User talk:Magnus Manske/old

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Old talk

Hey Magnus; I've started a new thread over at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Elements about a concept for nav bars and locator maps (there is a prototype example at Lithium). Join in if you are interested. --mav

Magnus; I reduced the width of the image at lithium by 10 pixels. Does this work for your browser? If not I suppose I could shave off more... --mav

I just played around with a copy of it, and it was me who misinterpreted the whole thing. I thought you had tried to align the element names/links to the graphic! Now I realized it is an "up-and-down"-link. So, it was all right in the first place, I was just confused by the "labelling" of the elements... --Magnus Manske 08:28 Oct 1, 2002 (UTC)
Oh, OK. I'll revert to the slightly wider image then (which is just a wee bit better on my eyes). --mav

Contents

[edit] Self-link on topic lists

I disagree with your removal of the self-link on List of musical topics and List of computing topics. While in general we should remove self-links, I belive topic pages like these pose an exception for a few reasons. The pages themselves fall into the category of the topic they list. In the future, some people may use pages like that in place of Recent changes. If the scope of their Recent changes suddenly decreased because of a vandal, that should appear on their Recent changes page. --Ellmist Wednesday, October 9th, 2002

I'm afraid you'll have to explain that to me. Would that "Recent changes replacement" use the watchlist, or the "watch links" function? Also, is there a "list of lists on wikipedia" page? That would cover the lists as well, without the (rather inelegant) self-link. --Magnus Manske 08:13 Oct 10, 2002 (UTC)

It mentions on those pages that they were created to be used by people with Watch links. It seems to me, that anyone interested in seeing recent changes on musical pages, would also want to have the option of seeing changes to the List of musical topics page. I see three options:

  1. Mention that the page that lists musical topics does not have an entry on the musical topics list, so people can view the history of that manually or add it to their watchlist.
  2. Have Watch links also watch the page with the links.
  3. Include a self-link, which, I agree, doesn't pose the most elegant solution even if we hide it somehow.

Sorry, if I came off a bit truculent. --Ellmist Thursday, October 10th, 2002

Magnus, I see you've changed back Foreign relations of Anguilla three times already. The point I made in my last change to redirect was : "Anguilla is not an independent nation, and as such has not foreign relations - these are handled by the UK; this article will therefore never have content". I think this article has no reason for being, and if the only useful information we can provided is a see to (which is likely also the only information there ever), we should make it a redirect. Jeronimo

Sorry, actually I didn't notice it was changed back, I'm just wading through the "double redirects" page. I'll try to avoid Anguilla from now on. --Magnus Manske 17:01 Oct 10, 2002 (UTC)


Please revert your vandalism of the anti-American users page. Lir 12:48 Nov 10, 2002 (UTC)

I deleted it on several requests that were made on the mailing list. Anti-americans should not work on an American server, anyway. (I'm German, BTW) --Magnus Manske 19:24 Nov 10, 2002 (UTC)
Anti-Americans have a right to work on an American server and state that they disagree with American policy. There were also several requests made not to delete the page.Lir 19:28 Nov 10, 2002 (UTC)
Sorry, I forgot to add "IMHO" to that statement. If you want to describe anti-American positions in articles, fine. If you want to say "americans should burn in hell" on your user page, that's fine with wikipedia policy (although doing that on an American server IMHO clearly shows your state of mind). But I agree with the people on the mailing list (didn't see opposition there so far), that one should not abuse wikipedia pages to form an anti-Americans club here. I think that's beyond rude. The next step in that direction would be "wikipedia:Proud Nazi users" or "wikipedia:nigger-hating users". --Magnus Manske 20:29 Nov 10, 2002 (UTC)

Are people required to use the mailing list to state their objections? Several people had stated their objections on the page you deleted! That argument about how proud nazi users=anti-america was used before.

Some of us think that a "Wkipedian America Lovers" is analagous to a "Wikipedias Proud Nazis and Nigger-Haters". In fact, Im fairly certain that they are the same thing. We should have the right to form a group just like the vegetarians, who as basically the Anti-Meat group. Lir 20:33 Nov 10, 2002 (UTC)

Do we have a "Wikipedian America Lovers" page? I don't think so. Why don't we have one? Take a guess!
Of course, you can form such a group. And of course you can have a webpage about it. Just not in an NPOV encyclopedia. I recommend either a North Korea or a Iraqui server ;-)
Someone just mentioned on the mailing list that these "special interest group" pages could live on the meta wikipedia. While I generally dislike such pages, I (and others, I guess) could live with that solution. --Magnus Manske 13:24 Nov 11, 2002 (UTC)

Magnus, Thank you for reverting my accidental deletion of Genetically modified organism. I'm not sure how I did it, but it was not intended. I have just released today's edits of this article. David 21:26 Dec 2, 2002 (UTC)

Magnus, nice work on adding all of the pictures. -- Zoe

Thanks, I'm not done yet ;-)
There are many pictures of people on [1] we don't have an article on yet. Maybe we should make a list of these? --Magnus Manske 12:56 Dec 31, 2002 (UTC)

Note you have put up several excellent images. However, could you take the time and scale down these and future ones by about 40% (good Wiki width is about 2.5") as the size overpowers the text and the page viewer. Thanks....DW

Didn't see this, because it wasn't on the talk page. Good wiki width is 350 pixel. --Magnus Manske 15:18 Jan 1, 2003 (UTC)

Hi there is a vandal with sysop powers on fr. Wikipedia. He had already cracked my password. Now he is using the password of anthere. Could you please remove all sysop powers please. Regards. -- Youssefsan

Tried nice--that didn't work. Have had to replace more of your oversized photos that in addition are ALL far too dark. A good width is certainly not 350 pixels, I have no idea where you get that. Please LOOK at your handiwork after you load it. And, what in the name of hell, beyond moronic stupidity, does any Wikipedia contributor's length of time have to do with anything? Are you awarded a Medal of Valor or something after X number of days service? Quality, not quantity, counts. So far, 99% of your photos would be better left undone. Instead of trying to be a hero and getting people like Zoe to stroke your ego, slow down and do things properly. Looking at a page with your kind of minimal input and poor quality, overwhelming photos, is what turns people away from Wikipedia....DW

