Misplaced Pages

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Franamax (talk | contribs) at 00:36, 5 September 2008 (→Re:Looking for some listing tools: hurray! :)). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

If I left you a message in another talk page, please answer there: I will have it on my watch list.

Welcome!

Hello, Franamax, welcome Misplaced Pages! Hope little Franamax like. Here helpful pages:

• Hrair pillars Misplaced Pages
• Make article
• Help!
• Help, help!
• Make article bigger
• Er... what this for..? How write picky ?

Hope little user enjoy and edit smart like Bishzilla! Please sign talk pages using, er ... many tildes (~~~~) ('zilla can only count to three, regret!), clever automagic feature. If helpless, check out questions wikipedia, ask on 'zilla talk, or put {{helpme}} on own talk, get help soon. Again, welcome! 

Now that's a welcome page, had to steal it myself. Thanks Bishzilla! Franamax 02:00, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Archives

Archive 1

The Wiki-Canoe

Every Misplaced Pages article contains a wealth of blue-links. These are links that will take you to other places in Misplaced Pages, where you can learn more new things, they are also called hyperlinks. But there is another way of linking things called "looking around" in the real world - what's that over there? I think I'll go check it out.

One of the easiest ways of exploring throughout human history has been to just follow the rivers. One of the best human inventions for following rivers is the canoe, you can follow the water at your own pace and see all there is to be seen along the way - or you can put your head down and get somewhere fast.

My proposal is to create pages for river systems so that Misplaced Pages can be explored by water. Every river system is rooted at an ocean. From the ocean, one can paddle upstream through gulfs, bays and deltas, past the tideline, into river systems. As you paddle up the river, on each bank outlets of tributaries appear. You can choose to paddle up any of those tributaries as well, and paddle up all the streams that join.

Of course, all the other river-related things on earth eventually show up here. Waterfalls, islands, rapids, lakes, marshes, cities, ports, dams - you will see them all from the canoe.

All Misplaced Pages articles on inland water-related features can in principle be grouped, water always goes somewhere and usually only goes one way. There are five(?) endpoints (oceans), the trick is to create not-too-large pages to contain expandable/linkable navigation loci; the canoe icon on each article would pop you into the right part of the tree, you could click upstream or downstream and paddle away.

Initial (borrowed) concept statement, this goes much further, please hack away. :) Franamax (talk) 05:11, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

I think it's a truly creative idea. But I don't know if what you're talking about -- with expandable icons and the like -- can be contained within this current Misplaced Pages project or would need to be an offshoot project of its own, a fork, using Misplaced Pages content. Is there a rivers discussion group? There must be. I suggest you raise it and see what the reaction is. cheers, Shawn in Montreal (talk) 05:27, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Trying to keep the idea simple, this would just be a basic page of wikilinks going upstream-downstream, so it would just be line-after-line of Saguenay River,Richelieu River,Trent River,Niagara River,Nipigon River. Tributaries would be expandable/collapsable with "show/hide" templates, I think they're called hats. I think it could definitely be done within en:wiki and I have posted at the Rivers project. Once people have put together the river system data onto various pages it then becomes amenable to lots of different software massage to accomplish presentation formats (which I'm good at :) But the raw pages themselves will be useful for navigation.

I guess the first step is to build a page myself, throw some stuff in and see what it looks like. You were my first on-wiki ask, thanks for the encouragement! Franamax (talk) 05:48, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

This sounds a lot like the geotags that are combined with maps (eg. Google Maps) so you can link on places on a map with Misplaced Pages articles. But the river idea is much more poetic. How would it be different to using a wiki-linked map? Carcharoth (talk) 02:42, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

This would be a system to navigate wiki itself, just another way to explore. If for whatever reason I find myself at the Hells Gate article, it would be interesting to see what's next, kind of a forward/back thing. I'd like to be able to go up the Danube river and maybe go up one of the tributaries. In wiki itself, there doesn't seem to be any convenient way to encompass all the articles pertaining to a large river system right now, and there is no comparable resource to jump to, Google Maps doesn't organize its information in an encyclopedic fashion, it's just a big heap.

Pick any lake you've ever swum in, shouldn't there be some easy way in Misplaced Pages to get to the ocean and see the sights along the way? Franamax (talk) 04:04, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Ah, so like navboxes. Have I ever swum in a lake? <thinks> The sea, yes. Lakes, no. I fell in a river once. Does that count? :-) Carcharoth (talk) 04:36, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Ah, seashore-dweller eh? Nyuk, nyuk. (Twists nose with pliers) There's a perfect example, obviously you got out of the river but what if you hadn't? Wouldn't it be nice to check Misplaced Pages to see what cities your corpse would drift by? Find out if it would be tropical fish nibbling at your remains?

Yes, the navbox idea would be the way to to hide/show the tributary systems, at least at first. They would have to be nestable, Mississippi->Ohio->Allegheny->etc. and clickable to omit cities, islands, depending on the view you want. The box wizards can figure that stuff out. Compiling the river system data will be the first step, in some regular format that can be reprocessed later but is in immediately usable form. Franamax (talk) 05:43, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Oh. I was hoping for Cinemascope Surroundvision (I think I made that up) and gentle music to accompany me as I drifted down the stream. Maybe that will be in version 2.0? As for the river, it was very small and shallow, so no danger there. I did get run down by a boat once while swimming, but that was entirely my fault. Carcharoth (talk) 05:57, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Block log analysis proposal

Would you be interested in this? Carcharoth (talk) 02:40, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Geostationary orbit allocation

Thank-you for adding this section to the geostationary orbit article! The material you added was so good I copied it into the space law article as well. I'm not sure if there's some way to maintain and improve it in both places. (In my opinion this topic might even deserve an article of its own!) Anyway, thanks again for providing well-referenced coverage of this topic! (sdsds - talk) 07:23, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the compliment, Geostationary orbit is the site of my first ever wiki edit (as an IP) and I got hooked very quickly after that :) I'll keep both spots in mind for future changes. I was a little surprised this issue hadn't already been covered somewhere and you may be right that it deserves its own article, it's certainly notable. Franamax (talk) 07:47, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Your answer on Jimbo's talk page

Hi Franamax, your answer to the person asking for advice on using Misplaced Pages was excellent. Thanks! Crum375 (talk) 00:14, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Aww shucks ... but thanks. I couldn't watch a question from a twelve-year-old scroll off into outer space because they weren't important enough to warrant an answer from all the watchers, not when they're probably checking once an hour for a response. Especially when the answer is so easy... Franamax (talk) 00:31, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

It's so easy, yet so many, including teachers, get it wrong. Thanks again, Crum375 (talk) 00:39, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Cobden, etc.

I've never lived outside of Ontario in my life. I know the municipal amalgamations of the Harris years are unpopular — I grew up in "Greater" Sudbury, attended university in Ottawa, and moved to Toronto just in time to watch the whole megacity affair, so I've literally spent my entire life living in cities that still curse the ground Mike Harris walked on. But like them or not, as long as the amalgamated municipalities are the municipalities that actually exist right now, they have to be the primary priority precisely because they actually exist as incorporated municipalities — famous or not, artificial or not, they are the entities that actually govern those municipalities right now. Until I started merging smaller hamlets early this year, about 20 per cent of the municipalities in Ontario were still redlinks, which is really unacceptable.

And for what it's worth, I'm also getting very tired of the common belief that Misplaced Pages should privilege popular perception over the reality of things as they actually stand right now (such as by calling every settlement a town whether it actually holds that status under law or not.) And I'm sorry, but as far as I'm concerned the notion that Cobden should be a higher or even equivalent article priority to Whitewater Region fits right into that little bugaboo, because it's basically an assertion that Misplaced Pages should treat some municipalities as subordinate to their communities — and since we don't treat all municipalities that way, it basically sets up a dual class of articles based on a completely artificial, ideological and not-obvious-to-most-readers set of reasons that fail NPOV and OR. So until Whitewater Region either (a) has a long enough article to merit division, or (b) gets dissolved by a future provincial government, it has to be the higher priority article, because it is the actual municipal government in that area. Bearcat (talk) 08:37, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

OK thanks Bearcat, I understand a lot more where you're coming from now. I did that whole Ontario thing too (farm, small town, country, bit of city) - you might want to check Vancouver, I've been shovelling sunshine the past few days, how's 'bout you? :)

I'll back off right now on any statements about "towns" or "villages" or "hamlets", I use those pretty much interchangeably. When I use one of those words, I'm thinking about "the place I'm going to to buy stuff".

I think maybe that's where we disagree? You seem to be structuring along the lines of political/municipal entities and I am thinking along the lines of places you drive through and stop to check out the main street. Aren't both of those encyclopedic? Franamax (talk) 09:05, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

In private casual conversation there's nothing wrong with using town or village that way — I do it myself, too. But in an encyclopedia, we have to privilege accuracy over common usage, and only call things towns if they actually have that legal status — because a reader from Britain or South Africa might not understand the distinction between hamlet-town-as-in-Cobden and incorporated-town-as-in-Newmarket.

