User talk:Jeffq/2004

This is an archive of inactive discussions. Please do not edit it. If you wish to revitalize an old topic, bring it up on the active talk page.

Hello

Hi there. Welcome to Wikipedia! I see you've been around a while. If you want, drop us a note at Wikipedia:New user log to introduce yourself.

If you need editing help, visit Wikipedia:How does one edit a page. For format questions, visit our manual of style. You can use the Show preview button before you save, to make sure your edits do what you intended.

You can sign your name on talk pages by using " ~~~ " for your username and " ~~~~ " for your username and a timestamp.

Some time when you're bored, you can read through our policies and guidelines. If you made any edits before you got an account, you might be interested in assigning those to your username.

If you have any other questions about the project then check out Wikipedia:Help or add a question to the Village pump. You can also drop me a question on my talk page.

Happy editing, Isomorphic 20:28, 29 Feb 2004 (UTC)

RE: Price elasticity of supply

Thank you for drawing attention to the mistakes in my article on price elasticity of supply (I say "my", but it was in fact mainly copied from the article on price elasticity of demand, and incomplete editing caused the errors). The errors have now been corrected. Gingekerr 16:08, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)

RE: Public domain

I came to this page hoping to find an explicit statement correcting a common misconception that public domain means anything that's freely available in the public — i.e., posted on the Internet. While the existing text is useful and necessary as an encyclopedia entry, I would like to see a concise statement in this article that makes it clear that this is not true, in order to educate ordinary people with Internet-time attention spans. Any suggestions on how to do this within the existing text? -- Jeff Q 04:30, 23 May 2004 (UTC)

That's a common misconception?? The internet was not widely known to the lay public until the early '90s! Obviously people talked about the public domain, by that name, before that time. What did people laboring under that misconception think it meant then? Michael Hardy 23:30, 25 May 2004 (UTC)

Indeed, the current common misconception that "Internet-posted" means "public domain" is obviously relatively new. I'm sure there are many other misconceptions that are much older and continue to this day. However, the ability for anyone with access to an Internet-connected computer to confuse this issue is, in my opinion, a much greater threat that older ones that involved hardcopy publishing and analog media copying.

Usually I am bold about adding text that I request, but I paused on this one because this article clearly discusses the overall legal issues of public domain and copyrights. Michael Hardy has a valid concern about the larger view, and it wasn't immediately clear to me how and where to add such a concise statement without interrupting the flow. I'll ponder some more and give it a try shortly. -- Jeff Q 11:37, 26 May 2004 (UTC)

I've added a section on Public domain and the Internet to the Public domain article. Hopefully that's a start. -- Jeff Q 19:20, 26 May 2004 (UTC)

RE: Fictional music groups

Thanks...I'll fix that link next time I update my page (although I guess it will work as a redirect anyway). Adam Bishop 17:55, 31 May 2004 (UTC)

Kudos

Nice job on The Roches. Jgm 13:17, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)

fast work on typos

Thanks for the interest in correcting typos (you fixed one in the EGD article I wrote). People around here are just so helpful and like to pitch in. Kd4ttc 00:46, 9 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Co-writing

User:Ilyanep/Watch lists a few articles I want to research or 'work on otherly' ... find some article that needs to be completely written, and see if you see one that you'd like to help me write (I guess I just need the motivation). If not...suggest one for me yourself. Ilyanep (Talk) 01:56, 25 Jun 2004 (UTC)

The 1990's thing

Yes, 1990s is the correct way to refer to the decade. (I used to go around replacing 1990's with 1990s a lot more when the search engine worked, although I still do it in spot cases.) You're actually the second or third person to think from my description that I was doing it the other way around, so I guess I worded it poorly. :) - Hephaestos|§ 15:43, 14 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Joy to the World!

Hi. Noticed your comments and made a couple of changes to this stub. See my response to you at Talk:Joy to the World Cheers! Quill 05:44, 15 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Thank you for fixing the loose ends in "Joy to the World"! I've despaired of ever getting resolution on them. ☺ — Jeff Q 10:12, 15 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Ta!

Thanks for the support on the Wikipedia:Sound issue. I think sanity will reign in the end, but I'm not going to get to obsessive about it. --Zarni02 01:52, 17 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Looks like a Wiki-God has decided the sound issues. Not sure how this works, but I guess thats why they are gods (I think Aevar is a Wiki-God too!) Looks like anything goes, which after all of the discussions seems a bit of a shame but is pragmatic. --Zarni02 10:23, 25 Jul 2004 (UTC)

listdev

I saw that you removed the {{listdev}} tag from List of songs whose title includes personal names. I had added that tag because it is clearly not a complete list, but of course it never will be complete. Is that why you did so? You appear to have vastly more experience on Wikipedia, so I would appreciate your specific opinion on the use of this tag, especially since I contribute to a dozen or so such lists (having created half of them myself) and want to keep in line with good Wiki practices. Thank you. — Jeff Q 04:42, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Yeah, the reason I deleted it is because EVERY article on Wikipedia is pretty much unfinished. There's really nothing complete on the entire encyclopedia. In fact, that gives me an idea -- I'm going to list the listdev template for deletion. RickK 04:44, Aug 12, 2004 (UTC)

