User talk:Sam/Archive 6

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Batman

Hi Sam, I am trying to determine what happened to a deleted image from the Batman article, Image:Batbed.jpg. You can see the code for it in this version of the article. It seems to have been deleted for spurious reasons, since individual comic book panels are not a breach of copyright, as can be seen from the many others in this and other such articles. Can it be recovered? Thanks, Haiduc 11:27, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

  • I can certainly give it a good try. I was looking around this morning and came up with a library in Michigan that has a collection of such stuff. May be an interesting reason for a vacation to nowhere. Haiduc 20:26, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Runyang Bridge: edit summary

It's a strange choice of edit summary (it isn't the largest in the world, it is the THIRD largest.) when you actually added that it's the largest bridge in China. I didn't think it could say it was the largest in the world as I would have changed it! Really it should be "longest" not "largest" anyway. JRawle (Talk) 10:50, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

List of straight edge groups

Ondcp raised the redlink argument, and it seemed to gain no traction at all; others had counter-arguments on it. Plus, I pretty much had to discount the anon comments, they were somewhat non-sensical or off the point. It's not a vote, but unless there's a clear policy violation, I like to go with consensus and the consensus that emerged was pretty clear. I'd welcome a deletion review; I always do, just let me know about it if you start one. Mangojuicetalk 12:53, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Lists v. Categories

Hello,

I am fairly new (1/2006) to Wikipedia, and am still learning the various technical aspects of it. Please help me to understand the difference between a 'List' and a 'Category' in Wiki. How do I add to it, access it, etc.? I am in favor of anything that makes access to reliable information easier.

Still learning,

Michael David 22:11, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
A list is just like any other article, except it is called a list. Here is an example . Articles are put in the list by adding a link in the list. Categories are created by the software, you have to put each article in the category by adding a link from each article.
How would this translate as regards the Categories in question? Michael David 00:17, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
Please trust me, I am not trying to be difficult; research tools are critical to my work.
I saw & understand your examples. Is this an example of what you mean by a 'list'? Michael David 01:20, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
Thanks. I am beginning to understand & formulate some thoughts of my own. I'll be in touch again soon.
Be healthy,
Michael David 02:47, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Need you ur input

into AFD articles


Kiss of the Spider Woman

Good point. Generally it is; it actualy has lines in Portuguese, and the director and (part of) main cast are Brazilian. Anyhow, maybe not as much as these other movies, though the media always plays a role on these things to to pump national patriotism, as it it did with Motorcycle Diaries, whose only Brazilian thing is the director.

User:Chicheley

Samuel, I am sorry to bother you with this but I see you are an admin and that you have become involved in the Philatelists CfD discussion and with this user as a result of that. I have a problem with Chicheley and I strongly object to the way he is using the CFD pages, especially the cheap insults he habitually hurls around: such as accusing the philately project of "attempting a fait accompli", as if we had hatched a conspiracy instead of reached a consensus by lengthy discussions.

Could you please look at my discussion on his talk page and let me know what your views are?

The original incident I refer to is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Categories_for_deletion/Log/2006_June_24#Category:Cricket_teams

As you can see, I was doing some housekeeping in the cricket project and Sam Vimes (admin) pointed out that there is a formal procedure for getting rid of unwanted categories so I tried to follow it, but I did it wrong and Sam had to help out. Even so, I apologised to the readers for my mistakes and lack of understanding. Whereupon Chicheley steps in and accuses me of breaching etiquette and bad faith. Okay, I should not get riled but subsequent comments by him were also unacceptable, especially as he has turned things right around and claims that I accused him of bad faith (where that is written, only he can say).

Incidentally, I have subsequently learned from my mistakes re CFD and now I even keep the relevant instructions on one of my user pages. When we submitted the Philatelist proposal, I had to do it because the other four members did not know how to. So I am not the only person who has been baffled by these procedures and has, presumably, made errors in trying to follow them. This is something that is beyond the capability of Chicheley to understand: was he ever new to CfD?

Trying to take an objective view of the problem I have with him, it seems to me that he intervenes in nearly every CfD discussion and, because he does so, he is in a position to influence several outcomes. Yet he has made it clear that he distrusts WikiProjects and that he is utterly opposed to project consensus as a basis for making a change proposal. I find this an unacceptable view which amounts to contempt for people who are working to improve a project and share their (sometimes expert) knowledge with the readers. He is effectively saying that project members do not act responsibly re their own project's content and structure; that we are unqualified to decide what categories we should or should not have. Does he suppose there would be any projects if people were not prepared to devote time to them?

