User talk:Wtmitchell/Archive 2 (2008)

Hi Boracay Bill! Thanks for your help pushing for this potential refhide extension. I saw your comment on Meta.Wikimedia and copied it here on mediawiki.org. It's hard for me to tell which page is more likely being watched by developers. I've never watched the process of proposing an extension before, but hopefully this will gain some traction. Cheers! --JayHenry 01:04, 19 September 2007 (UTC)


 * The hidden section trick was my trick, which is why I'm happy you're helping to push it! I actually think the hidden stuff should go in the references section because footnotes should be ordered as they appear in the text (first footnote should always be 1, in my opinion, as this is standard for all types of footnotes and endnotes).  Also this way, when you click the edit button next to references you get to actually edit the references.  You can type "Section=0" into the URL to edit just the lead of an article, but not many people know to do this, and for the majority of editors, hidden refs up top would basically be confusing meta-data in a non-intuitive location.  But I digress...
 * You might have seen this, but you can actually order sources in a bibliography section separate from footnotes by combining the tags and the templates.  The article Charles Darwin really makes splendid use of this system. --JayHenry 03:13, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

I hadn't noticed that it was you who first mentioned the hidden section trick. I'm not an academic and am not familiar with the various style standards, but I have seen several different styles used. I've also seen several different styles used in Wikipedia, often used badly because tools to do better aren't available. Anyhow, that example article I mentioned on your talk page which I redid the references for to try out the hidden section trick uses harvnb and Citation templates similarly to the Charles Darwin article (see discussion here, where opposition to the hidden section trick gotme started thinking about &lt;refhide>). None of the stuff I discussed on your talk page is incompatible with placing the &lt;refhide> block in the References section and having the refs expanded there in their order of first encounter in the text. I know that there have been talks about sorting the refs, and about whether/how to do that. I'm just observing that the refhide block in which the ref text is defined could as an editorial option be placed at the head of the article, and that doing that gives the editor control of References section item ordering and possibly sensible organization into a (probably alphabetized) list or into several (probably alphebetized) sub-headed lists.

I don't do a lot of talk page banter and don't know what protocols are usual. I'll put a note on your talk page that I've sent this, in case you've not watchlisted my talk page. -- Boracay Bill 04:13, 19 September 2007 (UTC)


 * I've never figured out what protocols are usual either. I guess just go ahead and respond on my page so I can see the little yellow bar.  While my gut reaction to references at the top was to object, I just realized that one could simply comment out a note under the references section of an article saying:  or something like that.  Either way, I really like the idea, and if we keep bringing it up I'm sure we'll get someone's attention eventually.  (I really like the idea of having separate  and tags that could generate separate sections, but I agree it's probably an issue to tackle at a different time. --JayHenry 19:04, 19 September 2007 (UTC)


 * I replied the refhide/refdecl stuff here. --Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason 05:50, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Hi :) IRT OLPC Philippines (The Aklan Pilot Project)
I'm trying to get a Pilot Project started at an elementary school somewhere in Aklan, pref in Kalibo, Ibahay, Boracay to show DepED and Batasan Pambansa that the provinces can lead the country into the digital age unlike as in the ZTE Broadband controversy. http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_Philippines :)

   --Mkouklis 06:38, 28 September 2007 (UTC) aka Chief Mike


 * I would be somewhat interested in participating, though I'm not sure in what role. My wife is an officer in one of the local churches, and is a sometime participant in community-service projects. The president of the Kiwanis club of Boracay is a friend, and Kiwanis seems a natural organization to involve. I looked at the OLPC Philippines page, and don't see anything which jumps out at me as a natural role for me (I do have some IT and Linux background, but would guess that there is probably no need for Boracay-based work in those areas). Your thoughts? -- Boracay Bill 00:35, 30 September 2007 (UTC)


 * FYI Unang Liwanag l8st!
 * 1) I have received the first Production XO-1 in the Philippines early this month and started talking/showing it around Kalibo
 * 2) A Canadian tourist took two of them to Boracay last week but I miss connected with him (He was going to leave them here :(
 * 3) Don Bosco Mandaluyan  City (Element ary School Div.) pls.excuse m'spellin is considering the OLPC and the group has scheduled a meeting next Saturday with them.
 * 4) Ive invited a couple from the (M-LUG)Malaya Linux Users Group and AkLUG for a get together here in Kalibo sometime around middle of May. TBD
 * My Main Point as of now is still to get people talking about this, I'm trying to stress the point that 1. it's not about teaching kids how to use a mouse printer or what have you it's a para-dyne shift (wish I knew a local equiv.term) in the tools of teaching. and ultimately a way of communicating with kids from here to there, were-ever they are. --222.127.252.238 (talk) 14:08, 22 April 2008 (UTC)User:Mkouklis
 * Thanks for the update. I'm on Boracay now; wish I could hook up with that Canadian tourist. I try to avoid traveling to Kalibo, but could take a day trip up there if it makes sense. I'm planning on relocating to Romblon for probably a couple of months beginning in May; haven't finalized my schedule yet.
 * I saw a neat mini-laptop in Manila recently. See this page. Comes out of the box running Ubuntu Linux. I didn't have time to fiddle with it much, but my understanding is that OS reinstall facilities do not come with it -- probably requires use of an external USB-interface CD drive and installation CDs from a third-party OS distributor.


