User talk:Studerby

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It seemed like a good idea at the time


Contents

[edit] Welcome

Hello Studerby, and welcome to Wikipedia! Here are some recommended guidelines to help you get involved. Please feel free to contact me if you need help with anything. Best of luck and happy editing! Yanksox 15:40, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
Getting started
Getting your info out there
Getting more Wikipedia rules
Getting help
Getting along
Getting technical

[edit] Handbook of Texas

Sounds like a lot of work. Glad to see we have people active on the general area.

Well, I can do compulsive for a bit, then I get burned out for a bit; a good ways to go before that happens though. On the brighter side, it's putting a lot of articles on my watch list, so I see what changes other editors are making thse days and helps learn the Wikipedia style and culture. It's also getting me through a good cross-section of articles at the code level, so I'm learning a lot. --studerby 02:31, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Elijah E. Myers

Studerby: how is a good way to get in touch with you? My wife works with at the Michigan Capitol in the tour and information service. She currently is researching Elijah Myers in order to compile a more complete record of his accomplishments. She is looking for information from across the nation (and internationally, too) and wondered how to get in touch with you as you seem to have some information on Myers. My email (the "@" and "." will be spelled out so that I do not get a ton of spam) is davemarvin at s#c#l#b#l dot com. Plus, she can share some of her information with you if you have questions.

Thanks, David Marvin



Thanks for the follow-up, Stu. Kerry is my wife's boss, so contacting her would be sort of silly! Not sure why the email doesn't work for you.

-David Marvin

[edit] Abdul Taib Mahmud

No, the old index is correct. Mahmud is his father. I have reverted the article.– Matthew A. Lockhart (talk) 15:01, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Louie Gohmert

I looked at that, but I didn't think Vote-USA is a product of the Federal government. I could be wrong, but it doesn't look very official. In any case, you're right, it's pretty POV so I didn't spend much time on it. I copied the version without the bio section to the temp page just in case there's a problem with folks reverting to it over and over. In that case I'll just delete it and move the temp page to the main article. At least that way they can't just revert to it. Rx StrangeLove 03:31, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Copyrights/Indian wars

Ummm... what if Tess Wiley gave me permission to take that from her site? I have e-mails if you would like to see them, or you can e-mail her yourself. I did take Carin Gabberas, but the Arikara is from ME! The Hidatsa is from MY site...so how do I get it on there to stay? Do I give you my sites or Tess's site? Thanks. Well, alos I contributed to the Indian wars about weapons. It was all my own words and I worked hard on it...so did you delete it? I am just upset because I copied stuff with Tess's approval and now it is all gone. So is my hard worked hidatsa page and my arikara page (don't know how you thought that was copied) anyway I guess I have just wasted my time here. user:Shy1520 August 6, 5:04

Well, we can maybe work some of this out, I hope...
  1. Tess Wiley's permission (probably) needs to be to the public at large, it certainly needs to be verifiable by Wikipedians. I'm doubtful that forwarding an email will work. I'll see if I can find anything in the Wikipedia policies that will help, but I'm pretty doubtful (but I certainly don't know everything about Wikipedia). Also, please keep in mind, copyright covers expression, the particular arrangement of words, but does not cover facts or ideas. If you rewrite the facts about Tess Wiley in your own words, using her site as a reference, that should produce an acceptable Wikipedia article.
  2. The WP:CP page explains what to do for your own work. Look for the section starting Copyright owners who submitted their own work to Wikipedia:. While that process may seem burdensome, the problem is that a lot of people think it's OK to copy anything they find on the net and so anything on the net that matches content in Wikipedia is pretty much assumed to by a copyright violation, unless the original source on the net clearly allows public copying, either by saying so, or by being within one of a limited number of exceptions. In this particluar case, since I've found so much copying by you from sources that just can't all be your own work, I think I have to be "by the book", so we need to get the other site that displays your work to say that it is copyable (again, please see WP:CP). However, if we can't work out a way that I think lets wikipedians verify that the copied work is allowable in Wikipedia and you think I'm in error, then there are some senior editors and an arbitration commitee we can ask to step in and referee. I certainly don't want you to think that my decisions are final, I'm a relatively new editor here too (although I've been dealing with copyright issues in other arenas for over 20 years), and I'm still learning some of the Wikipedia processes.
Again, I'm sorry to be reverting so much of your hard work, I know you care about your content. --studerby 22:09, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
In response to why I thought the Arikara material was probably copied
  • first so many of your other significant contributions were word-for-word matches to content on other web sites on the Internet, which just could not all be authored by the same person.
  • second, this webpage has word-for-word matches to what you contributed to Wikipedia. Now you could have written both, or that page could have copied from Wikipedia (which is allowable for them to do but only if they properly follow WP:GFDL and which requires that notify everybody where they got the words), or you could have copied from that site. I can't tell which, and neither can any other editor, but it looks like a copyright infringement to me (at the moment). Please note that, I put my reasons for reverting that content in the talk page for Arikara, at Talk:Arikara. --studerby 22:29, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, I readily admit to the Carin Gabarra, but I think you have the wrong site, because I took it from her Navy site. Tess Wiley's was a favor just to get her name out there. Hidatsa is a tribe I have worked closely with in real life, so I do own that. So let's say I just want to take it out of my own page....could I just put a copyright saying it is from my page or should I just right at the bottom of my website explaining how the content can be re-written? Thanks User: Shy1520