Sure, the municipal entities and the communities are both potentially encyclopedic, but in priority terms the incorporated municipalities need to come first since they actually have mayors and councils and defined boundaries and documentable census populations and so forth. (Very few things on Misplaced Pages make me angrier than edits which provide "approximate" population figures, usually inflated by at least 1,000 more than reality, for unincorporated communities that have no actual census data published on Statistics Canada's census data site — have people entirely forgotten the part about referencing this stuff?)

You don't wanna get me started on the weather right now. I actually cursed Jacques Cartier the other day for not discovering Cuba instead of the Gaspé. I am such a geek. Bearcat (talk) 09:20, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Alright, I may understand the approach of structure and rigour that you're advocating. I'm less clear on why exactly that's the correct approach. As we both know well, municipal governance comes and goes. We also both know that if you drive into Cobden, there's a place to buy gas, a place to buy milk, there's a main street, and there is a whole bunch of history in those buildings and those people. I'm having trouble understanding why that should be shoe-horned into the governance of the day. Settlements have inherent notability by their existence. That's my impression anyway.

Now to your assertions on priority, governance vs settlements - I accept what you say as an organizing principle, the hierarchy of articles gives precedence to the organizing groups. This is inconvenient for Misplaced Pages when a province decides to establish regional municipalities rather than counties, or decides to rename GVRD to Metro Vancouver - but helps us all boost our edit counts.

My sole concern, and maybe the reason you were noted at AN/I, is loss of information. I'm not OK with making a merge/redirect where any single byte of information is lost. I don't buy the argument that the article is still there under the redirect and can always be resurrected later. There is nothing about a redirect to indicate there is a suppressed article needing improvement. If you were to merge and include a permalink to the article version before you changed it to a redirect, I'd be fine with that. But if you change an article to a redirect, in my view, you're effectively deleting it.

Hmmm - too much thinking, not enough typing. The places where the buildings and inhabitants are - they're more important than the people who will tell you they're in charge. It's all encyclopedic, but some of it has a more enduring presence, we need to reflect that. I'd rather see links in the municipal article, pointing to the geographical stubs/badarticles, than see anything get covered over by a redirect. Sleep now :) Franamax (talk) 11:09, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Experienced

Since you've been around awhile now. I figured I should point you towards some useful editing tools. WP:TW is a great tool for vandalism reverting. WP:AWB is great for long sequences of edits. WP:ROLLBACK is also good for vandalism (drop me a line and I'll assign the rights to your account, ditto for AWB). WP:NPW is a good tool for WP:CSD editors. WP:FRIENDLY is good for welcoming new users. WP:FURME is good for image FURs, especially for the most common categories. And if you ever need anything undeleted or doublechecked, I'm willing and able to serve. MBisanz 08:13, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanx MB, I'll reserve the right to call you on any of those offers. I've been thinking for awhile of recanting my vigorous objections to rollback for non-admins during the (discussion)'s and I still haven't convinced myself that it isn't better to eyeball every case separately, though I run the risk of losing out on edit-counts when someone else beats me to the revert. I do always try to keep an eye on the vandal IP or user for a little while to see if they're on a spree, would Twinkle help me do that?

I'll check out FRIENDLY, I always just use W-graphical and follow up with another message to address the reason the new user caught my attention. I probably should get much more familiar with using various userpage templates in general such as vandalism warnings, but I'm much more comfortable with leaving an informal note, which pretty much always does the job. In general, I feel good approaching any user on my and their own terms.

I've tried to stay away from images 'cause it's "not my thing", but I've been watching, and ID'ed it as a problem area about six months ago. Some of it doesn't seem that hard, I'll try to keep an eye out, although the big storm will probably have rolled over very soon.

I'll take you up on AWB, I've eyeballed that for a while and I'd like to check out what it can do. I won't necessarily use it regularly but I'd like to explore the capability. Sign me up!

(Wavering on rollback - damn that increased functionality!) Franamax (talk) 08:59, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

AWB granted. Have fun. MBisanz 09:16, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

A cookie

And, I'm sorry for my impatience earlier; as that was unfolding, I had about six people hitting my talk page at once with problems, in addition to dealing with the lies posted about me an AN/I ... so now that the day has settled a bit, I do appreciate your help for a fellow editor, as it was one less thing for me to solve :-) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:00, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Nitrogen

See answer on my talk page. SBHarris 21:46, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Second comment on my page. SBHarris 04:30, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Broken link

I used that long ago, back when I was a little more instrumental in trying to clear up the backlog over at Editor Review... Your French was alright, I got the main point! (Une) catégorie is a feminine noun, and perhaps, (although I'm not completely certain,) the correct term for dead link would be "lien mort" or (red link) "lien rouge." Cheers, --wpktsfs 17:17, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Two things

(1) I took the liberty of posting your suggested question for RfA's from the Village Pump and put it here. I thought you might like to know it seems very well received.

If that question gets asked at RFA, all the better I suppose. However, thinking about it a little more, I suspect that the end result will be narrowing down the pool of admins - those who indicate creativity and an ability to think freely will gain automatic opposition from the subset of editors and admins who feel that everything should be narrowly prescribed and who in fact would like to decorate WP:IAR with a series of rules on how to ignore rules. I really think IAR is probably the most fundamental wiki policy and certainly the most difficult to understand. In fact, it can never be understood, it can only be approached, is has very few right or wrong answers, it is a constant exhortation to keep on improving and never be satisfied. For some people, that is just plain scary. Better to have the fears out in the open maybe... Franamax (talk) 18:50, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

(2) I notice you seem to create "read-only" bots dealing with diffs. Would you be interested in helping with a bot request (my first, so be kind) I recently made here?

-- Low Sea (talk) 08:13, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

I'll put that request on my "long-term" list. What particular tags are you interested in, and what kind of analysis would you be thinking of? The first thing that comes to mind is IIRC there are 240K mainspace edits/day, or three per second - that's a whole lot of analyzing. Lets say ignoring bots and "rvv"'s cut that to one/second, still an awful lot. Could you get the same results with two-day snapshots, random samples, article subsets? Franamax (talk) 18:50, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

I have an amateur interest in pattern analysis and trend analysis. Unfortunately sampling would not be a workable solution for this purpose. This is one of the reasons why I would want to run this off the wp:toolserver space. It would be acceptable for the data to be "old" at least for now. -- Low Sea (talk) 10:50, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Tagging conflict

So, the great cross-tabbing is done and there is a list of 700 images at User:Betacommand/Sandbox 3 that show images classed as both free AND non-free. Obviously, an image can only be one of the two, so if editors could go through and correct the images, striking them out on the master list it would be great. Thanks. MBisanz 03:04, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Half right on that image. You gotta put the Right license from Misplaced Pages:Image copyright tags/All in the image. So in that case, you'd replace the PD-italy, with {{Non-free historic image}}. Every image must have a license, and all non-free images must have a license and rationale. MBisanz 04:01, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Correct, an exact representation of a 2-d image conveys no additional rights, so no need for a PD-tag. Now 3-d images or manipulated (stretched, wording added, etc) 2-d images, can sometimes gain extra rights, really a case by case basis. Yea, it is hard. The fun ones are screenshots. Cause if it just includes the free program with the Windows "File, Edit, View" formatting, it can totally free, but if it includes the Start bar at the bottom, then its non-free and should be tagged as Disputed Fairuse Replacable. You did the right thing with the logo and I took care of Image:Grand Rapids MI Seal.jpg. Thanks for the help so far. MBisanz 06:26, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Academy Awards section

Thanks for the comments regarding my edits. How is the Academy section different from the nobel prize? Understandably, the date reference may be too much, but why not include the listing of awards and winners? I started this project because I noticed there were entries on the nobel prizes and ship events? I was trying to keep things standard across the board throughout all the years.--TravelinSista (talk) 02:34, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

HA! I would even go far as to say that a number of nobel prizes were unfounded as well :) But I digress..... It was my full intention to make Wiki better--not complicate it. Thanks for the feedback. Cheers--TravelinSista (talk) 03:17, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

I looked over the recent contributions to the calendar related articles. As regular patroller and contributor to calendar articles I would state that valid arguments can be presented on both sides. The notability of 'Best Pictures' certainly meets the criteria, however, it should be noted that the Oscar Awards presented by The Academy are a commercial en devour where as the Nobel Prize is an international award. Also, United States related versus world related. As such the Nobel Prize has more relation to an article about the year (an international common) than an American award for film. I would suggest mentioning the year and number of the Oscars but like the Olympics, not mention every gold, silver, and bronze medal winner. The Oscar awards are heavily written about and the article is strong enough that a wikilink to it is a very substantial source. Think in the terms of a reader. The repetition of the information is not necessary when it's one click away. Mkdw 06:58, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Franamax, the AA awards section has been removed. Thanks for your KIND request to remove info. I agree with your argument. Time to find a new project! (Let me know if you have any suggestions) :)--TravelinSista (talk) 02:10, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Adminship?

