User talk:Tim Starling/Archive 3

Oh fair enough, I didn't notice the other copyright notice on the page (right above that one) Evercat 01:48 8 Jul 2003 (UTC) 7

hello

please see the talk page of Wikipedia:wikicide for explanation of my putting the article back. Now, I think the main thing editors complained about was that the article was in the encyclopedia space (where it really had **nothing** to do); hence I moved the article to the wikipedia space. That seems the most sensible thing to do till the article is deleted. However, I see not why letting the article in the wikipedia space for a week before it be deleted, would hurt wikipedia or anyone. On the other hand, it might be a nice gesture to do so :-) User:anthere

Reply on Wikipedia talk:Wikicide. -- Tim Starling 03:27 14 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Regarding updating the sepcial pages that are database intensive (wanted, lonely, et cetera). Why not query an offline recent backup? If the database is only a day or so old, it should be fine. CGS 09:17 14 Jul 2003 (UTC).

If you remove newbie comments from the welcome page, can you move them to the newcomer's talk page, or to the welcome talk page? I think that would be more welcoming :)
Thanks --Martin

Hmmm .. these user accounts are strange. If you check the user table ("SELECT * from user where user_name like 'H0______'"), they all have different email accounts and also different preferences. Some of them at hotmail etc., but most of them at hkusua.hku.hk, which is the University of Hong Kong. Could this be that there's a Wikipedia experiment going on over there? --Eloquence 04:37 16 Jul 2003 (UTC)

If I read correctly, User:Fuzheado is the instructor for the HKU class (maybe you already knew that...) - Hephaestos 05:33 16 Jul 2003 (UTC)

That's correct. You'll of course pardon the somewhat imperfect English of the students. Their value is of course the local knowledge, and hopefully we can shoehorn their enthusiasm into the correct Wikipedia style. Thanks for your patience all. I'm certain Wikipedia will benefit from it (eventually) (Fuzheado 05:36 16 Jul 2003 (UTC))

Tim, you reverted the dolphin.jpg back to Tannin's version, but the image at dolphin is still the Chinese White Dolphin. I am a computing ignoramus, and I can't understand why the image isn't the old version now.

If you are able to sort this out, would it be possible to rename the Tannin pic as eg Duskydolphin17, since dolphin.jpg is bound to be overwritten again. Thanks for any help you can give. (incidentally, this page is 36K now). Jim

Hi Tim, since you started the "skeptical solicitation" page and I noticed your comments on "luminiferous aether", I thought I would mention to you to keep an eye on Reddi, who has been adding pseudo-science to large numbers of physics articles. I've been going through his changes periodically and reverting the egregious stuff (e.g. the incoherent BS he added to the aether page), but it's a challenge to keep up with and I thought I would mention the problem to you. (It's tempting to try to make a list of people who make suspect changes to physics articles, but such a thing seems like a magnet for flamewars.) --Steven G. Johnson

Tim, this is really dishonnest !

Well, we know your are not fat, not black, not hairy, and have two legs and two arms in good working shape. Still... User:anthere

Tim,

If I undelete it, can we keep Wikicide around for another seven days?

(Kidding...) -- Someone else 04:40 21 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Hi Tim - Thanks for helping me track down my problem IP address. I'm having trouble with 216.99.203.72. Thanks -- Amillar 15:33 21 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Thanks for finding that firewall block; I promise to behave :-) -- Amillar 17:22, 30 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I am trying to discuss, but my "opponent" censors me by protecting the talk page etc etc. So here is a "temp"; don't let it go to waste. New_Imperialism (temp) Some text, such as the long "definition of imperialism" paragraph at New Imperialism can be moved to imperialism -- other text has been moved to theories of imperialism -- topic specific text on the Panic of 1893 or the Congo Free State or Cecil Rhodes...or....or...etc can be reinserted at those appropriate locations. I urge you to read New Imperialism very closely and you will find some amusing things (not to mention a migraine headache). Pizza Puzzle

Great job on the RST article! --mav

Thanks for helping out with the Daniel C. Boyer mess. I would have liked to see my last summary (and those proposed deletions) get voted on, though, now that the redirect policy has been updated to reflect the results of much talk, but you and Martin are being rather persistent about moving stuff off even when everyone except for Daniel C. Boyer himself seems to agree that everything (except perhaps the one page) should be deleted. Anyway, thanks. Daniel Quinlan 04:47 25 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Thanks for deleting the maps, I don't know why it didn't occur to me to just do it myself. - Hephaestos 06:33 26 Jul 2003 (UTC)

