User talk:Modest Genius/Archive 1

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Welcome

Hello Modest Genius/Archive 1 and welcome to Wikipedia!

After seeing one of your contributions, I just thought I'd stop by and say hello. There can be a lot to Wikipedia, so I thought I'd let you know of some important links, such as:

• What Wikipedia is
• What Wikipedia isn't
• A brief tutorial
• Wikipedia Syntax
• The help pages
• How to write a great article
• Manual of Style (a great reference)
• The Sandbox, a page for making test edits

If you have any questions, check out Wikipedia:Where to ask a question or you can just ask me on my talk page Alternatively, you can just type {{helpme}} on your user page, and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions.I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. Again, welcome! 

P.S. I know you have been around for awhile, but I noticed that your talk page didn't have a welcome message, so I thought I'd give you one anyway.

--PS2pcGAMER (talk) 11:49, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

cool. despite the fact ive read all those several times ;) Modest Genius 17:47, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

testing Modest Genius 15:47, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Uni of Nottingham logo

<moved to User_talk:Modest_Genius/Template:User_Notts_Uni>

University of Nottingham

Does you know the endowment for this university? It seems like it recieves around £100 million in research grants but what about its own development fund? I know it's pretty substantial since alumni giving is over £1 million. Also, what is the true number of enrolled students? Thanks for any feedback. ArchonMeld 04:28, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

All I really know is gleaned from the website, they're not in the habit of emailing interesting facts and figures to students.

[1] and subpages 'The University is regularly placed within the top five UK universities in terms of the amount of research funding it has generated from the private sector; in 2003-2004 this figure was £11 million.' '4,000 former students having contributed a total of more than £800,000 to the University's development fund.'

I cant find any official numbers of students, on the university, DEL, HESA or HEFCE websites. Sorry thats not much help. Modest Genius ^talk 22:36, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Modest Genius isn't nearly as smart as he thinks he is

It's true >:( —Preceding unsigned comment added by Skyler Streng (talk • contribs) 23:33, 23 April 2006

I agree —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mystrick (talk • contribs) 23:36, 23 April 2006

myg0t

Hi, I noticed you had some history reguarding the myg0t article. Well, the article is up for DrV, and I ask that you post your thoughts on whether or not it should be undeleted. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Deletion_review#myg0t - thanks, cacophony 23:24, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Another one? I've made a contribution - my position has not changed Modest Genius ^talk 11:13, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Greetings

Hi there.I don't really know what to say. It's hard for me and I assume it must be complicated for all the people in my situation to try a new language out. You see, I've been studying English language since 1995 but, for some reason, I still keep my doubts on the subject. I joined Wikipedia on July 26, 2006 —the Spanish version — and as for a sudden I became deeply acquainted with the English one. I cannot trust myself to do it better, but I would like to; believe me when I say that is my priority. Up to now I've written an average of 30 articles in the Spanish Wikipedia, most of which are based on English and American literature authors and movements. My best ones for so far are es:Frederick Douglass and es:William Shakespeare. On the same way I wrote one article for this wikipedia, originally a translation from Spanish into English. I also added further information to a geography stub. My intention is to help and take part of this wonderful experience, but to do that I may need a hand. Can we work together? Do you want to keep in touch with me? I'm on the web almost all the time. If I'm not here I'm there, always fooling around. Thanks for reading my terrible message. God save me, lol. --Gustavo86 20:20, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Hello there! Welcome to the english wikipedia ;). I wouldn't worry too much about your English, it appears to be better than a lot of our English and American contributors', and besides, someone else can always correct any small spelling or grammar errors. Be bold and go ahead and write stuff - an article with content but a few spelling mistakes is infinitely preferable to no article at all.

Just wondering though, what made you approach me? I'm not a particularly active editor, nor do I speak Spanish, nor am I active in the subject areas you appear to be... Modest Genius ^talk 23:11, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

6Q0B44E

On 8 September, 2006, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article 6Q0B44E, which you created. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the "Did you know?" talk page.

