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Category headers

Yes, I did see these. I decided to make the boxes blue, following the lead of the existing headers. I've been getting over the flu, and have not been doing much for the last couple of weeks. -- Samuel Wantman 10:40, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Infoboxing

No, I don't know of any centralised discussion about infoboxes. It's probably high time to create, at the very least, as our only page on the subject is not very helpful. For instance, we really need to let everyone know that these things are being machine-parsed by Google, and to therefore not do weird things with them that might screw up that parsing. That's an issue entirely aside from their tendency to bloat, substitute for text, and, perhaps worst of all, their tendency to force editors to make either/or decisions about complicated things that should be discussed in the article rather than definitively stated (genres of musicians, capital cities of disputed territories, nationalities of people, etc.) If you're interested in this, I cannot think of any reason not to turn Wikipedia:Infoboxes into a real page rather than a redirect. Jkelly 17:49, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes, well, that will take someone time to sit down and write the essay/guideline. Is it best to start there, or write a draft in user space or a subpage of Wikipedia:Infoboxes first? Carcharoth 15:28, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
I, too, am troubled by some of the infobox trends, as is Tony1 (talk · contribs) - also concerned about extreme proliferation of navigational templates used in place of infoboxes at top of articles. I believe navigational "infoboxes" belong in See also - no policy to back me up, though. Also feel that some infoboxes are becoming gynormous. Please keep me in the loop if I miss any proposals. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:59, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
That's ironic, because I dislike footer navigational templates (which are effectively see alsoes) - see the ones at the bottom of United States President, or the one at the bottom of The Adventures of Tom Bombadil - but I wish we would use navigational sideboxes more. Compare the navigational sidebox on The History of Middle-earth, or for another example, History of Brazil (that is what is known as an article series). Navigational boxes are not infoboxes, and the two should not be confused. What do you think of these examples? Carcharoth 16:22, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
Well, you've given two examples that show the worst of footers and the best of sideboxes. Now imagine the alternate scenario: all that crap that is currently in footers being added as sideboxes ! That occurs in a lot of the Venezuelan articles, which have three and four competing vertical sideboxes - if we have all that, I'd rather at least have it at the bottom. (I'll find an example and come back.) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:25, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
Three sideboxes although most of the Venezuela series has two, side-by-side. If you look at some of the footers in those articles, imagine if they all became sideboxes. I suppose, anyway, that I'm mixing issues - infoboxes vs. navigational templates. Both concern me. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:31, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
The examples you gave should all be footer templates. The way to redesign them is to copy them to a different template under a different name (use the word "footer" in the name to avoid future misuse), turn them in to footer templates (copy the design of another footer template), and reduce the side templates in size. You should really stick the footer ones at the bottom of all the articles currently using them, but I'd say limit those large templates to the key articles. Of course, this is a lot of work and finding consensus to do it is not easy. Sometimes it is best to just go ahead and start making changes, and see what happens. Carcharoth 17:35, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
I know, but I don't work on Venezuela articles anymore—that's POV-central :-) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:40, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
Oh, OK. :-) Carcharoth 17:42, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Chateaux

Here you are, you can finish it. Where are the others. Giano 18:50, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

I think your monkey man lived at Antibes not Menton, take your pick from these Château Grimaldi Giano 13:25, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Template

Hi, you seem to be one i should ask this, i tried to add confession and political opinion to Template:Infobox Writer, but when i copied that to Henry Fielding, it wouldn't show. Why not? --FlammingoParliament 16:37, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

You didn't add it properly. I'll explain on the talk page. I've removed what you put for now. Carcharoth 18:45, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Vote

This was voted on, as a participant u should know better. Headphonos 21:58, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

How is the edit I made, providing the categories as a list, circumventing the deletion vote? I disagree, but you may have a point, so I am taking this to WT:CFD for further disucssion, as I would like to get further opinions on this. Carcharoth 22:08, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Your category content

Rather than let Geogre think he has an exciting new message: Category for people marked as having written a magnum opus in the Template Infobox Writer. The category was temporarily populated by adding [[Category:Magnum opus writers]] to the magnum opus field "title section" in Template:Infobox Writer. See Template talk:Infobox Writer for details and the reason for carrying out this operation. The category was then depopulated by removing the tag, after the contents of the category had been copied and made into a list. Yomanganitalk 14:29, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! :-) I can redo this now using CBD's method, without having empty categories floating around. Thanks for reminding me what I had written. Carcharoth 14:33, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Listcruft.