--- If you protect the page, I promise that I will not use my sysop rights to edit the page myself. Please protect it. Lir/Vera Cruz/Pizza Puzzle is acting increasingly manipulative. Right now he's using his multiple personas to talk to himself on the talk page and praise his own over-simplified garbage. 172 04:06 27 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Thanks for intervening. But it would still be better if the link to PP's page be removed. I mean, would someone get away with promoting an alternative on the top of the WWII page? 172 04:39 27 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Whee[edit]

I would have been really surprised if you had agreed with me ;-> —Eloquence 08:12, 29 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Thank you for running the query for me. Angela 16:56, 29 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Daniel Quinlan tries to get stuff deleted.[edit]

Tim, can we just have an up or down vote on deleting Daniel C. Boyer and his articles/redirects? It seems that most people are in favor of deletion and continually moving the discussion to the Talk page never results in a completed vote. You can keep moving arguments for or against if you want. I think the problem is more serious than just deleting his page. He continually defaces articles like Connecticut and Chocolate with advertisements and shameless self-promotion, I don't know why he hasn't been outright banned. Daniel Quinlan 01:56, Jul 30, 2003 (UTC)

Okay, I'm trying a more organized approach to the RST pages. I summarized the proposals, moved longer comments to the Talk pages in question, added all articles I could find in one place on VfD, and asked people to put long comments on Talk pages. We'll see if this works any better... Daniel Quinlan

Hi, Tim. I've read your comment on the talk page of Demon possession about Telekinesis. Maybe you should contact some person related to the university of Palo Alto, California, or some other with similar careers to fix the article. I based my conclusions on scientific American, British and Russian studies on the subject, but it's true, perhaps a person with some degree of those institutions could help more than me. Sorry if I've disturbed someone with the reference, my apologies. The Warlock 06:16, 30 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I have created Wikipedia:SQL query requests like you suggested. Angela 20:35, 1 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Thank you again for the query. Angela 01:56, 2 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I was agreeing with Gareth Owen; what's confusing about that? :-) ... I've tried to clarify at the page. Koyaanis Qatsi 14:16, 2 Aug 2003 (UTC) P.S. I'm not much involved with wikipedia lately--I'm trying to accomplish non-wikipedia stuff which is taking most of my time--so if my addendum to the vote needs to be moved (or removed), then just go ahead. Best wishes.

Re: Wikipedia:Votes for deletion - Whether or not that page should be deleted, just where should I note ones that aren't important enough for VFD? -- Jake 06:20, 2003 Aug 6 (UTC)

I'll concede the point on this page, but see Wikipedia_talk:Votes for deletion. And I don't like the rationale of 'don't use VFD fo small things, it's too big', however true it may be. If it's too big, something needs to be done to fix that. -- Jake 06:50, 2003 Aug 6 (UTC)

Tim, I am proposing a new compromise for the RST articles. The deletion election is heavily in favor of limiting the number of articles to one. Clearly, this exposes the real problem here: people want the coverage of the RST in Wikipedia to be consistent with a hesitant, restrained, acknowlegement of its existence, but replete with a clear disclaimer as to its scientific merits because they are afraid that Wikipedia "science" will be tainted. In other words, the real fear here is that coverage = endorsement or even advocacy.

OK, fine. I intend to make that disagreement with the premise the theme of the article. This way a natural framework will be in place that provides the proponents with a foundation for declaring the RST's departure from "normal" science. By addressing those issues, there will be no need for a tutorial (we will provide that offsite) and the NPOV will be much easier to obtain. However, there will be a need to show the differences that the RST makes in explaining observations such as the periodicity of the elements.

Therefore, there will be a need for some separate articles like the Wheel of Motion, and Larson's biography, but nothing like what I was doing previously that so annoyed everyone. There will be one main article that declares the RST's position viz-a-viz "normal" science, with smaller subarticles for treatment of subjects not directly related to the theme or clearly requiring a separate treatment like the Wheel article, but this will be very limited (probably only one or two.)