I was gunning for the all-space DYK but fell short. Would have been quite neat. Many thanks for the DYK contribution -- Samir धर्म 18:19, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

cool, thanks. An all space DYK wouldve been amusing mind, although I'm not sure it wouldve been overly popular... Modest Genius ^talk 22:02, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Bot changes

Hey there. The bots that changed your userpage are doing it in accordance with CFD policy, where categories are voted to be merged, moved or deleted from Wikipedia. If you don't wish for individual edits on your userpage when we have to carry out renames/merges or deletions - consider using the actual templates for your userboxes - rather than pasting the raw code. If you use templates - no one need edit your specific page in order to update the categories. Thanks --Sagaciousuk ^(talk) 00:05, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Proper CFD is fine. Proper bot edits are fine. Consistently breaking the pages when doing bot-automated CFD is not. Not even providing a link to the CFD or re-categorising as suggested in the CFD is bad manners. If you want to implement the CFD, do it properly. Fix your bot.

Incidentally, the templates were substed because of continual deletion, DRV, and assorted messing around of the userboxes.

I'm going to rv the changes back to the latest version of the page that actually worked, which was (surprise-surprise) the last one by me. Go ahead and do your CFD, but do it properly. Modest Genius ^talk 14:47, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

I am sorry that your page appears to have broken as a result of the bots' edits. Essentially, the bot didn't remove anything but the category it was set to - the breaking of your userpage is caused by other erroneous tags that are not related to what the bot deals with. It would be more helpful if you could fix the page after the categories are removed - rather than simply revert the bot's changes - the categories no longer exist, and so it is pointless in keeping adding them back :) --Sagaciousuk ^(talk) 19:36, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Squircle

On 22 November, 2006, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Squircle, which you created. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the "Did you know?" talk page.

Thanks for the article. An interesting read -- Samir धर्म 08:47, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Hey genius (sorry, couldn't resist), something is very wrong with the illustration of a squircle, the equation, and/or the informal description.

Drawing a radial line at about 20 degrees shows that the intersection with the "squircle" is NOT midway between the square and the circle, but very much closer to the square. Can you check into it? --Shyland 10:56, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Hmm, you're right, I think it's probably my description that's off... I'll investigate Modest Genius ^talk 21:04, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Commons doodah

Hereby verifying my commons identity Modest Genius ^talk 00:52, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Patent Nonsense

MG - aplogies for the Squircle confusion. I intended to revert the patent nonsense, but ended up undoing your reversion. Oops. Will be more careful in future. Ukslim 17:31, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

np ;) Modest Genius ^talk 18:15, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Vandalism to your userpage

I've reverted some vandalism to your userpage by User:Blitz8boi and will now warn the vandal using uw-v. Walton ^{Vivat Regina!} 20:44, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, but don't bother, he's already been blocked. Modest Genius ^talk 20:45, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, in fact when I visited his talk page to place the warning, there was already an indef-block notice in place; I'm not sure how he managed to edit despite the block. Strange. Walton ^{Vivat Regina!} 17:28, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

UK infobox templates

There is currently a debate about replacing the existing UK place infoboxes with a unified one. I generally support this proposal but there is an attempt to remove the historic county information that a lot of people worked on and where a consensus was reached. I would appreciate your input into this. Thanks. Owain (talk) 11:05, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

BTW, the discussion is at Template talk:Infobox GB place#Straw polls Owain (talk) 14:55, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

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Image:Nott logo.gif

Hello Modest Genius, an automated process has found an image or media file tagged as nonfree media, such as fair use. The image (Image:Nott logo.gif) was found at the following location: User:Modest Genius/Template:User Notts Uni. This image or media will be removed per statement number 9 of our non-free content policy. The image or media will be replaced with Image:NonFreeImageRemoved.svg , so your formatting of your userpage should be fine. The image that was replaced will not be automatically deleted, but it could be deleted at a later date. Articles using the same image should not be affected by my edits. I ask you to please not readd the image to your userpage and could consider finding a replacement image licensed under either the Creative Commons or GFDL license or released to the public domain. Thanks for your attention and cooperation. User:Gnome (Bot)-talk 02:47, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