Nonsense. Magnus' photos are perfectly fine. If anything, we need larger versions linked to from the small versions for printing. --Eloquence

Sweet! I love the new RC. It is a bit messy... Any chance of bringing back the RC table org thingy? ;) --mav

Thanks! I'd like to redo the table layout RC, but it wasn't very popular in Phase II, AFAIK. How about one that can be sorted by user instead of time? --Magnus Manske
Hm. That would be useful for vandal/newbie patrol. BTW, I for one loved the table in Phase II - having all the users lined-up made it easy to check for vandalism and sub-par edits. But on annoying thing about the new RC is that cur/hist don't are not lined-up. This makes it more difficult to check on articles in quick succession. --mav

Good to see you around. KQ

Hey Magnus,

the RC table proposal you referred to is mine (you should have known, every large wiki-tech proposal of the last few months is mine ;-), it is here. One of the things I am missing from that proposal is the ladder like arrangement of the diff links, which I find more intuitive than the cur/last links. --Eloquence 16:43 Jan 16, 2003 (UTC)

Yes, thanks! I have implemented something similar on the test wiki just yet (instead of the "enhanced recent changes"). Looks good, but the roll/unroll button doesn't work, partly because of bad Mozilla rendering (see [2]), partly because of my lousy JavaScript ;-)
If you know how to fix it, go ahead! --Magnus Manske 20:12 Jan 16, 2003 (UTC)

I understand. Thanks for the suggestion.

172

Haven't got a clue what you are talking about, re photos. I copy yours and reload. Is there a problem with that?...DW


I still don't get it. Go away....DW

In one breath you say that 250 pixels (which by the way equals inches) is the proper width for Wikipedia photos but then you turn around and put back a photo twice that size!!!! WHY? Note, very large photos are turn offs on the Internet. Microsoft, IBM, and every major information site in the world keeps photos to a maximum of approximately 1/3 page width or smaller. Your monster photo ruins the Wikipedia text (which people find hard to read on any website) by diminishing it to mumbo jumbo. Please fix your photos not just on my suggestion or even because that is how companies and people far more knowledgeable than you or I do, but because it makes common sense if you actually look at the article!....DW


Magnus, I reorganized and rewrote citric acid cycle quite a bit. Could you check it? Aslo, if you still have the source for the image tca.png: in step 4 a CO2 should leave, and in IV the CH2 should be CH2. AxelBoldt 19:37 Mar 2, 2003 (UTC)

Would you be good enough to scale down the Rudyard Kipling photo. Thank. User:Black Widow

Done. You were not logged in when writing the above message. DW, is that you? Someone fixed DWs typos (similar to the "Thank" above) in January, with the IP 64.228.30.103. The IP you wrote your above message under is 64.228.30.118. A coincidence, surely? --Magnus Manske 09:30 Apr 15, 2003 (UTC)

Please take a peak at User talk:Dewlaylomo/ban. I think an administrator should take some action. MB 02:35 May 15, 2003 (UTC)

Could a developer check to see if User:Eddie is loging in using User:Michael's ip range (i.e. 152.163.25x.xxx)? He has been reverting articles of User:Michael's back to user Michael's content in a sneaky way. I just want to make sure it is or isn't User:Michael. If it is him, please ban the account. Thanks. MB 17:40 4 Jun 2003 (UTC)

User:Fuck is Michael, please ban and delete the account, or whatever is nessesary.

So.... is Wikipedia:Most wanted articles broken or is it supposed to look like that now? --Dante Alighieri 08:18 7 Jun 2003 (UTC)

user:My Green Dice is also Michael-- Green Dice, with spaces, not MyRedDice, without. Anyway, he's moving Hephaestos' page to different places; could you block him please? Thanks. Koyaanis Qatsi 01:57 8 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Howdy, Magnus<G>, I'm getting a "Host 'larousse.wikipedia.org' is blocked because of many connection errors. Unblock with 'mysqladmin flush-hosts'" error when trying to access the mailing list. I'm assuming that this is something Brion is not doing while he's away, and that you'll know what it is and want to do it<G>! -- Someone else 02:39 20 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Done. Magnus Manske 08:45 20 Jun 2003 (UTC)


Dear Magnus, could you possibly add User:The Anomebot to the list of registered bots? It's well debugged and non-controversial, and has been working without causing any fuss on and off for a couple of days. If it is registered, I intend to speed it up to one hit per minute, with an extra safety back-off feature (measure transaction time, take min of a multiple of this and the programmed delay) that will stop it from being a nuisance when the server is heavily loaded. -- The Anome 22:14 13 Jul 2003 (UTC)


Magnus, thanks for registering the Anomebot! However, the Anomebot's edits are showing up in Recent Changes, so I'm stopping it for now. Can you check that the live code has been updated? -- The Anome 12:26 14 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I think what's happening is that the bot code is not suppressing the image creation or upload log entries in Recent Changes, although it is suppressing the entries for normal edits. --- The Anome 10:40 17 Jul 2003 (UTC)

[edit] WINOR download

m:WINOR's download link is dead. --Menchi 07:10, Jul 31, 2003 (UTC)

I would also be interested in downloading WINOR, binaries or source, if it can be made available. My C++ by far outstrips my PHP so it could be possible that I could contribute something to the technical side of Wikipedia. Thanks Pete 12:32, 11 Sep 2003 (UTC).