If he is actively working against the principle of consensus then surely he is in breach of Wikipedia guidelines and even WP policy?

And yet he is not above intervening on a project page either, though he is not a member, with the clear intention of hindering project progress and trying to influence project consensus:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Cricket/archive20#Cricket_Categories

What exactly was he up to there? Why was he trying to turn the project members against a set of proposals made with good intentions re their project by a fellow member, even though he is not a member himself? Consensus prevailed in that case and some of the proposals were implemented; some were set aside.

My purpose on this site is to share knowledge and gain knowledge. To do that I work within projects and, as well as creating and expanding articles, I try to improve project structure because I do not see the point of having a category facility and not using it. I strongly object to seeing the efforts of project members to improve their project, on which they spend so much time and effort, being arbitrarily dismissed and overruled by people from outside the project whose motives and agenda are unclear.

I am deeply suspicious of people like Chicheley who will advocate one thing in one discussion and then something else in another. I do not like his tactic of hit and run with a calculated insult and then accuse the retaliator of "vicious abuse", etc.

It so happens that I personally know people who are experts in certain subjects who will not touch Wikipedia with a bargepole. This includes two who are former contributors. In every single case, they refuse to take part because of people like Chicheley who intervene and disrupt progress by claiming to know more about the project than the project member does. There is no objection to editing or even to teenage vandalism (easily rectified) but there are very strong objections to a deletions process that is hidebound (unless you can get things through the "speedy" process) and is open to abuse of privilege by people like Chicheley. One of the people I know actually resigned from Wikipedia after a case in which project members wanted to delete a category and were prevented from doing so by the CfD, even though none of the CfD people knew the first thing about the project's subject. This person, incidentally, is an expert in his field and has been published. Who does Wikipedia want on board: people like this true expert or people like Chicheley?

I myself resigned from Wikipedia a couple of months ago because I was sick of the deletion process and of being both obstructed and insulted by people who are not interested in my project. But I was contacted privately by other project members and persuaded to return. I have continued to contribute and I have tried to come to terms with CFD by understanding its processes but I remain unhappy with it.

I believe that the process should be turned around. I think a proposal should be made on CfD first and then, after a week, the whole discussion should be handed over to the project for validation or verification. The project members should then reach a consensus taking all views, constructive and otherwise, into account and this consensus should then go to an admin to implement if there is an action to be taken (otherwise the matter rests).

This process would instantly take away the influence of people like Chicheley except that he would be able to express an opinion at stage one; and the project members could then accept or dismiss his view accordingly, given their knowledge of the project. Not the other way around as it is now where someone like him can openly dismiss the views of a true expert. The project structure would thus be in the hands of the people who care about it and know what is required of it: the active project members.

I'll be glad to hear from you and will happily discuss anything you wish to ask me, but I am very concerned about the way this person is consistently operating as I do not believe he is acting in the best interests of Wikipedia or its readers.

I should point out that I have no real problem with the many other people who regularly use CfD, despite an odd argument here and there. The vast majority use the process in a responsible and positive way. As indeed I have been trying to do myself when trying it for size in recent days, although I doubt if I will use it very often.

All the best and sorry about the length of this topic. --BlackJack | talk page 09:05, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply and you are quite right that you can't get involved in view of your own previous discussions with Chicheley. I should have thought of that. I think I will let things lie for the time being. If I decide to escalate it I will certainly keep you posted. Thanks again for replying and I apologise for compromising you. All the best. --BlackJack | talk page 09:36, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Gone for about a week

Hi - Just thought I'd let you know I'll be scarce for about a week (after tomorrow). I think we're close on the category intersection thing. -- Rick Block (talk) 04:16, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

I'll read through the current version and start commenting (probably not until later today). "&" has meaning in the context of URLs (a query URL is of the general form http://querypage?field1=value1&f2=v2&f3=v3&...), so is probably not a good choice. I'm not at all attached to "::", although (following the initial "http:") ":" is a completely neutral character. I'd expect whatever we pick to be revisited by the developers. -- Rick Block (talk) 15:31, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
"+" is better (and I think OK, and the separator probably wouldn't need to be "+:", just "+"). I don't think "^" appears on some international keyboards, and (as you suggest) "/" is problematic since it implies hierarchy (and likely appears in existing category names). I gather you don't like "::"? -- Rick Block (talk) 21:35, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

List of Academy Award nominated black performers

I just got into a big discussion (over a mistake that I made trying to move High Holy Days) about page moves, and the people I was talking to said that it's no longer appropriate to remove page histories to replace them with redirects -- you now need to file a request. I believe that this policy would apply to List of Academy Award nominated black performers as well, and therefore that page should be restored. Thanks, --M@rēino 13:29, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

When my first stub is up for deletion (AFD) within hours

Am still feeling my way around Wikipedia, contributing here and there. My stub Gerber/Hart Library is already controversial and up for deletion, ostensibly due to its lack of notability.

