Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 13:27, 15 January 2014

This is Makyen's talk page, where you can send them messages and comments.

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Archives: Index, Index, 1, 2, 3Auto-archiving period: 3 months

Archives

Index 1, 2, 3

This page has archives. Sections older than 90 days may be automatically archived by ClueBot III when more than 2 sections are present.

Moving talk page archives

I saw what you did on Talk:HIV/AIDS. Talk:Comparison of American and British English has the same problem. If you could move the archives on that one too, that would be great. →Σσς. (Sigma) 09:52, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

Done.

If you want me to do more of these it would be easier for me do the moves prior to fixing the "MiszaBot/config" to point to the correct page name. Doing the moves after changing the template (and having lowercase sigmabot III perform an archive move) makes it such that the last page needs to be merged instead of moved. A merge is significantly more work and results in the edit history being left at the old page name. Alternately, the "MiszaBot/config" could be pointed to the correct page name and the "count" argument incremented so that a new page number is used. Moving the pages prior to correcting the "MiszaBot/config" is a bit cleaner, and probably preferred. Makyen (talk) 00:23, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

I'll keep that in mind. Thank you. →Σσς. (Sigma) 00:53, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

Chaos at User talk:Hassocks5489

Hi Makyen – thanks for your note; I was going to reply this evening to ask for some help if you wouldn't mind! I set up the archiving years ago (or maybe somebody set it up for me) and to be honest I wouldn't know what to do. Any guidance you can provide would be much appreciated! Cheers, Hassocks5489 (Floreat Hova!) 16:35, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

That looks perfect – many thanks! I imagine Cluebot will sweep through in due course and archive stuff between May and 90 days ago (is that right?). I'll just add a note at the top to say that pre-August 2008 threads are all on the User talk:Hassocks5489/Archives/2008/August page, in case anybody ever needs to dig back that far and look for anything! Thanks again, Hassocks5489 (Floreat Hova!) 21:14, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. Could you drop the text on my talk page, and the list of spurious pages, and I'll pick it up from there. Hassocks5489 (Floreat Hova!) 22:44, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

	The Working Wikipedian's Barnstar
	Just to say thanks for your hard work over several days to diagnose and fix these problems. Everything looks fine now! Best, Hassocks5489 (Floreat Hova!) 13:11, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

ClueBot III

Thanks for bringing the error of ClueBot III to my attention. Unfortunately, I only know how to sort out ClueBot settings and not MizaBot settings. I guess nobody has really shown me how to set the MizaBot for archiving. Adamdaley (talk) 00:56, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

Earlier this year I did try having my talkpage archived with ClueBot III. I find that doing the ClueBot III is easier than the MizaBot. Adamdaley (talk) 02:42, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

Smartphone display lists

I withdrew the AFD and boldly did some changes to List of mobile phones with HD display to bring it up to "proper" standards. ViperSnake151  Talk  01:38, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Thank you (belatedly). I like the changes. Makyen (talk) 22:28, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

Thank You

Thanks for fixing my talk archives. Would've have never figured that one out on my own -- Marchjuly (talk) 13:00, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

"RE:Help! I Need Somebody. Help! Not Just Anybody. Help! You Know I Need Someone. Heelp!"

Talkback

Hitro talk 12:38, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

Talkback

Dogmaticeclectic (talk) 17:24, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

The difference between × and x

Hi. I see that only after you changed several dozen pages that you got around to updating the Manual of Style, and then quickly reverted yourself. We use the multiplication sign for both multiplication and (pixel) array dimensions. For example, in the 1024×768 screen resolution, there are 786,432 pixels. You get that number by multiplying the two numbers. Are you going to go back and undo all your recent edits, please? Wbm1058 (talk) 04:17, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

I am going back and reviewing all my edits. Those that are in error will be fixed (there are some, but most are correct). However, I will be re-reviewing all of them.

Yes, I reverted a change to MOS specifically in the discussion of dimensions. After making some changes, I realized that some of the changes had modified dimensions which I needed to go back and fix. Looking briefly at the MOS, the statements in multiple sections appeared contradictory. A first attempt at rectifying that was not thought through sufficiently which was why I reverted it. I will be editing the various sections of the MOS pages to actually reflect the consensus reached in the archives of the talk pages.

