This is an archive of past discussions with User:MJCdetroit. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
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Territorial/Provincial Infoboxes
I saw that you were fixing the infobox like this. Is there any way to fix the template so that the land area shows up in the box. It looks really odd to have the total area and the water area with the land missing. I would have tried but I suspect that I would totally wreck the template. Cheers. CambridgeBayWeather(Talk)22:56, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
I had seen on the talk page that someone asked that same question and didn't get anywhere with it. I don't think it would be a problem to do. All the infoboxes already had the parameter LandArea_km2 (or something like that) entered in. I update you when done. I hope it has finally warmed up a little up there. :) —MJCdetroit02:32, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
So I reckon that you liked the collapsible lists edit. I was just testing the idea. I think it cleans up the infobox nicely. —MJCdetroit01:08, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
Thanks
Hi MJCdetroit,
Thanks for the warm welcome to Wikipedia and for the offer of help should I need it, much appreciated.
Would you consider dual-licensing your contributions to {{Location map}} and related templates under the cc-by 2.5 license so i could use them on the english wikinews? Happy editing. Bawolff00:55, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
Hi there! Have a favor to ask of you. A few days ago, someone asked if the conversion templates could be modified to handle dimensional conversions. That lead to me upgrading one of the templates ({{ft to m}}) to provide that capability (and more). Would you be willing to test-drive the new template, please? I have tested it quite thoroughly, but I know that it only takes five minutes of other person's time to find some serious bug that testers have missed :) If you could also check if the formatting of all types of conversions is MOS-compliant, that'd be great as well.
I am not planning on upgrading any other templates until we are reasonably sure this one is free of defects (it's not exactly a joyful experience to sort out over a thousand instances of curly brackets, so I'd rather limit this experience to one template for now, and then re-use the defect-free code elsewhere). Any help would be much appreciated. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 15:40, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
I certainly will. I try to test it within 24 hours.
While I am thinking of it, I think that the precision default should be zero on the conversion templates. I find myself putting precision=0 almost all the time. —MJCdetroit15:53, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
The way I did it is that it defaults to zero in all cases except when a value is less than ten, in which case the default precision is one. It can still be manually overridden (by setting precision=0) for cases when precision of one is undesirable.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 17:04, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
Hi, MJC, I see you're already doing the automatic unit conversion thing, good job. Just wanted to tell you though that I'm still making some changes, just so we don't have two conflicting versions. One thing that concerns me a bit is that the way the wiki parser works, apparently, when you have an #if expression, it first expands both the "then" expression and the "else" expression before picking one of them according to the condition and throwing the other one away. Since the template now has lots of nesting #if expressions, parsing the template becomes very slow and could potentially cause some overflow (try, for example, to have a page with several of the new weather infoboxes, see the current User:Doron/test5). For this reason I was thinking about restructuring the code so that it wouldn't lead to such a big expand size (which is currently 730-800K!). So how about we coordinate our plans about the template?--Doron21:32, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
Well, the problem has two sides. One side is the "inner loop", by which I refer to the call to the color scheme (User:Doron/test3). This call happens once for each data cell, so it has the greatest effect on space requirements. Reducing the size of it would be a significant advantage. Just by removing all the whitespace (making it somewhat less readable) reduced the infobox's expand size by a third. The next natural step would be to split the color template into two (temperature and precipitation), which would make each included chunk even smaller. Another thing that can be done is to turn each of them into arithmetical expressions (instead of #switch). The other side of the problem is the number of calls to this "inner loop". Since both sides of the #if are expanded, we need to make sure that the total number of calls to the row template is as close as possible to the maximal number of lines in the output. In other words, something like "if (cond) call A B C, else call D E F" would cause 6 expansions, while outputting only the results of 3. A more efficient solution would be something like "call AD(cond) BE(cond) CF(cond)" (which has only 3 expansions) where the choice between ABC and DEF is deferred to the subroutines, each capable of being one or the other. Am I making any sense?...--Doron21:20, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
Sorry, I haven't been around lately. It tends to happen in Michigan when the weather is nice. To answer you question: Somewhat, to be honest, I'll probably have to read it again. Hopefully, you've made progress since you posted this. —MJCdetroit11:59, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
Hi, I really like the new settlement infobox you put in Prince George, British Columbia. Do you suppose it is useful in a very small settlement like Balfour, British Columbia, for instance, (where I already put one to see how it looks). I want to expand some of these small town stubs and I'm wondering whether to use that info box or if there's another one that's more appropriate.CindyBotalk02:59, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
Nope, {{Infobox Settlement}} is designed to be used by all settlements whether incorporated or not, whether a 1/4 square mile with a population of one or hundreds of square miles with millions of people. All of the parameters except official name are optional; see the table at Infobox Settlement. Since your edits seem to be mostly BC, I will place some empty syntax on your talk page that will help you out. —MJCdetroit03:13, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
I see what you mean, it's pretty flexible. And it seems like quite a few places are using it now, judging by the "what links here" to the template. Looks much tidier than the previous versions too.CindyBotalk04:07, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