British diplomatic missions

Thanks for your contributions Modest Genius on this page. However your changes are not consistent with the format used for the other 100+ articles in the Diplomatic Missions by Country series. There is a forum somewhere for changes to do with international relations articles; you can suggest your changes there, but I think the general feeling would be that we don't want to do any unnecessary updates to all the other articles. Kransky 04:12, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

<shrug> fair enough, although I thought it made more sense to have the pictures next to the text describing them Modest Genius ^talk 19:34, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Reverse Radial Word Association

Hey, I just thought I'd leave a message here rather than in the 'edit' section of the game. You're right, Bank holiday is a bit tenuous, I'm not sure why that was the first thing I thought of, especially over the far more obvious (now you mention it, anyway!) George Washington. I think that's one reason why I like WA so much; seeing other people's answers and how they differ from my own. I'm actually also disappointed that the association between Emergency and Bondage wasn't Erotic asphyxiation or Michael Hutchence! Phileas 01:36, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

And how sunday school could be related to prostitution... It's all good fun ;) Modest Genius ^talk 14:56, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Redirect of Bien-pensant

Hello, this is a message from an automated bot. A tag has been placed on Bien-pensant, by Sus scrofa (talk · contribs), another Wikipedia user, requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. The tag claims that it should be speedily deleted because Bien-pensant is a redirect to a non-existent page (CSD R1).

To contest the tagging and request that administrators wait before possibly deleting Bien-pensant, please affix the template {{hangon}} to the page, and put a note on its talk page. If the article has already been deleted, see the advice and instructions at WP:WMD. Feel free to leave a message on the bot operator's talk page if you have any questions about this or any problems with this bot, bearing in mind that this bot is only informing you of the nomination for speedy deletion; it does not perform any nominations or deletions itself. --Android Mouse Bot 2 15:54, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Knock-out Whist

I have played Knock-Out Whist all over the North of England and the buy-back form of the game is very popular. I have not submitted it again just in case it gets Wikified, but I think reference should be made to it as the current article seems biased towards North American traditions. 'Infinite local variations' does not cover it.89.242.139.226 12:32, 12 May 2007 (UTC)David Rainford (Whist specialist)

be bold and add the info to the article! Modest Genius talk 16:56, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Fair enough Keith. My reading of this is that if there is enough evidence provided in the article that Buy Back Whist is a popular form of the game then it will not be wikified as has been done before. David Rainford(Whist specialist)

Well, wikify just means to format it so it looks like other wikipedia articles, plus add links etc (see Wikify), so I wouldn't be worried about that! So long as you can provide one source (a book, or a website or something) then it shouldn't get removed. Modest Genius ^talk 19:20, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Image:Squircle.png listed for deletion

An image or media file that you uploaded or altered, Image:Squircle.png, has been listed at Wikipedia:Images and media for deletion. Please see the discussion to see why this is (you may have to search for the title of the image to find its entry), if you are interested in it not being deleted. Thank you. OsamaK 20:04, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

For anyone who's interested, it was rendered redundant by an svg version of the same thing Modest Genius ^talk 17:33, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

FireArms article

I tried to create a decent article out of the FA one, leaving the controversy part untouched because it will result in a flame war. Please tell me what you think about it. LSky —Preceding comment was added at 14:12, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Yo! Modest Genius - From RexCoupon!!!!

I still have the old email address. How are you and what are you playing these days? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.130.194.227 (talk) 21:26, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

<replying here as I don't know if the IP varies> Wow, a bit of a blast from the past! I'm doing well, though work and a five year old computer mostly keep me from gaming these days. I can't seem to find your email address, but I think all of mine continue to work if you still have one. If not, or in any case, I suggest you check out forums.worldatwarmod.com , which is where the OTF relocated to. Modest Genius ^talk 22:35, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

1345

Thanks for the support on the talk page! Most people seem to favor this change. I'd like to invite you to help out as we try to improve 1346, or at least to pop in every once in awhile to see how it's going. Wrad (talk) 06:08, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, I may pop in at some point. Modest Genius ^talk 17:34, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

WP:ERROR

I replied on both subjects. Since items tend to be quickly deleted once they're resolved, you may wish to look at the history. (Namely, ITN was updated and there's discussion on their talk page and I shortened the anniversary entry a bit). -- lucasbfr ^{ho ho ho} 12:40, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