 * Cheers, -- Boracay Bill (talk) 06:48, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

the link IRT The Blue UMPC says "Bundled OS	Microsoft Windows XP Home" I don't think it's a full/legit OS for the price they are quoting, the OLPC project has been having an effect on laptop specification/prices "Revenge of the clones?" SeaTacSystems(of Kalibo/Boracay) was showing me their newest arrival ASUS EeePC the other week but, mine is better for learning/teaching though for many reasons and not just only IMHO! BTW I have your page here on my watch list but don't sign in to wikiP very often due mostly due to lack of time :)Busy with many other things esp. the kids R on summer vacation, not to mention Akelco's all day power outages/clogged up Globelines-DSL :( ping me here when you're back from Romblon, ok? --Mkouklis (talk) 12:14, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Burma internet access
My report is first-hand, but that is not the same thing as Original Research. I was not expostulating a theory. I was reporting a fact. -- Evertype·✆ 20:15, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

William Stanton (disambiguation)
Hey, I made William Stanton into a disambiguation page to decrease confusion, but when I was checking links, I saw that this page already existed, so I put a PROD on it. Hope that's okay. GlassCobra (Review) 13:23, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Religion UK
I know you're trying to arbitrate a bit here, but re: your explanatory note; if the option had read "I believe there is God" as opposed to "I believe there is a God" it would not have been grammatically correct. The capital G indicates the name of the god of the Abrahamic tradition or the monotheistic God. Jooler 07:43, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
 * You are reaching further into the mind of the author of the wording of that option than I am able to. I personally am unable to divine what moved that anonymous author of the offered alternative response which reads "I believe in a God" to say "a God" instead of saying "God", "a god", or "god". Perhaps, as you suggest above, that anonymous author used the capital G with the specific purpose in mind of indicating the name of the god of the Abrahamic tradition or the monotheistic God &mdash; perhaps not. -- Boracay Bill 22:46, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Manual of Style
Can you send me a link to that Style Manual. It came up as a bunch of jarble when you commented on and reverted my editing. It's hard to find manuals and such regarding editing wikipedia. where are they all at? Yaki-gaijin 12:26, 22 October 2007 (UTC) I was talking about your undo of my editing on the Comfort Women article.

I will check out the Style Manual. The "jarble" I was talking about was just that the link you tried to make didn't work; thus I couldn't get to the Manual of Style. Now I can because of the links you put on my talk page. Thanks. Yaki-gaijin 05:26, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Publisher
Thanks for the reply. I'll look into the matter further. The website frequently posts articles from print media, so I doubt it's a brazen copyvio. Thanks again. Tromboneguy0186 11:30, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