I started discussion on said page. What I'm wondering, as a bit of a newbie, is: When I entered a reply to your comments you made on my user talk page, are you notified automatically in any way, or must you have marked my talk page for watching?

Any guidelines you can point me at, as to where to place my comments and discussion would be helpful. TIA. -- RayBirks 01:53, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Category intersection

-- moved to CI talk page. -- Samuel Wantman 06:44, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Losing interest? Not exactly. Just struggling with how to get closer. I think we actually have fundamentally different goals. I'd like it to be an exposed, orthogonal feature leading to a relatively major ripping and hacking at the current category structure. You don't seem to be interested in anything quite this radical. I'm basically OK with this, but don't quite know how we proceed. There is definitely a lot we agree on (for example, I assume you're not a Bush supporter, right?), and I definitely respect your opinion and I'm pretty sure you respect mine. I haven't come up with an elegant interface to traverse from primary categories to intersections (and back), but think this might be possible. Rather than argue, I'm just letting it simmer for a bit. I'm not entirely sure anything productive will come of this even if we completely agree. The code gatekeeper is Brion VIBBER - if he doesn't like it, it pretty much doesn't happen. Ultimately whatever we, or you, or I, propose won't happen unless Brion agrees it's reasonable. But, yes, I'm still interested. -- Rick Block (talk) 04:41, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Approaching Brion directly seems like a reasonable idea, although I think he has a pretty strong bias against software change suggestions from non-developers. I think he may get dozens of suggestions a week, from any idiot Wikipedia user in the world (and I think he may generally think of admins as pretty much just like users). A much stronger way to do this would be to actually implement it and show him the code. I don't know what you do, but this is something I could conceivably do. As a "spare time" project it might take quite some time, and although I've done a LOT of development I haven't done any MediaWiki development (or any development in PHP). Perhaps the following, and I think email may work better than talk page. -- Rick Block (talk) 14:26, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Brion,
We are two longtime en.wikipedia administrators who focus on categorization policy. There are some long festering basic conflicts in how people use categories that we think could be solved if a category intersection feature were implemented. We are aware that this has been discussed quite a bit in the past, and that code to do category intersections was even written at one point (and know about catscan on toolserver). We are working on a proposal for a MediaWiki category intersection feature that would allow categories to be defined as the intersection of other categories and would also provide a simple interface for creating "on the fly" intersections. We think this would reduce category clutter on articles, while providing a generally useful new feature. Before we go any further with this proposal we'd like your feedback. Do you think what we are proposing is feasible? If so, do you have any suggestions for improving it? If not, what makes it unfeasible, and do you have any ideas about how to make it feasible? Thanks very much for your time. User:SamuelWantman and User:Rick Block

Problems with harassment and an article

I enjoyed reading your page. I wanted to ask your assistance in helping me deal with certain editors that are purposely trying to discredit an article and a company, for what reason I have no idea. It hjas to do with the article American Mutoscope and Biograph Company and related article Mutoscope. Please visit the talk pages and the archives on these.

I personally was even question and taunted by these "Editors". The names are "Walloon", Willbeback" and "Dpsmith". I believe these editors do have some sort of a personal agenda. I at first thought it was coincidental, until I did research. I will give you just a portion of quotes from the talk pages:

"I think it's obviously an attempt at self-promotion. I don't care whether it stays or goes. I've left it in myself because I think it's so silly that it undercuts any suggestion that the new Biograph is to be taken seriously. Dpbsmith (talk) 19:13, 8 August 2006 (UTC)"

This is a blatant attempt at discrediting the article.

Another statement:

"Small office" is relevant Los Angeles Downtown News quotes "CEO Thomas Bond" as saying "the small office would serve as the headquarters for the company." Not only does the LA Downtown News characterize this as a "small office," but they quote the CEO as characterizing it as a "small office." This is important in presenting a neutral view of the revived company, which has grandiose plans for studios on the Moon, etc. but as of 2006 appears to be a very small operation. Dpbsmith (talk) 19:13, 8 August 2006 (UTC)" Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:American_Mutoscope_and_Biograph_Company"

I checked the newspaper articles and discovered that there were "Many" misquotes. Only partial statements were inserted in the article for the purpose of making it look "Bad"" as stated above.

