User talk:VerruckteDan/Archive2

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Why maps for bridges? Better a locator
Relative to the area of interest, most bridges are points. Rather than putting a dot on a topo or road map, wouldn't it be better for Wikipedia in general to have a standard method for locating something in real space? That way, people click on the link and get their choice of map. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by RussNelson (talk • contribs) 05:09, 6 January 2007 (UTC).

St. Johns River Crossings navbox
Thanks for doing this for the St. Johns River! - Aerobird 01:14, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Cable/Ferry crossings coordinates etc
Hi. Thanks for following up my new input on the List of crossings of the Fraser River. I can provide the coordinates for the ferry and other historical crossings - like Miller's Ferry, which was jut downstream from the Suspension Bridge, and the old rail bridge was just below Cayoosh Creek, instead of just above it as with the Bridge of the Twenty-Three Camels (I wonder if there's a Category:Things Named After Camels??...there's also a Bridge of the Twenty-Three Chipmunks but it's on Road 40 at Moha and crosses the Bridge River, not the Fraser; and there really is a gold bridge, or was, at Gold Bridge; painted gold for a while anyway ;-) ). Anyway these older things can be seen by their abutments on the topos/orthometric images generated by Provincial Basemap at http://maps.gov.bc.ca/ (and I'll give [http:maps.gov.bc.ca this as a separate link] to the [http:maps.gov.bc.ca maps.gov.bc.ca] page as it's got other provincial map services, and Provincial Basemap is supposed to be replaced by the prosaically-named Land and Resource Data Warehouse Catalogue (LRDWC), which supersedes it but isn't always working; still in beta I guess; if you already have Basemap open that'll come up if you click on its link in the main directory; and vice-versa if you have it open and want to open Basemap. Generally you have to restart your browser to go to the other system; LRDWC is more data-rich for things like reserve and parks boundaries but also forest cover, vegetation type; they're both great for obscure roads, and much of the province is in greyscale orthometric quasi-photo image (think it's sat-radar) as is a variety of scales of topo; under 1:100k produces a different topo gradient than under 1:40k or so, and finer style farther down than that, and most names only appear in certain ranges, 15-40k maybe, with another higher-category set of names above 1:100; you can turn features on and off by opening the options windows which appear on the right after you click on "Layers" at the top. Location is "find location" but if it's Mount something, it's "Something, Mount" you have to search for, or just "Something", unless there's a lot of them and then you have to get picky. The tools are handy and can measure area and distance, and you can mail yourself copies of the image. Not public-domain unfortunately, unless something like the vector graphics permission that lies behind the question I asked re the provincial logo (see my talk page) might apply re crown copyright; the provincial logo is also a heraldic issue but that's a bit different; Basemap maps are pretty neat, in terms of being able to select/design your area of coverage and chosen variables/content. Yukon has an even better system, but it's for mining; the BC LRDWC system also delves into claims and land leases and more, and is very complex; Basemaps' more of an outline (originally it was all Forest Mapview, but that's industry-only now....pay service, so you wonder what else it is they get....).Skookum1 04:24, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

James River crossings
I added in the two "missing" bridge articles in the Richmond area, which should allow your navbox to get west through the VA-288 bridge. Beginning with the new article for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Bridge, the others, in order east to west are:

I cannot help much west of that point. Nice work on the navbox. Vaoverland 01:15, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I-95 bridge at Richmond, part of the former Richmond-Petersburg Turnpike)
 * Mayo Bridge (U.S. Route 360)
 * Manchester Bridge (U.S. Route 60)
 * Robert E. Lee Memorial Bridge (U.S. Route 1/U.S. Route 301)
 * Boulevard Bridge (State Route 161) (toll and major weight restrictions)
 * Powhite Parkway Bridge (State Route 76) (toll)
 * Huguenot Memorial Bridge (State Route 147)
 * Edward E. Willey Bridge (State Route 150)
 * World War II Veterans Memorial Bridge (State Route 288)