Did you get my email regarding an emergency developer contact list? -- Tim Starling 02:31, 28 Aug 2003 (UTC)

If you don't want to be on it that's fine with me. The contact list contains information regarding how much access each person has, and there's a field where you can indicate if you don't want to be contacted at all. So there's no reason you can't be on it. At the moment, it seems as if everyone who has root access is in the US, so at certain times of the day it can be very hard to contact one of them. So by all means, ask Jimbo for full access. On wikitech-l I specifically requested that Eloquence be given full access but I was ignored. Maybe Jimbo just didn't see it. -- Tim Starling 01:03, 29 Aug 2003 (UTC)

[edit] quicksilver

I'm working on a project based on the wikipedia MediaWiki engine to create a set of annotations on Neal Stephenson's upcoming book Quicksilver. It's going to be a public site. I've seeded some of the entries with text from the Wikipedia for our internal release, and I wanted to invite you to participate and also ask you whether it's OK to use some of the Wikipedia content for our public release (I realize the license is GFDL, but I still wanted to make sure that we don't just launch without asking). Send me email and I can give you the URL and password for the internal site. patrick@appliedminds.net

"Image201.png" -- pretty bad file names! "GraysAnatomy201" would have been a better choice -- Tarquin 09:17, 22 Sep 2003 (UTC)


[edit] Wrist versus Wrist-joint

AFAIK, it's commonly referred to just as "wrist" or worst, as "wrist joint", not as "wrist-joint". You might want to move the text to fix it. --Alex.tan 09:30, 22 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Magnus - I see you were the first non-anon contributor to [Greg Bear]. Were you by any chance the original (anon) author of that article? -- Finlay McWalter 18:13, 21 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I noticed vandalism on Nuclear pore by 168.221.143.70. I fixed it by reverting to your last edit. WormRunner 22:17, 21 Nov 2003 (UTC)

[edit] New table markup

(see MediaWiki User's Guide: Using tables)

Should articles be converted to use the new table markup? -- Noldoaran 17:29, Dec 5, 2003 (UTC)

[edit] 3 neue Admins auf DE

Hallo Magnus,

Auf der deutschen Wikipedia scheinen nur Du und Brion als Developer (bzw. Admin-Rechte-Vergeber) auf. Da Brion sehr beschäftigt ist, wollte ich Dich fragen, ob Du die 3 neuen Admins "aktivieren" könntest (die zum teil schon ein Monat auf Admin-Status warten... fast schon peinlich, ist aber nicht Brions schuld!)

Die 3 Namen findest Du hier:

Danke und Grüsse :-) Fantasy 14:00, 8 Dec 2003 (UTC)

VIELEN Dank!! :-) Fantasy 17:08, 9 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I updated Image:Nucleus ER golgi.jpg in line with your wikilegal post. Hope you approve. Tweak if you like. :) Martin 19:34, 13 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Hi Magnus, I think it was supposed to have been deleted. The copyvio page stated:

Image:Alexander-fleming.jpg, the source of the image is not public domain (in fact it is unspecified, cfr. http://wwwihm.nlm.nih.gov/copy.html), contrary to what is noted on the image description. -- Looxix 14:59, 15 Sep 2003 (UTC)

It looks like only the image description page was deleted, though strangely the talk page still exists. It looks like we can't use it but I'm not sure I completely understand what Anthère is saying about it. I'll check and get it deleted if it is copyvio or replace it in the article if it's not. Do you believe it is public domain? Angela. 18:33, 17 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Ok, well, if you're sure - I've replaced the image in the article. I've copied your comment to the image description page too. Angela. 12:55, 18 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Why did you remove my name on hepburn_chart?

[edit] happy Magnus Manske Day

Kingturtle 05:06, 25 Jan 2004 (UTC)

A toast to you and your inventions--Prosit! Jwrosenzweig 22:36, 26 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Happy belated Magnus Manske Day!!!! cheers, Jack 22:39, 26 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Thanks a lot! Makes me fel all warm and tingly :-) --Magnus Manske 10:54, 27 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Danke für den Lizenzhinweis. Die Wikipedia:Copyrights-Seite hat mich in die Irre geführt, da es dort "This image is not licenced under the GFDL. It is under a non-commercial-use only licence. Copyrights." als möglichen Tag für ein Bild gibt. Ergo meine Folgerung, dass eine solche Lizenz möglich ist. Hab das Bild aber nun als GFDL lizensiert. --Epix 17:15, 5 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Hi Magnus :) Please help me in my eternal struggle to have headers starting at ==! Thanks :) Dysprosia 09:30, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Hallo Magnus, könntest du bitte aus deutschen Wikipedia die Bearbeitungsversion http://de.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Winston_Churchill&oldid=684892 entfernen. Es handelt sich um eine Urheberrechtsverletzung (Quelle: [3]).--El 29 Feb 2004

[edit] Newbish Question

What's with al the "list of encyclopedia topics (xx)"? lol, I'm a noobie... ugen64 15:28, Mar 7, 2004 (UTC)

See the list again, I've put up some explanatory text. :-) — Timwi 15:30, 7 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Magnus: Thanks a lot for doing this. I've mentioned it on Wikipedia:Goings-on. :-) — Timwi 15:30, 7 Mar 2004 (UTC)

P.S. could you perhaps split Wikipedia:List of encyclopedia topics (57) into sections like all the other ones? — Timwi 15:52, 7 Mar 2004 (UTC)

How did generate the list of Encyclopaedia topics? Mintguy (T) 22:40, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)~

[edit] 1906 San Francisco earthquake pix

Hi. In the particular case of 1906 San Francisco earthquake the page looked better to me before the image was thumbnailed. I was wondering what concern you were addressing by thumbnailing the fire photo there. Feedback would be appreciated. Cheers, -- Infrogmation 15:22, 18 Mar 2004 (UTC)


[edit] Pedigree

I see that you have "pedigree" on your list of topics. There are quite a few random things that link to it, so I just created a brief, probably insufficient, disambig page & I know from the dog breeds side there isn't yet really an appropriate page to link to ("dog breed" redirects to "list of dog breeds" which in the long run I think will end up being 2 separate articles, for example...) Anyway, thought that if you had something in mind for the topic, this might spur you to contribute. Elf | Talk 19:32, 22 Mar 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Pic size

