Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 20:52, 2 September 2002

Hello there, welcome to the 'pedia! I hope you like the place and decide to stay. If you need any questions answered about the project then check out Misplaced Pages:Help or drop me a line. BTW, I am very impressed with the quality of your editing, fact checking and cross-linking. Great work! Cheers! --maveric149

Zoe, WRT your work on city pages, we have a naming convention for cities as many localities worthy of mention in encyclopedias share names (for instance, Melbourne, Florida and Melbourne, Victoria). An example is Georgetown, which as well as the capital of Guyana is also the name of a major city near Washington D.C. Therefore, the Georgetown page should be shifted to Georgetown, Guyana and a disambiguation page pointing to the various Georgetowns put there in its place.

I understand that, but I was linking from the "national capitals" page, which isn't disambiguated, so I was just creating new pages from there. I guess I need to do REFER or whatever it's called, but I'm not sure how to do that. -- Zoe

Zoe - don't worry, I'll fix the Georgetown thing. Nice work on the capitals you have done. :) Cheers MMGB

It's not your fault Zoe -- whoever made the list in the first place was careless about this issue. It's also sometimes difficult to know if a particular city name is shared by several (or more) different cities. What I do when I'm not sure, is look up the city name on Google while excluding the name of the country and see if there are other notable cites also known by the same name. For example. Of course, one would never make a disambiguation page out of truely famous cities such as Paris just because some small city in Texas has the same name (in these cases a link to Paris, Texas at the bottom of Paris is more than enough). BTW, whoever makes a disambigution page is also responsible for fixing any broken links that may result (in other words, any links to Georgetown would have to be fixed to go directly to the right page). Hope this helps! --maveric149

Hey that was ME, ya mongrel :) Actually, when I made the original page (which took forever) the last thing on my mind was disambiguation issues, back in those days we didn't have enough articles to have even contemplated it! Nice to see how times have changed :) - MMGB

Hi Zoe, good work on all the capital cities! One request: if you create a new article on a city, also create a redirect for "city, country". This isn't a real Misplaced Pages naming convention, but some people tend to link that way. Then again, if you don't do it, I will make the redirects... Greetings, jheijmans

One more note - when you have a link to an article as the first word of a sentence, there's no need to make a link like

]

In fact, all articles start with a capital letter, so no need to do this. jheijmans

Minor clarification: Articles are displayed with their first letter capitalized but are in fact case-insensitive -- so it doesn't matter if you capitalize the first letter or not when linking. --maveric149

Minor clarification to clarification: Article titles really do all start with a capital letter. But, the first letter of links to articles is case-insensitive, so it doesn't matter if you capitalize the first letter or not when linking. --Brion VIBBER

Hi again Zoe: Well you are certainly making your presence felt - really top-notch work on the world capitals! One question - what's your source for the "Masero" spelling (as opposed to "Maseru")? I've been to Lesotho and I've never seen the "Masero" spelling before - it's always "Maseru". However, in deference to your skill and effort, I didn't want to rush in and change anything. Also, if you are planning on sticking around here (which I certainly hope you do), consider signing up for Misplaced Pages-L. Warm Regards Manning

Thanks. I think I may have mistyped the REDIRECT. Can somebody correct that for me? I can't delete the page. Sorry. -- Zoe

Don't apologise - I've done a lot worse than that in my time :) You go on with whatever you're doing and I'll do the hack editorial stuff - I'm too jetlagged to do anything else. Cheers MMGB

I do appreciate your work here; I don't mean to be rude (though sometimes I am anyway). At first when I started writing for wikipedia, my contributions would get edited severely and I'd take offense. Now I think that's just the natural result of writing for a site with a lot of users, all of whom can edit any article they see that they think needs editing. Having said that, I do still think that plot summaries should go before awards in movie entries, if only because it's been that way in all of the books I have on movies (Ebert, Maltin, Videohound, etc.) Call it a force of habit. I don't think we have a policy for how to write about films, though I'm glad we're getting enough film entries that the issue has come up.  :-)

