Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 16:32, 6 October 2008

Welcome to the Misplaced Pages

Welcome, Eklipse!

Here are some useful tips to ease you into the Misplaced Pages experience:

• First, take a look at the Misplaced Pages Tutorial, and perhaps dabble a bit in the test area.
• When you have some free time, take a look at the Manual of Style and Policies and Guidelines. They can come in very handy!
• Learn about some of the Misplaced Pages landmarks by trying our Misplaced Pages scavenger hunt!
• If you need any help, feel free to post a question at the Help Desk
• Misplaced Pages has a vibrant community of editors. The village pump is a great place to see the goings on.
• Remember to use a neutral point of view!
• Explore, be bold in editing pages, and, most importantly, have fun!

Also, here are some odds and ends that I find useful from time to time:

• Misplaced Pages:Five pillars
• Misplaced Pages:Brilliant prose
• Misplaced Pages:Be bold in updating pages

Feel free to ask me anything the links and talk pages don't answer. You can most easily reach me by posting on my talk page.

You can sign your name on any page by typing 4 tildes, likes this: ~~~~.

Best of luck, and have fun! ClockworkSoul 21:16, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Re: List of space telescopes

Hello. Thanks for your comments on Misplaced Pages:Featured list candidates/List of space telescopes. I'm replying here as that page seems to have been archived now...

I agree that adding some history to the page would be good, but I'm not a historian, and plain don't know it...

As for numbers: I could probably find the number of satellites currently in orbit, but it would take a while - I'd have to try to find out whether each of the satellites is still up there or not. Active is easier, but I'm not 100% confident that it would be the correct number - some satellites have possibly ended, but haven't said, and I occasionally find ones I missed (e.g. PAMELA which I added yesterday). It would also have to be updated fairly often (~ once a month).

What happens to terminated satellites is easier: they stay up there until their orbit decays and they fall back to Earth, when they burn up; or for those at Lagrange 2, they'll just stay there for a few million years until their orbit gets disturbed. I guess that could be added, so long as I can find a reference for it, but I'm not sure that it would fit in...

Having said all of that, I'll keep your comments in mind, and will try to modify the list in the future to accommodate some of your suggestions.

Thanks again. Mike Peel (talk) 18:35, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

WikiProject Lists of basic topics

I noticed you joined this WikiProject. Welcome.

As far as I can tell, the rest of the members are in it in name only. I've tried to stir them to action, but nothing has worked so far.

I hope you are an exception, and that you've added your name to the list because you want to make an impact.

This project is a very big undertaking. Only a few of the lists are complete. Which means there are hundreds of lists that still need work.

I've been picking away at them for over 2 years (I started out as User:Go for it!), and have done the majority of the work on them. The set is a lot more useful than it was, but there is still a looong way to go.

Even if the two of us worked on them full time, it would take years to complete the set.

We need help.

Lots of help.

Therefore, I believe we should take a strategic approach here.

The best thing we could do for this project is to recruit help.

Aggressively.

Are you in?

The Transhumanist    05:27, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Featured articles on Arabic Misplaced Pages

Hello Eklipse,

Thanks for noting that Japan is a featured article on the Arabic Misplaced Pages. Unfortunately, I don't read Arabic, so I can't tell what method the Arabic Misplaced Pages uses to indicate featured articles. I notice that Japan does not have the star in the corner that the English Misplaced Pages uses to mark featured articles. In contrast, History of Kuwait, which is featured and is presently on the main page of the Arabic Misplaced Pages, has that star in the top left corner. Can you tell me how to look at an article and determine whether it is featured?

Thank you, Fg2 (talk) 22:05, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, that's a nice method. Fg2 (talk) 08:41, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Award

Oh many thanks for the award much appreciated!!!! I only just saw it!! As you can see my talk page gets a fair bit of traffic. Yes I'll try to help develop few. I've drawn up the bones for all the other templates at Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Lebanon/District templates . If you and WP:Lebanon and User:George etc could develop them and add links to each one I think the condition of Lebanese articles would really improve. I;m sure the template could be filled out a bit with notable articles related to each district. I'll try to add what I can. At present I have Mexican towns on the go and trying to sort them out. Best regards and thanks! ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ 20:36, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

WikiProject Lists of basic topics

Hi. Here's an update of what we've been up to in this WikiProject...

