User talk:CBDunkerson/Archive2

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[edit] Taxobox problems

Hi CB - thanks for the note; I noticed it when I'd been editing Rudbeckia laciniata (a plant); it added a couple of extra lines in the taxobox filled with triple curly brackets with 'subdivision' (if I remember rightly) in the brackets. The dinosaur one comes up very different; it was like this a week or so ago; I was able to correct that by changing the layout to:

| subdivision = [[Saurischia]] <br/>[[Sauropodomorpha]] <br/>[[Theropoda]] <br/>[[Ornithischia]] (my edit)

but it seems to have been changed back again resulting in the peculiar additions at the top of the page. I must admit I don't like the new taxobox style, thought the old one was much better (and still use it when making new articles), it was much less prone to these unpredictable formatting peculiarities, and also much easier to add extra details like author citations. Hope this helps! - MPF 00:21, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Dinosaur Taxobox

Hi. I seems that the "Fossil range: Triassic – Cretaceous" is a lot larger than it should be, and I don't know how to fix that. A good example of how it should be is on the Hampster page. --Khoikhoi 03:23, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! By the way, another thing that's bothered me ever since the creation since the Taxobox template is the the size of the conservation status. I like the size on Quagga, would you be able to fix it? Thanks. --Khoikhoi 03:37, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, thanks! --Khoikhoi 07:59, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Taxobox (again)

Hi CBDunkerson,

I just have one more request for help on Template:Taxobox. I'm having a problem with making the caption show. For example, on the Sperm Whale article, this version uses Template:Taxobox begin while this version uses Template:Taxobox. You'll notice that the only difference is that the version that uses the {{taxobox}} template lacks a caption. Is there any way to fix this error? Thanks. --Khoikhoi 08:26, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Default parameters (aka Weeble trick)

Hi Conrad. (1) I've just updated my weeble sandbox example User talk:Ligulem/work/WeebleTrick using the new "if=" style. Example B1 still fails due to the missing "if=". (2) I agree with you that adding "|if=" to template calls isn't that of a big deal, I mean I would go for this if I were allowed to. It's not that difficult to add that to template calls. But of course it might get forgotten and looks a bit strange. Clearly we are in "everthing costs something" land (nothing new in engineering :-). Ligulem 17:05, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Template:Language

I find his behavior annoying. He takes out little things like whether true or so is the right name. But instead of only saying true is the wrong word etc. he could also have answered. From his initial accusations/concerns not much is left, the template is not used anymore in articles, I have no problem if he does not like the dab tag etc... but he abused his admin power by blocking a page move and moving it to what maybe only one party wants. This two-class WP is annoying. If I would have eaten more today I would like to vomit. This kind of admin behavior is really bad. abuse is abuse is abuse. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 22:49, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Cyrius is the abuser. He moved a page to a page that was edited - you can't do this as a regular user. Now the page is blocked for moves - I don't know why, how, but strongly assume Cyrius did it with his admin privelges.

Conradi - a page I created. :-) Tobias Conradi (Talk) 23:17, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

fine, I didn't know that now I broke a lot. My fault. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 15:48, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

can you run a bot? we need to convert certain things in the articles, e.g. colornames should be changed to familynames, then the color array could be reduced in size. The bot should also change the ref from Template:Language to Template:Infobox Language - we should use standard name for the template. Of course the original language template should be moved there in advance. The bot could also convert some not optimal variable names

nation=list of countries in which it is an official language
better: official=

Tobias Conradi (Talk) 15:57, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

if you put it all in one line it works. but well this is ugly. maybe (we) try to find another point for linebreak, i.e. not directly after the colorname Tobias Conradi (Talk) 16:33, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Ok, the quilt should be better now. Let me know if there are other issues. On the questions above. No, I haven't looked into bot use yet. It seems like the current template uses 'nation' and Netoholic's has 'official'. It is easy enough to make that change, but then all the calls have to be updated that way also. --CBD ☎ ✉ 16:38, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Template:Language/familycolor

Hi. Thanks for the improvements on Template:Language/familycolor. I have one question, however: what happened here? Why does it say this:

whitewhitewhiteyellowyellowyellowyellowgreenyellowgreenlightbluelightblue#eba9ee#eba9eelightcorallightcorallightcorallightcoralpinkpinklightgreentomatolightgreenlightgreenblackblackblackblacktantanmediumspringgreenmediumspringgreenlightcyanlightcyan#ff0033lawngreenlawngreen#dddddd#dddddd#dddddd#ddddddgoldenrodgoldenrodtantandeepskybluedeepskybluedeepskyblueorangeorangegoldgolddarkseagreendarkseagreendarkseagreendarkseagreendarkseagreendarkseagreen#fd79da#fd79datantansilversilversilversilverlightgreentomatolavenderlavenderlimegreenlimegreen

It didn't use to be like that... --Khoikhoi 02:31, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

The call to the template is slightly different than it used to be. This was necessary in order to convert it from a meta-template based on Template:Switch into a single template. I had updated the calls to it in Template:Language, Template:Language/quilt, and so forth but probably missed some individual calls like these. I updated the calls on that page to use the new format. --CBD ☎ ✉ 02:47, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
Ok, thanks. See also Template talk:Language#Latest updates. --Khoikhoi 02:57, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] book reference without using qif

Hi Conrad. Many thanks for your work. Certainly I'm interested and of course I will look at User:CBDunkerson/Sandbox4 as you posted on TfD of qif. I will repost here (I also put this page on my watch). Don't know if I find time today. Shure tomorrow. Thanks again. See you later! Ligulem 20:05, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

I posted bug1 Ligulem 21:48, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
Yup, I didn't have the 'Date' parameter in the template at all. It wasn't listed in the blank parameter list on the 'Book reference' talk page. Must have been updates since that was put in. I'll check if there are any other missing parameters like that. --CBD ☎ ✉ 22:44, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
Couple of things: I added a space before the 'Date'... current template doesn't have it, but I think there should be one. Also, the template has a problem when there is no author name and/or article link... should be able to resolve that, but need to work on it a bit. I added the 'cite' style and category link from the original template... though I'm not really sure how the 'cite' is supposed to work. Finally, about the '|if=' in the call to the template... there is a way to get rid of that so existing template calls can remain unchanged, but it would double the length of the template and users with the Lynx browser would always get the full list of parameters - just as '{{{Editor}}}' and such if they were not filled out in the call. I prefer this method with the extra 'if' parameter, but can really be done either way. --CBD ☎ ✉ 23:24, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
Are you really suggesting that we pursue that solution? It involves an empty parameter that we have to add to hundreds (thousands) of articles. -- Netoholic @ 23:44, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
I'm open to either (though the 'crap' comment was less than helpful). For templates with lots of potentially suppressed parameters like this I like the non-CSS version, but if we don't care about the Lynx users I'm ok with the longer form - which is why I mentioned it as an option above even before you stepped in. --CBD ☎ ✉ 23:58, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
I've tested your new weeble variant. See User talk:Ligulem/work/b-refCBD/weeble/2. It's damn close to the original book reference but there is a problem with the point at the end. There is also a problem with the rendering, but that's not due to your template. I've seen that earlier already but could not reproduce it. My guess: it has to do with the pre sections. So don't worry about that for now. Testing CSS variant now (will post that later). Ligulem 12:51, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, I put a comment about the 'period at the end' issue on both versions. It needs to appear only when neither Publisher nor ID are set. Anyway, it is solvable for both variants. I've just been trying to come up with a solution that doesn't involve having an entire conditional section just for the trailing period. --CBD ☎ ✉ 15:03, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
The folks on articles using book ref are pretty nitpicking. Such a missing point at the end is sufficient to gather complete refusal from them. I remember though that there was an old debate whether book ref should emit that trailing point or not. But however, if it does not it should at least not do so in all cases to be consistent. I've tested the CSS version at User talk:Ligulem/work/b-refCBD/CSS/1 there is a problem with ISBNs appearing on a new line. The CSS version has also a similar point-at-the end problem. Ligulem 16:30, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
Both issues are corrected. --CBD ☎ ✉ 17:06, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
Indeed! Many thanks for proving me wrong and saving my butt on template:book reference. I'm impressed. I've posted my approval on the TfD of qif. Ligulem 19:56, 10 January 2006 (UTC)


I must I say that a the moment I tend rather to the CSS variant for book reference (and not to the weeble variant). Mainly because book reference is often used more than once in the same article, so that nasty |if= paramter hurts definitely more than on templates that are only included once per article. I also strongly think that, especially for book reference, there would be resistence among the article people if we add that ugly |if= en masse to articles. So I must say I'm with Neto. BTW I made a variant of your and Neto's work here. Test cases are here. I added line breaks and comments. Ligulem 23:13, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

That's ok. Given the number of existing template calls it makes sense to use the version which doesn't require those calls to be changed. It'll be messy for the Lynx users, but that's a small population. I use a mix of both as appropriate (and indeed the 'CSS version' isn't 100% CSS). It actually may be possible to implement this without any use of either '|if=' or CSS at all, but it would be pretty ugly code (see the way I handled the 'id' reference in the cite section on CSS and the 'ending period' in both versions)... something I just came up with while working on this. Need to experiment more to see if it can be made 'prettier' while retaining the capabilities - and I'd like to know if there are ways to do the same things in CSS without funky 'Weeble style' parameter default tricks. --CBD ☎ ✉ 23:35, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
Ack. Thanks again. Ligulem 23:50, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Portal Template

Hi Conrad, I don't know what browser you use, but your recent change to Portal screwed it completely on all the browsers I have on my machine (FF, IE & Op8.5 on Windows). I reverted it, then decided to try and fix it myself. I think I managed to get the template:click template to work in there. Cheers, nick 16:53, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Template:Locale length

What's going on on that template? See my question on Template talk:Locale length (please respond over there, thanks!) --Ligulem 12:20, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Template journal reference

Hi Conrad. I just would like to thank you for your work on template:journal reference to convert it to WP:AUM-compliance. Best regards, --Ligulem 16:36, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Yes, thanks!