Infobox Armenia
I moved the Infobox material to my sandbox as it looks as though it'll be deleted anyway. I think that it's useful and although it only covers four pages now, it will be expanded. I want to improve and expand this infobox, perhaps making it on par with the Polish City Infobox. Perhaps we can work together on developing and/or expanding it. I just wanted to make something to replace this template that plagues most pages about Armenian cities and towns:
Two that I can think of would be some type of gram to oz/oz to g template and grain to gram/ g to gr template. The latter would be helpful in firearms/weapons articles as bullets, gunpowder and arrows are measured in grains —MJCdetroit15:37, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
I've again reverted your edits to the above page because the infobox you promoted there has not been discussed or achieved consensus for UK districts. If you wish to comment on this, please do so on the relevant talk page for the guidelines Wikipedia talk:WikiProject UK geography/How to write about settlements. Comments on there and elsewhere make the point that this template is not well-suited for UK districts, and so that is why the wording is as it is on the guidelines at the moment. DDStretch (talk)19:34, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
Hi, I saw that all the towns I had put "Infobox cities in Mexico" you switched them to "Infobox Settlement" should I use that infobox from now on for all cities in Mexico? Also I wanted to ask you if there was an Infobox for Municipalities in Mexico that I could use. Thanks Alixb23:06, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
Yes, you should. The old infobox will need to be TfD'd in the next few days. Yes you can use infobox settlement for Municipalities too. I was even considering replacing the manually coded infoboxes of the states with Infobox Settlements. I'll do one of each tomorrow to give you some examples.—MJCdetroit03:12, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
Well I was kinda looking for examples of how it is applied to municipalities in Mexico. Thanks for your help Alixb15:47, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
I'll look for some other muicipalities to do. The problem that I found was that there isn't a lot of information available. —MJCdetroit15:53, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, I was planning on doing some municipalities but I couldnt as I didnt know what the appropriate infobox was. But now that you've told me that its the settlement one, I'll start working on that. Alixb20:35, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
Well it works and as they say if it ain't broke don't fix it...Here's one more that I did: La Paz, México. I looked in the commons and there doesn't seem to be any specific maps for most of the municipalities. That's why I used the state's map. Good luck. —MJCdetroit20:39, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
I'm working on the infoboxes for the municipalites in Mexico, but I was just wondering if you know the rules on the copyright as to uploading pictures from pages from the government of Mexico. In specific I'm refering to the page: This page
Thanks. Alixb01:02, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
Also I did an article with the new infobox you suggested for Municipalites in Mexico, if you could check it out for me and tell me if you would change anything that would be great. Municipality of ApozolAlixb01:12, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
I looked for a while and cound not find an answer on the Mexican government copyright question. You may want to ask at Wikipedia talk:Copyright FAQ.
I made a couple of minor tweaks to Municipality of Apozol's infobox. Remember, it is English wikipedia, so in my opinion, it would probably be best to use Municipal President instead of Presidente Municipal. Also I placed a {{nowrap}} around the founder's name to keep it from breaking. Other than those couple very minor things, I think it is a great start. —MJCdetroit02:04, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
Infobox settlement for Ghost towns
Hi, MJCdetroit. We talked before about the infobox for settlements in BC. What are your thoughts on using it for ghost towns, with no population? Or is there something more appropriate.CindyBotalk17:45, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
All the parameters except "official_name" are optional (including population). So yes, it would work for a ghost town. You should put Ghost town as the "settlement_type". —MJCdetroit18:20, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
I messed up on that Stats Can reference that said 1,525 people. That's for all of the Central Kootenays. Found another ref that says population 100 and added it. But I think that messed up the density calculations you did in the infobox? Sorry.CindyBotalk05:51, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
I have nominated you for adminship
Shalom would like to nominate you to become an administrator. Please visit Wikipedia:Requests for adminship to see what this process entails, and then contact Shalom to accept or decline the nomination. A page has been created for your nomination at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/MJCdetroit 2. If you accept the nomination, you must formally state and sign your acceptance and answer the questions on that page. Once you have answered the questions, you may post your nomination for discussion, or request that your nominator do so.
Please reply on my talk page, or if you want you may just accept the nomination and add it to the RFA page yourself. I don't know if you really want to be an administrator, but there's certainly no harm for you to have the tools. I would not be intimidated by the frequent controversy that surrounds RFA - your request should pass unanimously, or nearly so. I wish you good luck. ShalomHello21:02, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
I have notified the users that you requested me to notify about the coming RFA. I assume you know how to transclude the RFA where people can see it; you are free to do so at any time. ShalomHello02:55, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
Ah, so you're finally taking the plunge. Well, I won't be able to get to the co-nom statement until later, but I'll make sure to fill it out asap. Actually I went and did it now, good luck. Wizardman03:00, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
There have been four editors who have wanted to nominate me in the past and (for a lack of better words) I did not take them up on their offers. I was just trying to be fair and show some respect to them. However, somebody always has to be the first! Thanks RB, —MJCdetroit12:47, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
Need your expert help!