 * Thanks. Do you know the names of the 3 rail bridges (and what companies own/use them) in the downtown Richmond area?  VerruckteDan 03:00, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I have added them to the article Transportation in Richmond, Virginia. However, I am not sure that each or worthy of a WP article. If any are, it would undoubtedly be the CSX A-line railroad bridge, which resembles a Roman aqueduct, and is very visible to traffic on VA-161 and VA-76. Vaoverland 03:05, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Mayor template, last item
I wonder if you've succeded in obtaining a transition on the one protected page that used the (now old) Mayor infobox template.Thanks for carrying out this template change-over from start to finish. -- Yellowdesk 17:41, 3 February 2007 (UTC)


 * If've put in an edit request for the remaining page, so hopefully it will be completed within the next day or so. VerruckteDan 18:25, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Reverted vandalism
Hi Dan, I reverted some vandalism to your user page and warned the IP user. Take care, Ruhrfisch 21:58, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks
 * Glad to help, keep up the good work, Ruhrfisch 01:41, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Crescent City Connection Division Questions
Sehabla45acp 23:51, 6 February 2007 (UTC) Hey I noticed that you keep editing the amount of roadway that the CCCPD patrol. You list that it is 10 miles however, it is actually 14 miles of US 90 B. The CCCPD patrol from The US 90 interchange with US 90B to broad street and US 90B. This is 14 miles of roadway. If you include the surface streets it approaches at least 20 miles. If you include both directions of highway it is approximately 40 miles of roadway total. I am just curious where you obtained your information so I could have their info corrected as well.
 * I've reviewed the statute for the CCCD, the jurisdiction of the police force stretches from the Broad Street overpass on I-10 to the U.S. Route 90/U.S. Route 90 Business (Westbank Expressway) interchange. Using Google Earth, I measure that distance to be approx 14 miles.  So, it would seem that 14 is correct and should be stated as 14 miles of highway and several surface roads.  As for 40 miles, it is not standard to list the length of a road for both directions, so 40 miles should not be used.  Back to the issue of my numerous edits reverting your edits.  They were not targeted at the mileage, but rather the other changes (duplicate text from the article, eliminating the categories, etc).  VerruckteDan 01:09, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Sehabla45acp 02:12, 7 February 2007 (UTC) Thanks. I am learning so I appreciate you bearing with me.

Philadelphia Meetup 3
FYI. We we're planning a Philadelphia area Wikipedia meetup. See Meetup/Philadelphia 3 --ike9898 15:33, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Converts
Dan, Thanks for taking on the task of the converts for the List of Pennsylvania state parks. I really appreciate the effort. Have a good weekend! Dincher 21:38, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
 * This is the easy part, you did the hard work with all the content for these pages. You did a great job with all 100+ pages, a model for the other 49 states.  VerruckteDan 21:44, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. It was fun. Now I am kinda lost. I really liked writing them up.

I think that I may have spotted a problem in the opening sentences. Read this one.


 * Black Moshannon State Park is a 3394 acre Pennsylvania State Park located in Rush Township in Centre County, Pennsylvania in the United States.

I think that it should read.


 * Black Moshannon State Park is a 3,394 acre (13.74 km²) Pennsylvania State Park located in Rush Township in Centre County, Pennsylvania in the United States.

Notice the added s on acre? I have tried to drop the s, but can't with the conversion.

I am not sure. It's been a long time since I took grammar. Let's ask Ruhrfisch.
 * My understanding is that when a unit of measure is used as an adjective it is singular, but if it is used as a noun and describing an amount it can be singular or plural (there was a 55 gallon drum next to the pillar with 40 gallons of oil and one gallon of water in it). So in the sentence above acre is used as an adjective and should be singular. Ruhrfisch 00:17, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Another way to get around it would be to slightly reformulate the standard opening sentence: Black Moshannon State Park is a Pennsylvania State Park located on 3394 acre in Rush Township in Centre County, Pennsylvania in the United States. Ruhrfisch 01:44, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Ruhrfisch's answer makes sense to me. The question is this. Can the conversions be done without changing acre to acres? If not all the standard leading sentences will need to be reworked. I don't have a problem doing that if it needs to be done. Just let me know. Dincher 03:36, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I could help reformulate too - not sure how adjustable the template is. Ruhrfisch 05:15, 10 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Looks like you two have come up with a workable solution to the grammar problems. Sorry I missed the whole discussion, last night was the beginning of Mardi Gras parades.  I'll start going back the the pages I've already added the template and rework the sentence.  There are also parks where I added the template for the length of trails, so these sentences may need some reworking as well.  VerruckteDan 16:04, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Do either of you have a suggestion as to how to reword the sentences in the trail sections? Look at Bald Eagle State Park for an example of what needs to be corrected.  VerruckteDan 17:35, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Rework. Butterfly Trail - (1.5 miles/2.41km) is an easy loop trail marked with red blazes. Thanks for fixing Big Pocono State Park. I didn't know how to fix it the "right" way so I just got rid of the error message. Dincher 17:57, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Original. Butterfly Trail is a 1.5 miles (2.41 km) easy loop trail marked with red blazes.
 * No problem, after a week of inactivity with the state parks I figured I should do something. VerruckteDan 18:00, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Great New Orleans Fire (1788)
Are you from New Orleans? I thought with your post on the Missouri River crossings that you were further north. I was surprised to see your ranking of the 1788 fire as "low." The fire has virtually defined the popular imagination of New Orleans since all the structures in the French Quarter including St. Louis Cathedral were built as a result of the fire which destroyed 8/11 of the city. The government response was a lot better then!!! When I looked at the mid ranked articles there were lots of stubs that nobody outside NO would really care about (e.g., wards, housing projects, etc.) The Republican Convention in New Orleans was even ranked low.