YES!!!! user:infobox template is exactly what I (and Wikipedia) needed! --User:Mdob 201.14.253.106 00:30, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Glad you like it. Let me know if any other features/rows are needed. --CBD ☎ ✉ 00:48, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Infobox president

Assuming you have reverted my reversion (I won't bother to check), see Talk:Michelle Bachelet and look at all those empty cells in the infobox. That's what I call a mess up. It was perfectly fine before. —Cantus…☎ 03:08, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Infobox Zwolle

Thanks a lot for your help with the infobox on Zwolle. I've now incorporated the flag and the coat of arms of Zwolle (which I'm hoping to bring up to featured article status) in the infobox and the article. I've got another question though. In the country infoboxes, you get a link to Flag of X and Coat of arms of X below the flag and the coat of arms of the country. I would like to do the same in the Zwolle article, because I've got articles for the flag and the coat of arms in the pipeline. Do you know how I can get this done? Thanks an awful lot in advance, Aecis Mr. Mojo risin' 15:31, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for the new code. But when I add it, the flag and the coat of arms end up on the right side of the article, while the rest of the infobox ends up on the left side of the article (See User:Aecis/Stub tallying). How can I fix this? Aecis Mr. Mojo risin' 18:08, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Taxobox

Is the single taxobox preferrable? I've seen it done both ways all over the place, just wondering which was the more appropriate method. -Dawson 18:36, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

It was recently brought to my attention that Opera does not display the single taxobox format properly. It eliminates the border around the binomial section. It probably is something that should be rectified. -Dawson 18:36, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Template:Taxobox

Hi CBDunkerson,

Look at the diffs of the Bobcat page - the first one using the Taxobox_begin template] and the second version using Template:Taxobox. I was wondering, what's the deal with the fat grey line at the bottom? Is there any way to get rid of it? It's really ugly. --Khoikhoi 21:06, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Ok, thanks. I'm using Firefox too, but I'm using it in Mac OS X, so I guess it's different. --Khoikhoi 21:20, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, it looks better, but they the grey line at the bottom of the box is still thicker than the one used in Template:Taxobox begin. Good work though! --Khoikhoi 22:04, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
Personally, the version that you just showed me looks worse. The grey line at the bottom of the taxobox is thicker than I've ever seen it. --Khoikhoi 22:51, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Taxobox help needed

I seem to have broken Centrarchidae and I'm not sure why (the generated HTML doesn't seem to correspond to the template source). I would be grateful for your help. Gdr 00:02, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for looking at this. It looks to me as though the
<small><center>{{{range_map_caption|}}}</center></small>
from the expansion of the range map gets turned into
<div class="center"><small>Sunfish range</small>
at some stage. I don't know why this happens: some thing that tries to fix up HTML, maybe? Anyway, the </div> gets omitted (or maybe postponed — there is one late on).
So maybe if we replace
<center>...</center>
with
<div style="text-align:center">...</div>
then this transformation wouldn't take place and it would render correctly? Gdr 00:17, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Indeed, that seems to be it. How bizarre! Gdr 00:22, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ranks and insignia of NATO armies officers

I want to achieve what I am doing there with 25 in one template. Ideas?

  • The images follow this pattern:
    • CC-Army-OF##.EXT
    • CC-Navy-OF##.EXT
    • CC-Airf-OF##.EXT
  • Where CC denotes country code and ## denotes nato code.

I'll let you take a look at it and then toss ideas. --Cool CatTalk|@ 01:16, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Hi Cool Cat. I've been looking at the templates and they could definitely be condensed, but I guess the best way to restructure them depends on what you want to use them for. You could make a template like, {{insignia |country=BE|force=army|rank=1a}} which displays any given insignia based on the parameters passed to it, but at that point you might as well just use the 'image:' markup. Alternatively the template could just look for 'country' and 'force' as parameters and then, based on those two, conditionally display the list of insignia indicated. That would just involve copying the info from all the existing templates in and putting conditional logic around it. Another option would be to put the ranks in the parameter names like; {{insignia |BE-ar-1a=1|US-nv-9=1}} and then have the template logic display the insignia for which parameters have been set. It all depends on how you are looking to use the images I guess. Are they just going to be on a few comparison pages or would they be displayed on the pages of individual commanders and the like? --CBD ☎ ✉ 22:04, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
I am not happy with the templates as they are not generic enough. No argument there. When I created the templates an if/else structure did not existed.
One reason I am not sure how to handle the templates is that I do not have one solid patern. See luxembourg one for example or italian. How would I handle all that in one template.
The templates will be used just for comparasions AND are used on individual army pafes. For example see what links to the US, UK, Tr, GR etc ranks.
What I want to achive: Few/One generic template(s) that does what 26 templates are doing. I also dont want it to change the apperance (aside from perhaps condensing width a bit)
--Cool CatTalk|@ 00:16, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
I put together a partial test at User:CBDunkerson/Sandbox2. Feel free to play with it. Changing the country in the template call on the first line should change the insignia displayed. Somewhat glitchy, but a general concept for how one template could include the contents of the 26 and conditionally display info for the country or countries called. --CBD ☎ ✉ 02:19, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
Hmm.... You are tossing all images into one template. What I want to achiheve is to use a template repetively. (Use one templae for all countries). Template should be passed countries name, name of the ranks, branch of military... etc... Is this doable? --Cool CatTalk|@ 13:25, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
Turkey Turkey
(Edit)
Mareşal1
Genel Kurmay Başkanı

Orgeneral
Korgeneral
Tümgeneral
Tuğgeneral
Albay
Yarbay
Binbaşı
Yüzbaşı
Usteğmen
Teğmen
Asteğmen		 coming soon
United Kingdom United Kingdom
(Edit)
Field Marshal1 General Lieutenant-General Major-General Brigadier Colonel Lieutenant-Colonel Major Captain Lieutenant Second Lieutenant Officer Designate Officer Cadet
United States United States
(Edit)		 No Equivalent Various
General of the Army1 General Lieutenant General Major General Brigadier General Colonel Lieutenant Colonel Major Captain First Lieutenant Second Lieutenant Cadet/Officer Candidate

Parameters maybe something like:

  • {{insignia|Country=Turkey|Link=[[Turkish Army]]|Code=Tr|Branch=Army|Type=OF|10=1|9=2|8=1|7=1|6=1|5=1|4=1|3=1|2=1|1a=1|1b=1|1c=1|1d=0|Mareşal|Genel Kurmay Başkanı|Orgeneral|Korgeneral|Tümgeneral|Tuğgeneral|Albay|Yarbay|Binbaşı|Yüzbaşı|Usteğmen|Teğmen|Asteğmen}}

or

  • {{insignia|Country=Turkey|Link=[[Turkish Army]]|Code=Tr|Branch=Army|Type=OF|10=1|Mareşal||9=2|Genel Kurmay Başkanı|Orgeneral|8=1|Korgeneral||7=1|Tümgeneral||6=1|Tuğgeneral||5=1|Albay||4=1|Yarbay||3=1|Binbaşı||2=1|Yüzbaşı||1a=1|Usteğmen||1b=1|Teğmen||1c=1|Asteğmen||1d=0}}

I am thinking of using one or two enbeded switch statements to do this. However I am not certain how the table should look like... --Cool CatTalk|@ 14:04, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

That can certainly be done, but the tricky part would then be the formatting. How to tell the template to arrange particular insignia vertically rather than horizontally. That's why my first draft copied all the images/formatting in and then just displayed the requested set. I guess the '1' and '2' settings in your lists above are meant to indicate which row each insignia should appear in. Since it seems like the insignias for a particular country/force are always displayed together I'd suggest moving everything out of the call except {{insignia|Code=Tr|Branch=Army|Type=OF}}... which officer ranks exist for that country and the names assigned to them can be kept in the template code itself rather than having to be written into the call each time - unless you want to be able to do things like just display officer ranks 9, 8, 5 and 3 of the Turkish Army. Then all that detail needs to be in the call to the template. I'll work on it for a while now. --CBD ☎ ✉ 23:43, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
Ok, I put together a very simple template at User:CBDunkerson/Sandbox2 which just calls the existing templates based on parameters passed to it and a much more complicated template at User:CBDunkerson/Transition which uses a switch to set various parameters in a call to User:CBDunkerson/Sandbox4 - which then builds the insignia layout based on the parameters passed. --CBD ☎ ✉ 01:40, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
I somewhat like User:CBDunkerson/Transition, the only thing I do not like is it being passed something so simple. I want the rank names to be passed. The look of the teomplate shuld be achieved with passed parameters. Then I can do rank comparasions withg out editing the template. Also I want rank insignias and text be aligned. Not all of the current (static) templates achieve this but some do (see above). --Cool CatTalk|@ 03:05, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
{{insignia-OF|Country=Turkey|Link=Turkish Army|Code=TR|Branch=Army|Ext=gif
|R10=1|Mareşal|
|R9=2|Genel Kurmay Başkanı|Orgeneral
|R8=1|Korgeneral|
|R7=1|Tümgeneral|
|R6=1|Tuğgeneral|
|R5=1|Albay|
|R4=1|Yarbay|
|R3=1|Binbaşı|
|R2=1|Yüzbaşı|
|R1a=1|Usteğmen|
|R1b=1|Teğmen|
|R1c=1|Asteğmen|
|R1d=0||
}}

When above is passed images such as this will work: [[Image:{{{Code}}}-{{{Branch}}}-OF##.{{{Ext}}}]]. The ## will be determined if R10 is null then the default should be No Equavalent if R10 is passed 0 it should be a coming soon if it is passed 1 then there is only one rank insignia per this "cell". If passed 2 there are two vertical insignias (such as how it should be for R9)

Hope this clarifies what I have in mind. --Cool CatTalk|@ 03:17, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Hmm.. After some serious amount of though this is what I came up with (it still needs some minor work):

Turkey Turkish Army
Mareşal1
Mareşal1
Genel Kurmay Başkanı
Genel Kurmay Başkanı
Orgeneral
Orgeneral
Korgeneral
Korgeneral
Tümgeneral
Tümgeneral
Tuğgeneral
Tuğgeneral
Albay
Albay
Yarbay
Yarbay
Binbaşı
Binbaşı
Yüzbaşı
Yüzbaşı
Usteğmen
Usteğmen
Teğmen
Teğmen
Asteğmen
Asteğmen
coming soon

--Cool CatTalk|@ 21:00, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ranks and insignia of NATO Armies Enlisted

Looks nice. Sorry I couldn't be more help working it out. --CBD ☎ ✉ 22:55, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

No that was the easyone. And you did help me greatly. Now, can you find a way to simplify this one (and make it much more generic)?
I'll take a look. Also, a couple of things on the current template. For the little flags - UK needs 'the United Kingdom' to get the flag file name right, but then prints 'the United Kingdom' next to it instead of 'United Kingdom'. If I recall correctly there is a version of those flag templates which works off the country code (UK) which would leave 'Country' free to be just the text displayed. For {{Rank insignia OF/N}} (or OF/D) it might make sense to change it from |'''No {{{1}}}''' to just |{{{1}}} so it could be set to the UK's student officer text, "single white stripe", the US "Various", or whatever... one template with configurable text parameter. Could also add a second parameter for a label below it (like Officer Candidate). --CBD ☎ ✉ 23:28, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks for the Infobox help

Just wanted to drop by and say thanks for helping out with the Infobox issue at Takipedia. Likely couldn't have figured it out without your assistance. The Crow 23:12, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Thank You

Thank you so much for creating the Balitmore users template. It looks great. Thank you so much.