Hi Magnus! Today I've been following you around doing a minor change to your most excellent conversions from old pic syntax to new pic syntax. I find that, with the new syntax, 300px looks too big so I've been changing you from 300px to 250px. I have no idea what causes this effect, it's probably due to the border. If you disagree with what I'm doing then I'll stop doing it and leave your work alone. What do you think? Best Wishes,
Adrian Pingstone 21:38, 23 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Your quick and friendly reply on the above topic is much appreciated. Thanks.
Adrian Pingstone 22:24, 23 Mar 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Pageless dog photos

Hey, thanks for all the work converting those to thumbnails. I'm thinking, though, that having all those images (even thumbnails) on one page is not a great thing for people dialling up the web--that's why I inserted one set of images as individual links to the images rather than as images. However, I'm not quite sure what the best strategy might be. There was a discussion somewhere in the last week or so about having gallery pages... Anyway, I'm rambling a bit, but wanted to let you know that I noticed & appreciate the effort & if you have any more ideas on handling that, you're welcome to join in. I also asked this question on Talk:List of dog breeds. Elf | Talk 23:16, 23 Mar 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Ugly boxes

Gawd those gray boxes are ugly, Tanganyika now looks much worse than it did before. Look at the page, see how the un-thumbnailed image looks real enough to touch, compared to the other two that are sitting behind gray prison walls, not to mention the visual noise that has been added. Doesn't anybody have a sense of graphic design around here? Stan 14:36, 24 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I already grumbled on meta, to little effect. I'm hoping that this is just a phase, sort of like when people new to desktop publishing made "ransom note" usage of different typefaces. Stan 17:15, 24 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Hi. I like the idea of the stub articles, but before adding them, please check if we have them under a slighly different name. For example, we have very extensive articles on all of the Ottoman emperors (see, for example Abdul Hamid II. Danny 12:38, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Vital topic from the usual gang of idiots

Are you sure Alfred E. Newman's middle name is East? That's a new one to this lifelong Mad fan - DavidWBrooks 14:17, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)

"The usual gang of idiots" is the long-running reference to free-lance contributors in Mad's contents page. I will immediately fix Alfred's middle name, thereby returning Wikipedia to the straight and narrow path to truth and wisdom! - DavidWBrooks 14:56, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Hi. I just noticed the images you uploaded from Gray's Anatomy. How far did you get with this? Did you pick images at random? Some obvious ones like the male pelvis (fig 241) are missing. Mintguy (T) 13:06, 27 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Yeah. I'll create a page listing all of the Gray's Anatomy images by number to check which one's we've got. Mintguy (T)
Bugger, all images including missing ones show blue using the Media namespace. I don't think I want to have 1247 show up on one page. Is there a way round this? Mintguy (T)
Ok, what kind of pressure is this going to put on the DB though? Can it handle it?Mintguy (T)

Wikipedia:Gray's Anatomy images with missing articles, seems to load pretty smoothly. There are some fantastic unused images there. Weheehay! Well done. Mintguy (T)

[edit] PD

When you upload public domain images, can you tag them with {{msg:PD}}. Thanks, Maximus Rex 19:03, 27 Mar 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Links in Thumbnails

Hi! I just noticed your change, to the new syntax, in the Boeing 767 article. Do you think it looks ugly with the caption below the picture box? So I've gone back to the "usual" syntax. Of course now the links to British Airways and Air Canada have gone.
A way round this is to put the links on the Image Description page. Unfortunately, if the reader doesn't click on the magnifier then they never see the links. However, until the caption permits links, I think that's better than external captions.
Please revert if you don't like what I've done. Best Wishes,
Adrian Pingstone 09:34, 28 Mar 2004 (UTC)

[edit] New syntax for my pics

I want to say a big thank you for the work you're doing on converting my pics to the new syntax. Obviously there's a small problem with captions that contained links but I would be inclined not to worry about that and convert them regardless. Perhaps one day that problem will be solved then perhaps you or I will go round linking them!

You're doing a great job. Thanks,
Adrian Pingstone 19:43, 30 Mar 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Nupedia

Hey Magnus - I have a request. I saw on your main page that you were a contributor to Nupedia. About 3 weeks ago in our Nupedia article, I officially declared Nupedia dead. If you know anything in particular as to why it died (or anything else in general), it would probably help that article greatly. →Raul654 06:23, Apr 7, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Germans

I've for long (a year, actually) been itched by the way Wikipedia-links are done with often sloppy distinctions between nationality, citizenship and ethnicity (with regard to persons) and also between nations and countries. This is particularly obvious in the case of people or entities that are denoted as German. A link to the Federal Republic of Germany is often outright unhistorical and wrong, but this has until now been the most usual.

That's why I'm considering an article on Germans, which I've started at the temporary location User:Ruhrjung/Germans. I would wish to avoid too much of edit wars after having started to link to the article. In particular, I would not wish to see the current disputes over German-Polish matters automatically extend also to this article, why I kindly ask you for comments now, in advance, in order to try to find wordings acceptable to as many as possible of concerned wikipedians.

I look forward to your comments at User talk:Ruhrjung/Germans.
--Ruhrjung 23:54, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Articles beginning with AL

Hi Magnus, I just noticed that on Wikipedia:List of encyclopedia topics (02), there were no articles beginning with AL. Is that possible? Danny 02:40, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)

There's an article on aluminium!
Adrian Pingstone 09:28, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Multiple languages on Wikibooks

Magnus, what can I do to get en.wikibooks, es.wikibooks, zh.wikibooks, etc. language-specific subdomains? Is it difficult to do? Who does it and how do I get them to do it? Thanks, - Karl Wick

That would be a very very bad idea - we have already gone over that. --mav 04:38, 22 Apr 2004 (UTC)
I must have forgotten that it was discussed .. what makes it a bad idea? - karlwick

Magnus. Hi brother. I see you deleted my Hurlstone page. This was uncalled for, especially due to your reasons given. I myself am homosexual, and many of my best friends are also homosexual. The majority of us also attend or have attended this school, and thus are in the position to make comment on the school. Your thoughts and response would be appreciated. Thanks brother.

