User talk:David Kernow/Archive 17

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Archive This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Contents

Take a look at some

Reaction (sample some) per your command oh great swammy! New names, simpler format pending too! (If I haven't pushed it off the end by editing too deep, have interleaved answers coming above) We're going to have to have a stern talk about you knocking off so early when I'm still working! Grrrr! <G> // FrankB 06:56, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Tisk, tisk-- still slacking? Oh, you were here a while back... well, hope you're just previewing a lot somewhere!

Check out: Deserts , Deserts_of_North_America and give an opinion ASAP, which display mode (the wp or commons?) Wording???
   Names? (moveto...) {{cms-catlist-up}} and {{wpd-catlist-up}}??? (currently no 'dash up', but may want 'xxx-catlist' as a sidelink template, or such.

   SO can you think of better names in 20 nanoseconds or less? <g> (Not trying to rush you or anything, just want to finish this ONE thing! <g> IWTG gets to be an endless treadmill, don't you know!) BTW- I DID loose the edit for above on geography cats... it fell afoul of various edits triggered by checks, 'Deserts', included! So went over the edit memory limit on the laptop and off the edge into the bit-bucket... no where near the same virtual and memory setup as my sick computer. Cheers! // FrankB 00:01, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

...you were here a while back...

Had to disengage for a while; back now, though (for a while).

Check out: Deserts , Deserts_of_North_America and give an opinion ASAP...

Category:Deserts
{{Commonscat1A}}: Is keeping "1A" necessary?  Recommend {{Commons category}} as template's name, with {{Commonscat}} as redirect to it.
{{Left60}}: Having (re)read the rationale on this template's page, I'm wondering if its use here (on Category:Deserts' page) is really necessary...?
{{Wpd-catlist}} and {{Cms-catlist}}: Yes, too cryptic. Recommend {{catlist |project=Wikipedia ...}} and {{catlist |project=Commons ...}}; other variable names also in lowercase; and standard text font (per current "Wpd-catlist") rather than code font ("Cms-catlist"). Current SISTER variable redundant as Wikipedia or Commons specified...?
I'm not sure how useful these lists might be; what are the criteria involved...?  Rather than lists, I suspect you're wanting to show slices of the hierarchy either side of the category...?

...{{cms-catlist-up}} and {{wpd-catlist-up}}??? (currently no 'dash up', but may want 'xxx-catlist' as a sidelink template, or such.

Sorry, you've lost me...
Yours, David (talk) 04:10, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
PS Forty items in {{catlst}}} (rename to {{catlist}}!)...?  Surely an overload...?  Also, suspect too much explanation on this template's page...
PING -- Lot's of interleaved answers. And 3-4 more questions. // FrankB 08:22, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

(Alex Andrew Kelly)

Hi if you have some time over sometime you can look at the Alex Andrew Kelly article and improve it.;)--Matrix17 09:13, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Have tried rephrasing it a little and added some formatting and wikilinks. I guess its portrayal on TV and film probably qualifies it as "notable". Regards, David Kernow (talk) 02:27, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Pong!

thanks/Fenton, Matthew Lexic Dark 52278 Alpha 771 22:10, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Map caption template

... Thanks for taking up the baton on this template. If nothing else, however, please remove the reduced letter-spacing, as I can assure you it renders the text unreadable (given the small font-size) on Firefox v2 and IE6 – at least as appearing here. The ampersand is also rendered as more of a squiggle than a character, so I'd recommend returning to "and". (No formatting problems experienced here when using it.)
You may also see that handling "[[Europe]]" within the template should soon become redundant.
Please complete the parameter descriptions and add one or two further examples that demonstrate their use. Thanks!  David Kernow (talk) 06:00, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

[[Europe]] not to become redundant: the long phrase is required for Europe only (e.g. "[[Africa]]" or "the [[Middle East]]" would even without modification of the template be OK with simple "in" in front, but Europe is ambiguous and I don't want people to have to write a 'non-standard' and errorprone parameter "on the [[Europe|European continent]]": let the template tackle it.

I've just gone to the trouble of replacing "[[Europe]]" with "on the European continent" in the European country articles... Personally, I reckon "[[Europe]]" should be okay, but appreciate the possibility of confusion, so was trying to streamline your change...

The ampersand is necessary: "and" puts the end of the line even with letter-spacing:-1px at the ultimate end ")" much further to the right than the map border. [...]

When using "and" previously, there were no such complications/problems. Why bother with letter-spacing:-1px anyhow; it's a caption in a small font-size...?

If the ampersand does not look OK for you, you have a bad font: it's a character like any other. Put <span style="font-family:<font name>,sans-serif;">&</span> instead of the ampersand, with a font-family available to FireFox users that renders the ampersand nicely.

The ampersand does not look OK here primarily because the letter-spacing is too small, not due to any "bad" font. The serif and proportional font is Times New Roman; the sans-serif is Arial; and the monospace is Courier New. I imagine these are Firefox defaults, as I have never changed them – or needed to change them...

Only with some character combinations should letter-spacing:-1px create a problem; [...]

Unfortunately, at the small font-size used by the caption, I can assure you the letters become crushed together. Recommend the formatting is kept simple – especially at the small font-size used by the caption – and this letter-spacing avoided.

[...] that is why "dark orange" was replaced with "deep orange". [...]

Asked to choose between the description "deep orange" and "dark orange" for any vaguely darkish orange hue, I'd say most English-speaking folk would opt for the latter...

When a parameter for e.g. "circled in inset" is given, my 'phase6 improvement' ensures it not to become handled by letter-spacing, only the default colour "deep orange" is. For both other color parameters, I leave the letter-spacing for now (no such parameter is expected at the moment and it is likely that e.g. a parameter 'Liuzzo' of 'Rei-artur' or... would be given to set all default colours (and possibly other requirements according to the map style); in that case the letter-spacing can be applied accoring to that parameter, it's not our concern for now.

I'm using standard IE (6.0.2900.2180) and it looks appealing; apart from IT specialists, IE has about 90 to 95% of the activity by surfers in general (I've no stats for Wikipedia). In case even with the minimal variations in present colours, the result would still be too awkward, it seems best to put 'font-family:<font name>,sans-serif;' in front of the 'letter-spacing:-1px' for a font name that is typical for FireFox and does deliver a readable result (unless of course you know a Wiki-template technique that can check for either IE or for FireFox browser and produce a letter-spacing value of -1 or 0 px accordingly). — SomeHuman 3 Mar 2007 06:31 (UTC)