Anyway, I won't insult you by going through and changing them all, though I may change ones I run across in the future (in a few months or a year or a decade ... if they haven't all been expanded greatly by then anyway). Again, thanks for all your work, and I aplogize for being cranky. Best, Koyaanis Qatsi, Tuesday, July 9, 2002

Yes, please don't be discouraged by other people reworking your articles -- it all comes out right in the end. I really appreciate your contributions on the movie articles. -- Anon.\

Zoe, sometimes the greatest contribution is simply to start an article on its way. Someone will see it in Recent Changes, remember that they have something to say about it, then someone else sees it and so on. I would never have thought of doing an article on Trader Horn, but when I saw that you had done one, I remembered that I had seen it on vacation once and was inspired to add to the article. Then I noticed that Duncan Renaldo, who played the Cisco Kid was in it, so there was another link, which might lead someone else to write something about O. Henry who wrote the Cisco Kid. By that time, you may be adding something to someone else's article, and so the great wheel goes on, having been started rolling in this case by you. Ortolan88

Zoe, disambiguation help badly needed! If there is a movie and a novel with the same title (and they are the same story, of course) I think they should be discussed in the same place and at the same time. The Dickens titlesA Tale of Two Cities and A Tale of Two Cities (1935) had me wandering all over the place editing the wrong thing, and as you add more movies based on books you will be creating more confusion. Sometimes the book is obscure and the movie is famous, so the article can be mostly about the movie with just a mention of the book, but with A Tale of Two Cities we have a routine movie, and a pretty old one at that, competing for the article title with a very important novel. The model you used in Les Miserables where everything was discussed in one place, seems to be a good one to follow. Ortolan88, Thursday, July 11, 2002

Oops, there are two Les Miz articles too. Les Miserables covers everything (including 7 or 8 film versions) while your Les Miserables (1935) covers only one movie. This really doesn't work. I'm sorry. Ortolan88, Thursday, July 11, 2002

I don't see anything wrong with having separate articles on the book and films so long as everything is cross-linked. Generally I prefer to start with the most famous work, go into some detail on it and adaptations of it, summarize that info at a non-disambiguated title when a certain length is reached and then have more in-depth discussions on particular adaptations in disambiguated articles. However, I don't fault people for making lists after stubs (like in A Tale of Two Cities) and then make a couple of those items stubs too -- all they are doing is just planning ahead to the way the article will be when it is fully fleshed out. Ortolan, please stop being overly critical of other people's style of contribution -- nothing you mention above is in violation of any policy. Furthermore, the project is only 30% toward its goal of at least 100,000 articles -- everything here is still in alpha development. Please keep that in mind. --maveric149

I think Zoe is doing a great job on these movie articles, and I too was puzzled by the comments about disambiguating these same name movies. Eclecticology

I thought I did a good job of disambiguating. I CREATED the pages for the novels A Tale of Two Cities and Les Miserables,and aded entries for the movies so that we can disambiguate the movies from the books. I hardly think my entries on the books are gold, in fact they're little more than stubs, but I wanted to make separate entries for the movies and the books. the movie pages ARE disambiguated by the dates. And thanks for everybody's encouragement. -- Zoe

Hey Zoe, I just moved Academy Awards/Best Picture to Academy Award for Best Picture. I also changed all the links to the former to point to the latter--so in any future entries you don't have to pipe the link, you can just type it the way you'd expect to. Cheers, Koyaanis Qatsi

Yes, user:Eclecticology and I moved a lot of the Academy Awards pages. I'm also trying to correct all the links so they point to where the articles are now and none are left pointing to the redirects. I'll be working on it more tomorrow (sunday); I've had enough of it today.  :-) Koyaanis Qatsi, Saturday, July 13, 2002

If I have the history right, you included the phrase "firestorm of protest" in the Current Events entry for Sahelanthropus tchadensis. Where was this? I saw some suggestions that it might not be a direct human ancestor, but nothing that I'd characterize as a firestorm, in the articles I read--Science, Nature News Update, the BBC, New Scientist, and Newsday. I've been tracking this, and working on the article; I'm leaning towards removing that comment, leaving in that it's unclear whether this is a human ancestor, a chimp ancestor, both, or neither. Vicki Rosenzweig