--chemica 11:07, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Template:WPMA

That's fantastic, thank you! I will let the group know about it. Looks great. -- Stbalbach 17:36, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Portal headers

I'm all for improving accessibility, but forcing __NOEDITSECTION__ onto every page makes ones like this rather difficult to edit ;-) Kirill Lokshin 14:21, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Tomorrow's edition

Just fyi, I copied your code to Main Page alternative (tomorrow) (and linked that from WP:MPA). It's good stuff. Thanks :) -Quiddity 21:29, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Nice, thanks. I set up a 'yesterday' version at WP:MPA also. --CBDunkerson 23:37, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] {{day+1}}

Do you think you can make a variant of this template, maybe {{day+1 underscore}}, that gives the date with an underscore to make it compatible with links? I try to have link to edit tommorow's POTD and I get this: 15,_2006&action=edit Edit because the template includes a space. If you get me started, I'll even put in the underscores where they are needed. Shouldn't you be able to copy and paste the data from the regular template and start from there? Please investigate this for me.--HereToHelp 13:07, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] {{day+1}}

The browse links on the tips of the day are cool. I'll add them to the rest when I get the time.

BTW, I was looking at the code for that template to see if there was an easy way to adapt it to a 20 day or even a one-month warning system for Picture of the day (which we have stocked one month in advance). But the last 20 days/month of the year becomes problematic. --Go for it! 15:05, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. I can help with the browse links if people feel they are warranted. The 'warning system' is something which hadn't occurred to me. It could theoretically be done with something like, {{day+1|{{day+1|{{day+1|{{day+1|{{day+1}}}}}}}}}} = December 19 (effectively 'day+5'), but that would be ridiculously calculation intensive. However, a separate 'day+20' or 'month+1' template could be made for a 'warning system'. --CBDunkerson 15:15, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
Yes, but how would you program it so that the last 20 days (or month) of the year do not produce errors? --Go for it! 15:36, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
See {{datewarn}}. For instance [[Wikipedia:POTD column/{{datewarn}}]] produces Wikipedia:POTD column/January 14, 2007. --CBDunkerson 17:31, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
Wow, you caught the 31sts, and the leap year's extra day -- I hadn't even thought of those. But I couldn't see in the code where December 15, 2006 (for instance) is turned to January 15, 2007 rather than January 15, 2006. --Go for it! 21:22, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Date templates

Are there more? Could you create a category for them? My full wishlist was here, where people pointed me to the rather comprehensive fr:Catégorie:Modèle calculant une date. What I would like to see most is somthing like {{day+1month}} or {{day+1day}} so constructions like Today is day {{CURRENTDAY}} of {{CURRENTMONTH}} can be paralleled by Tomorrow is day {{day+1day}} of {{day+1month}}. I just need the templates to make sure tomorrow's and next month's Portal:Germany won't have any formatting erros, but I'm sure there's many other uses. Anyway, thanks again. Kusma (討論) 04:39, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Of course I should point you to a similar effort: Ed Poor has been busy in Category:Date math. Maybe you should talk to him about the optimal way of doing these things. Kusma (討論) 06:02, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Featured content

Hi. I just recently happened across WP:FC and thought it was very neat idea! Yesterday, I went looking for it (I hadn't bookmarked it) and couldn't find any link, actually I didn't even remember what I was looking for except for the every minute refresh. I asked for and received help finding it at WP:HD#WP:???. Anyway, I wanted to stop by to thank you for starting that and to let you know that I've added it at WP:WP. :-) --hydnjo talk 13:15, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

(copied from User talk:Hydnjo)
Thanks, I'm glad you like the page. I responded to your question about when it was created at WP:HD#WP:???. Like most things it was a process rather than all at once. The 'main page redesign' project was looking for a way to link all the featured content to the Main Page and decided to use what I'd built at Portal:Featured content for that. Hence the name change and shortcut. --CBDunkerson 13:59, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

BTW - if you're interested in how it works (I was), there's a subpage (like a template) that selects which date to display based on the current hour and minute (see Wikipedia:Featured content/SetDate). You get a different result (different date) every minute, but if you look at it at the same minute within the day you get the same results every day (i.e. it's distinctly not random). -- Rick Block (talk) 19:02, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
True. However, the order of the dates displayed each minute is randomized and I update it every couple of weeks to include the latest 'of the day' materials... re-randomizing the order each time. So unless you hit the page at the same minute within a few days of each other it will usually display a different result for that minute. Not truly random, but giving the appearance of such in most cases. --CBDunkerson 11:06, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

(end copy)

Conrad - this was not meant as a knock of any kind. I actually think it's quite cleverly done. I don't know if Joe (or Heidi) has in mind to copy the technique anywhere, but thought they might be interested in how it works. BTW - if you want it more random you could write and register a bot and rerandomize fairly frequently (every couple of hour perhaps). There's also an uninstalled extension to mediawiki (called choose) to select a random entry from a list - it's used at Uncyclopedia but not installed here since I don't think anyone has made a case for a legitimate use for it. If you want to pursue this, you might have a chat with User:Brion VIBBER. -- Rick Block (talk) 16:38, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
Hi Rick. No worries, I didn't take your comment as a 'knock'. I've explained elsewhere that it isn't truly random, but wanted to let you (and Hydnjo) know about the 'behind the scenes' re-shuffling which helps mitigate that. The 'choose' extension sounds like a perfect solution, but failing that a bot may be the way to go. Even just updating the random sequence once per day would prevent it from showing the same material at the same minute (unless that was randomly selected). I'd considered using {{NUMBEROFARTICLES}} and/or {{NUMBEROFFILES}} as additional 'seeds' to increase the randomization, but they grow so fast that doing so would either require a huge switch or updates every couple of days... but a bot could theoretically handle that as well. Thanks for the comments. I'll look into these options. --CBDunkerson 17:03, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
Hey guys. Conrad, I dropped over (first) to tell you that I had copied that very interesting thread going on at my talk over to FC's talk and here I find that you and Rick have started without me. Thanks to you both for your comments, they helped a great deal in my understanding of how it all worked, my markup skills are minimal and I appreciated that. And Conrad, you have been quite clever in your use of the available tools in implementing your FC solution.
I also wanted to spill out some thoughts:
  • This seems like a fairly high maintenance project for you (or anyone).
  • Another complication is that FAs sometimes lose their featured status which would result in losing that day's featured picture as well so,
  • Ideally there would be two lists and decouple FAs and FPs.
  • Also, it would be nice to be able to "click here" for a refresh (like Random article) and,
  • The choose feature seems like a good way to implement that as it seems that mediawiki is math challenged (no innate math functions).
  • Once decoupled from the mainpage date you could then decide to include all 930 FAs rather than only those that have been on the mainpage.
  • A bot could then be used to keep the lists current leaving you with, well... nothing to do ;-)
hydnjo talk 03:45, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

I copied this additional text to Wikipedia talk:Featured content and responded there. --CBDunkerson 11:41, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Month name of tomorrow's date

Does any of the clever date templates give this already? The simple-minded construction {{Portal:Germany/Anniversaries/{{CURRENTMONTHNAME}}/{{tomorrow}}}} unfortunately fails on the last day of the month. Of course I could just grab this from one of your templates, but I guess you'll find a better naming convention and a way to simplify it from the code in {{tomorrow}} than I could. Thank you, Kusma (討論) 20:57, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Thank you! It appears to work, and it seems like a good name. Kusma (討論) 22:20, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Template Magic

Hello again. Our paths began to cross when I inquired at the HD about a place that turned out to be WP:FC. Well, from there I, after some additional prompting from Rick, I decided to learn more about the underlying wiki markup. I was astonished at the amount of code required to do something as seemingly simple as providing a random selection of our best and featured stuff, at that time I had no inkling of switch or case. Anyway, I then saw how you you took a routine like day+1 and used your skills to re-implement it as tomorrow and I said wow! From there I found your RfA still in progress and AzaToth's recently failed bid (I have notified him of my intent to support him in his next bid). Hmmm... I forgot why I started this conversation... ooh ooh, now I remember, is there a place for me (or anyone ) to learn about all of the wiki markup available to us or do we need to learn it piecemeal by studying the works of folks like yourself, Rick, and Aza (you... you... template masters you). Thanks BTW for your very detailed response to my thoughts about "improving" FC, it seems that you have thought it out quite thoroughly without my meddling. As for my own skills, a true challenge for me was to find a way of recoding a program on an HP 48 to accomplish in 1 minute what was requiring 10 minutes (perhaps that's why I admire your template work so damn much). hydnjo talk 23:14, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Hi Hydnjo. There isn't a single 'training guide' for markup and templates, but there are a number of useful pages. The best single page to start at is Wikipedia:Markup#Wiki_markup... which contains an overview of all aspects of Wikipedia 'coding'. From there Help:Table is the standard document for table markup - though MediaWiki:Common.css is also critical for understanding the pre-defined CSS styles used in most tables. From there the real 'coding' aspects can be found in Help:A quick guide to templates, Help:Template, and m:Help:Advanced templates... which are progressively more detailed (and less organized) examinations of template and parameter logic. Finally, Help:Magic words, Help:Variable, Template:Wikivar are largely redundant pages for information on special tags and commands which are often very useful to templates (both WP:FC and the various date templates rely on these to work at all).
All that being said, I think I picked up more from just jumping in and seeing what was out there than I did from the help documentation. The above links are good resources for looking up details, but experimenting is the most certain way to learn. Believe me, it doesn't take long - a few months ago I didn't know what a Wiki-template was. The best place to look for good examples of existing templates (and most of the 'utility' templates which make others easier to write) is Category:Wikipedia special effects templates and especially the 'if templates' and 'boolean templates' subcategories there.
Finally, you might just keep an eye on the contributions of User:AzaToth, User:Netoholic, User:Locke Cole, User:Ed Poor, and other skilled template writers to see what sort of template work they are doing currently. Alot of this stuff evolves as people come up with new ways of doing things and then we all debate the pros and cons of each methodology. --CBDunkerson 23:55, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks & Help

Your changes to Template:Good Job are great; thanks. Since you seem to be an expert on templates, could you help me with User:Iamthejabberwock/Welcome? When I use, for example, {{subst:User:Iamthejabberwock/Welcome|user=|article=Wikipedia|topic=Rush|portal=Music}} - for welcoming an anonymous user who edited Wikipedia, is interested in Rush and might want to visit Portal:Music - it produces a result that looks good, but contains the original variable formatting: {{{anon| }}}. Could you advise me of a way to either (1) stop this formatting from being included or (2) switch to a more effecient method of varying the contents of the message? Thanks, TheJabberwock 02:14, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Works perfectly! Muchas gracias. TheJabberwock 19:33, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
Actually, nvm, the formatting is still there. See here. It's not a huge problem, but I'd like the welcome to look less mechanized if the user happens to click "edit." TheJabberwock 20:33, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
Excellent! Thanks again. TheJabberwock 23:54, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Nice job! Thanks!