On Mohammad Mossadegh
Dear Wtmitchell, you mention that you do not understand my revert. However, neither do I understand your addtions! You are adding material related to Hojatol-Eslam Khatami, Ayatollah Kamenei, etc., to the biography of Dr Mossadegh! Is there any need for me to explain that this is inappropriate? The same would apply if you had added a similar amount of material concerning Dr Mossadegh to the biographies of the last-mentioned individuals. I believe that you must be confusing things. I shall revert your changes right now, and should you disagree with my reversion, we should put the matter to arbitration by other Wikipedia men and women. Please note that my statement should not be misconstrued as any kind of opposition from my part towards Hojatol-Eslam Khatami, Ayatollah Kamenei, etc. (my work on Wikipedia is purely academic and not motivated by my political views, whatever they me be). I am stating the evident, that one person's biography should not be mixed with the biographies of others. If you wish, you could always make reference to the above-mentioned individuals in the section "See also". Kind regards, --BF 14:03, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Hi BF.
 * If you will examine the edit which I made, you will see that I added nothing. What I did was to convert inline external links which already existed in the article to full citations listed in the References section.  My concern was the sloppiness with which the inlinne external links had been added without (per the WP:CITE guideline) providing a full citation in the References section.  I provided the needed full citation for these external links which had been added by some past editor(s). -- Boracay Bill 08:03, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Dear Boracay Bill, thank you for your note. I am confused! Your apparent conversion of inline and external links has resulted in an increase of 16,658 bytes, increasing the size of the entry by 60%!!! (the entry is 26,593 bytes right now). Have you then checked the layout of the entry? I suppose not, since what I saw there did not look pretty &mdash; a large number of paragraphs consisting of half-lines. I did not like the changes for this and other reasons explained in my previous message. Be it as it may, you are one person, and I am one; there is no reason why my opinion should count more than yours. I leave it therefore to you to put the matter to arbitration (in the event that you wish to reintroduce your previous changes). My view has been, and still is, that your changes did not do good to the entry, so that I still respectfully oppose your previous changes. Kind regards, --BF 21:05, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Ah, I see. Thanks for your clarification. From what I can see I seem to have somehow deposited some unintended junk into the "Early Life" section while fleshing out a citation there. I also hd left a garbled Ref in the "Plot to depose ..." section. I've cleaned up these problems. The article should be somewhat improved now from its condition prior to my edits, with all the supporting citations having been fleshed out and placed in the References section except for the one in the "Shah's exile" section which seems to cite a dead link. Sorry about the glitches. -- Boracay Bill 05:16, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks! (I have just looked at the entry, but have not re-read it yet --- will do it later.) --BF 09:06, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Citation restoration
My apologies for the massive expungements(by others)/restorations (by me) going on in the Puerto Rico page. Unfolrtunately, many hours of work to produce over a hundred edits had gone down the drain by the massivbe expungement done by one of the overseers of the page. Whatever cites I may have affected was unintentional. My apologies.Pr4ever (talk) 01:38, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Right of foreigners to vote - USA
Thanks for the source quotation, I couldn't have done it that way. I also added several links towards State constitutions, but it will take more time to find more, not all the historical constitutions are online... --Pylambert 02:50, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

WP:VP
Hi, I reverted this edit of yours. Perhaps I miss something but that didn't look like vandalism to me. Garion96 (talk) 12:20, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Quote added to Citizenship and nationality talk page
Hello there. Could you please explain the purpose of doing this? – SJL 00:13, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Cycle of poverty
Your recent sourced additions to this article are a big improvement! futurebird (talk) 05:35, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Infobox_Country ---Problems_with_refs_and_footnotes
Hi W, I saw your posting over at Template_talk:Infobox_Country and thought I'd let you know that Infobox Settlement has footnotes/ref parameters set up in it. It may help you with Infobox Country to look at how Infobox Settlement does its footnotes for area, population, elevation, etc,. I'll post something over there, as I won't be adding your talk page to my watch list. Good Luck. &mdash;MJCdetroit (talk) 18:54, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Tagalog
Kumusta, Bill! Say, I noticed on Tagalog language you labeled this source as having failed verification. I took a look at the page, and it appears that there is a heading in that document titled "Nine out of ten can speak Tagalog" - was there anything particularly wrong about this or did you happen to miss it? Based on the 2000 population of 76.5M Filipinos, this should amount to about 73.7M Filipinos, of which 20M are native speakers. So the amount of second language speakers in the Philippines alone is over 53.7M and not 65M as stated in the article. What do you think? --Chris S. (talk) 17:55, 11 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I am going to discard the US Census link for now, but I am going to put 20M and 2000 census but the mother tongue statistics aren't available online. For the 53.7M figure I cited, I'll put the source I labeled above.  Is this acceptable? --Chris S. (talk) 01:40, 12 January 2008 (UTC)


