User talk:Mdcollins1984

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Mdcollins is currently, or going to be on vacation in real life from 5 April 2007 until 15 April 2007 and may not be able to respond immediately to queries. He/She may, however, edit a little from a hotel or relative's house.

[edit] Pipe Organ

Greetings,

I agree with your assessment of Organ pipe and Organ stop as unnecessary, and that they can be redirected to a specific section of Pipe organ. However, the more serious problem here is the dearth of information in specific articles--flue pipe, reed pipe and so on. The section "Variation in timbre of organ pipes" in Organ pipe should be added to these specific articles; the other information can be incorporated into Pipe organ or in other specific articles--one thing that stands out for me is "Common stop names" which should be incorporated into Pipe organ (albeit in paragraph form, not a list).

I would be happy to join an organ project; I nearly started one myself, but found very few people attempting general edits across organ-related pages--perhaps the situation is different now. Still, such a project would be beneficial. — (talk) 00:12, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Hello; you also sent me one of these notices. I just added a slew of these little pages to my watchlist and cleaned up Organ flue pipe scaling, but I don't have the expertise to really fix it. Do you happen to have that expertise? Speaking of these things, and pertaining to the topic of the notice you sent me far too long ago, an organ project needs to be started to fix the myriad little articles and to improve the quality of the organ-related articles in the first place. I would start one, but I don't know how to and I can't quite figure it out (as is the case with me concerning many Wikipedia tasks). Want to start one? It looks like Sesquialtera II would be interested. —Cor anglais 16 22:11, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

I have formally proposed the WikiProject Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals#Pipe Organ. Please add your name to the interested list and lets see if we can get this off the ground. Mdcollins1984 10:18, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Bell weight in Clock Tower, Palace of Westminster

Hi Mdcollins1984, I did some minor change to the bell weight in Clock Tower, Palace of Westminster to match the metric with the imperial measurements. Would you be so kind to review this edit, because I'm not really familiar with the imperial ton? Thanks, MikeZ 13:28, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Railway Series - Fictional Locations...

Hi and Happy 2007!

We must have a telepathic link, as I was just planning to start tackling the Fictional Locations problems. I presume you'll be reverting the expanded 'DAB' pages too?

Even more of a problem is the 'F L in T t T E & F' page. As you well know, this was created as a copy from the equivalent books page and is in dire need of attention. I think we need to find which locations are referenced within WP (eg from the TV episodes pages) and delete the rest. We can probably remove the 'Railway' sections too. It will then be possible to build the page using TV-specific knowledge (which I don't have). Thoughts?

EdJogg 12:12, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Hi. Was planning on dropping you a message shortly too! I don't have much TV series knowledge either, hence why it was left as it was. I was looking at the disambig pages, and was wondering why Gonzerelli had created pure redirects, so left them for the time, but he seems to be inconsistent with it. I was bowing to his superior knowledge for the time being but that can be easily solved.

My main priority was to revert the Hammersfan edits and see how it looked from there. That will be done in a few minutes.

Mdcollins1984 12:16, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

The 'pure redirects' are presumably for locations that are only present in the books, and hence dab pages are not required.

If you look at Sodor (fictional island)#The Island as portrayed on screen, you will perhaps agree that most of the 'history' for the locations is completely irrelevant for the TV series, and, I suggest, much of the 'geography' too, hence 'F L in T t T E & F' can be MUCH shorter, since the history/geography can be removed. We need to find a suitable information source that can provide the verified information about the stations and lines as portrayed on TV.

One thing I liked about Hammersfan's edits was the addition of the 'railway line' box. I was thinking that these could be added for each station in the 'F L in the Railway Series' article to allow the reader to travel 'up and down the lines' using navi boxes - in the same way that they would be able to do if the places were in separate articles. At the time I did a little trial and it looked OK - especially since it broke up the 'blank text' of the current page. I was planning to use different colours for the different lines as per the Sodor maps. However, this will not be a small task, so I might need to do it 'off line'!!

Regardless, I'll let you finish your editing before I go any further!

EdJogg 12:39, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Think I've finished reverting. Shall we notify Hammersfan? The rail line boxes sound good if you can do it! If I've missed anything just fix it. Lets get the railway series sorted, and then look for decent information to sort out the TV series as best we can. The mass editing of a few months ago seems to have died down (Felix??!), so it should be easier to get into a state that is manageable! Mdcollins1984

I think the Railway Series article IS pretty much sorted, now you have reverted it. Various people have been gradually adding info from the references, and it is mostly well covered now (although would benefit from a re-check!) The railway lines boxes would be an enhancement but will not appear 'soon'.