I will not add articles to try to expand on the RST's details, in a pedagogical fashion, which I think is really the annoying part. I've already deleted the Scalar Motion and Gravitational articles which are the best examples of what I did, but will not do in the future. Doug 15:53, 8 Aug 2003 (UTC)

My reply at User talk:Dbundy. -- Tim Starling 03:22, Aug 9, 2003 (UTC)

Link updates[edit]

There may be an obscure bug in the new link update code. I linked ex-gay in Current events, someone else removed the link, I re-added it, but the "What links here" page presently shows no link. It may reappear when someone edits the page agian, though.—Eloquence 06:50, Aug 9, 2003 (UTC)

Did you get a notification for this message?—Eloquence

No, I don't think so. I definitely got one for Koyaanis's message below. Why? What's going on? -- Tim Starling 16:07, Aug 9, 2003 (UTC)

mmmm, beer. Koyaanis Qatsi

Ok, Tim. First draft is in place. Let me know what you think. --- Doug 22:12, 9 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Large versions on image pages[edit]

This idea has been discussed previously, and there are some people who strongly object to it (not sure about the exact reasons, I think one of them being that it is confusing because the larger version does not itself have anything on its image page, but is clickable). My personal view is that current image handling is terrible for a number of reasons:

Image description pages are counter-intuitive. The natural expectation when I click on an image is that I either get a larger version or that I can use the image as a navigational map. This latter effect is especially visible on pages like European Union, where I would expect to be able to click on the individual countries, but instead, I am taken to a non-informative image page.
The fact that image description pages are only visible when clicked (a link that is not otherwise highlighted) means that their content naturally gets neglected. As a result, we have many image pages which look like vandalized pages, with text like "nice image" etc. This is also because the upload comment winds up as the content of the image page; counter-intuitive again.
Wiki-editors are expected to rescale images and put links to the larger versions somewhere, time which could be better spent and which makes the creation of large image pages very work-intensive.
The "history on page" feature is confusing, too, and stuff like protection and deletion does not work properly.

I believe that any workaround like putting images on image pages is essentially a hack, and will cause trouble when we get around to rewriting the way image pages work. What we need:

Auto-rescaling. This should be relatively simple using either libgd or ImageMagick. We need a basic addition to the wiki-syntax for images to accomplish this, such as [[Image:Foo.jpg width=300 height=400]]. I would suggest a solution where subdirectories are then created in the image directory, of the form "300x400" etc., and cached copies of the rescaled images are stored there (regenerated when the version is changed, deleted when image is deleted). It would be nice to be able to specify just width or height, with the aspect ratio being kept.
Image pages redesign. The history should be moved to a separate page, "Image history", the full size version of the image should always be displayed on its page before the description.
Upload interface redesign. We desperately need a license dropdown, and the comment field should be a textarea with a clear notice to the effect that this will be the description of the image.
Auto-caption feature. Another modification to the image syntax, whereby if the form [[Image:Foo.jpg showtext]] is used, the text of the image page is automatically appended after the image itself (in the syntax <br><i>..description..[edit]</I>). This should not be the default to avoid breakage.

Support for image maps would be nice, obviously, and not that difficult to do if we simply would translate the HTML syntax to wikisyntax somehow, and vice versa.

Not that much work all in all, really. I'm already behind on my schedule, though -- if this would be something you would like to give a try, it would be much appreciated. By everyone, I think.—Eloquence 03:18, Aug 12, 2003 (UTC)

There are many easy tasks that need doing. I'm halfway through at least two: editing locks and <math> escaping. I believe there's a list in meta somewhere. But the thing is, I'm not an undergrad anymore -- back then I could have spent 15 hours a week doing this kind of thing. I used to spend weeks at a time programming, during my holidays. These days I can only afford a few hours here and there, and my holidays are occupied. It's very sad. On the plus side, I might be installing MediaWiki at home soon, so debugging will be easier. -- Tim Starling 04:04, Aug 12, 2003 (UTC)

Could you explain what you mean with "editing locks"?—Eloquence

Sorry, I'm making up terminology. See meta:Development tasks under "simultaneous edit bug". -- Tim Starling 04:16, Aug 12, 2003 (UTC)

Ah, the dreaded simultaneous editing bug. My favorite FAQ ;-) —Eloquence

Tim, are you an admin. I want to avert an edit war with User:Igor. I would appreciate independent arbitration. See history on article edits: Albanians, Albanian language, Hasan Bej Prishtina, Zog of Albania, History of Albania, etc. Let me know if there is a specific page for this sort of thing. Dori 00:52, 14 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Why are you slandering me in front of this illiterate vandal? Why don't you do the honorable thing and state your ill-informed case to me. 172 03:08, 15 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Why don't you take a look at all the other arguments presented in favor of banning Nostrum? Do you slander the other users? 172 03:32, 15 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Thanks for all your help with the geyser pictures. As you are probably realizing by now there are four pictures showing the evolution of a geyser.. small and large version of each... funnily enough when I tried to save as JPG on my local computer the file sizes were even bigger than PNG.. thanks for helping me out. Pete 09:00, 16 Aug 2003 (UTC)

When RK comes back I want to nominate him for sysop (for real this time) I dont ask for much, but I ask that you support his nomination. Sincerely-戴&#30505sv 22:58, Aug 16, 2003 (UTC)

Hi Tim,

You may delete if you want, though I doubt Nokia will mention anything since it is indeed promoting their product (free advertising). I've removed the pic from the linked webpage until I hear your ruling.