...on merging the two US Senator boxes. That kinda bugged me that there were two -- redesigning and redirect is a nice simple solution. Well done. -- Sholom 20:04, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Infobox Aircraft

CBD - I have a favor to ask of you. Can you work with me to update {{Infobox Aircraft}}? The template is way to generic and is not being used by any articles. I think this is a prime candidate for creating a detailed infobox. Ideally it would be flexible for both civilian and military aircraft - see (Boeing 737, Pipers, F-15, [C-130 Hercules]] B-2 Spirit. I have left a message about my suggestion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Aircraft. Thanks! --Reflex Reaction (talk)• 14:37, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

My apologies for sending you on this wild goose chase - it looks like they have already decided what works well for them. --Reflex Reaction (talk)• 15:50, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Babel-X

Hi Conrad. I'm attempting to implement your nice Babel-X template here on Memory Alpha, and I'm not having any luck in getting it to work. For some reason, the HTML <tr> and <td> tags don't seem to be working (but if I recall correctly, they did work before the latest MediaWiki upgrade). As far as I can tell, both MA and Wikipedia are running the same software versions, so I'm not sure where to look. I also noticed that the title line isn't centering properly, either. Thanks in advance for any help you might be able to provide! -- Renegade54 15:54, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Hi. There were three problems. First the '{{#if:' format relies on new features that were just implemented for Wikipedia yesterday. I confirmed that Memory Alpha isn't using those and then reverted back to the '{{{if|' format. The centering difference was due to CSS differences between the two sites - basically, Wikipedia has predefined formatting at MediaWiki:Common.css and Memory Alpha doesn't have exactly the same pre-defined formats. I put in the centering manually to get around this. Finally the HTML tags were behaving oddly. I have no idea what was causing this... the first few sets were displaying as text, but then they were kicking in and evaluating correctly. Normal wiki table markup (i.e. |-, |, !, et cetera) can't be used because the '|' character confuses the '{{{if|' logic. To get around that I created a 'Template:!' which just inserts a '|' character. This allows wiki-markup to be mimicked and doesn't interfere with the other logic. I wrote up a version using that methodology and copied it out for up to 20 babel boxes. Can be extended if need be. --CBDunkerson 17:00, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] {{FCpages}}

Um - have I missed a discussion about moving the generic section of {{fapages}} and {{FLpages}} to a sub-template? The nice little "←" doesn't display on WP:FLC any longer, for example... -- ALoan (Talk) 17:08, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] More template magic

Thanks for giving me some examples of how to use Tim Starling's #expr: feature. I've joined you in converting some of my old-style templates to the new format, and they seem a WHOLE LOT faster. I've also renamed a few, replacing the User:Ed Poor/ bit with Template: to publish them.

I have more ideas for date math. Stay tuned! --Uncle Ed 16:08, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] DefCon boxes

Hey Cool Cat. In reference to the DefCon boxes which you marked for speedy. Would you object to them instead being 'de-userfied' into template space? It seems like alot of people are using them currently. --CBDunkerson 14:39, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

The wikipedia comunity (made out of few determined users) have hammered me for creating the defcon template etc.. They forced/ordered me to move them to my userspace or else they would vandalise/maliciously edit the templates in question. So if you want to move them to templatespace, good luck.
I dont care what happens to it so long as it isnt in my userspace since I am not allowed to participate in rc patrol, I do not want anything implying I have anything to do with WP:CVU.
--Cool CatTalk|@ 18:28, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Template functions

Just bringing to your attention Category:Conversion templates (edit|talk|links|history|logs) and specifically a note on the talk page suggesting that we standardize on a naming convention for future template functions. I'll be passing this note along to AzaToth and Ligulem; feel free to post it/mention it anywhere else you think it would help to raise awareness and avoid the duplication of work. =) —Locke Cole • t • c 01:58, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] TfD nomination of Template:Fpopages

Template:Fpopages has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. (I am telling you because you have edited it). Batmanand | Talk 22:38, 15 April 2006 (UTC) Sorry rush of blood to head. Ignore it. No longer listed. Batmanand | Talk 23:34, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] qif

qif mass extinction seems to have started P: [1]. --Ligulem 13:07, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Hi Conrad. You wrote [2] that parts of PF (ParserFunctions) already have been removed. I'm just curious: what has been removed from PF? --Ligulem 07:00, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
Oh noes! Seen it. The random function. But I don't believe that #if has any chance to ever get removed form PF. This was the major driving force for Tim to create PF because I believe he felt that qif was starting to get a problem and all endevours to extinct it had failed :-). So he had to accept the fact that it is needed. This was demonstrated by using good faith wiki-process. If he would remove #if this would be massive vandalism and it would take less than 24 hours for the community to restore the current situation, i.e. using qif again. --Ligulem 07:09, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
I agree that it seems unlikely that #if: would be removed at this point. However, we don't know for certain. There were and still are some problems with the way it works. Changes have been made to the #if: processing and syntax which required some of the calls to it to be rewritten to work properly. More such changes could be made going forward. Further, some people are arguing (quite strenuously) that #if: should be removed. All I've been saying is that we ought to proceed in a deliberate fashion rather than jumping out and performing mass conversions before the feature is fully tested, stabilized, or approved. As to 'restoring prior version in 24 hours'... and during those 24 hours Wikipedia would be a complete mess. Worse if 'qif' and other conditional templates were actually deleted because then reverting templates relying on them wouldn't fix the problem. Essentially we're risking a major Wiki wide mess for no good purpose. Chances are it won't happen, but it's just foolish to take a risk that gains absolutely nothing. --CBDunkerson 16:52, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
I agree with you. The problem was created because Tim already activated #if on all wikis. I would have expected some thorough testing on a sepearate test wiki before releasing it into the wild. After this had been released, people started migrating templates to #if. This is a logical consequence of the releasing. Once released, there is no way back. Safest thing we can do now is putting use load on #if. qif is under heavy destructive pressure now. Let's move the use pressure over to #if. I'm confident that it works. And it is easy to make it working if it doesn't. Tim is capable for taking care of this. There is no need to protect wikipedia from him. He's doing a bangup job. However, if this were a live critical system or even critical for business revenue, I would fully agree with you. Wikipdia is special in this. But it's quite successful with this approach. --Ligulem 17:13, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Changes to Infobox_Bridge

I noticed that you recently changed {{Infobox_Bridge}}. For some reason, some of the bridges I've recently worked on are displaying the text "style="vertical-align: middle;"" outside the infobox, in the main part of the page. I've narrowed it down to the "coordinates" parameter -- if "coordinates" is specified, then the spurious style information is inserted. If "lat" and "long" are specified, then this problem doesn't show up. For examples, see Franklin Avenue Bridge, Intercity Bridge, and Fort Road Bridge. If you could take a look at this template and fix whatever might be wrong, that would be great. I'd consider fixing it myself, but I'm not really well-versed enough on template syntax to make sure I wouldn't break anything else. Thanks. --Elkman - (talk) 03:22, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

I think I fixed it CBD. =) Elkman, if you still have problems, leave another note here and someone will get to it. ;) — Locke Cole • t • c 04:57, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for looking into it. --CBDunkerson 16:16, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
Looks good now. Thanks for looking into it. --Elkman - (talk) 00:37, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] #if

Can you point me to where I can learn about how to use " #if "? Thanks!!! —Markles 11:21, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Shortcut

His is explicitly written to only work inside tables (not by itself). You might try adopting some of the HTML/CSS he uses (leaving stuff configurable), but IMO some of his changes are just plain ugly.. —Locke Cole • t • c 12:55, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I figured out that 'inside tables only' was the problem. I wrapped a table around it to deal with that... then becomes a table in a table when called on the header box templates. It is rather convoluted, but it eliminates the '#if:' in the call so that's somewhat beneficial. --CBDunkerson 13:17, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
Re {{guideline}}, remove the includeonly's from around the | (pipe) in the {{shortcut}} call, it looks like a stray |} is being inserted when a shortcut isn't provided. I don't know that avoiding a #if was this important either, FWIW; the parameter default incurs a similar number of CPU cycles on the server side I'm sure, and from a code POV, I think people will grasp #if easier than the funky parameter default magic going on at shortcut. =) Having said that, if it'll give us peace, leave it alone. ;) —Locke Cole • t • c 13:44, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] ParserFunctions category

Apparently you are one of the valiant crew replacing {{qif}} and {{switch}} with {{#if}} and {{#switch}}. I would encourage you to ensure that you add clients of these functions to Category:Templates using ParserFunctions for the time being, this being our only method of tracking usage until we get some sort of "What links here" facility for these functions. Obviously if you are already doing this…thank you. HTH HAND —Phil | Talk 10:32, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] JD-month error?

