Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 03:14, 5 January 2007

Linking to templates

Hey there, noticed your comment that you werent sure how to do this. The easiest and best way is to use {{tl|templatename}} - simple as that! So, lets say you wanted to link to Template:User countries visited, just type {{tlu|User:EVula/Userboxes/countries visited}} which pops out as {{User:EVula/Userboxes/countries visited}} :) Hope this helps! Glen 13:44, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

Absolutely no problem, t'was a pleasure! Anytime :) Glen 14:06, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

Userbox

Hi,

Strangely, someone deleted a userbox of yours as T1, even though it was userfied. I assume this was a simple mistake on the part of the deleter, so I've restored it for you. Best wishes, Xoloz 21:16, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I was unaware the thing was already at DRV when I undeleted. Technically, one probably should wait to undelete until the DRV is over, so I unintentionally goofed a bit. Still, the deletion was clearly a mistake (in process and content, which is quite mild.) Looking at the RfC and DRV, I don't see that Dmcdevit has defended it at all, so I'll continue to assume he was simply confused.

Although I understand your unhappiness, your RfC is a little bit premature -- one speedy deletion can be a simple mistake (which everybody makes.) A pattern of bad choices, and an unwillingness to reconsider them, would be required to initiate an RfC, really. Dmcdevit is a very nice person - even if he wasn't mistaken in the deletion, and genuinely had a problem with the userbox, he isn't the type to object to taking the debate to MfD (the proper forum), at the very least.

Thanks for the kind words. I've been off-wiki for a bit, but I'll be getting around to my old "beat" soon, which includes DRV normally, so, should you have other problems, I'll be happy to help. Best wishes, Xoloz 21:41, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

On looking at the DRV again, I do notice Dmcdevit there, and he isn't arguing a sound position, although he is being civil. Surprising, I must say. Anyway, I hope he's just having bad day... I've probably been grumpy myself lately, what with the flu, the snow, the relatives, etc. :) Xoloz 21:53, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

last word in

The first question you need to ask yourself is, "do I have a history (perhaps as yet unadmitted) of being overly critical of myself?" If the answer to this might be yes, then you can't always trust your own tendency to self-criticize, because your subconscious motivation is not self-improvement but self-denigration; don't pay that too much heed then. If, however, the answer is no, then if you notice a behavior of yours that bothers you, listen to the notice, and decide cognitively how much it really bothers you or should bother you. Sometimes we only notice what bugs us about ourselves by trying to observe ourselves objectively. You might be doing that, and you might do well to listen, but it's hard for me to weigh this. As for my own opinion, looking at Misplaced Pages:Categories for deletion/Log/2006 December 11#Abortion, you haven't added anything that was redundant, so I wouldn't say it's an issue. If the discussion gets long and people keep bringing up things that you've already answered, remember that the closing admin is going to read everything and they should notice if you've already answered a repeated objection. Then it's a question of how much faith you have in the admins (I know, I'm treading on very thin ice now). For instance, I made sure to answer everything at Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Faith Freedom International because I wanted to be absolutely certain that if the article did get deleted, I couldn't blame myself for not trying everything. I'm likely to do the same thing at Misplaced Pages:Deletion review/Log/2006 December 5#Ali Sina if anyone opposes the citations I've dug up. But my motivation here is dedication to freedom of speech and for less critical articles I leave my comments for the admin and let it go. A rule of thumb that you should know is that if an article is up for deletion and 80% of the votes are keep, it will probably be kept (even though it's "not a vote"). If it's less than 80%, then the keepers will have to put forward a pretty solid argument to keep. As you can see at the Faith Freedom AfD, keepers had about 66% and we just barely came through with "no consensus". I suspect that the factors that weighed most heavily for the admin were TruthSpreader's and my arguements, as almost no one else seriously argued the merits of the citations and notability guidelines.

Hope all that helps. — coelacan talk — 18:01, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Friendly suggestions

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by ExplorerCDT (talk • contribs) 21:16, 19 December 2006 (UTC).

I never knew an edit summaries reminder would get so heated. They are more than matters of absolute non-importance -- I can't imagine a software engineer not commenting their checkins to their analogous Concurrent Versions System. But if that's your viewpoint, fine. I was just asking you to consider it. Xiner (talk, email) 21:23, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Turns out this user has been blocked for incivility, etc., but I'm still a sucker for Misplaced Pages:Assume good faith. Xiner (talk, email) 22:49, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

• Yeah, I like being incivil. Blocked just once in two years...whoa. You can do research. Does that make you feel superior? —ExplorerCDT 22:51, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

• Twice, actually; as recently as six days ago, no less. Hmmm. Nope, don't feel superior to you. For that. -- weirdoactor 22:56, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
• I only know of one, don't remember a second (or would it be prior) time. —ExplorerCDT 23:01, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Why Assume good faith, and assume again

I'd been on alert for vandalism on Baiji and its talk page Talk:Baiji for days, ever since it went on the main page, when I noticed this edit by Dante Alighieri. The link he inserted there gave me a porn site. Another vandal, I thought, and a blatant one at that, a registered user. I checked the site again, just to make sure. Yep, a porn link.

