPACE is "Wikipedia" and the PAGENAME is "Responsible tagging". Debresser (talk) 18:27, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

WikiCup Newsletter

 * 20:37, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Delivered by J Milburn, on behalf of the judges. 20:37, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Stop it
I was not being disruptive, I was defending myself against Guyonthesubway's incivility and personal attacks. Furthermore, I take great offense to you referring to me as a "horse". Caden S (talk ) 23:49, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
 * You are being disruptive. Drop it and walk away. Please also learn what 'beating a dead horse' means. Cheers. // roux   23:52, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I am not being disruptive. Defending myself is no crime. Take your own advice please and "drop it". Leave me alone. Remember, you are not an admin so please stop acting like one. And yes, I am being civil so I appreciate it if you could just let me be. Thanks. Caden S (talk ) 00:02, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Outreach
Hi Roux, Thanks for your message. Sorry for the delayed response I've been summering in NZ. I think your Outreach project is a great idea. I have to admit I spent quite a bit of time tracking down introductory material for newbies. I hope the project is a success. Best wishes, Paul. --Paul (talk) 17:10, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Eggxact definitions
Hi, Roux (and Daily Kitten). Regarding the idea of tofu in omelettes, I don't especially care about the particulars in that article—I don't think it's a big deal either way— but it occurs to me that you may have raised a larger question about definitions. You're absolutely right that an omelette by definition is made of eggs, but it seems problematic to use only standard definitions to delineate the boundaries of an article. Language evolves and definitions are fluid. A Google search ("tofu omelet" OR "tofu omelette") returns more than 4000 results, which suggests that the concept is hardly unknown. I'd predict that at least one major dictionary will broaden the definition to include tofu in the coming years, but should WP wait for that to happen? As an encyclopedia, we can acknowledge trends and new instances of nonstandard usage. We can also acknowledge exceptions to the rule that won't fit in dictionaries. In my edit summary, I was responding to the idea that it is somehow "silly" to acknowledge the existence of a novel kind of omelette in the omelette article; that struck me as POV because it seems to ignore reality in favor of a utopian state of affairs in which nothing unfortunate ever happens in the kitchen. (Like tofu omelettes. Eewww.) Rivertorch (talk) 07:24, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
 * It's nonsense, though. Including "some people make something which is superficially omelette-esque with tofu" is fine. Calling it an omelette is not; it's about as nonsensical as calling something Vichysoisse when it contains neither leeks nor potatoes. // roux   11:34, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Hmm. You think it's nonsense, I think it's nonsense, and very likely it is nonsense, but that's our opinion and our point of view. If the large and growing vegan population is frequently concocting an eggless atrocity and calling it an omelette, then the article should reflect that usage (and, I think, should have a well-sourced quote from a notable chef bemoaning the situation). Rivertorch (talk) 18:56, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Indeed. The article should reflect "vegans make some horrid mess involving tofu that they disingenuously call an omelette to assuage their guilt over wanting to eat delicious eggs." Tongue planted firmly in cheek, of course. In all seriousness, I have no objection to the article saying something like that; "an omelette-like product can be made using tofu", e.g. But to flat-out call it an omelette is just ridiculous. // roux   19:51, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

FAQ Template
Hi Roux, I have a vague memory that we chatted at some point about having a FAQ template that could be put at the top of article talk pages to direct editors to previous iterations of the same-'ol, same-'ol issues that come up on various articles. Did we actually have that discussion once? If so, maybe it's time to push it forward.