I had to go to the archives of the talk page to determine what was actually reached as the consensus (2007).

The MOS is currently unclear and has multiple potentially conflicting statements. From reading WP:MOS#Units of measurement and Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers#Conventions there is an implication that the "×" (×) symbol is to be used for dimensions. However, only if it was written as "1920 pixels × 1200 pixels", or "1920 px × 1200 px" not "1920 × 1200", or "1920×1200". WP:MOS#Common mathematical symbols and WP:DATE#Common mathematical symbols state that the unspaced "x" is an abbreviation for "by" and that "4x4" is a correct way to write it, not "4 x 4".

Looking back at the original discussion, which was specifically about arrays of pixels (e.g. 8x8, 16x16, 32x32, or 64x64) the consensus was actually that either: "16x16", "16x16 pixels" or "16 × 16 pixels" were acceptable. However, "16 x 16" and "16×16" were not acceptable.

Prior to making any more changes, or reverting the ones I have already made, I was to do some more reading to determine if there were further discussions on this topic. I will probably quickly go through the changes I made to see which ones are clearly wrong. From memory, these were changes from clearly wrong to also clearly wrong. Makyen (talk) 05:00, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

To be specific, "1024×768" is one of the formats that was specifically not acceptable. If you were multiplying the pixels then it would be: 1024 × 768 = 786,432 pixels. If you were writing that you had a screen that was of those dimentions, it would be "1024x768", "1024x768 pixels", "1024 × 768 pixels", or "1024 px × 768 px", but not "1024×768". Makyen (talk) 05:06, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

Actually, I should have been a bit more clear. The "1024 × 768 pixels" format was decided as acceptable in the original discussion, but subsequent discussions on dimensions indicate that it is not acceptable to have only one statement of the units when using the "×" (×) symbol. Makyen (talk) 05:50, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

I appreciate your diligence in attempting to determine historical consensus on this matter, but you probably should have re-raised the issue on the MOS talk pages before boldly editing in a manner that seems to have changed a defacto consensus. You're going back to a discussion that's over six years old, and consensus can change over time. I only see one link where you referenced a past discussion, please correct me if there are more that I missed. Note that even the Four-wheel drive article uses the multiplication sign, even though multiplication isn't applicable in that context, and that usage has stood uncontested for several months. See:

• Misplaced Pages talk:Manual of Style
• Misplaced Pages talk:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers

Thanks, Wbm1058 (talk) 16:51, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

In retrospect, I can see that there is a need to re-open the discussion regarding the formats used for this representation and that it might have been better to have that discussion prior to making changes. I will start such a discussion later today. After looking into it last night, prior to getting some sleep, it appeared the current usage had migrated such that "×" was being used in that manner in a significant number of places. This was even though using "×", without units on both numbers and spaces, is one of the formats which is explicitly stated as not to be used.

I did not include any additional links here because I am/was still in the process of looking through the history and wanted to get a response to you in a reasonable time-frame. The one link I did include appears to be the original genesis for the "4x4" text. I included it here, to a large extent, because that discussion was explicitly about arrays of pixels. The fact that the text on the MOS happens to say "4x4", which we all associate with Four-wheel drive, appears to be an artifact of the text chosen for the wording. I will provide additional links here later as finding all such discussions is a prerequisite to opening up the discussion again.

I have been considering reverting my edits pending such discussion. My problem with doing so is that the use of "×", in the form that I changed (i.e. without units on both numbers and spaces; e.g. "1920×1200"), is one that is explicitly stated as not to be used and was consistently objected to in all of the discussions on this topic. The primary objection being that "×" is the symbol for multiplication which leads to possible confusion as to how "1920×1200" is intended to be read. In reviewing my edits there definitely were cases where the use of "×" was confusing and could have been intended to indicate multiplication instead of "by".

I did go through all of my edits and changed a some of them back to using "×". My criteria for doing so was the requirement for both A) units to be specified for all numbers, and B) spaces to be used. This included some tables where the units were specified in the header but the actual text in the table did not have units (e.g. "1920 × 1200" where the header states "x (px) × y (px)"). A good number where spaces were used were changed to "1920x1200" where using units on all numbers was clunky, or inconsistent with usage throughout the rest of the article. In the interim, If you have articles where these changes are of particular concern to you, please tell me.

