User talk:Thumperward/Archive 28

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Interest in adminship/need for admin tools?

Hi Chris, I've seen you around on various pages and you seemed like you had your head pretty squarely on your shoulders. I recently responded to your editprotected request at Template:SectOR and thought it was odd, because I had pretty much assumed you were an admin already. I notice you were nominated for adminship before. Are you still interested in adminship? Do you feel like you've taken care of the issues which sunk your nomination the first time around? I'm not promising to nominate you, or even support you, I just wanted to know if you were even interested before I did a thorough background check. Cheers,--Aervanath lives in the Orphanage 13:51, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. I think I'm a much better editor than I was this time last year, yeah. I'd still be up for nomination in future. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 14:31, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
Okay. Any big issues that have cropped up since then? Editing conflicts, or other things that might lead editors to oppose you?--Aervanath lives in the Orphanage 17:17, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
The most likely torpedo scenario is to do with user:A Nobody, who is guaranteed to oppose. Various editors have opined on my boldness in editing on occasion, but I don't think there's any specific point of recent contention. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 17:36, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
Alright. I'll start digging through your contributions. What is A Nobody's issue with you? What are they likely to base an oppose on?--Aervanath lives in the Orphanage 18:32, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
Pretty much copy/paste the oppose from my RfA with some minor changes (as chris is less volatile than I am). Protonk (talk) 18:40, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm also a bit surprised you aren't an administrator; if your name comes up in RfA, I'd support you for sure. Warren -talk- 02:15, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Hi there. I know that you put this page up for AFD, but I just came by to correct your actions concerning Kamen Rider G3. When fixing up some of the templates, I just now saw that you had redirected that page to Kamen Rider Agito claiming it was the same information. I have undone this because G3 and G4 are radically different articles. The latter was a character that solely appeared in the series' motion picture. The former is a character that actually appeared in the series and is more or less unrelated to the outcome of the AFD on G4's page. I understand the confusion as they have similar names, but the content of the articles was not "preciely the same" as you stated in your edit summary.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 05:09, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

That's the subject of the articles, not the content. The G3 article's content is presently 100% in-universe just like the G4 one was. I've tagged it for cleanup. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 13:35, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
Still, the subject of the G3 article is more notable than the subject of the G4 article. I will be trying to clean up some of these older articles that were simply split off from its parent article.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 21:19, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
Sure thing. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 21:43, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Not self references when they are encyclopaedia articles based upon proper sources

Indeed. It's such a shame, therefore, when so many people get this wrong that Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Talk page happens. Uncle G (talk) 01:10, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

  • Yep. That said, I think that in this case the argument for keeping the article is much stronger in that the secondary sources used are literally written on the subject of "deletionism and inclusionism in Wikipedia", as opposed to sort of covering it in the process of discussing Wikipedia or wikis in general (as with talk page's last pre-redir revision). Quite why it was closed as a cross-namespace redirect is beyond me, though. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 01:18, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
    • I don't fault Sandstein for the closure, given the discussion. The discussion, including the exceedingly poor rationales given by quite a number of editors, was the problem. It's such a shame that it resulted in the very outcome that is, if one puts it to Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion, almost always rejected.

      I disagree that 8 pages in one book, 7 pages in another, and a large number of pages that I haven't counted in Charles Matthews' book at the bottom, is "sort of" coverage, by the way. Is even one source at Deletionism and inclusionism in Wikipedia#References as long as those? ☺ Uncle G (talk) 01:40, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

      • Well, that's really an argument for a review of that AfD. I can only say that it's readily apparent after five minutes with the web-accessible sources on the inclusionist/deletionist article that it's suitable for WP articlespace; were I to be commenting on the talk page AfD I'd hope that I'd have examined those sources more thoroughly. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 01:57, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

re: image on {{peacock}}

Thanks for the message. I do think, however, that the image is more appropriate for this template. I re-added it full size (I think it was shrunk to 40px before), so if it's still a problem you can take appropriate action and I'll go for a discussion on the talk page. Mikco (talk) 16:17, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, it's still a problem. I don't believe the new image is an improvement, and it's less consistent with our other warning images. I'll take it to the talk page. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 16:39, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
I get what your saying. I've replied to the discussion you started. Mikco (talk) 17:58, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

re: manual box on the chomski page

hi, it seems you added a manual template box to the chomski page. Why dont you add this first to the sed page or the many other unix command line tool pages which are in exactly the same format and have been around for much longer than the chomski page? M3b (talk) 19:02, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Good catch. I've tagged it. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 21:02, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

busy?