I've been writing some other articles about New Orleans -- which I've been surprised to find is relatively weak in its history articles and is missing some pretty major events particularly during the Spanish period including the Rebellion of 1768.

Anyway this is all part of the planned March/April visit to all the bridges between St. Louis and KC. Amazing what motivates you to drill down. Americasroof 19:08, 15 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Yup, I'm right in Uptown New Orleans. As for the rating of "low," I'm not trying to suggest anything about the significance of the event to New Orleans' history, as it is clearly a defining event in our past.  That's the tricky part of the "Importance" rating of an article, it is far more subjective than the "Class" rating.  The WP:NOLA is still in its early stages, and I'm hoping that we can set up some sub projects to focus on large areas of topics (ie. history, neighborhoods, culture, etc.)  At that point, the I'm sure the "importance" if articles will be reevaluated as the various subprojects take shape.


 * In the meantime, I agree that the Great Fire can and should have a higher priority. Since you're working on the Great Fire and other articles, have you considered joining the WikiProject?  Either way, I hope to see more of your work, as its greatly appreciated.  VerruckteDan 20:03, 15 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the adjustment. I understand that there may be nuances that get lost when you're trying to collect massive amounts of data.   I really appreciate your changes to Louisiana Governor.  Your changes hit just at the right time since I've been writing a bunch of articles connected to the Missouri River and St. Louis which was founded the year the Spanish took over Louisiana.  I may write some of the redlines on the governors since they are tied to developments in St. Louis.  And you know what happens when you start drilling down. I do have one question about one of your entries for the governor from 1799 to 1801.  In searches I seem him usually referred to as "Casa Calvo".  If I write his biography I would probably include the entire name with the Casa Calvo and if I do I would make the adjustment on the governor page.  While I am probably going to write several New Orleans articles I'm not sure if I am properly qualified with the New Orleans wiki project.  Thanks again.  Americasroof 22:28, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Louisiana Wikipedians
Hello, My name is Cory, and I'm working on a story for the Advocate about people in Louisiana who create and maintain Wikipedia pages, particularly ones about the area and its inhabitants. If you would be willing to participate in an interview for it, could you reply either by e-mail or AIM at cbirdsong64?

Thanks, Cory

John A. Roebling Suspension Bridge
On 24 February you reverted an edit by an anonymous editor who added information that the John A. Roebling Suspension Bridge between Cincinnati, OH, and Covington, KY, is now closed for renovations. The statement was not well worded, but seemed to be a reasonable thing to add. You did not indicate why you reverted it. Would you please do so? The same anonymous editor has added similar information to the main Cincinnati article and I would like to know if it, too, needs to be removed. Pzavon 22:29, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I reverted the edit for several reasons. First, the grammar of the sentence was improper.  Second, the comment was not integrated into the structure of the article.  Third, the code "=== Headline text ===" would be considered vadalism by most editors.  These three facts make the edit seem like vandalism, plus the claim was uncited.  Given all this, it seemed best to revert and if the statement is correct, it can be properly added and cited.  VerruckteDan 22:54, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the explanation. Pzavon 15:44, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Pennsylvania State Parks List
Discussion moved to Talk:List of Pennsylvania state parks.