I need your help. I am not really even wanting to be involved in this, but wanted to bring it to your attention. Please feel free to have others that are administrators review it as well. I have to speak out when I feel a "Wrong" perpetrated. Wikipedia is suppose to be an open forum for knowledge, not an arena for agendas and persoanl harassment.

Thank you,

--Roger the red 04:51, 18 August 2006 (UTC)


Samuel on Editing

I would like to thank you on your kind note. It truly means alot, and will impliment your suggestions. How I found you was through research of administrators. If you check on my "Talk Page" there is another ominous warning by one of the so mentioned "Editors"...

"Disruption

Do not disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point. -Will Beback 20:03, 8 August 2006 (UTC)"

As you can see, asking for help is in no violation of any Wikipedian policy. I am very busy, and do alot of traveling. I edit when I can, but the above mentioned and what has been going on is ridiculous, which I am sure you can see. I am not trying to "Disrupt" or "Battle" anyone, just contribute without malice. I completely agree there needs to be open and different points of view to keep an article well rounded as well.

I will take your suggestions and make changes to the mentioned artickle and others. Please view the progress when you can, and following the situation you will see the difficulties.

Thank you again,

--Roger the red

NOTE ON ARTICLE

Samuel, I took your advice and changed it appropriatley as directed. It was immediately reverted by user "Walloon" and all of my information deleted yet again, with no discussion prior to the deletion. "Walloon" did post this...

Transfer of assets I have deleted the following:

The company was revived in 1991 but it is not clear if there was a complete sale of all the assets of the company. Actually, it is very clear. Not only was there not a "complete sale" of "all the assets", there was no sale of assets — because there were no assets to transfer, as the article says. All of Biograph's film copyrights expired by the 1940s, were not renewed, and entered the public domain (yes, I have researched this, check the footnotes to the article). Biograph Studios donated its film collection to the Museum of Modern Art circa 1939.[1] (See: Iris Barry, "Why Wait for Posterity?" Hollywood Quarterly, 1945/46, pp. 131-137.) All of Biograph's registered trademarks expired by the 1940s out of abandonment (nonuse). The Los Angeles studio was sold circa 1917, and the Bronx studio was sold and resold several times since it was shuttered in 1939, and burned down in 1980. — Walloon 01:40, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:American_Mutoscope_and_Biograph_Company"

As you can see, these "Editors" have an agenda. There are several incorrect items in his post, but I am tired to correct them again. I have no interest but to have correct information. Also on the 3R's, I guarantee you that if I reposted my inclusions in the article 3 times a day, they would revert it, and that is against policy. I do not want Wikipedia is a failed effort for fairness. Please guide me on this, I am ready to give up.

--Roger the red 20:58, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Your thoughts on WikiProject LGBT studies

When you've got a few minutes, I was wondering if you'd take a look at my ideas regarding increasing participation in WikiProject LGBT studies? Thanks! -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 01:44, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Broader/finer on-the-fly interface

Sam, I've redone the broader/finer interface at the CI mockup. Let me know what you think about it. -- Rick Block (talk) 03:07, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

I assume you're watching this page, but just in case you're not I moved the comments to the talk page and have responded to your comments. -- Rick Block (talk) 17:54, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

referred to you by Haiduc

I am looking for an LGBT Admin to give me advice on how to deal with a situation with another editor which is making me uncomfortable. CyntWorkStuff 01:05, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes it is and I'll be in touch. Thank you CyntWorkStuff 01:43, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Block of Daffy Duck

