User talk:Martha Forsyth

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Contents

My sub-pages:

automatic list

Martha's useful(?) links ("bookmarks" of a sort)




[edit] Welcome to Wikipedia!

Here's a link to my user page. -Pete

And this should be a link to my "playpen": User:Martha Forsyth/Mom's Playpen
(but how do I create a new page?? --Martha Forsyth
  • just make a new link, like at the end of the sentence. Actually, this is where your playpen SHOULD be - I put it in the wrong place before. You should copy your stuff over there, before somebody deletes it! User:Martha Forsyth/Mom's Playpen


What's this all about? I don't get the difference between "Edit" and "+" - they seem to go to the same place.

More or less true. The "+" is a special case of "Edit." It only appears on "User/talk" pages (the discussion pages for individual WIkipedia members.) It is basically a shortcut to creating a "new section," or new topic for discussion. The "subject" area becomes a header (being surrounded by pairs of equal-signs.) Tha's all. -Pete 07:36, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] ==Welcome!==

Mom, this is some kind of boilerplate "welcome message" somebody left me on my talk page way back. It has links to editing tips, guiding principles, etc. Hope it helps!

Welcome!

Hello, Martha Forsyth, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers:

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. Again, welcome! 

[edit] some answers

Mom,

Yes, the best place to leave me messages is at User talk:Peteforsyth because that way I'll get a notification of New Messages when I log in. You're right, I'm paying closer attention right now, to all your pages, but in the long run that's the best place.

Sorry about the "Playpen" deletion...I should have warned you better. It was my mistake, I made a sub-page of the nonexistent Martha Forsyth page - as in, the encyclopedia entry for Martha Forsyth, rather than making a sub-page of your own home page. So I moved it to the appropriate place, the place I meant to put it the first time. Otherwise, sooner or later somebody else would have arbitrarily deleted it, without copying anything!

"Sub-pages" - that is, "blahblah/sub-page" - are a strange animal, and their use is generally discouraged. Your own "home page" aka "user page" is really the only major exception to that. Basically, Wikipedia is fundamentally non-hierarchical, in terms of how its content is presented. I guess that's pretty much like a regular encyclopedia. "Categories" are the way to link similar content, and the advantage of Categories is that you can have multiple categories for any article.

So, there should not be a page that is called "Mammals/Kangaroos" - rather, "Kangaroos" would be its own page, and it would have the categories "Mammals" and "Marsupials."

The advantage of a sub-page for your home page, though, is that you get a nice link up to your home page, up top.

That all make sense?

Yup! I left you a message on your talk-page, as suggested. Is it true, then, that the way I "make" a sub-page is, e.g., User:Martha Forsyth/Mom's Code-samples ? Guess this will be a "try it and see"! --20:17, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] little gift

Mom: I see you've been playing with wiki tables. It's good stuff huh! Nice to have a way to make tables that is intuitive, it's very handy for making simple little ones.

Sometimes, you'll find that you want to make a big table, and you don't want to deal with the tedium of all those pipes and dashes. You want software that will let you create the structure of the table, and then just fill in the table's cells in a visually sensible system.

My solution is this: use either Macromedia Dreamweaver, which makes HTML tables directly; or a spreadsheet like Excel or OpenOffice.org, which will allow you to export to HTML.

Then use an HTML-to-Wiki-table converter, such as the one found here.

Have fun!

(I used this extensively in my most significant Wikipedia creation: Oregon statewide elections, 2006.) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Peteforsyth (talk • contribs) 07:57, 3 January 2007 (UTC).

Good suggestions, will need to check this out when I get to this project "for real". I was figuring on doing it in WordPerfect, and putting in the mark-up with search-and-replace.... -- Martha 19:05, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wow!

Did you see today's Featured Picture?

Image:Karandila2.jpg

[edit] check out my draft of a letter to state Senators/Legislators

Mom, take a look at this, tell me what you think:

User:Peteforsyth/leg

[edit] format question

Hi Mom, I'm guessing that was you :)

Did you make that big ol' page? Cool! Wish I knew how to read it. Basically, the "boxes" you've discovered are not "really boxes." Rather, they are an indication that the wiki software is presenting the text enclosed literally - among other things, as you discovered, it will not break lines unless told to do so.

