User talk:West London Dweller

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Hi. I'm surprised no one has yet welcomed you to Wikipedia. So, welcome! You might want to read this, if you haven't already. Maurreen 17:35, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Contents 1 dishwashing 2 Canonical articles 3 British/American "bug" 4 Flipping/Flopping 5 Thank you! 6 British/American beer drinkers 7 Tagged articles 8 Vanco 9 Pocahontas 10 Hassling & Harassing, or Vandals, Inc. 11 You Must Be Putting Me On 12 Cable landing point 13 No comment 14 Flipping/Flopping 15 Slang glossaries 16 Vanco 17 Samuel Foote and the Great Panjandrum 18 RE:Timeline of telescope technology 19 Articles you might like to edit, from SuggestBot 20 Hard Water 21 2007 National Express coach crash 22 English language variant in Common Era 23 "List of idioms" subpages deleted 24 working on "Conflict of Interest" guidelines 25 Cable systems 26 UK postcodes 27 Re:Self-identification as a minor

[edit] dishwashing

I didn't know about the nor ruling, so I will publish the research on my personal web pages and x-ref from wikipedia. I must admit I was baffled and annoyed at the loss of my changes, but I now understand and apologise for using up your time.

Thanks for the follow-up hints. Speculatrix 17:18, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Canonical articles

You might be interested in my draft proposal about reviewed articles. It's near the bottom of Wikipedia talk:Forum for Encyclopedic Standards. Maurreen 17:35, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments on my draft proposal. Your idea has merit also. I'm just not sure Wikipedians are ready for it. Maurreen 08:24, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

[edit] British/American "bug"

I responded on my talk page. [[User:Poccil|Peter O. (Talk)]] 16:53, Nov 25, 2004 (UTC)

---

Thank you for adding the bit/s column to the List of device bandwidths. I wonder what the reaction would be if I added a "symbol rate" column ? --DavidCary 02:19, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Flipping/Flopping

I have never heard the term "flopping an image" before; a Google search for "flip an image" vs. "flop an image" (18,200 vs. 56), among other similar searches seems to confirm this. In fact, "flip an image horizontally" has more hits (187) than "flop an image". Stev0 18:35, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Thank you!

Thank you for cleaning up my Wiki article entitled "AAL5." AAL5 was my first Wikipedia article, and I was surprised how quickly it was found by someone else.

Thanks again!

[edit] British/American beer drinkers

The reason for the difference in the number of beers is that the Brits are piss artists and the Yanks are sensible :-)

[edit] Tagged articles

Great and simple idea. It could also be used to filter for stubs, POV tags, clean-up tags,... But there are a lot of...ownership issues with many things around, it seems. I accidentally went behind the curtain last November, from my normal editing pastime, and what a turbulent and territorial place it is. I now feel like a maniac, with my usually against-the-tide comments and votes in various areas. Every once in a while, someone tries to pat me on the head and go, yes, I know, it can be frustrating, but you'll get over it. Really! (Sorry, I'm not trying to commiserate with you or anything. Just recognizing your fine tagging proposal, and also the fact that you're trying to get it noticed. This is not (meant to be) a pat on the head. :) --Tsavage 00:52, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Vanco

I noticed the page on Vanco. Very cool. Are you an employee? Rarelibra 04:22, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

No - I just happen to live in the vicinity of their head office in Isleworth. When I looked up who they were on the Internet, I noticed there wasn't a Wikipedia entry, so created one. It's not very detailed, I'm afraid. WLD 07:36, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Pocahontas

That was a very good edit adding lots of understandable information about how the leaders and family members were viewed and respected by others. Mark in Historic Triangle of Virginia Vaoverland 18:25, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Thank-you very much! WLD 19:33, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hassling & Harassing, or Vandals, Inc.

Thank you so much for your mediation, WLD. Some judgment was called for and, luckily, many people out there can still use their sense. Thanks again, JackLumber 12:08, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Still foolin' around. Darn it, this spat is way time- & energy-consuming. This morning I was supposed to do much more than bickering with Mark the Aussie---we're quite a duo, huh? If you followed our wrangle (and if you did, that would mean you were not that busy :-)... well, don't tell me you forgot to laugh. Back to more serious topics, if you've got the time, check out the Talk:List of words mainly used in Commonwealth English, (Yet Another) Requested Move and Requested move redux, and put in your $0.02... um, £0.02. Thanks as usual, JackLumber 21:11, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] You Must Be Putting Me On

! I hope (FOR YOUR SAKE!) that you were just kidding!! (maybe you were just drowsy!) The problem is, forget about nations different from the U.S. or the UK for a moment. Let's face the facts---we can't put Canadian English, Australian English, etc. on the same level as British and American. (Let alone non-native English speakers.) If you didn't yet, please read the sense of the move proposal. --JackLumber 13:56, 21 April 2006 (UTC) Oh yea, just try to tell Ben Arnold that New Zealand speaks British English...