Actually I thought you would have run by now...Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 09:25, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the compliment (or possibly you're trying to ruin my life, but I doubt that :). I'm not much given to self-promotion, there's something to be said for the spurns that patient merit of the unworthy takes. I've certainly examined the knowledge, culture and ethos of adminship. Franamax (talk) 09:55, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

OK then, several months ago it was a matter of keeping your nose clean for a few months and you'd get over the line without too much fuss. Really it boils down to whether one can be trusted with the tools (i.e. haven't done anything grossly silly/disruptive or been blocked), and showing a need. A few of us who mainly contribute content also like to see examples of mainspace contribs. A very quick thing to show good work is to highlight a GA or FA one has worked on, as it shows in about 5 seconds that you can negotiate and collaborate with a reviewer and can handle constructive criticism. Here are your contribs which is interesting. I'd say do what you've been most involved in, though Montreal would be a big ask, if it did get GA it would get you a lot of kudos. Your work with tools etc. and thoughtful comments are a plus. If you wanna get Montreal to GA, lemme know - or another article. A short one of 20kb or so is a good start. Also, what is the worst dispute you've been involved with? Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 10:48, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks!

Hi, just a special thanks for your super-speedy support for my RfA! My fingers are crossed here, not so far from where you're located, as we figured out the other day. Anyhow, thanks again. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 10:25, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Heh, that was a total coincidence of mouse-clicks, but I was actually working up to pushing your name anyway, considering your work with the kids, the fact that SandyGeorgia mentioned you as a possibility for admin elsewhere, and that I was able to verify that you are a pretty solid guy. A lot of it was SG's endorsement, I got lucky on being the first to not-vote. Now deal with the question I left, see if your answer doesn't sink you totally :) Good luck! Franamax (talk) 10:36, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Heh. Thanks again. And thanks for the question. I hope my answer is of some help, but feel free to follow up if I haven't covered any issues you'd like me to. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 10:57, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

College infoboxes

I think it is, to be honest, and as long as it's in the infobox, I see no problem with it. Finding a mailing address for a University or College can sometimes be difficult at best, and not everyone readily has access to the internet. So if someone using a public library computer, for example, they have an easy way to contact that College or Uni. Remember, Misplaced Pages is not censored. GreenJoe 19:38, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

So there isn't a field in the box for the address then, hmmm.... GreenJoe 20:05, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Maybe we should just discuss this on the template's talk page? GreenJoe 20:17, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Suuuuuuure you did. ;-) GreenJoe 20:41, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I need a tool.....

Hye Franamax. I am looking for a tool which would modify part of this one - I was keen to find a tool which lists my mainspace edits by article - bit like the section on this but listing all articles and ranking by number of edits rather than just the top 15. Is it easy/difficult? My aim is to get most of my edtis into articles to reach GA or FAC. i.e. stable points. I hope to have a tool like this so I can see where I have devoted my energy and get everything I have edited alot to GA or FA. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 06:33, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Results at User:Franamax/Ucontribs. Congrats on breaking my initial page-table size of 1000, and further blasting through 2000! Anyway, the 2000 most recent articles you've edited are counted in toto, and I cut the list to 20 edits or more. It's possible that you made 3000 edits to some completely different article early in your wiki-career, I need to investigate more how well my algorithm scales. The top numbers agree well with wannabekate's tool though, as with any of my software, doubt everything, but it looks fairly good. Also note that the tool currently does not identify simple reverts, so this count almost certainly overstates your substantive contribs. Revert-spotting (and edits immediately reverted, which won't be yours to large degree) are on the list. Franamax (talk) 21:36, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Thats' brilliant. That's what I thought. The most edits has been to vampire. very happy :) Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 22:04, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes, Vampire, Lion, Schizophrenia and various species of Amanita, a smattering of Raven and a little Werewolf in there. Hmmm... :) Franamax (talk) 22:19, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

The main thing for me is not the exact minutiae between say 146 and 148 edits but gives me a rough idea of what I have dumped alot of edits into and which of those are not at GA or FA (as thse serve as the next-best-things to flagged revisions). I plan to go through and get things I have worked alot on to a 'flagged' state. Now...actually can you get it to tack on GA or FA icons....(like WP:DABS? or is that really tricky.......Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 00:38, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

I'll work on getting the article status, it won't be all that tough, since I'm just looking for a template. What strikes me though is you may be more interested in articles that used to be FA or GA and have since been downgraded. That would need a little more parsing of the ArticleHistory template - but could be interesting to see the user contribs vis-a-vis the status milestones. Franamax (talk) 06:47, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

PS: I alerted some other content contributors who may be interested and offer some ideas. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 00:38, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

(unindent) Hi, neat tool, but I'm a software illiterate - I can see Casliber's results, but I can't figure out how to run it on my contributions. Can you point me in the right direction please? jimfbleak (talk) 05:26, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Well, you're not so illiterate, in fact it's a tool I can only run myself at the moment. I just hacked apart my link scanner tool for now. I've run it for you, see User:Franamax/Ucontribs. Who would have thought someone had almost twice as many mainspace edits as Casliber? I need to seriously scale this up a bit to handle many thousands of targets, no wonder this is such a good encyclopedia! I'll update the page as I update the program, and work towards a releasable version. Franamax (talk) 06:47, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Many thanks for prompt response, an interesting tool. Pleased to see that the GAs and FAs are at the top! jimfbleak (talk) 07:09, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Great rating catch so far, but it missed Gorgosaurus, Kererū and Flora of Australia for some reason (Hypholoma fasciculare lacks a template box, which I will promptly rectify). I also re-rated Red-backed Fairy-wren and Banksia to B, and Leaden Flycatcher to start to see if it would 'catch' them next time 'round..Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 00:35, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Strikethrough bugfix/updated, bug-section opened for rem issue. Franamax (talk) 02:11, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

kerblammo!Franamax (talk) 22:30, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Working on them, I need to match my program to the way I said it worked :) Forget about Kereru for now, that funny "u" is causing me problems, even though I'm UTF-8/Unicode-compliant. That will be tomorrow's monster hunt, that and ampersands in the page title... Franamax (talk) 00:47, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Commons WikiProject Canada

I got a little itty bitty start to the Canada wikiproject on comons, and someone wants to delete it with a This gallery has been requested for deletion. tag which doesn't make too much sense on a wikiproject which isn't even a gallery. Did you think the start of the wikiproject on commons makes sense and did you want to try joining before it is deleted? Kind Regards SriMesh | talk 02:04, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Sand Lake

I have created the article Sand Lake (Parry Sound District, Ontario). Please feel free to add whatever information you can to this article as I do not know very much about Sand Lake. Enjoy! --Magnetawan (talk) 10:13, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Re:BAG questions

Hi MBisanz, some random questions for you:

1. My understanding of BRFA is that an editor makes a submission and discussion ensues until one member of BAG is satisfied that the bot should be approved for trial, that one member then approves the bot for trial (usually, sometimes just stamps it through). Is that an accurate perception?

   Yes

2. Should the standard bot application questions include "location of source code"? This is not to insist on publication, but would allow a little more transparency and selectivity of approval.

   I like the idea of publishing source code, as far as adding that question, I don't know to what end it would bring. I could answer "The source code is on my laptop" and that would be honest, or I could say "I house it on a secure NASA server". If, as Bot policy currently exists, we do not mandate disclosure to a specific location, I don't see the benefit to knowing where it is located.

3. Is Betacommand a currently active BAG member? Suspended pending reconfirmation? Waiting for the dust to settle? I'm not clear on the exact status between BAG page and talk.

   I consider Betacommand suspended from BAG per community consensus, pending a reconfirmation election to begin on June 20th.

4. Pushing it a little bit now, at WP:BAG we have "Members of the group are experienced in writing and running bots, have programming experience...", then at WT:BAG/DHMO we have "I admit my technical knowledge isn't the greatest", followed by "Consensus reached, adding to WP:BAG". Do the requirements for BAG membership need to be rewritten in light of this?

   We generally require Crats at en.wiki to know how to use the tools, yet I am aware of one crat who recently had to be taught the Rename rules as he had not performed Renames before. If the community feels Giggy is qualified to approve bots, even if he lacks a detailed technical understanding of code, who are we to question the community?

5. And following on that same thread, we see the candidate on 09May saying "I'm absolutely going to take it slow, no question about that. If you wish, I will refrain from making full approvals for a month", instated on 20May and then on 30May we have making a full approval.

   As you note, the closing crat did not stipulate any restrictions on Giggy's membership, nor did there appear to be a consensus among voters that there should be any restrictions, so I would say the community failed to take him up on the offer to refrain from approving for a certain period of time.

I don't necessarily want to open a can of worms, I'm mostly interested in the first two questions, so you can consider the rest optional. Thanks! Franamax (talk) 23:09, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Hope that answers the questions, I'm willing to elaborate on any or answer other questions if you'd life me to. MBisanz 06:16, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Good questions, that deserve a full answer. At class right now, but you will have very detailed answers when I get home. I recognize that BAG has had somewhat of a reputation of secrecy and hoped when I joined it to make it more transparent. MBisanz 23:52, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Award

		What a Brilliant Idea Barnstar
		To Franamax for some really cool tinkering to come up with solutions for 2 questions of mine....(I know, I haven't used the first one but someday..) Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 22:41, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Wheee, I got a star! Now if only someone would vandalize my userpage, I could feel like a proper Wikipedian. Then I could have a vandalism counter, then someone could vandalize that too and make a paradox of vandal-counting, just think of the possibilities. OMG, maybe someday I could be brought to --- ArbCom!!!