If I remember correctly, it was in CNN. Another French scientist said it was clearly a female gorilla and nothing to make a big deal over. I can't find the article now, though. Sorry. --Zoe

I hope you don't mind me stepping in, but I think the article you're talking about may be here instead. Cheers, Koyaanis Qatsi

That sounds like a followup to the article I read, but I know I didn't read Yahoo originally. That does sound like the info I was first posting about. -- Zoe

Hi there Zoe - I wondered why you were changing links such as Florence to Florence, Italy. Because Florence already redirects to Florence, Italy, it's fine to leave links like that as they are. The purpose of the disambiguation policy used in these cases is to make it really easy to link, so that people use Florence rather than the longer Florence, Italy and still have it linking to the page they most likely want.

Thanks for all your hard work on the 'pedia on the films and everything else - I'm hoping that you might write some more great articles if you spend less time with the links :-). Enchanter

The reason why I'm doing it is because if you leave it at Florence, it sends you to the disambiguation page, and then you have to click again to get to Florence, Italy. Following the same process as was done for Rome, Italy. I didn't want to do it, but I've seen people complain when you change a page and don't redo all of the pages that link to it. It's the first time I've done this, don't think I'm going to do much more of it.  :-) -- Zoe

Now I'm getting confused Zoe - Florence already redirects to Florence, Italy, not [[Florence (disambiguation). That's how it ought to be too, in line with, for example, Paris redirecting to Paris, France, with a comment at the top of Paris, France taking you to the disambiguation page.Enchanter

OK, well, then I'm confused, too. Did somebody change what I did last night? It doesn't really matter, it's all done now.  :-) But see the comment at the top of this page about disambiguation of city names -- I'm just doing what I'm told. -- Zoe

Hey Zoe -- Just so you know it really isn't necessary to seek out each instance of something like Florence and make it link directly to Florence, Italy when Florence already redirects there (one or two would have been fine to make sure at least something directly linked to it). Just trying to save you some time -- (of course there is nothing at all wrong with what you did). Power to the wiki! --Maveric149

Oh, thanks, now that it's all done.  ;-) -- Zoe

LOL -- BTW thanks for creating the other two elements lists. --Maveric149

Markup or style note: Names of movies, books (including series), record albums, magazines, are italicized. Names of short stories, songs, and magazine articles are enclosed in quotes. Mad Magazine, "99 Luftballoons". Ortolan88

Go for it. -- Zoe

I have been going for it. I was hoping you would too. :=) Ortolan88

Hey, Zoe! I will say the same thing to you that JHK said to me a while ago. "Welcome to Helga's world." :-) Danny

It does seem to be different from ours, doesn't it?  :-) -- Zoe

Please do not use the characters ????????????????????????????????. They may look like something meaningful to you, but to the rest of the world they are all the same: wickets, boxes, or slugs. If you must use em dashes, etc., type out the entity reference in HTML; at least then it will look right in Clearlyu, even if it doesn't look right in the normal ISO-8859-1 fonts. -phma

Well, none of those look meaningful to me but the apostrophes. I had copied the Basil items out of a document I've written in Microsoft Word, so I guess the apostrophes don't translate, though like I said, they look fine in my browser. Next time I'll change them. -- Zoe

Thanks for adding the novelis, actor, and director details on The African Queen's page. I frequently forget to check if a work's based on a novel (which should IMO always be mentioned) but in this case I forgot quite a lot more too. Sheepishly, --KQ

Are we using (year film) or (year movie) to disambiguate? Or does it matter? I just wrote an article on Chinatown and backed out of it because I didn't want it on the wrong page. I guess I'll go ahead with it and move it later if need be. --KQ

Not a problem. Just being pedantic. I think I've mentioned that a few times.  ;-) Maybe if we just created Chinatown (movie)? Or is there more than one?