I have the feeling that the enthusiasm in developing the template – something that usually I enjoy seeing and encouraging – may, in this case, have gone a little too far... let's keep it simple – i.e. remove the formatting complications – yes...?  I've passed by many other templates and the like in far greater need of work such as yours... Yours, David (talk) 07:06, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
PS Have just seen that you've already attended to the documentation; thanks!  Will need to go soon, but happy to respond later.
Hi, David. Have a lot to say but no time for perhaps rest of the day; please leave things (unless reverting full region parameter with the ordinary ..Europe.. - that's not too important from your point of view, changing automatically, but new will become applied, explain later; anyway, meanwhile do not yet change the template please (not even the "in on the European...", I've some idea about it, later today or tonight; till then) — SomeHuman 3 Mar 2007 10:27 (UTC)
Agreed; it's "too many cooks spoiling the broth template" otherwise. All I'd ask is that the reduced letter-spacing is removed. If the template can be kept as simple as necessary, that'd be a bonus. Yours, David (talk) 22:15, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
I'm afraid I didn't get around to do a proper logical cleanup of the template, but like to do this myself (I'm not used to Wiki templates, but it's perfectly within my line of interest and experience, so I should get the hang of it; I'd appreciate if you would let me have some more time to figure out a few things for a template that I already know and of which I know where it's being used as well as where it should be used.)
Sure; I hadn't looked further than the articles on European countries.
Main thing: the letter-spacing is no longer used; the ampersand is still in to allow as much room as possible for other regions that would have a shaded subregion, and without diminished letter-spacing, it should appear OK in your browser and it's more clear as a separator between the two colours. The colours are now in a (theoretically) smaller font: that might not reduce character size (not in my browser), but instead contracts the letter-spacing slightly but differently from controlling letter-spacing. There are no problems with some character combinations as there had been (on my browser with "rk" and slightly with "wh"). Even if there would be an extremely small character on your browser, it only affects the colour legend and a proper legend is available: the inline colour legend is more a reminder for what the reader already knows to be one of the actual colours he/she sees, it does not require to be read very carefully. The attention should go to the placenames. The latter is ensured by proper positioning on standard places (which is why I hate any wrapping of running text for this purpose).
I also ensured the 'Legend' positioning to fit really nice in the corner for the 26 (not Spain) maps of EU countries, but to stay closer to text for any other subregion (allowing a longer name for a subregion) or in absence of a subregion (then the line is centred instead of left-aligned). I still have a few things in the back of my head but will come to that tomorrow or so.
Fontwise, the Czech Republic's caption (for example) looks fine at present, although the parentheses in others' (e.g. Austria, Belgium) still appear crushed here. I realize, though, your work is in progress.
Meanwhile have a look into some articles using the map and template, as well as Cyprus that once more was given a proper text (see my edit comment there); please do not "simplify" it, regardless your urge to keep it simple, the world is not simple and it should not be presented as if it were.
Well, how about: "Cyprus (circled beside inset) is a member of the European Union (orange). The European continent consists of the orange and white areas; the areas in grey at the bottom and right are, respectively, parts of Africa and Asia."...?
Compared to: "Location of Cyprus (circled beside inset) - at the southwestern tip of mainland Asia (grey), near Africa (grey, bottom) and Europe (light orange & white) - in the European Union (light orange) [Legend]", which is precise, correct, NPOV, first locates towards continent(s) [as in template the region parameter] and then to EU [as subregion parameter], includes 'Location of' as all other location map captions... and which is even with '[Legend]' still shorter ?  ;-) (In the same sentence behind Asia and Africa, 'Europe' must be the continent: no need to specify this disambiguation as in the template text where it occurs without previous context while being followed by 'European Union' which is sometimes referred to as 'Europe'.) [inserted answer by — SomeHuman 4 Mar 2007 16:53 (UTC) ]
I guess I was still in prose mode!
Its formatting technique follows the current 'phase7' template. A few interesting country articles, about using the template of course, are the Republic of Macedonia (longest name including "the", and it is a non-member of the EU that has the 'Legend' parameter), the Netherlands ("the", EU, someone inserted the 'Legend' though I had removed it because of strong complaints against the German in the bilingual legend, awaiting possible creation of a strictly English image [besides the bilingual one that is used by other Wikipedias as well] - I assume it best stays in, another contributor placing it back while other articles do not seem to have a problem, may convince the Dutch opposition), (the) Vatican City (might better obtain "the", circle inside enlarged inset), Liechtenstein (circled inside enlarged inset, and I put the 'Legend' parameter in it), France ("Metropolitan France" and second map - both have a good right to be there like that, templates should offer standardized data but that does not mean that a non-standard situation for a standardized issue should be presented in a "simplified" way), Bosnia-Herzegovina (long, no "the"), Serbia (short), and have a glimse at a candidate for a caption text: Armenia (transcontinental, map of other region, what name for the caption parameter 'region', 'Caucasian Eurasia' perhaps? But it's a lot larger than Caucasia).
Note: An strictly English version of the legend just became available. I asked for a modification, see [User talk:Noira#Image Legend for location maps]. You're used to do replacements (semi?-)automatically, could you replace the "legend=EU location legend.png" with "legend=EU location legend en.png" for EU countries (I did it on the few non-EU countries that already use the legend and on Cyprus that does not use the template). [inserted update by — SomeHuman 4 Mar 2007 20:40 (UTC) ]
Will do so next.
...Done (hopefully). David (talk) 02:10, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
I still kept 'deep orange', as my edit comment had shown having 38% versus 62% 'dark orange' usage; and this particular shade of orange appears really deep to my subjective meaning. With the "rk"-contraction out of the way, it does not matter to me quite as much. Drop me a note in case the current fonts, layout, etc of the template would be unacceptable for FireFox users. Till soon. — SomeHuman 4 Mar 2007 04:49-05:38 (UTC)
Apart from the crushed parentheses mentioned above, all seems fine here. Yours, David (talk) 13:30, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
I think I can take care of the crushed parentheses (with a little overhead, but it's worth it). I inserted 2 comments [signed in smaller character at 16:63 and at 20:40] here above. Continuing at the template [tried something, checked the influence on the caption of the UK article, it looked terrible; quickly reverted my template modification; checked, found that someone had hacked the parameters at the UK article and I repaired it there; will have to test once more...]. — SomeHuman 4 Mar 2007 20:44 (UTC)
Have just looked at France and see there now appears to be three/four font sizes or spacings in action: "Location of Metropolitan France" is fine; "(deep orange)" still crushed; and the remaining phrases' font-size is too large. Meanwhile, Austria's caption is fine as regards "Location of Austria", but the parentheses still crushed. "on the European continent" and "in the European Union" relatively large – so I have the feeling that a single font size/spacing for all is probably best. I could edit one country's caption to indicate what I have in mind; yes...?
Yours, David (talk) 01:24, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
Please check again. I had a clue and did a very quick fix. Still any problem now? — SomeHuman 5 Mar 2007 01:30 (UTC)
No apparent change to France or Austria here, unfortunately... David (talk) 01:48, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
PS Yes, for once I remembered to reload the pages! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by David Kernow (talk • contribs) 01:49, 5 March 2007 (UTC).
Glad that much too fast Hagermanidiot catches others as well. For the map caption, all seems fine again. The improvement on phase7 (changing the font-size now for a passed 'location_color' as well as used to be for the default value, while still not changing the font-size for a 'location' e.g. "circled in inset") appears to interfere with the Infobox for Countries template: I did a few tests and have a vague idea, will check later. Anyway, the best thing to do was setting a fixed font-size as well for the "Location of..." line that shows that modified part, as a fixed font-size on the <p style="...">-tag that controls the 2nd and optional 3rd lines. The one opening parenthese that stood too close to the leading character for the subregion colour, was now also adapted as I had done for the others. Though of course in "(light..." the "(" will always appear closer than in "(deep...", that's not a template problem. I assume everything will now remain OK for you, please check. Logical cleanup of template still in the pipeline, one of these days. Kind regards. — SomeHuman 5 Mar 2007 02:49 (UTC)

[resetting indentation]
 So far as I can see (i.e. looking at a few European country articles), all looks okay. The "[Legend]" link, however, seldom reaches the righthand corner (your intention...?); perhaps it could sit centered on the next line... Yours, David (talk) 03:52, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

David, I noticed that the Template:Infobox Countries is now shown a lot wider than it used to be, and on the Template:Map caption, I spot two } that were not there before; you edited the first-mentioned template - is there a mistake? Anyway, the 'Legend' was supposed to come in the corner only for EU countries (for other countries, it's on a centered line and stays closer to the text). But in case the wider Infobox would be intended (notlikely and not a good idea I think), I'll have to modify the Map caption template as well.
That will have to be done anyway: I uploaded a new version for the Legend, it intentionally mentions shorter and still accurate names for the colours and I'll put those in the Map caption template, leaving more freedom (space) for its main text. When the new coulour names are in the template, would you run your (semi-)automated replacer for (perhaps best 'on the [[Europe|European continent]]' to '[[Europe]]' as the template does this transposing well anyway, and) the new name of the Legend Image:European location legend en.png, thus now 'legend=European location legend en.png'. Provided you can appreciate the new Legend. I already apologized to Noira (who created a version on my request) on his talk page, I there showed also some reasons for changes on the Legend. — SomeHuman 7 Mar 2007 05:03 (UTC)
Re {{Infobox Country}}, I think these are the edits involved; re {{Map caption}}, perhaps one or more of the edits by Pethr produced the brackets you now see...? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by David Kernow (talk • contribs) 05:11, 7 March 2007 (UTC).
I can't spot the cause of the 2 accolades in the doc example (must be looking over it all the time), perhaps they had been there by my own mistake without my noticing it? Anyway, the Map caption template is updated (colour names, also in doc which now names the new 'legend' file) and should give a much nicer result (larger font for the main text, which became possible by using shorter names for the colours). I also modified the one manually edited map caption, Cyprus. I'd appreciate it if you could replace each link to an older Legend to the new one [see my above comment]. And, to put the legend parameter now also in all the non-EU countries (only a few of these link to a legend so far). Kind regards. — SomeHuman 7 Mar 2007 09:10 (UTC)
Sorry to overlook previously; I hope I found and updated them all. Yours, David (talk) 06:14, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
Thanks David. By the way, {{Template:Infobox Countries}} (or rather {{Template:Infobox Country}}) does appear responsible for the "}" I had mentioned before: that template syntax as in former sentence shown without parameters, as well as that template with all required parameters (the ones shown as {{{...}}} if none is passed) set to 0 or to x (used in Template:Map caption), produce the "}" (even if no map_caption parameter is given or if the latter is given as a simple text, not using Template:Map caption. The error is also produced by the 'empty' code published on Template:Infobox Country/doc#Empty syntax. I don't see the "}" in the country pages, so I assume the code for one of the optional parameters produces it when that optional parameter or its value is missing, or else the code for a required parameter reacts badly when that parameter does not have an expected value. Kind regards. — SomeHuman 8 Mar 2007 16:50 - 9 Mar 2007 05:39 (UTC)
Thanks for the reminder; I'm now looking into it and also note that something else seems amiss: the largest_city no longer appears when it's not the same as the capital (see the Cameroon example on the /doc page). I wonder why this has arisen, as well as the rogue "}"... David (talk) 04:42, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
...I've analyzed the "Capital / Largest city" code and have corrected the omission of largest_city when not the capital (although it seemed to be working before) but, even having stripped this section of code to a bare minimum, I haven't yet been able to locate the cause of the rogue bracket. As part of the process, however, I converted the "Capital / Largest city" code to use HTML rather than wikicode to specify cells and rows, which makes the code easier to see; in a moment, I'll start converting the whole template to use HTML table code rather than wikicode or "templated-wikicode" ({{!}} {{!-}} {{!!}} etc) so that the table code is of one type throughout (and easier to annotate). In doing so, I hope finally to spot and eliminate this rogue bracket gremlin. What do you think...?  David (talk) 05:31, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
I'm rather new to templates on Wikipedia, thus I can't advice on which style to use. But I just made a highly relevant comment in Template talk:Esoteric#Move?  ;-) — SomeHuman 9 Mar 2007 05:45 (UTC)
The link to Template:Infobox Country/Test sandbox is in the /doc - perhaps the above-mentioned esoteric "Intricate" template should get a parameter that replaces 'sandbox' and its general link with 'provided sandbox' to an existing specific sandbox. I have no time to even suggest it in the esoteric talk page (be my guest), have to catch a train. — SomeHuman 9 Mar 2007 05:55 (UTC)