So, you have two choices:

  1. (not optimal): break the lines explicitly (main drawback: it will look the same even if someone has a huge or tiny monitor)
  2. make a box by other means. If you take that approach, I'd suggest scouting around on WP for a box you like, and then look to see how they made it. You could, for instance, make a
simple table
But I doubt that's quite what you want. The user boxes people tend to use on their own pages are probably closer to what you want.

Take a look around, and let me know if you need more help.

-p. Pete 22:06, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Schecter Guitar Research

You're welcome, and feel free to edit the article if anything in there is factually incorrect or could be improved. I tried to do the best I could with the small amount of sources I had, but sometimes that just doesn't cut it. --Leon Sword 20:22, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

I think it would be more appropiate if he could read the article and verify that it is factually correct, that would be great. --Leon Sword 21:57, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Test

what happens when I do this? Great! (I did it by clicking the + beside "edit this page", from within "discussion".) 18:02, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Great!

I'm not familiar with the wikitool you linked, but it looks promising. I'm pretty sure that in the long run, you'll be more comfortable just hand-coding stuff…but if this helps you get up to speed, great! And of course feel free to prove me wrong.

Glad to hear you dove into the Google stuff too, I think that's very worthwhile thing to do. You can probably do similar things on Yahoo and other search engines/directories as well, but of course Google is the "big dog."

Thanks for looking at Columbia and Barlow too -- curious what you think of them!

-Pete 22:06, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Question about templates, and formatting

Hi Martha. It looks like you successfully created the map on Talk:Dospat Dam, and invoked the {{Infobox Settlement}}. In what way do you wish to combine them? Perhaps look at another article which does it?

The boxen on my user page are userboxes, which are mostly handled as a special class of templates. Regards, —EncMstr 07:18, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

I think I understand what you're trying to do, but can't help a whole lot. Replied in a bit more detail on the talk page you linked above. -Pete (talk) 07:00, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Response

Just noticed your comment on my essay. I was on Usenet back in the early 90s, and I saw how quickly civil discussions could degrade into flame wars. I see a lot of that here. I think it's just an artifact of the impersonal nature of online communication: people say things in online forums that they would never say in a face-to-face conversation. And because of that fact, I think that civility and "assume good faith" are critical policies. Unfortunately, a lot of users don't abide by those policies, and the result is needless drama. So much time is wasted on petty wars (I myself have been sucked into a few) that could be avoided by simply giving each other the benefit of the doubt. :-) Anyway, thanks for the feedback. ATren (talk) 04:49, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] request

Hi Mom, thanks for the Open Lobby feedback, that was helpful. I tried to incorporate your suggestion, with some changes of my own -- let me know what you think. On a separate note, I'm thinking about nominating the Neil Goldschmidt article for Good Article status. Very detailed article about Oregon's most significant political figure over the last 35 years or so. If you have time to give it a once-over, and any feedback from a non-political/non-Oregon perspective, that would be nice. Even just the intro section, perhaps, which probably wouldn't take too long to look over. No worries if you don't have time though -- just a thought. -Pete (talk) 07:38, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback on that, very helpful! I know what you mean about "trying too hard to be objective." I'll see what I can do. It's tough, because people's emotions obviously run high on this guy, in both directions. Any objection if I move your feedback to Talk:Neil Goldschmidt, where others might benefit from it as well? -Pete (talk) 03:52, 17 February 2008 (UTC)


Hi back - covered with rue - I'm obviously not very good at this wiki stuff yet! If I answer your question on YOUR talk page, it won't have background (unless I drag it all over), and if I answer it on MINE, will you see it??? I'm not clear about this yet!

By all means move my feedback (which I no longer actually remember - been a busy week!) to Talk:Neil Goldschmidt - whatever will make it most useful.