Oh, well my question was actually whether to "film" or "movie." I've been adding the year also because we can't check the IMDb for films that haven't come out yet--e.g. Stray Dogs, The Postman, The Man Who Wasn't There, and countless others examples I've seen and forgotten. There are supposedly rules in place to prevent exact duplication of titles among movies with different sources but apparently they don't work. New dupes come out all the time, and shouldn't. Oh well. Do you think it's overkill? --KQ

It's probably overkill if there is no such film now, tho IMDb does it. I was disambiguating by using the year when there was more than one movie with the same title, but I suppose YMMV. -- Zoe

What's YMMV? Mav pointed me to Misplaced Pages:Naming conventions, which I should have thought to check to begin with. I'll drop the years when I can't find a second exact title match on IMDb (in accordance with the above). Thanks, --KQ

YMMV = Your Mileage May Vary. Meaning, it's your own choice what you want to do. -- Zoe

I am getting more and more p***ed off. See Talk:Mithril. -- Zoe

Hi Zoe,

I hope you decide to shrug off the negative interactions and stick around.

I am preparing a proposal that Misplaced Pages shift to a text review approach that would leave current material intact as the primary article until a couple of logged in users have reviewed a proposed change version and ok'd it as improved.

Do you think this approach would reduce friction currently resulting from others editing or reviewing your work?

Do you think the exciting immediacy of a Wiki, i.e. seeing editing efforts published immediately to the internet would be diminished?

Other comments or pros and cons as you see them?

Thanks! user:mirwin

I don't know ... I think that delay thing would be really frustrating to a lot of people. Besides, it isn't the fract that people were changing my work -- as I keep saying, I don't care about that, as long as they're accurate. But it was the fact that my work was looked down upon as unworthy of being in the 'pedia. -- Zoe

Ok, I have taken notes. Thanks for responding so quickly! Personally I think all contributions are valuable. I think it is impressive that you have created sufficient depth and breadth with regard to LOTR, or other fantasy subjects, that people feel other subjects are treated too lightly. If you decide to take a break, then thanks for the all work to date and I hope you come back soon. 8) mirwin 01:05 Aug 19, 2002 (PDT)

Thanks! ;-) Danny

I love your work, Zoe. If anybody gives you a hard time, let me know. Now that I'm a sysop, I carry a bit more weight. --Ed Poor

Well, that was weird. I was working, and all of a sudden, my preferences got changed, and I realized that I was no longer logged in. It looks like my cookie got deleted or something. I had to re-log in, and now everything is fine. -- Zoe 15:17 Aug 15, 2002 (PDT)

Mea culpa! As per general agreement on the mailing list that www.wikipedia.org is preferred over www.wikipedia.com, I've set the software to link to itself using the .org address. Cookies aren't smart enough to know that the two domains are the same thing, so you have to log in again now that we're in .org-land. (If there are any other problems, I can change it back in a jiffy.) --Brion 15:21 Aug 15, 2002 (PDT)

No, seems to be okay. I'm glad I found out, I'd hate not to be able to find the 'pedia next time I come here.  :-) -- Zoe

Zoe, Thanks for stripping certain stuff from "N.m.". I have my own strategies for this but principally this centres about gratefully welcoming her comments and incrementally removing them a few days later. It was on my to do list for this morning. This strategy usually keeps the frau from the door and preserves the integrity of "N.m." without it turning into edit wars. She only crosses our threshold occasionally so it is a minor inconvenience. Moppping up during the middle of the night is a strategy which I guess works well for you. rgds user:sjc

Hey Zoe, thanks again for all your work on the movies. I really appreciate it.  :-) --KQ

You're welcome. It's kind of fun, actually. Something that has really surprised me when researching these early films is how many of them were written by women. I had always thought that movies were a man's field in the early days. -- Zoe

Zoe - not that's its a big deal at all, but the convention on naming movie entries that have multiple movies with the same title is . So for example Titanic (1997 movie). I do, however, kinda like the way you are titling these entries though -- Scarface (1932) actually has a chance of being directly linked whereas Scarface (1932 movie) has little chance (and this does not present an ambiguity issue so long as nothing of significance named "Scarface" was created in 1932). If you really think your way is best I will support the idea on the mailing list as a change of the convention. Cheers! --mav 15:25 Aug 26, 2002 (PDT)

I don't have any preference one way or the other, but I've been doing it this way for a while now, as I hadn't seen the convention. If you want to go with the changes you've made, we're going to have to go back and change quite a few. -- Zoe