Tony

Thank you for the query! Angela 00:23, 19 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Hi, you wrote the date format stuff, right? Well, I've chosen "no preference" in my prefs, yet commas are still removed from dates like 1 January, 2003. (in the wikicode there's a comma between January and 2003, but not in the page I get.) Evercat 23:51, 21 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I see. Personally, I like to see the page as actually written - perhaps there could be another option - no modifications at all? Evercat 00:10, 22 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Thank you for running that query earlier and for putting in the namespaces that I forgot to add. I have finally got round to figuring out how to do it myself now and have downloaded the database and mysql so I might be able to run my own queries from now :) -Angela

I vaguely remember that emergency admin mail; but, I don't think I do have the rights to kill a zombie process on Jimbo's server, or to reboot the machine. So, I figured there'd be no point in calling me in an emergency. Maybe I should ask Jimbo for full access? --Magnus Manske

Tim, I did NOT get your e-mail. I have an unfortunate tendency to be very sloppy about checking my messages. If you want me to be reachable in an emergency, we'll have to talk about how to set that up. --Uncle Ed 13:00, 28 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Tim, I did get the e-mail, but it got lost in the shuffle before I had a chance to reply. I've got a response saved in my drafts folder, I think, but my e-mail server is dead right now... (Incidentally, I'd fully support giving Erik the root password to help with emergencies and configuration, but I'd have to double-check with Jimbo. It's bad form to hand out root on other people's machines without asking first. ;) --Brion 01:27, 29 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Tim, although Jimbo very graciously made me a developer when he and I thought I might be able to help deal with the old "lag" problem, I am frankly not technically proficient enough to help with server emergencies. My only relevant knowledge is the SQL query language, combined with a general knowledge of client-server programming.

Jimbo offered me "root" but I declined, since the little I know would make me more of a hazard than a help. But if there's something I could be trained to do -- like judge that a full shutdown-restart cycle was needed -- then count me in. --Uncle Ed 14:40, 29 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Hi Tim, I tried to replicate the query you did at SQL query requests using select cur_title, cur_namespace from cur,brokenlinks where cur_id=bl_from and cur_is_redirect=1 limit 100 but I get the message "Error 1146: Table 'wikipedia.brokenlinks' doesn't exist". Am I doing something wrong or is because I haven't downloaded the right database? Angela 23:29, 31 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Thank you so much for your help. I don't know anything about PHP (yet - it's on my to-learn list). Angela 01:19, 1 Sep 2003 (UTC)

---

Hey Tim, check your e-mail. Let me know if you have any trouble logging in... --Brion 03:03, 1 Sep 2003 (UTC)

It should be ok, although I really should check first as it's not my machine I would be downloading it to. It'll probably be ok, but I will be able to give you a more definite answer in about 4 hours when this side of the world wakes up. Angela 03:08, 1 Sep 2003 (UTC)

300 MB's is fine I've been told. :) Angela 06:47, 1 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Thank you Tim, you're amazing! Angela

Flocks of new users[edit]

Hey, Tim, what ever happened to those students from Hong Kong whose professor had them write some articles for a school project in mid-July? (See CNN article)

Reply on User talk:Ed Poor

Testing code[edit]

Sure, I'd be happy to test the new code; I assume it'll be on test.wikipedia.org? Let me know when you're ready. - Hephaestos 18:58, 7 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Hi Tim. I just has a go at testing the new blocking system on the test wiki. Here's what happened:

1) Blocked dev: it showed that dev was blocked and also listed my two IPs -212 and 81 (possible privacy issues?)

2) Blocked 212: I was still able to edit.

3) Blocked Angela: I could not edit logged in or out.

4) Blocked 81: I could not edit logged in or out.

Unblocking: When dev was blocked, she could unblock 212, but not 81. She had to unblock herself and then unblock 81.