Imagine, you read about a Chinese website that someone claims not to understand, but is full of naked pictures. I started composing a warning on Dante's page. When I was done, I checked Talk:Baiji again. Dante has now modified this edit, and wrote, "I believe Menchi may have gotten the information from baijitun.com, but as I don't read Chinese, I cannot confirm. The website seems currently defunct, but the Wayback Machine has an archive of the page if anyone can make use of it: ." This vandal is persistent, I thought, and very inventive. The old, archived site looks legit, but the current site is definitely not defunct. It is...some odd page about fluid dynamics. Huh?

I checked the site a few more times. Finally I got the porn site back. There you go, I thought, still oblivious to what's happening. I reread Dante's post. That bit about not understanding Chinese is funny. So I told him so, with a bigger warning.

Meanwhile, the poor guy's hitting my talk page asking me why I'm treating him so. Typical, I thought. I'd better ignore the bait. I stopped talking to him. To avoid messing up the edit history for Talk:Baiji, I also stopped reverting his edit, but seek help at WP:AIV instead.

An admin (DragonflySixtyseven) messaged me on Dante's behalf at this point. Wow, this guy's got some buddy, I thought. I told DS politely but firmly that this is between me and Dante over a porn link. Then more messages from Dante, with one referring to a discussion he participated in several years ago about the baiji.

It dawned on me. Dante is a Misplaced Pages:Administrator oblivious to the fact that baijitun.com (search for it at its registrar) is now a website registered by digitaldreamstudios.com, a porn operator. It masquerades as a half-written essay on fluid dynamics most of the time to evade censors. Had Dante assumed that I was a bad editor, he could've warned me, to say the least; I would've been no less infuriated and reacted even badly. DS could also have done the same. They could've retaliated, but they didn't, the good admins that they are.

So the lesson of the day: Assume good faith, and assume again.

Another lesson: process is important. Also, talk pages should be archived, not deleted.

Oh, and the porn site? Not Chinese.

I'd just like to point out that Xiner handled this quite well. He did everything he should, and didn't lash out, or fly off the handle. Here he was, trying to keep the poor Baiji page free of vandalism when some weirdo (me) shows up and links to a porno site (well, or so it seemed). Then I have the "audacity" to keep harassing him over it. Throughout, Xiner kept his cool and didn't escalate things inappropriately. When we finally figured out what was going on, he was very apologetic and very helpful. I appreciate his write-up on this matter, as neither of us was aware that this sort of "crypto-porno" existed. Honestly, most of the time the website is this inane rambling about fluid dynamics (I didn't know what was going on with that, so linked to the archive). Unfortunately (and this is where my and Xiner's confusion is totally understandable) sometimes it shows up as a pornographic website. Needless to say, we had quite a laugh once it was all over. Still, this could have gotten quite ugly quite quickly, but thanks to a cool head by Xiner, everything worked out just fine. Bravo! --Dante Alighieri | Talk 03:12, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

How to format this?

Could someone help me format Georgia Cyclone? Thanks. Xiner (talk, email) 17:49, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

It looks fine on IE6, but there have been pages like this before which looked fine to me but where other people saw a problem. Adding {{-}} before the navbox is a known workaround, but it'll add a lot of ugly whitespace unless the article is expanded to fill it up. You might want to try posting to the technical village pump to find someone who can see the problem and might know how to fix it. --ais523 18:45, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Calendar clock

I'd like to get the calendar/clock on User_talk:Angela onto my user page, maybe below the WikiQuote section, but can't seem to do it without getting the surrounding text involved. Thanks a lot in advance. Xiner (talk, email) 03:11, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

That would be the following code:

<div style="border:1px solid #ccc; background: #fff; border-right:3px solid #ccc; border-bottom:3px solid #ccc; text-align: center; padding:3px; float:right; font-size: smaller; line-height: 1.3; margin-right: 4px;">
<div style="width:100%">{{CURRENTDAYNAME}}</div>
<div style="font-size: x-large; width: 100%;">{{CURRENTDAY}}</div>
<div style="width: 100%;"> {{CURRENTMONTHNAME}}</div>
<div style="background: #aaa; color: #000;">'''{{CURRENTTIME}}''' UTC</div>
</div>

Which gives you this:

—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 03:14, 5 January 2007 (UTC)