User talk:GregRobson/archive2

Archived messages from 7 April 2005 to 8 September 2005 in date order.

Election Results Template

Greg, I've just been looking at your experiments with election result templates at User:GregRobson/sandpit. I like what you are doing - I've been working on something along the same lines (see Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)#Template_for_multi-row_table).

I think we should combine our efforts.

I'm currently looking at a couple of ways of (a) making these templates easier to use and (b) achieving more consistency. I'll put something on my talk page when I'm hwqappy with the ideas. 80N 19:09, Apr 24, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks! I like what you've done on the village pump tech page, I had forgotten about the links, the shaded top part looks good too. I am still undecided on the benefits of a template for each row however. Because of the number of links in that section it's not probably going to be easier to code it manually than putting more load on the template system. Perhaps using a writing something up on the discussion page for the template with a list of colours and parties would be more appropriate?

I think the ideal solution would be my layout with the top and bottom two rows shaded pale gray (like you did on the tech page), with the links to the parties/candidates that you have done. Then the only issue is the colours for each party – but that shouldn't be to hard to agree on and is fairly straightforward. Thanks again. Greg Robson 20:27, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Performance is the least concern - maintainability and consistency are far far more important in the long run. Using a template for each row gives the flexibility to change the layout in the future without a lot of effort. Taxoboxes seem to provide a precedent for this. See the discussion page for Template:Infobox England place for an example of how to document the usage of a template - in my opinion a template is useless without good instructions. The colours should definitely be done using the Template:British politics/party colours/party mechanism, although I'd prefer if this were done as Labour party (UK)/meta/colour which would eliminate the need for a separate colour parameter and organise the meta data about an article in a more logical way. 80N 21:43, Apr 24, 2005 (UTC)

Greg, I've combined your ideas and Neil Tarrant's and tried to follow the style of United_Kingdom_general_election,_2005#Results. What I have arrived at is here. It uses templates for each row, but it would also work with regular wikitable syntax for the rows - so perhaps it should be left up to the user of the template to pick whichever approach they feel most comfortable with. Some questions:

In what order should candidates be listed?
Should the winning candidate be highlighted in some way or should the candidates be sorted once the results are in (that seems to be the convention)?
Does the /meta/colour and /meta/shortname mechanism make sense to you?
Should the Majority and Turnout rows have a grey background?
80N 00:25, Apr 25, 2005 (UTC)

Nice work! In answer to your questions...

Candidates should be listed alphabetically by surname before the election (as they listed on the ballot paper) for fairness. After the election, switch it to number of votes.
Following on from that, the winner will be at the top.
Yes, does that put in the links as well? And we can link the candidate names I assume?
Would probably look better, yes.
Extra point, it would best if the title could be specified in its entirity, then we can use for by-elections as well.

So the next steps I see are:

Making a checklist of all the consituencies on a page somewhere.
Getting people to put the candidates on their appropiate pages in alphabetical order. We can either leave them commented out, or write that these people are standing in the election.
Waiting for the day, and fill them in and re-order them when we have filled the results in! It's all coming along very nicely :)

Greg Robson 07:08, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Greg, in response to your points and questions:

I'll add instructions about sort order to the 'How to use' notes, when they're done
The links to the party are put in automatically
Candidate names can be linked by using |candidate = Oona King for example
I'll change it to pass the complete title rather than they year
the best place for a checklist would be Wikipedia:WikiProject UK Parliamentary Constituencies/Progress
I think the table performs well as a list of candidates before the results are known. As the results come in it will then be very easy to add them - hopefully that will happen very quickly on the night.
What name should these templates have, any ideas? Election result is very generic - but then I think this template could probably be used for any election in any country.
80N 10:33, Apr 25, 2005 (UTC)

All sounds good, I think Election result is good enough, most elections will involve that sort of information. If anyone wants to deviate they can create "Country" election result templates. If you could add highlighting to the bottom row (perhaps slightly lighter than the top shading?) then I think we can call it production ready and we can focus on getting all the pages ready. I'm starting to look forward to the election now!

Progress page is good (if slightly daunting – but I love grunt work), I'll be able to get cracking on this after Thursday when my last piece of coursework gets handed in for my degree! We might want to ask for some help on the UK notice board as well. Greg Robson 11:09, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Greg, I've created Template:Election box - called it box rather than result as it will be used for candidates as well as results. There's an example of it in use here. (Stay focussed on your coursework, there'll be plenty of time after Thursday and lots to do). 80N 15:33, Apr 25, 2005 (UTC)

Heh, by chance I keep checking shortly after you post! Looks great, only glitch is the New Britain candidate: their row is slightly taller – is that because of the <br> in one of the cells, perhaps using N/A might be better to show that the value wasn't missed out? Anyway it looks great. (I know Wikipedia is so addictive, there is always something to do!) Greg Robson 15:51, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Shuffling around of party candidates

