User talk:ClemRutter/Archives/2011/June

A UK Welcome to the Multilingual Challenge

Hello Clem. Welcome to the Wright Challenge. Feel free to ask further questions here or here, or ask Andrew or I. I was very impressed by your sundial article as were the people at Derby Museum (I was hoping to get it as a "Did you know" on the front page but I failed to notice its growth in the 5 day window)... and now I find out you speak French. Good luck Victuallers (talk) 08:56, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Yes- but I wasn't as lucky with this one John Whitehurst (in French) now unceremonious dumped as a subpage of my user page , and the admins over there seem to be more concerned about the purity of the language than we would be over here. As we know this is a learning curve, and the group of editors that become involved on the other side should be noted and encouraged to get involved. When I first took the Sundial article back in 2004 and 2007 it was all over the place, and editors were fighting the trivialista to get the science right- the same problem is evident here- the linguistically able baulk at the maths, and assume that their mathematical failings is actually the fault of the translation. If you do try to translate from John Whitehurst (in English) you do see what a poor article it is scientifically John Whitehurst (in German) is a far stronger article. It does illustrate User:Elya's the point made about the museums lack of publications. Do we need a template/ portal/ to stick on these translated pages to let other language groups know what we are doing- is it worth translating {{Derby Museum}} and including a link back? Should we build up a repository of such tools? I have a little more to finish tonight before I must take a break to host the annual garden party-- family arriving etc. (Wikipedians welcome! Samedi à Strood) --ClemRutter (talk) 22:43, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

I join in at Victuallers' invitation: this is now a conference call. I could imagine this happening on several wikis: we're lucky it hasn't till now but I'm very sorry you're the first. OK, about the French John Whitehurst, I'm not sure if its origin in machine translation is really as evident as is claimed on your French talk page but, as we know so well, admins sometimes make quick decisions. Moving it to your userspace was obviously intended as a helpful act. So. What's needed by their rule is for someone, not you, to be happy with the French text and move it back into encyclopedia space. I could do some rewriting on it, but I'm not quite bilingual: it would be much quicker and surer to ask someone who is a native speaker. How about Thomas Guibal (who also knows a little German, which could be handy). A second possibility is Bianchi-Bihan -- but I don't know, since that user contributes in Welsh and Breton, whether his/her imperialist language is French or English or neither. Of course, others could be asked too -- but these happen to be participants in the challenge and should be sympathetic! If you have difficulty finding help, don't hesitate: ask me again.

I like the suggestion about templates on these new pages or their talk pages. I had sort of been thinking of this but you have spurred me to do something right now. Well, tomorrow anyway. Thanks. Andrew Dalby 20:37, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments- I don't take things personally. This is all experimental and negative experiences are as valid as positive ones. From this we have learned that fr:Wiki does an auto-translator check on the first paragraph (they must have a reason) but as they did not pick up further changes to other paragraphs it seems to be solely the lead that they are touchy about. The main article has passed muster so far, and I am having that checked further this weekend. I'll stay in touch. --ClemRutter (talk) 21:30, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

That sounds a good way forward! Andrew Dalby 08:35, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

I notice the French "sundial" article has picked up a machine translation tag. Did you have any luck finding a French-speaking editor to help? Let me know how it goes. Andrew Dalby 13:25, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

I haven't followed it up- been I've bit busy all three of my tenants are preparing to leave the UK- and there has been a lot of partying to do. On another tack French WP seems to lacking some basic place articles fr:Belper, fr:Congleton which given my style of editing- I would want to sort out first. Perhaps all this is in the tradition of Diderot but I have other fish to fry. I will get back to it all when the opportunity arises. At the moment I have emails out to the museum re the Orrery- and to Helmshore trying to get some images approved- I am trying to bust the -for own personal use clause and set a precedent.

WP:FR does seem overly timeconsuming. The Derby Experiment was partly to gather interwiki information so I regard it WP:FR reaction as very informative. I am not ever sure if their language purity gendarmerie would be able to cope with an article using technical French. I certainly discovered that the WP:EN source was incredibly ambiguous and I am not sure how or where to feed back the information- its no wonder it Babelfished badly.