My turn on a maps template modification request

re: this edit and {{Continents of the world}} (This request 'to be' applies to regions template too.)

1 Can you add a param 'show' to have this toggle open and stay in show mode unless and until someone toggles it closed?
  • Have added state parameter. The template is larger rather than smaller, though, so I'm not convinced it's wise to display it shown on the Category:Categories by continent page or similar; it almost pushes the start of the Subcategories section off the page...
2. While you're about that, the green is a bit overpowering on a category page, so how about a param to either change the bar color to something specified (needs no if, just {{{param|#xxyyzz}}}, {{i}}or alternatively, an {{if:{{{param|}}}|transparent|#xxyyzz}} which would simplify the use coding, albeit at the expense of flexibility. (And would need to be checked for appearance on Categories_by_continent. These look like a couple of good ones to port and adapt over the commons as well--some more content for history by period category TBD renamed for templates.
  • Have switched color to "khaki", having realized that there doesn't seem to be a browser-standard light green that isn't also near-fluorescent!  You may find something less predictable among the browser-standard colors listed here. Here, though, the previous green looked fine and I reckon a browser-standard equivalent would be my preference.
    Have also duplicated these changes at {{Regions of the world}}.
3. Btw, since the CFD/CFM closed those two templates in "History of" templates are basically navigation templates by country. On the heels of that, I ran into a stale talk note, on category talk:Navigational templates by Piotr suggesting the need for a category for by country templates. Suggest you create such, and hang a both a redirect and an 'category redirect' on the "history of", or delete it outright--IMHO, justifiable as no one was really defending it in the merge discussion, not even the two who began it.
4. While you're there peek into Category:Maps by continent, and take note of names for your 'to do' and the commons Maps discussion.)
5. Btw- noticed Miscellaneous templates is totally orphaned from the normal categorization scheme... has no parents! Is this by accident or design?
Add in you guys totally all but totally depopulated Link templates. I surveyed the sisters, and only one is using that category, and so WP:TSP won't need it should you decide to get rid of it. Link templates are just Navigational templates but not as flashy, so if you guys are keeping it. If not, get Mike to finish the last couple, I'll tag it db-empty, any you can speedy-D it in a day or so.
6. Been busy with other wiki-politics most all of the day, I'm flagging now, and so won't be getting back up to the geography discussion tonight. Your expertise is however needed in sorting out how to best integrate the commons and wikipedia disconnect at subnational entities and our category heirarchy coresponding to the main article w:administrative districts (Country subdivisions. ttfn // FrankB 09:09, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
  • The description "subnational entities" was (meant to be) rendered obselete by "country subdivisions", so I'd hope a means of reconnection would present itself while decommissioning Subnational entities. Yours, David (talk) 14:35, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Commonscat consolidatation progress record

  • PS A search for "Commonscat" in Wikipedia's template namespace returns the following as the first few results:
Template:Commonscat · Template:Commonscat1 · Template:Commonscat4 · Template:Commonscat2 · Template:Commonscat show2 · Template:Commonscat4a · Template:Commonscat4Ra · Template:Commonscat-N · Template:Commonscat1R · Template:Commonscat4M · Template:Commonscat4R · Template:Commonscat2a · Template:Commonscat2R · Template:Commonscat2M · Template:Commonscat2RM · Template:CommonsCat · Template:Commonscat5 · Template:Commonscat 2 · Template:Commonscat1A · Template:Commonscat-inline · Template:CommonscatUsage ......
Arrg – here's an(other) example of the overcomplexity (to use a complex word!), even if some of these are redirects; hence I strongly recommend a single template {{Commons category}} (or {{Commons categories}} if more than one category may be shown) that uses one or more parameters (whose fundamental names are unabbreviated!) to indicate different uses – ideally only one such parameter, only where necessary. Something like: {{Commons category |matching_category= |float= ...}}. {{{matching}}}, for example, could be the shorter version of {{{matching_category}}}, i.e. the two appear beside each other within the template code (viz. {{{matching_category|}}}{{{matching|}}} ).
Perhaps better still might be a {{Sister-project category}} (shortcut, for example, {{spcat}}) used thus:
{{Sister-project category |project=Commons |matching[_category]= |float= ...}}.
If your project is to have a long-term future – i.e. be properly understood, accepted, taken up – I feel this kind of overhaul is needed sooner rather than later!
  • Before you get all excised, someday soon I hope to have you delete MOST of the above, but these are back burner fix-em up when TSP calms down. (I replying to an atypically cryptic PING, that seems to have sent me below, not here. I'm overhauling interwikitmp-grp in Meta at the moment, at that juncture, I expect with what I know of coding these now to have no more than two per site -- probably just the one for links, and the other for no matching category. Half of mine above (and a third of those are Meta/Wikipedia Admin, and I'm not in the edit lists (mostly) on those... that's why mine all had numeric suffixes or CamelCase names! duh! So if it's got either of those two attributes, I probably made it. Also note any number higher than '1' is going away per my current thinking. Feel better already, N'est pas? <BSEG and a smirk>). (I'm still trying to get a feel for multi-article needs and category forks, but suspect I'll handle those with named parameters.

       But bottom line, on the naming, I was just following convention. Ideally, we think up a new name that makes sense on BOTH the commons and here--that will allow cutting and pasting boilerplate created on one to the other without changes... a good thing for time saving. Also, long term, want to replace     'whatever name' with a fancy version of interwikicat-grp... See W:Template talk:Interwikicat-grp/concept -- that will allow links to other sites similar to the sisterlinks mega-kludge. But my priority now has to be to finish the basic TSP needs, and somehow integrate the simple categorizations we had into your new multi-tiered category scheme.

       The biggest need on these is to reconcile arguement order in the two main workhorses. Commonscat1A here, and the converse Wikipediacat1A on the commons, the A stands for Article, but even that can be done away with using switch logic--so the most advanced version is Wikipedia1A, formerly WikiPcatM or 1M, iirc. The plan would be to totally disconnect one of the others, then revise it to be the same parameter order, then browse with AWB (I got my license for that now, but haven't downloaded it yet) and go through the tagged stuff and swap arguements so everything has the same order when it has to be specified. PAGENAME has a good hit rate as the default category link... better than 80% congruence, I'd say. Thus the most frequent need is to vary the article name (categories even when matching, usually are plural forms, if so the singular is most frequent override need when tagging fast. (no params specified) So if you are going to slow down, the one letter variant is a nice cut and paste in from the category page head, less the 'ess' (S)... so still pretty fast. In between coming up with a final version on both, most anything tagged with the '2' and '4' versions can be converted to the other. Only I'd wanted to fix the permanent version, then convert one time... then db-author the left overs. Sound like a plan? If you were asking something else, Ping me on Meta at here. Cheers! // FrankB 10:08, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Follow On

You will note the above list is gradually reddening... If you've time to help, Commonscat1R redirects to Commonscat1, which I just redirected (in a way that should work (soon!) to Commonscat1A. See code here.

