User talk:Marc Kupper

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[edit] Welcome!

Hello, and welcome to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. If you are stuck, and looking for help, please come to the Newcomers help page, where experienced Wikipedians can answer any queries you have! Or, you can just type {{helpme}} on your user page, and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. Here are a few good links for newcomers:

If you have any questions, see the help pages, ask at the Village pump, or feel free to ask me on my talk page. Again, welcome! -- LatencyRemixed 02:20, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] New Articles

Remember to tag initial page with {{inuse}} or {{underconstruction}} until initial editing is completed.

Otto Lummer

[edit] Talk:General of the Armies

Excellent detective work. It is frustrating when web searching and everything is just a copy of WP (or worse, old WP). Good idea to go right to the horse's mouth, that Army order number seems like the way to get to the bottom of this. — MrDolomite • Talk 06:04, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for uploading those images. Wikisource is another Wikimedia foundation project which is a repository for texts, including laws, executive orders, speeches, out of copyright publications, etc. I created an article over there for the s:Order 31-3. For the images you uploaded, I realized that they actually are best to be located on yet another Wikimedia foundation project, Wikimedia Commons. This way the images can be linked to from Wikipedia, Wikisource or anywhere else, instead of having to upload them on each one. See my user page on Wikisource for various military related texts I am working on. Thanks again for the great work. — MrDolomite • Talk 14:09, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

I just took a look at wikisource vs. wikicommons and it seems like a tough call as to where these images belong. One thing that's against commons is [1] where it says "By Type / Images / * Animations · Diagrams · Drawings · Maps (Atlas) · Paintings · Photos · Symbols." A scanned document does not seem to fit in that list. The Wikipedia page for Wikisource says "collects and stores in digital format previously published texts" though I don't know if a scanned image qualifies as "digital format." I uploaded the scans to provide background source material for s:Order 31-3 and in case there's ever a question about what the actual orders say. I need to run now but will look into this further as it's unclear to me at the moment why there are two separate sites (wikisource vs. wikicommons). Marc Kupper (talk) (contribs) 19:05, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Marion Zimmer Bradley Question

Hi Marc:

It is my understanding that she had numerous, numerous works left unpublished at the time of her death, and was it decided by her Litertary Works Trust to publish these works. Many of these works are part of established series that remain popular to this day, including Darkover, and the Mists of Avalon series. As far as I know, and can find out, these are not Ghostwritten, house names, or based on outlines akin to Frank Herbert. Hope this helps. Cheers Zidel333 05:37, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Do you have any published source(s) for this understanding? --Orange Mike 13:22, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Aside from her Literary Trust Fund, not really. It seems that most fans believe them to ber works, with minimal clerical editing before it was finally published. You could try asking her Publisher, but I don't know what far that would get you. Wish I could be more help. Zidel333 20:43, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Re: Help page question

Help questions shouldn't be posted on that talk page, so I've copied the question below.

[edit] Help with an image that vanished

I have an interest in DAW_Books plus related items such as the book Witch_World and had these watch-listed. I saw that someone did an edit to the DAW Books page with the note "removing broken image code." Both the DAW Books and Witch World pages used to show an image of the cover for Witch World. (The image was on DAW's page as it was the first book they ever published).

The puzzle for me is that the page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Book_cover_spell_of_the_witch_world.jpg, or in wiki parlance Image:Book cover spell of the witch world.jpg, shows zero history, zero discussion, etc. I thought if someone deleted a page there would least be an undelete or the history would be available. It's possible the image got flagged and then deleted but there's no discussion of this on the talk pages for the two articles that were using the image.

I have two questions.

Is there a place on Wikipedia where discussion about deleted pages/images is archived? I have a copy of the book and so I could scan the thing and put the image back but I'd first prefer to see why the image was deleted.

I had thought that when a page was deleted from MediaWiki that there's an undelete link so that it could be viewed/restored. I don't see delete-page links either, such as for this one, and so maybe delete/undelete is restricted to wiki-administrators. Related to this is that I thought it was possible to delete a page and to leave its talk in place.