Got your reply about Wikipedia's essential unfinishedness and the consequent pointlessness of {{listdev}}. For the most part, I agree, but I would point out that there are some lists that are sufficiently small that they could be completed; e.g., web-safe colors and area codes in the North American Numbering Plan. I don't know how many of these kinds of lists exist in Wikipedia, and some of them may not stay complete over time, but it seems the tag may have some utility. Perhaps it would be better to add some usage guidelines for it. — Jeff Q 04:59, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I've listed it on the Votes for deletion page. If you think it should be kept, you might go there and list (heh) your arguments for keeping it. RickK 05:02, Aug 12, 2004 (UTC)

List of fictional music groups

Hey, Jeff, your recent addition to List of fictional music groups has incorporated several non-viewable special characters. Can you fix that? RickK 23:10, Aug 21, 2004 (UTC)

I pasted a replacement for the TOC into the top of the article, but somehow the first two sections of entries got some (but not all) of their hyphens and apostrophes replaced with question marks (which only made it look like they were special characters). I don't know what could have happened. I used the standard Wiki edit window to do the paste. If I had somehow pasted over the relevant text, that wouldn't have replaced only certain characters. Oh, well. Whatever happened, I've fixed it. — Jeff Q 01:24, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Sometimes the workings of Wikipedia are mysterious beyond understanding. :) RickK 04:06, Aug 22, 2004 (UTC)

Redbone fix

Thank you very much for untangling the Redbone problem. From your comment on Talk:Redbone, I gather that Redbone (ethnicity)'s talk page failed to move with the page itself, which I hadn't noticed. (I could swear I had the "Move talk page" box checked. Oh, well.) I've updated all the links to point to "Redbone (ethnicity)" or Redbone (band). — Jeff Q 23:42, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)

No, the talk page did move with it. The comment I added was just because I didn't want the redirect staying there. Angela. 01:03, Aug 25, 2004 (UTC)

Serial comma

You may wish to make your opinion known in a very close poll about reversing the rules on serial comma in the Wikipedia Style Manual at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#Proposal 2 (A). Jallan 21:17, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Manual of Style apostrophe changes

Maurreen, I'm curious why you changed several occurrences of "straight" apostrophes to the so-called "curved" version in someone else's Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style postings (but not globally across the page), perhaps ironically in defiance the Manual of Style itself (8.1.1, Use straight quotation marks and apostrophes). I can't quite see the purpose of it. — Jeff Q 23:47, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)

You say I changed apostrophes or quote marks in other people's postings. I plead ignorance. The only thing I can think of is that sometimes I write in Word and copy stuff back and forth and don't often notice the apostrophe or quote style. Maurreen 04:55, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Sorry, I should have been more specific. I'm talking about your edit at 00:06, 9 Nov 2004[1], the first of five consecutive edits you made on that page. It seemed unusual also because you had taken care to add summaries to each of the other four edits. Perhaps it was an accidental premature save? (I'm afraid I do this on occasion myself.) If so, I can switch the apostrophes back, unless you or someone else beats me to it. — Jeff Q 05:08, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Thanks, I think I fixed them all. And I like your user page. Maurreen 05:28, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)

The the

Thank you for fixing the actual "the the" error in the Prince of Space episode in List of MST3K episodes, and for not fixing the cited error in Attack of the the Eye Creatures. I commend these efforts — as long as they're not automated — and will continue to remove such typos whenever I find them as well. — Jeff Q 20:38, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Not automated, though starting to glaze over. I do fear that someone else, next time, will not spot the nature of the citation. Ho hum. Yes, join us in fixing the the and suchlike. best wishes --Tagishsimon (talk)

Capitalisation in songs

Thank you for being the only person (so far) to register opinions on my proposed changes to List of songs whose title includes geographical names. Seeing as how you have two perspectives that I don't have on the issue of capitalization in song titles (i.e., coming from a British background and performing in real bands), I'd like to get more information on your statement that full capitalization "isn't song industry practice - at least not in publishing". As suggested (at least partly) in the cited discussion Talk:List of songs whose title includes personal names#Capitalization, my information comes from my huge music library (i.e., album covers and liner notes on released recordings) and online (e.g., AMG) and library (e.g., Library of Congress) research on songs, all from American sources. Are things different in the Commonwealth? Are you referring specifically to publishing of catalogs or indices of songs, or is there more to it? I'm not wedded to the idea of full-capitalization, and expect not to perform that particular surgery on the list based on your statement, but I'd like to take advantage of your different perspective to learn more about this subject. Thanks again. — Jeff Q 07:20, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Hi Jeff,

My experience comes from working in bands too, and from registering songs with APRA (Australasian Performing Rights Association). They ask songwriters to only capitalise the first word of songs and any proper nouns, or to use capitals only. I haven't thought to check my whole album collection (it would take a while - 2000 CDs), but the handful I looked at at random seem to have no set pattern. The other thing is that I'm almost certain that we're supposed to use APA guidelines in Wikipedia with references, and they clearly stipulate only capitalising the first word and any proper nouns. I'd have thought it would make sense to do the same with songs. [[User:Grutness|Grutness ^talk ]] 09:46, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for the quick reply on your experiences. (Your CD collection is about 30% larger than mine.) You said you noticed no pattern, but is there perhaps the same pattern I've seen in American CDs (that I mention in the above "Capitalization" link) — that most CDs practice one of three patterns, none of which follow APA guidelines: all uppercase, all lowercase, or all capitalized? There are certainly exceptions to that pattern set, as I also noted in the cited discussion, but this seems like solid practice on album printing, at least in the U.S.

