User talk:Jacobolus/Archive 2005

Images

Hi, welcome to Wikipedia.

If you want an image deleted, you should list it on Images for deletion. After a week, if there are no objections, an admin will delete it. Rick K 21:27, Jan 17, 2005 (UTC)

Welcome. Thanks for your great pix of some Maya ruins! (Yes, no doubt some are now more accessible than when I hitched rides on lumber trucks to get to them many years ago.) Best wishes, -- Infrogmation 05:16, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)

US flag

Hi. Thank you very much for uploading that antialiased image of the US flag. Could you please upload the original EPS file. I would really like to have it. —Cantus…☎ 03:10, Feb 14, 2005 (UTC)

Yes, you could email it to me. The colors of the flag you made are correct in Photoshop, but in everything else they differ slightly (although visually I can't tell). I do not really know why this happens (I'm not an expert), and I sure would love to know how to make it look correct in every application. But the difference is so slight that I don't see this as an urgency. —Cantus…☎ 05:14, Feb 14, 2005 (UTC)

You've been doing really beautiful work with the historical US flags. I am guessing you got the design info from the FOTW link at the bottom of the page. I must say this will probably encourage me to complete the rather tedious task of putting the Template:FOTW on all the flag pages, seeing to what good use you have put this info. Thanks for the encouragement.--Pharos 18:36, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Positive and negative longitudes

From a strictly mathematical point of view, our usual standard is to use a right-hand coordinate system, in which angles are measured in a counterclockwise fashion. --Jacobolus 00:10, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

And counterclockwise viewed from above the north pole equal to clockwise viewed from above the south pole, so that doesn't help unless you say which pole is preferred. Michael Hardy 01:27, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Negroponte article

Thanks for your good work on the John Negroponte article. There appear to be a lot of people who would like to turn that article into bland mush. FWIW, I wrote the original text some 15 months ago, before he was appointed to Iraq, when he was an obscure historical figure no one cared about. Nice photos from Chiapas! Best, -- Viajero 08:25, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

P.S. As to assertions that Negroponte didn't know what was happening at the time in Honduras, note this comment:

[...] While Ambassador to Honduras during the Contra War in the 1980s, Negroponte had to manage CIA and DOD intelligence operatives. He was not an ignorant bystander but an active player in the process. [1]

This from a right-wing blog dedicated to counterterrorism. -- Viajero 10:11, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Well, there is one "alleged" about which I still have my doubts: it is in the second paragraphy of the intro:

his alleged covering up of human rights abuses carried out by CIA-trained operatives in Honduras in the 1980s.

Note the comments at the end of the Honduras section by Christopher Dodd. Alleged? I don't think so.

Indeed the article could use more about the Iraq period, but perhaps useful information will only appear in time, as did the revelations about Honduras. Cheers, -- Viajero 12:10, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Mexican maps

Yes, please do. A close-up of the country's central belt where we could actually see some of the smaller states would be particularly useful. Having said that, we don't have any individual state maps: perhaps they should take priority over re-doing somethat that, while not perfect, already exists? Colours? Grey/white and blue for background land and sea is nice and neutral and pretty much standard; why not? Go for it! –Hajor 17:07, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Good work so far; well done. My only criticism is they look a bit washed out, at least to my tired, myopic eyes. Could you try with a stronger green? And the internal state borders either in a sharper white or in black? Maybe it's just me, but I'm honestly having trouble seeing what's going on: a color scheme like the one on (eg) Utah is a lot clearer. Cheers, –Hajor 14:54, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I like the idea of good Mexican state maps – they would really be a significant addition to the state pages. Also, I like the new country maps, though I agree with Hajor's concerns - couldn't there be a bit more contrast so it's easier to see what's what? It's especially difficult to see the green for small states. --Spangineer ∞ 02:52, Mar 12, 2005 (UTC)