 * PS.. Btw, I thought you put the failed verification tag because there was no mention at all in the source. There is a mention, but just an inflated number that should be actually 12M speakers lower. --Chris S. (talk) 01:41, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I hope you see this here, Chris. I'll post on your talk page if I don't get a response, but bouncing back and forth between talk pages gives me a headache. IMO, a source cited in support of assertion X should support assertion X. Sources available online are better for me than paper sources (from Boracay I'm pretty much limited to online sources), but I don't have a problem assuming good faith if a publicly-available credible-sounding source not available to me is cited (a NBS publication, say, cited by title, publication date, publisher, and giving specifics of page number, table title, etc. where the data supporting the assertion is located).  I'm not selectively nitpicking here&mdash; your addition of the 24M and 65M figures to the infobox caused the article to pop up on my watchlist; I saw supporting sources cited, checked them, and placed the tags when I couldn't verify the assertion from the cited supporting sources. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 02:14, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Your talk page is on my watchlist, so you don't have to worry about me missing your replies. In any case, I didn't see what you did as nitpicking, I just want to get it right because I'm not too hot on citing sources. I've made an edit to the article - I've combined the overall figures from the Philippine, US, and Canadian censuses to get 75M. 73.7M (96.4% of the Philippine population in 2000) from the Philippines plus 1.2M from US and 119K from Canada. BTW, were you able to locate those Census CDs? It might be moot now since I recently read that the 2007 census results will be released this year. --Chris S. (talk) 07:19, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Hi again, Chris.
 * I am big in supporting sources, and my perception is that there is increasing sensitivity to this need in the WP editor/watchdog community. There is entirely too much "I heard this somewhere" information in WP.
 * I won't flag this at this point regarding your latest changes, but you should look at WP:SYN. After just a quick look, my first reaction is that you're in violation. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 09:39, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
 * This is new to me. So adding figures is considered original research? Should I instead list the countries separately? --Chris S. (talk) 06:47, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Hmmm.... The supporting sources you cited in support of the ≈ 75 million total speakers assertion are:
 * (Results from the 2000 Census of Population and Housing, NSO)
 * US Census 2000
 * (Statistics Canada, 2006 Census Profile of Federal Electoral Districts (2003 Representation Order): Language, Mobility and Migration and Immigration and Citizenship. Ottawa, 2007, pp. 6-10.
 * The first one says that, from the RP 2000 census, the estimated RP population was 66.7 million and that "Nine out of 10" or 96.4 percent of those who were able to attend school can speak Tagalog. 90% of 66.7M is 60.03M. 96.4% of 66.7M is 64.3M.
 * The second one isn't a cite of an online source, but I see that Table 1 (Twenty Languages Most Frequently Spoken at Home by English Ability for the Population 5 Years and Over: 1990 and 2000) in Census 2000 Brief: Language Use and English-Speaking Ability: 2000 gives a figure of 1,224,241 Tagalog-speakers.
 * The third one also isn't a cite of an online source, but I see that Statistics Canada: Population by mother tongue, by census metropolitan area (2006 Census) lists 235,615 persons reporting Tagalog as their mother tongue.
 * It's probably not proper to add two figures from 2000 and one from 2006 together, but let's do it anyhow: 64,300,000 (RP 2000) + 1,224,241 (US 2000) + 235,615 (Canada 2006) gives 65,759,856.
 * The three sources I've discussed above, taken in combination, might be considered to support an assertion that the total number of Tagalog speakers exceeds 65 million. As I read WP:SYN, separate sources are not supposed to be combined in this manner in order to support an assertion. However, if it were me, I would probably think of WP:IAR and WP:IAR? and cite those sources to support that assertion. If I did that (and I have done similar things) I wouldn't be suprised to be reverted (as I sometimes have been). -- Boracay Bill (talk) 05:57, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

I misread then. The figure I got was based on the fact that the population of the Philippines was 76.5M in 2000 - 96.4% would be 73.74M. I will make that change accordingly. I took a look at WP:SYN and I do not believe that it applies to adding statistics especially when I will make light of the breakdown in the body of the article itself. Even if they do come from different time periods, the figure I have is still an approximation. --Chris S. (talk) 02:38, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Wiseman hypothesis and Genesis article
That the Wiseman hypothesis is pseudo-scholarship is a fact, not a point of view - rather like the world being round. It's never mentioned in the scholarly literature, never cited in scholarly books, is simply ignored by scholars. Perhaps there's a vast conspiracy to never mention Wiseman, but I don't think so. The definition of "scholarly" I'm using includes all those who hold teaching/research positions in major seminaries and universities, and who publish in scholarly journals (Journal of Biblical Studies, for example) - research and publication (in peer-reviewed outlets) is the sine qua non of scholarship. The reason it's ignored is that it ignors over 200 years of research - if Wiseman wants the scholarly community to accept his idea that Moses had clay tablets available detailing the contents of Genesis, then he has to begin by convincing the scholarly community that the existing theories on how Genesis came to be written are incomplete. He will have to convince them, for example, that the author of Genesis 1-11 wasn't taking Babylonian myths and inverting them to show that Yahweh was greater than the gods of Babylon, he'll have to show that people like Gunkel and Noth were wrong in their ideas on the Patriarchal stories, and much more. He does none of this. So this is why he's ignored - he ignores 200 years of scholarship, and advances ideas that are already disproven. This makes his work pseudo-scholarship. This is why I dfon't think the Wiseman hypothesis belongs in a scholarly article on Genesis. (Are you really from Boracay?) PiCo (talk) 12:32, 13 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I don't have the expertise in this area to discuss this in any depth. However it seems to me that, if what you say is the case, then the existence of this scholarship consensus considering the  Wiseman hypothesis to be silly should be pointed up (as I said elsewhere) in the Wiseman hypothesis article.  I'm nonreligious myself, so the argument is a matter of only passing interest for me.  However, the apparent scholarly disagreement about this not being made apparent to readers of WP articles touching on the area does trouble me.


