User talk:DocWatson42

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[edit] Welcome

Hello, welcome to Wikipedia.

[edit]

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Again, welcome! - UtherSRG 22:42, 18 Jan 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Stoats (and other weasels)

Hi DocWatson42: nice additions to the Stoat page. There is a lot more work that needs doing on Mustelidae if you are expert on that group.

A gentle nudge on a couple of format/Wikipedia convention matters:

  • Scientific names at genus/species/subspecies level should be italicised, by putting them in two single quotes, wherever they occur, i.e. including in text;
  • To avoid people getting into reversion battles, Wiki's convention is that spelling (i) follows US conventions (e.g. "color") for preponderantly US topics, (ii) international conventions (e.g. "colour") for topics preponderantly concerned with other English-speaking countries, and (iii) whichever was used by the editor who started the page on matters that span both. On grounds of (iii) (and possibly given the Stoat's distribution, (ii)), Stoat should stay with its current international spelling.

However these matters are MUCH less important than adding nice content to the pages - thanks again! seglea 20:02, 12 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Two tips:

  1. It's "External links". Headers should only capitalize the first word and any proper nouns.
  2. The space after the header is not necessary.

You might want to look at Wikipedia:Manual of Style and Wikipedia:Manual of Style (headings).

Thanks, and keep contributing :) Dysprosia 05:36, 4 May 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Dashes

Hi, Doc. Oh, boy. I've just been chasing your dashes from one side of the 'pedia to the other. Couple of comments:

It's considered bad form to arbitrarily change the style of dash already in use in an article. Kind of like making unwarranted changes from US to UK spelling (or vice versa). We accept, on an equal basis, spaced emdashes, joined-up emdashes, spaced endashes, or even the horrid " -- " and " - " — the idea there is one day, the wikisoftware will automatically convert those into the correct dash.

Second comment: if you are going to use emdashes and endashes, it's much better for you to use the (albeit rather ugly) HTML entities &mdash and &ndash (followed by semicolons) rather than typing in the dash character directly, because a lot of browsers, when they go into edit mode, won't recognise those characters and will break them, turning them into question marks. Same thing happens with "curly quotation marks".

Any questions, rants, etc., my talk page is always open. You could also take a look at the "Dashes" section on Wikipedia:Manual of Style. Best, –Hajor 04:49, 4 Jun 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Dashes 2

Hello, there. Thanks for the reply. Let's try and take it part by part (and let's see if I can get the interstitial quoting style to work).

It's considered bad form to arbitrarily change the style of dash already in use
<frown> I've read the Wikipedia:Manual of Style and the Dash (punctuation) articles, and this point is not mentioned at all in either of them.

You're aboslutely right that it's not mentioned. A grave oversight on the community's part, and probably something for which I owe you an apology. However, while the above diktat doesn't appear as such, I think it can stand as a piece of conventional wisdom that can be inferred from the comments about changing US/UK spelling in the style manual, and from the lengthy discussions about dashes that appear to crop up every couple of months (some of which you will have seen on the style manual's talk page). But yes, my apologies, and I'll take my case over there and try and get it included in the manual.

We accept, on an equal basis, spaced emdashes, joined-up emdashes, spaced endashes, or even the horrid " -- " and " - "
I note that those last two in your list are not being rendered in the manner in which you original typed them Darned updates...)

What, the space-hyphen-space and the space-hyphen-hyphen-space? What are you seeing instead (I'm not using the new Monobook skin; it's too small and fiddly for my screen and eyes).

spaced hyphens are not (currently) among the accepted em dash substitutes. Quote:

Correct, per the style manual they're not. But there are a lot of the out there, tolerated on a de facto basis as the easy way of doing it, or with a view to the promised future automatic conversion function. With respect to space-hyphen-hyphen-space being deprecated ("this is almost never the case in ASCII do not use this"), occasional attempts to eliminate them have been met by resistance from those who believe Wiki editing should be as simple and transparent as possible, without "counterintuitive" html entities to scare off potential editors (you'll see proponents of that on the talk page). Plus, at least one of our programmers has encouraged us to use them with a view to the future automatic conversion.

Lastly, what about articles with multiple, mixed styles of em dashes?

Tiptoe away quietly?