Muhammad

When you read the Demon article, you did not have to change "Mohammed" to "Muhammad". Multiple spellings are acceptable because his name was transliterated from Arabic characters to Latin characters.--Surnólë 02:55, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Does it really benefit wikipedia to have the same name spelled 8 ways? --jacobolus (t) 02:27, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I am not sure it's a good idea for you to do a mass change of Muhammed->Muhammad as you have been doing. There is a toleration for different transliterations and both of those being acceptable have a right to be kept. I believe there is a policy that states you should not just change the spelling of words so long as they remain consisten throughout the article. gren 22:47, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The same Prophet Muhammad had his name spelled sometimes 3 ways within a paragraph. I decided that having I believe 8 distinct spellings was silly, and that Wikipedia would benefit from writing the Prophet's name with a uniform spelling. Certainly this does no harm. --jacobolus (t) 02:25, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

On words with multiple acceptable spellings, policy says that it is desirable that words be spelled consistently throughout a single article, but to establish a single spelling across the 'pedia is not desirable, because it unnecessarily forces us to debate over which spelling to use, and then implementing that spelling, and then "correcting" the spelling of those who didn't get the message the first time, when our time would be better spent making substantiative edits. In other words, policy tolerates a diversity in spelling, and when you don't, you annoy others. Shimmin 00:57, Mar 5, 2005 (UTC)

There doesn't seem to be much debate about how to spell Muhammad's name. And the only way to establish a single spelling across each article was to find all the articles that used the name, at which point it was easy enough to simply change them all to the same spelling. Sorry if I could've better spent my time, but I don't see why that should annoy others. --jacobolus (t) 02:25, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

It is not just about uniformity through the 'pedia, diversity of spelling and toleration. More importantly, different people spell their name differently, which can be problematic if people then try to find other material on the web about the same person. Uniformity should apply to one person, not different people and the same name in different cultures. I like the idea of pointing out within an article that the name of a person is a form of a name other or even most people might be familiar with in another form. But to move, for example, Mehmet Ali Agca to Muhammad Ali Aga or Heydar Aliyev to "Haider Ali", would be just wrong. And to address a specific change you made, I doubt, for example, that Mohammad Ali Bogra, spelled his first name "Muhammad"; someone looking for "Muhammad Ali Bogra" will most probably not find any of the documents that actually refer to that person. I will check on Bogra and get back to the article.

PS: I think there is official Wikipedia policy to use the spelling of names preferred by the individuals themselves.—iFaqeer (Talk to me!) 20:47, Mar 14, 2005 (UTC)

"Muhammad Ali Bogra" is the spelling used by the article itself, and by 90% of the pages linking there. It's silly then to have the article located at "Mohammad Ali Bogra" I'm not wantonly changing all muslim names, and I agree we should leave Mehmets and Heydars as they are. --jacobolus (t) 02:25, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I guess when I, for one, saw the long list of articles on my watchlist in which the only change was your change to the name "Muhammad", I did jump to a conclusion. And I understand your logic about using the spelling other pages link to. However, the problem is that Bogra himself most probably didn't spell it that way; he was from Bengal. I just don't want to make the change till I can find out for sure what he used. Will keep looking. Thank you for the well-thought out answer well expressed answer.—iFaqeer (Talk to me!) 02:30, Mar 15, 2005 (UTC)

Harvard

Thanks for letting me know about the discussion on my talk page, since I often do not monitor specific pages these days. —Lowellian (talk) 19:39, Mar 4, 2005 (UTC)

phi/varphi

The usage of phi in coordinate systems and varphi for the generic variable is the usage that I have encountered personally; elsewhere, I cannot say. Dysprosia 07:56, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Image:Liberty-delacroix.jpg

Could you please provide a reason for you speedy deletion tag? I can't find anything wrong with the image. Mgm|^(talk) 14:16, Mar 14, 2005 (UTC)