What's your criteria for shuffling around the names on the Battersea constituency? Jooler 23:12, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

We're following the same method as they use on the ballot papers – sort them by surname in ascending order. But this is only for candidates, when the results go in it will be by votes descending.Greg Robson 23:16, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Changing location of seat names

Why have you moved a number of constituencies away from the common form of the name and to extremely unusual forms (e.g. West Tyrone to Tyrone West)? North Southwark and Bermondsey is given in that order - see for instance [the House of Commons page listing]. Timrollpickering 11:27, 1 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I was used article, thinking it that it might be source that has all the "common" ways of writing them. If some areas are wrong then feel free to redirect and fix the name. The only area that I would prefer to be kept are areas like Belfast (North/South/East/West) as I feel listing them as (N/S/E/W) Belfast is annoying as Belfast then gets listed in four different places. With over 600 constituencies there were bound to be mistakes, hopefully there are not too many! Greg Robson 15:45, 1 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Holborn and St. Pancras

correctly has a stop after the Saint (ie "St."). Reverting your move therefore --Vamp:Willow 17:49, 1 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

In that case there are several others that will need changing, I changed it as it was the only one of about seven to have the full stop. I took the list from Wikinews - 2005 General Election results Is there a policy on Wikipedia for abbreviating the title Saint? Greg Robson 17:56, 1 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not aware of specific WP policy, but usual usage is to leave the dot in there ime unless confirmed to remove it (it being, after all, an abbreviation.) cf. St Albans article specifically noting in the text that the dot is not used. --Vamp:Willow 18:27, 1 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

If I might jump in at this point (;-)), our policy is, AFAIAA, to use the full stop to denote abbreivation unless the case is exceptional in not using it, like the aforementioned St Albans (which I still say should be "St. Alban's" :-)). Note King's Cross St. Pancras tube station, St. James's Park, etc..

James F. (talk) 22:46, 1 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The article titles St Paul, St John, St Mary, St Mark, St Polycarp belie the notion that one should "leave the dot in". That is certainly not what authorities on English usage recommend, moreover. Fowler (MEU) and Partridge (YHAPT) both state the rule that the full-stop is not used if the last letter of the abbreviation is the last letter of the word. So "Mister", "Doctor", and "Saint" abbreviate to "Mr", "Dr", and "St"; whilst "Professor" and "Captain" abbreviate to "Prof." and "Capt.". I suggest moving back to Holborn and St Pancras (UK Parliament constituency), therefore. (Note the irony of the external link at the bottom of the very article itself using the correct punctuation!) I was reasonably careful about these things. ☺ Uncle G 00:44, 2005 May 2 (UTC)
- The issue of external links is a misleading one. Because of the computer-based nature of the internet, that little dot has additional meanings and functionality in 'cyberspace' which, on occasion, precludes correct use. A good comparison would be that WP demands a capital letter as the first character of an article's name, even if the article's name should not be capitalised. "Authorities" are in the choice of the beholder imho; and these are english articles for a UK subject so local and actual usage is far more important (I would suggest). --Vamp:Willow 09:14, 2 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  - The little dot could quite easily occur in the Guardian's page titles, just as other punctuation does occur for other constituencies. There is no technical reason for its absence, as you assert, and the external link is a reliable example of correct punctuation. The reason for the absence of the full stop is that it is incorrect for it to be there. Moreover, waving the "these are English articles about a UK subject" flag won't wash, and is actually quite ironic. You do know who Fowler and Partridge are, and what MEU stands for, don't you? You do realize that it is United States English usage (whose — other and different — authorities, such as Follett, would have "Saint" abbreviated to "St.") for articles about a UK subject that you are advocating, don't you? Uncle G 10:22, 2005 May 2 (UTC)

Moving constituencies

Why was Dorset South moved to a page with brackets in the title? There is no other meaning for "Dorset South". Joe D (t) 23:28, 1 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

My mind had probably glazed over, making the tables was quite a monotous task (have you ever typed out all 646 constituencies and check the status of each page?) I acknowledge that I may have made a few mistakes, however you have just proved how Wikipedia works so wel at fixing niggles. In the long run the tables are better than what we had before, even if I did introduce a few mistakes along the way. Greg Robson 07:11, 2 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Apology

Greg, I hope you don't think I'm treading on your toes, by putting some of the early figures in for your allocated area before you got to them. Please accept my apologies. I was testing a mechanism that will hopefully make it a lot easier and quicker to put the results in and do most of the calculations automatically. It's at [1]] but it's still pretty buggy yet. 80N 23:08, May 5, 2005 (UTC)

Don't worry, I'm happy for you to do that! I don't think we had fully thought this through, but this is the first time Wikipedia has tried to cope with an election, and there are bound to be things we can learn from. I'm happy for you to put those details in. I've been filling in the missing details from the BBC and updating the Member of Parliament section, as well as checking things off the progress list. Unless we had lots of people helping, I don't think the "pick regions" method was going to work. Greg Robson 23:15, 5 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Re: Work on UK Parliamentary constituencies