TIA Marc Kupper (talk) (contribs) 03:53, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

It seems the image you uploaded was deleted because it didn't have a fair-use rationale. More information about fair use rationales can be found here. If you have further questions, feel free to post them at the Help desk. Cheers. --MZMcBride 04:18, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

The deletion log's deletion reason said that it didn't have a fair use rationale. The deletion log can be difficult to find; it's a little easier for admins. Special:Log/delete is the special page where all deletion entries can be found. This is the entry you're looking for. In the undeletion log (only available to admins), it shows that User:Lee M uploaded the image on Dec. 31, 2004. I hope that clarifies the situation. Cheers. --MZMcBride 04:33, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] U.S. Army officer insignias

Major problem with the new images for 4 star, 3 star, and 2 star general, as the middle of the stars are transparent too, showing the background behind. Caerwine Caer’s whines 02:00, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Please revert them back on the Commons until you've got the transparency problem fixed as they now look horrible both with and without the background. Caerwine Caer’s whines 02:04, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

I have no preference or expectations for ping-pong versus watchlisting, so I watchlist and then reply according whether the other persons pings or not. Since you pinged, I've ponged. Looks better now except for the captain's two bars which needs a transparent hole in the middle between the two big bars. Caerwine Caer’s whines 05:38, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Also you may wish to provide versions that have different orientations for the ranks (all except MAJ, LTC, COL, and GA) that point differently depending on whether they are on a helmet or collar versus being on a shoulder board. Caerwine Caer’s whines 05:41, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

I was wondering about the center of the captain's bars. It was not clear if there was a hole there on the dot mil site but in looking around some more the hole is there and so I fixed the image.

Part of the reason I chose to go with the shoulder orientation was to get all 11 images side-by-side. I am thinking the page needs to say these are the insignia, as used on the shoulder loops, and that for (figure out the list) they are horizontal on shirts, helmets, etc. but with the point of the star up... A picture is 1k words. I'll think about this. I'm just happy to get those old images off the site and need to go back and edit the text for the remaining images to use the correct PD/copyright tags. Marc Kupper (talk) (contribs) 05:59, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Excellent Input

Thanks for all your input on the 6 star general rank; I've studied this thing for several years and wish that the military would come out with a memo or instruction that clarified its status. Oh well, I'm sure we can make that article a fine one. Also just curious if the other party involved has a background in this sort of thing. Not that it makes any difference, and I will respect all of his opinions in any case, I am simply getting the sense that we are not dealing with a U.S. native who might appreciate the significance of George Washington in our country or the honors bestowed upon him. But, like I said, not that it makes a difference. Just curious. -OberRanks 15:24, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for the comments - I was writing notes in the Gen-of-Armies talk as I was reading on-line COMMANDING GENERALS AND CHIEFS OF STAFF 1775-2005 but then realize the notes were getting rather long and a distraction. Here they are:

I don't know if the on-line version is the most current one. For the record:
Is titled COMMANDING GENERALS AND CHIEFS OF STAFF 1775-2005
The verso of the title page states "First Printed 1983-CMH Pub 70–14" and 2005047145. The latter looks like a date though we'd need to ask the CMH how it's decoded. The first part, 2005, agrees with the title. Anyway, the on line version must have been published some time in 2005.

I started reading through this as it's pretty interesting.