Hi, not-so-close relative (I don't have a brother, unless there's something my parents didn't tell me:-)
Your "article" Hurlstone basically said (if I remember correctly) "This is Hurlstone, and everyone there's gay". It might be true that there are gay people, but unless you can cite a source that shows a highly unusual amount of gay people there, your strong emphasis on gay people there is quite biased. Please have a look at Neutral point of view.
You can imaging that there are quite a lot of people who create articles like "XYZ is gay!", and that they can't stay on this (or any) encyclopedia. YOur article read a lot like that. If I misread, maybe you'd like to write about Hurlstone, and as one point mention the gay community there. That is, in case it it worth mentioning, meaning it is unusually large, active, etc.
So, if I have misinterpreted your intentions, I welcome you to wikipedia! --Magnus Manske 18:35, 24 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I notice that you've uploaded an image of Karl Weierstrass and claimed that it is public domain throughout the world due to its age. That is a potentially incorrect claim. Up until 1995 it would certainly have been public domain in both the US and UK, but now photographs can potentially have a protection of life of the author plus 70 years in the EU. That protection is retrospective as well. If you can find the author and say that he died 70 years ago, or if you put forward a claim that you cannot find the author with reasonable work, meaning that the photograph qualifies for 70 years of copyright protection from publication, then you can claim that the copyright has expired worldwide. David Newton 11:47, 11 May 2004 (UTC)

Pre-1923 things are indeed public domain in the US, with no exceptions. However, they are NOT public domain worldwide automatically. As I said, photographs in the EU are life+70 and have been since 1995. So, let's imagine that our hypothetical photographer was 25 in 1890 or so when the photograph was taken. That means that the photographer would be born around 1865. For someone born in 1865 to live until 1935 would not be unreasonable at all. That's 70 years old. In that case it would still be 18 months for a photograph taken by that person to remain in copyright in the EU.
Copyright law is a complicated matter. It is quite correct to say that said photo is public domain in the US, but unless the photographer is known and died in 1933 or earlier (until the end of this year of course when 1934 comes into play) or reasonable inquiry cannot turn up the name of the photographer, then it is quite incorrect to say that the photograph is out of copyright worldwide. David Newton 14:40, 11 May 2004 (UTC)
In the US anything pre-1923 is public domain. Only in the US. Since the Wikipedia servers are in the US, that is the copyright rule that is followed for those servers. However, if you are outside of the US, then different rules apply. Since you are in Germany, German copyright law applies to your actions, and since I am in the UK, then British copyright law applies to my actions. However, we still have to follow US copyright law as well when editing the Wikipedia.
To amplify the situation further, the US used to have fixed copyright terms for everything. Copyright protection in the US for published works originally required registration of said works. That registration acquired a 28 year term of copyright protection. At the appropriate time near the expiry of the original copyright term, a further registration could be made to extend the copyright term for another 28 years, for a total of 56 years. In stages this gradually got extended. What matters today is what happened in 1978 and 1998.
In 1978 a new act came into force which altered things fundamentally. The registration requirement was abolished and copyright for new works, which you refer to, shifted from a fixed term to a term dependent on the life of the author plus 50 years. However, in keeping with the common law tradition, the copyright of existing works already in the public domain was not reinststated (which is why a lot of people think the 1995 EU harmonisation regulations were so wrong in being retrospective). However, the existing copyrights were extended. Works then in copyright were automatically renewed if before renewal and those that had earlier been renewed were extended as well. That took the term of protection to 75 years from publishing for older works. In 1998, the current situation, minus the DMCA, was created. Copyrights were extended for a further 20 years to life+70 for works created in 1978 and after and 95 years for existing published works still in copyright. That is where the 1923 rule came from, since 1923 was 75 years before 1998. The advancement of the public domain for published works was effectively frozen until the start of 2019, when works from 1923 will come out of copyright on the expiry of their 95 year term.
So, to claim something from 1922 is public domain worldwide, as you had done, is not necessarily correct. However to claim that it is public domain in the US only, which is what I have altered the claim to, is correct.
However, we may not be completely clear with that work anyway. I checked with the Smithsonian Institute as to who is the author of that particular work. It turns out it is not a photograph at all. It is apparently a lithograph of a previous photograph. That means it could have been made after Weierstrass died. It may also not have been published until recently. If that is the case then the copyright on it has a long time to run. The SI is probably perfectly correct in their claim of copyright over the work, despite the lifetime of its subject.
Now do you see what I mean about copyright law being very complicated? David Newton 18:04, 11 May 2004 (UTC)
BTW, the point about 1977 was incorrect and was only added in March. I've removed it. David Newton 18:15, 11 May 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Pic sizes

Hi Magnus, I'm following you around at the moment reducing 300px wide landscape-format pics to 250px and portrait-format pics to 200px. We had sort-of agreement on the 250px size, as per this quote from my Talk Page -
Hi, I agree that 300px is at the "outer limits" ;-) for thumbnails; so far, I just tried to keep the images at their original size. But, I will try to remember reducing the thumbnails to 250px in the future, which ought to do just as well. For those I already did, feel free to fix them.
I didn't want to seem like a mindless vandal, walking behind you and changing all your most-excellent new-syntax conversions. Can we agree on those two px values?
Best Wishes, Adrian.
Adrian Pingstone 13:55, 8 Jun 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Sea ice pic

(William M. Connolley 22:37, 11 Jun 2004 (UTC)) Hi. You've uploaded a sea ice pic - very nice - BUT you've callded it NOOA - should be NOAA. I rtied but couldn't move it. Can you?