The proximate motivation for this is a reappearance of the perennial discussion at Talk:Vancouver about why Vancouver gets to be the primary target. You could plant and harvest by its regularity. Mkdw has put together a comprehensive essay on it, but I think it also fits into the framework of what (I think) we talked about. Franamax (talk) 23:07, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Indeed we did... I'm a bit up to my neck in an assignment, but this weekend is a long weekend for me. Perhaps we can hang out on gtalk and hammer out something then? // roux   18:06, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Sounds good. Is it a Friday- or Monday-based long weekend? Are you guru-ish on template syntax (repetitive parameter fields) or should we try to get a template-y person roped in too? I suppose they can be found on IRC as needed anyway. Franamax (talk) 01:10, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Monday's the day off. I have some studying to do for midterms, but basically anytime Sat or Sun would be fine. I'm pretty good with params so we should be okay with that. I'm thinking basically we should build a Talk:Foo/FAQ page, and then /FAQ/Bar /FAQ/Baz for each topic that tends to come up. A template should then be able to automagically gank the titles for any subpages and list them (similar to how XfD functions, sort of). We may want to enlist someone to write a little bot to maintain them, depends on how we go. // roux <span style="border:1px solid #355E3B;-moz-border-radius-topright:10px;-moz-border-radius-bottomleft:10px;padding:0px 7px;font-size:30%;">  15:56, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Will rendezvous at some point then. Spilling some ideas in advance, I wasn't thinking so much in terms of requiring a formal FAQ page since that also requires a conscious design effort by one single editor, then the inevitable content arguments for yet another wikipage. /FAQ and /FAQ/topic-x is certainly one possible component, but I was thinking about a generalized template . The FAQ invocation would set up the bold title on the talk page, the faq-question(n)s would set up show/hideable questions, and the faq(n)-ref(x)s would be the line items for the FAQ entry. I'm thinking along the lines of Q=Why is Vancouver Canada represented as Vancouver? and we have a convenient way to say "look, this has come up before every four months or so" and point to archived talk page discussions. There's nothing wrong with your suggestion to build formal FAQ pages, in fact it's the best way - but I'm looking for a more quick-and-dirty way to encapsulate the institutional memory. Next time someone shows up wanting to dab Vancouver, I'd like to: 1) refer them to the FAQ at the top of page showing all the previous discussions; and 2) have a place to conveniently note today's latest attempt at overturning the world order. Yes, that thread link would need to follow whatever the archive bot does on the specific page.
 * I mostly want this to be really as super-simple as it can possibly be made. Really really simple, so that even I can understand it. :) How do I add a new FAQ, how do I add a new entry to the FAQ answers? That's all that the wiki-I care about, and them are all I care about, me msyelf is not that important in the grand scheme.
 * I asked a silly question about infinitely-expandable templates at VPT. Gadget850 gave a response there using an example of an FAQ xe created - using your mooted subpage format and kinda crappy formatting IMO :) Perhaps Gadget would be another resource to piece this proposal together? In any case, it looks like we have lots to discuss over the weekend! Franamax (talk) 05:08, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Tomato reversion Jan 1/09
You certainly must know more than me about my field of expertise and how we pollinated tomatoes for a decade of running our thousands of square feet of greenhouses and the hundreds of tons of tomatoes we produced. Maybe you can tell me the source of your authority that says pollination cannot be done by shaking the wires that hold up the tomato vines? I think you need to supply an apology for this impertinence seeing it was the local district agriculturist who told us how to do it. You can send the apology to alan_harmony@yahoo.com as I rarely check here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.225.93.25 (talk) 02:31, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
 * The article is the recipient of an enormous amount of vandalism, and I will revert on sight any addition which may be POV and/or lacks citations to verifiable and reliable sources. Please provide citations for your future contributions. // roux <span style="border:1px solid #082567;-moz-border-radius-topright:10px;-moz-border-radius-bottomleft:10px;padding:0px 7px;font-size:30%;">  03:02, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Wow...I had a nice lol at this :) — Ed 17  (Talk /  Contribs)  05:10, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Re: Block and Ban?
15:22, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Thank you
Thank you, joining my conversation. This time, my opinion and your opinion is not match. However I know your good arbitration of Japan-Korea related issues. Thank you. I try to contribute Wikipedia in other articles.--Bukubku (talk) 03:08, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Thank you
Thank you, joining my conversation. This time, my opinion and your opinion is not match. However I know your good arbitration of Japan-Korea related issues. Thank you. I try to contribute Wikipedia in other articles.--Bukubku (talk) 03:08, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Thank you
Thank you, joining my conversation. This time, my opinion and your opinion is not match. However I know your good arbitration of Japan-Korea related issues. Thank you. I try to contribute Wikipedia in other articles.--Bukubku (talk) 03:08, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

WikiCup Newsletter

 * 23:22, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Hi
Hi, thanks for your help last time. I just saw the RfAs which you withdrawn. Unfortunately, it has to come to this due to some insulting comments. Especially so where one person even accuses you of taking revenge. This shows that negative impressions are very hard to remove and your RfA example is stopping me from reapplying next time as people will still have negative impressions due to my failed RfA last time. However, I wished that you had waited for the deadline to end as yours had a chance of succeeding. I am very upset that my application was rejected as it means I have no chance in the future as negative impressions are very hard to remove. Syjytg (talk) 15:04, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
 * My RFA had the same chance of success as Schroedinger's Cat. By the time I withdrew it, it was still about 50/50, but had degenerated into insults in the oppose section. // roux <span style="border:1px solid #614051;-moz-border-radius-topright:10px;-moz-border-radius-bottomleft:10px;padding:0px 7px;font-size:30%;">  16:52, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

They said you are being uncivil, but when they made insulting and degenerating comments like that, aren't they being uncivil as well? Syjytg (talk) 08:33, 18 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Roux failed because people think he's incivil. You failed because you're too new. There's a difference. You could pass again.-- Patton t / c 15:19, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Because you are a new user, and very enthusiastic, people will be willing to forgive this one incident, especially because it was not too big a deal. Don't worry about this; just move on and do good work, and after a while, your RfA should pass with 100% support (if you do n't everything well :) ) NuclearWarfare  ( Talk ) 15:19, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