Thanks much for the recognition, sarcasm aside, it is most appreciated. I'll keep developing wpW5 until you can't ignore it anymore ;) Franamax (talk) 22:56, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, both are really cool. I will give a heads up to the folks who I think'd be most interested and we'll see what happens. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 23:04, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

BTW, are you a he or a she? The 'Fran-' makes me think female somehow....Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 00:23, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Nahh, I'm a boy. The Fran- is from my nickname franco. It occurs to me I should ask you the same question, though your Rugby League ubx is a bit of a clue (and note your page design cuts your ubx'es off for me in IE7). Franamax (talk) 05:46, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Yep. Thanks for the heads up. Maybe I should just stick a note telling everyone to use firefox :) Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 07:17, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Re: Cmte on Competitiveness

I agree, that's why I tried to help with the article. i've restored the image. Best, UltraExactZZ ~ Evidence 00:22, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

That FUR actually looks pretty good - I usually end up using the stock template and filling everything in, but this works much better. I'll stop by the project soon, as I was totally unaware of its existance - but it sounds like it's helping, which is a good thing. Best, UltraExactZZ ~ Evidence 01:19, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Council page

First of all, sorry I messed up some formatting things like putting posts on hte bottom rather than top, improper signing, etc. I don't know anything about this webpage format, I've been teaching myself how to use Misplaced Pages by opening up the edit pages of other articles and figuring out what each thing means.

Second, I don't expect you to fix everything up for me, but I certainly appreciate it! Especially things that I haven't quite figured out how to do yet like catorgize things or how to properly site images. I just gave up trying to add an image beacuse I figured it wasn't worth trying to figure out how to properly post the logo, so thanks for doing that for me! I had planned on reviewing the site some more but I was being doing work and havent gotten the chance to look at is as much as I would like. One thing I think I have to clarify is that while I do work for the Council, I wasn't told to do this page/doing this isn't part of my job. I'm doing this on my own time beacuse I was surprised the Council did'nt have one yet.

I have made further edits to the texts, added third party sources (mostly news sources), and tweaked it a little more

Agian, thanks for all your help on this. Take a look and if you still have issues let me hear it.

p.s. I'm not sure what consitutes sending a "message" on wikipedia (like you did to me) so I posted it on my wall as well as both of yours.

Thanks, ~G 17:34, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Translation stuff

Have you ever tried the process at Misplaced Pages:Translation? Long ago I requested a translation of Basle earthquake. I've now done Misplaced Pages:Translation/Amédée Guillemin. It's always terribly exciting to now whether someone will actually take on the translation or not! The templates are at Category:Interwiki translation templates. I'll add that to the page. Carcharoth (talk) 09:40, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

No, I've never tried that and since I average around one ref per sentence I add (which slows my mainspace edits a lot!), I'm not sure I would - but wiki-life changes all the time. Some image stuff got me over to the Deutsche wiki for a while - those guys have their act together, the presentation factor of some of their articles that I saw puts us to shame. I did have a bit of experience here with a translated article, Kloster Wienhausen - maybe you can figure out what a Brick Gothic "cross-coat" is. I'm pretty sure it's a cloister, i.e. the covered over passage between buildings. Also the Pilgersaal, which is termed as the sanctuary, but I really think it was the pilgrim's hall, as in, a place for travellers to sleep, or possibly worship. Maybe you got a better translation on your tries - but if you can clear those two points up, mighty thanks! Franamax (talk) 10:04, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Not really sure. Pilgersaal does translate as pilgrim's hall, but other than that, I wouldn't have much to add. Carcharoth (talk) 10:13, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

OTRS permissions for images

Hi, Franamax! In regards to your questions yesterday, I'm happy to provide some expansion to my comments. In regards to OTRS, I have found that the more specific the e-mail address, the faster the response to the OTRS ticket. In my experience, the fastest response comes from uploading a free image to Commons, then sending the permission e-mail to permissions-commonswikimedia.org. I think this is because the Commons OTRS volunteers spend most of their time handling precisely this type of issue. In my experience, User:Riana is particularly good at answering questions about delayed or unprocessed OTRS tickets.

Regardless of the place uploaded, or the backlog time for OTRS, it may help to place the template {{OTRS pending}} on the description page of the image in question, once the e-mail has been sent to the OTRS volunteers. This generally dissuades image reviewers from requesting deletion until a reasonable amount of time has passed.

Please, feel totally free to drop me a line should you ever have a question about image policy - this is what I spend most of my time on, and I am happy to help. I always prefer to find a way to keep useful images rather than seeing them deleted. With respect - Kelly 18:20, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Belated thanks much for the tips and the offer of future help. The situation seems to have worked out well, the user has his OTRS tix for the image and for his personal identity, and I've learned a bit more about the process. Two happy customers! Franamax (talk) 01:26, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Barren wastelands

See. I told you in winter it was a barren wasteland. :-) Carcharoth (talk) 15:17, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

It's not barren, it's just pinin' for the fiords ;) You might be surprised how much activity would be going on there, if it's like the Canadian Arctic, there would be foxes, mice, ptarmigan, all sorts of stuff. An Inuit person would be quite comfortable (especially now that they have snowmobiles). Nice spy pic though - don't take a photo outside the plane, that's cute. Franamax (talk) 01:22, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Ucontribs tool

Hi Franamax, I just found out about User:Franamax/Ucontribs. I would enjoy seeing my own results from the tool, if it's not too much bother. Thanks! --JayHenry (talk) 01:32, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Done. I used the opportunity to add two columns and scan for a little more information. This was another interesting look into how real editors work, one thing I noticed was this failed FL. Would failed status be useful? It would fit in the "Former" column - BUT I would need to know all the wiki-variations on indicating various failures using categories. If you tell me what they are, I can find them. Franamax (talk) 11:26, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Questions from a newbie

Hi Franamax, since you have commented on some changes of mine, I'd like to pose some questions to you, as I am quite new to Misplaced Pages, having only started to make small changes in the last couple of months.

• How comes that you commented on an obscure and secondary change about geostationary orbit? Apparently you are a programmer, not an engineer or such, so how did it happen that you noticed my change?
• Since that page is relatively long and reasonably well written, I would have expected someone to be watching it (maybe taking responsibility for its maintenance) and commenting on my changes, but no one did. Is this normal?
• At the top of that page, it is classified as Start class. By looking at the class definitions, I'd rather put it into the B class and ask for GA. Should I do that myself or is there anyone that I should ask before changing the class from Start to B?
• I suppose that discussion pages are meant for outstanding things to be done. So I suppose that when I find an out-of-scope comment or an obsolete discussion I should delete it. Is this the case? What I did in Talk:Geostationary_orbit was to add a couple of lines saying that a given topic is obsolete and that I will delete it in a few days. Is this the correct thing to do? Are a few days enough? Too much?
• Once I change a page, I'd like to watch it to see if others agree or change it back. In order to do that, that only method I found was to check periodically my watchlist, which I find definitely suboptimal. Ideally, I'd like to receive change digests by email. Are there any methods more efficient than looking at the watchlist every couple of days, and then going through the history of each page to see the changes?
• Are there any places when questions like these are already answered, that is a FAQ about how does Misplaced Pages works in general? Or maybe should I ask this someone or somewhere else?

Well, if you arrived here, thanks a lot for reading :) Fpoto (talk) 07:50, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Hi Fpoto, it's very nice to see you take an interest in Misplaced Pages, I hope you stick around for a long time! I see no-one has given you a welcome message, I'll do that shortly, meanwhile I'll try to answer your questions in order:

• The great thing about wiki is that we can all comment on anything we want. Geostationary orbit happens to be the very first article I ever changed, before I even signed up as a user. Someone had changed the orbit altitude to 9 miles, which was very funny, but I knew I had to fix it. After that I was addicted and I always watch that article with special care. However I try to use the same care on every article I watch (about 600 I think), I try to check every edit to be sure it's good information, well-written and properly referenced - because Misplaced Pages is an important work and we should all make sure every single little part of it is right.
• (Also you may think I'm a programmer, but if you need a Fractional distillation or cyanide separation column designed, I can do that too :) I've found it best to judge people on the quality of their edits.)
• Some articles have hundreds of people watching (like Britney Spears), others may have a few or none. You only learn by experience which ones are well patrolled and which ones you need to watch more carefully. There are probably five or ten people who watch Geostationary orbit, I just happened to be the one who questioned you and I asked questions just because it's what I do, ask questions, try to learn, try to make the work the best possible.
• For article assessments, you could ask Casliber. He can also help you out with the Good Article process, there are specific criteria it will need to meet. He knows all about that stuff, tell him Franamax sent you!
• You are doing the right thing by posting to the talk page about things you want to do. You can also be WP:BOLD and make changes whenever you want. I like to post to the talk page and wait a while if I'm going to delete something. If I want to add something, I always make sure I have a source, so I will do that more quickly. As for how long to wait, it depends - for Britney, 1 day, for Geo-orbit, you could wait a week. Remember, there's no deadline, so you can wait - but don't worry about being bold and changing things, everyone knows where the Undo button is :)
• The watchlist is the best way I know to check up on pages. You can sign up for news feeds of your watchlist but I don't think there's an email notice system for en:wiki. I'll check into it more if you want, but the watchlist works pretty well. I have mine in my Favourites and I keep it up all day and just keep refreshing it and checking back to the last time I looked.
• There is loads and loads of help on wiki - there is so much help that it is almost impossible to find what you want! Also, the search system doesn't work all that well. Be patient, it is a very complex place. I'll put some basic links on your talk page and also you can always go to the help desk with your questions. They answer fast and are usually very helpful. Don't hesitate to ask there and also come back here any time if you have a question. If I don't know the answer, I probably know someone who does!