 * For me, this is a side-issue. I was looking at an article which referred to an article which referred to the article from whence this user page discussion came, and I got to the Wiseman hypothesis from a google search I did looking for more information about something in that article. I saw that there was a WP article on it, and wondered why this apparently article-worthy related topic had not been mentioned in that clearly-related article.


 * I'm writing this from Boracay. I've lived here since 1996. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 13:29, 13 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I'll leave it to someone else to edit the Wiseman hypothesis article - it's the kind of thing that attracts very committed editors, yet it's not so important that I want to spend time wrestling with them. Boracay is beautiful, or so I hear. Phnom Penh is not beautiful, but it's interesting. (Incidentally, thanks for providing all those refs to bible verses for the Genesis article - much appreciated). PiCo (talk) 04:24, 14 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the table, Boracay Bill. I'm probably not going to come by this talk page again, but here are my thoughts on the issue.  Wikipedia doesn't actually operate on a policy of truth, but rather on one of "verifiability" and popularity.  The Wiseman hypothesis could very well be true, and even have all the evidence and logic on its side, but if there are no "significant" scholars who adhere to it, then it cannot be given serious weight on Wikipedia.  On the other hand, the Wiseman hypothesis can also be completely fraudulent, but it seems that Wikipedia policy does not allow for that to be stated without the same requirements, as has been discussed on the article talk page.  Anyway, I'm getting rather tired of the extremely rude remarks by some who continually equate literalist Christians with flat-earthers.  My final comment is that the scholars who advocate Genesis being derived from Babylonian traditions are acting upon faith that the book of Genesis is of human making.  This comment is no doubt going to ruffle some feathers, or perhaps just draw mocking laughter, but it's a fact.  I'll be on my way.  --Zephyr Axiom (talk) 18:52, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Filipino Veterans Fairness Act
The message was not meant to offend. I only wished to point out that the original title was the accurate one, and that it had been mistakenly changed when the refrences were reformated. Sorry about any misunderstanding. F-451 (talk) 05:51, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

oops
Wtmitchell, you just overwrote a bunch of stuff at Wikipedia talk:Citing sources -- would you mind undoing & redoing your cmt? --Lquilter (talk) 23:25, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Short footnotes with "Reference" section
Thanks for responding to my questions in Wikipedia talk:Citing sources. I have tried out your suggestions in User: Gerry Ashton/Harvard citation and have extended them slightly in User: Gerry Ashton/Note citation. They seem to work quite well, but if this were to be done more widely, we would have to find a way to educate users, because the methods are intimidating at first glance. If you care to glance at my examples to see if I did what you intended, your comments would be welcome. (The large vertical spaces in my examples are so I can easily see if the links are taking me where I want them to.)

Also, your response didn't address the fact that you suggested using the Citation template in the reference list, but most style guides suggest using periods to separate reference elements, while the Citation template uses commas. Is it actually necessary to use the Citation template, or would Cite book, Cite journal, etc. work just as well? --Gerry Ashton (talk) 07:04, 28 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Cite book supports a ref= (lowercase 'r') parameter. Some other  templates support a similar parameter and some don't. Support for this may or may not be documented -- you might need to look at the template source code to find it. I tend to use Citation because it is flexible enough to use for citing books, journals, web pages, newspapers, chapters in books, patents, and other stuff and does support an ID'd &lt;CITE> tag. If the citation formats produced by the various templates are ever regularized, the regularization will apply to all of my template-based citations, while hand-formatted citations which aren't in step with the regularization will stay out of step. It's pretty easy to create formatting templates similar to existing ones but with a couple of minor formatting changes, but we've got too many alternative templates to do the same job in twenty slightly-different ways as it is. It might not be too difficult to modify Citation (IMO the most generally useful one) to take an additional optional argument like style=CMS to set items like separator chars according to a particular style. Changing the order of the various citation components according to various style guides would likely be more difficult.