If you have the time and can fly AWB' for the links on Commonscat1R, I can db-author that. You pick whether '1' or '1A' is the last man standing as the naming question arises before you start. '1' or '1A' to be the last man standing.

    Either way, hope to have them redundant today doing the same task. I know an #if: will work, so suggest '!' on AWB.

I'll be using '!', '#', and '$' as bypass articles param tests in switch, '*', '@', and '"' to accept default category PAGENAME as article name--which you should understand assumes the commons category is named something else entirely different, as otherwise no need to give one.

PAGENAME is default after all, but we need to skip to parameter '2'! I'll be back around in an couple hours or so and get a '1A' in place. I just db-authored the last commonscat2, if that's still blue. The only big one remaining will be '4Ra', and the new '1'/'1A' will then be able to to that task and the others. Maybe not CommonscatNo. Shrug. // FrankB 22:51, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Semi-protection request - Article World War II

Hi David

Hope your doing good mate.

I would like to request the main article World War II to be once again semi-protected, it seem to sufering from vandalism quite a bit. The article has been recently un-locked for new editors. But obviously, that was not a good decision (see history pls).

Many thanks -- Ash sul 01:20, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Agreed and done. I guess I was a little surprised that such a prominent article (i.e. likely target) isn't permanently semi-protected, so suggested this policy alongside the reason for protection. Thanks for spotting, David (talk) 01:44, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
PS I haven't forgotten about Indian Space Research Organisation#Opinions and analysis; you may've seen the little editing I've contributed so far. I'm aiming to revisit it again soon – or do you reckon it's now okay...?
Cheers David
Many thanks once again for such a quick response!
As for the Indian Space Research Organisation#Opinions and analysis, I reckon its much better and more fact based now from when I first "spoke" to you about this. So (in my opinion) it looks better now.
Take care mate! -- Ash sul 02:00, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Templates

Having drawn inspiration from your nifty little functional templates, I thought I'd try something of the sort myself :) After putting some work in, I've come up with these two pilot templates: {{km to mi}} and {{mi to km}}. Supposedly, they will help with the boring and error-prone task of unit conversion. So, now, instead of having to manually calculate how many miles are in, say, 355 km, one only needs to type {{km to mi|355}} to get this:
355 kilometers (221 mi)

The templates also provides a set of parameters for fine-tuning of the output.

As you obviously work with this kind of templates a lot, I would appreciate if you could double-check these two and possibly advertise them for general use (I have no idea where to begin, except starting to use them myself and hoping that people would notice). If these two prove useful, other convertors can be created very easily. If not, oh well, at least I had fun :) Best,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 20:00, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Kudos -- Do At least one numeric parameter is required. and {{{1}}} meters (Expression error: Unrecognised punctuation character "{" ft) too! Drop notes on the GeoscienceS, history, Engineering and such WikiProjects pages and the like, AND the VP. If I ever get back to editing articles again, I'll use them. How well do they subst? Could be important. // FrankB 07:31, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
Since it's a related thread, I need you thinking on this bit here about the documentation effort and needs—if only to advise me, though would be nice with your familiarity if you were also thinking along the lines of what sort of utilities might be useful on Wikibooks, Wikispecies, and Wikiversity (as the three with the generally broadest similar needs) and maybe start putting together a list. I should be around all day, though if I get back to template coding, I'm doing that on Meta since far fewer pages are linked. First I'm going to reboot and get my email back! ttfn // FrankB 15:51, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Template:Userlinks

As you were the last person to edit the protected {{Userlinks}}, could I prevail upon you to make one more edit? Here's a revision of the whole first block of text, up to and including the <noinclude>:

[[User:{{ucfirst:{{{1|Example User}}}}}|<tt>{{ucfirst:{{{1|Example User}}}}}</tt>]] (<span class="plainlinks">[[User talk:{{ucfirst:{{{1|Example User}}}}}|talk]] <small>·</small> [[Special:Contributions/{{ucfirst:{{{1|Example User}}}}}|contribs]] <small>·</small> [{{fullurl:Special:Log|user={{urlencode:{{ucfirst:{{{1|Example User}}}}}}}}} <font color="blue">logs</font>] <small>·</small> [[Special:Blockip/{{ucfirst:{{{1|Example User}}}}}|block user]] <small>·</small> [{{fullurl:Special:Log|type=block&page=User:{{urlencode:{{ucfirst:{{{1|Example User}}}}}}}}} <font color="blue">block log</font>]</span>)<noinclude>

(Please copy-and-paste this from the normal-view and not the edit mode.)

Functions as: Example User (talk · contribs · logs · block user · block log)

This (1) puts font tags inside the links, (2) replaces the template separators with hardcodes (so this template can't be attacked through the transcluded templates), (3) uses the ucfirst parser function to ensure that the username always starts with a capital letter, and (4) puts the tt tags back around the username (alone) so that I,l don't look alike -- unlike I,l. -- Ben 03:12, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm in the middle of some complicated editing here, but will be happy to read, digest and act on your request as soon as this editing is completed and I've allowed my brain to cool a little. Hope that's okay, David (talk) 03:26, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
...Have finally attended to your request; hope all is working okay. Yours, David (talk) 02:42, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Ping 2 here

  • I have more for you in depth back in the pipeline, but this point needs consideration. There's a ton of those which is one reason I hate the kludge. I'm not sure where the wikisource category came from, but making a category for specialty templates that apply to each sister is not a bad idea either. The problem is filing precedence, since some of IWTG (The individual XXXXtmp ones) goto to template space, the XXXXcat ones (Mine and Meta-wiki sourced, so common on most sisters) go to category spaces, etcetera. Bottom line, is that category creep, since each sister will have at most ten templates, more likely 3-5 that apply to it, or is a good idea, as it's another way for people to find what they're looking for rapidly. Some would argue the Wikipedia:templates page and sub-page guides are enough. I can go either way, but am leaning heavily (75%) towards adding the separate cats so long as they're cross listed in the namespace scheme too. // FrankB 07:05, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for the note, Frank; glad you're thinking along these lines. I'm about to call time here and (as you may've seen when posting) have a couple of other messages to acknowledge, but will then move back to your note and template categories. Yours, David (talk) 07:11, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Don't take this the wrong way, <BSEG>, but I think of you often... I can never seem to get back to finish the messages I started to answer to you in depth--they're always umpteen backspaces away. Firefox closed down on me, and I hope it recovers the php, as I hate redoing and that message was all but done when I went off to check something... and am still at other somethings that came up. Alas, and I didn't get back yet to the message higher up the page either yet! Still tying up loose ends... and one leads to another all too often, but things are stabilizing. (<crossing fingers>) I'm determined to reboot this system sometime in the next 24 hrs! I'm fading too. G'night. // FrankB 07:20, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
Note-2
(or 3 or 4? Who's counting...?)

Just so this doesn't slide off the 'Mention to David radar' -- Wikipedia:Classification.

  • -- I also created a simpler redirect {{catlist-up}} for 'Wpd-catlist-up' for administrative pages or other tagging that won't necessarily be fully interwiki compatible when I copy a category page verbatum to another sister. See the variations I documentend last night in our Wikipedia templates for instances when things won't travel well! Like 'cat see also' I figure such names, 'as a redirect', will just always have a local redirect definition, so that's portable enough. The longer interwiki referencing name still does all the work. If not, cross-sister, one just adds the appropriate psuedo-menmonic meta-sister-prefix at the cost of four characters, and the links would then work.
  • On other loose ends topics, you took/expressed/have (<g>) an aversion to the params which were 'uconly'. Sorry, but not too! It's an old assembly and C macro's practice dating back to naming conventions in a job that eventually produced 2.5 million lines of code. Unix always drove me nuts with an over-reliance on mainly lowercase names--harder to pick out, at least for me.
  • Submit there is no reason I can recollect in the way these are used to not have both upper and lowercase as an option. They will 'OR' in use... at least I'll maintain that until I be proved wrong. I also tested passing parameters to define another, which worked when evaluating how to evolve the larger group of asuffixed interwikitmp-grp templates, so:
{{#if:{{{SISTER|}}}||{{#if:{{{sister|}}}|SISTER={{{sister}}} }} }}

should do the job for inside even the list workhorse templates if we want to add the complication there.