[edit] Cable landing point

Noticed your interest in "Cable landing points". I wonder if you come across the site at Scad Head on Hoy in the Orkneys? Five cables come ashore to a small hut near an old WWII gun battery. I asked around after visiting the site for any information on the site but did not get any satisfactory answers . There was relatively modern BT equipment in the hut though I suspect no longer operational.

What puzzled me is that

It is not the most convenient point to link Hoy to the main island.

It is an awkward site for access with no road just a quarter mile(?) walk down the old cableway route.

Other points with easy road access and short cable route to the main island

My theory is that the gun batteries were interconnected by submarine cables and the GPO reused some after WWII for telephone communications between the islands.

You might be interested in a friend's website on Indicator Loops if you are interested in submarine cables --jmb 11:35, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Hello Jmb - no I hadn't come across Scad Head. I'm confining my interest to international submarine communications cables and associated cable landing points. I have no knowledge of the particular site in question, but it may be worth pointing out that landing points are usually determined by the submarine topology, rather than ease of access at the land-side. If, for example, the shortest distance between Hoy and the main island is terminated by sheer sea-cliffs, those would not be the easiest place to land a cable - on the other hand, if Scad Head has a gently shelving beach, it could be perfect. If there is a path from sea-level to the main part of the land, it's usually possible to bury a cable in that path - at worst, you send in people with pick-axes and shovels if you can't get heavy equipment there. You are quite right, though - it could simply be a case of re-use of exisitng facilities being the easist thing of all. Regards. WLD 12:06, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, more or less same thoughts as I had. I asked around in telecom newsgroup at the time just in case there was someone with local experience. There are more accessible beaches suitable to bring a cable ashore on shorter routes. I must put the pictures on my website. The cable comes up the beach encased in steel jackets bolted on to it, short sections about a foot or so long to allow a bit of movement. Not sure if these are standard or just used on military cables.

Would like to get to see the old TAT-1 repeater station at Oban but it is in a private estate unfortunately. --jmb 13:55, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] No comment

Check this out. JackLumber. 22:50, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Flipping/Flopping

I have never heard the term "flopping an image" before; a Google search for "flip an image" vs. "flop an image" (18,200 vs. 56), among other similar searches seems to confirm this. In fact, "flip an image horizontally" has more hits (187) than "flop an image". Stev0 18:35, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Flopping can be regarded as a basic image transform, along with flipping (a mirror image across a horizontal axis) and cropping, all of which can easily be done physically with a photographic negative in a darkroom. More sophisticated transforms are usually achieved via digital image manipulation. (Quoted from article) - see this page here [1] for an example where both terms are used, and the ref in the article here [2]

"A flop is a picture that mirror reverses the original scene. Some flops are reversed copies. For instance, mirror reversal is systematic with technologies that require contact between a template and an imprint surface. Other flops are just pictures that have undergone the operation of flopping. For example, a slide that is inserted backwards into a projector is a flop."

The other reference [3] also uses the term 'flop' extensively. It's certainly used as jargon in image manipulation and advertising - see the glossary here [4] as an example.

"Flop:Reversing the direction. For example, if a photo or piece of artwork has an arrow which is pointing in a particular direction and you turn that piece of paper over so it is facing the other direction, it has been flopped."