Paul Wolfowitz

Hi, Jacobolus. Protection was initially requested on Wikipedia:Requests for page protection. Considering his recent nomination for President of the World Bank, combined with the feelings that many in the world have for him, I saw no reason not to block temporarily. Of course, if another administrator sees reason to unblock, I would not be especially opposed to that either. – Clockwork Soul 23:18, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Flag Images

I'm not aware of any specific policy on this, but I think this would fall under the jurisdiction of the wikipedia:Manual of Style. Are you saying that all uploaded image cannot be larger than 300px? I know of no such rule and the rule doesn't seem to be followed anywhere...Are you talking about the image embedded in the article (that is at flag of the United States), the smaller version available at the image description page (Image:Us flag large.png), or the actual size of the uploaded image (Media:Image:Us flag large.png), which is quite large? I'm not sure what you mean. --Ji ang 03:33, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Image use policy now recommends using the software to resize image. Before the extended syntax was available, the recommendation was uploading two versions, with the smaller version being 250px wide.--Ji ang 03:48, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks for the edit, didn't notice that. :) M87

Edit

You can edit in my user page anytime...it matters not to me...you can even remove this discussion comment...thanks, have a great day.--MONGO 08:14, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

H.K.

Hi, I took a brief look at the Kissinger article. I am no fan of the man -- in fact, I find him a loathsome figure and I find it offensive that he won a Nobel Peace prize -- but the article is not so bad as I thought it might be. One thing that caught my eye was the suggestion he ended the Vietnam war, when in fact I believed he extended it, hence the mockery of the Peace prize. I also thought the "rebuttals" of the Hitchen's charges were pedestrian ("no evidence"). As for the rest, there may be other problems, and I will look at more closely shortly, but keep in mind that he was and is something of a celebrity; that stuff about him going out with startlets in the 1970s was true; he had a certain nerdy cachet. Keep one thing in mind: articles on high-profile figures here are inevitably going to be less than ideal the most we can hope for is for articles with which we have no major quarrels. That the war criminal charges against him are listed is a small but important victory. As for your suggestion about a grouping of like-minded souls, I don't think it is a good idea. It would serve as a lightning rod for charges of bias etc. Better to arrange these things on an ad hoc basis. Best thing to do is what you have just done. Keep your eye out for other editors whose editorial judgment you respect, and when you see an article that needs work, drop them a note. Sometimes it can take awhile, but if the problems are serious then people will mobilize eventually. As for Kissinger article, it is unlikely that it can be radically altered at this point, but we can add a little information he and there to balance it a bit (we can't change the fact he got the Nobel for "ending" the war but we can flesh the story out a bit). I will look into the peace process (I've got a copy of Seymour Hersh's bio here which might be useful); why don't you pick out a specific item to work on too? As always, in Wikipedia as elsewhere, pick your battles wisely. -- Viajero 10:46, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Did you see this comment [2] by user Lagavulin on the talk page? Sigh... -- Viajero 22:48, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

As you will have seen from the recent edits to the article, improving at this point is probably too much to hope for; let's just try to keep it from getting any worse. -- Viajero 12:13, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I come by recommendation

Some time ago I created an article called Province of the Carolanas which is about the territory that was later renamed Carolinas - only bigger. I asked someone who helped me out with a map for another article if he could produce one for this article and he said that you were the real expert. What I have done temporarily is to link the same map that is on Carolina article with the new article, but I really want a new map. The idea is to show a coast-to-coast territory with Houston, Texas located on it, plus the regular map coordinates found in the article. Can you help me out please? MPLX/MH 01:55, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. I will get back to you in my tomorrow with some answers to your questions. Thanks again. MPLX/MH 04:55, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

What I had in mind was a modern map similar to the one on Border blaster (which is how I came to be directed to you), but with modifications. As Dr. Brown states on the Province of the Carolanas article:

"... It was founded approximately 1632 and was likely abandoned early 1650s ... the Spanish were themselves not a bit interested in this area of Texas. A period of time where the English and the Spanish had a treaty giving areas from the Atlantic to the Pacific oceans above thirty degrees north lattitude to the English, rather than the Spanish. This area is at twenty-nine, seventy-five more-or-less, it is barely below the thirty-degree parallel. ... St. Augustine is barely above it. They simply kind of averaged things out. ... the Spanish agreed as long as they were not in the area, We have one Spanish source, from a priest in the area ... now San Antonio, ... that the Spanish are not giving him ... very much support ... against the English on the coast. ..."