In general, I would agree with you that it is bad form. However, in this particular case, I'm declining the removal of the block because he's been warned one too many times. If you feel like removing the block and/or reporting it on the incident board, go ahead, but I'm not going to. This block was definitely deserved, my involvement in a conflict with Daffy or no, and I am confident that any review of my actions will stand up. --khaosworks (talk • contribs) 09:09, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Believe me, I am aware of this. I've also counselled people in the past about the exact same thing. If this was Daffy's first brush with edit warring, or the first time he's been uncivil I would have been more circumspect. However, there really does come a point where a user's behaviour is so egregious that it's not even a matter of me being personally frustrated or not, but that a block seems the most sensible thing to do, regardless of whoever is doing it. In Daffy's case, I am not doing it out of any sense of frustration, but simply because I felt that it was the correct thing to do and that anyone would have done the same. Going through WP:ANB/I may soothe some egos or pay homage to the Almighty Process, but while it's bad form again, what I've done violates no policy and it would have been the same in the end, and Daffy needs to get the point, not bask in the glow of safety that a bureaucratic process might give him. Again I am confident that anyone who sees my history and sees the behaviour that I've blocked Daffy for will see that. Those who see it as a weakening of my moral authority will think that anyway, regardless of what I do. If you'd like, I can do a mea culpa/write-up on WP:ANB/I about it, but I don't think it's all that necessary.
I do want to emphasise that I do not do this lightly, nor will I be any more inclined to do it lightly in future — if you're inclined to take my word for it, which is entirely up to you, of course. This was something that was considered, not an off-the-cuff cowboy action. Sometimes, enough is simply enough, and this was one of those times. --khaosworks (talk • contribs) 10:44, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Where would these two things go on the Wikipedia:LGBT notice board?

Propsed Merger/Rename of Bisexual Films and Propsed Merger/Rename of Lesbian Films? Since it's not an outright "Delete" I'm confused. CyntWorkStuff 19:23, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

So should I at this time: (a) move the process along and rename the "Categories for deletion" to "Categories for discussion" on the LGBT notice board and (b) move these two items into it? CyntWorkStuff 20:14, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Piping

LOL Oh Dear. That's what comes from having learned most of what I know on Wikipedia from the "monkey see monkey do" method. Also I never even considered that many of the symbols, (such as "piping") were standard "Computer Stuff". Be honest (since it is only 25 of them) should I go and fix? CyntWorkStuff 01:33, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Category intersection

Sam - I created another mockup, one for the transcluded version where it is accessed by the category. Doing this made me think about exactly how this might work, and there's a minor issue involving the URL parameter specifying the "from" for this set of 200 articles (for large intersections). This URL parameter would have to be passed along somehow for the "transclusion" to show anything other than the first 200 articles. We're talking about changing the code, so in some sense the sky's the limit, but passing along this parameter would make this not just a simple transclusion. Also, while doing this I mentally compared the "category" page to the "transcluded page" and there are a couple of subtle differences ("this intersection" vs. "this section of this category"). I don't think these are big issues, but might eventually lead to not using "transclusion" as the actual implementation mechanism (I think the key point is that a category marked as an intersection and an intersection use the same code to generate the list of articles, and whether this list is literally transcluded or just rendered using the same function call in the PHP script is kind of a nit). -- Rick Block (talk) 14:03, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for pointer

Hi Samuel,

We think our proposal will address these problems and add some very useful new features. We are asking editors and developers concerned with categorizaton problems to take a look...

Thanks for your invite – have finally made the time to scan through your and Rick's excellent-looking proposal and left an initial acknowledgement/query on the talk page. Per there, I'll read it more carefully anon and also now have it on my watchlist. Best wishes, David Kernow 01:26, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

omega-consistent theory

Response to your edit-summary query left on talk:omega-consistent theory. --Trovatore 17:06, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Wrong-title categories

I agree that the best way to get rid of these given the situation is to formally delete them at CFD. If nobody else does it I'll probably get around to it within a week or so. Christopher Parham (talk) 19:09, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Quoting

Hello, I was browsing around and eventually found myself checking the Categories for deletion page, and saw what you'd said for the deletion of Wikipedian authorship categories. You literally put the words in my mouth; your words were so wonderful that I had to quote you on my user page. Hope you don't mind. :) —Mirlen 04:47, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Welcome back