I award you the "Barnstar of Fighting USA Electioncruft"

I agree. Although the increasingly front-loaded primary-season schedule means that the Iowa caucus and New Hampshire primary are the two most crucial events in the choosing of US presidential nominees, and whoever wins the two of them will almost certainly end up as one of the two people who have a chance of becoming the next US president, this caucus is basically NN. The United States of America, unlike Malta or the New England Patriots, is a fairly small nation whose president has had next-to-nil impact on the rest of the world for the last seven years. To me, the real question is whether we should be maintaining articles on local celebrities like Obama and Huckabee in the first place. Obama is a senator from Illinois, only one of fifty states, and Huckabee is a governor of another one of these states. To my mind, this sort of thing is basically electioncruft and primarily of local interest. It's unencylopedic to include this sort of shit, IMO. Who really cares who becomes the next president of that shit country? I don't really care if a bunch of major media outlets on other continents carried it as front page news - they probably feel obligated to do that, and no one really even wants to read it. Also, so what if Obama is black in a nation that has never had a black nominee before, and got a strong majority in a nearly all-white state? It doesn't really matter who wins; the winner will just be a puppet of the US corporate-military cabal behind the scenes. Bravo, Nil Einne and other men of character, for keeping this sort of information off the Wikipedia front page and limiting it to where it belongs: the front pages and lead stories of various fraudulent house organs of the international capitalist class, from the BBC to Der Spiegel. Now, how about those New England Patriots? Speaking of grievances that I have, why the extremely short run for the following important ITN item: "Queen Elizabeth II formally opens the new Channel Tunnel Rail Link and London's St Pancras terminus, the new home for Eurostar trains (pictured) linking London with Paris and Brussels." This seems like some heavy stuff. And yet it only ran for a few days on ITN, only about ten times longer than news of the likely US presidential nominees, despite being about one hundred times as important. WTF? 65.190.89.154 (talk) 22:30, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

In all of history, I have found only one example where an event in an ongoing and lengthy process of government formation was included in ITN: "Belgian King Albert II intervenes to take state reform off the table in the 2007 Belgian government formation, which has lasted a record five months." This is the only example, ever. To be honest, I only clicked on one historical version of ITN to conduct my search and found this example without any effort at all, but it is likely the only example of its kind. 65.190.89.154 (talk) 22:42, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

What I don't understand is why USA-Americans feel the obsessive need to dominate this encyclopedia with their own localism, just as they feel the need to dominate other countries. As long as USA-Americans are allowed to edit here unfettered, this encyclopedia will be no more than a compendium of their various local obsessions and complexes, as they understand little outside of their own borders. And as long as they are allowed to contribute to ITN, it will be cluttered with babbling about the lengthy process of their government formation, and free of important information about trains in England (=important country, very European these days), events in the lengthy process of government formation in Belgium, and the New England Patriots. I think we seriously need to consider some sort of action.65.190.89.154 (talk) 22:50, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Suicidal userbox

I refuse to be unoriginal. (I'd like that translated into Latin, so I could use it as a motto.) Waltham, The Duke of 13:59, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

vandalism on the main page's talk

I notice your main page talk page was a vandalistic act, please refrain from this next time.

YOU SAID ":____))I"--xgmx (T | C | D | R | DR)

Uh, what? edit: the above post apparently wasn't made by the user in the signature Modest Genius ^talk 19:14, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

oops

sorry double posted--xgmx (T | C | D | R | DR)

Intro paragraph

Hi there. I wanted to set up my talk page with an introduction and, being an experienced programmer, I did not want to type anything in but rather steal something and 'file off the serial numbers'. So I hunted around, liked the look of your introduction and copied it. I hope that's okay. FerdinandFrog (talk) 19:12, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Not at all - I copied it myself anyway! It's a substed copy of Template:User talk, generated using the wikicode {{subst:User talk}} Modest Genius ^talk 23:31, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Your comments on WP:ERRORS

While the errors you point out there are helpful, it would ease corrections if you could provide the wording that would most make sense to you. ffm 01:16, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Fair point, I've been a bit lax about that lately Modest Genius ^talk 18:47, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

email me

Thanks. ⇒SWATJester ^{Son of the Defender} 16:22, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Oxford Wikimania 2010 and Wikimedia UK v2.0 Notice

Hi,

As a regularly contributing UK Wikipedian, we were wondering if you wanted to contribute to the Oxford bid to host the 2010 Wikimania conference. Please see here for details of how to get involved, we need all the help we can get if we are to put in a compelling bid.