{{JD-month|123}} gives 3 = 15. As far as I know, there is no 15th month ;). Perhaps that template only works for days after a certain date? I'm working on simplifying the calculation, but I don't know how to make the right calculation in the first place. User:dbenbenn 00:25, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Hi. The JD-month template assumes conversion to months in the Gregorian calendar... which came into existence in 1582. Thus, before that it would be producing 'months' for a calendar system which did not exist yet. A Julian date of '123' would be one-hundred and twenty-three days after the start of the Julian period... in 4713 BC. :] The formulas for this and the related JD-day and JD-year templates should work correctly for all dates in the Gregorian calendar system. For anything prior to October 1582 we get into hypothetical calendaring and it's fairly meaningless. The formulas can be derived from the Julian date article or the {{JD}} template. --CBDunkerson 00:51, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
Ah, thanks. I've added that explanation to Template:JD-month.
Another question: I noticed that {{JD-day|{{JD}}}} right now is giving 21, not 22. Julian day explains that the day rolls over at noon, but the Gregorian calendar still rolls over at midnight. So is that a mistake? I guess the fix would be to subtract 0.5 from the parameter to JD-day. User:dbenbenn 05:23, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Template:Infobox River

Hi CBDunkerson, a change you made recently to the Template:Infobox River seems to have had an unwanted effect. If you compare this previous version to the current one you'll see the change in the appearance of the Infobox (the disappearance of the boldface headings Origin, Length, Basin Countries etc.) I'm not familiar with the workings of templates; would you be able to fix it? Thanks kindly -- Malepheasant 00:21, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

As Malepheasant said the headings of each row had disappeared. I din't understand what you tried to do, so for the time being I have reverted to the previous working version. thanks --Raghu 05:49, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Template:TP Train Station

I've seen you've edited the template to implies the new #if Parser Functions. However, some articles that using the template has been broken. (it shows this part [style="vertical-align: top; font-style: italic; font-size: smaller; background: #EFEEEF;" style="vertical-align: top; font-style: italic; font-size: smaller;"] before the infobox). See Stirling railway station, Perth for example. As before, I've reverted this template into previous working revision. But seems maybe you didn't noticed that such changes would have those effects on those articles and reapplied the #if Parser Functions. Maybe you can revise those article that using the template before apply the changes. ;) --Shinjiman ⇔ ♨ 10:58, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Hi Shinjiman. Sorry about that, I was just looking at the infobox itself and didn't notice the extraneous line of text in the article. I made an adjustment which should resolve it. --CBDunkerson 13:12, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
It's does not have the problem now, thanks a lot. :) --Shinjiman ⇔ ♨ 14:02, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Template List

Thanks for the heads up on the Pro-Life template. I was wondering if you could direct me to a list of all available templates? Thanks again--Ian 01:58, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks a bunch

Thank you so much for making the template. Its not the fact that im incompetent, its just that at the mediawiki page for templates there is so much info bull that i dont need. and taht was exactly what i was looking for. --Zack3rdbb 23:12, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] #rand

Since #rand got nuked, I thought you might find this useful. It seems you can now use "R" (for raw) as a parameter to the various NUMBEROF magic words (there's also a new NUMBEROF magic word; NUMBEROFUSERS). Samples:

Magic Word Value Raw Value
{{NUMBEROFARTICLES}} {{NUMBEROFARTICLES}} = 1,532,354 {{NUMBEROFARTICLES|R}} = Template:NUMBEROFARTICLES
{{NUMBEROFFILES}} {{NUMBEROFFILES}} = 649,470 {{NUMBEROFFILES|R}} = Template:NUMBEROFFILES
{{NUMBEROFUSERS}} {{NUMBEROFUSERS}} = 3,023,932 {{NUMBEROFUSERS|R}} = Template:NUMBEROFUSERS

You could probably use some combination of these, together with {{REVISIONID}} maybe, to produce some semblance of randomness. Just an FYI. =) —Locke Cole • t • c 09:23, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

I don't know if you heard the reason for #rand's removal, but from what I heard on IRC from Tim Starling, it had something to do with a concern by Gmaxwell (talk • contribs) (NullC on IRC) over vandals using #rand to perform "random vandalism" (vandalism that only appeared randomly).
At least NUMBEROFxxx can now be used. Same issues with the cache as #rand had; you'll need to do &action=purge on pages to get them to update. But you could always automate that with wget and (if you're using Windows NT/2000/XP/2003) a batch file in conjunction with AT. Though I'd still like to see #rand return. Bah. :P —Locke Cole • t • c 11:00, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] includeonly

I don't know if you remember, but a while ago you helped me with my welcome message. You suggested the use of {{{nocode}}} to evaluate the subst: when the template is subst:ed. Turns out there's a much simpler way: <includeonly> tags around the subst. See here for details. TheJabberwʘck 23:32, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Rounddown/Roundup reverts

I see that you have reverted the Template:Rounddown and Template:Roundup.

But you are restoring a known serious bug of mod and floor in PHP and that transpires in MediaWiki.

(Note also that negative numbers are incorrectly rounded, it's not only small positive numbers)

Just try rounding 0, you get... -1. See the test in Rounddown... Note that floor in PHP is using mod which is symetric around 0, this makes it inappropriate touse directly for computing floor, if we don't test the sign to round the non-integers. This is waht makes the Template:Floor much less intuitive as you would think.

Now I've got calcs that will return again the wrong results if I use the reverted templates. I discovered the Media Wikibugs when computing dates.

My correction was not much complicate. And I had avoided to use Pow for computing roundings, when powers of ten constants can be used in a small switch covering the same range of acceptable number of decimals (-20 to 20).

verdy_p 03:20, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Why is a switch using the powers of ten constant better than calling the pow template to compute them? As to the -0 and other rounding anomalies... personally I don't consider them a big deal given the limited circumstances in which they occur. However, they can be addressed by directly identifying and handling those conditions separately. --CBDunkerson 04:06, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
The problem affects several ranges, one range for each value of the decimals parameter.
This means that you need to test all these ranges,depending on each decimal, then you'll need to compute powon each of them, in which case they are constant, and you don't need Pow.
Once you have suppressed Pow, the range is tested in template:Floor. There's only one call to Floor on the server, because it evaluates the switch as a builtin. And so Floor will be called only once before redividing its result by the reverse Pow constant.
Believe me. These are not "limited" circumstances, and this is what has really complicated the expressions for calculating dates (without those corrections almost all calcs were wrong). verdy_p 04:12, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
Also try rounding up -1 with 0 decimals: your version will add 0.5, so you'll get "-1.5" which finally rounds to... -2.
The symetry of the builtin "round" is the problem, ceiling and flooring are not symetric for negative numbers (and that's why the Template:Mod was written to get the true mathemetical meaning). verdy_p 04:17, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
Hrrrrm? -1 + 0.5 equals -0.5, which correctly rounds to -1. The '-0' issue is something inherent in parserFunction rounding and ought to be addressed there rather than putting switches in each template performing rounding operations to get around it... but note that it shouldn't impact calculations at all. It is only a display issue. The 'switch to avoid pow' is presumably motivated by an effort to 'save processing time', but both are insignificant calculations... and the extra call to 'floor' burns just as many nano-seconds. --CBDunkerson 04:47, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
Processing time is not the issue. My version or yours takes the same time. But you seem to ignore the fact that the built-in mod or floot operators are definitely not the mathematical operators because they are symetric (whichmeans that the absolute value of their result is the same independantly of the signof the operand),unlike the mathematical operators which are not. There's a difference, and it is significant in many cases for correct arithmetic.
These templates are made for maths; they must respect some axiomatic definitions: they won't change integer values, they will round non-integers in the correct direction. Otherwise the result in formulas using them is unpredictable.
The "-0" issue is not from MediaWiki but from the way PHP internally manage numbers, using signed zeroes, that it "displays" in strings. MediaWiki actually does not parse these signs that docomefrom the result of calculation, see:
{{{#calc: (0.4 - 0.6) round 0 }}: all is positive; MediaWiki does not parse numbers while exvaluating the operations, it only parse the expressions, but not the intermediate results.during processing, it even keeps the datatype of the operand (integer or float) as determined by PHP.
I don't understand whyyou have started this edition war, ignoring the bugs that I had described enough in my initial commit (also discussed elsewhere),and then documented in the template page byadding tests for them. Isn't it enough?
Believe me the #expr are complex, and that's why we need those templates for correct mathematics. They are needed to handle the complex cases, otherwise, we wouldnot use them and would use the supplied operators as they are... The simplest cases don't need those templates, it's needed for the complex cases,because there are even more complex formulas that depend on them. 05:02, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
I haven't been ignoring your test cases... you just keep adding more of them. :] My primary concern is just that the template has grown from a single line of logic to a few pages for details which don't impact any of the pages actually using these templates at present. On the 'symmetry' issue... that's actually the way most calculations do it in my experience. I've just tried three different tools and all show rounddown(-0.3, 0) = 0 rather than -1. You want these to work on a 'next lower value' rather than 'towards zero', but I don't think that is the way most people are used to seeing them behave and thus they produce unexpected results for many the way you have them now. For most templates I really don't think it matters, but our 'roundup' and 'rounddown' templates now work differently than the built in 'round'... which means sometimes formulas will round 'symmetrically' and sometimes not, creating greater confusion than if all rounding were consistent. --CBDunkerson 05:37, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
It is not "a few pages". The active part is a single line switch and a simple 1-line formula per case. Not difficult to understand. The pages are for the doc (not included when using them). Thosetemplates were createdin the math category for math use. Wedon't need them for the other use which is ignoring negative values. Andyou should have noted the cases for things like rounddound(0.12345, 3) or roundup(0.123, 3) which must be 0.123, not to zero like your modified version incorrectly returns (and this case is part of the common-sense meaning, and for them, the builtin round operator works just as well without needing the template). Those templates ensuse that roundxxx(value, decimals)=roundxxx(value+N, decimals) in all cases where N is any positive or negative positive offset. A lot of formulas using modular arithmetic depend on this property. In fact, as long as the existing builtin operators will not be corrected (to avoid returning "-0", including for positive values), and similar builtin "ceil" and "floor" operators won't be provided, these templates will be needed. Those templates that use the builtin "round" and "mod" were tested in their own cases and patched according to usage; But when they finally can't be fully debugged, the templates come to the rescue and provide consistent results.
If you still think that these templates should implement the "common-sense" symetric behavior, it will still require you test the sign of the value and the decimals cases to return consistent results for the near-zero value range. The result will be even more complicate than the current implementation. Your implementation is inconsistant in both the "common-sense" and mathematical usages.
(my opinion is that the "common-sense" usage may be implemented using new built-in operators similar to round, and they will still be different from the mathemetical floor and ceil functions, and for most people the common-sense just dictates using normal rounding to the nearest rounded value). verdy_p 12:07, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] {{DYK-Refresh}}

Hello Conrad, you seem to be the main author of the excellent refresh template and you kindly fixed some formatting anomalies recently. Unfortunately it seems to have "gone off the rails" again for some reason. It's currently displaying "Earliest time for next refreshment is Wednesday, 11 May 2006 00:15 Wikipedia time (UTC).". I'd be grateful if you could have a look into this, thanks. --Cactus.man ✍ 08:37, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the interim fix. Such are the joys of collaborative editing I guess, with little bits here and there being switched back and forward :-) I just find the template incredibly useful for updating DYK, both in refreshing the update time without having to compute UTC offset factors and as a quick glance view of when an update is overdue. Thanks again. --Cactus.man ✍ 11:03, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Before

Thanks for trying to figure out what went wrong with {{before}} and for trying to fix it. --Uncle Ed 20:48, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Infobox Character

Hey

Thanks for creating the template but I was wondering if y'all could just alter something. When you add the pic it screws up the info underneath it. If I knew who to bloody alter it I would. Can y'all just help with that one last thing. Something like this one Template:Infobox Lost Character-1 but more for other characters of cause.