I would like to keep the second map (perhaps modified to show that it is the second map for the Carolinas), with the first map showing where Houston is in relation to the territory and perhaps indicating the area of the latter Carolinas in relation to everything.

According to the texts, the English thought that the Rio Grande/Colorado River went out to the "South Sea" (as they called it) which in reality is the Pacific, because, they wanted to trade with "the Japans" (as they called them) and thought that they could simply go from the Gulf all the way to the Japan islands!

According to the Almanac published by Belo who own the Dallas Morning News, one of the mysteries of Texas has to do with the discovery of African natives wandering around the Gulf coast. Dr. Brown thinks that they were slaves who escaped from the doomed Carolana colony settlement in what is now downtown Houston, after it got wiped out by something similar to The Plague. MPLX/MH 14:44, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Another project

I also started Six flags over Texas (about the flags, not the theme park), but I could not find the other flags. Perhaps you could help out over there as well? ("If its not one thing, its another!") MPLX/MH 14:50, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Copyrights

I removed your comment about Google, interfaces, and fair use from the image description page at Image:National mall (east) satellite image 2.jpg because it's all irrelevant. Public domain material is public domain regardless of who physically provided it to you—there is no way to gain copyright in something by being an "interface" because effort or expenditure is irrelevant to copyright law (see Feist v. Rural). Just thought you'd like to know. Cheers! Postdlf 18:29, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Us flag large.png

What is the copyright status of that image file? The current version of this was created by you, so you determine what license it is released under. On the Commons server it is labelled as being public domain, but I'm not sure you applied that label. Which of the Wikipedia compatible licences is it released under? David Newton 21:09, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I've altered the template on the Commons site to use the insignia template instead of the PD-Flag template. The insignia template makes no false copyright assertions. I think we're going to have to go through the flags on the Wikipedia and very carefully relabel their sources and licences. People have been putting flags in the PD-flag template's orbit or similar without really understanding the issues concerned.

I had a long talk with Graham Bartram today and he is firmly of the belief that images of flags qualify for copyright. I agree since they are not slavish reproductions and they do not come under Corel vs Bridgeman as flags are not 2D artwork. Unfortunately this is typical of the approach to copyright of some people who use the Wikipedia. They don't really understand the issues concerned, and so even if they try and label things correctly (which some don't even bother doing), they get things very wrong. For example, claiming that all published materials prior to 1923 are public domain worldwide is nonsense, but that is what some people think. Claiming all images of flags are public domain is the same sort of thing. Even if they are public domain in the US, they may well not be in other countries with distinct qualficiations for copyright. David Newton 22:26, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)

General Zia

Thank you for taking the initiative in getting Gen Zia's name right. It's the only form that actually makes sense linguiticly and logically.—iFaqeer (Talk to me!) 21:53, Apr 18, 2005 (UTC)

Photos for Wikinews

Hello Jacobulus, I've been writing stories about stuff happening in Cambridge for Wikinews. If you get any good photos of local newsworthy events, I'd be happy to do the writing. Let me know if you come across anything good on my Wikinews talk page. Pingswept 18:23, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Your spider picture

Hi, You posted a picture on the discussion page for Spider. I have been looking for images of similar spiders and think that what you have is probably something in the Tetragnatha family, maybe Leucauge sp.. You might do a Google search for images and see what you think. P0M 17:21, 4 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