Keep on doing it your way -- I think it is better. I'll take care of the process that is needed to change the convention. --mav

Sorry, it looks like the list doesn't want to change the convention. So please use the (YEAR movie) conention when more than one movie shares the same name. I will take care of moving the (YEAR) format pages later. --mav

OK, no problem. -- Zoe

Hey Zoe, you should relogin under "the indefatigable Zoe".  ;-) --KQ

Or "the obsessive Zoe" :-) -- Zoe

Hey, Zoe, why don't you move the chat from your user page to your user talk page? Thanks for the careful editing work. Also, you seem like the sort of person who would keep an interesting personal web page. Do you? --John Knouse

Thanks, no, not really. I've never gotten around to creating one.  :-) -- Zoe

I am geting majorly frustrated. I DO NOT mind when people edit my articles. That's what they're for. But when the instructions for uploading images say they should be uploaded as .pngs, and they ALL get changed to .jpgs on somebody's whim, then why should I even bother? -- Zoe

Please read the image policy and upload page again--photographic images should be JPEG. Drawings and other iconic images should be PNG. We've been very consistent about that, and there are good reasons for it. Besides, what's your problem with other people doing all the work for you? --LDC

What do you mean, "all the work"? It would hae been nice if you had at least EXPLAINED why you were converting my pictures. And this is NOT what was said in the Mailing List. -- Zoe

OK, I suppose politeness isn't my strrong suit. By "work" I mean just doing the conversions themselves. I don't know what I might have said on the mailing list that was confusing, but the reason behind to policy is very simple: it produces the smallest file (and therefore quickest download for wiki users with slow modems) with good image quality to use formats designed and and optimized for the kind of image. JPEG's compression was designed and optimized for photographs; PNG's compression was designed and optimized for icons (though it's actually higher quality than JPEG for photographs as well--it just produces huge files for them). --LDC

Yes Zoe, please don't be frustrated. I too am short on politeness and sometimes my intentions are golden but my delivery is terrible. Same for LDC me thinks. It would be a great loss to the project if you left. Please don't. --mav

Zoe: see Talk: Neeltje-Jans

Hi zoe- Marc Bonfils IS his full name!!! I only linked his suranme as I've already put a link to Bonfils somewhere else quercus robur

Please stop putting links on the List of dukes of Norfolk. You are creating errors, because the articles about people with those names are about different people. Don't put a link on this page unless you first create an article for it to go to AND disambiguate with any existing article. Also, please don't link to Norfolk, England, because it's essentially a disambiguation page for all dukes of Norfolk, whether it's Norfolk, England, or not. For that reason, it needs the info about the Bigods to disambiguate them from the real dukes. Thanks. -- isis 2 Sep 2002

Why can't the name be disambiguated on the name page? I didn't link anything to Norfolk, England. -- Zoe

It can -- that's why I said it's okay to put the link in if you take care of disambiguating it first, but look at what you did to John Howard to understand the problem. -- isis 2 Sep 2002

I see nothing wrong with what I did. Add something to the John Howard article indicating there are several people by that name and disambiguated them on that page. -- Zoe

209.226.107.51 doesn't want to sign in and use a real name, so I can't respond to him/her on his/her user page, so I'm forced to do it here. You seem to be spending a lot of your time going through the Misplaced Pages and trying to make lots of anti-American statements, but your attempt to make the US look bad in East Timor isn't going to fly. -- Zoe

I'm just curious, does that mean the Misplaced Pages will be censored of all references to even well-documented facts that "make the U.S. look bad"? zadcat 20:24 Sep 2, 2002 (PDT)

Hardly. -- Zoe

209 here. I don't need to attempt to make the US look bad in East Timor. The US did that itself. I gave you a source. I have yet to see you refute that source. Are you saying you will remove things that "make the US look bad", regardless of whether they're completely relevant and true?

I'm not "anti-American", whatever that means. For all you know I *am* American. I have American friends. Many of the writers I greatly respect are American.

Anyway, I guess there's no point to this. You're probably the true believer type who will continue to stick to your story no matter what.