  • With the front end's being the more user friendly name, I'd do such an equate there, letting the working template alone in the current 'simplified form'. Bottom line, no reason to fix something which ain't broken.
  • You can have your cake and so can I... and that goes for a longer more formal 'template name' if you prefer that too. They all show up on whatlinkshere, one way or another and we're not looking at any kind of significant processing loads... how often do category pages get edited? Even when they do, they aren't transcluded loads on articles like templates, so lot's of room for compromises. If someone goes to examin the aliased template name, the redirect routes them to the proper page. So N.B.D.
  • Guess that's all for now... back to slogging through documentation and closing out browsers! // FrankB 17:04, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
Hot Quicky
Plz reply my talk if you're here...

From this (My first such edit using the IE6 browser, do you see the two template boxes nesting side by side, or each occupying opposite corners of a very large rectangle defined by their opposite corners. {{interwikicat-grp}} should be top and right... only I'm seeing {{tracking category}} low and left instead of 'valigned top'. OTOH, my Java is off for IE6, so wondering whether I need to turn IWCG 90 degrees or if that fixes the issue. (I'm rebooting soon, but was cleaning some stuff up first, or was trying like hell!) Sigh. // FrankB 21:55, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Hi Frank – I hope to be online now for a while.
Re the above, here, using Firefox v2, the two templates' top edges are nicely aligned (i.e. contrary to your IE6 description), but they're overlapping slightly in the window I'm using (approx. 1024 by 768px). I was meaning to suggest a couple of amendments to {{template category}} – viz. moving/making the Description a little more prominent than the "This is a template category..." statement; and incorporating the "How to add a template to this category" section (which seems to've happened) – so I'd now add restricting the template's width in order to avoid this overlap. Since I can see the problem here, would you like me to try to sort it out...?  (Should, I hope, be relatively straightforward...)
There's at least two other messages I ought to acknowledge, but will then return to the rest of your Ping 2 here thread. Yours, David (talk) 02:32, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
You make an interesting point... what happens to 800X600! I'm generally running 1536 X something but I cheat -- 21" monitor! This laptop runs 1024... Hmmm Have to pull up IE7 and check that too.
Okay thanks-- the change you describe sounds fine to template category, I generally override the font size, if you look where it intersects {{interwikicat-grp}} you'll find some. Hell, just look at template categories. Post-posting the above (<g> I have such a marvelous method o'word choice! <G>) I found 67% as a small width seems to be about tops for these large banners in small mode beside IWCG using medium font selected on IE6. Can you confirm that on yours. (Confess... I KNOW you use it now and then. <g>) (check this page)

SO if you're fiddling, plug that tune in too... That should also fix the overlap you're seeing in Firefox. My firefox was showing such side by side with a small gap. I'm at dinner... will be ack to the office in a few. I've got Continents of the world opened up and gutted! <G> (Hey... 'Europe' was 'open' in the browser on this laptop, and it beats the hell out of categories issues... I'm going ga-ga trying to figure out how to move what to where, and what is tagging what.) Do you have any idea what you and Mike have done to my nice simple lack-of-planning! Sigh. I'll see you soon, sortof. // FrankB 03:12, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Hate failing

Sigh... Continents are safe for now... Maybe! See {{X7}} and see if you can figure out what's happening in {{x6}}... seems to be some of those troubles you mentioned about mixing parserfunctions with HTML. Anyway, the last which show up (3rd) is what I was shooting for. I'm headed up the stairs to the office, see you soon. // FrankB 03:42, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

When you get back

I'm not sure I was addressing whatever it was you last asked me on my talk about 'renaming these interwiki functions'. Lets's confer by email as to which you meant, as I'm finally clear to reboot... was just checking to see if you'd left an answer here. (BTW--you KNOW it's cold outside when you have to take two cases of soda pop from the garage and put them in the refrigerator to warm up!) Cheers! // FrankB 13:56, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Ping-email on Commonscat1/1A Wikipediacat1/1A. I'm off to dinner. // FrankB 02:50, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Stop!

Stop your AWB with the country infoboxes please! Something going wrong there. Fut.Perf. ☼ 07:43, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the alert, Future Perfect; what appears to be amiss...?  David Kernow (talk) 07:45, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
Sorry, cancel that, nothing wrong, I misread the edit diffs. Fut.Perf. ☼ 07:45, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
Phew... I'm reassured, though, that if there had been a problem, your message would've saved some extra work!  Best wishes, David (talk) 07:49, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Quick help request

David, when you get a moment of free time, could you, please, take a look at my user page? I don't quite understand why the section that is supposed to be hidden (the one with the barnstars) shows by default. The code is exactly the same as on your userpage, for example, yet yours produces the output which is hidden on the first view, but mine is visible. Probably some obvious little thing I have missed. This is by no means urgent. Thanks!—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 22:04, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure either, but hope the switch to {{hidden}} also works where you are. Here, using firefox, the "Awards" titlebar extended across the whole page (i.e. cut through the "Ëzhiki" panel), but rather than try fiddling with its width I reckoned it would be more robust if curtailed by the double-pane table. If (1) this layout doesn't work / generates problems / interferes with subsequent edits you'd like to make on the page; and (2) a solution isn't obvious, let me know and I'll try to sort it out. By then I may've learned of a simpler, neater approach!  Yours, David (talk) 04:52, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
PS Re ...Templates, I see User:Fabartus and folk above have already contributed; hope, therefore, any gremlins found now removed...?
This is absolutely wonderful, thanks! Previously, the titlebar stretched across the whole page not only in Firefox, but in Opera as well (curiously enough, IE displayed it correctly). Now it works like a charm.
As for the conversion templates, I've got all my questions answered. While one can never be sure if all the gremlins are now gone, at least templates' standard applications seem to function flawlessly. Frank above mentioned a handbook of such templates—is this something that's already started (if so, can I have a link, please), or just an early concept?
Again, thanks for your help! I'll address the Adygea issues later today.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 13:16, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

The O2 → Millennium Dome

Hey David, I started a request to move The O2 back to Millennium Dome under common name rule. Since you originally asked to move it to The O2, you might want to offer your opinion. ~ trialsanderrors 23:55, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Just spotted that I did support that move; I guess I must've been feeling "official" that day, as I'd agree that it usually seems to be called the "Millenium Dome". (From what I happen to've read more recently, however, maybe it will soon become something along the lines of "Casino Royale"...? ...!) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by David Kernow (talk • contribs) 00:18, 8 March 2007 (UTC).

UncatTemplateBot

Please could you have a look at the discussion that seems to be starting up at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/UncatTemplateBot? It's looking like a basic premise I assumed - that templates should be categorised - is something that hasn't found consensus yet (actually, I don't think it's been discussed). Would it be worth bringing this up at one of the village pumps? If so, any suggestions as to which? Mike Peel 09:52, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)#Categorization_of_templates; your comments would be appreciated. Thanks. Mike Peel 15:20, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
...Sorry not to've acknowledged your messages more promptly. As you've probably guessed, I've found myself with too many pies and insufficient fingers. However:
Have left some thoughts at the former and a one-line statement of support at the latter; glad you found the Village pump section I'd've suggested. I'll happily expand this statement (using the gist of the former) if you think it might be too pithy. Thanks for keeping (with Fabartus) the template categorization alive!  David (talk) 02:27, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

It's becoming a standard practice to create article-specific templates

Just wondering what prompted you to create [{{Infobox Cape Verde}}] rather than retain the {{Infobox Country or territory}} within the Cape Verde article...?

I've already seen quite a few of them, I guess its for a better editing view of the article, rather than having to scroll down a bit until you get to the article's primary contents. Can you please turn that wretched "cascading option" off by the way? I had to rename the template (as you suggested) and then replace the COA PNG with an SVG to fulfill someone else's request concerning the Template:Infobox Cape Verde template. Yet, the new template was blocked because of that cascading option. Please turn it off, since I take it that you're an admin or something. Thanks. --Toussaint 15:42, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

  • Now you mention it, I realize I've also seen the same in some ethnic group articles... and I also agree that the space used when calling {{Infobox Country or territory}} or the like can be daunting. Is there any support/consensus for using the {{Infobox Cape Verde}} approach for all country/territory articles...?  If so, {{Infobox Country or territory}} now includes "view · talk · edit" links below its footnotes area, so maybe these links could lead to {{Infobox country name}} rather than {{Infobox Country or territory}} itself. What do you think...?
So far as I can tell, the cascading option doesn't now seem to be switched on for {{CapeVerde-InfoBox}}, {{Infobox Cape Verde}} or {tl|Infobox Country or territory}} itself, so I hope this means the problem has been resolved. Now that {{Infobox Cape Verde}} exists, shall I delete {{CapeVerde-InfoBox}}...?  Regards, David (talk) 02:54, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
    • Sure, go ahead. Thanks. --Toussaint 04:52, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Infobox Country

It appears that {{Infobox Country}} has some code that's causing articles that transclude it to have an extra } at the end of the infobox. As I can't figure out the coding, can you look into it? Thanks. --Nlu (talk) 18:05, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Started working to remove this glitch (and to try to simplify/cleanup the code!) yesterday and am about to return to it; I hope to have it repaired soon. Thanks, though, for your message, as I may not've been aware of the problem. Yours, David Kernow (talk) 18:33, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Re Template:Infobox Country or territory and Western Sahara

Hi wikima,

I assume that you did the infobox for Western Sahara. If this is the case,
  • Please remove the palce holder for the flag and the coat of arms. They should not appear there. WS is a territory.