OK....more rue....I've chased down the pieces of this, I guess I should have left this message on YOUR talk page, adding it to the discussion there. But it's here now - let's yak sometime about how to handle these things! -- yer fuzzy-headed Mom Martha (talk) 20:05, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Madison Meadow

I like your draft, and added a lead paragraph that provides some context. (Feel free to revert if you don't like it!) I like what you're putting together, but my general impression is that it's not quite the sort of thing that'll fly on Wikipedia. It reads more like an advocacy piece than an encyclopedia entry; the Wikipedia article would need to be something that fairly dispassionately reports the facts. WP:NPOV is the policy that most directly expresses this, though WP:NOR is related too. It might be that the AboutUs page is a better outlet for this sort of writing; AboutUs is far less restrictive on the tone and style issues. I think having a Wikipedia article is a good idea, but might not be the best outlet for your creative or persuasive urges! By the way, I think Katr lives (or lived) in Eugene, and I'm sure she'd be interested in an article like this, it's right up her alley. And she knows all the WP style and policy stuff by heart. So it might be good to ask her to look it over. -Pete (talk) 23:55, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Heh, that Katr's always popping up where you least (or most) expect it! See here for her comment, in case you missed it…oh, and I guess I put my comment above on the wrong page. Gonna move it now. -Pete (talk) 07:04, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
Thanks bunches, Peter and Katr! I've incorporated your suggestions and removed (though not "without a trace" for the present) some of my original text. I'm taking the plunge, sending the organization a link to this page, with the caveat that it's in very preliminary stages. I took out Linda's name, though I think it does belong there - but probably if it does, then other names belong there too. Frankly I'm pretty impressed at what Linda did: actually getting this thing started, and seeing it through despite some formidable difficulties. All for tonight! -- Martha (talk) 04:42, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
It's looking better, for sure! I incorporated some notes into the text. More general stuff...I think it's fine to include Linda, I know she was quoted in at least one of the newspaper articles, so that's probably a good place to look for a quote or something specific about her role. Inviting the group to work on it, or using their web site as a source, are kind of touchy areas; often people associated with an organization have a hard time maintaining a neutral tone or steering clear of publishing original research. I personally have a lot of patience for such folks; if I may be so bold, Katr does not. (That comes, I think, from her deep dedication to keeping things moving in the right direction around here -- not always a popular quality among the newcomers, but one that us WP-o-philes all love her for.)
To put it another way, I think you see a whole lot of articles around WP that lack citations to neutral sources, or contain original research, etc; often those articles make a good foundation for building a better one, but that can be a pretty inefficient and tiresome way to do it. If we can build articles from scratch that are neutral and well-sourced, those who come along will be more inclined to stay within those boundaries. It's kinda like this: it's easier to get people to respect your house and not treat it badly, if it looks more or less the way you want it to when they first walk in the door.
Blah blah blah -- I gotta get offa the wiki. Good work, looking forward to seeing this published on the wiki! -Pete (talk) 06:56, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] A neat bit of data

Mom, take a look here. EncMstr and I came up with a neat list of what (subjectively important) Oregon articles were most viewed in February. It's a technique I suspect we'll build on. Just thought you might appreciate it, not that I think you'd necessarily have a use for it. -Pete (talk) 02:32, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Cool! Yes, this might be interesting some day.... Right now I'm wrestling with another map, and just learned something about internal-within-a-given-page linking! -- Martha (talk) 02:40, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
Thought you might catch that :) Note, jus like regular HTML, you don't have to put the whole page name if it's the page you're in: #A neat bit of data should do nicely. -Pete (talk) 02:42, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
Yup, that's what I figured out, I keep this stuff here! Only trouble is...since I don't use it often enough, it's "Here today and gone tomorrow" - that's what that part of my page is for! -03:06, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Something new