Hope this helps. Cheers! Franamax (talk) 08:37, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for your answers and the helpful links you put on my talk page. I'll possibly come back to you for further help, but you gave me quite a while to study and consider. Bye :) Fpoto (talk) 10:24, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages is big and complicated, but don't let that bother you. Keep on working on articles, be bold, be polite, cite your sources and learn as you go. You're on the right track, thinking about what you're doing and asking questions. You'll be just fine, go for it. Good luck! Franamax (talk) 10:41, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Bot pre-proposal discussion

Since you expressed interest: Pre-proposal for redlink-removing bot - Pseudomonas_(talk) 13:22, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

GII

Like I said: its over at ANI, best to talk there, talking past a user on their talk page is usually impolite. No thats not a threat... William M. Connolley (talk) 22:22, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

No threat taken. The fact that the ANI thread consists mostly of people saying "let's not talk about it" rather bodes ill though. (If I'm looking at the right thread, since it's Giano there may be several ;) I do think you should consider reducing your block length far towards the original that you applied. I've never been blocked (yet) but I imagine I might drop the f-bomb if I was worked up over an issue. It's Canada Day though, I'm heading down to the beach to see what's up. Rgards! Franamax (talk) 22:32, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Geogre-William M. Connolley

An Arbitration case in which you commented has been opened, and is located here. Please add any evidence you may wish the Arbitrators to consider to the evidence sub-page, Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Geogre-William M. Connolley/Evidence. Please submit your evidence within one week, if possible. You may also contribute to the case on the workshop sub-page, Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Geogre-William M. Connolley/Workshop.

On behalf of the Arbitration Committee, Daniel (talk) 02:10, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Michael Q. Schmidt

Thanks for keeping an eye out for that page. I haven't really been looking at my watchlist much lately (more of a focus on IfD and AfD cleanup). Your points are completely valid and I don't understand why the case is still even open. Thoughts? (you can just respond here). — BQZip01 —  07:16, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, you tell me why it's still open. I'm not clear on any specific rules on closing SSP and RFCU's, I guess I should read those pages more closely, nothing has jumped out in the past. I think it's maybe an inertia and volunteer time thing, if no-one's poking at it, people move on to other priorities. Lord knows I have, seems you have too. I couldn't even tell you what twigged me back onto it - oh yes, I think Rlevse posted something to the SSP page?

I have my watchlist pref's set to store every page I edit, so I get reminded of ancient history all the time. I even have your page on there whoo-ee-ee-ooo :) Does seem bizarre that MQS would be left dangling in the wind though, swing the axe or put it down is what I think. Regards! Franamax (talk) 07:32, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Jacques Cartier Square

This one looks to be an alternate scan of another one, right down to the footsteps. You didn't provide an accession number with yours (tut-tut) so I can't compare them at source, they look similar at upload.wikimedia but yours previews more sharply and I am going to substitute it at Place Jacques-Cartier. Interesting historical photo, I took one in 1990 from almost the identical spot. I'm ashamed to say that Library and Archives Canada seems to have nothing comparable. We still have better beer though ;) If you want to work your magic on that photo, please by all means do so. Based on your previous work, a restored photo can find a place in Montreal and any number of subsidiary articles. Go for it! Franamax (talk) 00:42, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

You're right: same image. Slightly more generous crop on my version. It was just about the only high resolution file of Montreal at Loc. Durova 11:37, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

And it's "plauss jauchh cartyeh", not "jack carter square". Americans, gotta keep 'em in line eh? I notice you failed to comment on the better beer issue. :) Franamax (talk) 11:54, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Hey, you're the one who lives in a bilingual country. ¿No comprendes nada? Durova 22:55, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

FYI

I've added you to this list for whatever arbitrary reason entered my mind at the time. Well, perhaps not so arbitrary ;-) -hydnjo talk 03:45, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I probably qualify, I hang around the Science desk enough to cause confusion. It's one of the really enjoyable parts of Misplaced Pages. Franamax (talk) 09:51, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Indeed - the fast feedback pace is sometimes refreshing as compared to editing an article and wondering if anyone will ever notice! Like tagging the library building vs putting a notice on the library bulletin board (well, kinda ;-) -hydnjo talk 19:56, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Safety

I simply offered referenced quantitative data on brightness and safety. Your strong comments on safety are unnecessary; the discussion was about the extreme brightness of objects such as lasers, not about people intentionally looking at them and miraculously avoiding eye damage. Everyone knows not to stare at the Sun, a laser, or a welding arc for an extremely long period of time, especially considering the context, but not everyone is aware of the data I provided.

Note that I was not rebutting your advice, hence the weak "rarely causes". If you want to offer safety advice, do so with accurate and sourced information. The science reference desk is about, well, science, and misleading information should not be posted there.

If you would like to respond to the post you're challenging on the reference desk, feel free to do so. --Bowlhover (talk) 08:49, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Copied to orig user talk and responded here. Franamax (talk) 10:11, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Mediation? Definitely.

I would welcome mediation, as the continued incivility against myself and so many others is not only tiring, it is antithesis to the most basic tenet of Misplaced Pages: "Welcome to Misplaced Pages, the 💕 that anyone can edit." This behavior against policy has even caused others to consider leaving Wiki altogether. It is extremely telling that your own inputs, gladly accepted earlier when your reasonings supported that editor's positions, are now called bias because you do not agree with a continued pattern of negative behavior. I am reminded of the very recent example here, where one editor adamently attacked another for having been open-minded and neutral, yet had the temerity to delete that example here when the exposure of that attack would have cast doubt on his own motivations for the later acceptance of that same editor's comments when they concurred with his own... giving the appearance of a major imnpropriety, as if the attacker had been successful in his bullying. Michael Q. Schmidt (talk) 19:03, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

It's pretty clear that mediation will not work between yourself and CC, mediation requires multiple willing parties. Future actions will make plain which party is acting in good faith. (This late response is pro forma, events have moved along since you posted, I'm just working backward answering threads :) Franamax (talk) 06:50, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

User and talk page

Thanks for the reverts. CambridgeBayWeather Have a gorilla 15:29, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

If the vandal had shown the slightest imagination, I might have let it go. I only checked later on your user page for a vandalism counter. Just think, if I'd reverted vandalism on your page but failed to update the vandalism counter, would I then also be a vandal? Franamax (talk) 06:45, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Reference desk/Miscellaneous#combat photographers

Just remembered to thank you for your extremely funny albeit apt response to anon's question. It's been a while since I've laughed so hard on the reference desk, not counting inane questions like the recent ID question on WP:RD/S Nil Einne (talk) 17:46, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Heh, that does read kinda funny now - that was actually my best attempt at a serious response without asking the OP to attach themself to a light-socket. I mean really, buddy - when the bullets are flying, are you going to ask on Misplaced Pages about muzzle velocities? I really think today's armies want people who have a clue. But maybe I put just a little humour in there ;)

And yes, that question about which body part is intelligent-designed and which part is evolved was a true classic. Beyond words, awe-inspiring. The ultimate straight-line for those sarcastically inclined. I'm glad you brought that up off-page, I'll still fight off the many responses rising in me. God, we could found a wiki based on responses to that one post alone! :) Franamax (talk) 06:41, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

thank you!

Thank you for helping at Misplaced Pages:Featured article review/Iowa class battleship. I don't understand what seems to be a concern for appearances in the review discussion itself; I think what matters is what is in the article being discussed. Also, I appreciate your commenting about that table in WP:CANVASS and everything else you said. I sure am glad that i posted the notice over at wt:plagiarism.