Thanks for bringing this to my attention. The absence of the {{{image_flag}}} parameter should mean that neither the missing flag nor missing coat-of-arms images should appear, so I'm working to fix this now.

  • Is there a possibility to use something everybody can edit? If not I will make the effort to get the old editing back. Editing should not be dependent on technic.

This is the previous version of the template, which includes a mixture of HTML, wikicode and wikicode-by-templates (i.e. {{!}}, {{!!}}, {{!-}} etc). These three methods are each more or less sensitive to how their code is formatted, i.e. formatting that works in one section of the template's code is likely to produce very different (i.e. dysfunctional) results in another. Are you sure you'd prefer to return to this situation...?
Yours, David Kernow (talk) 16:11, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Hi David,

  • Thanks for the quick reaction. I appreciate.
  • I don't have a preference to any version. I only find important to make sure coding is no barrier for editing as not everyone is familiar with the tricks of templates for instance
  • Any solution that provides the possibilty for all users to change content easily and without destroying the format is welcome to me.
  • It may help if you could link, in a discret manner, the template at the bottom of the box. Users who wish to make changes will be able to track back to the very template.

Thanks for your effort & regards. wikima 16:18, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

  • I'm glad I happened to be here when you sent your message!  If you visit Western Sahara now, hopefully everything will be back in order.
    I understand exactly what you mean about coding; before becoming involved with Wikipedia, I knew almost no HTML, CSS, etc and have learned the little I know now from puzzling over the code here. So I'm keen to make complex code as consistent and readable as possible – hence, for example, the spacing and indentations in the current {{Infobox Country or territory}} code. Maybe, though, you'd prefer a different kind of layout...?  Re providing a link to the template, a {{Tnavbar}} is what's needed, which I'll add now; thanks for this suggestion. Yours, David (talk) 16:42, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
  • David, the box looks right now, thanks for the swift action
  • Re the footer (This box: view • talk • edit), I think this is really good. many of us can follow back with templates and try to find their ways to edit them if needed. However I when I click the links I am guided to empty pages rather. But may be this is to be so. I'll have an other look into the details when I have more time.
Thanks for your help! Regards - wikima 21:14, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Footer: My mistake – should now be corrected. Best wishes, David (talk) 02:00, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Admin divs of Adygea update

  • Tlekhuray. I, too, now think this is the best solution thus far, especially after you tweaked it. I only wanted to note that it should be perfectly OK to compact the source reference under the table to one line (i.e., to Sources: 1897–...).
  • Done!
  • Map. I like Rarelibra's map quite a bit, so I wouldn't want to override it with anything else either...
  • Have cropped and added a few extra annotations (approximately locating Krasnodar, the Krasnodar Reservoir and the Caucasus Mountains, as mentioned in the article) in this version of Rarelibra's map. It's also now sitting in the article. Are you happy with this version – and do you think Rarelibra will be too...?
  • Model. Yes, it was precisely my intent to write and polish one article so it could serve as a template to the rest of the articles in the series. Ultimately, I'd like to see all 86 (or whatever the number is going to be by then) lists featured. Of course, with my current pace it might very well happen only after I retire :))
  • I say aim for what you reckon are the major 22 subjects first!
  • Peer review. I think we can nominate it for peer review this or next week. We might want to move it out of your user space first, though. Moving it to administrative divisions of Adygea/Temp will probably be the best.
  • I moved it to Administrative divisions of Adygea/archive2 before being reminded of the above; hope that's no problem.
  • Misc. Just to let you know, I have not forgotten about my promise to research the benefits/downsides of city/town/urban-type settlement status. I haven't been able to find anything reference-worthy so far, but I'll keep trying. Like I previously said, the status is more of an acknowledgement than a reward, hence there isn't really too much available on this topic. I'll keep my eyes open; the subject already proved to be intriguing :)
  • Don't let this interfere with article generation; it was just a passing thought! – and on second thoughts I guess similar conferments in other countries are also essentially ceremonial.
Hope all well, David (talk) 05:18, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
Wonderful! The map turned out better than I could have hoped. I left Rarelibra a message; let's hope the map will be taken care of, but for now (and for the peer review) the new cropped version should be quite sufficient.
I do have a question about the second part of your post though (I say aim for what you reckon are the major 22 subjects first!). Why 22? In any case, it's too late for that—Adygea is hardly one of the 22 major subjects; it just happened to be the first in the alphabetically sorted list! Not to mention that it is hardly possible to even arrange the federal subjects from major to minor without offending someone :) If you are interested, I am planning to do Tatarstan next (because Untifler, being a native, can provide invaluable assistance), and then go on with Primorsky Krai (because this is where I am originally from :))
  • Oops – I meant to amend "the major 22 subjects" to something like "the first quarter of the subjects by size" before posting; apologies for oversight.
The list's new location (/update) is fine, of course. I'll be submitting it for peer review soon. Would you have time to participate and answer the formatting-related questions, should those surface in the process? Speaking of which, if you agree to participate, is there a good time to submit the nomination without having to distract you from other endeavors?
Best,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 18:45, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
  • "Yes (especially as I've tinkered with it)" and "Any time is as suspect good as any other" are the answers I hope you're glad to hear!  Yours, David (talk) 08:24, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
OK, then I'll put the revised version up for peer review as soon as I get a free moment. Thanks again for all your help with this!—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 15:29, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
It is now on peer review. Unfortunately, there seems to be quite a backlog of requests, so I don't know just how many comments we'll receive. Anyway, I'm fairly confident that we did a great job! :)—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 19:34, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

New map

Hi, David! Rarelibra has just uploaded a new map, and it's a great improvement over the original version. Thought you might be interested in taking a look. Best,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 17:54, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Template:TOChidden

Greetings David, knowing your proficiency for template code [...]

(Aside:) I'm flattered, as a year or so ago I knew almost the proverbial "nada" about this kind of coding – although given some recent fumblings with {{Infobox Country or territory}}, I realize "nada" has only become "little more than nada"...

[...] I was wondering if you could take a look at this creation I've put together that essentially mixes code from Template:Linkimage and Template:TOCleft. I've tried to make the code as browser universal as possible and efficient as possible. Maybe you might have a suggestion/edit or two you think could improve upon the concept? You can see the template in action (as of this posting) on Jesus. Cheers. (→Netscott) 18:10, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

I enquired some time ago about whether or not a user preference for autocollapsed TOCs might be implemented, but soon appreciated that a small volunteer group of developers (with the necessary know-how) verses an unremitting stream of glitches etc meant it'd be a long time before this might appear (if ever). {{TOChidden}}, therefore, looks like the workaround required, so thanks for creating it – and nothing suggests itself as missing or awry. (I'd name it and format the code a little differently, but that'd be cosmetic, personal preference.)  Furthermore, you've (unwittingly) pointed out to me that toccolours is another class to which "collapsible" etc can be attached, something I hadn't considered before. So thanks again!  Yours, David Kernow (talk) 09:24, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
David, thanks for your response. I'm curious to know... what name would you give this template? (→Netscott) 08:30, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
On second thoughts, strike that idea; I was thinking of something along the lines of "collapsed TOC", but I guess anyone familiar with that kind of expression wouldn't misunderstand "TOChidden"!  David (talk) 10:20, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

User Category for Discussion

A category created by you or to which you have significantly contributed is being considered for deletion, rename, move or merge in accordance with Wikipedia's Categories for Discussion policies. This does not mean that any of the userpages in the category will be deleted. They may, however, be recategorized.
Please share your thoughts on the matter at this category's entry on the User categories for discussion page.
VegaDark 21:51, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your courtesy in leaving the above; I've now added some context at the relevant CfD entry. Regards, David Kernow (talk) 04:35, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

automated mistake

Hi David. You seem to have done a peculiar search and replace: here on Cyprus. I'll put the breaks back in there, but your procedure might have caused havoc elsewhere; please verify. Kind regards. — SomeHuman 17 Mar 2007 02:33 (UTC)