Hi Dan, I tried something which makes me think it is a limit problem. I deconverted 4 of the convert templates in the comments and the link to convert now appears then only for the last two parks. So I think it only does so many converts when the problem arises. I will also say of the three times I have looked at the lsit since the move, the problem has been there twice, but once they all worked. I saw a similar problem with footnotes on peer review when there were too many. Not sure how this helps, Ruhrfisch 02:54, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
 * The reason Dincher and I put the references in is that we want to nominate this for a featured list eventually, so that needs refs. Ruhrfisch 04:56, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I took out several more convert templates in the comments section and now all the others work and the Protected Areas navbox works too (I think the problem is having more than a certain number of transcluded templates). I changed the full name to "PA DCNR" in all but the first ref to make them shorter so the two columns ref trick could be used (have yet to do the 2 cols). I want to see what they say about the refs in peer review and FAC. If there was one list of all parks online we could cite that (which is what the US Presidents and US National Parks featured lists do). Since there is no single all encompassing source I know of, we have 120 refs for 120 parks plus a few for history. Ruhrfisch 22:14, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Here's a link to the DCNR's page with an alphabetical listing of all current PA state parks,  VerruckteDan 22:35, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I am done for tonight with the List and think it is about ready for Peer Review. Will submit it tomorrow, unless I hear otherwise from you or Dincher. Take care, Ruhrfisch 04:09, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Hi Dan, I submitted it here Peer review/List of Pennsylvania state parks. I wasn't sure if you wanted to be listed in the peer review as an author (I will be glad to include you if you want to be and appreciate all your help with it so far). Just let me know, Ruhrfisch 19:38, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Hey, lets hope this results in some good suggestions to get it up to FA. I'd be honored to be listed as an author with the 2 of you.  VerruckteDan 20:56, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

I put you on as an author and wanted to thank you for making the stubs and redirects to get rid of red links in the List. I may make a Snyder-Middleswarth stub as Bald Eagle State Forest's DCNR webpage still lists it as a state park so there is enough info. I think I am done with refs and with finding former parks and name changes for now (I ordered a book today that may help - 1993 centennial history of the PA state parks system "Our Precious Heritage"). Still have to fill in some blanks in the current parks and take care of a few typos / corrections too. Take care, Ruhrfisch 04:24, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Image:Delaware Memorial Bridge.jpg
Thanks for uploading Image:Delaware Memorial Bridge.jpg. I notice the 'image' page specifies that the image is being used under fair use, but its use in Wikipedia articles fails our first fair use criterion in that it illustrates a subject for which a freely licensed image could reasonably be found or created that provides substantially the same information. If you believe this image is not replaceable, please:


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Rounding conversion
Yes, of course. This is also one of general features of Geoboxes. Use appropriate field name with the suffix _round, e.g. for all area related fields use area_round, for elevation use elevation_round etc. All those general switches are described at Category:Geobox. I don't usually read instructions myself but here they provide some useful info. Thanks for you appreciation.

BTW, do you know of any USA map in orthogonal projection on Wikipedia? I could calibrate it and it could then be used for automated locator dot placement based on coordinates. – Caroig 19:09, 7 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the answer. I missed that part of the instructions.  As for the map, I don't know of any, sorry.  I'm not sure how hard this would be, but I think locator maps would be far more useful if they were of individual states rather than the US as a whole.  VerruckteDan 20:42, 7 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Technically it doesn't matter what the map is of, the only thing you have to do is to get the map (unfortuatelly Wikipedia doesn't seem to have such a map for Pennsylvania either) and insert a few numbers to a special calibration template (you would then just insert the blank map name to the map field and the calibration template name to the map_locator field). If you can get such a map I can calibrate it for you. However, for an international reader the location within USA might be more useful. It might be possible to add fields for a second map. – Caroig 21:05, 7 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I'm not real familiar with the advanced template coding, so I'll leave the technical details to you. I do see the benefit of location within the US for international readers, and such issues have been addressed differently.
 * For example, the template U.S. County Infobox uses 2 maps, one identifying the county's location in the state, and a second identifying the state's location in the US (Chester County, Pennsylvania).
 * Others have one map, identifying the location within a state and then a smaller subset map of the US showing the state's location (New Orleans, Louisiana)
 * A final situation that I can think of right now is for local municipalities that may best be identified as more than a dot. See Butler County, Pennsylvania, which of its municipalities have a locator map similar to those identifying the location of counties within US states.