I don't want to concede that there should be no discussion of any practice that can be labelled as a "policy issue", to be discussed elsewhere or never. I believe that policies can derive from discussion of specific articles, and the right time to discuss issues on featured articles is when the articles are up for review. Deductive vs. inductive reasoning. But, perhaps there should be some discussion at the Featured Article Review talk page about the general issues involved, and why (in my view) some weight ought to be given to avoiding use of general disclaimer templates. Laying some groundwork there would perhaps enable more concise discussion in the context of specific articles up for FAR. Thanks again! doncram (talk) 06:10, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

No thanks necessary. I'm glad you posted to WT:Plagiarism, I'm going to use the FAR as an excellent case study on when or if the general attribution template should be removed - but a few people are on break right now, I think, so I'll wait a little while :)

In general, I agree with you that policies can be derived from discussion of individual cases - or at least, each individual case helps to shine a little more light on the policy. Of course, no single case means that a policy should change, and that's where people start misunderstanding. Many people take questions about their edits to be questions about their character, which is unfortunate. I thought that you were being very careful to talk about "content, not contributor" - but of course I don't know your previous history, nor the other people involved. It's very tricky to promote only your ideas - everyone reads words differently, and some prefer to take offense to one thing, rather than consider all of everything.

I'll take a look for general discussions - do you mean WT:FAR? Franamax (talk) 06:28, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Situation

CC, Franamax, and BQZip01, how is the situation that was discussed on my talk page coming along? — Rlevse • Talk • 21:34, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Tons of stone

Hi Franamax, I went to the Dolmen article for another look at claim about a capstone being 150 tonnes -- the dimensions in metres are 2.6 x 7.1 x 5.5 and for this I get feet: 8.5 x 23.3 x 18 -- how much would one that size weigh? Thanks for your help, Julia Rossi (talk) 09:14, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, from those numbers I get ~264 long tons ~= 264 tonnes. (8.5*23.3*18*163/2200) That's limestone at 163 lb/cu.ft. Something's out of whack here. The density is about right, you'd strain to lift a one-foot cube of stone. An 18 x 23 x 8 foot deep slab of stone is absolutely bloody enormous. I'll have to go back and read the article again... Franamax (talk) 09:32, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Ah, I see, Ganghwa - that's easy. Build up a bunch of dirt, drag it up (or use rollers), then shovel away the dirt. I don't see your 150-tonne ref though - should I be reading it again even more closely? :) Franamax (talk) 09:39, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Hold the phone - yes, I did need to look some more lol. It's a natural shape, so just estimating the space-filling in the rectilinear dimensions, 60% is not unreasonable and that yields the 150 tonnes. I was thinking cut slab, not naturallly shaped rock. It really does help when I look before talking, but it's never as much fun :) Franamax (talk) 09:44, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

So happy to meet another who doesn't mind rattling around a bit before concluding anything, playing it hhappy and loose. Way to go, thanks so much, Julia Rossi (talk) 08:03, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

MQS

I'm not yet convinced his version of who is who is correct yet. On the other point, are you saying he is or isn't behaving with his new name, ie, did he return to his old ways or not? Respond on my page. — Rlevse • Talk • 08:23, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Nature article

Hi there. I emailed you back, but sometimes my messages get sent to spam. Might you check? Bstone (talk) 11:25, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Medical advice?

Can you explain why this is medical advice?

"Please do see a doctor or use a pregnancy test. Some areas, including Canada, prohibit abortion after the first 3 months of pregnancy."

Do you object to my suggestion of a pregnancy test, or to the entire post? Misplaced Pages:Reference desk/Guidelines/Medical advice does not prohibit personalized messages recommending the OP to consult a professional. --Bowlhover (talk) 20:48, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

My general principle is that when a question is removed under the "medical clause" we should just stop trying to answer the question. If the question stands, then I certainly agree with urging the OP to consult a doctor, in fact I think the best response to medical questions would be for one desker to say "we don't give medical advice, see your doctor". Unfortunately, more people will come along and start answering anyway so we're stuck with the solution of removing the question and using the {{rd-removed}} template. In the case where that's done, I think we all need to respect it and back off - solidarity and all that. Maybe you'd agree that we need to have coherent responses to keep the desk respectable? (Or maybe not, it seems to be a bone of contention lately).

As far as the specifics of medical advice, IMO it was fine right up to "doctor" then it all went to hell :) Anything about pregnancy is almost by definition going to be medical advice (and there's another area where genetic questions can stray over into medical territory). Anything to do with pregnancy, abortion, Canadian abortion law - man, it's just too damn important. You may be a qualified ob-gyn or a practising Canadian lawyer. I'm not, so I will tend to look for the safe course (hmm, we just had that discussion, didn't we? :)

I wasn't trying to poke you in the eye, just trying to uphold a standard as I see it. Regards! Franamax (talk) 21:20, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

More cool things...

Hey Franamax, are you going to make Ucontribs automated? Or is it too tricky? It is still really cool whichever way.

Another worthwhile wikiproject tool was performed by User:Betacommand, but I don't think he is able to do it any more, was Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Birds/bird articles by size - this one.i.e. rank all bird articles by size and note which are FA or GA. This hasn't been run since march. I need to look through his archives to see which exclusion categories there were. There was also one for Mammals - WP:MABS, fungi - WP:FABS, and dinosaurs WP:DABS - good for seeing stubs and figuring out which things to expand. I find them helpful though I am not sure how others do, and was musing on one for WP:MED, infact I will ask there and see if anyone thinks it is a good idea. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 05:01, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

• uContribs is automated to the extent that I will run it for anyone who asks, anytime. But it is not even close to what the toolserver people do, I cracked wikipedia by myself, before I realized several thousand other people had already done it and made it easy - so I'm stuck with my own obsessions now. If you run Windows, I'll send you copies of everything I've written.
• uContribs will shortly be much less automated. I have the program outline and code sketches done to make a fine-toothed comb - links added and removed, edits that are reverts/edits that were reverted, use of swear words and distinctive phrases, DYK award count, FA/GA award dates; with local disk caching throughout. As usual, I'm paralyzed at designing the user interface, how do I explain my vision to the several different audiences of the same basic functions? Bogus contributors and subtle falsifiers are the target, but it will pop out the good editors as a matter of course.
• Betacommand as far as I know is able to run any of his tools at the toolserver anytime he wants. The only restrictions I'm aware of are that he can't make rapid edits to en:wiki and he's supposed to cool down on the you're-a-troll/idiot/can't-read-policy/vandal comments. Nothing at all prevents Beta from running the updates you are requesting - if he is committing the edits himself one at a time and he doesn't get nasty whilst doing it, there is no problem.
• And of course now that I check, it looks like Beta is currently unplugged. I'd still suggest you contact him first for the updates as he may already have a saved query. He can send the data to either you or me and we can post. Proxy editing for a blocked user be damned - if Beta can do it easily, let's ask him...
• And if you ask and get a response, let me know the result. I'll wait a few days and then I'll have to know all about categories and exclusion categories and all the various parameters. Other than all the above, sure - I'll do it :) Franamax (talk) 10:10, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

OK, will ask betacommand about all the *ABS thingies he made. Feel free to do my ucontribs any time you wanna check glitches etc. :))) Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 10:35, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Mega-tsunami

Hi Franamax, per your comment at the Ref Desk I had a run at the article - for logical organization and to prune off the extensive repetition. However, I am an editor, not a scientist. If you have a sec, could you check that it still defines the term correctly and explains it properly? Ta, WikiJedits (talk) 16:14, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Wow, it looks like you completely reworked it! I haven't done a complete side-by-side parsing yet, but I like what I see so far. It looks way better.

If you have specific remaining concerns, bring 'em on, if we can't figure it out together, I'll go looking for helpers. Thanks for your work so far! Franamax (talk) 11:33, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for checking and for your fix to the lede! One of the things I worried about was how much the term is/isn't used by scientists, because there is a whole section about geologists studying the lake in Alaska and hypothesisizing a huge wave - it wasn't clear if those geologists coined the term megatsunami first and it was then abandoned by them/adopted by the public, or if the media/public coined it after reading about their findings. So thanks!

The other thing I worried about is that "initially huge" is the correct defining characteristic, because some of the sections included (eg Santorini) may have instead been talking about a wave that got huge towards the end of its life instead (as in a regular tsunami, coming ashore), thereby defining the term as "huge at any point".

Oh and third concern, after reading Dragons flight's comments on the Ref Desk, I wonder if the article needs to be clearer that an initially huge wave created by the landslide/asteroid can't be sustained but will get lower as it propagates away. I really appreciate you took the time to read through, thanks again! WikiJedits (talk) 14:41, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Response

My only alterations were in regards to indentation. I never signed your name, nor would I ever do such a thing. I believe you may be mis-reading the diffs, but if you still believe such an event occured, I would be happy to look at the diff in question.    Redthoreau (talk) RT 08:40, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Well this is weird. I'm wrong, but the thread I want to apologize at is gone :) So for the enduring record, here's the complaint , here's the proof my allegation was wrong as it was not Redthoreau who dup'ed my sig, and here's my apology to Redthoreau. Sorry for the allegation, I was wrong. I still disagree with your changes to indentation in the Castro talk thread, I felt it distorted the flow - but it looks pretty definite that you weren't the editor who copied my signature. Too bad you wiped my section from your talk page, I was all set up to apologize in person! This is why I dislike split discussion threads. Anyway, regards! Franamax (talk) 09:18, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Apology accepted, and I only deleted it from my talk page, because I knew it wasn't true.    Redthoreau (talk) RT 22:31, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm having problems putting on a correct template on an image..