Hope that helps! WLD 18:48, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Thank you (I wasn't trying to contradict you, I was just trying to learn where the terminology came from. Now I know). Stev0 20:37, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

No problem. Sorry if I came across as defensive. Victim of too many edit wars already. I probably need to do some major work on image transfoms anyway - there really ought to be an article on each of flip (image), flop (image), and crop (image) as basic transforms, and the reasons why they are used. Flopping is used a great deal more than flipping, for obvious reasons - but there are still many photographers that prefer to work with flipped images for composition purposes so that they are less likely to be affected by the content of images they are working with - looking at an upside-down image means you are more concerned about the overall composition of the picture than what the subject looks like. WLD 21:54, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Slang glossaries

I've started over from scratch and have posted a new proposal at Wikipedia talk:What Wikipedia is not#Slang glossaries. I've placed the following neutral language announcement and statement of the issue at the talk page of all the slang glossaries I could find:

Attention: Slang Glossary policy discussion underway

Slang glossaries violate the following policy:

Wikipedia is not a dictionary

Wikipedia is not a dictionary or a usage or jargon guide. Wikipedia articles are not:

1. Dictionary definitions. Because Wikipedia is not a dictionary, please do not create an entry merely to define a term. An article should usually begin with a good definition; if you come across an article that is nothing more than a definition, see if there is information you can add that would be appropriate for an encyclopedia. An exception to this rule is for articles about the cultural meanings of individual numbers.
2. Lists of such definitions. There are, however, disambiguation pages consisting of pointers to other pages; these are used to clarify differing meanings of a word. Wikipedia also includes glossary pages for various specialized fields.
3. A usage guide or slang and idiom guide. Wikipedia is not in the business of saying how words, idioms, etc. should be used. We aren't teaching people how to talk like a Cockney chimney-sweep. However, it may be important in the context of an encyclopedia article to describe just how a word is used to distinguish among similar, easily confused ideas, as in nation or freedom. In some special cases an article about an essential piece of slang may be appropriate.

---

Due to the many AfDs which are initiated to enforce this policy and due to the resistance to such deletion by defenders of the glossaries, I have started a discussion at Wikipedia talk:What Wikipedia is not#Slang glossaries to rewrite the policy in order to solve this problem and to readdress this question: should slang glossaries by allowed on Wikipedia? --List Expert 23:57, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Vanco

Cheers! Hey - good point, I will edit the Vanco list to include only those places where we have offices/subsidiaries. That cool with you? :) Rarelibra 13:53, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Hey - thanks for the kudos on my maps. As far as the sub cable maps - consider it done, in between my military training (this weekend) and studying for my MBA (ongoing). I can probably get something up in the next two weeks. :) Rarelibra 14:12, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

I fleshed out the company history and added the logo. Let me know if you see any discrepancies! Rarelibra 15:38, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Samuel Foote and the Great Panjandrum

Good day! I'm working a bit of cleanup of Samuel Foote's article. I noticed that you added the section on the Great Panjandrum. Can you provide a source for this? Thanks! *Exeunt* Ganymead | Dialogue? 17:33, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Try the following:

• http://www.askoxford.com/concise_oed/panjandrum?view=uk
• http://dictionary.reference.com/wordoftheday/archive/2004/11/23.html
• http://www.worldwidewords.org/weirdwords/ww-pan2.htm
• http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/208.html
• http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/18417

-please note - it is Grand Panjandrum, not Great Panjandrum. WLD 20:33, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for your quick response! I'll add the citation. You've been most helpful! Take care! *Exeunt* Ganymead | Dialogue? 20:58, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Note that my edition of the Shorter Oxford Dictionary gives the phrase as "Grand Panjandrum", but allows "Great Panjandrum" as also used. I've not found definitively which word Foote used, and I'm not sure there is an original text anyone can go back to - they will all be reports of the Macklin event where the nonsense prose was extemporised. As the Oxford Dictionaries record usage, and are not prescriptive, I hazard that Grand is the more usual usage. WLD 23:59, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, "Great" in the heading here was just due to my lack of paying attention. I'm glad you pointed it out. Indeed, it's nice to know someone who has the OED (even the Shorter) at hand. Cheers! *Exeunt* Ganymead | Dialogue? 01:40, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] RE:Timeline of telescope technology

Hi, are you aware that there is already an article called Timeline of telescopes, observatories, and observing technology? I have dropped a MERGE tag at the top of your article. Very good information in your article and it looks like it should just be merged into to the other article but will leave that up to others to decide. Fountains of Bryn Mawr 17:08, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

I wan't aware at the time when I first put the article together, but became aware later. I would argue against merging, otherwise, I'd have done so myself, but I'll try and find time to put together a cogent argument why on the article's discussion page. WLD 18:01, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

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[edit] Hard Water

Hi,

the bot edited Hard Water recently, and put in the incorrect unicode symbol for indicating a chemical equilibrium. It should be ⇌ which is: {{unicode|⇌}}. Please see Wikipedia:WikiProject Chemicals/Style guidelines Other Topics - Special Symbols - Arrows. - WLD 10:16, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Hey there, thanks for the note. You had me worried that my UTF8 processing had a bug in it, but it turns out though that all I did was turn the HTML entity for that symbol into the UTF8 for symbol. The incorrect symbol was already being used by the editor who added it in the first place. Cheers, CmdrObot 21:09, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 2007 National Express coach crash

"Without wishing to be insensitive, I really don't think that two people dying in a road accident constitute a disaster."