Thanks for spotting; I've just checked the settings I'm using and confirmed that "<br />"s are meant to be replaced by (non-wraparound) "<br/>"s, while " km²"s should be replaced with (non-wraparound) "&nbsp;km²"s. Maybe there was a glitch just before, during, or just as I submitted the edit...
I have a few country articles on my watchlist that underwent the same formatting but to which I also made some manual amendments; so far as I can see, these don't appear to've been affected in the same way, so I'm hoping Cyprus was a one-time glitch. I'm about to pass by a few more, so will look to see if anything similar happens again; if so, I'll take a look at the other country articles edited at the same time as Cyprus. Yours, David (talk) 03:32, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Tnavbar update

David, per the request of a few users I've update the Tnavbar code to allow for setting a color for the edit words. The code is in this section tucked in a hidden comment area. Could you replace the code with this new version for us? This new code will need to be replaced from (and including) the <noinclude> tag to the </noinclude> tag. Thanks. (→Netscott) 16:13, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

This box: [[Template:{{{1}}}|view]] • [[Template talk:{{{1}}}|talk]] • [{{fullurl:Template:{{{1}}}|action=edit}} edit]

</includeonly>

to above this line -->

David, I see you are online. Folks have been waiting for these changes for some time.... if you're too busy to try and implement this then I can request someone else to do so. Otherwise if you have reservations about it maybe you can express them? Thanks. (→Netscott) 05:24, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
Sorry to've overlooked; I've now copy-pasted the code (correctly, I hope). Yours, David (talk) 05:36, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
Thank you very much. I did a bit of testing before but I'll just verify your edit now. If there's any concerns I'll let you know. (→Netscott) 05:37, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

FYI --closing browsers come hell or high water

1 This tab was looking at the Maps stuff you never got my annote my anwers on... should I bother now that you've archived?
2 From Quiddity for your internet template toolkit. http://colorfilter.wickline.org/

   
I'll probably drop the odd note here as I clean up and close up. through the day, so we can just keep dialog here (Unless you want immediate discussion-- then ping here and Meta -- I'll be one place or the other, I'm tired of dealing with wet snow!) // FrankB 17:53, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Actually, I lied--no apologies though <g> -- combine disgust with wikipolitics, dragging from pressing, and youngest's 16th BD... taken together lead me to taking a (mostly) weekend off from wiki's. Let 'em cut my pay! <g>

Two hot FYI's:

  1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Fabartus#Robot_at_Commons #http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:RobertG#Lost_in_the_bit_bucket

Submit we might both want to apply. This is really a compliment. He's been very tight with sharing this software with anyone. Email me with thoughts. // FrankB 18:34, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Commons stuff

PING FYI // FrankB 16:17, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

(Back at closing windows up <g> I'm around if you are) // FrankB 22:01, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

NavFrame font-size

Why did you revert my change? —Ruud 16:12, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

It looked like something you'd overlooked when reverting yourself... or had you planned to send a bot to adjust all affected templates accordingly...?  Yours, David (talk) 16:17, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
Which templates are "affected" and how should they be adjusted? —Ruud 16:22, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
Any (and I guess all) templates using class="NavFrame"; especially, for example, templates using the {{Navigation}} family of templates (cf {{Navigational templates}}). Their use probably runs into the thousands. I imagine {{Hidden}} and related templates are similarly affected. The problem is that setting NavFrame's font-size at less than 95% means that the basic font-size for templates and anything else using the NavFrame-NavHead-NavContent combination becomes too small. What motivated you to make this fundamental change...?  David (talk) 16:36, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
Consistency with table.navbox. I suspect that this change (unintentionally) caused the font-size of the navigational boxes' contents to fall blow 90%, it this correct? —Ruud 17:54, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
Yes; I thought it was unlikely you'd intended this effect. However, assuming there are no others, it might not be so tricky to reapply the change; {{Navigation}}, for instance, uses <div class="NavFrame"...> ... <div class="NavHead"...> ... <div class="NavContent" style="...font-size:0.9em;...">, so all that would be needed in addition to the change in NavFrame font-size would be the removal of the font-size:0.9em style – at least, that's how it looks without experimentation. I guess it would be the same for the other templates in {{Navigational templates}} using NavFrame-NavHead-NavContent. {{Hidden}} (and {{Hidden begin}} and...), however, doesn't include a font-size setting within its code, so I suppose one would need to be inserted in order to compensate... Perhaps, then, making this NavFrame change might be more hassle than imagined; I haven't tried finding other uses of NavFrame that would need compensation. What do you think...?  Yours, David (talk) 06:55, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Centuries

Hi David, I spotted your changes in Greece. Please realize that e.g. "18th century" is just as correct for Wikipedia as "eighteenth century": see guideline. Perhaps by oversight, the guideline does not explicitly allow "tenth century BC" where it mentions only "10th century BC" or "10th century BCE". Because of the latter sample being given solely in digits, I assume most of the conscientious contributors to use those in BC/BCE wordings and then for consistency's sake I personally even prefer to maintain such short notation for the later years without the suffix. Kind regards — SomeHuman 18 Mar 2007 22:31 (UTC)

I too accept that either style is fine, so have been using the prose forms ("seventh", "eighteenth", etc) within prose – especially paragraphs summarizing history – while maintaining the numeral form elsewhere (e.g. in infoxboxes). Yours, David (talk) 07:10, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Infobox

Hey David, could you please update the infobox at Hungarian people? Thanks! Khoikhoi 20:56, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Done!  Best wishes, David (talk) 12:27, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
Thanks again. Your work never ceases to amaze me. :-) Khoikhoi 00:50, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
Blush!  Someday I'll return to the ethnic group articles, but for now I'm glad there are folk such as yourself whose fine work includes them. David (talk) 14:00, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
Thanks David. BTW, can you fix-up the Bosniaks article as well? Khoikhoi 03:34, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
...Done (eventually!) David (talk) 16:53, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Indonesian issues

Thanks for your work on Indonesian related articles - I am embroiled in real life and a few other things as well - but would like to put my hand up as someone who was trying to WP Indonesian tag all articles I could find, as well as do a big category sort [...]

Whenever you're able!

[...] please dont be suprised when I actually get lots of spare time in the next week or so - that I send a long series of questions! SatuSuro 13:08, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm no expert on Indonesia; only passing by some related articles having found {{Indonesia topics}}. Before starting, I hadn't seen {{Life in Indonesia}} (which looks like a compact version of {{Indonesia topics}}), so I'm not sure which folk would prefer (if not both). I've decided to forge on, though, since I can try polishing some of the formatting here and there. Thanks for your message, David Kernow (talk) 13:18, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
Im off now - but thnks your encouraging response - and some of the tthings on your user page suggest to me that i need to talk soon! SatuSuro 13:23, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Cat tagging templates

re: your email directing me to {{CMS}}Template talk:X5/DK...

  1. See flow in Template:Commonscat1A (edit talk links history), where it begins with (once upon a time... Meta defined) .Css reference...
       which turned out to be not so portable afterall, so is expressed: {{Interwiki class-sisterproject|<div class="infobox sisterproject">}} creating a div style and box structure...
       'X5' is JUST THE NEW GUTS logic and display lines for inside that box structure... just replaces the if-then-else in the top ten-twelve lines between the div style= ... and final /div commands. It is not (yet) a template by itself.
  2. Then continue by examining:
    1. Template:CMS (edit talk links history) and Template:CMS (edit talk links history) and extrapolate to
    2. Template:WPD (edit talk links history) and Template:WPD (edit talk links history) in mirror application.
  3. then Ping for the rest of your answers.