Cheers

Originalsinner 01:40, 21 May 2006 (UTC)D-Man

  • Actually don't worry about it. I made my brain work. Thanks though. Originalsinner 01:40, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Template request

Thanks for getting back to me on the Photoshop template. The three currently in existence will do just fine. Denni ☯ 16:31, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] {{kgvf}}

Very many thanks for taking this on. Templates look so simple when done by someone who knows what they are doing. I had no idea where to start. Small additional note for you at Wikipedia:Requested_templates#King_George.27s_Fields Fiddle Faddle 19:57, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Minor bug. Reported on Wikipedia:Requested_templates#King_George.27s_Fields. I hope it's minor, at least, Fiddle Faddle 21:09, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Portal template

There's nothing to apologize for, the tfd notice is supposed to go on the template to invite discussion. Anyway, my argument for deletion was flawed, since portalspace is indeed apparently part of the encyclopedia (which means that links to WikiProjects from portals are self-references, but whatever), so the template probably is valid after all. --Rory096 23:01, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Tip of the day idea...

I see that you are still accumulating barnstars. Congrats. I was wondering if it wouldn't be to much trouble for you to create a modified version of the totd template, one which displays a random tip. Please reply below, I'll be checking back. --Go for it! 06:32, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

No problem. I'll put something together this afternoon. --CBDunkerson 12:30, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] (no subject)

You lose. — Jun. 6, '06 [11:35] <freak|talk>

Heh. Yeah... we're just being over-run with those new uses of QIF. However will we 'maintain the deprecation' when a couple of times a month someone who hasn't heard of #if: yet mistakenly uses QIF? Why, at this rate there could be a dozen new pages this year that we will have to take five seconds updating. Each! Woe is us. :]
C'mon. I stand by my prior statement as it was obviously correct. There was no need to delete those boolean templates because even the much more common 'qif' template has been and remains deprecated. As time goes by the handful of stragglers still using QIF will find out about #if: and even these rare applications of it will cease. Surely you have better things to worry about? Or are you for some reason desperate to continue the pointless nastiness over 'meta-templates'? --CBDunkerson 12:57, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
Okay, let's not delete them then, let's move them out of template space and into the museum. And what can be said about crap like this, where one person puts a conditional template inside another that's supposed to be always substed, then other people unknowingly proliferate the template across a couple hundred pages, which I spent much of yesterday cleaning up. — Jun. 7, '06 [00:14] <freak|talk>

[edit] DateMath and Uncle Ed

I was visiting Uncle Ed Poor, and saw you'd worked together on templates in category:date math, so decided to pick on you (you lucky devil!) <g>

  1. Thanks, btw, for the quickfix on the 'indent template' I ported over from wikisource (last week? whenever!).
  2. Can you take a look at a gripe I've got in general on lack of some sort of datestamp on certain templates: User_talk:Fabartus#Commonwealth_English_.27OR.27_lack-of-debate, which should give you the gist. The template Mr. Shear cites has a see also list which are 'lesser offenders' by my lights, but all would none-the-less benefit from having a noticible date embedded. (The older/longer it's been, the more likely it should be removed or at least purused carefully, save for unref types). This wouldn't be necessary if people properly documented on the Talk pages when applying same, but the usual seems to be no coresponding talk edit at all. So I'm looking for a fallback solution!
  3. Of particularly nettlesome kind, the merge-to/merge-from templates seem to go sans action (or discussion) fairly often. I've chased several down that were put in place well over six months earlier and one nearly went a year, without a sufficient note in the edit summary (I finally caught on to the use of the words 'tag' and 'tagged' vice template <g>) but even so, if the article gets edit action, it takes quite a while to track back through history to find the actual edit and date applied.
  4. A self-dating template would thus save a lot of man-hours when one is trying in good faith to clear one of these templates. (e.g. See Talk:Commonwealth English history for the effort I went through to find out when and who applied that 'Original Research' allegation, then the clear way I documented removing it. Most people aren't that consciencious when the girlfriend has come in or something!

In any event, if you have something that will subst the current date into these things, I'm prepared to do something to get them inserted in the key templates. It'll save me a lot of time in the long run, no matter how many talk page arguements I have to conduct in the short run! After all, I don't think there is much hope at getting editors to actually annote the talk pages when placing such consistantly!

Also, is there any common category or a few categories that these things cause to be asserted? I know the unref, clean, copyedit ones assert a category, but do they all manifest on some super category (list) I can browse as well? What do I need to key in on — the cat nesting construct to tell for myself?

Thanks // FrankB 07:36, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Hi Frank. All of the templates in Category:Wikipedia maintenance templates are supposed to add pages they are transcluded on to one of the sub-categories of Category:Wikipedia maintenance. Thus, you should be able to use that category to browse open issues. For the 'self-dating' aspect you are looking for take a look at {{prod}}, {{DYK-Refresh}}, and {{fix}}. None of them are ideal, but those include three different ways that dates are currently inserted. The 'fix' template and most others just has an optional 'date' field which is usually left blank... even in templates where it is mandatory. DYK-Refresh includes a required Julian Date timestamp and always displays the current time/template format on the last line for easy copying. Prod probably comes closest to what you are looking for - it displays the date the template was added to the page and even adds the page to a dated sub-category. The problem with Prod is that it only works if substituted, which means that you get a big block of wikimarkup on the article page. That wouldn't be accepted for most of these maintenance templates. However, there should be a way around it using nested templates. If you substitute in 'template A' which does nothing except call 'template B' with the same parameters you set plus one more which is the substituted current date, then you would end up with a call directly to 'template B' on your article with the date automatically hard-coded. The only problems with this method are that the user has to use the 'subst:' tag for it to work properly and users can still go directly to 'template B' without including the date. If you are interested we could probably do something along the lines of the 'fix' template to cover the existing maintenance scenarios with a hard-coded date as above. --CBDunkerson 12:03, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Space vs Indent

Help! Seriously! <g>

re: Demo at Template talk:Indent, and notice the morph I tried {{space}} (using &emsp or &nbsp makes no(?) sig. diff). Can't figure out how to suppress unwanted newline after template. Is this a side effect of parser 'switch', the system software implimentation of templates in general (Doesn't strike TRUE to my experience hereon), or some trick I don't know. (I'm in denial that it's 'impossible'! <g>)

What I seek is one or the other (assume it's the 'space' version to allow:

  1. {space|1}{space|5}test text1
  2. {space|3}{space|3}test text2
  3. {space|2}{space|4}test text3

to have all three test lines lined up nice and purty!

OTOH, (assuming all three of these lines are right justified to start)

  • {space|1}{space|5}test text1
{space|3}{space|3}test text2
{space|2}{space|4}test text3

Should display like (Fill in yer own mental 'spaces' <g>):

  • {space|1}{space|5}test text1{space|3}{space|3}test text2{space|2}{space|4}test text3

So 'Doc', is there any hope of this? Thanks for the time! // FrankB 22:47, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Back quick!

Intriguingly, this shows space doing just what I would expect! Harrumph! // FrankB 22:53, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

There are a number of bugs and odd behaviours around the use of spaces in templates - all of which seem to be coming into play here. Since templates were designed to ignore large gaps of blank space to allow formatting of the 'template code' they often handle actually intended gaps in the display incorrectly.
One trick I have used in the past is to alternate &nbsp and ' '. As in; '*&nbsp &nbsp *' = * *
I'm not sure whether that will help, but I'll test out some options. --CBDunkerson 23:50, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the trials and post on me Talk! Hope you're right... I noticed (see prior version using 'indent' which is our 'space' for the moment here pending your fix (I had faith!) that this and Template:History_of_Europe were behaving entirely differently when I ported the modified version back to en.wikiP! I'll let you know if I have a bug there too! This HTML psuedo-implementation (not to mention browser issues, esp. with IE6!) must keep you guys busy.

Also, pass the word that I've created Category:Historical Period Templates which should be added to any template bearing on matters historical... Should cut down redundant template creation in the long run, not to mention let editors survey what's already out there. Are there any other template categories, such as perhaps a Category: template categories to give people a head start on doing such poking around? (I guess I'm into categories lately! <g> Some big diffs on the Commons and here that need ironed out!

Thanks again muchly! // FrankB 00:37, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

No problem. For template browsing see Category:Wikipedia templates. --CBDunkerson 13:09, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
btw on templates and cats

These should both be Category:Templates using ParserFunctions since they use the switch function (???), correct? // FrankB 00:43, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes, probably. --CBDunkerson 13:09, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The big If question!

Hi again. Need a little template expertise ... how to get an simple 'if branching' action.

To whit, in this commons template want the output of the second line to match this, but iff (if and only if) Arg1 is presented. Otherwise want no display for the second (Main Article) link generation line. Note in the category lines' 'parameter' (number is '1' now, needs to be '2' in {WikiPcat2}...) will then need be morphed to {{{2|{{{PAGENAME}}}| etc. (like this edit).

FYI: 'WikiPcat2' has only one page linked to it, and has no arguements, so it can be safely changed directly, as the default Category is still going to be the default category output.