You helped me once before, could you do it again?

It's the picture on Billy Drago's site.. called Drago Nitti.jpg

Thanks in advance :)

KnatLouie (talk) 18:31, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

I'll try to fix the rationale for you so you can see how it's done, but I don't endorse it. Unfortunately, it looks like invalid use to me. You can't use a copyrighted picture solely for the purpose of identifying a living person. That's because 1) there could be a free picture somewhere; 2) you could go track down the person and take a picture yourself. You might be able to use that image in an article about the film, but I'm pretty sure you can't use it just to identify the actor in their own article. If it was some really famous role they played and the image was distinctive, maybe, but not just so as to have a picture of the person.

Could you find something on flickr that's licensed for free use?

So I'll fix it and either ask around or tag it myself as disputed fair-use. Sorry! Franamax (talk) 18:43, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Oh, the irony of it all.. or should I say, bureaucracy of it all. It's just a small picture of an actor in his - presumably - most well-known role. It's near impossible to find a picture of this guy anywhere else, and I'm not about to turn paparazzi and stalk the dude to get one. Just thought it would help the article, but nevermind. I'll just go back to my rule about not uploading pictures to this site anymore again.KnatLouie (talk) 15:51, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

KnatLouie, I'm sorry and I wish it was different. The thing is, it's not just you and it's not just this one small picture. Hundreds of people want to do the same thing every day. We don't want to put the WMF in the position where one day the Paramount lawyers are knocking on their door saying "hey, you've got 17,300 of our copyrighted images on your website, here's what we think that's worth, fork over the dollars". Even trying to argue that out in court, even if we were right on every single one of those images, would kill us - it would kill Misplaced Pages and all the money real people have donated for the idea of a 💕 would be wasted on lawyers. An actual lawsuit where you go to court is a quarter-million dollars easy. Easy. We just can't afford that.

We're already vulnerable because we call ourselves a 💕, but we have non-free images. Our defense always has to be that we have very conservative "fair use" guidelines and we exercise due diligence in patrolling our guidelines. And since we're a volunteer organization, it's us volunteers who have to do that, you and me and everyone else. We maybe could withstand one rich whacko willing to spend a million dollars suing WMF, but three at once would sink us. I'm not suggesting you're posting images of, or owned by, rich whackos - but we need a standard set of rules. The encyclopedia comes first!

As far as the use you wanted to make, here's a current discussion on almost exactly that. I'd love to see acceptable fair-use extended to allow one pic of the article subject allowed. If you want to raise the issue somewhere, I'd offer my moral support and I'd try to help the discussion, but I suspect we'd lose just on the merits of the argument. We're supposed to be a 💕, if the person is still alive, then it's still possible to get a free picture of them.

Please don't just give up, you want to help and we want your help. We just need to help you understand what's OK and what's not. If you can go the extra distance and you do find some free images, bring 'em on man!

Reverting the removal of citation tags in Robot article

In my opinion, the original citation tags make little sense. I don't know why someone put them there in the first place. There are three, in a paragraph of only 5 sentences. There are no other citation tags at all in that whole section. Why just those three sentences? It's not like they're particularally likely to be disputed.

What happens in cases where someone, for no particular reason, adds some citation tags to an article? Is nobody ever allowed to remove them, or is it possible to decide that they're kinda pointless? Rocketmagnet (talk) 19:19, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Of course there's a way to remove the cite tags - add a reference. If it's that well-known, it should be easy. You can say that you don't know why someone put them there, but you can equally easilly say that you don't know why someone put the article text there. If you have concerns about the tagging, the best thing is to ask the person who does the tagging. In this case, that would be Dank55 I think. If you don't watch the article regularly and don't know who tagged it, check the talk page to see if it was discussed. If you think citation tags aren't needed, they're best brought up on the article talk page.

In this particular context, an anonymous editor thought it odd to have fact tags on only one paragraph and deleted them . The same editor then noticed that suddenly there were no more fact tags in the article and changed the multiple issues notice . That's pretty disingenuous IMO, how did that article just get improved? Now having looked again, I've seen even more "multiple issues" in that article, so I guess I'll have to visit it again. Expect more cite tags and/or pruning shears. I'll discuss non-obvious stuff on its talk page. Cheers! Franamax (talk) 07:45, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Actually, that anon editor was me. Misplaced Pages logged me out and I didn't realise. As far as I understand, statements in a Misplaced Pages article need refs if they are likely to be disputed. See . The three statements which had been given tags were hardly controversial, especially in the context of that whole section which had only a couple of tags in it. And the truth of those statements, and the addition of tags, was not discussed on the talk page. I am one of the main editors of the article, in fact I actually added most of the references that are there now. Believe me, I love references. I watch the article very regularly. But I may have missed that edit while I was on holiday.

How was the article improved by removing the tags? Imagine I went to the Evolution article, where there is only one ref in the whole of the first two paragraphs. And Imagine I added a on every sentence. Then added one of those big It needs additional references or sources for verification banners at the top. Have I just helped or have I basically vandalised the article? If someone removed those tags again, would you undo it?

a. not every statement needs a

b. only statements which are likely to be disputed

c. pointless tags, and a big banner at the top just make a mess of a perfectly good Misplaced Pages article. Rocketmagnet (talk) 08:11, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

OK well the fact that you are one of the main editors of the article doesn't give you any greater rights it just gives you more responsibilities. ;) You are partly right - when authoring the text, you only need to source statements likely to be disputed. But what happened here? Someone added {{fact}} tags - so those statements indeed are disputed ipso facto. Fact tags are the way statements get disputed. You can't just say "no, it's obvious" - unless it is obvious. If someone tags "the sky is blue" or "fell due to the force of gravity", maybe (but even then, what planet and what frame of reference?).

Three tags just indicate three statements being questioned. When you supply the reference, if it covers all three tags, you put the reference at the end of the paragraph - bob's yer uncle. Just supply the reference. Or remove the paragraph. Someone's questioned it (and I would like to see the refs too, not that that matters).

As to your analogy at Evolution, I don't like quoting policy links but think about "otherstuffexists" and "making a point". If you tagged every sentence, several things could happen: you'd get blocked for being a jerk because you're pissed off about Robot; someone would point out that the statements in the article lead don't need individual sourcing if they are fully explained and sourced in the article body (and maybe also point out that everything in Further Reading supports it); and if there were some weak spots, sources would be supplied - it is a Featured Article after all.

I understand you might feel Robot is a "perfectly good Misplaced Pages article", you've done tons of work on it. But I spent a few hours cleaning up just the top little bit of it a few weeks ago - so we all have different opinions. Let's try making it into an -official- Good Article! Franamax (talk) 08:54, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

I've just been looking at your edits from a few weeks back. Well done for spotting that some of the links had become invalid, and finding the archives. But why did you remove two of the refs from after "While there is still discussion about which machines qualify as robots"? One link had gone down, but it was available in the archives, and the other link still seems to be fine. Rocketmagnet (talk) 13:17, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

"...doesn't give you any greater rights it just gives you more responsibilities" Thanks, but there's no need to be patronising. I'm well aware of the spirit of the Misplaced Pages.

If someone had put fact tags in almost any other place, I'd love nothing better than to go and find a ref for it. My problem is that I genuinely suspect the motivation of the tagger. The tagged statements were totally uncontroversial (BTW, I did not write them), and right in the middle of about a hundred similar statements. Why did he single out those ones? Read them yourself. Tell me what you think.

And because of these three very minor and suspect tags, we now have to have a massive banner on the top of the page, which basically brings the whole article into disrepute. That does not benefit the Misplaced Pages at all. Rocketmagnet (talk) 13:34, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Looking back in the history, it seems that User:Dank55 may have added those tags. It's hard to tell. I'll ask him about it. Rocketmagnet (talk) 13:43, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

I removed the two links because a forum is not a reliable source. You can't use a forum to reference text in an article (WP:ELNO).

The winky-smiley was supposed to alleviate any sting you might draw from my rights/responsibilities statement. It's unfortunate you found it patronising.