If you want to have a look at either article- feel free- it would help to understand further the French problem. --ClemRutter (talk) 14:37, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

I wouldn't urge thinking along the lines of "language purity gendarmerie". I assure you they were nicer than we might have been on Vicipaedia. We speedy-delete Google Translator texts ... But, you realise, I'm saying this without knowing how much human sweat went into your French pages. Yes, I'll do as you suggest and have a proper look at them. Andrew Dalby 17:54, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Having read them through, I have to say they need a fair bit of work to turn into French. I'm under time pressure and can't offer to do it myself, I'm sorry to say. You could ask Fanfwah or Kormin, who have just joined the challenge and are both writing French ... Anyway, in view of your experience I'm adding a note about machine translation to the Challenge page, and, again, I'm sorry that your time's been wasted before I thought to do this. Andrew Dalby 10:17, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

Strood railway station

Job for you! The Strood railway station article needs an image of the station for the infobox. The only photo on Commons is an exterior view and is not really suitable for the article IMHO. A better image would show the platforms and (shock, horror) a train or two! Mjroots (talk) 03:16, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

Dank je wel! Mjroots (talk) 19:47, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

Orrery image

Looking at Commons:File:Orrery_small.jpg and http://www.flickr.com/photos/95492938@N00/127601212 this appears to be one of those Getty-ised Flickr images. It was originally uploaded under an acceptable (to us) by-sa licence, as confirmed by Flickrbot. It is now under an unacceptable by-nc-sa licence. However these licences are irrevocable, it was an acceptable licence when we downloaded it, and it continues to be an acceptable licence. The project's very survival relies on the irrevocability of licences like this - we should strongly resist any suggestion that we will 'track' changing licences.

As the first image is also (IMHO) rather clearer, I'd also suggest restoring it. Andy Dingley (talk) 10:11, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

No problems. Go for it. --ClemRutter (talk) 10:26, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

Cotton display

Hi, You may be interested in the image I uploaded to commons today. I found the display in a school I was working at in Radcliffe. Richerman (talk) 13:57, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Excellent- Do you think they would notice if you unscrewed it from the wall :).

I'm sure that if the screw holes were filled in and the wall was repainted nobody would notice for weeks! The problem would be getting into the place - these primary schools are like Fort Knox these days. Actually that school was very useful as I was looking after it over the half-term break and also got some photos of an abandoned wasp's nest, which has gone to commons. I thought the picture would be useful for an article but I'm not sure which one - maybe Cotton mill? (the display that is - not the wasp's nest) Richerman (talk) 17:08, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Actually, I've now added it to Cotton and Cotton-spinning machinery. Richerman (talk) 17:35, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

I have already got it on the List of mills in Lancashire, List of mills in Preston but there are multiple places where it would fit. I can also see that it will generate a couple of new articles. Horrocks, Crewdson & Co is overdue- but History of use of visual aids in elementary education comes to mind. A further thought though is that an artefact like this deserves to be in a collection say at Helmshore, the Harris or even at MOSI- I can even think of the wall... --ClemRutter (talk) 17:51, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Wasn't "that belongs in a museum" Indiana Jones's catchphrase? I do agree though - it's probably wasted in a school. Just for reference it's at Radcliffe Hall Methodist School on the wall outside the IT room. Richerman (talk) 18:03, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

fr:Cadran solaire de Whitehurst & Son

Hi ClemRutter! I have revised your french article "fr:Cadran solaire de Whitehurst & Son"; You can now claim your 5 points. Best regards Dominik from Esperanto team --89.224.174.28 (talk) 20:03, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Wright Challenge and GlamDerby

Andrew Dalby and I have noted that some entrants to the Wright Challenge may run out of stuff to work on. I have been prodding the museum to release more pics and they will. I have an offer from Jonathon Wallis who is a manager at the museum to lend or give books on the museum. I'm sure I could get them mailed. Would you be interested in taking Jonathon up on his offer as articles of the quality of your sundial are rare. We are hoping to make Sept 3rd a big thing and I want to make sure it all goes well Victuallers (talk) 09:13, 10 June 2011 (UTC)