Hi Greg! I realised yesterday (upon reading the project talk page) that I should have been using &minus —so the final few that I entered yesterday are done that way. Once all the results are entered I will go back and change the ones that I did already. BTW. Do you have any opinion on how far back the historical results should go? Some of the articles have 1997 results, and yesterday I found that the guardian lists the 1992 results too. I added these to the Sheffield Hallam article, but I suspect that this is overkill. JeremyA 16:03, 8 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Newbury (UK Parliament constituency) goes back to 1959. I shouldn't be too worried about including 1997 results. ☺ Uncle G 16:25, 2005 May 8 (UTC)

Perhaps 2001 and 2005 for starters, we can always work backwards once the current coverage is done. Greg Robson 16:34, 8 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Ideally I hope they will go back to the founding of the constituency! But that would take a lot of research and double checking. If the guardian carries 1997 results (even if not with full detail), then I say add them in. Perhaps one day we can go back to the days when parties like the Whigs were common! Greg Robson 16:34, 8 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Wikiproject categories

I wanted to have your opinion before I started. I might soon rework the the page for the wikiproject. While the current one is quite nice, I find it unhelpful to the newcomer, and even confusing at times. Just wanted to tell you so you don't feel offended or anything. Circeus 18:42, July 11, 2005 (UTC)
- No worries, that's the whole point of wikis! Glad for the help! Greg Robson 22:24, 11 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, I was thinking to join your project, but I am not sure where and how should I start. I mean there are no guidelines or smth. There are 1000's of categories and we need some sort of rules/organization/classification... I need some start-up orientation. Is there any place to read/discuss these matters? Well firstly (which bothers me most for some stupid reason), there are many categories like "<year> births" or "<year> deaths." I really think they are not neccessary. Many of them have only 1 or 2 articles. I would simply delete them all. Pretty bold, huh? :)

- Hi, I've been rather busy of late, but I shall sort this out this evening. Greg Robson 07:30, 22 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

My sincerest apologies

Hello Greg, I turned you down at the RfA. I mentioned that it took you two years to make less edits then I got in a month... My reason for this wasn't about you... it was more AGAINST your first support vote, Denelson83... he votes people in based on how long they've been around which slightly gets on my nerves. With this, I will not only change my vote from oppose to support but maybe get a friend or two to vote you in. With respect, Redwolf24 01:50, 17 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I see you changed your vote, no worries about the initial vote against. I realise the voting probably involves some background politics with each admin having their own beliefs on what constitutes a "good admin". Greg Robson 07:39, 17 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Congratulations!

Congratulations! It's my pleasure to let you know that, consensus being reached, you are now an administrator. You should read the relevant policies and other pages linked to from the administrators' reading list before carrying out tasks like deletion, protection, banning users, and editing protected pages such as the Main Page. Most of what you do is easily reversible by other sysops, apart from page history merges and image deletion, so please be especially careful with those. You might find the new administrators' how-to guide helpful. Cheers! -- Cecropia | explains it all ® 03:50, 21 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! I shall indeed look through the reading list to ensure I know don't break any rules. Greg Robson 06:55, 21 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Some questions about categories

Hi there. I recently got interested in categories, and I spent some time reading this page [2] and the discussions on the talk pages, especially this one [3] and found this project page [4] and your page about the category map you created [5]. All very interesting stuff, and I definitely want to get involved with categories a lot more. What I was hoping for was some feedback on what I did recently on some categories. In particular, the way I organised the Category:Natural hazards (I think I may have gone too far, especially with the awkward subcategory of Category:Biological hazards, plus I had to work with an existing awkward confusion between Natural disaster and Natural hazard). I also have ideas for similar organising of the Category:Disasters (which I haven't got round to doing yet), plus I also created and populated Category:Wildfires. Before going any further, I wanted to check that I'm not doing anything too wrong, so I'm putting this comment on the Talk pages of several people I saw participating in the discussions I read. I'm not too sure yet how these talk pages work either, so comments on the appropriate page might work better. Plus, is there an easier way to do this categorisation? It is sometimes a bit laborious! Carcharoth 19:43, 8 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

First of all: thanks for the excellent work! Some nice categorisation there! Feel free to add yourself to the particpants list on the project page. Don't worry if you don't think your work is absolutely perfect, a lot of these categories could get no worse and any categorisation is better than the mess they are currently in. From what I can see there isn't much you could do to improve them apart from finding any stray articles to put in them.

An easier way... in a lot of cases there is none: there is User:Pearle, a bot that can automate some tasks, however for most of the tidying that is needed is time and the ability to come up with good category names! Greg Robson 21:07, 8 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]