The TV Series stuff, on the other hand is desperately in need of attention (as hinted above). I think we need to attack it as best we can, and then allow others with knowledge to build from the rubble!

As for telling Hammersfan... Well, after my request (see User_talk:Hammersfan#WP:THOMAS.2C_The_Railway_Series_and_Stations his editing on these matters stopped fairly abruptly. I am not sure that telling him what you've done will serve any purpose. He will know, if he is watching the pages, and having seen the number of reported problems concerning his added images it might be better to 'let sleeping dogs lie'!

EdJogg 13:17, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Sodor Railways Naviboxes

I've taken a first stab at adding some naviboxes, see User:EdJogg/Workshop.

You will see that I have:

1. Promoted all the headings so that each location name is underlined
2. Incorporated your recent changes to main article
3. Revised the introduction again (see below)
4. Added the naviboxes created by Hammersfan

The promotion of headings was necessary to separate the locations adequately. This also avoids the need for the current station name to be included in the navibox, since the underline makes it very clear which location you're looking at.

I have re-revised the introduction - see what you think. I'm still not happy about the main section title 'Locations on Sodor', but I couldn't come up with anything better, and 'Locations' is too short. I have not simply reverted your changes, I actually started with them and rearranged things until they flowed nicely. In particular, there was a need for some text between 'Locations' and the first location. Check the history if you want to see how it evolved: I applied the external changes first, then saved, and then modified.

The naviboxes are in their raw 'Hammersfan' state, so I cannot guarantee what will happen if you try to follow the links. I propose to make several changes:

1. Railway line colours to match the Sodor maps
2. Title 'Fictional Railways' to be replaced by 'Sodor Railways' or 'Railways of Sodor', either linking to the Sodor article
3. Line and branch names to be links (still under consideration) to the appropriate page

I haven't yet decided what to do about those with 'main articles' pages (Tidmouth, Ffarquhar, etc). Should the main pages also include the navibox, or should the boxes be restricted to the one page. And what about Vickerstown and Barrow?

I will need to add several new station locations, since a number of intermediate stations (eg on Skarlowy Railway) are not yet present.

Towards the end of the page there are several successive stations with the navi boxes. This will give you a better feel for the finished result.

Phew! Your review/input will be welcome.

EdJogg 15:39, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Excellent job. I like it a lot. For the main section heading is "Railway Series' locations" any better? (Maybe not!).

I would restrict the naviboxes to this one page, but solve the tidmouth/ffarquhar issue by linking the naviboxes to their summary on the collated page. Links can then be followed to the main article if necessary.

The Barrow central box has an extra heading in it - is this deliberate? I'm not sure I like the wording of this description either - it may seem a bit contradictory to some people.

As you say, some of the boxes in their raw state now link to the disambig pages...

On the whole, keep it going - it will look great.

Mdcollins1984 11:20, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

I've addressed your initial concerns, apart from changing the links. For now I am sticking with the new section title of "Places in Sodor", on the basis that Rev. W. used it first, as a chapter title in his book -- and that chapter includes Barrow as the first entry!

The Barrow navibox has two titles as I simply copied it and deleted the National Rail stuff -- check against the original article and all will become clear.

Could I suggest that you put a watch on my Workshop page? Then you'll be able to see what I'm up to -- especially as it will be days, maybe weeks, before I am fully done. (This will also mean I won't need to leave progress reports here!)

TTFN -- EdJogg 15:38, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Will do. Should have thought of that! Mdcollins1984

[edit] Railways of Sodor (Category)

Hi. You may be interested to know that I have created new Category:Railways of Sodor and moved the relevant railway articles into it (they have been deleted from the 'fictional locations' cats, which are themselves parents of 'Railways of Sodor'.)

I have also removed the railways' articles from Category:Rail transport in fiction, since they seemed out-of place (compared with majority of other articles in cat) - and, anyway, the cat is a great-grand-parent of the new one.

To accompany this change, and the real reason for writing... I have created new redirects: Tidmouth, Knapford & Elsbridge Railway and Wellsworth & Suddery Railway. Both point to Sodor (fictional island), at present, but either may be of use to us when writing in the Fict. locations page. They were created so that people navigating via the Railways In Sodor cat could reach the related text, which is buried on the Sodor page.

Cheers. -- EdJogg 14:24, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Cool - the anchored redirect actually worked for me this time! I had a look at playing with the navi boxes, but my technical knowledge was somewhat lacking and I just got frustrated. Once a template has been made, I can cope with it then! I may try again sometime in the future.