Page three says "Washington's stewardship as the Army's senior officer was unique and, by its nature, could not have been duplicated by his successors." It's possible this statement can be interpreted as "GW is the most senior Army officer of all time" though I don't think that was the intent of the writer.
Page seven says "On 30 April 1789, George Washington, who had been the nation's first senior military officer" ... "Josiah Harmar, who had been brevetted brigadier general in 1787 and was still on the frontier, remained the Army's senior officer." I interpret this to be that as early as 1789 GW was no longer the most senior Army officer.
Page eight has a statement that confuses me "Washington's historical standing as the only uniformed commander in chief of the American Army was assured." Is this about "historical standing", did others not wear uniforms?, did others not have the title "commander in chief?" This section of the book is about the uncertainty, misunderstanding, and controversy surrounding the title, duties, power vested to, etc. of the Army's most senior officer.
Page nine says "Alexander Hamilton was ideally positioned to succeed Washington as the Army's senior officer, and on the day of his predecessor's death (Dec. 14, 1799) he picked up the reins" implying that once again GW was no longer the most senior officer.
Page eleven reinforces that GW was the most senior at one time but no longer with "establishing a single uniformed head of the whole Army-was left in suspense. Only George Washington had served in this capacity, first in 1775 during the Revolutionary War when the Congress elected him general and commander in chief, again in 1798 during the anticipated crisis with France."
Page 13 sees the introduction of 3-star generals "Meanwhile, Macomb, to distinguish his preeminence over other two-star brevet major generals, resorted to the simple device of inserting in the Army Regulations of 1834 a provision that the insignia of the major general commanding in chief should be three stars. Thus in image if not in true rank, Macomb placed himself on a par with a distinguished predecessor, the General Washington of 1798."
Page 13 introduces "General of the Armies", but then takes it away, with "when a bill was finally introduced to revive the rank intended for but never bestowed upon George Washington. The title of the grade was modified from the 1799 version-General of the Armies of the United States-to General of the Army of the United States."
Jumping down to page page 38 the caption for the three photos indicates the rank as "most senior officer" was temporary and gets passed on "George Washington, Ulysses S. Grant, and Dwight D. Eisenhower, three of the country's most distinguished soldiers, served as the Army's top uniformed officer at evenly spaced periods in American history."
Finally, Appendix B is titled "Chronological List of Senior Officers of the United States Army" and shows that the person indicated as the most senior officer has been passed on from person to person. The bottom of this page has a long footnote that's definitely worth reading as it discusses some of the history for the "General of the Armies of the United States" title. This footnote can be used as a source reference for a history section of the main article here on Wikipedia. Marc Kupper (talk) (contribs) 17:25, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Very interesting stuff. I added back in my research about the Sec War statement in 1944 as well as adding the cover page from the MacArthur promotion package. Also removed several lines about "some people have said" and "it has been speculated". Such statements are unsourced and dont belong in the article, I'm sure you'll agree. Best. -OberRanks 19:50, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Your friend on that article (you know who I mean) is now reverting every change I make on it. He seems to respect you, perhaps you can tell him to knock that off. -OberRanks 21:54, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] General of the Armies merge

What's your response to my latest post at Talk:General_of_the_Armies#Second_Merge_Request? OberRanks seems to be unable to respond to my points there, so I continue to think that the Civil War era rank "General of the Army" has more in common with the rank of "General of the Armies" than it does with the World War Two era rank of "General of the Army." - Shaheenjim 18:00, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

I reset the article to the last good version I could find. This one might bear same watching. Also, I had to bring this up, but are we running into this? I don't think so, but the patterns are slowly starting to emerge. Lke I said, bears watching. -OberRanks 12:40, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Bad situation

This is now turning into a bad situation on General (United States). Please see Talk:General_(United_States)#Investigation_into_non-consensus_merger. Thank you very much. -OberRanks 03:19, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

SJ reverted your edits to General of the Armies; I have restored them but he will probably blank them again leading to another edit war. The user just doesnt seem to want to listen and is using the "if I revert them enough times, maybe they'll go away" attitude. The user at last admits that a merger was attempted onto General, but is now claiming it wasnt against consensus [2]. -OberRanks 15:17, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Discussion area for United States General articles

Please see Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Military_history#Discussion_for_various_United_States_General_articles for a common discussion area. — MrDolomite • Talk 18:41, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Regarding GenArmies, the key issues with our friend appear to be the first sentence and the removal of the Pershing material; both of which I dont understand why the other party is being so stubborn about. Ive done my best to clear the air with this, but am really starting to wonder if perhaps we are dealing with this. That is a serious charge and I wont make it without very good proof. But if it is true, then all of this will have been for nothing. -OberRanks 03:22, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Re your note on my talk page

Thanks for trying to contribute and improve the General family of articles in a positive manner. I hope that all involved can weather the storm and continue to make a better reference for those people seeking information about the highest ranking of America's armed forces. — MrDolomite • Talk 06:13, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] General (United States)

Note that I responded to your comments on the talk page for the General (United States) article. Also note that I split them into a new section, since they had moved off the topic of the original section. - Shaheenjim 16:14, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

No problem - I agree there was, and continues to be, topic drift. Marc Kupper (talk) (contribs) 22:22, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] HeCK YEAh Marc Kupper

I know you just were doing what you felt was best, but thanks for the vote to keep that image. ShieldDane (talk) 19:48, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