 * I expect to run into a problem myself at some point with features missing from and Citation.  Citation provides good support for citing chapters in a book which Cite book lacks.  Cite web provides good support for citing web pages which have gone dead but which have copies available in online archives which Citation and Cite book lack. examples:
 * That's all well and good, but when I run into a book with dead URLs for its online info and for online chapter text and with the dead link content available from an archive, I'm going to need to figure out a way to deal with that. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 08:27, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
 * That's all well and good, but when I run into a book with dead URLs for its online info and for online chapter text and with the dead link content available from an archive, I'm going to need to figure out a way to deal with that. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 08:27, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
 * That's all well and good, but when I run into a book with dead URLs for its online info and for online chapter text and with the dead link content available from an archive, I'm going to need to figure out a way to deal with that. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 08:27, 28 January 2008 (UTC)


 * One other thing
 * produces approximately the same stuff in the &lt;References /> list as
 * ( ( Castro 1998:45 )  vs. (Castro 1998:45) ), except that it produces a link to Endnote_Castro1998 instead of CITECastro1998, and that might be a bit less cryptic and is susceptible to citation format regularization via template regularization if such a thing ever occurs. If you do use that, please do not leave out the noid=noid parameter as that avoids a generally benign but nonetheless illegal (x)html error. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 12:16, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
 * ( ( Castro 1998:45 )  vs. (Castro 1998:45) ), except that it produces a link to Endnote_Castro1998 instead of CITECastro1998, and that might be a bit less cryptic and is susceptible to citation format regularization via template regularization if such a thing ever occurs. If you do use that, please do not leave out the noid=noid parameter as that avoids a generally benign but nonetheless illegal (x)html error. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 12:16, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
 * ( ( Castro 1998:45 )  vs. (Castro 1998:45) ), except that it produces a link to Endnote_Castro1998 instead of CITECastro1998, and that might be a bit less cryptic and is susceptible to citation format regularization via template regularization if such a thing ever occurs. If you do use that, please do not leave out the noid=noid parameter as that avoids a generally benign but nonetheless illegal (x)html error. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 12:16, 28 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks. I made a copy of this thread off of my user page for future reference. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 20:31, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Treaty of Tripoli
The author and his background is not "dubious". A quick search of the book could have given you this: —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ottava Rima (talk • contribs) 04:22, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Bugzilla bug 12796
Hi Bill, Just to be clear, so you could use s like this, yes?

 The Sun is pretty big, < ref name=Miller2005 /> but the Moon is not so big. < ref name=Brown2006 />

= = References == { {reflist}}

< ref decl=Brown2006>Brown, R (2006). "Size of the Moon", Scientific American, 51(78). < ref decl=Miller2005>Miller, E (2005). "The Sun", Academic Press. 

--SallyScot (talk) 21:02, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

The reason I ask about this is because I believe it'll relate to the rendered display order of the footnotes.

If the new 'invisible' content bearing named references are included a Reference section following the article body text, then they'll render (via or { {reflist}}) in the order that their associated < ref name=AuthorDate /> instances appear in the article body text.

If the new 'invisible' content bearing named references are included preceding the article body text, then they'll render in that order. The point being that the order could then be different to the order that their associated < ref name=AuthorDate /> instances appear in the article body text.

One could make an argument for ordering them alphabetically by author name for example, so that they appear that way in the References section. In which case the article's superscripted reference numbers will appear out of sequence. That may be fine and dandy, but I just wondered what your view on it was.

Cheers, --SallyScot (talk) 22:20, 31 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Hi SallyScott.


 * Yes.


 * The changes are intended to be completely backwards compatible with current wikitext.


 * cite.php currently collects article references in the order they are encountered, and expands them in that order. It will continue to do that if this change is implemented except that the order in question could be the editor-chosen order of invisible declaration early in the wikitext -- with un-numbered headers optionally inserted at arbitrary points in the expanded references.


 * Perhaps the test+demo wikitext submitted with the bug and the code to implement it will help make this clear:

This is a demonstration test case for a proposed cite.php extension coded by wikipedia user Wtmitchell. The explanatory text which follows is laden with a number of arbitrary footnote references in order to demonstrate the functionality added by this extension.