Hey, those lists are featured quality compared to this monster, before I stubbed it. Just ghastly. Check the history for the full, grim story. I think you might be vaguely amused, if not a little horrified. That was certainly my reaction. Cheers, Moreschi Deletion! 18:28, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Philwelch

Hello,

An Arbitration case in which you commented has been opened: Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Philwelch. Please add any evidence you may wish the arbitrators to consider to the evidence sub-page, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Philwelch/Evidence. You may also contribute to the case on the workshop sub-page, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Philwelch/Workshop.

On behalf of the Arbitration Committee, Thatcher131 12:25, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Re: Location of navboxes

I don't think it's an issue in practice, actually; campaignboxes have been placed in that bottom-of-infobox slot for years, and nobody has complained. (That's why I moved it, incidentally; the appearance of infobox + auxiliary box is pretty standardized across military articles at this point.)

More generally, I would argue that we should assume that a reader reaching an article has the primary goal of being introduced to the topic of that article (if only to find out whether it's what he's looking for), and only a secondary goal of navigating to some related topic. The primary infobox—which actually summarizes the topic—should thus be given priority of placement. As far as the bottom-of-infobox versus bottom-of-article question, I think it's reasonable to present some navigation options to the reader immediately after the summary material (infobox + lead), where possible; that's why MILHIST has adopted the various auxiliary boxes. Kirill Lokshin 17:15, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Flag icons again

I found that you have participated in the last discussion concerning the use of flag icons, but I wonder why it appears that the talk reached to an end without a real guideline or consensus. Would you consider restarting a guideline proposal which indicates when these tiny flags should be used (or at least when they should not be)? CG 17:49, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

I might not have time over the next few days. Sorry. Feel free to restart the discussion yourself. Carcharoth 17:58, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

DynamicPageList extension

As you may have noticed I put some work in making DPL even better than it was up to now. I would be happy to make DPL part of mediawiki or wikipedia installations. Is there a "promotion process" for this?

It would be nice if you could answer on my user page at the dpldemo web site. Thanks, -- Gero 84.59.13.38 13:13, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

WP Spain tag

I'll be glad to scale back the WP Spain tag on that Category:Fauna of Spain. You sound like to might be knowledgable about this area. Would you be able to look at the articles in that category and let me know if there's any critters in there which are unique to Spain, and hence might be appropriate for the WP Spain tag? Thx! EspanaViva 18:23, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm no expert, but I did look through the category and found the following endemic, or mostly endemic species (several are endemic to the Canary Islands, see also Category:Flora and fauna in the Canary Islands). Anyway, I'd recommend removing the WikiProject Spain banner from all the articles in Category:Fauna of Spain, except the following: Barbary Sheep; Balearic Shearwater; Boettger's Lizard; Bolle's Pigeon; Canary Islands Giant Rat; Egyptian Mongoose; El Hierro Giant Lizard; Fuerteventura Chat; Gallotia; Gallotia galloti; Granada Hare; Houbara Bustard; Iberian Lynx; Iberian Ribbed Newt; La Gomera Giant Lizard; La Palma Giant Lizard; Laurel Pigeon; Majorera; Myotragus balearicus; Podarcis hispanica; Pin-tailed Sandgrouse; Pyrenean Chamois; Pyrenean Desman; Pyrenean Ibex; Ratas Island Lizard; Roque Chico de Salmor Giant Lizard; Spanish Ibex; Spanish Imperial Eagle; Tenerife Speckled Lizard; Vipera latastei; Vipera seoanei.
Hope that helps. Carcharoth 01:42, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Following sources when categorising

Hi, I saw your comment: "It is reassuring to know that some people try and follow the sources when categorising, rather than categorising by their ideas of 'natural' groupings by countries." and thought you might be interested in this tracking category and explanatory text in, for example, Category:Flora of Australia. Hesperian 01:21, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

That is interesting. Thanks. What is your opinion on how to categorise something that is widely distributed, like lots of insects, or the common rat? Should these be categorised as native to a particular (large) area, and then categorised as a "widely introduced worldwide" species? Many insect species are found worldwide, so is it even appropriate to have a "range" category tag? What is the best way to balance category tags and providing information? Carcharoth 01:29, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
I've really only looked at this from the point of view of plants. My approach is to push taxa down the category tree only to the point where each distribution category contains only endemic or lowest rank taxa.
e.g.
This approach maximises the usefulness of the categories. Category:Plants of Namibia contains two subspecies of G. speciestwo, but it doesn't contain the species itself, because the species is not endemic to Namibia, and we were able to characterise Namibia's flora more accurately by categorising that species' distribution at subspecies level. Thus Category:Plants of Namibia is as useful as possible to people who want to know what plants grow in Namibia. Category:Plants of Africa, together with its subcategories, contains every plant that occurs in Africa, but the parent category is as empty as possible because it contains only higher-rank taxa that are endemic to Africa but not to any particular country. Thus Category:Plants of Africa is made as useful as possible.
You could adopt the same approach for insects, to make the insects by distribution categories as useful as possible. The down side would be that any lowest-rank insect taxon that occurs worldwide would be in a heck of a lot of categories. Even so, that's what I would do: categorise to make the categories as useful as possible, and if a species article ends up being in two hundred categories, so be it.
Hesperian 02:07, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Lothlorien Page History