No problem - I would not get overly attached to the image, and others you create, as it's possible someone will come along with a better picture(s). You may not always agree with what's better and so may end up needing to "choose your battles." It is possible the entire Egils saga einhenda ok Ásmundar berserkjabana collection article could get deleted for lack of notability. It seems to be a collection of on-line stories written by Kjell Tore Nilssen and Árni Ólafsson. I suspect they are actually English translations of older notable works and the Wikipedia article could do a better job of explaining this. Marc Kupper (talk) (contribs) 20:21, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

You are correct, they are from far older scandinavian sources, on par with mythology. Not online stories! If anyone has a better picture of Egil One-Hand, I would be more than happy to use it - but as it currently is, that is the only one I know of. I'll see what I can do about cleaning the article up so that it's not in the future confused with online stories! Anyways thanks again, ShieldDane (talk) 01:33, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

I have had not had time to look to see if you have started on the cleanup but the casual look the other day made it look like a you, User:TharkunColl, etc. are playing an on-line game on Wikipedia via the talk pages and the articles you are creating. In terms of the picture you created - you may want to delete it as sometimes it's best to leave the imagagery up to the imagination. For example, Egil One-Hand just says "The giant then cut off Egil's arm" and does not say where. I've done some sword fighting and a common place to dismember someone is at the wrist. A wrist cut is backed up by implication with "the Dwarf fitted a sword into Egil's arm so deeply that it went to his elbow." I see someone else has already removed the image from the article. I suspect you are better off "choosing your battle" and opting to let that one go in favor of working on the text and citations of the page.

At present you only cite a single book. Amazon finds 0140447709 which mentions Egils' last or family name as Skallagrimsson. There's also 0140443215. It looks like you could write a much better article about Egil and don't even need to recount much detail of the sagas. The book covers also show him holding a sword and not "One-Hand." Marc Kupper (talk) (contribs) 03:48, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Orphaned non-free media (Image:Steve Wozniak Apple Glasses.jpg)

Thanks for uploading Image:Steve Wozniak Apple Glasses.jpg. The media description page currently specifies that it is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, it is currently orphaned, meaning that it is not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the media was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that media for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).

If you have uploaded other unlicensed media, please check whether they're used in any articles or not. You can find a list of 'image' pages you have edited by clicking on the "my contributions" link (it is located at the very top of any Wikipedia page when you are logged in), and then selecting "Image" from the dropdown box. Note that all non-free media not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. BJBot (talk) 12:19, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Fixed - a vandal had dropped an old version of the Glasses article on the page which wiped out everyone's recent edits. Marc Kupper (talk) (contribs) 19:01, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Glassed spoken article

First of all, thanks for all your help on the page. I've been rather busy lately and haven't been able to give it as much attention as I used to. As for the spoken article, progress is slow, but please edit away. I usually start fresh from the beginning each time anyway and can always re-record changed paragraphs. Cheers; Reason turns rancid (talk) 21:27, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Category:U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame Inductees

Thanks for the ~~tiepoe~~ typo fixes. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 22:10, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Priestley Riots

I used your code for allowing quotes to be indented from images at Priestley Riots, but in the July 14 section, something weird happened. Would you mind looking at it? Thanks! Awadewit (talk) 01:44, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

That threw me for a loop as I could have sworn I tested this in both FireFox and IE. I took a look at Mary Shelley and realized all I need to do is to move the padding into the TD rather than the table. I also indented the right side to get more of that "quote" look. Priestley Riots has been fixed too.

I don't know if you are familiar with the order of the elements for padding but it's top, right, bottom, left (clockwise starting at noon). Thus "padding: 0 2em 0 2em" will offset the right and left sides by 2 em spaces. I use em spaces as those scale as the font size changes. I suspect the actual quote padding should be 1.5 ems or something like that. 2 ems is what you get when you indent with : on the talk pages but it seems like it's a tad too much for articles. Maybe 1.8em... Anyway, you can adjust to what looks pleasing.

this is a test of a table indent at 2ems

this is a test of a table indent at 1.8ems

Marc Kupper (talk) (contribs) 05:38, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

But it is bigger problem than that - I think the image above it is affecting it. See screenshot: Image:PriestleyRiotsScreenShot.png. Awadewit (talk) 15:06, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

The original problem we were trying to solve is that normally quoted text is indented from the left margin. When there is a left justified image text flows around it but the margin did not change meaning the quote does not appear to be indented.