Mdcollins1984 14:33, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Constituent country v. UK

Hi! Just a question regarding the old constituent country v. UK debate. I came across THIS (and I'm very sad I missed the chance to contribute), and was hoping to clarify if indeed the consensus is to use constituent country over the UK in intros.

The consensus (from analysing the results) seems to be to use the C.C. in intros when describing a place, with the option of then including the UK as an afternote. Would I be right in assuming this? - it seems the most common approach on most articles (particularly Scottish) and other encyclopedias.

Is there an actual codified Naming convention relating to this anywhere? I'm sure I've come across one. Hope you can help, Jhamez84 00:11, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

It seems sensible to me also - certainly the most useful for readers, the most common approach on most articles, and the approach taken by all other encyclopedias (Britannica, Encarta etc). According to the WikiProject UK geography guidelines on settlement introductions, it states we must include the county and const. country with the option of adding UK to intros - I agree with this style of prose, but a user has queried this with me and wanted to know why this was included as a guideline.

I think it may be required to draw up a naming convention sometime in the future, as I know we have some groups of users with opposite views (Scotland v Cornwall for example).

If asked a few other editors if they can elaborate also. I take an interest in the field, and should you like/need support, do feel free to get in touch. Kindest regards, Jhamez84 13:59, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Hi! Sorry I've taken so long in getting back to you (nearly a month!). Please accept my apologies.

You requested a link to UK geography guidlines on writing about settlements. The link is here. I upgraded the content some time around Christmas as it was not fit for purpose; but before I did it outlined we must use constituent countries when discussing UK places.

I am a Unionist, but given the approach adopted by every other encyclopedia, as well as the most useful for readers, I think the CCs are the most appropriate to use. Hope that helps, gimme a shout if the subject pops up again? Thanks, Jhamez84 19:14, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Vandalism to your page

No problem, happy to help. :) Yonatanh 10:56, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

The same here. It's all part of patrolling Recent Changes. -- TheDarkArchon 13:13, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Your recent eidts...

I've just refreshed my Watchlist and seen all your edits...

...haven't you got anything better to do today???   :o)

(It's going to take me all lunchtime to catch up!)

EdJogg 11:49, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

It's my morning off! Something to do while listening to England beat NZ in the cricket too! Working later this afternoon. Frankly, no, I'm a sad git!

It's mostly collecting links for a big database and reverting Hammersfan...again

Good luck,

Mdcollins1984 11:58, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Masamune AfD

Pleae see my response to your merge and delete comment. Thanks. — Deckiller 06:17, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Commons:Picture of the Year 2006

I assert to use the IP 90.240.184.207 to vote for Commons Picture of the Year 2006. Mdcollins1984 10:40, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Test Signature

• What does this display as? Mdcollins 13:12, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
• Or, this? Mdcollins | Talk 13:14, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
• Or, this? Mdcollins (talk) 13:16, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WP PipeOrgan Project

Just thought I'd pop over and introduce myself, as the first non-founder to sign up to this project. I had some spare time today so tagged articles in various categories to help things along. I'll keep an eye on the "to do" list but don't hesitate to get in touch directly. I may not be the most useful person when it comes to rewriting articles (I'm one of these organists who is quite happy playing but doesn't know much about how the beast is put together - a state of blissful ignorance that will last as long as I put off going for ARCO!) but I'll do what I can to help. Best wishes, Bencherlite 20:01, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, not sure I agree that non-cathedral organists should be in the cathedral organists category. I think you then have a real problem of deciding whether someone played at "enough" churches or a "large enough" church to qualify, whereas "Did he/she play at a cathedral?" should be a straightforward question to answer. I don't think we need a "Church organists" category as well, though - "classical organists" doesn't have to be an empty category consisting only of sub-categories. Shall we move this discussion to the Project talkpage? Bencherlite 12:46, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] My sig

I do apologise for my bewildering array of signatures - I have been commented on it in the past. I think I'll keep it simple, with a bit of colour. Would you agree with this current one? Thanks к1иgf1$н£я5ω1fт 11:50, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Questions particularly to Bencherlite and Mdcollins

You two wrote me some positive comments following some editing I did last week on the Wiki article "Hendrik Niehoff" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hendrik_Niehoff As you may have discovered, I do not know very much about carrying out helpful upgrades to the Wiki website, so I ask you for help.