Also, can you recall where Wikipedia says anything about using APA guidelines? I haven't found anything from my initial searching. From what I've seen, Wikipedia has no policy on song titles, only an inferred one from Wikipedia:Naming conventions#Album titles and band names, which follows the more cumbersome and poorly understood "Capitalize everything except articles, prepositions, and conjunctions" rule, which has many uncited exceptions. (That's precisely why I advocate full capitalization, which is the closest thing to industry practice that people are likely to do correctly.) At the very least, policy seems to favor non-APA capitalization for artistic work titles in everything except possibly classical music, whose policy has an entire article to itself.

I had no idea that you were referring to the American Psychological Association until I'd tracked down the APA style article, which suggests a scholarly bent not necessarily shared by Wikipedia and, as far as I've seen, not cited as a Wikipedia source for style information. I do notice that this appears to be the style used for Wikipedia article titles, although I found no explanation of where that came from. It also appears to be what American libraries use in creating indices of titles, not only for songs but for any indexed material. (Thanks for letting me know what to call that!)

If you get a chance, could you let me know (A) if your CD collection shows the same patterns as mine does, and (B) if you know where the APA style is cited in Wikipedia style guidelines. (Oh, and sorry about the rude American spelling of "capitalization" in this section title. I'm delighted that I now have the British version in the one on my page. ☺) Thanks again! — Jeff Q 11:16, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

All upper, all lower, random letter in upper case, all first letters capitalised, or only first letter of song title capitalised. The first example I found of the last type was the songs on the album Now that?s what I call quite good, by the Housemartins, an English band. It does look like there are a few more cases with all words with first letter capitalised though.

As to APA style, good question. I?m sure I read it somewhere in here, but maybe it was my imagination - the only place I?ve turned it up tonight while trying to find where I saw it was as a general comment in Wikipedia: Cite sources. And the American spelling?:) No problem - sorry for the ?correction?! We use Brit spelling for most things here in New Zealand, but accept American spellings a little. [[User:Grutness|Grutness ^talk ]] 12:08, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The Humungous Image Tagging Project

Hi. You've helped with the Wikipedia:WikiProject Wiki Syntax, so I thought it worth alerting you to the latest and greatest of Wikipedia fixing project, User:Yann/Untagged Images, which is seeking to put copyright tags on all of the untagged images. There are probably, oh, thirty thousand or so to do (he said, reaching into the air for a large figure). But hey: they're images ... you'll get to see lots of random pretty pictures. That must be better than looking for at at and the the, non? You know you'll love it. best wishes --Tagishsimon (talk)

Article Licensing

Hi, I've started a drive to get users to multi-license all of their contributions that they've made to either (1) all U.S. state, county, and city articles or (2) all articles, using the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike (CC-by-sa) v1.0 and v2.0 Licenses or into the public domain if they prefer. The CC-by-sa license is a true free documentation license that is similar to Wikipedia's license, the GFDL, but it allows other projects, such as WikiTravel, to use our articles. Since you are among the top 1000 Wikipedians by edits, I was wondering if you would be willing to multi-license all of your contributions or at minimum those on the geographic articles. Over 90% of people asked have agreed. For More Information:

• Multi-Licensing FAQ - Lots of questions answered
• Multi-Licensing Guide
• Free the Rambot Articles Project

To allow us to track those users who muli-license their contributions, many users copy and paste the "{{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}}" template into their user page, but there are other options at Template messages/User namespace. The following examples could also copied and pasted into your user page:

Option 1

I agree to [[Wikipedia:Multi-licensing|multi-license]] all my contributions, with the exception of my user pages, as described below:

{{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}}

OR

Option 2

I agree to [[Wikipedia:Multi-licensing|multi-license]] all my contributions to any [[U.S. state]], county, or city article as described below:

{{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}}

Or if you wanted to place your work into the public domain, you could replace "{{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}}" with "{{MultiLicensePD}}". If you only prefer using the GFDL, I would like to know that too. Please let me know what you think at my talk page. It's important to know either way so no one keeps asking. -- Ram-Man (comment| talk)

Off the net for a while

I'm experiencing severe problems with my computer equipment. I expect to be doing only minimal work on Wikipedia and Wikiquote for the next few weeks. — Jeff Q 18:50, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I'm back on the air, quicker than I thought. — Jeff Q 19:55, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Global English

Hi, Jeff. You might be interested in the International English article. Jallan has done good work and research there. Maurreen 05:41, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)