I will probably not start the discussion until late tonight as I have some things that really must be done today. Makyen (talk) 22:21, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

No worries, take your time. I really appreciate your thoughtfulness about this. This type of MOS stuff can sometimes get heatedly contentious (prime example is the hyphens and dashes) and I don't want to go there. I'm fine with waiting until a firmer consensus is confirmed before going back to fix any articles. Cheers, Wbm1058 (talk) 23:10, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. Yeah, I am hoping that it will not be that contentious 8-). However, I do look forward to more clarity as a result of the discussion.

As it turns out, I significantly underestimated the amount of time I need to spend on some issues in real life. I am about at the end of what I should do without any sleep. If I can catch a few hours sleep now, I should be able to get to this after the workday. However, I will need to see if I am reasonably up to snuff in the evening tonight. If not, I will try to catch a few additional hours of sleep and get to it late tonight (Friday). Makyen (talk) 12:31, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

Just mentioning something to consider when you find the time. See MOS:BASE, where 0x (zero-ex) is used for hexadecimal numbers. It's nice, in articles using both hex and array dimensions, to have "x" for hex and "×" for arrays. For example Timeline of DOS operating systems, which is the article that by far I've put the most work into, uses both extensively, albeit never in the same timeline elements. Think how redundant it would be to put pixels or even px on every single one of those video resolution arrays. It should be obvious from the context that it's referring to pixels. In the first usage, I do spell it out and use wikilinks: "720×350-pixel display resolution". After that it's no longer necessary to spell out pixel or link to it. Regards, Wbm1058 (talk) 17:07, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing me to the Timeline of DOS operating systems article. Both a good example where × is being used and an interesting article. I was aware of the basics of what went down during the time, but not in that detail.

I had not considered the issue with hex. Overall, the problem is the overloading the "x" symbol, and now the "×" symbol. Overloading the "x" arises from the days when ASCII, or earlier, was the limit of the character set available. The fact that "x" was available directly on keyboards, and thus its ease of use, continues to contribute significantly to this overloading.

Ultimately, I think the primary issue is that it not be possible for a reasonable reader (or even a somewhat unreasonable one) to be confused about what information is intended to be conveyed. At a minimum this needs to be the case within any single article. I would hope that it also would be the case across multiple articles where the reader might be clicking through links.

As to the Timeline of DOS operating systems article specifically: All of the uses of "×" — I'm definitely going to have the alt-0215 memorized by the time I done with this — are in prose. I would strongly consider using " by " in at least the first, if not all of the locations which currently use "×". For a naive reader, this would make it more understandable. This would leave "×" available to be used exclusively as the multiplication symbol elsewhere in the article. From my brief look at the article, there appears to be at least one instance where you are effectively performing multiplication, but not leading the reader through the calculation. So that you can take a look at what I am attempting to get across, I am going to edit the article to show this. Feel free to revert/edit it if you don't like the change (My edit really is mostly to help communicate what I am saying in this paragraph). Arrrrgh... Ok, so this edit is taking longer and is more involved than I had planned. Also, as I was editing the one primary section I looked at it felt that the text was a bit over crowded with information on the page. Thus, I moved most of the calculations into end notes (which the reader can hover their mouse over to see the text). OK, Firefox crashed and I lost the edit. I will now be doing this in at least two edits, one which is just the "×" to " by " change. That way you can revert either, or both, edits if you desire. As I think about it, if the multiplication is only in end-notes, then it does not matter as much if "×" is exclusively for multiplication.

As to actually getting the "×"/"x" discussion going on the appropriate talk page, I have allowed myself to be distracted by editing the Timeline of DOS operating systems article. Not sure at the moment when I am going to get the discussion started. I have some hard RL deadlines (court) early in the week for which I need to make sure I am ready. Getting this discussion started is high on my list of things to do, but I am feeling that I am distracting myself from doing what I need to do in RL, along with other commitments I have made here. Makyen (talk) 05:30, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Original Barnstar
	Just for your help on my talk page archiving, and the general TP archiving work that you've done on the help page. GedUK  13:27, 15 January 2014 (UTC)