Mom, I'm thinking of redoing my user page along the lines of how Portal:Oregon works. If you want, take a look at my draft, User:Peteforsyth/Newpagedraft. I'm figuring a lot of this stuff out as I go along though, so don't pepper me with TOO many questions ;) -Pete (talk) 21:39, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Interesting, not conclusive to me, I think largely because I can't quite envision how it would look when fleshed-out. Few questions/comments:
  • Will it include basically all the info you have currently on your user page, plus more? (will I be missing "old favorite" things?—not that I can list good examples! but I rather like the way your existing page "looks"...)
  • Why (other than to learn about creating portal pages) do you want to change it?
  • I like having the Wikipedia tricks (and info) there—
  • Cosmetic point: I rather hate that harsh green color in the headings..... The extra borders and background in the Portal:Oregon relieve this somewhat, but it's still to me a very harsh color, rather puts me off.
I'll try to keep an eye on it, but maybe you could "poke" me from time to time? (Somehow I've lost track of something, I thought I was supposed to get an "alert" when I log in, if somebody's left me a comment??? but this doesn't happen. I guess I have to get this by checking my "watchlist"??? (Maybe that's something you could include in the Wiki tricks & info—as a relatively new user, I'm still having trouble figuring out basic things like this.
New and unrelated point: I've been having trouble with location maps! I put a {{helpme}} on my user page, and somebody un-marked it which I guess indicates that he thinks the problem is fixed, but it's not! I left him a comment, User talk:Mion#My map template problem (fuller description), maybe you'd cast a glance at it and see if YOU have any ideas? — Martha (talk) 05:27, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Location map

|lon_deg = longitude degrees

|lon_min = longitude minutes

is not the same as

|long = longitude (decimal format). --Obersachse (talk) 19:51, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Bless you and THANK YOU! I guess this should have been obvious, but as you see, it wasn't. I've added your info to my Code Samples page, and NOW....when I want to, I can do Bulgarian maps properly! -- Martha (talk) 15:20, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Another resource

Looks like there's a pretty active project at Wikipedia:WikiProject Maps, devoted to resources for WP-oriented mapmaking. Note that there's an associated discussion page, too. That's probably a great resource for the sort of thing you're getting into. -Pete (talk) 05:44, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Neat! Looks like a lot o' good stuff to investigate. Thanks! -- Martha (talk) 06:10, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
You know, I think we could really use some of this stuff in Oregon. There is an Oregon map like this set up somewhere, which could be put to good use. But even better would be another map or two, for the Portland metropolitan area and/or the Willamette Valley. Because so very many places are concentrated in the northwest part of the state. F'rinstance, we recently had a bit of confusion between Springwater, Oregon and an eponymous neighborhood about to be annexed by Gresham, Oregon. But they're close enough that on the full Oregon map, they'd probably look like they're the same place.

Anyway -- just a thought. I think lots of our cities' articles, and mountains, and other places, could really benefit from this type of map if somebody can figure out how (and maybe train us all how to do it.) EncMstr would be a great person to help make a base map, if that's necessary, and Katr made most of the little stubby articles about tiny towns.

Okay, I'm thinking about getting home and finding sleep. Thought I'd get that thought out first. No pressure, but maybe a fun project? -Pete (talk) 08:47, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I'll try to have a better look at it, it does look like the sort of thing I'd enjoy, if I don't get too confused! The newsletter is close to done (this one was a Bear - I fudged some page borders to use, 'coz I had way too little text for the 6 pages it HAD TO be...), now I want to drag Dad in to Cambridge to examine some (hoop) tubing.... will look later, after doing Some Beading, then I can allow myself to Have Some Fun! -- Martha (talk) 19:34, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
Hmm, might be more than I can handle. I've spent awhile looking, and don't see "a place to start". But, e.g., I'd like to be able to produce a map that would show a specific area of Bg in more detail (like, ideally, I'd like to be able to include the Satellite photo from Google Maps that I put on the Dospat Dam page - or else make a map that shows these things, but am not seeing an entry point. Maybe I should go back to hooping?! Or maybe...well I keep looking. Just found: where the \ in the lower left quadrant is actually this reservoir!
I guess, since it's on Wikipedia, I could take a section of that map and label it??? So damn much I don't know....gotta get a little WP:BOLDer I guess!!
Well, as I was saying - if you give me a specific task to tackle, I'll probably do it. But I can't swallow this Wikipedia:WikiProject Maps whole, I'm afraid. --Martha (talk) 21:24, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
Small caution: pretty sure anything from Google Maps is copyright, therefore not eligible for upload here. But, NASA and other federal gov't sources probably have satellite maps if you can find 'em, and those would be public domain. -Pete (talk) 21:29, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
Yeah I know - spent a little while researching that the other day, that's why I didn't upload to it, just linked. I'm playing around with NASA satellite photos (copyright free w few xceptions) right now. Oregon may have some stuff we can use? As I said, I guess that if it's OK to upload it, as in public domain, then it'd also be ok to use just a section, add labels, etc??? -- Martha (talk) 21:50, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
Yes -- public domain means that you can legally and ethically scribble on it, distort it, add to it, subtract from it, say that you created it, etc. Pretty much the same with the "free licenses" CC-BY-SA and GFDL, too. -Pete (talk) 21:53, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
Here I come! (not right this sec, but...this is exactly what I was looking for! Then, I guess, I'll have to figure out how to put a little inset map to show where in Bg the section I'm showing is....more MORE to learn! — Martha (talk) 22:06, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Image:Dospat_Reservoir_location.jpg {{helpme|Mapmakers: Does this look "good enough"? If so I'll move it to Commons.}} 17:25, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] editing lossage