You mean do everything well? Syjytg (talk) 15:27, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Yep :) NuclearWarfare  ( Talk ) 15:34, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
 * User talk:Syjytg ;-)-- Patton t / c 15:38, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Proposed Task Force
Hi, I have suggested the creation of a task force, within WP:HV to cover Heraldry by country articles. You may be interested in commenting on this proposal and/or joining. Thanks, - Jarry1250 (t, c) 11:58, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/FlyingToaster
Hello, I 'm puzzled by the wording of your !vote at the RFA. Could you have a look at clarify? Thanks, --Tikiwont (talk) 19:07, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Help Me
Can anyone assist me with the following problem? Thanks in advance. In this article (81st Academy Awards nominees and winners), there is a section entitled Summary of awards and nominations by film. This section contains a sortable table. When I sort the table by the "Total Gross" column, the film WALL-E always ends up sorting incorrectly. For some reason, the table will not sort the "Total Gross" value for the film WALL-E in the correct sorted / numerical order. Can anyone figure out exactly why this is ... and what the problem is ...? Thanks. (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 00:36, 22 February 2009 (UTC))
 * Checking into it. // roux <span style="border:1px solid #00009C;-moz-border-radius-topright:10px;-moz-border-radius-bottomleft:10px;padding:0px 7px;font-size:30%;">  00:43, 22 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Okay... I think it might be an error in how the sorting is decided. You and I would sort 1000, 500, 100 in that order. But the sorting code seems to be sorting based on the first set of digits before the comma. Except that when I test the article numbers in my sandbox, it works perfectly. I'll keep working on it. // roux <span style="border:1px solid #6D351A;-moz-border-radius-topright:10px;-moz-border-radius-bottomleft:10px;padding:0px 7px;font-size:30%;">  00:59, 22 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your help. To be honest, though, I did not understand your answer above.  What exactly did you mean by the statement: "But the sorting code seems to be sorting based on the first set of digits before the comma." ...?  I am not sure what that means.  Can you clarify?  Exactly which comma are you referring to (in the numerical values for Total Gross)?  Also, if your theory is true, that would not seem to hold up for some of the other films ... no?  Thanks.  Please let me know what you figure out here.  Thank you.   (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 01:03, 22 February 2009 (UTC))


 * Okay... the numbers $1,001,082,160 $534,149,703 $155,049,574 would, if we were sorting by hand, go in that order. But the table code seems to stop reading after the first comma, so it's effectively seeing $1,001,082,160 $534,149,703 $155,049,574. Well, sort of--it's grouping the billion before the 155MM, but the problem seems to be something along those lines. If the numbers are expressed as decimals, it seems to work fine. So $534,150,749 becomes $534.150 million. I'm not sure if that works for you, but it's the best I can come up with at the moment. I rounded to the nearest thousand.// roux <span style="border:1px solid #465945;-moz-border-radius-topright:10px;-moz-border-radius-bottomleft:10px;padding:0px 7px;font-size:30%;">  01:09, 22 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Hi. Thanks.  I don't think that your theory is true.  (1) Didn't you say that these numbers worked fine in your sandbox?  Also (2) When the film Dark Knight had a value in the 900 millions, the problem still existed.  (That is, there was no "1" digit before the first comma of the billions place holder at that point ... and the WALL-E sorting still was out of order.)  I have reverted your edits, while I try to figure this out.  Any thoughts as to what the problem is?  Thanks.   (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 01:16, 22 February 2009 (UTC))
 * Never said it was a perfect theory, but the workaround demonstrably works. I think it makes more sense to put my edits back until you can figure out the issue. That way, readers will still see a usable table. Your choice. // roux <span style="border:1px solid #36454F;-moz-border-radius-topright:10px;-moz-border-radius-bottomleft:10px;padding:0px 7px;font-size:30%;">  01:24, 22 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I was just about to add this extra statement to my last reply. And I saw your reply above.  But, what I was going to add was this ...  Furthermore ... when a table sorts ... isn't it sorting by numerical value ... and not by character?  In other words ... isn't it reading a number such as 276 as the numerical value of 276 as opposed to the characters "2 7 6" ...?  Isn't that the whole point of numerical sorting?  Otherwise, numerical sorts would be a mess and would be pointless.  If sorted by character, then a number like 37 would come after 196, since the character "3" would come after the character "1".  But, if sorted by numerical value, clearly the number 37 would come before 196.  My point is: if numerical sorting was based on sorting the characters (and not the numerical values), there would be no point whatsoever in sorting ... since the sort would always be incorrect ... or, if correct, only by coincidence and circumstance.  Am I missing something here?  I am getting confused now.  Thanks for any help / insight.   (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 01:29, 22 February 2009 (UTC))

(unindent)

Hi again. I figured out the problem. If you simply put numbers into the "Total Gross" column, everything will sort fine. The problem is when you add the citation or the reference for a source, after that number. When you add that into the column, then the computer now reads the "Total Gross" column as a set of alphabetic characters ... instead of reading it as a set of numerical values. So, I have identified the problem. Now, it is simply a matter of cleaning up the Table. Thanks for your help. I just thought that you might be interested to know what the problem was. Thank you again. (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 01:41, 22 February 2009 (UTC))

Confirmations of Barack Obama's Cabinet template problem
Hey, I was wondering if there was any way to center align the template at the top of that article. I've asked at its' parent template talk page. Spinach Monster (talk) 19:29, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Frown vs. forbidden
The Wikipedia community generally frowns upon simulating the MediaWiki interface. I don't think frowning and forbidding are synonyms. Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 05:21, 25 February 2009 (UTC)