In sum -- yes, what we've got is a right mess and no real policy. Which was part of the reason I jumped at you for (in good faith, I quite understand) trying to impose a little order on the chaos. Please, meet me later on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Dashes, where I'll be trying to drum up consensus for a paragraph to include in the Manual. Regards, –Hajor 20:19, 14 Jun 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Comiket

Sorry about the premature delete of Comiket - it's just pages with just external links aren't really desirable. But you added content, so that's good :) Dysprosia 08:13, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I didn't notice—I was busy making the Comic Market page, and adding the redirect to Comiket. ^_^ DocWatson42 08:17, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Polish contribution to World War II

Thanks for cleaning up the article, you did a great job! Halibutt 16:04, Jul 7, 2004 (UTC)

Yup, Operation Tempest needs attention and polishing as well. The problm is that it's been 10 years since I were in an English speaking country for the last time and wikipedia is currently one of the very few chances to practisize English for me. And I see my English-speaking capabilities deteriorate quickly. I know it, but there's very little I can do about it... That's where most of my mistakes come from. Halibutt 22:59, Jul 7, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Continuation War

I am glad to see you've done some heavy work with the newest additions. My opinion is official[1]. You may want to see Talk:Continuation_War#Events_of_1940 too. /Tuomas 19:30, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Dashes 3

In electronic amplifier you made some dash changes. It looked wrong so I looked up the rules. For a closed range, an en dash should be used, not an em dash. 1945–1967, for instance. However with numbers that might be misconstrued as subtraction, it is recommended by SI to just use the word "to". Also you separated some definition lists with em dashes. This is incorrect, and colons should be used to separate lists of words from definitions. Wikipedia has its own syntax for this anyway, which is usually prettier:

word 1 
definition of word 1
word 2 
definition of word 2
word 3 
definition of word 3

- Omegatron

[edit] Wikifying

Hello, I noticed that you wikified the Singing Revolution. Just wanted to let you know that plain English words like "living" and "length" do not need to be wikified. See Wikipedia:Make only links relevant to the context. Andris 10:33, Aug 20, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Aozora Bunko

I'm sorry for late reply. While I want to thank you for your contributions to Aozora Bunko lists, personally I want to get rid of them. I admit that it was mistake to have created those lists. I don't think they belong to an encyclopedia like Wikipedia. Please let me know what we should do to them or anyone who has idea. -- Taku 07:05, Aug 28, 2004 (UTC)

Hi, I nuked the typo redirect for you. Noel 09:24, 4 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Ah—thank you. DocWatson42 10:07, 4 Sep 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Article Licensing

Hi, I've started a drive to get users to multi-license all of their contributions that they've made to either (1) all U.S. state, county, and city articles or (2) all articles, using the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike (CC-by-sa) v1.0 and v2.0 Licenses or into the public domain if they prefer. The CC-by-sa license is a true free documentation license that is similar to Wikipedia's license, the GFDL, but it allows other projects, such as WikiTravel, to use our articles. Since you are among the top 1000 Wikipedians by edits, I was wondering if you would be willing to multi-license all of your contributions or at minimum those on the geographic articles. Over 90% of people asked have agreed. For More Information:

To allow us to track those users who muli-license their contributions, many users copy and paste the "{{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}}" template into their user page, but there are other options at Template messages/User namespace. The following examples could also copied and pasted into your user page:

Option 1
I agree to [[Wikipedia:Multi-licensing|multi-license]] all my contributions, with the exception of my user pages, as described below:
{{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}}

OR

Option 2
I agree to [[Wikipedia:Multi-licensing|multi-license]] all my contributions to any [[U.S. state]], county, or city article as described below:
{{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}}

Or if you wanted to place your work into the public domain, you could replace "{{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}}" with "{{MultiLicensePD}}". If you only prefer using the GFDL, I would like to know that too. Please let me know what you think at my talk page. It's important to know either way so no one keeps asking. -- Ram-Man (comment| talk)

[edit] Millau Viaduct

Why did you change m3 to m3? AFAIK, m3 is the SI Unit. --Tagishsimon (talk)

Did I? That certainly was not one of my intended edits—please change it back.DocWatson42 05:54, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Bizarre. You did it again! [1] Assuming it's not a wind-up, it might be a bug? --Tagishsimon (talk)
It's apparently a bug in my browser (Macintosh MSIE 5.0)—it doesn't seem to like the superscripting.  :-/ DocWatson42 06:01, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] lots of edits, not an admin

Hi - I made a list of users who've been around long enough to have made lots of edits but aren't admins. If you're at all interested in becoming an admin, can you please add an '*' immediately before your name in this list? I've suggested folks nominating someone might want to puruse this list. Thanks. -- Rick Block (talk) 22:45, Jun 13, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Dashes and degrees

Hi DocWatson - I don't know if you've noticed, it is no longer necessary to type out the HTML entities (&deg ; &ndash ; etc) for these, since the big wiki upgrade a couple of months ago - if you scroll down below the edit box, you'll see a long row of assorted accented characters, symbols, dashes, etc, which you can just click on, to insert the desired item. Hajor's point from a year ago ("Dashes", above) no longer applies since the wiki upgrade, the direct character is now preferred (it makes editing for future editors a lot easier) - MPF 21:22, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Newspaper companies