Hi - I assume you had a fabulous time (will various articles under Category:Bridges by country be getting new images?). CI has not progressed much as far as I can tell. Radiant wrote some code and has tried to get Brion to look at it. Tim Starling is probably the best person to look at it, but he had some surgery and was out of commission for a few weeks (I think he's mostly fine now). The basic sticking point seems to be the performance implications of a null intersection query involving a very large category. I think unless this is resolved there's little to no chance any UI offering this ability will be enabled at en. I poked around at the MySQL documentation and it doesn't seem possible either to run a particular query in "non-locking" mode at a low priority or to limit the CPU (or real) time spent on a query. I don't know if the total size of a given category index is readily available, but if so I think perhaps the most promising approach might be to chunk the query into smaller pieces, with each piece requiring looking at only a portion of the index (like, if Category:Living people is involved, add a search qualifier restricting the first character [or first two characters!] of the match to ensure only a portion of the index file is used, and run a series of queries to get the entire result - this makes the search code more complicated but doesn't lock everyone out of the database for an extended period of time). In any event, I think it's a fairly tricky problem and will likely require someone very familiar with the database structure to solve it (like Tim). -- Rick Block (talk) 14:10, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Had a great trip and did get a few bridge pictures. Anything interesting happen while I was gone asside from the CI stuff?
Since I've been back I've been looking through the wikitech-l postings to read the discussion. I'm halfway through, but I've seen no discussion on that list or on the CI talk page that says even hints that CI should not happen. The sole question has been how to make it happen technically. Since this is already done by sites like flikr, I have to assume that it is possible, and if it is currently a problem for us to implement it, it will eventually be possible in a few months or years. So assuming it will eventually happen, there are still questions to be answered:
  1. What should the user interface look like? I was surprised to see that there has been virtually no discussion about options that we presented.
  2. Assuming that it will happen, how do we get categories repopulated and reorganized. I'm still wondering how the German Wikipedia did this.
  3. How does flickr do this? Are there DB engines out there that are optimized for these queries?
  4. What do we do in the interim?
--Samuel Wantman 16:34, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Interesting while you were gone? I haven't had a tremendous of time, so perhaps am not up on everything :). I've been working on a template accessibility project (see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Usability/Infobox accessibility), finished Kumamoto (in my very long running gappei project), created a "compressed" version of another template (see Wikipedia talk:Navigational templates#Compressed templates), finally converted Template:Infobox Country so it follows the rules I've suggested at Wikipedia:Geographical infoboxes, nominated Physicq210 for admin, and gotten involved in a weird situation at Raúl Juliá (see talk). Pretty much same old, same old.

I suspect the focus on the technical aspects of CI reflects my thought that if there's no way to efficiently implement it the UI doesn't matter. Specific responses:

  1. No comments on UI options? This surprises me a bit as well. I'm not sure folks understood there were multiple options being presented and feedback was being requested on which option to pursue.
  2. How to repopulate/recategorize? I don't know what the German folks are doing. Want to just ask somone?
  3. How does flickr do this? Could be a different database, could be they create an index every time anyone searches for a particular combination of tags, could be any number of things. I haven't looked for a technical article on how flickr works. They might respond to an email query as well. I think they pretty much must use an index per tag and use a DB intersection query. I can imagine a DB might be optimized for intersection queries, and I suspect it would be interesting to find out exactly what they do.
  4. What to do in the interim? Maybe pursue finding out what flickr does. I think unless you're willing to be doing some coding there's not much that can be done at the moment.

-Rick

Aladdin

Hello, I would just like to ask you a question about the deletion of Aladdin from the list of films considered to be the greatest. What kind of info are we looking for exactly. Were all of the other animated films on the list voted the best in polls. I assumed that since it held some records such as being highest grossing film of 1992 and the only animated film to produce a number-one music single would have been enough. There needs to be more discussion on this subject for sure.--Stardust6000 19:59, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Categorization duplication

I guess I'm blind today. I read Wikipedia:Categorization a few times and I seem to be missing the exception you are pointing me to. Could you be more specific? Sorry for the touble, but thanks. Vegaswikian 17:31, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

  • Yea, I can see where that can came from. However I find that section to be a bit unclear. After reading it, I would say that both positions could be correct. So whatever is there now is OK. Vegaswikian 18:06, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Navigation bar

Hi Sam, I don't know if you've noticed but I've been working on template:Navigation bar lately (seems to work at this point), which may provide an answer to a question you asked a long time ago about a "deeper" category index template. You were looking for a 2-level expandable version of template:Category TOC for really large categories that would show (for example) A B C D DA DB DC DD DE DF ... DX DY DZ E F G ... if "D" was the "currently selected" first character. What the navigation bar template does is allow you to create a template that displays a scollable line that's essentially as long as you'd like. This could be used to create a category index template (for a very large category) that would look sort of like:

Two level category index
  • A: aa ab ac ad ae af ag ah ai aj ak al am an ao ap aq ar as at au av aw ax ay az • B: ba bb bc bd be bf bg bh bi bj bk bl bm bn bo bp bq br bs bt bu bv bw bx by bz • C: ca cb cc cd ce cf cg ch ci cj ck cl cm cn co cp cq cr cs ct cu cv cw cx cy cz • D: da db dc dd de df dg dh di dj dk dl dm dn do dp dq dr ds dt du dv dw dx dy dz • E: ea eb ec ed ee ef eg eh ei ej ek el em en eo ep eq er es et eu ev ew ex ey ez • F: fa fb fc fd fe ff fg fh fi fj fk fl fm fn fo fp fq fr fs ft fu fv fw fx fy fz • G: ga gb gc gd ge gf gg gh gi gj gk gl gm gn go gp gq gr gs gt gu gv gw gx gy gz • H: ha hb hc hd he hf hg hh hi hj hk hl hm hn ho hp hq hr hs ht hu hv hw hx hy hz • I: ia ib ic id ie if ig ih ii ij ik il im in io ip iq ir is it iu iv iw ix iy iz • J: ja jb jc jd je jf jg jh ji jj jk jl jm jn jo jp jq jr js jt ju jv jw jx jy jz • K: ka kb kc kd ke kf kg kh ki kj kk kl km kn ko kp kq kr ks kt ku kv kw kx ky kz • L: la lb lc ld le lf lg lh li lj lk ll lm ln lo lp lq lr ls lt lu lv lw lx ly lz • M: ma mb mc md me mf mg mh mi mj mk ml mm mn mo mp mq mr ms mt mu mv mw mx my mz • N: na nb nc nd ne nf ng nh ni nj nk nl nm nn no np nq nr ns nt nu nv nw nx ny nz • O: oa ob oc od oe of og oh oi oj ok ol om on oo op oq or os ot ou ov ow ox oy oz • P: pa pb pc pd pe pf pg ph pi pj pk pl pm pn po pp pq pr ps pt pu pv pw px py pz • Q: qa qb qc qd qe qf qg qh qi qj qk ql qm qn qo qp qq qr qs qt qu qv qw qx qy qz • R: ra rb rc rd re rf rg rh ri rj rk rl rm rn ro rp rq rr rs rt ru rv rw rx ry rz • S: sa sb sc sd se sf sg sh si sj sk sl sm sn so sp sq sr ss st su sv sw sx sy sz • T: ta tb tc td te tf tg th ti tj tk tl tm tn to tp tq tr ts tt tu tv tw tx ty tz • U: ua ub uc ud ue uf ug uh ui uj uk ul um un uo up uq ur us ut uu uv uw ux uy uz • V: va vb vc vd ve vf vg vh vi vj vk vl vm vn vo vp vq vr vs vt vu vv vw vx vy vz • W: wa wb wc wd we wf wg wh wi wj wk wl wm wn wo wp wq wr ws wt wu wv ww wx wy wz • X: xa xb xc xd xe xf xg xh xi xj xk xl xm xn xo xp xq xr xs xt xu xv xw xx xy xz • Y: ya yb ec yd ye yf yg yh yi yj yk yl ym yn yo yp yq yr ys yt yu yv yw yx yy yz • Z: za zb zc zd ze zf zg zh zi zj zk zl zm zn zo zp zq zr zs zt zu zv zw zx zy zz

where all the lower case letters are links (as from Template:Category TOC). This isn't exactly what you were looking for, but might have the same sort of effect. -- Rick Block (talk) 03:57, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

template:LargeCategoryTOC is done. I've added it to Category:Living people. -- Rick Block (talk) 19:57, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Image copyright problem with Image:Wpdms usgs photo Bay Bridge.jpg

Thanks for uploading Image:Wpdms usgs photo Bay Bridge.jpg. However, the image may soon be deleted unless we can determine the copyright holder and copyright status. The Wikimedia Foundation is very careful about the images included in Wikipedia because of copyright law (see Wikipedia's Copyright policy).

The copyright holder is usually the creator, the creator's employer, or the last person who was transferred ownership rights. Copyright information on images is signified using copyright templates. The three basic license types on Wikipedia are open content, public domain, and fair use. Find the appropriate template in Wikipedia:Image copyright tags and place it on the image page like this: {{TemplateName}}. If you have not already done so, please also include the source of the image. In many cases this will be the website where you found it.

Please specify the copyright information and source on any other images you have uploaded or will upload. Remember that images without this important information can be deleted by an administrator. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me, or ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you. Conscious 14:31, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Fair use of film posters

I notice that you removed all the film posters that were used in Films considered the greatest ever. I am trying to find discussion or policy that precludes the use of the posters with the article.

Wikipedia:Fair use criteria #8.

The articles discuss the films, and there was only one per section. There is no way to illustrate a film other than to use a fair use image.