Hello! I hope you are feeling great! Anyway, I would like to have your expert help with regards to a template. For further information, please view this page. I heard from your ongoing RfA that you are an expert in templates and I hope that you will be able to fix this minor problem, so as to achieve greater consistency. --Siva1979Talk to me15:07, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
I certainly wouldn't use the term "expert". I've just figured things out through trial and error and knowing who the true experts are to ask when I was stuck. I'll give it a look. —MJCdetroit16:49, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
It was my intention to deprecate {{height}} from the beginning. What I did not realize, however, was that it was designed to convert both ways (i.e., meters to feet, as well as feet to meters). It is fairly simple to replace all existing occurences of {{height}} with {{ft to m}}, {{m to ft}}, and {{ft in to m}}({{m to ft in}} still needs to be written), but my idea was that, in order to avoid this mundane work, it would be easier to re-write {{height}} so that it recognizes which parameters are being passed to it and calls an appropriate conversion template with those parameters. That is not a terribly complicated task, but, unfortunately, I am unable to take care of it being short on time. If someone wants to tackle that in my absence, it's fine; otherwise I'll do it when I am again available. Best,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 19:21, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
I have re-written {{height}} so it now relies on existing conversion templates. I did not implement any of the parameters except precision, but rather duplicated the defaults {{height}} was using before the upgrade (except automatic wikilinking of units, which I think is distracting in infoboxes where {{height}} is mostly used). Please let me know if you see any problems. Best,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 20:40, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
Someone should rewrite the template to use "collapsible" instead of "NavFrame". I tried but I didn't have sucess. I also asked to User:David Kernow if he can make the migration to "collapsible", but he didn't reply. — Guilherme(t/c)18:47, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
Nice work :-) but It didn't works here... probably you may call support for someone. By the way, I think's better modify the "original" template instead of create another. — Guilherme(t/c)19:49, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
Worldtraveller (the FAC nominator) is no longer around, so I wasn't sure which units to use first. Initially, I used feet, since it's the US, but then I switched back to metric, because it's a scientific article. Now you've switched back to feet. I reverted my last change to agree with yours, so hope they're all in the same place now. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:32, 29 July 2007 (UTC)
hmmm, I looked again, and you had only changed a few, so now they're not consistent. Let me know which way you want to go. Also, the image in References causes a chunk of white space before the refs on my browser. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:35, 29 July 2007 (UTC)
I did the swap because it IS a U.S. centric article. Whether it is or isn't a scientific article is debatable. I tried to be consistent throughout. I didn't think that I missed any, I'll take a second look. The image in the refs does place a white space just below it in my browser (FF for mac) too. :) —MJCdetroit13:00, 29 July 2007 (UTC)
OK, so we'll use imperial first; not sure anyone is watching that article, and it goes to the main page soon. Since there's no main editor, why don't we completely juggle the images to eliminate that space? Regards, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:04, 29 July 2007 (UTC)
I tweaked the Manchester infobox as well. I think that York should be the next UK settlement to be switch to use Infobox Settlement—hint, hint. :) —MJCdetroit19:24, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
Yup, was a lot of effort, but worth it in the end. Thanks for your valuable contributions, too. Tony13:57, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
Infobox Edits
It is not wikipedia common practice to clutter infoxboxes for city articles with references to every single stat given. I'm following precedent. We don't have to give little reference links to things such as mayors and city managers. That's ridiculous. You go to any other major city page to see how things are done. This is not to mention things such as population data, area data, etc...are already cited within the article, itself. Citing these things in the infobox not only clutters them, it is inherently redundant and silly. --Criticalthinker19:41, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
BUT, I could agree with making note of the footnotes if people just so have the need to do so, even though that is still redundant given that all of the infomation cited in the infobox is already cited in the articles. --Criticalthinker19:52, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
(edit conflict)
We don't have to give references??? Then how do we know the information is verifiable? Especially for places that most people have never heard of like Berkley, Michigan or Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. How does a reader know the information is correct? In many cases for American cities the population data, area data, etc... only says according to the census of 2000 there were, but it doesn't actual give any type of verifiable source like the census fact finder website. Anyone can change the figures to suit their fancy and are the next readers to the article just supposed to assume that the values given are 100% factual? The infobox has specific fields for citing references so that it doesn't get too cluttered. Sometimes the figures in the infobox are the only figures given. Seems to me that if there is a reference available, it would be silly not to use it. —MJCdetroit20:07, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