[edit] List of encylopedia topics

How did you compile this list? I think it is very good --Oldak Quill 18:43, 15 Jun 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Enable Supages

Hallo Magnus! Kannst du bitte auf de.wikipedia im Kategorie:-Namensraum die Subpages aktivieren? Für Monohierarchische Klassifikationen wäre es von Vorteil, wenn sich Namensbestandteile mit "/" aufteilen lassen würden wie im Benutzer:- und Wikipedia:-Namensraum. Danke! -- Nichtich 17:54, 20 Jun 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Constellation maps

Could you please revert what you've done to the constellation maps? We've spent a lot of time creating proper thumbnails and decided to stick with them even with the extended image syntax, partly due to layout reasons, and partly because of the blur effect the automatic thumbnail has. Moreover, it would have been good to discuss it first with us on the respective project page. – Torsten Bronger 10:36, 24 Jun 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Thumbnails

Hi Magnus,

My beef with thumbnails is twofold.

  • First, the minor issue. The frame arrangement and font selection looks terrible. Really ugly stuff.
  • Second, the real problem: image quality. I have written about this at length elsewhere (and could doubtless find those discussions easily enough if need be, but the 'pedia is dog slow right now so I won't try searching), but the executive summary is that auto-thumbnailed images very rarely look anywhere near as sharp and clear as manually-created ones. As a photographer, I care about images, and believe that quality images are a vital part of providing an overall quality encyclopedia. You don't see Britannica illustrating its pages with fuzzy, greyed-out images like those which have started proliferating on the Wikipedia of late.

As it happens, the particular two images in question come up surprisingly well when auto-thumbnailed, and are not much inferior to the hand-generated ones, but this is unusual. Most of the auto-thumbnails are glaringly obvious. In the fauna pages, and particularly with the images I took myself, I revert auto-thumbnails on sight. (The rest of the 'pedia is too much for me, but I'd do that too if time permitted.) Also, since the thumbnailing craze came along, I no longer upload full-size photographs (because I hate seeing them wrecked by auto-thumbnailing).

Best — Tannin 12:55, 30 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for your comprehensive reply, Magnus. Let's ponder your points one by one.

  • I do not agree that thumbnails "give the whole project a more unified look". They could do that, but would need to be implemented comprehensively, and need some work in the CSS. Those of us who work with images a lot (people like me and Adrian P) had already achieved a unified look - and, I might add, one that was a lot better than the current thumbnail styling, which is (IMO) horrible.
  • Thumbnails are usually *not* that bad. They are usually bloody aweful. Some look OK. Not many. Any yes, I am comparing same size with same size.
  • Thumbnails are only there to give a brief impression. No! Not even close. When a reader looks at the page, the reader sees the whole page. Human nature being what it is, the reader swiftly forms an overall impression. Pictures catch the eye first (along with headlines and the overall "shape" created by the use of white space). Poor quality fuzzy pictures immediately tell the reader that the page is substandard.
  • You cannot batch-thumbnail and improve quality, as the best thumbnailing method varies from one picture to another. It's not just that different pictures require different degrees of sharpening (a matter that can only be judged by eye), though that is a major factor. There is a whole range of other factors in the thumbnailing process that require human judgement. For example, with medium-resolution pictures (such as the type typically making up a "full-size" image, 640 x 480, for example, there is only a very limited amount of information to work from. If you resize such an image by an exact even number (e.g., 50%; 33.3%, you frequently find that the result is noticably better than a resize by a non-even number. An arbitary thumnail resize size (e.g., 250px, 400px) does not do this. (Unless it happens to be an even number: e.g., 250px from a 1000px original.) Similarly, it is often useful to crop differently for the thumb, and light and colour levels sometimes need to be adjusted. Only the human eye can judge these matters. Finally, one usually gets a superior thumbnail by resizing the original image (typically 2000-odd pix), not a derivitave image. This is something the softweare cannot do (unless we all start uploading 1MB+ image files.)
  • As you more-or-less say, the caption font problem merely needs some revisions to the CSS. Easy stuff: small font, centered, get rid of the messy frames. Leave italics off because if you specify italic in the CSS then there is no way to un-italicise words that need it (such as botanical names, which in italic text should be normal) as the stylesheet overrides the user-entered tags.
  • Auto-thumbnailing is less work. But work is not the problem - even with images (the poor relation to the text around here) we have plenty of willing workers. I for one am more than happy to put in the extra time it takes to produce a quality finished product. Hell, some of the pictures I have uploaded here took days or even weeks to produce, and thusands of kilometres of travel. Compared to that, an extra 2 minutes to create a quality thumbnail is nothing.
  • Hmmm .... The MonoBook skin heading lines go right through the caption. Off the top of my head, I can't see why that should be. I just tried a test page out, and it worked fine. An Explorer thing? Nope. At least it seems OK in Explorer 6. (I'm running MediaWiki 1.3b3, with various small modifications that are probably not relevant - and no, I haven't altered the Monobook CSS yet.)

With all that said, I recognise that few here on the 'pedia agree with me. I like to look at the whole page: headings, text, pictures, overall visual effect. Most 'pedia editors just don't look at the pictures, it seems, at least they certainly don't look at them in the same critical way that they look at text and instantly spot the smallest error of spelling or punctuation. Most of the photographers here don't follow my logic either: the photographers, in the main, don't look at the page they click the image. For them, the thumbnail is merely a link to The Real Thing (i.e., their superb full-size image).

This is a great pity, as we are well down the path of degrading what could have been a wonderful asset. Substandard images really, really bug me. (Sure, quite a few of my own are far from perfect: but they are the best ones I have and the moment I can improve on them I will. But if they are only going to get turned into grey-fuzz auto thumbnails, why should I bother?)

Best regards — Tannin 14:45, 30 Jun 2004 (UTC)

PS: see here for examples of the human eye producing superior images. (Scroll down to the pictures: about 3/4 to the end). Note carefully that there were not carefully chosen exceptions to the general rule. There was a preexisting discussion about these two images - nothing to do with image degredation caused by auto-thumbnailing - so they were the two that I used to illustrate my point - random examples, in other words. (Hint: as always with images, start by looking for the sharp-edged detail: in this case, look at the feet. Once you have seen that, your eye will be drawn to differences in the other parts of the pictures: the eye (always the most important part of any animal picture), the plumage, the background.)