Cheers // FrankB 15:42, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

This page/changewill make a good live fire exercise. // FrankB 22:01, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

RobertG

I thought you might like to know:

- jc37 10:33, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Hi Jc37,
I thought you might like to know...
Thanks for your note (without which I'd probably still be unaware of the event) which I received but then forgot about until now, so my apologies for this delayed acknowledgement. I'm genuinely surprised if RobertG's departure is solely due to CalJW's unpleasant comments at the CfD review (I note CalJW doesn't appear to've been involved in the original CfD) so I'm wondering if there's more to this story than is on record; do you have any further, more recent insight...?  It's certainly a blow for CfD and category maintenance if RobertG doesn't return, let alone any other areas where I'm not aware of his contribution. Do you know if anyone's able to contact (or has contacted) him outside Wikipedia...?  Thanks again for your message, David (talk) 22:22, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
Well, besides the WP:AN, check out CalJW's talk page, and RobertG's talk page (and check out his "parting gift"). It's starting to look like he doesn't plan to return in the near future... sigh. - jc37 03:36, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
FYI, I've been given access to the code for RobotG, and he'd made a cryptic mention of being a former Admin, to which I've queried him about. I've been otherwise occupied too often these past couple of weeks to follow up here, alas. I just saw the email from him night before last. // FrankB 16:16, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
PING (Your Commons talk) here and see your email (Flagged Hi-Pri) on a related matter. // FrankB 16:16, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

AfD nomination of Types of pocket sandwich

An editor has nominated Types of pocket sandwich, an article on which you have worked or that you created, for deletion. We appreciate your contributions, but the nominator doesn't believe that the article satisfies Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion and has explained why in his/her nomination (see also "What Wikipedia is not"). Your opinions on whether the article meets inclusion criteria and what should be done with the article are welcome; please participate in the discussion by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Types of pocket sandwich and please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes (~~~~). You may also edit the article during the discussion to improve it but should not remove the articles for deletion template from the top of the article; such removal will not end the deletion debate. Thank you. Please note: This is an automatic notification by a bot. I have nothing to do with this article or the deletion nomination, and can't do anything about it. Jayden54Bot 18:57, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

TfD nomination of Template:Uganda topics

Template:Uganda topics 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. — Ezeu 04:19, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for taking the trouble to post the above. Rather than deletion, perhaps a review of the template's contents might be timely, with reference to similar templates; it would probably also benefit from addition of one or more links to Category:Uganda / Portal:Uganda / List of Uganda-related topics. Hope all well, David Kernow (talk) 19:48, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Listification

There are some categories ready for listification on the working page. I know you've done some in the past, is there an simple way to do this? - jc37 13:29, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

The few I've done were by copy-paste then search-replace in a plain-text editor (to remove whitespace, create links, etc) from the category page, i.e. manually, followed by subst:ing {{Ctlf}} to create a basic "List of" page. Whether this is the simplest (or even a simple) method, I don't know; there may be a technique/template/macro or the like that automates the process entirely... perhaps something like WP:AWB could be (or has been!) coaxed to do so... In a nutshell, I guess my answer is an incredibly useful "maybe", although if there isn't an automated technique/template/macro/AWB/etc setup, it's something to add to a to-do list somewhere!  Yours, David (talk) 20:05, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
I totally agree, especially since so many categories (especially fiction-based) are being listified latey. And thanks for the link to the template, I would never have thought of that : ) - jc37 12:17, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Template review

Hi, David! If you have time (and, more importantly, inclination), could you take a look at the {{Russian district composition}} template? This template will supposedly make the task of creating district composition tables a bit easier. A usage example is available in the Giaginsky District article. If you don't want to disassemble the code (which is perfectly OK, because it is kind of heavy, repetitive, and unintelligible), I would still appreciate any generic advice you might give. Thanks!—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 20:19, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

I see what you mean about the "heavy" code! – although it seems this is mostly due to the parameter names. Normally, I reckon unabbreviated (or only slightly abbreviated) names are a good idea, but perhaps {{Russian district composition}} is an exception (so long as an explanation/key is given in the documentation/code's comments). How about:
Current Suggestion
DistrictName name
SelsovietTypePlural selsv_plural
Selsoviet_1_[en/ru] selsv1_[en/ru]
SelsovietRuralSettlement_1_[en/ru] selsv_rs1_[en/ru]
SelsovietRuralSettlement_1_RuralLocality_1 selsv_rs1_rl1
etc, etc...?
Re the template's formatting, how about removing the repeated "khutor of"/"selo of"/etc within the "Rural localities in jurisdiction" column along these lines (using Ayryumovsky as example):
Rural localities in jurisdiction³
Settlements Novy
Khutors Krasny Khleborob, Progress, Sadovy
Selos Nizhny Ayryum, Obraztsovoye
...or is the order in which these places appear significant...?
Best wishes, David (talk) 23:40, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
PS Spotted Rarelibra's new version of the Adygea map, which looks the best yet; I'm tempted, though, to (re)insert Krasnodar's location and rotate the map back to its previous position (or was that incorrect...?)
Thanks for the review, David! Just to think of it—the first time I overcome myself and start spelling out the parameter names is the time when you tell me to maybe abbreviate them :) Ironic, huh? That aside, abbreviating them is a reasonable proposal. I, however, could not resist adding the template to two more articles while waiting for your reply, so in essence I created more work for myself. Oh well...
Regarding condensing the rural localities by type, I don't know. The idea sounds good, but when I am trying to visualize the end result in my head, I see a very cluttered third column with repeating sets of "khutor, village, selo, khutor, village, selo" lines. Is there perhaps a better way to say "khutor of Foo", so the output looks better and no meaning is lost?
As for the map, Rarelibra took care of it today. Check out the new version. Krasnodar and Caucaus Mountains are still not in, but I asked Rarelibra to add them (see here for the discussion). Let's see how it turns out.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 19:02, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
Apologies for this belated reply; I suddenly realized I hadn't acknowledged the above. Re abbreviating the parameter names, well, I guess this template might be one of the "exceptions that prove the rule"; it's also more of a formatting than navigational or infobox template, so perhaps that makes using cryptic names less of a "sin"!
Re the rural localities' layout, I agree; perhaps a solution is to use "khutor", "village", "selo", "stanitsa" and "settlement" subcolumns (not necessarily in that order!) within the "Rural localities in jurisdication" column...?  These names only then need to appear once. (In order to keep the template from becoming overly broad, I'd probably also switch to font-size 95%, possibly even 90% for the smaller types.)
Haven't yet revisited Rarelibra's sterling work, but will do so soon. Hope all well, David (talk) 01:47, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
Actually, it is me who never followed up. Sorry! In any case, I kind of shelved this idea for a while, as one of the discussions I've been having prompted me to re-visit the list we are working on and, oh horrors, I found a major mistake I had made. The problem is that all those "administrative divisions" I've nicely put in a separate column of the composition tables shouldn't really be there for the rural level, as they are no longer recognized as administrative by Adygea's laws (I carried them over from the original version of the list without even thinking <banging head against the wall>). Well, that's my mistake, hence it's my problem, hence I fixed it. On the other hand, however, if you could look at the composition tables in our workspace and see if there is a better way to format three-column tables (such as the one for Maykopsky District, for example), I'd appreciate it very much. Once we figure out a new format (should that be necessary), we can revisit the composition table.
As for the types of rural localities being listed in separate columns, I think that's a better solution than the previous one (less clutter), but I am still not sure if that's a good thing to do. Having separate headers for villages, selos, etc. kind of emphasizes that they are (perhaps fundamentally) different, while in reality the differences pretty much boil down to terminology and historical development. Current solution may not be the cleanest one, but it does not put any additional weight on the rural localities' types; all localities are simply listed in alphabetical order. What do you think?—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 15:44, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
...Have just used a few search-replace macros to perform an update, but haven't tried testing the template to see if doing so has also broken it. If/when it's used, I guess we'll find out! &nnbsp;Hope all well, David (talk) 06:16, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Barnstar

The Template Barnstar
Thanks for all your sterling work maintaining templates. It might not glamorous work but your efforts are appreciated. Valentinian T / C 20:24, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

The barnstar is well deserved for your work in general, but you deserve an extra thanks for your tweak of {{Danish overseas empire}} which has been on my to do list for ages. Happy editing. Valentinian T / C 20:24, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your generosity!  Another tweak I almost applied was to enlarge the title's font-size a little, as {{Navbox generic}} titles are slightly smaller than {{Navigation}} titles (see, for example, the "International membership" group of templates at the end of the Greenland article if you don't already know what I mean). However, a general debate as regards templates is being suggested here, so I'm waiting to see what happens there before suggesting (say) a tweak to the {{Navbox generic}} code. Thanks again, David (talk) 20:39, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
Glad you liked it. I was thinking the same thing about the font size, but your tweak today fixed the template's biggest issue. Perhaps it will need some redesigning to blend in better with the other templates. Cheers. Valentinian T / C 21:38, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Another barnstar

The Template Barnstar
I noticed you just got one, but I had to come here and give you a barnstar. {{·}} is quite an innovative template; thank you so much for creating it. ShadowHalo 15:21, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for making the barnstar stereo!  I've been away a couple of days, so sorry not to've sent this earlier. {{·}} seems to work best on the handful of screens and printers I've seen it on; ideally, though, I reckon there could be a "set separator character" preference option (which also uses the &nbsp; formatting). A couple of people said it was tricky to input, which I guess is true if you're not keen on pasting, macros or key combinations, but the "middot" character seemed appropriate for a short template name. Anyway, happy to know some folk like it!  Best wishes, David (talk) 04:35, 2 April 2007 (UTC)