We've created a page for every country of the world! They're not complete, and most of them aren't even in the main namespace yet, but...

A team of editors has been working on them, and they've come a long way.

We're about to run a competition, called "Around the World", in which participants will compete in the completion of specific data items across all of these country lists. For example, one task would be adding the population figure on each page.

The awards images are almost done, and the pages themselves need a couple sections completed before they can be moved to the article namespace and the competition can begin.

We could sure use your help...

Track down the administrative divisions types for each country

The first task is on the "Administrative divisions of" sections.

In each of these sections, there's an initial hierarchical list of the division types in that country, followed by subheadings for each of the types. Unfortunately, the types listed are those from the template I used to create these pages, and they aren't accurate for many countries.

The defaults that I used were:

• Provinces of x
  • Districts of x
    • Municipalities of x

For each country, change the links to the names of the administrative divisions for that country, adding more links if there are more than 3 division types. Those that are subdivisions of another type are indented under the parent type. In most cases, you would leave municipalities in place, because that's a generic name for "city". We'll blue-link those later. (Blue-linking is creating a redirect so that a link turns blue - that way, the link remains standardized on all the pages in the set).

Also change the subheadings in the same section to match the initial list, including the "main article" links presented just below each subheading.

To find out what the administrative divisions are for a country so you can add them, try looking on the government of x or politics of x pages for that country, and on the country's main article as well.

Add the administrative divisions to their respective subsections

For each country, find the list of administrative division for each type, and add them under that type's subheading.

For example, copy and paste the provinces listed at Provinces of Angola under the "Provinces of Angola" subheading on that country's list page.

See the countries listed at Lists of basic topics for examples of how this has been done for those. If there's a map showing the administrative divisions, grab it too.

Generally do not add towns and cities to the municipalities section, as there are usually way too many of them (and will unnecessarily bloat the page). Instead, provide links to the various pages (Cities of x, ], Villages of x, etc.

Complete the "Government of x" section

This section also has temporary data, and needs to be corrected/completed.

The name of the position of the head of state and head of government of each country needs to be corrected, and the specific office holders added.

The branches of government subheadings need to be corrected/filled in.

Etc.

The above tasks are fun, because it's interesting to see how other countries operate. I've completed about 25 of the country pages so far, and I've been intrigued and even amazed at some of the approaches different countries follow. The U.S. is definitely behind in many respects.

Please help out as much as you can, and help us get Around the World started!

Sincerely,

The Transhumanist    17:32, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

My FLC

I've adressed the comments raised at the FLC for Featured list candidates/List of municipalities of the Brussels-Capital Region. I would appreciate it if you could take another look at the nomination. Thanks for the review! Malinaccier (talk) 01:14, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Lebanon

Although no-one in Lebanon refers to the currency as Lira (when speaking English) it should be noted that in some regions the common English usage (usually outside Lebanon) is Lira not pound. The two terms are interchangable. I just wanted to give that opinion to the edit someone made on Lebanon --AreaControl (talk) 21:21, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

See Lira. It mentions Cyprus as an area where Lira/Pound is the exact same term. I only wanted to mention this as it could have been a misunderstanding from a user outside Lebanon who simply believed the terms to be equally usable --AreaControl (talk) 21:24, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Of course I agree with your message. I was merely pointing out that some countries that use the currency "pound" also refer to it as "lira" when speaking English. Thanks AreaControl (talk) 10:49, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Concerning the Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Lists of basic topics

(the RfDs have already run their course)

RfD nomination of Navy of Sudan

I have nominated Navy of Sudan (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) for discussion. Your opinions on the matter are welcome; please participate in the discussion by adding your comments at the discussion page. Thank you. Ron Ritzman (talk) 00:07, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

RfD nomination of Navy of Belarus

I have nominated Navy of Belarus (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) for discussion. Your opinions on the matter are welcome; please participate in the discussion by adding your comments at the discussion page. Thank you. Ten Pound Hammer and his otters • 16:01, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Navy redirects

We've been "bluelinking" the Navy of x links in the basic topic country lists, by creating redirects for them, even for the countries that have no navy.