 * Anyway, there's several approaches to this, and I'm not sure which is the best, or even which one I prefer. I guess it's something to ponder and put out there for ideas from others.  VerruckteDan 21:23, 7 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I found a Pennsylvania map, what do you say: West Chester, Pennsylvania? I only roughly calibrated the map using Google Maps, the calibration is to be found here: Template:Geobox location Pennsylvania. If you feel the dot is off place, you can try to adjust the varibales. Top and left are the coordinates of the top left corner of the map, bottom and right of the bottom right corner, the ratio is map height/map length (which is the only precise number here). I'll try to work in a second field for the map which could be a USA map with the location of the state. – Caroig 21:51, 7 March 2007 (UTC)


 * The secondary USA map can now be used two: West Chester, Pennsylvania. It's just a proposal, if you don't like it, get rid of both. – Caroig


 * Looks good, so I'll stick with it unless something else comes to mind. One last thing for now, I promise.  The Pennsylvania map is indented to the right about halfway across the infobox.  Again, not being a template code expert, I don't know where the problem lies.  VerruckteDan 22:08, 7 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I was fine-tuning something in the template, you might've opened the page at a moment when I made some bad edits. It seems OK here now. BTW, you should be able to use the GR1 format coordinates (just put them to the lat_d, long_d fields and the ditch the other ones, the negative value for longitude should be accepted too, I haven't tested this feature thoroughly so it might have some bugs). The locator dot placement and link to Google Maps should accept them too. – Caroig 22:18, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

IE7 problem
Hi, I discovered there was a problem with the map position in IE7. I didn't have that browser instaled so I only checked in Opera 9.0, Firefox 2.0.something (both Winn XP and Linux) and IE6 and it seemed oK. However, more users informed me about a similar problem, all of them with IE7. I installed it on my laptop and violà. It's been fixed now and the maps get displayed correctly in all browsers I can put my hands on. – Caroig 13:58, 9 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Great, I was actually just about to send a message your way regarding the IE problem, but you're a few steps ahead of me. VerruckteDan 15:08, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Cleanup
I've performed some cleanup on the Geobox Town template, hope I didn't break anything. There's one minor change though, the category displayed bellow the place name in the box header is now not automatically wikilinked - the thing is, any text was automatically wikilinked if an article of the same name existed thus also creating links to non-specific categories such as Town, City etc. This was rather unnecessary. By default all field labels (the bold text displayed on the left) are now never wikilinked by default. The field values keep this functionality (and always will).

I dared to put the Pennsylvania location map and the US map to all articles you created a few days ago using the semi-automatic software AWB, hope you don't mind. I consider myself geography savvy but I believe having the US map helps international readers.

I'd be grateful if you report on any issues concerning the Geoboxes or ideas for their improvement. – Caroig


 * The addition of the maps to the Pennsylvania pages are fine with me. The only issue is that the townships do not have coordinates listed.  I will do some research to find if there are "official" values listed somewhere.  Otherwise, I'll start adding logical values (maybe approximate geographic center) and make a note to that regard.
 * As for what maps to include in the infobox, I see no reason to change it now, but I'm not completely behind the current setup. I still feel (at least in states with no unincorporated areas (Pennsylvania and New Jersey for example), county maps with the municipality highlighted may be better than the locator dot.  However, that may open the need to include 3 maps, which seems excessive. VerruckteDan 14:33, 13 March 2007 (UTC)


 * The locator dot system can be applied on any type of map but it's up to editors of each area what information they decide to provide. I'm looking at it as an outsider for whom an approximate. Technically, it's no problem adding a third map field but it might be too much, I agree.


 * As for the coordinates and the center, I added this because especially for large towns/cities it is unclear what part of the town/city the coordinates relate to. It's easy here, in Europe, to name the center as it is nearly always the (historical) central square. – Caroig 14:59, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

FLC
Hi Dan, List of Pennsylvania state parks is now a featured list candidate here: Featured list candidates/List of Pennsylvania state parks. Ruhrfisch 01:21, 14 March 2007 (UTC)