Since the previous Niehoff update, I have done considerably more updating. For example, in the meantime I've added a digital photo I took of the great organ Niehoff built for the Johanniskirche in Lüneburg. I took that photo, there is no copyrite problem. But I would like to go further and add a group of photos showing more of Niehoff's work to that webpage. These will come from scans from several books, none of which to my knowledge are copyrighted. I do NOT want to invade the co pyrites, so I ask you to tell me what the limits are - how you can be sure the books are not protected at this time.

The one book is Maarten Albert Vente's "Die Brabanter Orgel" that was last published in 1963 and has no notice of a copyrite when published and Dr. Vente (a very close friend of mine) died in 1989. There are several good photos there from which I have prepared decent scans.

The other book is Jan van Biezen's "Het Nederlandse Orgel in de Renaissance en de Barok, in het Bijzonder de School van Jan van Covelens" that was published in 1995 with ISBN 90-6375-154-0 geb. Again, I do not see notice that this is copyrighted - unless I simply do not understand the Dutch. I have no means of contact with Heer van Biezen to enable discussion on this with him, and I do not want to do anything against the extremely valuable publication he has provided to us. Does anyone have information that will say how far I dare go by adding digital scans for this book to the Niehoff website.

Thank any of you for whatever information you can give me on these matters. IF the results you send are positive, I will glad to continue providing information I have on organ history and construction to the Wikipedia website.

John Brombaugh, retired organbuilder: jborgans@interserv.com <-- write to me directly here to make a better connection.

(for more information on my background, go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Brombaugh )

I've left my reply on Jborgans' talk page. Bencherlite 01:48, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Response back to Bencherlite and Mdcollins

RE back to: Copyright question - reply from Mdcollins and Bencherlite copied in the next indented paragraphs:

Sadly, I suspect that the answer is that the photos in the book are protected by Dutch copyright law, even if there's not actually a copyright indication in the book, since the book was published too recently for it to be in the public domain. There's a page at Wikipedia:Copyright FAQ which might help explain WP's approach to copyright issues. Question 1 is "Can I add something to Wikipedia that I got from somewhere else? and the answer is "In general, no. Most of the content people want to add is copyrighted, although some work has been made available by authors under an appropriate license (see below), and some work is in the public domain (see below). The absence of a copyright notice does not mean that a work may be freely used."

We will have to see if we can find some public domain photographs through the project - failing that, time to go on holiday and take our cameras!

I didn't reply by email as I prefer not to use my main (work) email for WP purposes, and I so rarely use my home email that it would be a pain to start to use it again for WP only! I'll leave a copy of this message on Mdcollins' page too. Best wishes, Bencherlite 01:46, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm afraid that, even though I am unsure about copyrighting, that Bencherlite is sadly right - as far as I know, book covers are ok, for referring to that book only, but for images contained within, I'd be very surprised if it was allowed.

Also, although John Brombaugh is well written and potentially a very good article, I'd advise you to read Wikipedia:Autobiography just to bring to your attention some concerns people may have. –MDCollins (talk) 08:54, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for the above information. As you see, I don't know really how the Wikipedia works nor really the best way to respond back to either of you. I guess you guys are about the only ones reading this unless others want to come check your user pages.

Anyway, from what I see, I think it is best that we return both the Niehoff and JB articles back to what they were so there is no question about ethics or copyrights. This is one reason why you see so little in the regular organ magazines on my work because to get it in there requires that one toot ones own horn; I'd prefer to let history do that instead. The single reason why I was interested in making the alterations to both articles is because I know how difficult the historical surveys like Vente and van Biezen do to bring us more accurate information: they can no longer talk with the people they are writing about, so they don't necessarily have very reliable information. But history can worry about that. I'll remove the photo of the Lüneburg organ and make other changes as much as possible so both articles are as much like I saw them about two weeks ago - except that I'll remove the information about myself that was in the Niehoff article written by someone else. I like the idea that you do all this with your camera to avoid the many problems you've pointed out. (I will carry out my part in making those reverse changes in the next day or so.)