Look at the feet: you can't miss it. :)

Given that auto-thumbnailing is probably ineviatable, your suggestions are good ones. In my experience, around 70% to 80% of all images respond well to a moderate sharpening. (Not sure how to measure that: PMView, my favourite image viewer/editor has 4 pre-set levels: mild (you can't even see it most of the time); moderate (just right 4 times out of 5), subtle but effective; strong (usually too much; and very strong (way too much). The ImageMagic equivalent of the "moderate" setting in PMView, applied across the board, would help a great deal.

Unfortunately, the 'other 20-something percent will suffer. Some look obviously sharpened (seing visible sharpening in an image is like seeing the makeup a woman is wearing: if you notice it at all, it's too much; seriously yuko. If you don't realise that it's there, it makes her more beautiful without you ever realising why.) More commonly, the image needs more than the default amount. Sometimes the "strong" setting is required - only the eye can judge. (Sometimes - not often - I resort to Photoshop or Photostudio because none of the 4 PMView presets are quite right.) And some pictures simply look terrible when you sharpen them with the orthodox filter. Typically (but not always) these are ones where the original is a little grainy - this happens often with my bird pictures as I have to use a high ISO to get the shot at all, particularly with shade-loving species like robins and pittas. Sometimes the best answer is to not sharpen (rare case), or (more often) to use a different sharpening algorithm, an unsharp mask. This can give superb results, or make a complete mess of the picture: you just have to try it and see.

I believe that, on one level, your description of the average reader is correct. People don't notice things like detailed image quality, not consciously. Nor does the casual eye see details like correct punctuation (proper mdashes and the like, subscripts and superscripts that work (or work as well as HTML allows them to); correct maths expressions; appropriate page layout (sensible use of white spage, balanced heading sizes, carefully matched fonts and background colours.

But, although people don't consciously notice these things, people do react to them. This is why printers have spent centuries refining print typefaces; this is why the major sites like (e.g.) MSN spend thousands on web design (and still bugger the code up — but that's MSN for you); this is why Joe Average looks at a KDE desktop or a Gnome desktop and buys the machine with Windows on it: he doesn't know why he knows, but Joe Average knows that the (expensive, and very carefully crafted) look of the Windows desktop is "better". Microsoft spend an incredible amount of money on getting the fine details of fonts and layouts just so — and they do it because they know it works.

If we want to compete with (e.g.) Encarta or Britanica — and we should, for together we can do better — we need to do that stuff too. We need to work harder on our presentaton, on the little things that no-one notices but all add up to provide that "feel of quality". The Monobook style is a big step in that direction, BTW. Personally, I dislike it (too white and glary, I like much prefer dark backgrounds), but I am realist enough to recognise that it will be popular, and to respect it as a very professionl looking result. One day, when I've finished my current task (tweaking the old Wikistandard CSS up until I'm really happy with it), I'll make a Monobook derivative that's easy on the eye.

And one day I'll go to bed at a sensible hour! Enough! Tannin 16:43, 30 Jun 2004 (UTC)

[[image:bla.jpg|thumb|some text]] generates a normal, fuzzy thumbnail
[[image:bla.jpg|thumb=bla_small.jpg|some text]] uses "bla_small.jpg" as the thumbnail
This associates the manually created thumbnail with the larger image in a machine-readable fashion. It should only be used if the manual thumbnail is of significant better quality than the automatic one ("significant" being up to you:-) or the manual thumbnail shows an alternate view (e.g., only a part) of the larger image
A truly excellent suggestion, Magnus. I'm afraid I traded in my wikipedia-l subscription on a wikitech-l one some time ago though, so you will need to bring it up.
By the way, and off-topic, I've spent some time recently combing through the codebase picking out the more prominent hard-coded FONT= tags and replacing them with named classes. Is this a task that it's sensible for me to document somewhere (presumably on meta) in the hope that it will eventually make its way into a future revision? I'm hesitant because it's a trivially simple task for any real PHP programmer (i.e., not me!), because it requires matching stylesheet changes, and because the code is a moving target. My particular interest is in creating low-glare skins (light text on dark background), but it may well be applicable more widely.
Best — Tannin 00:50, 1 Jul 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Image details

Hi, Magnus, I was working on writing captions for Nuclear weapon and it would be helpful to have more information on Image:479px-Atomic blast.jpg. I went to osti.gov but couldn't find the picture there. I'm looking for such information as the date and location of the test, the size and type of the bomb, and other such information. Thanks for finding it! -- ke4roh 17:45, Jul 18, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] si.edu images

You're captioning these as PD, but I think they're claiming copyright and placing restrictions: http://www.sil.si.edu/permissions/ Among other things, the images can't be put on a CD. The copyright of the portrait painter or photographer has probably expired in most of these cases, but I think their digital image of that original painting or photograph would be copyright... if someone photographs the Mona Lisa, they can copyright their photograph even though Leonard da Vinci's work is out of copyright. -- Curps 17:35, 28 Jul 2004 (UTC)

In other words, I think {{PD}} should change to {{noncommercial}} and the image description should have a footnote link to the permissions page, like so. [4] -- Curps 17:40, 28 Jul 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Leucite and 1911 Encyclopedia

Hi, please see Talk:Leucite. Ortolan88 04:12, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Pictures

You loaded up the pictures in the article alkan.Could you please write about the licece of the pictures?--Van Flamm 12:09, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)

[edit] License ?