You have actually been very busy on wikipedia. Could you please take your time and finish external media. The current solution is not acceptable and as I said I will completely revert it if you don't make progress and get the job done properly. Greetings Wandalstouring (talk) 14:06, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Take a look at the current documentation (located here) and tell me if it's clear enough. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 14:33, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Scrolling reference sections

Ok, sorry. I didn't know and thought it looked really good. —Preceding unsigned comment added by The Illusional Ministry (talkcontribs) 16:03, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

No worries. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 17:28, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Howdy. I saw you made a change to the "In-universe" template. Would you be willing to make the change I suggested here? I posted the idea back in April and noone commented that it was a bad idea.--Rockfang (talk) 00:08, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

It's already supported, actually. I've left a comment. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 00:14, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Bot archiving

Just out of curiosity, why don't you use a bot to archive your talk page for you?--Rockfang (talk) 00:20, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Bots are imprecise. Manually archiving gives me the control to place the cut-off precisely where I want. Over time I've learned to appreciate bots on other talk pages (I even helped set one up for a user the other week), but I don't consider it that much effort to maintain my own by hand. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 00:23, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

removal of Protection! Licensing Toolkit

Please explain your thought process/arguments for removal of recent link to "See also" on Copy protection#See also You indicate that this is an "Inappropriate promotion" but I failed to see how this a) a promotion v) different form current "See also" links like: [[1]], [[2]], [[3]], among several others.

(Karra.sun (talk) 19:28, 17 December 2008 (UTC))

Those are articles on products. The links were placed into the "References" or "External links" sections. Please ready our guidelines on what "See also" sections should contain, at WP:SEEALSO. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 19:41, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the compliment, but you were the one who initiated it, without whom it would not have happened. Wouldn't have had a clue myself about how to effect any such shift. Now that the world's favourite meditator has announced some sort of withdrawal from the scene (whereby must hang a tale, involving all sorts of behind-the-scenes wrangling) I've only now really started to look at the main body of the article. Appears, to my surprise, that—like the man himself recently—it may be in need of surgery. Regards Wingspeed (talk) 21:12, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. Here's to future collaboration! Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 22:45, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, Thumperward. You have new messages at StephenBuxton's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

18:02, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Replied. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 18:02, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Blu Ray disc article

Hello Thumperward

I was wondering if we could collaborate on this article: Blu-ray_Disc

The page is written in a way extremely looking like a marketing paper to favor the adoption of this type of disc. I think it needs to be balanced to show the criticisms that have been voiced against the restrictive features it imposes on end users. I put a link to a site explaining the drawbacks of this technology. An editor there of whom I have no idea about his motivation to do so has removed the link repeatedly using the argument that it is "inappropiate".

Can you have a look and tell me what you think? --Grandscribe (talk) 10:59, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Articles should not contain "criticism" sections, but may include appropriate criticism inline with contextually-appropriate sections. These should not be confined to the External Links section. The link in question is plainly not a reliable source, and is evidently an advocacy site rather than a reference piece. Furthermore, using all-uppercase in section headers on the talk page rarely helps to convince editors that one is right, nor does the use of loaded words such as "propaganda". It is unlikely that the current maintainers of the page have any conflict of interest regarding the promotion of Blu-Ray, so alleging such is not likely to be effective. If I were you, I would take the time to discuss the issue on the article's talk page and work to see if the criticisms contained in that link can be incorporated throughout the article in a more neutral manner. There is no time limit on articles, so whether the article contains such commentary right now or in five minutes or whatever is not important in the long run. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 11:16, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
I did not notice the all-caps until I sent in my comments. It's like shouting. I will take into consideration your suggestions. Thanks for your feedback. --Grandscribe (talk) 12:07, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

edit link bunching

You can use Template:FixBunching to avoid editlink bunching. Wandalstouring (talk) 10:34, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

I know, but it's a hack. Moving the floats in question down is a simple and effective solution. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 10:37, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Section Headers