I hope that's useful. Angela 00:40, 8 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Oops, sorry Angela. The version on the test server wasn't up to date. I just updated it then, so the behaviour might have changed. I've fixed that privacy problem, and a few bugs might have come and gone as well. That inability to unblock 81 is a bit weird, I'll have to look into that. Anyway, thanks for doing that.

BTW, I analysed recent changes for last week, trying to determine which Wikipedians spend the most time on here, so that we know who to give developer contact details to. I gave everyone a score, where users get 50 points for editing in each distinct hour of the day, plus one point per edit. Guess who was #1? -- Tim Starling 01:31, Sep 8, 2003 (UTC)

erm... who? Angela

You were. -- Tim Starling 02:19, Sep 8, 2003 (UTC)

I was scared you might say that. :) I just had a look at my contributions list for this month. At least I haven't edited at every hour of the day (not this month anyway) -obviously have to make more effort between 9 and 11am (UTC). Angela 02:30, 8 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Doesn't seem to be on right now (for user "The Admin"). Maybe I'm doing something wrong? - Hephaestos 01:49, 8 Sep 2003 (UTC)

You don't get a "block" link from RC. You have to click "special pages" in the sidebar, and then click "Block an IP address". Then if you type a username into the box, it should work. If you log in as that user, Special:Ipblocklist should display an autoblocker entry where the username is ""#9" or something like that. You should be able to unblock it by clicking an "unblock" link, then typing in the (hidden) IP address, or by leaving it as #9 or #110 or whatever. -- Tim Starling 02:07, Sep 8, 2003 (UTC)

I get it now. Pretty slick. One thing confused me though. I logged in as "Dev" and blocked "Hephaestos", then logged back in as "The Admin" and of course was told that I was blocked because I was at the same IP. That's good, but then when I unblocked "Hephaestos" the #6 slot stayed blocked until manually unblocked. I would think if the user account (i.e., "Hephaestos") is unblocked, the number block should go at the same time (although of course not vice versa). - Hephaestos 02:37, 8 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Hi Tim, I tested the blocking thing again yesterday. I blocked Angela, and then it autoblocked #8 and 9 when I tried to edit again. Then I unblocked Angela. The IPs stayed blocked so I still couldn't edit. When I tried to edit logged off, it said "Autoblocked because you share an IP address with "Angela". Reason "test"." (Even after Angela had been unblocked). If I unblocked #9 I could edit even though #8 was still blocked. Angela 13:52, 9 Sep 2003 (EDT)

My dubious honor.[edit]

Shure, why not. I am at least monitoring what's going on, if I a awake and at home. (and sleep in ca. 3 hour batches) I know that is a pure excuse for such obsessive presence, but there it is. My email is dubiously munged: jheiskan@DUBIOUSwelho.com -- Cimon Avaro on a pogo-stick 04:09, Sep 13, 2003 (UTC)

Can I ask for a bit of advice?[edit]

Just a few hours ago, the chief editor of the science department of the "one and only" national newspaper in Finland sent an irate missive to the Finnish Wikipedia, alleging (quite plausibly) that his article on the "end of the world" had been reproduced word for word on the Finnish Wikipedia. I blanked it instantly (it works on the old software & I don't have administrator rights there [in fact I've only been contributing to it for a very short time], so I couldn't delete it). I also sent a very conciliatory E-mail message to him. Trying to explain the situation, and apologizing for what had happened.

The problem is that there really wasn't a huge amount of justification for what had happened, assuming his interpretation was correct. He complained that the Finnish Wikipedia didn't comply with Finnish law which requires any publication to have a "Responsible Editor" who can be held legally responsible for the content of the publication and in extreme circumstances, sued. I honestly don't know how that squares with Wikipedias status as a foreign company... But the legal ramifications are hardly the most cogent here. When and if the "First Press Release" is eventually and actually released. One of the prime, if not the actual prime journalistic publications which might be expected to write about Wikipedia is the one for which he is the relevant editorial chief. Not a nice situation. He gave his telephone number and E-mail account at the end of the comment, and I did send an apology through E-mail.

What I am thinking here, is, what else should I do? Any ideas? -- Cimon Avaro on a pogo-stick 13:48, Sep 16, 2003 (UTC)

In present circumstances; yes please![edit]

I think that would not be a bad idea, considering all factors. The name of the article is Maailmanloppu. -- Cimon Avaro on a pogo-stick 14:21, Sep 16, 2003 (UTC)

SQL command[edit]

I am trying to join two tables that uses BETWEEN and to restrict a record selection.