About 40 people were injured. If everyone on the cach had died, it would have been worse than the London Bombings -- Arriva436 21:30, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

They didn't die, and in any case 40 people dying is not a disaster, except for the relatives and friends of the people concerned. Take a look at the article on Disaster. Note that it can be a disaster if nobody is killed. I do not consider the London bombings to be a disaster - they were a deliberate, premeditated set of events which were not disastrous in their effect - other than perhaps on people's civil liberties in the UK. If you feel the change I made was wrong, feel free to put it back in - I won't revert you. In my view, using terms stronger than is justified debases the language. Your view could, of course, be different - and it's a good thing that we have a diversity of views. Regards, WLD^talk|edits 09:37, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] English language variant in Common Era

I have opened a discussion about whether the "Common Era" article should use US or UK spelling. --Gerry Ashton 20:48, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "List of idioms" subpages deleted

Hi, I closed up the MFDs and speedied the now-transwikied subpages you had for the lists of English language idioms. Thanks for doing all that work! Since your subpages were not the original text with the original attribution, they have been safely deleted. I wasn't sure what you wanted to do with the other subpages at User:West London Dweller/Idioms, etc, but if you want those deleted too, the quick way is to place the {{db-owner}} template on them. Happy editing! -- nae'blis 23:57, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Thank-you for deleting those pages. I deliberately didn't use the {{db-owner}} template, as here (Wikipedia:User_page#Removal), it says:

Pages which have formerly been in a different namespace and moved to a subpage of the user namespace may not be deleted in this way. These must be listed either at Articles for deletion, or if they were not found originally in the article namespace, at Miscellany for deletion. On the other hand, if you'd just like them to be moved back, then by all means ask at Wikipedia:Requested moves.

So I was trying to follow the rules. I'm more than happy to put {{db-owner}} on what remains - I haven't quite finished with them yet, as they act as a reminder to do some work in Wiktionary. Thanks again. WLD^talk|edits 11:07, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Since you didn't have the original pages with the full GFDL page history in your userspace, db-owner would still apply to your temporary copies. Wiktionary should have a copy of the original contribution list per transwiki guidelines, I believe. -- nae'blis 15:47, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

OK - sorry - me not understanding. The transwiki was a bit of a rush when the pages were originally ProDed/AfDed. I wasn't familiar with the arcana of Userspace, main page space, transwiki-ing and so forth, so it was a steep learning curve. I'm sure I still don't understand most of it. WLD^talk|edits 16:33, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

It's not my specialty either, but from what I understand taking a capture of the edit history log and posting it on the talk page of the transwikied page seems to satisfy attribution requirements. For an example, see wikt:Talk:chuffed. -- nae'blis 17:59, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] working on "Conflict of Interest" guidelines

Dear WLD, Doc0tis, hAl, Gazpacho and BCube --

I've been following (and partially contributing) to the discussion of the whole "Microsoft edits" issue on Talk:OpenDocument. My own experience with editors who have "conflicts of interest" (on very different topics: FIRE and John Templeton Foundation) is that while such folks can be tedious at times and definitely need to be "educated" on things like WP:NPOV and WP:CITE, that they are capable of valid, good faith edits and that it would be a net detriment to wikipedia if such editors were banned from editing and forced to simply post suggestions on a talk page.

(In the case of Microsoft vs. Open Source pages I think the problem is particularly acute because by definition "one side" of the story is unpaid and thus does not fall under the COI guidelines -- if we were to ban employees, say, from editing pages, we would end up with a net POV slanted towards open source.)

I went to the WP:COI page (a guideline I'd never noticed before in years of editing) and tried to make some edits to make this clear. These were quickly reverted, but there is now at least a discussion of sorts on the talk page. The basic problem is that the editors on that page believe pretty much that such editors should be banned, should be forced to seek permission from other editors, or something of the sort.