The implemented extensions are intended to be entirely backwards compatible with existing wikitext, and to enhance functionality as follows: Named and anonymous Refs can appear inline in article prose, but placing them in the article prose instead of within the footnote/citation declaration block is probably an editorial error.
 * Allow &lt;Ref>...&lt;/Ref> declarations outside of the article prose, thus reducing editorial clutter inside the prose. Support for a decl=whatever parameter is added for this. Refs can be invisibly declared in a block using &lt;ref decl=whatever>...&lt;/ref>, with all the clutter represented by "..." being removed from the article prose. Only minimal clutter (e.g., &lt;Ref name=whatever />) would need to be placed inline in the article prose.
 * Allow editorial control over the order in which Refs are expanded when the &lt;References /> tag is encountered. Editors would exercise this control by placing the block of invisibly declared footnotes, grouped and ordered as desired, early in the wikitext &mdash; ahead of the first occurrence of a Ref tag in the visible article prose. Cite.php will have stacked the Refs in the footnote declaration block in the order they were encountered, and they will be expanded in that order.
 * Allow anonymous subheaders to appear in the list of expanded references. Support for a head parameter is added for this.  Subheaders can be invisibly declared in the invisible block of declared Refs as &lt;Ref head>...&lt;/Ref>, and will appear in the expanded references list at the point where they were declared.

Bug 12796
So, what is this new idea you have for dealing with the inline ref system? (just leaving a note of encouragement, since I'm watching the conversation at that bug page). I do hope *something* is eventually implemented, because the current cite.php system kills edit page readability. (Obviously, else folks wouldn't be trying to come up with a new system, but the problem cannot be reiterated enough!) — Huntster (t • @ • c) 07:35, 9 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Hi,


 * As it happens, I had thought about this the night before I reacted to that bugzilla comment, and that sparked my comment. After I left the comment, I noodled it a bit more and came up with the following (which I'm now transferring here from a user page sandbox where I put it together and twiddled it a bit between then and now:


 * This is an informal draft description of a proposed enhancement to the Cite Wikimedia extension (see http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Cite.php). The purpose of the enhancement would be:
 * Allow decluttering of the wiktext by providing a means for editors to, at their option, place only empty named Ref tags inline in the wikitext, and to place the body of their footnotes outside of the flow of their wikitext prose&mdash;probably at the foot of the article, where the Reference tag is located (tags, plural, if group parameters are used).
 * Allow editors to manually order their footnotes by manually adjusting the order of their declaration. This operation might be made controllable at editor option by an optional tag something like reorder=no.


 * This enhancement might be implemented by introducing support for a new optionally-occurring element perhaps named Reforder. The Reforder element would be delimited by &lt;Reforder> and &lt;/Reforder> tags. The body of the Reforder element, between the delimiting tags, would contain zero or more named Ref elements (e.g., &lt;Ref name="some name">...&lt;/Ref> &lt;Ref name="some name" />). Duplicate names could be errored or processed in some default manner without error.


 * The Reforder element would optionally be placed in the wikitext by wikipedia editors at some point prior to the placement of the References element (&lt;References />)&mdash;probably immediately preceding that element, though than needn't be a requirement.


 * When the Reforder element is encountered, the Ref tags contained therein would be processed as follows:
 * if the name does not match the name of a previously-encountered Ref tag, an error would be generated.
 * the accumulated information for that named Ref would be entered into a new ordered-Ref list and removed from the list of Refs which had been accumulated in their order of appearance in the wikitext.
 * if the body of the Ref tag is not empty, the contents of the body would be saved as text associated with that named ordered-Ref.


 * When the References element is encountered the ordered-Ref list, if not empty, would be expanded as numbered footnotes followed in order by any remaining Refs which had been accumulated in their order of appearance and not removed by Reforder processing.


 * An alternative implementation might be not to introduce the Reforder element. The References element is currently required to be empty. The enhancement would be to allow the References element to optionally contain a series of Ref elements and to process those tags as described above. It could be that this alternative might be complicated by the operation of the code supporting the optional group parameter&mdash;I haven't looked at the code to see.