The first proposed solution was the Imagequote template where you gave it a fixed pixel offset to use as the indent. This worked well when the text happened to be to the right of an image. But, as browser windows or font sizes change the flow of text around the images also changes and sometimes we'd end up with some Imagequoted text that was not to the right of an image. The Imagequote indent was still being applied as though the image was still there and the results did not look good as now the quote had a huge indent.

I then proposed a solution where the quoted text was wrapped inside a table. The table creates a new left-margin for the text inside it. The table is a rectangle that autosizes its width until it hits either the left and right margins or it hits images. Priestley Riots#July 14 has images on both the left and right and is so happens with your browser, font size, and screen size that the rectangle for the quoted text overlaps by the image on the right by two pixels. See Image:PriestleyRiotsScreenShot2.png which is your screen shot where I drew the edges of the rectangles that surround the images and the quoted text. If you change nearly any variable, such as making the browser window a fraction smaller then the quoted text table gets dropped down at least two pixels and it can then auto-expand to the right margin.

The table approach used by Imagequote2 has the advantage of keeping the text of a quote all together and at a consistent indent level for the entire quote. The downside of Imagequote2 is that text will not flow around images on either the left or right. The table tries to adapt to images as much as possible but it will always be a rectangle with the quoted text inside the rectangle. The rectangle aspect will be most noticeable with large quotes. In fact, with Priestley Riots#July 14 expand the font size a few clicks (from Firefox hold the Ctrl key down as you roll the mouse wheel) and you will see a large blank area appear underneath the image to the left of the quote. If you keep increasing the font size you eventually get to a point where the start of the quote is just below the bottom of the image on the right and the quote then snaps left so that it's now indented relative to the left margin rather than the image on the left. Priestley Riots#July 14 happens to be a good test case as the images both have rather long captions and the quote is rather long. It's nearly a worse case scenario.

You can increase the odds of the quote rectangle expanding to the left/right margins for various screen/browser settings by making the image captions shorter. For example, if you remove the "(1879 engraving by Robert Dent)" credit from the right image the quoted text will then fill out underneath image. Marc Kupper (talk) (contribs) 06:48, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

But I don't want to have to change the content just to make the layout work. I shouldn't have to do that, should I? I think I'll just return to the unindented version. Awadewit (talk) 04:40, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

True, we should not be changing content just to make web layouts work. I personally would leave the indent in as the situation you saw only affects a few people. Specifically, those with 1280 pixel wide monitors that browse in full screen mode and probably only those using the "small" windows fonts combined with having the browser at the default text size. FWIW - my setup is the same as yours and when I first saw the blank area to the right of the quote I just shrugged. Web layout is mainly guidelines on the overall shape of the page. The details of the rendered page can't be controlled. Marc Kupper (talk) (contribs) 10:08, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] {{Imagequote2}}

Thanks for fiddling with it and trying to find the magic formula(e). What was the page which initially spawned the difficulty? I have much more luck breaking these things down if I can see it in action. Cheers. – Scartol • Tok 11:35, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

It was Priestley Riots - see the thread immediately above this one. Awadewit was not using Imagequote2 itself but instead had used the direct table method as used on Mary Shelley. Once I fixed the table method I converted both of those pages to use Imagequote2 to make it easier to make updates.

Awadewit is reporting a secondary issue caused by using a table which I'll answer/explain above but I suspect this may be something worth documenting. Give me a few minutes as I'm going to take the screen shot and to draw rectangles on it. Marc Kupper (talk) (contribs) 04:46, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Otto Lummer

This is an automated message from CorenSearchBot. I have performed a web search with the contents of Otto Lummer, and it appears to include a substantial copy of http://www.cartage.org.lb/en/themes/Biographies/MainBiographies/L/Lummer/1.html. For legal reasons, we cannot accept copyrighted text or images borrowed from other web sites or printed material; such additions will be deleted. You may use external websites as a source of information, but not as a source of sentences.

This message was placed automatically, and it is possible that the bot is confused and found similarity where none actually exists. If that is the case, you can remove the tag from the article and it would be appreciated if you could drop a note on the maintainer's talk page. CorenSearchBot (talk) 19:45, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

All fixed. Thank you for visiting Mr. Robot! Marc Kupper (talk) (contribs) 20:46, 29 May 2008 (UTC)