We are also in the process of forming a new UK Wikimedia chapter to replace the soon to be folded old one. If you are interested in helping shape our plans, showing your support or becoming a future member or board member, please head over to the Wikimedia UK v2.0 page and let us know. We plan on holding an election in the next month to find the initial board, who will oversee the process of founding the company and accepting membership applications. They will then call an AGM to formally elect a new board who after obtaining charitable status will start the fund raising, promotion and active support for the UK Wikimedian community for which the chapter is being founded.

You may also wish to attend the next London meet-up at which both of these issues will be discussed. If you can't attend this meetup, you may want to watch Wikipedia:Meetup, for updates on future meets.

We look forward to hearing from you soon, and we send our apologies for this automated intrusion onto your talk page!

Addbot (talk) 23:06, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Battle of Dyrrhachium

Hi Genius,

I noticed that you readded the hatnote I removed from Battle of Dyrrhachium (1081). I assume that you did not realize that I had previously removed the hatnote as you did not provide an explanation of why your edit should be an exception to the guideline I cited. Disambiguating hatnotes are inappropriate on articles with unambiguous titles. If you have any questions, I am quite open to discussion.

Happy editing,

Neelix (talk) 11:01, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Date formats after autoformatting

With the recent deprecation of date autoformatting, "raw" dates are becoming increasingly visible on Wikipedia. Strong views are being expressed, and even some edit-warring here and there. A poll has been initiated to gauge community support to help us develop wording in the Manual of Style that reflects a workable consensus. As you have recently commented on date formats, your input would be helpful in getting this right. Four options have been put forward, summarised as:

1. Use whatever format matches the variety of English used in the article
2. For English-speaking countries, use the format used in the country, for non-English-speaking countries, use the format chosen by the first editor that added a date to the article
3. Use International format, except for U.S.-related articles
4. Use the format used in the country

The poll may be found here, as a table where you may indicate your level of support for each option above. --Pete (talk) 18:01, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Saffir-simpson

It cannot go elsewhere in the article, as the reason it is important is in the lead also. The statement gives quite factual information that explains why any comparison on the saffir simpson scale is unfounded. If the statement should not be in the lead, then niether should the bit measuring an extratropical storm by a hurricane measurement scale. If the statement should not be in the article, then niether should the saffir simpson comparison. The saffir simpson comparison is misleading - encylopedias state what things are, not what they would be like if they were something that are not, giving an impression that the two things are somehow comparable. Even the Met Office themselves stated that it was in no way a hurricane - as such, it can in no way be equivelant by means of a scale that measures hurricanes. Hurricanes are very very different weather systems.

Once again, it's not a rant. You may feel it looks like one, but it is not a rant. It's factual information that corrects and explains the nature of misleading information. The only way the statement can be legitimately removed is to remove the misleading information it corrects. Crimsone (talk) 23:18, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Roman Consul

Hi - You sent me a message saying that I had vandalized the entry for Roman Consul. In fact I was browsing the page and noticed the vandalism and editing the page to REMOVE said vandalism. Please place blame where it belongs, not at the feet of those trying to remove inappropriate material from pages. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.174.237.171 (talk) 17:02, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, so you did, whoops! I must have clicked the wrong IP address, I meant to go to 216.120.134.231. Many apologies! Modest Genius ^talk 17:05, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

See that star?