Thanks for pointing out the rule about section headers - I was not aware of it. Will try my best to fix any I have done incorrectly and to keep aware of it in future. Thanks again. Season's greetings! John Hill (talk) 11:20, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

No problem. You might also want to note that section headers should always be in sentence case (rather than Title Case). Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 11:30, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Re:Reptilian trivia

Actually, that article largely consists of information that many could consider utter trivia. By the standards of this article, the political section is rather relevant, I think. Serendipodous 12:55, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

The whole thing needs a hacksaw taken to it. The politics section is horrible even if it looks okay compared to the rest of it. Hopefully I'll get to properly addressing this at some point. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 15:06, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Film box widths

I've widened the boxes. Any idea why there's still slight difference? Flowerparty 13:14, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Cellpadding. Try syncing with Template:Infobox Film/sandbox again; I've tweaked this. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 14:32, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Seems to do the trick. Nice work. Flowerparty 14:42, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Template:External media

Hi Chris. Is it appropriate to include also flash animations on Template:External media? --Geronimo20 (talk) 20:30, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't see that it's any more inappropriate than any other form of video, although I would caution that {{external media}} is only meant to be a stop-gap measure while better links are found in general. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 20:42, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

fyi re captions are off-center

I see you've commented on that page previously and thought you might like to chip-in on my thread. Cheers, Jack Merridew 09:37, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for bringing this up. I haven't anything to add to your comment, except that I've seen this too and it's something I'd love fixed. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 09:44, 23 December 2008 (UTC)
The whole discussion will probably drift until after the Christian Holidays or even into next year. I'll be back to drag you into the discussion if folks don't get it. I expect, however, that they well. Cheers, Jack Merridew 09:50, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Infobox Film

If this template is converted to {{Infobox}}, then it would be desirable to have other related templates converted as well. Do you think you could take a look at {{Infobox Korean film}} and (in the sandbox) demonstrate how this could also be converted? I've had a crack at this myself, but the additional parameters in this template are more complex and are proving to be a bit tricky. This is in large part where my opposition to the meta stems from, because I have yet to see how it copes with the more intricately coded infoboxes out there. Thanks in advance. PC78 (talk) 12:42, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

Done. Pinging you on your talk page too. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 10:49, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
Cheers, I won't have time to look at it properly until after new year though. Regards. PC78 (talk) 11:50, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
I've added some extra code to the rr, mr and hanja parameters to fully duplicate what the existing template does. It seems to work OK, but since my efforts have laregely been a case of trial and error, do you think you could check over it? Thanks. PC78 (talk) 20:26, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

botched up migration

You didn't migrate the version we agreed upon. The new version had the old drawbacks in layout that botched up several articles. I inserted the sandbox version, loosing your documentation in the process. Please make your documentation a subpage and reinsert it and NO I'm not tolerating any changes to the layout. In the discussion we agreed that your layout version is problematic causing considerable confusion in articles. Happy X-mas. Wandalstouring (talk) 13:20, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

I assume this is fixed now, what with the recent edits made to it. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 10:14, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Merry Christmas

--A NobodyMy talk 02:58, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

Merry Christmas Thump. ChildofMidnight (talk) 08:37, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

Messed up move

Something messed up in the move you did here [4] as can be seen here on this page [5]. I expect all the pages that linked to that template are now similarly broken.--Crossmr (talk) 03:13, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

  • Seems fine to me from a check of a few pages. Maybe just some time for the changes to percolate across transclusions? Protonk (talk) 03:33, 25 December 2008 (UTC)
    Actually turns out it was just the pages that were on a double redirect linking here: [6]--Crossmr (talk) 08:21, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

PLOT

You changed the redirect WP:PLOT to point at Wikipedia:Plot summaries, as opposed to WP:NOT where it's been pointed for over a year and a half. I've undone those edits as they confuse and complicate previous uses of the PLOT shortcut; where an editor used it to link to NOT, now it links somewhere they never intended. Please seek consensus (WP:BRD) before re-moving the shortcut again. — pd_THOR | =/\= | 15:17, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year 2009!