I'd actually already given you the link to the edit where the tags were placed a little above here. I have a robot of my own that lets me find historical changes right quick. :)

Looking at the entire article, I'd say it looks pretty well cited. You could take the master tag off while still leaving individual cite tags at places in the text. The tag at the top is for when the whole article stinks, which this one doesn't. That still leaves the tag for copyediting, which maybe is not needed anymore either (will discuss at article talk). Franamax (talk) 22:36, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

On the Talk:Robot page we are discussing deleting those statements from the paragraph. Would you like to comment before we do it? Rocketmagnet (talk) 16:57, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

SECT SHC

DYK that AO this TIMESTAMP, it appears that your /EA1 may contain OR, ABF, and your ES is sparse as though it were an ME (no FA that way). Also, you should consider an RDR with a less cryptic title, this isn't your SB after all and you risk MFD. You should also consider WFYing, we don't all have time for EXJARG  :) hydnjo talk 17:53, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

Umm, OK, could I get FRIES with that? :) As long as User:B and User:D don't catch on to my attack page I should be OK :) I should flesh that out someday, it'd be nice to be able to use a template to declare ERROR_CONDITION:EA_STACK_OVERFLOW$ to get people back to talking about what they're actually here for. After a year here, I believe I've used (at least) CIV, PA and NPA less times than the fingers on one hand. There are so many other ways to approach a discussion than just flinging TLA's. Franamax (talk) 22:22, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

OK, I'm really tempted now to make WP:FRIES a redirect to you know where! And I agree partially, WP:WP should used reservedly and with respect for the addressee's level of prior experience and tolerance for metaphorical soup. I'll be extra careful around here! -hydnjo talk 23:53, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

Don't get me wrong: I have many times linked to V, N, RS and IAR. As you say, it needs to be tailored - if it's someone new, it's fully worded with a backing link, in full-out discussions, the terse (unlinked) form is more useful. AN, ANI, RFC/U, ARB, 3O, DR, MEDCAB, RSN, etc. - these are the unfortunate signs of escalating disputes, when there are a million other ways to go about it, maybe they should all redirect the first time to "calm down, try to understand the other side of this, give it one more shot"; and my personal bugbear is the AGF/CIV/NPA cycle, which I think is totally unproductive since it deflects discussion onto motivation rather than substance.

WP:FRIES wouldn't be such a bad redirect. I'd be happy to see enough input to make that little essay WP-worthy, it's semi-humourous but it really does contain a message. Resort to EA's are one of the things that hold back the wiki (IMO). Franamax (talk) 00:17, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree and the red turn blue - you're on! BTW, what are EA's? -hydnjo talk 01:01, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

Jaahh! Read the MOS FFS! The first bolded entry in the page - "Escalating alphabeticals". I'd add a TM to it except for that pesky GFDL. :) Franamax (talk) 01:08, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

Oops, must've been that last sip caused that to slip past me!  ;( -hydnjo talk 01:26, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

Well in that spirit, I've added my personal favourite to your page (brought to you courtesy of the_undertow). It may be too extreme for your purposes but it never fails to float my boat. :) Franamax (talk) 02:18, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

Extreme indeed - I've never slammed a 12 pack (that I recall anyway) ō_ō -hydnjo talk 04:15, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

I think the best evidence is getting up in the morning and your car is still idling in the rosebushes :) Although that would also be fairly good proof that you weren't editing Misplaced Pages - I dunno, maybe that's a vehicle option nowadays? Channel your road rage - edit Misplaced Pages! TU's image is certainly a candidate banner for your EIU page. :) Franamax (talk) 04:24, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

Just some perspective: the original got hijacked renamed into the WP mainspace where it bloated (22 -> 418 entries and 2 -> 49 kbytes) way beyond my imagination! I captured the original back to the original title and bolded the original in the rename. So beware, once EA (FRIES) goes "public" it will expand.

Thanks for the rearrange, it looks excellent and fits in with spirit of "my" page but, I'm a bit hesitant about including TU's "banner" in the WP version (bowl and all ya know). I'm flexible so let me know what you think. -hydnjo talk 19:51, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

Confirming ...

... what my mail said. Gantpupo is retiring now. Nasty habit. Gantpupo (talk) 03:05, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Dead links

Thanks for all the info regarding dead links. I wasn't only trying to remove the links, but I was also trying to use a reference (which was already in the article) to show that 50 percent, rather than 49, is the percentage of foreign-born residents. I guess one percent doesn't make that much of a difference (lol). Blackjays1 (talk) 01:15, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, it should probably be me apologizing to you - you've been around enough to understand policy, so I hope I didn't come across as patronizing (but I probably did). I just have that knee-jerk response when I see people removing dead links instead of trying to revive them. Edit away to improve the article! Franamax (talk) 01:32, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Thank you

		The Original Barnstar
		Thank you for the clean-up work you did on Weston, Ontario A Knight Who Says Ni (talk) 10:38, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Your improvements are well researched, and go far beyond the linking problems I noticed. Thanks! --A Knight Who Says Ni (talk) 10:38, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Aw shucks, thanks! Usually only my sockpuppets give me barnstars ;) DoubleBlue did a bunch of cleanup too. Franamax (talk) 10:42, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

YW. I gave DoubleBlue a barnstar too. These are the first I've given out. I'll have to get into the habit. --A Knight Who Says Ni (talk) 11:11, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Happy WikiBirthday!

Sob! All I wanted was for just one editor to vandalize my user page - but no, all I get is this stupid book :( Even my sockpuppets wouldn't vandalize me (also what is a sockpuppet?) No, wait Franamax, rally 'round and put a smile on your face. They really do care about you, they're just hesitant 'cause you're such an incredibly awesome person - yeah, that's it, it's them wut has the problem, not you. Yeah, that's the ticket, just be gracious and eventually they will give you the flowers and laurels you really deserve, those rotten bastards, why I oughtta... OK, deep breath:

Thanks SteveBaker, what a wonderful gift. I very much appreciate it! :) Franamax (talk) 01:50, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Template:LAC

I've been discussing Template:LAC with someone. See here. Would you be able to fill us in on the history of that template? It is possibly being overused. What do you think? Carcharoth (talk) 18:48, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Re:Looking for some listing tools

Thanks allot for looking over that. Did you find anything that might explain why the counter at the bottom of Misplaced Pages:Featured topics/count can only find 437 articles tagged when there should be 438? If you found 438 articles, maybe there is a ninth article in more than one topic that I didn't notice. --Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 13:32, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Hang on for a day or two, it can sometimes take a while for category changes to bubble upwards through the job queue. The numbers I see right now, looking at the Ft/c page source, don't make sense, several are off by one or two. If I don't follow up by 06 Sep, please remind me. (And let me know about the latest featured promotions, etc. at that time, please) Franamax (talk) 14:38, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

That's what I thought at first, but it has been off by one for several days now, so either my math is wrong or somewhere there is an article that isn't tagged on its talk page. When you look at it again, you can see topics that have been added on the Featured topic log. Thanks again for your help. --Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 03:55, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

It seems that Template:ArticleHistory is now protected, so I can no longer edit it myself, but just add code to say "if the ft2name parameter isn't blank, then tag the article as being in Category:Misplaced Pages featured topics articles in two topics" or something like that. Then if you've missed one it should stick out like a sore thumb - rst20xx (talk) 16:48, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

...But in this case, Franamax is right in that it's just being a bit odd at updating. If you add up the counts of Category:Misplaced Pages featured topics all articles you get to 456, and Auto Wiki Browser confirms that no articles are in two categories. Dunno why it's being slow, but it is - rst20xx (talk) 16:56, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Look at the last count on Misplaced Pages:Featured topics/count: "All other articles tagged as being part of a topic: 3". There are so clearly 5 articles in the categories being counted here, so I have no idea what's going on there - rst20xx (talk) 16:59, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

These category counts are completely whacky. Take a look at my test page where I break down the calculation for "All articles tagged...". I know the pagecounts come from a separate table in the database, but I'm not sure when the table gets updated. I think I've seen it somewhere, but it will take me a while to find it. Note, the "should be" figures I put in are as of the moment I write this. Franamax (talk) 20:47, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Your 9 - 4 (s/b 12 - 4) is interesting, because 9-4=5, and Misplaced Pages:Featured topics/count is still showing 3! The oddest part about the 3 is that the actual result it should be displaying hasn't dipped below 5 for ages, and it was displayed 5 successfully before. In other words, this means that it hasn't just failed to update but actually updated to a number it never has been - rst20xx (talk) 22:23, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Don't let that 5 lead you astray. The 3 you see on FT/c is a result of the 9/12 discrepancy and the 1/3 discrepancy at line 5 on my page.

From what I can of how the category pagecounts work, they're stored in a separate table and updated as pages get added to and removed from categories. This means that if there is a server burp, the category table count might not get updated when the page does - and we do get the occasional burp, one server threw up all over just a week or so ago. How long has this problem been occurring?

I'm going to ask a new question at VPT to get some clarification. One experiment we could try is to depopulate Category:Misplaced Pages featured topics main articles. Once it's stored page count drops below zero, that should force it to recount properly. Worth a try? Franamax (talk) 23:29, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

That can be done/undone quite easily, as all the pages are tagged via Template:ArticleHistory. So you'd need to modify that so it stops tagging them, and then revert your modifications once the cats are depopped. As for whether it's worth it, you seem to know more about this than I do :) rst20xx (talk) 23:44, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

OK now we're getting somewhere - I fixed one! Category:Misplaced Pages featured topics main articles now has the correct count and FT/c is a tiny step closer to being right. We can fix the rest through {{ArticleHistory}} but we'll need an admin to do it (red padlock on that sucker) and it will take awhile to update all the pages through the job queue, so it will likely need to be announced somewhere too. I've asked at VPT if there's an easier way to update the category pagecounts. Franamax (talk) 00:36, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

edit notice

I can set it up for you; what do you want it to say? --Random832 (contribs) 16:34, 4 September 2008 (UTC)