		The Tireless Contributor Barnstar
		For being diligent in spotting our poor spelling and grammar on the main page I award you this barnstar. Keep up the awesome work! :) Master of Puppets Call me MoP! :D 09:42, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Cool, thanks! Modest Genius ^talk 21:59, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

St. Nazaire raid

I tweaked this article a little bit, it was not really in need of improvement, I just thought some more detail of the run into the lock gate would be good to have, also, to emphasize a bit that just hitting the lock gate itself was an achievement.Mtsmallwood (talk) 05:03, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

WP:PHYS

Hi, I notice that you had some interest in physics. Might I interest you in joining WikiProject Physics?Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 07:03, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

April Fool's DYK for everything

On April Fool's, 2009, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Everything, which you recently nominated. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

Gatoclass (talk) 08:18, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Notification of the upcoming Wikimedia relicensing

In case you are not aware, the Free Software Foundation has added terms to the GFDL 1.3 allowing the relicensing of certain content under the CC-BY-SA 3.0, and the community has approved with 75.8% in favor that this permission be used to dual-license all Wikimedia wikis under both licenses. On June 15, 2009, this change will take effect. This note is to let you know that {{WikimediaNoLicensing}} does not affect the relicensing of your contributions in this manner, as you cannot deny the terms of the GFDL. If you have any comments, please join the discusion at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#NoMultiLicense template. Anomie⚔ 16:56, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Indeed. I have never attempted to revoke the license, and the specific creation of GFDL 1.3 for the purpose makes things moot, though does seem rather underhand and deceitful. I actually believe that CC-BY-SA is a superior license. I am aware that the template makes no legal difference; it is there to make a point, mostly in the anticipation that the foundation might at some stage attempt to release wikipedia as public domain, though now we're moving to CC-BY-SA that becomes very difficult. Modest Genius ^talk 00:23, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Main Page

Re this, please return and clarify which Banner you're referring to. It'd probably be good to know which version of which browser you're using on which platform. Finally, it doesn't look like an error to me, but a report of a cosmetic problem, so it should probably be placed at the foot of Talk:Main Page, rather than in the ERRORS section. Thanks --Dweller (talk) 15:28, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

I was referring to the 3 millionth article banner (which is the only banner I could see on the main page...). It had been removed by the time I checked back. Modest Genius ^talk 16:02, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Hi

Not posting here for any real reason, except that I need to make an edit to test something. Cheers!⇒SWATJester ^{Son of the Defender} 16:50, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

um, fair enough! Modest Genius ^talk 16:57, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

No worries, was just testing something to see in what format various edit timing features came out. ⇒SWATJester ^{Son of the Defender} 15:39, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Invitation to comment

Hi Modest Genius. I am Cargoking and you probably have seen me around ITN. I have identified you as an ITN regular, so I thought I would inform you of a discussion opened on 5 December 2009. MSGJ suggested on Arsonal's (who's fairly new to ITN) talk page, that ITN suggestions made on the candidate's page would be put on separate pages, such as Wikipedia:In the news/Candidates/2009-12-05. The past seven days of discussion would be automatically transcluded. "This would avoid the need for archiving and it would also leave the history of the page intact. It might also make it easier to create new days because we can use preload templates, etc." The only disadvantage to this proposal would be that each new comment would not show up on people's watchlists. You are invited to take part in discussion here. Thanks,  Cargoking  talk  17:32, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

ITN for Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer

On 15 December 2009, In the news was updated with a news item that involved the article Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, which you recently nominated. If you know of another interesting news item involving a recently created or updated article, then please suggest it on the candidates page.

--BorgQueen (talk) 08:48, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Re: Eta Carinae

Per WP:FOOT, the current page style in place, and my edit summary explaining my change, your subsequent revert does not make sense. Could you explain it or self-revert? Thanks. Viriditas (talk) 00:56, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

The citation refers to the optical photometry, not the rest of the sentence. Therefore the ref tag belongs inside the brackets, so it's clear which bit is being referenced. This is different to placing a ref at the end of a sentence, where the tag can be before or after the full stop without ambiguity. Modest Genius ^talk 01:26, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the quick reply and explanation. If you look at the text in question, the end of the phrase is "space observatory" which is followed by a comma. That's where a citation would be placed for the content you describe. But, in this instance, the parenthetical itself is cited after the parens, not before. Notice, this does not change or imply that it is referring to the phrase, because if it were, it would appear after the comma, not the parens. Does this make sense? Viriditas (talk) 02:48, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Err, no, not really. The citation refers to the optical photometry only, NOT the space observatories. Nor does it supply verification for the 'every available' bit. A ref tag outside the bracket would be ambiguous and possibly misleading; one inside is not. Both are allowed by the guideline, so it seems logical to use the non-ambiguous version. Modest Genius ^talk 13:29, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