When mentioning that a film was considered a "greatest ever" there is no need to "illustrate" that point. Knowing what the film poster looks like tells me how the film was advertised, and may be of relevance on the article about the film, but is not of any relevance to why it was named a "greatest ever" (unless is was "greatest poster ever"...)

Film posters, by their nature, were designed to publicize films. Using low res versions of them seems, if anything, only a benefit to the copyright holders.

That may be, but we do not use copyrighted media because we won't get sued, but because we want to create free content (WP:5P), which is we are more restrictive than the law. What is Fair Use on Wikipedia, may not be on a separate project that uses Wikipedia as its content source.

If this has been discussed, and consensus has been reached, could you point me to the relevant discussion? -- Samuel Wantman 20:07, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

ed g2s • talk 20:12, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
All of these points seem like they are in a grey area. There may be no "need" more than most articles which have illustrations.
If the image is free, illustrate the article however you see fit.
The Citizen Kane poster had text saying "It's terrific". In my eyes this is clearly relevant to the article.
But it is not discussed, and if it was, you wouldn't need to illustrate, you could just say that that's what was written on the poster.
We do want to create free content, and we want the content to be illustrated.
But the former trumps the latter. We do not sacrifice our founding philosophy to prettify articles.
There is essentially no other way to illustrate this article than to use a poster image.
Then don't. It still serves its purpose as an encyclopaedic list of "greatest ever" films perfectly well. If I want to know more about a given film, I can click on the link.
Using fair use images in some articles is a black and white issue, but this one seems to be grey. I understand your points, and don't really want to continue this discussion with you about them until I have read the previous discussion directly relevant to film posters. If this hasn't been discussed, we should move our discussion to a larger forum. So is this just your opinion, or have there been discussions about this? -- Samuel Wantman 20:27, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
The discussion has come up numerous times before, you may bring it up again at WT:FU if you really want. ed g2s • talk 20:34, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Minor mop and bucket task

Greetings: Not being an admin I require some minor assistance of the mop and bucket kind (shotgun not required), a minor task which the system does not support for non-admins:

This will ensure that the history and talk are carried over. The need for this is that Road 400 leaves Cottonwood Canyon shortly after entry, with most of its path along the faults at the edge of the Sawtooth Range (Utah) and the easterly Grand Staircase.

Is admin status a pain? How is the community up there?

Thanks for your assistance, Leonard G. 23:48, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Voting on arbitration cases

Only arbitrators can vote on arbitration cases. Fred Bauder 22:02, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

The Greatest Films List

Sam, I'm not singling you out on this and, frankly, I'm about to wash my hands of the whole thing. It's supposed to be a list of the best films of all time. If one was to toss out the Top 25 IMDB or another list that goes beyond the *best* film, I wouldn't think much of it. What I do not understand is why a #2 should be listed. And I've asked this before. Forget the status quo. Why does a #2 film get listed on this page? How is that managable? Why not a #3, #4, etc? If a goal of Wikipedia is to have pages of a certain size, the criteria on a page like this has to be firm. By putting a harsh limit down, you accomplish that goal. Otherwise, I leave it to you and anyone else to make arbitrary judgements on silver, bronze, and tin films. Furthermore, no one has given you or I an indication that either of us is right. It's probably the case that no one cares. I suggest they will care once flakey entries arrive and have to be managed by subjective arguments that #4 isn't good enough. I hope you'll reconsider your position, Sam. --Happylobster 15:48, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

There's no consensus at all, only a management nightmare that will likely resurface and I have no interest dealing with. Have at it, Sam. --Happylobster 18:59, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

All star categories

I modified my vote. Let me know if the modification is sufficient. Thank you for clearing out categories. (Wikipedia seems to have an overabundance of categores.) George J. Bendo 00:01, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

If your category deletion nomination reaches no consensus, please renominate the categories. George J. Bendo 20:27, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Monty Hall problem

Hi Sam - Interesting update. I don't get a newspaper anymore (not since the Denver Post endorsed Bush in 2004, I think due to pressure from their publisher - the editor ran an op-ed basically endorsing Kerry) so wouldn't have noticed this. This very topic has come up on the talk page. -- Rick Block (talk) 05:15, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Advocacy

I think Wikipedia has plenty of advocates already and doesn't need me as an advocate per se. It's not about effectivity in the same role, it's about a different role. I think I would be an asset there, and I like the challenge. (likewise, particularly if you have a bot available for the decatting, you should definitely consider switching to closing CFDs). Yours, (Radiant) 12:54, 28 November 2006 (UTC)