Not bad though—I've gone from knowing nothing about templates to writing nearly a dozen in four daZe <g> (see: useage and notes in {{Commonscat2R}}, {{Commonscat4M}}, etcetera for a hint), or modifying another 4 or 5 too for the commons.

Are there BOOLEAN capabilities? One application I have in mind will need a bounds test against two values with apropos branching, computations, and output generation. I don't recollect seeing any in the math set you and Ed Poor were discussing.

I'm also interested in persuing that 'date' issue using 'fix' (iirc) eventually, but want to get this commons vs WikiP category normalization stabilized first. Besides, I figure I need to learn more about these danged things besides how to use them first!

Thanks fer hold me hand, as it were. Best regards, // FrankB 16:03, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Gratziass, or however that's spelled! I was just tearing apart 'succession' which seems to use some modular coding to build the display. Dang! Something grabbed me in another browser tab... I started writing this about the time you finished your answer OMT! Sigh... I'll probably edit confict with my self now! Best! // FrankB 00:44, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The timestamp crises

Briefly browsing Help:variable, I gather this is what you were refering to about the subst issue:

'Includeonly subst magic:

When a template containing {{<includeonly>subst:</includeonly>CURRENTTIME}} is substituted, the time of doing that is put in the wikitext, and similarly for other variables.

Examples:

{{CURRENTTIME}}

16:07 - stays a variable on pages including the template

{{subst:CURRENTTIME}}

21:25 - became a substituted constant in the template

{{<includeonly>subst:</includeonly>CURRENTTIME}}

16:07 - becomes a constant at the time of its inclusion '

So I infer you were saying to set up one template 'substtime' with 16:38 called by another where you want the datestamp, such as one of the merge/clean/etc. templates. Seems to be a piece missing... the template is still going to be called each time the file is edited... ever renewing itself, I'd guess, hence we'd need a numeric equivilent date to feed a template that then subst's that into a call to the 'output' template... which construct holds the aggragated arguments to a display template. Complicated! reminds me of working strings back in the bad old days of FORTRAN. No wonder it's not been done! // FrankB 16:38, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mystery Manifestation

Getting A strange side effect in using {{see also}} in that this group of categories ALL prefixed by ':' has one showing up to categorize the listing page... which happens to be an AfD page I'm involved with wearing my 'fix up the article hat'. In any event, short of removing the post, I'm not sure what to do (if anything). To be clear, the Afd page is showing up as a Page in the category: Maps showing the history of the Early Middle Ages under 'W'.

There was a second file manifesting there (I can't recall it's name, but was also under 'W') as well until this edit: 22:37, 10 June 2006 (hist) (diff) Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of fictional universes (→List of fictional universes - del spc from see also template - was putting listed category in AFD!) diff

  • Bold translates to removing the space after the first pipe character. IIRC, the category had shown at the bottom of the Afd page before that, and it went away... but didn't really. When I got back to the page, there it was right where I first noticed it!


  1. 23:39, 10 June 2006 (hist) (diff) m Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of fictional universes (→List of fictional universes - assert noincludes around Early Middle Ages) (top)
  2. 23:36, 10 June 2006 (hist) (diff) Category:Maps showing the history of the Early Middle Ages (Equalize cats to project Europe & Commons) (top)
  3. 23:26, 10 June 2006 (hist) (diff) Category:Maps showing the history of the High Middle Ages (fx up cats and groups and export to equalize commons) (top)

[edit] Phase two

After seeing it again, I tried to figure out how to keep the integrity of the Afd file, and decided to try putting a nested pair of noinclude ... /noinclude around the file or file group. That did nothing I could observe. (This edit: assert noincludes around Early Middle Ages.)

[edit] The Plot thickens

While grabbing links writing this, I tried to use Further instead on the earlier version (before the includes)... It bombs out almost totally, only showing the one link, this first one giving the problem. I stayed in preview, so I don't know what it did with respect to the category manifestation.

I'm beginning to suspect someone has fiddled with something and the routines aren't robust anymore. Need a bullet proof vest! (or locked files!).

Well, this is no big deal, but it's strange! Maps are supposed to show up on that page carried down from the commons, not Afd sub-pages. I say this next thing with all seriousness and a straight face (suppressing a BSEG)— Have Fun chasing this one! (Ahem) <g> Best! // FrankB 00:16, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

The problem is that [[ :Category:<whatever>]] is treated as [[Category:<whatever>]] rather than [[:Category:<whatever>]]. The 'leading :' markup only works if the colon is the first character after the brackets... just a limitation of how it works. I don't think categories were considered when 'see also' and 'further' were set up... they are primarily used to link to other articles. The reason 'further' only showed the first item you listed is that it only takes one parameter... so you would need to input it as, {{further|[[:Category:<whatever>]], [[:Category:<somethingelse>]], et cetera}}. --CBDunkerson 01:14, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for fix on {{see also}}... don't see any changes! What if anything did you do? The category no longer shows the page... or am I seeing a manifestation of database lag of some type?
Regardless... Can you bend some thought on how to bullet-proof that in see also type listing... I was thinking to adapt it as a template for a systematic cross-linking of 'branch-nodes' in the commons tree structure, and here where a category:Wikipedia navigation templates would be a parent along with a cell to provide the [[:Category: Peram + Parent Peram]] e.g. {{dummy|Old maps of Europe|Old maps of|France|Germany|Italy|...|Netherlands|... |Ukraine}} would output the centered title:Old Maps of Europe, and have under the list of category links built 'Old maps of', as I said similar to the MBTA, or simplier {{1632 series}} type of navigation templates.
Right now there is no (?) 'short list' of templates that lists groups of links that allow easy traversal... e.g. simplest example to me is succession or succession box, but {{MBTA}} is more like the model I've in mind for Images and Map cats on the commons... I was hoping to write some 'subroutine' template that takes the first article (parent cat) and the bare names (list in pipe seperated form) and builds lines using a derivative of see also... so the thing would have very wide scope THERE... and be fairly easy to use. Probably add a segment like one adds complexity to {{succession box}}. But just a notion now, pending feedback from a couple folks I mentioned it to there. Just because cross links seem good to me, doesn't mean the commons culture will like the thought.
The rains up here have finally stopped for a few days and me yard is screaming for me to minimize wikiTime the next few days. In any event, Thanks again // FrankB 16:21, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
No, I didn't make any changes to 'see also'. Was just explaining what was causing the issues you saw. It would be difficult to do so without breaking some of the numerous existing uses of the template. Making it 'bulletproof' for the category links you are looking for would best be accomplised by changing it to accept just the category names as parameters and then automatically apply the [[:Category:<param>]] to that. The navigation system you are talking about seems similar to {{navbox generic}}. That code could be adapted to build category links like your example. I'd suggest creating a separate template to cover this as the desired functionality is fairly specific. I'll put something along the lines of what I think you want at {{category tree navbox}}. --CBDunkerson 13:21, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] I'd like your take on this

Thanks for the fixes!

I've been 'bugged' by my hot button issue of the default skin hiding categories from the user for around two months, and this related thing punched the button pretty much dead center as the same point has been nagging at me as is made by the originator. Seems to me a VP listing ought be made on both, as it were, by at least a mention 'synopsis' with link, and the common debate on kept this page. This seems preferable, as both VP:Technical and VP:policy are certainly apropo venues for a link posting, and I think we've all seen some of the bad effects of the current trend. This point made by the originator is sparse, but on point and imho, important. By keeping the discussion there, it can be similarly referenced on other BB's (Meta for one), and there are a few others. I'm much too focused on wikiEditing to keep up with all the discussion forums, so where should it go, should it be given a seperate venue (Yet another 'proposed guideline'!), or what? In sum, seems to me the 'Internal links' section with such a category template would solve both problems with minimal edit dislocation.

My confidence is high that a structural problem in presentation is present under current standards (editorial guidelines), but my crystal ball shattered some years back <g>, so I can't measure it's severity there and it's hard to gauge it's exact magnitude using anything but inductive reasoning. Personally, I rarely visit the nether regions of a web-page, and admittedly tend to attribute that to other 'oldsters' as well. I guess the key question is: If one is reading casually, what reason have they, 'our customer-readers' for looking lower down past the references? Advice? Best regards! // FrankB 15:59, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

It took me a while to figure out what you mean because I use the 'Classic' skin where the categories actually are displayed more prominently. Note that the appearance of all the skins is adjustable. I don't know if there is some reason behind the placement of the category links on Monobook, but note that all details of the skins can be changed either for the individual user (User:Fabartus/monobook.css), for the site (MediaWiki:monobook.css), or all of Wikimedia (m:MediaWiki:monobook.css). This even allows special handling of text - for instance I don't care for spoiler warnings (if I was afraid of something being 'spoiled' I wouldn't read the article) so I have a section in User:CBDunkerson/standard.css which causes the 'spoiler' class (set by the {{spoiler}} template) to be hidden. Thus I would suggest discussing it on the CSS talk pages and/or taking a look at m:Gallery of user styles for examples of how to change it for your own configuration. --CBD 19:59, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] {{DYK-Refresh}} again

Hi Conrad, unfortunately the DYK refresh clock seems to be off the rails again. If you could wave your magic wand over the bits and pieces once more, that would be great. Many thanks. --Cactus.man ✍ 08:56, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

For a bit more on this: Wikipedia_talk:Did_you_know#Update_clock_issues_-__Template_talk:Did_you_know.23Refreshment_section.2C (last section at the moment of this message in case teh relative link doesn't work)... at least to me it appears to be a problem with preview and to be intermittent because I was able to get the clock to update. but I've seen it in preview be as much as 36 hours off from what it should be. I run FireFox 1.5 on win XP. Thanks for your efforts with this template, much appreciated, it is VERY handy. ++Lar: t/c 13:32, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Template:Infobox generic

What was your aim with Template:Infobox generic? have you abandoned it? Circeus 00:38, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Maybe it'd be better off in your userspace? Circeus 16:18, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
To answer your questions with my own - Why exactly? What's up? I don't know what the 'issue' is here because you haven't made any non-interogatory statements. :]
I had left this in template space because many times others will come along and start using/improving something once the concept is introduced... as, for example, the similar {{Navbox generic}} which you made changes to previously. --CBD 12:56, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Template:CURRENTMINUTE

See mediazilla:6356, it's a bug with MOD. Your more expensive formula has the 59/00 problem, but that strikes less than 1 out of 20. I've no idea how likely it is, whenever I got garbage I thought it's a 59/00 case, but maybe it was the MOD bug. -- Omniplex 11:05, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Template:Infobox Company