I thought it was perfectly clear. Let me try again: We've already established that the citation refers to the optical photometry only, but it goes outside the parentheses. This is neither ambiguous or misleading, it is house style, especially in an article that already uses punctuation before footnotes. You seem to think we mix and match in one article; We do not. We use one style per article, consistently throughout. A proper reference to the rest of the text would appear outside the comma. Those are two different placements, and there is nothing at all ambiguous about this; It is how we use footnotes. Let me show you with an example from the page in question:

A "spectroscopic minimum", or "X-ray eclipse", appeared in 2003. Astronomers organized a large observing campaign which included every available ground-based (e.g. CCD optical photometry) and space observatory, including major observations with the Hubble Space Telescope, the Chandra X-ray Observatory, the INTEGRAL Gamma-ray space observatory, and the Very Large Telescope.

Do you see the comma after "space observatory"? That's where your source would go supporting that part of the sentence; A footnote after the parentheses would only support what is within the parentheses. So, there is no ambiguity. But the question must be asked, where are the rest of the sources for this paragraph? Viriditas (talk) 14:18, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

I realise we don't mix and match, but full stops and brackets are different things, and in this case the placement outside adds ambiguity. Your example only demonstrates that - the reference appears to refer to all of the sentence which is before it, not just the brackets. There is no requirement for a reference to have to wait until the next punctuation mark. As for where the rest of the references are, I have no idea, I didn't write it. Now can we please stop arguing over the extremely minor placement of a reference tag and punctuation mark? Modest Genius ^talk 21:47, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

They are not treated differently, so I don't know why you think they are. In any case, since you aren't interested in adding citations and cleaning up the article, then I hope you won't mind if I will, and when I do, I expect you to refrain from making another unsupported revert. Thanks. Viriditas (talk) 23:33, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Gee, thanks for assuming good faith. If you have the time, motivation and resources to add more references then please do (quite what makes you think I'm "not interested" I don't know). I'll treat them identically to any other addition to one of my watchlisted articles. As for 'unsupported', what did you expect? Me to call a vote over one punctuation mark? Modest Genius ^talk 23:52, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

You are welcome. As anyone can see from the beginning of this discussion, I assumed good faith and I did not revert your unsupported revert. I came here politely asking for an explanation, and I received one that conflicted with the current article style and guideline, and I was told that proper citations were ambiguous. When asked about the citations, I was given the response, "I have no idea, I didn't write it", at which point I informed you that I have an idea and I was trying to fix the article before I was reverted for no good reason. So, if you aren't going to help me, then please, don't stand in the way. Thanks. Viriditas (talk) 00:23, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Diamond

If you wish you can email me and I'll attach the articles in question. Regards. Materialscientist (talk) 00:35, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the offer, but I'd already gone to bed by then. Looks like things have moved on overnight. Modest Genius ^talk 16:13, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

A Little Question?

I hope you don't mind my bothering you about something trivial. I'm basically computer illiterate. I want to expand a sentence (to include a link) to an article, but I don't know where the symbol is that is used in the template e.g. apple apple, between apple and apple. Can you advise? Thanks in advance. Denisarona (talk) 15:19, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

The | (pipe) character? On my (UK) keyboard, I hold shift and press the key to the left of the Z. I believe it's different on US keyboards. See Pipe (character). Modest Genius ^talk 15:44, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, now I can proceed! Oh, BTW, my keyboard's not a US keyboard, but rather a UK/Italian hybrid. Again mille grazie. Denisarona (talk) 16:00, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Hi

Who do you supprt politivally? --RealentPottage (talk) 16:52, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Whoever has the best policies at the time. Why do you want to know? Modest Genius ^talk 22:08, 14 March 2010 (UTC)