I had checked before I deleted it and there were 3 edits from 2003 that seemed to be a sub-stub fork between redirects (perhaps an attempt at a copy-paste move). They didn't seem substantial at the time, but I will undelete them for the sake of completeness. Thanks. IronGargoyle 14:35, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Question

Hi there, are you still planning to add something here? Just curious:) — Lost(talk) 08:40, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Oh dear. Probably not, but I should at least update it to say that... Thanks for reminding me. Carcharoth 10:38, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Advice requested

Hi Carcharoth. I've been attempting to overview and tidy up the geography cats which involve the places where people live. There appear to be two useful ways of doing it - by region, and by size. Organising by region isn't a problem. But organising by size has become difficult because User:Hmains uses the term settlements to cover all sizes of communities, and has altered dictionary definitions [1] to fit his own understanding of the term - [2]. However, community appears to be the term used most often to describe the places where people live, regardless of size. This is the definition of community - [3]. Hmains has reverted much of my work, and insists on settlements being the term we should use - basing it on this decision, which was a declined proposal to rename Settlements by region to Populated places by region. What do you think? Is settlement an acceptable term for covering human communities ranging from well established cities down to refuge camps. Is Human community a viable alternative? Are there other choices? I have started a discussion here and here, with the above wording, but no response as yet. I have left this message on the talk pages of active Geography Project members. And then on this page. I am a bit lost as the best place to discuss this issue. I don't want to delete or rename any category. And I don't want to get into a revert war. I'd like an open debate to reach sensible consensus. I'm now leaving this message on the pages of WikiProject Category members. Can you advise? SilkTork 19:51, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Discussion taking place at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (settlements)#Settlements SilkTork 11:23, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Team effort

In the spirit of reducing the amount of Wikipolicies and obviating confusion (see WP:LAP), drafts are in progress for a unified deletion policy here, and a unified protection policy here. These should really be team efforts, so since you commented on the matter earlier I would like to ask your help. The intent is not to change policy, merely to clarify and remove reduncancy; thus, anything that inadvertently changes the meaning should be fixed. We should be ready to move the drafts over the existing policies soon, but this needs more feedback and consensus, otherwise it'll just get reverted by people who "like the old thing better". Thank you for your time. >Radiant< 13:24, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Re: Memorials to B-Class

Concerning La Ferté-sous-Jouarre memorial

Well, there's not a whole lot you can do, but I would say that most of the specific facts should be cited; the CWGC website is probably acceptable for this. If you have access to a database or microfilm collection of one (or more) of the major British newspapers, you might have a look for news coverage from the unveiling in order to help build the article a little. A few citations and a little expansion should bring it up to B-Class. However, it's not out of the question for an article like this to reach A-Class status - see Tent pegging, for example. Carom 23:39, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

The newspaper archives tip is a good one, thanks. I'll see what I can find. I have been ferreting around the web, and while I haven't found a name for the designer, I have found the date of the unveiling - 1928. Possibly, given the Fizeau connection, I might need to ask some friendly French Wikipedians to do some research into French newspaper records. I have now sorted the geographical co-ords and supplied a link to a satellite image of the memorial. I was also pleased to find a nice essay that explained that this is only one of four WWI British free-standing memorials on French soil (the others were in cemeteries or in Belgium). I suspect the Fizeau connection and the direct involvement of the people of La Ferte during the war might have had something to do with this memorial still going ahead. But that is just speculation at the moment - obviously a source is needed for something like that. One thing - I'm terrible at doing references - would you be able to tidy up the two I've put in so far, then I'll get more of idea of how to format them. Thanks, and don't worry if you can't or don't have time. Carcharoth 23:58, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
Your refs here look OK to me - there aren't any real, hard-and-fast conventions on how to cite websites, and the wiki-formatting looks fine. Nice work so far. Carom 14:21, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

More war memorials work

Also, if you want to do more work on war memorials, there are two or three tracks you can take.