Hi. From the template's history I believe you added the footnote parameter? If so could you explain what it's for? I don't think its mentioned anywhere and I don't think its being used. Thank you, Mark83 17:14, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Many thanks for the response. Glad I asked you, rather than "accusing" you! Regards --Mark83 22:32, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Template:Findbox

I believe that this template is not a good idea. Say someone has 10 userboxes and on average it is found in N/2 (with N being 18 currently). That is 90 ifexists calls, 10 ifs, and 21 transclusions. It is not unheard of for people to have hundreds of userboxes on a page--and given that Template:User {{{1}}} is checked next to last, and that is where many babelboxes and other boxes are located it isn't hard to imagine a userpage ending up with a thousand or more calls. There is also the problem of invalidating the caches of over 2000 userpages whenever a new archive is added. Kotepho 21:58, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

To date I have not seen any detectable slowdown as a result of using or editing this template. My understanding is that the difference between one 'ifexists' call and thirty is neglible. Likewise, concerns about server load from 'meta-template' style transclusion have been described as inaccurate by the lead developer. Finally, in the grand scheme of things 2000 pages is not a significant number. All of these things are born out by observed performance. The 'Template:User {{{1}}}' check should be first, to get the version from the template namespace over any copies, but I've got it listed last currently because alot of 'deleted' userboxes have been replaced with notices indicating where the new version resides in user space... which would then come up instead of the actual box if the Template namespace were checked first. Eventually those notices should be cleared out and I will switch the order around. If dozens of people start creating 'archives' of just two or three boxes and adding them to this template, it winds up transcluded onto 30,000 pages, or other events transpire which make it begin to be a measurable drag on performance then there are various adjustments which can be made to address those issues. For instance, consolidating archives or limiting the scanned archives to those with over 50 boxes, protecting the template page to prevent frequent changes, et cetera. If an issue develops there are ways of dealing with it. --CBD 13:11, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Template:Dynamic navigation box with image

Could you please take a look at this one? It displays incorrectly for me (with the image under the top bar instead of above it) although the text is essentially the same as on the German and Spanish templates. I wonder whether there is a CSS issue involved that I don't understand. As you are one of the people who know their way around templates, I hope you can help. Happy editing, Kusma (討論) 01:34, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks, I'm trying again

I'm back, See second email before doing anything! FrankB 23:26, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

  • He's baaaaaack. Can you clue me in on how to shut up the ({{Ut}}) 'if statement' in this test (bottom) (bad as a teenaged girl! Noisy!)
If I knew how to give a Barnstar, I'd give you two. 'ACE!!!' and 'Ole Reliable'. Yippie, less typing! (I'm basically lazy, even if I didn't go to bed last night!) <g> All Star Game WikiBreak coming up!!! // FrankB 23:16, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
  • btw - if someone deserves a Barnstar today, see Petros471 and refer the matter to whomever is empowered. // FrankB 23:16, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Citation templates

Hi Conrad. I would appreciate if you could take the citation templates under your auspices. I know you are one of the best template specialists here, and you have been a great help during the WP:AUM wars, for which I was and am very thankful. Now {{cite book}} (used on more than 15,000 pages), {{cite web}}, {{cite journal}}. {{cite news}} are fully protected and the admins that drop by there don't always know what they are doing. Since I've done a lot there and tried to keep things running there it would be a shame if everything would go down there, after I (and others) have invested that much their wiki time (including you!). I intend to step back there a bit, not alone due to the fact that I can't edit anymore there, but it's nevertheless a good breaking point. I do not intend to leave Wikipedia completely, but I start getting some serious "all is done what I could do" feelings. So I probably won't be that much around as during the WP:AUM wars last years. Thanks for everything and whishing you all the best. --Ligulem 22:30, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Slang glossaries / glossary discussion

Thank you for your input on the glossary issue. You suggested that all glossaries be transwikied to Wiktionary. Such a plan has many drawbacks when looked at in greater detail. There are many aspects of glossaries and how they are used on Wikipedia which you did not consider. I've pointed some of these out in response to your post, and would be interested in reading your response to them. You can find them at: Wikipedia talk:What Wikipedia is not#Slang glossaries. --List Expert 02:02, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Seeking programmer input

We need the advice of a programmer at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Sidebar redesign proposal. Is the project practical? What are the limitations? Are there structural or system considerations? What options/opportunities are we overlooking? How would the current proposal be implemented? 'Thought it would be best to get some techie help on this from the start, before we blow this out for discussion to the wider community. --Nexus Seven 02:52, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] iso 15924

Hi coding profi, your help needed at http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template_talk:Infobox_WS&diff=69869143&oldid=62080587 Tobias Conradi (Talk) 19:46, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

[3] - thank you :-) Tobias Conradi (Talk) 15:36, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Template /doc pattern

See User:Ligulem/work/min. I made an edit link. --Ligulem 12:43, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

That works for me. Some users don't have 'section editing' enabled so having a 'hard-coded' link to the documentation sub-page makes sense. --CBD 14:07, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
Hmm. Just wondering: do you see section edit links on Template:Tl? I have them enabled but they don't show up there for me. --Ligulem 15:57, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
Answering myself: Conrad is an admin and Template:Tl is protected. I'm not an admin, so I can't edit Template:Tl. But I could edit Template:Tl/doc, which is not protected. But the display of the edit links of sections is obviously disabled because of the protected page. Counterexample: template:cite video (is not protected, so I do have the section edit links, even though the doc is transcluded). --Ligulem 18:55, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
Hmmm, hadn't thought of that... even though the section of the page you would be editing is not protected the edit links are suppressed because the page is protected. So hard-coded edit links are definitely going to be the way to go. --CBD 01:10, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Greek alphabet

I get errors when adding iso15924 at Greek alphabet. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 15:49, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Template:Infobox_WS - I fixed it. Made the param like the params at the top. IMO now there will be allways lines, even if empty. Before i did the fixes the code was shown i same line as the preceding stuff (sisters or parets, depended on lang IIRC). Tobias Conradi (Talk) 16:25, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Whupps, see what I missed now. Sorry about that. --CBD 21:50, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

I created Template:User iso15924 Tobias Conradi (Talk) 16:52, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Your help is appreciated at http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:User_iso15924/category-intro&diff=71949679&oldid=71948606

if-else stuff would be needed. The Template:User_iso15924/category-intro is used at the top of every category. It should set the parent categories depending on 1=script 2=knowledge level. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 05:02, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

It was deleted, I am really pissed off. Several hours of working and a wild admin just deletes the stuff. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 19:14, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

THANK YOU!!! Tobias Conradi (Talk) 18:50, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] If you can't beat 'em, join 'em

Quiddity was spotting me wherever I turned up, so sockpuppetry was futile. So I've shrugged my shoulders and have accepted him as a team mate rather than viewing him as a tail. We're actually getting along now, if you can believe it.

The main reason I'm contacting you, though, has to do with a project I've been working on: the page formatting on Wikipedia's main reference pages. Please take a look. The edit buttons are opening the template page {{Reference page section}}. Basically, in order to get a box around each section, I was using each subsequent template to close the section that came before it. Here are the links to the reference pages:


Contents | Overviews | Academia | Topics | Basic topics | Tables | Glossaries | Portals | Categories

"Basic topics" lacks the template, and has the code embedded in its text (to customize the font-size to match the titles of the other ref pages). We haven't had a problem with this page because the section edit buttons are turned off. "Fields of study" and "A-Z index" don't include the template at all.

I've temporariliy turned off the section edit buttons in "Topics", above, because the edit boxes were coming up blank. In "Tables" the behavior is even freakier. --The Transhumanist 06:30, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for all your help in the past (it seemed more like wizardry, actually), and I look forward to seeing whatever miracles you may perform this time around.

Sincerely,

--The Transhumanist 06:25, 27 August 2006 (UTC) (aka Go for it!, Go for it, Nexus Seven, True Genius, Polar Deluge, The Tipster, etc. etc.).

[edit] Template:Shortcut hack

What is the purpose of the bizarre template code on {{shortcut}} (wrapping it in {{{1)? ed g2s • talk 12:10, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Okay, but the {{{1 wrapper should be around the inclusion of the template, not in the template itself, otherwise you end up with {{shortcut|}} calls which are a unnecessary:
{{#if: {{{1|}}} | {{shortcut|{{{1}}}}} }}
How many templates pass a parameter to shortcut like this, so I can fix them? ed g2s • talk 13:05, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sorry to bother you again

Hello again, CB! Remember {{Infobox WS}}? I was wondering if it would be possible to make only the first word under the "Type" variable count. For example, if I write

|type=[[Logographic]] with syllabic elements

can the color for "Logographic" only show up, instead of it being white? I've been doing some work with templates but I can't handle this advanced stuff like you can. The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 19:45, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Hi Ikiroid. In this case what you are trying to do actually isn't possible directly. Wikipedia doesn't have any functionality for isolating portions of a string with the exception of a few tricks for wikilinks only (e.g. [[Shire (Middle-earth)|]] knows to ignore the parenthetical and just shows Shire). You could simulate something like this by having a 'type' parameter and a 'type description' which is displayed right after it. So, in this case, type=Logographic and typedesc=with syllabic elements. Alternatively, if there are only going to be a few variations like this it could be added to the #switch so 'Logographic with syllabic elements' would be a recognized text for producing the red color. I'll implement that for now, but if there are going to be alot of variations then the 'type and typedesc' method might be better. --CBD 08:17, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
CB, I like your idea for an optional "type description" parameter. I was thinking of calling it "typedesc." I tried to add it in, but I didn't do it because A) It was your idea, so you should get credit, and B) I didn't know where to add {{{typedesc}}} in the code so it would be transcluded next to {{{type}}} without disrupting the color code. Do you think you could add in a "typedesc" parameter, just like how you described it above? The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 02:21, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
Hi Ikiroid. I made an update for the 'typedesc' parameter. Since we only want to use it for display we can bypass the color code entirely and only include it on the line where the type is actually displayed. --CBD 09:46, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
I just used it in Cuniform, it works great! Thank you! I'll try adding it to other Writing systems with exceptions. By the way, I put my two cents in into the ipa-0 DRV. The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 14:22, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] DYK Refresh

I found the time elapsed line extremely useful. Why did you comment it out? - Mgm|(talk) 12:14, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

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