 * I could code this up, but I'm pretty unhappy about my wasted previous coding-up effort and I'm leaving on a trip tomorrow morning. I'll still be checking in more-or-less daily, but don't plan on doing any real work during the next month or two. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 12:33, 9 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Sounds fairly straightforward. I do hope that the solution will allow for a simple solution. I certainly understand your frustration, as the same has happened with me for "fixing" templates only to have them reverted, and I'm sure this type of stuff is an order of magnitude more difficult. Hopefully some additional support will be generated; though I have a feeling it is less a matter of support, but a matter of knowing such a proposal exists! — Huntster (t • @ • c) 17:08, 9 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Hi. Problem #1 above (separating definitions from references) is much more severe than #2 (ordering), and is the one that needs solving. So I don't like the idea of trying to kill two birds with one boulder, when the second bird isn't important, and a smaller stone would kill the first. Your is really kludgy: you're effectively saying people would end up defining a reference *three* times: [ref name=foo /] (the original reference), [reforder] [ref name=foo /] [/reforder (an extra block just to impose ordering), then finally [ref name=foo]definition[/ref] (the definition). If all you're trying to do is add a sort key, then it would be better to have some heuristic like sorting all references by key name (eg, [ref name=foo] comes after [ref name=bar]) and people can tweak their keys as they see fit. Or at worst, add an explicit sortkey: [ref name=foo sort=boo]. But extra keys and flags are not what wikitext is about. Stevage 12:05, 11 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Hi. Responding from a very slow internet cafe.
 * A means of separating definitions from references already exisis: &lt;Ref name=whatever>...definition...&lt;/Ref> vs. &lt;Ref name=whatever />. Aye, but the rub with that is that no way currently exists for declaring that one definition for each named Ref outside of the article prose.
 * Sorting is expensive. Repetitive sorting is repetitively expensive (behind-the-scenes measures can be taken to avoid the repetition, but that probably requires Wikimedia developer involvement).
 * Trying to get Wikipedia editors to act together is like herding cats. There is IMHO little chance that every editor on a page (or even very many of them) would conform to some obscure footnote naming convention so as to keep named refs sorted properly. There is a better chance that footnotes entered into a manually-ordered list would observe the order of the list&mdash;and those footnotes not observing proper ordering are easily manually reordered.
 * Yes, adding aa &lt;Reforder>...&lt;/Reforder> would be syntactically messy&mdash;better not to add complication. It was a useful device to explain the operation, though, before introducing the idea of making changes to long-established &lt;References /> tag usage. Also, there is the question of interaction with the Cite extension code implementing the group parameter -- I still have not looked at that. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 02:20, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Comfort Women
Thanks for moving the references. I wasn't aware of the guidelines for placing refs there :) I personally just find huge list of references easier for viewing when at the bottom of the page(So you don't have to scroll through them to get to the further reading, external links, etc.)  But thanks again :) Cheers! Paranormal Skeptic (talk) 01:49, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Need help with cite-format (article almost ready for another FAC)
Hi. I hope you don't mind me dropping in uninvited. I found you at the Citation cleanup project. You see, the article on Sitakunda Upazila failed an FAC mostly because of cite-format issues (inconsistent format, missing bits of information etc.). I have fixed all the issues raised, but, I feel, an expert hand may be needed to fix further problems. Would you take a look? Please? I, of course will be there to provide any clarification or information necessary. Aditya (talk • contribs) 13:41, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Voting by expat US citizens
I don't want to wade into the world of legal advice as I am not an attorney. I do know however that you do have the right to vote. I would like to strongly encourage you to contact the Secretary of State's office who likely would be able to clear this up with a phone call.
 * Telephone: (360) 902-4180
 * Fax: (360) 664-4619
 * Website: http://www.secstate.wa.gov/elections
 * Mailing Address: Washington Secretary of State PO Box 40229 Olympia, WA 98504-0229

In the mean time, I'll see if I can't find some better information for you. -- Electiontechnology (talk) 14:40, 21 October 2008 (UTC)
 * After speaking with some experts on the topic, it appears the oath is referring to your having a residence in the state and not necissarily currently. The best bet is to reach either the SOS or you can try your local election official. These days they're far more responsive to overseas voters than in the past. You can find the contact information here: https://www.overseasvotefoundation.org/overseas/eod.htm?stateId=53 Best of luck. Electiontechnology (talk) 14:01, 22 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Frankly, I doubt that expert advice you mention. I expect that the situation is that current WA State law should be followed, and that current WA State law makes no provision for a person such as myself (I've been a US expat living in the Philippines for the past 12 years; my last US residence was in WA State; I left WA State in 1996, and sold my house there by remote control from here in 1998.) to vote in US federal elections by WA State absentee ballot. I live on Boracay island in the Philippines, and have no local election official (the US Embassy in Manila, a couple of hundred of miles away, doesn't handle election minutae because trying to do so would overwhelm them). The WA State SOS website gives no email contact address, so I've sent him a snail-mail letter asking for clarification. It is extremely doubtful that i will receive a response before the 2008 voting deadline. If I do receive a response, I'll try to remember to let you know what he said. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 22:52, 22 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I understand your concern. I'll see if I can track down an email for the SOS's office. We might have better luck finding an email for the local election person. If you'd like help finding that address information, you can email me off-WP at electiontechnology@gmail.com (or if I'm being far too annoying with my attempts at assistance you can let me know that too). -- Electiontechnology (talk) 13:27, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

email inquiry to elections@secstate.wa.gov produced the following response:

-- Boracay Bill (talk) 22:53, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Final word
On 13 November,2008, I received an email response from the WA State Secretary of State:

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