It's a very beautiful picture. It's too bad that all 8 eyes can't be seen in one picture (that's one of the better ways to get a line on a spider -- short of killing and dissecting it). I'll try to keep a copy of your picture handy since I'm doing some work on spider articles from time to time and occasionally find interesting pictures that don't come up in Google because their Latin names are not used in the non-English article. Maybe I'll find a match. As it is I'd not care to guess. P0M 00:18, 7 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

ref/note templates in Harvard University

Thanks for introducing the ref/note templates to this article. There is a problem, though: the numbers in the text and the ones at the end are out of synch. Apparently ref/note requires that the in-text references be in exactly the same order as the end notes. This can of course be fixed in this particular article, but it strikes me as a particularly brittle design, making it much harder to edit articles. Perhaps this has to do with limitations in the current Template system. I wish I had the time to work on this, but.... --Macrakis 15:54, 11 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks

Hi Jacobolus! Thanks for your work cleaning up the chess articles! Sjakkalle 12:19, 21 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Image:Fold-us-flag-animated.gif

I nominated Image:Fold-us-flag-animated.gif to WP:FPC. Good work! —Josh Lee 03:30, Jun 18, 2005 (UTC)

Discussion at Talk:Pakistan

Would you like to join the animated discussion on the Pakistan's talk page? The current issue is whether "Pakistan is famous for its support of Taliban and 9/11 terrorist" is a suitable sentence to start the article's first paragraph. Your contribution would be much appreciated, as the current discussion seems to be more of a dialog between Ragib and SamTr014 Talk:Pakistan. Thanks !--PrinceA 06:44, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Chiapas Photos

Those are great photos of Chiapas. I was in San Cristóbal in March and the photos brought back great memories. Do you happen to have any of the Mission for Dawa in San Cristóbal? Regardless, wonderful photographs. Thanks so much for making them available. William Przylucki 17:58, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Source of Raphael rooms pic

Hi Jacobolus

a picture that you uploaded (Image:Sanzio 01.jpg) has been nominated on Featured picture candidates and I agree it's fantastic but we have worries over the copyright status. Could you please either add a comment to the discussion or to my talk page regarding its source? I'm afraid that for technical reasons it's not covered by Bridgeman vs Corel, but we may be able to find other grounds for using it if you can identify where it came from. Many thanks, ~ Veledan • Talk ^{+ new} 16:52, 23 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Lowell House

You don't happen to be a fellow Lowellian by any chance? I noticed you edited the page. Best, Tfine80 22:44, 25 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Graduated in 2004 myself. Although I didn't write the tag about Lowell, it would be nice to imagine that were the case. But I have no quarrel with your change. :) Tfine80 21:37, 26 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

U.S. Flags

Hi, Jacobolus. I am Leslie, a user of the Portuguese Wikipedia. As the creator of the following images, can you tell me if these given images are/could be used as Public Domain, GFDL, or similar?

You see, I wanted to use these flags in the Portuguese wikipedia, and that's why I'm asking you, because I am not sure of the copyright status of these images. The Portuguese Wikipedia does not allow fair use, educational or non-commercial purposes only, or anything that imposes a restriction in the use of the images. Thanks in advance. Leslie Mateus ^talk // Leslie (pt) ^{talk (pt)} 04:36, 6 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Wonderful :) Thanks a lot for your answer. Leslie Mateus 07:36, 20 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Radcliffe College stub?

Hi. I've de-stubbed Radcliffe College, based on the criteria at Wikipedia:stub. Even for a living college the article's probably too long to be called a "stub"; and Radcliffe, of course, is dead. Unfortunately, though, my edit summary was misleading; I wrote that it's "no longer a stub" but upon checking the edit history I see that the article hasn't really changed or grown substantially since you added the stub tag in March. So I'm really just disagreeing with you after a time lag; and dropping a line here out of courtesy to let you know. Doops | talk 09:07, 18 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]