Hello Chris,

I sincerely wish you a Merry Christmas and a Good Year 2009! I look forward to us being able to collaborate in a constructive way in the coming year.
--Grandscribe (talk) 20:23, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Nice work on Bronze

I like the way you rearranged the images in Bronze. PRRfan (talk) 15:41, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 10:18, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Your GNU/Linux removals

Hi Chris,

it took me a while to find out why you have deleted a line of "On GNU/Linux systems, ...", as you did not give any reason for the removal of a whole phrase. While I admit on your consistency argumentation w.r.t. GNU/Linux / Linux, I think you should at least give a reason, and really *change* from GNU/Linux to Linux, if you feel so, but you should't *remove* *whole phrases* without further notices.

The article of interest was http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picogen .

Thanks,

Phresnel (talk) 12:30, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Removing the phrase if it isn't required (or rewording it to "Unix-like systems" or "Cross-platform" or such if those are applicable) has been found to be an acceptable compromise. I've already agreed in the past that in the interests of harmonic editing with those who disagree with me I won't just search/replace the strings in question. In the case of that particular article, frankly I felt that the specific platforms a given feature was available on was too trivial to warrant including it. That article will need a significant rewrite in the long run to be presentable. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 12:47, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
Thank you for the fast reply. I see, but then I think it would be even better if I kill the whole statement about arbitrary large heightmaps, as picogen's source code is portable std-c++, except for rare cases like that 'feature'. I also agree that it lacks references, but then there are many article that lack 3rd-party references, and I personally think it is good that they exist. But obviously opinions diverge here. What do you think, if you have the time, should happen with this article: rewrite and then just two or three phrases, and exit()? - Phresnel (talk) 12:57, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
I'm not sure about the article's long-term future. I'm very much in the camp that says our articles on software should be composed entirely of material taken from secondary sources, though; articles can always be expanded in future, and we shouldn't be encouraging users to treat Wikipedia as a primary source when projects usually have their own home pages to provide basic details on what they're about. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 13:07, 2 January 2009 (UTC)


Okay, so I am going to rewrite the article in the next days, then with just a short summary and maybe the screenshots, and the rest be delegated onto the project's homepage. Many thanks for pointing that out! Phresnel (talk) 13:23, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

{{Infobox Court Case}}: "Prior actions" parameter

Hi, Chris, see the discussion at "Template talk:Infobox Court Case#Infobox". Do you find any problem with the "prior actions" parameter? Wikidea says it isn't working, but I haven't noticed anything wrong with it. Have I coded it, or the header above it, incorrectly? — Cheers, JackLee talk 17:03, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

It's working fine here. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 17:06, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

That's what I thought. Anyway, thanks for looking into it. Will get in touch again if either Wikidea or I encounter any issues with the template. — Cheers, JackLee talk 17:14, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

{{Infobox Court Case}}: Removal of default image

Hi, need some more help with this template, if you have the time. I amended the template recently to automatically display a coat of arms or photograph of a courthouse if certain courts are specified for the "court" parameter; if some other court or no court is specified, then the default image File:Old-bailey.jpg was displayed. I effected this by having {{Infobox Court Case}} transclude another template, {{Infobox Court Case/images}}.

An editor, Wikidea, who uses the template a lot, has asked if the default image can be removed. Because the #switch function requires some default, I tried replacing it with File:No image.svg. The problem is, {{Infobox Court Case}} defaults all image sizes to 180px if no argument is provided for "imagesize". This is fine for images, but in the case of No image.svg it just creates a big blank space! Any ideas? — Cheers, JackLee talk 18:45, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

You need another conditional predicated on the existence of the {{{court}}} parameter. I've added it. Let me know if that's worked. In general, though, I don't think images should be included in the infobox unless they're really necessary - I'd support removing this again. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 20:28, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

It solved part of the problem, but I managed to fix the rest of it. Thanks for your help. — Cheers, JackLee talk 17:39, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Now that this template is stable and is gradually being adopted, could some documentation be added explaining how the template should be used and giving the code to be pasted into an article? At present, I can only use the template by copy-pasting from an existing article. Cheers and thanks for all your hard work. Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 05:41, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Sure. It only needs trivial changes to the old docs. I'll work on this soon. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 08:43, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Vorpal sword split

Thumperward, you are a faithful editor of the vorpal sword article, and it is for that reason that I wish to call your attention to this discussion topic. I don't know your opinion, but I'd like to have the say of another involved editor. Thank you. MagnesianPhoenix (talk) 07:32, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Replied over there. Thanks. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 09:20, 9 January 2009 (UTC)