  1. You can stub out articles on the cemeteries and war memorials in the CWGC database (provided, of course, that they are notable).
  2. You can work to bring the existing articles up to at least B-Class, and if you're feeling really ambitious, do a little research and bring one or two up to A-Class.
  3. You can start a portal to deal with military cemeteries and memorials; this would be a fair amount of work, and would need to extend beyond the CWGC.

I'm more than happy to help you out with any of these - let me know what I can do! Carom 23:48, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

OK. I'll look around and see what piques my interest. Thanks for the pointers. I'll shout if I need any help. I think I'll start with bringing existing ones to B-class, as I don't have the material to do one from scratch like I did for that one in France. I might try and visit some ones in and around London. Any photo requests there? Carcharoth 00:07, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
Not off the top of my head, but if you're prepared to take photos and release them under the GFDL, I can come up with a list pretty quick... ; ) Carom 00:13, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
OK. Go for it! :-) Carcharoth 00:15, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
(after edit conflict) Here's one already - the tomb of The Unknown Warrior at Westminster Abbey, although I'm sure there are restrictions on photographs on the premises. Carom 00:17, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
I do seem to remember photograph restrictions last time I went there, but that may have only been in some areas. I've been promising myself to 'sight-see' around London for some time, so I'll see what I can do. Watch this space and keep adding to the list! Carcharoth 00:20, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

DYK

Updated DYK query On 17 March, 2007, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article La Ferté-sous-Jouarre memorial, which you created or substantially expanded. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the "Did you know?" talk page.

--howcheng {chat} 18:17, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Tolkien Merge template

re: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Middle-earth#If_you_don.27t_mind_a_hand on behalf of CBD, an little boost from WP:TSP! (Not like I hadn't maintained the merge templates before) Cheers! // FrankB 06:37, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. The other stuff on that page there looks interesting. Are you doing much work in this area? We could do with all the help we can get. Carcharoth 10:32, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
To answer your question, I've been doing little but template work since Mid-January, spurred by need to get WP:TSP into some kind of shape--it's principal, and according to some, over complicated central tagging template {{interwikitmp-grp}} survived Tfd at that point. I was off wiki most of the late-fall and early winter dealing with minor things like making a living <g>... and frankly, I'm surprised it survived my absence anywhere, much less on seven of the sister's. In any event, I just modified {{merge JRRT}} again with what I think you may like better... it's an inline style now vice a banner boxy thing. If you need another tweak write some specifics then ping me on my talk. I'm 'supposed' to be working <g>, but will check messages now and then. (I really suck at watching my watch list though!) // FrankB 19:14, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Middle-earth#Templates_II, Ping delayed answer! // FrankB 17:08, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
Hi, User:Fabartus contacted me about this issue. perhaps I would be able to help. I con't give too much time as I am so busy on WP:Novels. However I will help where I can. I would need to do one small thing at a time. :: Kevinalewis : (Talk Page)/(Desk) 07:18, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
Thanks very much! As I said over there, it'll be a while before I get back to all this, but I'll get in touch at some point. Carcharoth 08:45, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject History of Science newsletter : Issue I - March 2007

The inaugural March 2007 issue of the WikiProject History of Science newsletter has been published. You're receiving this because you are a participant in the History of Science WikiProject. You may read the newsletter or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Yours in discourse--ragesoss 04:15, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Proposal comment

Did you see this sample vote that you describe as fiendishly complicated? I will open the page for comments by the end of the day today. I am still editing it, but try to read it before you say it is complicated. TonyTheTiger (talk/cont/bio) 16:27, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Sorry. Didn't realise the page wasn't open for comments yet. I'll add something explaining my reasons anyway. Carcharoth 16:33, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
I will take your comments into account as I edit. I am going to remove your comments made before I opened discussion. You can restate them after I edit if you wish. TonyTheTiger (talk/cont/bio) 16:52, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
OK. Good luck with the proposal. Carcharoth 16:53, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
Please revisit proposal 2 at Wikipedia:Today's featured article/amendment proposal TonyTheTiger (talk/cont/bio) 18:41, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Help please

Your urgent help would be most appreciated here. -- Jreferee 21:09, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Free monkey photo

No, and I'm not near a zoo or a monkey to get one. Of course, monkey testicles are only one of two species of testicles that would be - ehem - appropriate for that article. Two questions. Do you have a digital camera and just how loyal are you to the Wikipedian cause? -- Jreferee 03:19, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

LOL! Not that loyal. And a surgical picture would be better, anyway. Carcharoth 08:44, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
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