There's been a little controversy over the navy redirects for the landlocked countries (many of which have no navy), as you can see above. But it's all been worked out. Each country with no navy gets a redirect to wherever it is reported that it has no navy, or failing that, to its "military of" article.

The country lists are coming along slowing but surely. It shouldn't take too much longer before they will be complete enough to move into article space (!), but I can still use all the help I can get. (hint hint).

The Transhumanist    20:46, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

We could sure use your help in bluelinking the links in these lists (each link appears in one of the various country basic topic lists):

• User:ChiragPatnaik/Navies
  
• User:ChiragPatnaik/Armies
  
• User:ChiragPatnaik/Air Forces

To bluelink them, create a redirect to wherever the information is covered. If there is no entity, redirect to where that is (or should be) covered.

If you have any questions, please contact me. The Transhumanist    20:58, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

List of people who died before the age of 30

It appears obvious now that the page List of people who died before the age of 30 is headed to deletion. I support its deletion myself. But this has given me an idea. Do you think it would make sense to have a set of categories called "Age x deaths," all in a parent category called "Deaths by age?" That seems like a better idea. This way, there would be no worry where to draw the line as to what age is "significant" as an age of death, and all ages people live to can possibly be included. There would be no need for one person to create all these categories in one day - they could be built gradually over time. We already have categories like 1949 deaths. Why can't we do the same with age? I would like some input. Sebwite (talk) 23:15, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Thnak you!

Hello, nice to meet you! Thanks for your barnstar. I appreciate it! Have a nice day! Ciao! Angelo De La Paz (talk) 23:38, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Lebanon list, list titles

The format has been updated slightly. Check its current format against Template:BLT country and add anything that is missing. The pronunciation item, for example.

Other than that, the main things that need to be done to the list are:

1. Fix/finish the government branches sections (executive, legislative, judicial)
2. Fill in the blanks (population, size, president, commander in chief, etc.)
3. Replace the pipe (the part of the link after the "|") in the "capital of x" link to the name of the capital.
4. Blue link as many of the redlinks as possible.
5. Google "Lebanon" in a wikipedia site-specific search (click on advanced search and place http://en.wikipedia.org/ in the domain field). Setting the results to 100, and the search to titles only is also essential. Excluding "category" and "template" refines the results. Add links to any articles that you think are appropriate.
6. Look the categories for Lebanon over for major topics, and add any you feel belong (don't try to include every link - this is an outline, not an index.

You wanted models. All of those that have been moved to article space are more complete than the rest, and make good models, especially the ones with maps and pictures (Japan, France, Iceland, and Taiwan). Here are all the ones moved to article space:

Albania • Algeria • Angola • Argentina • Australia • Austria • Canada • Ecuador • Egypt • France • Germany • Iceland • India • Indonesia • Iran • Iraq • Ireland • Italy • Isle of Man • Israel • Japan • Macau • Mexico • Russia • Taiwan • Thailand • United Kingdom • United States

There were two name-related proposals. One was that all pages of this type be required to have the standard name - this proposal failed, which means any editor can change the name of any of the pages on a whim. See List of opera topics.

The other proposal was for renaming the whole set. Nobody could agree on what to call them, and many of the people in the discussion didn't even understand the proposal.

It was a fiasco all the way around. When I renamed all the pages previously, only one page got any complaints (opera), but I reverted them all based on that (a big mistake), and posted the proposals. The proposals shouldn't have been made in the first place (another big mistake), and they got bogged down by Parkinson's Law of Triviality.

By the way, nothing has been discussed about the naming of new pages of this type. I've been naming new pages "Topic outline of x", where x is the subject. And a few other pages here and there.

I hope you find the above answers useful.

The Transhumanist    23:45, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Interlanguage Extension

A request to activate the extension on Wikimedia projects has been created here, you can vote for it, advise other people to vote, or just spread the knowledge of it in any other way. Nikola (talk) 18:59, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Hi Eklipse,

I saw your note at Nikola's talk page. I have already mentioned it at the Village Pump: Misplaced Pages:Village pump (technical)/Archive 48#Interlanguage Extension. I don't have any clever ideas about where else you can promote it. Maybe Wikitech-l (see Misplaced Pages:Mailing lists). --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 16:32, 6 October 2008 (UTC)