I noticed that you italicized "Asahi Shimbun" in the Koshien article. Personally I think the italics look better so I don't want to change it, but is it common to italicize the name of the publisher when it is the same as the name of the publication? I could see italicizing something like "The New York Times did an article on fungus." but Asahi Shimbun publishes books and other things besides the newspaper. Just curious. Ken6en 06:17, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

I had not thought about it. I was merely thinking of the newspaper's title, not the publisher's name, and I italicized it with that view. To answer your question, no, the publisher's name is (I believe) treated separately from their publication(s)—e.g., "The New York Times Company", not "The New York Times Company". In this particular case it would depend upon whether it was the publisher or only the newspaper that sponsors the tournament—something I do not know either way. ^_^; DocWatson42 09:04, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:WikiProject Japanese mythology

Heya, noticed you did some editing on Tomoe Gozen. Just thought I'd let you know there's now a WikiProject for Japanese folklore and mythology, if you're interested in joining.--み使い Mitsukai 04:46, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the invitation, but I don't time. ^_^; DocWatson42 05:47, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mai, the Psychic Girl

Hey, are you sure Mai wasn't the first manga to be translated to English? If so, what was the first and where was it published? Thanks. Elvrum 18:59, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

  • It was a version of Barefoot Gen by EduComics, in hardback, in the 1970s. I have a letter from the publisher, Leonard Rifas, to that effect, but I have no idea where it is in the mess that is my storage space. Oh, wait—see here; original PDF. Here is the cover of volume 2. Mai was the first to be regularly published in comic book form, and constitues the beginning of the modern American manga industry. DocWatson42 19:33, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Anglicanism and the Anglican Communion

Hello! I noticed that you have been a contributor to articles on Anglicanism and the Anglican Communion. You may be interested in checking out a new WikiProject - WikiProject Anglicanism. Please consider signing up and participating in this collaborative effort to improve and expand Anglican-related articles! Cheers! Fishhead64 23:28, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the invitation ^_^ , but I'm mostly just an itinerant copy editor, who goes where his interest takes him. DocWatson42 03:11, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] LC

Beautiful work on the Light Cruiser article! --Therealhazel

Thanks, but I only corrected two denotations of tonnage. ^_^; Compare here. DocWatson42 08:25, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Rashidi

After your edits of this article it looks as if all amirs were the first... , not quite what you wanted, I assume? Regards, Huldra 17:20, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

<sigh> Nope. I inserted carriage returns to make editing easier (i.e., I double spaced the paragraphs), but apparently the software can't handle it. I've now fixed it. DocWatson42 09:03, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cleanup on F8F-2

I note that you moved a comma outside the parens:

  • Yale's "Flying Professor," to
  • Yale's "Flying Professor",

My understanding of normal contemporary typographic usage is that the former style is still usually preferred. Although the latter style is in fact more logical, and for programmers it is more natural, I believe that the majority of current typographic/editorial conventions still require us to put the comma inside the quotes, regardless of semantics. I also realize that there is debate about this, and that it varies from region to region; and therefore I wouldn't correct somebody who had chosen the other convention in an article. But since you have made this change, can you cite a basis for it? If so, should this be applied rigorously in other articles? I am not picking nits here; this is an issue that has vexed me for thirty years. I didn't think it was resolved yet, but perhaps I missed the memo. :) Trevor Hanson 08:31, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

It may still be debated outside of the English-language Wikipedia, but it is in accordance with the Manual of Style#Quotation marks. I also happen to prefer that style. ^_^ DocWatson42 09:26, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
Thanks, that sounds definitive; don't know how I had missed it. I had been taking my cues from Quotation mark, which says inter alia: "In American English, commas and periods (full stops) always go inside the quotation marks, single or double" and I had thought WikiPedia style remained agnostic on the topic. Apparently that was wrong. I will change my usage; I also have long preferred the "logical" style intellectually, but felt bound by U.S. conventions. Much obliged.
You're welcome! DocWatson42 06:13, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mori Ogai

Can you check your recent edits to Mori Ogai? Some of the hyphen replacements seem odd (especially, inside the link to Russo-Japanese War and as part of a hyphenated word like self-destruction). Thanks. Neier 07:12, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

<sigh> That's what I get for using a global find-replace. I fixed them. DocWatson42 07:17, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
Thanks! I hesitated to fix it myself, because it could have been a script/AWB program run amuck, and those things are better-off fixed at the source. Glad to hear it was something more benign. Neier 07:43, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
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