My sense from your contributions to the Open Documents discussion is that you have similar feelings to mine. I think it would be a good idea for you to contribute your views at the WP:COI page if you have the time. I don't usually like to "recruit" people, but the essential problem is that the editors currently feel that "consensus" is on their side.

Yours, Sdedeo (tips) 00:15, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Cable systems

Hi there, I noticed you moved some articles, for example SEA-ME-WE 4 to SEA-ME-WE 4 (cable system) a while back, referring to the standard naming for cable systems. I can't find anything on Wikipedia:Naming conventions, and I'm not sure why a specific convention would be required in the first place. I was going to move them back, since there is nothing else called SEA-ME-WE 4 that the cable system would get mixed up with, but thought I would check with you first. Regards, -- Chuq 05:09, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for querying - some cable systems share abbreviations or names with other things: for example, Tangerine, Apollo, and Pangea, so some way of making the cable system's article name unique was required. If you look at the category in which the cable systems are entered, it then becomes very messy, so in the interests of readability of the category, every cable system was suffixed with "(cable system)", with redirects. SEA-ME-WE 4 has (or should have) redirects from SMW4, SMW-4, SEA-ME-WE 4, SEA-ME-WE4. Where possible, the article should be titled with the official name of the cable system (where that can be determined), suffixed with (cable system). It also makes life easier when searching for a cable system using the Wikipedia search function. Hope that helps. WLD^talk|edits 10:52, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Would it be simpler if the cables which need disambiguation, have disambiguation, and the ones which don't need it, don't have it? Wikipedia disambiguation conventions are standard across the whole project - there have been cases in the past where individual WikiProject have unsuccessfully tried to create their own. -- Chuq 08:59, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

No, it wouldn't be simpler - the category listing becomes extremely messy that way. It is not simply a disambiguation issue - it is also about having consistent article names - and consistency in use is an extremely important feature of any reference work. Redirects from non-canonical names to a standard canonical format is the usual convention, and standard canonical formats are chosen to be unambiguous; otherwise reference works do not work at all. The best example of this I can think of at present is the IUPAC method of naming organic chemicals: there are strict rules laid down about how to unambiguously name organic molecules, which lead to quite unwieldy canonical names, however, they are agreed and unambiguous. (See: International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry nomenclature and IUPAC nomenclature of organic chemistry) Non-IUPAC formulae can be used (and often are) but reference works are always based on the IUPAC names, with separate index entries (redirects) for non-IUPAC names. Similarly, Wikipedia benefits from having standard and consistent naming conventions. A good example here is the naming convention in use for London Underground stations, whereby the article name is the offical name of the station, suffixed by "tube station", which effectively differentiates the station from the area in which it is found or other ambiguous uses of the name. See List of London Underground stations. I don't understand why you would not wish to use such a method. WLD^talk|edits 09:48, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

The argument about "category listing becomes extremely messy" doesn't really work - should all of these articles be renamed to end in "(footballer)"? I understand the IUPAC naming system but Wikipedia already has a set of agreed upon naming conventions which state to use the simplest or most common unambiguous name. Would a name like SEA-ME-WE 4 cable system be appropriate? -- Chuq 10:59, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

"should all of these articles be renamed to end in '(footballer)'?" - Yes. Or probably "(association football player)" to indicate the difference with American Football players. The policy you reference also says "Following consistent conventions in both naming and linking makes it more likely that links will lead to the right place.", and having some article titles suffixed and others not is not consistent. Redirects are cheap, so having an article name without the suffix as a redirect to the canonical name is a clear solution. Regards, WLD^talk|edits 11:32, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] UK postcodes

Apologies - thank you for the instant rebuttal. I didn't notice that! Just getting used to AWB. Kbthompson 16:56, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

No problem - glad I could help. WLD^talk|edits 17:21, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Re:Self-identification as a minor

Hello, I thank you for you concern that I am a minor and that I am sharing this, but I do not particularly mind giving some personal information. I have my reasons, but I do not really feel like telling them, as it would take too long and you can easily disagree. Please respect my choice to share this. Thank you. Reywas92^Talk 22:55, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Sure. Your choice, and I'm not going to impose on you. Other people are more assertive in trying to prevent minors self-identifying. WLD^talk|edits 23:04, 19 March 2007 (UTC)