Hi Magnus, I'd like to know if your picture Image:Amino acids 2.png is GFDL because we use it on french wikipedia. Thanks in advance. Tipiac 09:51, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Someone pointed out that the one-letter code for lysine in this image should be K and not L. Do you still have the drawing file, or shall I try to correct it myself. JFW | T@lk 19:54, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I didn't spot the mistake. An anon inserted this [5] comment in the article body. I could not revert the edit without following up on his comment. :-) JFW | T@lk 07:42, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)

[edit] WikiReader

Magnus, I just saw you start a MB WikiReader. I know nothing about the topic, but if you need copyediting or checking to see about readability from someone with no knowledge, I'd love to help out. WikReaders are becoming an interest for me. Lyellin 09:46, Aug 18, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Mitochondrial DNA

Your latest link on Mitochondrial DNA points to a page requiring authentication. Can you remove the link and post an extract instead? -- Sundar 12:29, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for changing it. -- Sundar 13:22, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Error in Amino Acids 2.jpg

Hi, Mr Magnus Manske, I think they're is an error in your amino acids list: Arginine should be :

Image:arginine.jpg

Thanks ZeBob 15:53, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Error in freepedia

Dear sir ,

On the site of freepedia , I am quoted as a vandal what I had never been. I had reported an act of vandalism , this is very different . Could you please correct this error. Yours faithfully Thierry Veyt

Dear Mr. Veyt, as you left no indication where to answer you, I'll do it here. Freepedia is an independent mirror of wikipedia, and thus not under mine (or any others) control, except the owner of freepedia. I have searched the wikipedia for "Thierry Veyt", but found no match. As yo have not given me any information about the place of your "misquoting" either, I cannot do anything for you. More precise information would be mandatory. --Magnus Manske 10:37, Oct 17, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Löschwunsch

Hallo Magnus, könntest du bitte die alten Versionen (und bitte nur die Alten :-) ) von Image:Map of Ukraine political.png löschen. Danke dir. --Steschke 20:32, 2004 Oct 31 (UTC)

[edit] About Image:Christmas tree.jpg

hi, I am swedish and really dont like write in english... someone have wrote that your picture of Image:Christmas tree.jpg is a Abies Nordmanniana but I am not sure that is right? We have your picture on the swedish wikipedia whith that text, and I want too know whats is correct. In my books that tree look quite different. Your picture is more like a Abies alba ore abies procera perhaps? --Damast 10:34, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Disput über Wikisource

Hallo Magnus, vielleicht kannst du dir auch mal http://wikisource.org/wiki/Wikisource:Scriptorium/Language_domain_proposal zu Gemüte führen. Ich finde die Abstimmung dort eine Farce, da sich die, die kein englisch können ja erst gar nicht beteiligen konnten. Ich zumindest hatte schon Probleme bis dorthin zu finden. Vielleicht kannst du als deutsch-sprechender Tim Starling (der wenn ich es richtig verstanden habe das Anlegen von de.wikisource.org gestoppt hat) die Problematik deutlich machen. Mir reichen die Englischkenntnisse wohl nicht aus. Jedenfalls ist es ein leichtes erst mal einen großen Teil der Nutzer auszusperren (durch das englische Interface) und dann eine Abstimmung zu starten. Mein Vorschlag um die Ablehner von de.wikisource.org zu überzeugen, wäre ein ganz pragmatischer. Stell doch einfach mal das Interface auf deutsch oder französisch oder spanisch um. Bist du so mutig? Nur um mal die Reaktion zu testen. Warum soll Englisch hier bevorzugt sein? Grüße B von wikisource.org --80.128.33.194 17:39, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Ich werde mal hier antworten, da Deine (?) Benutzerseite bei wikisource nicht sehr frequentiert scheint...
Möglicherweise hast Du auf der Proposal-Seite den Abschnitt "Software update" nicht gesehen. Die (wohl noch dieses Jahr) kommende Software-Version ermöglicht es, dass jeder Benutzer die Sprache seines Interfaces bestimmen kann. Damit dürfte sich das Problem größtenteils erledigt haben. --Magnus Manske 10:26, Nov 9, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] License if you remember

Hi magnus, it seems you had uploaded Image:Fertilisation.jpg as you are the creator of the article (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Fertilisation&diff=0&oldid=97888) do you remember the origin of this picture ? Thanks in advance. Tipiac 00:35, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't remember if I did upload that. I probably did. Can't remember the source either; looked on google image search, but no luck (well, except on the Spanish wikipedia;-) --Magnus Manske 15:39, Nov 15, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] CONGRATULATIONS for being one of the FIRST Wikipedian Editor to edit-improve the English Wikipedia's Main Page!!!

Note: For/to Magnus Manske and to anyone else who is going to read this, please be reminded that this post/message may or might be a little bit too unintentional, either it is wrongly edited or mis-discussed into this discussion or talk page here. Thus, kindly please do not forward and reply into this message! Thank you.
To Magnus Manske for being one of the FIRST Wikipedians to arrive to help edit-improve the English Wikipedia's Main Page!!! Therefore, this will be my Wiki-Guinness World Record award to you! Congratulations! --onWheeZierPLot 05:43, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
To Magnus Manske for being one of the FIRST Wikipedians to arrive to help edit-improve the English Wikipedia's Main Page!!! Therefore, this will be my Wiki-Guinness World Record award to you! Congratulations! --onWheeZierPLot 05:43, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
Image:Hand with thumbs up.jpg

Dear Magnus Manske, what can I say man? WWWOOOOOWWW!!! It is truly a great pleasure for me to write (ermmm..... I mean edit) this message of praise and commendation to you for being the SECOND (i.e. can also be regarded as one of the FIRST) Wikipedian Editor to arrive and edit-improve the English Wikipedia's Main Page (just right after the very FIRST Wikipedian TwoOneTwo! But and however I could not send him a message into his own user talk page)!!! What is more, you even had a Wiki-festival date named after you as "officially" decreed, designated, or appointed by the founder or boss of this whole Wikimedia Foundation! It is only from you that history has been made in this Wikipedia on this very historical date: 26th of January, 2002ad! Without you doing it, then who else would go and do it, right? Similar to the greatest feat of a Nepalese mountaineer Tenzing Norgay, who is the second person in the world to have ever reach or scale the world's tallest/highest mountain Everest after Sir Edmund Hillary, your first efforts and your earliest contributions for this Wiki-achievement will always be remembered in this Wikipedia plus by the whole Wikipedian community! Kudos and well done! --onWheeZierPLot 08:00, 7 August 2006 (UTC)