Kind regards, Jborgans 21:49, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Copies sent to MDCollins's talk page and Bencherlite's talk page

I have replied at his talk page again. His user/talk pages are on my watchlist, so I'll see any further threads there. I'll go back and suggest that he can just put any further replies there, rather than post here, there and everywhere! Bencherlite 23:04, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] TUGS article list

Please. Do not make a separate page for articles. That page was full of redirects. That is not very "Usefull." This is a warning, I may delete that article see the talk page. Driveus

[edit] Edit summaries

Hello, I just noticed that your edit summaries have a redlink in them. You may want to fix that in your AWB preferences before you do too many more :) Cheers, Mak (talk) 19:38, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Cheers. How the hell did I let that happen? Should be ok now (except AWB keeps crashing all the time). –MDCollins (talk) 19:46, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] History of Cornwall, Irish community in Britain

Hi,

As someone active on the Cornwall articles could you have a look at the recent changes to these articles. I am concerned that they are very POV, OR and generally unencyclopedic. There seems to be ongoing vandalism of the English nationalism article and the Real England map I have listed for IfD. I would appreciate someone with better knowledge having an input. Cheers, Regan123 20:43, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] York Minster

Hi, thanks for the welcome and for going over the additions I made to the architecture of York Minster. I think the architecture section, as it is now, includes most of what I was thinking of putting, but if there's anything else you can think of then let me know. I'll try and do some work on the rest of the page but won't be able to til next week, I'll also have a bit more of a look at the links you sent me before then. --Ivanivanovich 10:43, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Organist-stub

Hi - I've just reverted your changes to WP:WSS/P. Proposals - even ones that have been created - stay there until they're archived as created or not created. Grutness...wha? 00:37, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

No problem. –MDCollins (talk) 00:40, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Pipe Organ template

Hi. I am trying to redesign the project banner for WP:PipeOrgan. It is currently at User:Mdcollins1984/PipeOrgan template. (I have based it on {{Template:Dadsarmyproject}}).

The problem I have noticed is that the default label for the show/hide todo list is [hide], requiring two clicks from [hide] to [show] and once more to actually display the content. Is this a problem in the syntax? It is only a very small matter, but its bugging me!

If you've got time to take a quick look, I'd appreciate it.

Thanks,

–MDCollins (talk) 00:13, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm afraid that the same is true for me: the show/hide glitch. The fact that the div has "display: none;" misleads the javascript, I believe. Now, the following uses a table, and it's unfortunate that it's the only way to make it work correctly currently, but here goes:

Setting the width of the table is important. Gracenotes^T § 01:14, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, I think I can see what you've done, but is it possible to integrate a table into a message box? I can attach it underneath the message box, but that obviously isn't any use, so is it possible for it to go inside? Alternatively, is a table with the same formatting - size colour/borders etc attached to the bottom of the message box the way forward? –MDCollins (talk) 01:38, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

If it's okay with you, I fixed it. You can probably tweak it however you want it; if not, don't hesitate to ask. Gracenotes^T § 02:02, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

If it's ok with me...?! Its great. One question before I go to bed and leave you in peace - is it possible for the transcluded material to all appear small? Obviously I can go to the source and make everything small there, but that would limit its use as a page in its own right. I have also removed the duplicate text but seem to have left a blank row. As you've probably guessed, I'm c**p at dealing with all this sort of stuff, so really appreciate the help. Best wishes, –MDCollins (talk) 02:18, 31 March 2007 (UTC) Actually forget what I've just asked you, I'll create a new page with an abbreviated list on it. Thanks again. –MDCollins (talk) 02:22, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Ah, great! By the way, if you want any normal-text template to appear small, you can use <div style="font-size: 80%;">{{template or project page}}</div>. There may be spacing issues, but those should be easily fixable. Gracenotes^T § 02:24, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Trevor Ward

This edit does not make Trevor look any where near as notable as your edit does. That 02blythed has created too many articles at once, by including a slew of raw statistical information without including encyclopaedic information, is what has lead me to the conclusion - correctly or otherwise - that these people have played at the under 19's level in cricket. Which is hardly the highest level of amateur competition required by WP:BIO.

County cricket team members seem to meet that level of notability. I think this is because it is assumed that anyone who plays at that level will be written about by numerous writers covering county cricket.

I don't dispute your use of cricinfo.com for statistics but it doesn't particularly lend weight to a persons notability that nobody seems to have actually written about him. Maybe I haven't looked, but it's because the layout of the article seemed to imply he hadn't achieved anything yet - to me it looked like a crystal ball article.

If 02blythed removes prods without improving the article I will take a group of them to AfD with the reason "No clear effort has been made to assert notability". I did make some attempt to contact him regarding his contributions but so far all he has done is to continue to make bot-like edits which make people look like the best cricket they have played is for under 19 national teams (a fact which is assumed of any first class cricketer and probably best left out). Garrie 02:22, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

PS if he bothered to use intelligent edit summaries it wouldn't hurt his contributions.Garrie 02:23, 4 April 2007 (UTC)