You mentioned that you wrote the Paisley Caves article twice on WT:ORE. I take it you're using a primitive browser, probably Internet Explorer. If you switch to FireFox, after a mistake you can press the "Back" button and all your text will reappear. Use IE one last time: http://www.firefox.com Firefox has integrated spell checking, prints pages correctly, and many other enhancements, like a wicked good ad blocker. —EncMstr 04:21, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Hi, well, Firefox is exactly what I used, and the "back" button didn't seem to help at all! I was pretty startled ("back" and CtrlZ are good friends of mine) - but in the long run I think I put it together a little better the second time. Weeelll....I just ran a bunch o' tests. It turns out that "Back" DOES do what you say! (No, I'm not surprised - just thought that's what I'd done!) I guess maybe I'd tried to get "back" by hitting the Edit tab again. Well, live 'n' learn! Thanks very much for pointing this out, I hadn't realized I was being sloppy with it. — Martha (talk) 21:54, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, this trick has saved me many times…works pretty reliably in my experience! -Pete (talk) 07:58, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Rdrg93

Your welcome. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rdrg93 (talk • contribs) 05:02, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Rila

Hi Mom, sorry for the delay -- I read your discussion about the Rila Monastery inscription, looks like you got into some fun stuff! Very impressive. Not sure what advice you need, it looks like you're off in the right direction. I wouldn't worry about deleting these things; they are each interesting/useful in their own right, it's conceivable someone in the future might want to squint at the inscription too, and may benefit from your work. I'd say leave 'em all up. You might want to look for categories to add each to, if you haven't already...I didn't think to look for that. Good work!! -Pete (talk) 08:02, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

My general understanding is that for the most part, free-use images (that is, creative commons, GFDL, public domain etc.) images should be put on Commons, not Wikipedia. This is because they may come in handy for other Wikimedia projects such as WikiNews, Wiktionary, etc. Images that are copyright, but permissible for a specific Wikipedia article under fair use, are the ones that should be put on WP. (These are pretty unusual; typically, photos of people who are deceased -- and therefore unavailable for new photos -- for the article on that person, company logos for the article on that company -- that sort of thing.)
I'm not entirely sure about the licensing thing. There is a process for moving CC images from Flickr, which may also apply to the site you found; essentially, you upload, and flag the article for review by a "trusted user" who has been vetted by the community as understanding the relevant copyright issues.
What you did, I think, is essentially assert that you own the copyright, and are releasing it under a CC license. Which of course isn't correct, and obviously wasn't your intent. So I think some adjusting of the tag is in order. I think the best place to inquire about this would be here, though I suspect it might take people a little while to get back to you. I suppose you might ask EncMstr, who is an admin, but I'm not sure whether image licensing is an area he deals with much, or whether his admin "powers" extend to commons. Hope this helps! -Pete (talk) 20:41, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Biographiq

Thanks for the heads-up, Martha. I knew they had a bunch of others out, I didn't know they were churning them out that quickly. I'll get a hold of Amazon about it. Harry Yelreh (talk) 09:12, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Sure!

If you're still up feel free to call...thanks for the birthday message yesterday, sorry I didn't get back sooner! -Pete (talk) 07:01, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Cool

I thought it might have been you, but anons shouldn't be editing other people's User pages.  :) Corvus cornixtalk 03:30, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Blog post

Hey mom, I just got a column published on a big blog here, BlueOregon. Take a look! [1] -Pete (talk) 20:43, 27 April 2008 (UTC)