The best thing, as the WP:CP article suggests, is to get your website to say that the material may be copyied in a way that is compatbile with the WP:GFDL, so that Wikipedia can let other people copy it. There are several different ways that can be done, 3 possible variations among many are:
* donation to the public domain - gives up all rights to your words and no one has to give you credit (although good people will)
* a Wiki-compatible licensing statement allowing free copying under certain situations like - lets people copy your words in any Wiki-like thing, not just Wikipedia
* a licensing statment just for Wikipedia
You can do one of the first two easily by putting a Creative Commons licensing statement on your web page, either the Public Domain or Wiki license. See this websites:
* Creative Commons licenses
* Creative Commons FAQ
The license page for the license you pick will have some HTML you can cut and paste into your web page to mark it as comething that can be copied into Wikipedia. You can also write your own licensing lanuage, and we can see if it's compatible with WP:GFDL. Please understand that there's not a requirement that you use the Creative Commons thing, I'm just pointing to it because it seems simple to me. It might not be exactly what you want to do, and other ways can be made to work. --studerby 23:52, 6 August 2006 (UTC)


In response to the why I reverted your edits in the Indian wars article, in summary, I thought it violated some Wikipedia policies and decreased the quality of the article. It is clear to me that those were your own words, and there is no question of a copyright problem in those edits. In more detail:
* the edits violate the Wikipedia policy WP:NPOV - the edits appear to contain your own opinions and judgments
* it contains assertions of fact that are not supported and violates the policy WP:VERIFY. In practice, with relatively young and immature articles, a lot of editors don't worry so much about that when the asserted facts also seem believable because they expect the citations to be added later, they'll ignore it for the time being or add an annotation that says a citiation is needed. However in this case, there was an asserted fact, the time it takes to load a rifle, that is contradicted by both reliable public references and my own experience (which doesn't matter to Wikipedia, but made me notice it). The historian Fred Anderson, in his book The Crucible of War, writes of exceptionally well-trained troops in the 1750s being able to fire their muzzle-loading rifles at a rate of 3 times per minute. Breech-loading rifles were invented 30 years later and became common 60 years later, by the time of the later Indian Wars; they were even faster to reload.
* finally, it was poorly written, in my opinion. For example, I don't understand this sentence at all: But if it were a bow and arrow many could be sent, regardless of aim, and when someone got hit, everyone could flee. Generally, when I see something that was poorly written (in my opinion), I try to rewrite it; however in this case, with all the other issues, I thought reversion was the best course of action.
Please realize, when someone reverts an edit, the material isn't totally deleted. Wikipedia (normally) keeps a history of all changes. You can still see your words by clicking this link (or by clicking on the history link of any page and picking 2 versions to compare). You can certainly attempt to rewrite your submission in accordance with Wikipedia policy; I'm all for anything that makes Wikipedia better. --studerby 23:52, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Reorg of the elephant article

Good work reorganizing the elephant article. One of the more nuanced criticisms I've read recently of Wikipedia is that editors often will approach sections one by one, without paying attention to the structure of the article as a whole; it's good to see editors with the flow and order of the entire articles in mind. Cheers, JDoorjam Talk 19:56, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Welcome!

Welcome!

Hi, and welcome to the Biography WikiProject! As you may have guessed, we're a group of editors working to improve Wikipedia's coverage of biographies.

A few features that you might find helpful:

There are a variety of interesting things to do within the project; you're free to participate however much—or little—you like:

  • Starting some new articles? Our article structure tips outlines some things to include.
  • Want to know how good our articles are? The assessment department is working on rating the quality of every biography article in Wikipedia.

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask another fellow member, and we'll be happy to help you. Again, welcome! We look forward to seeing you around! plange 01:01, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] WikiCookie

for your behind-the-scenes tagging of articles with the WPBiography project banner, thanks! plange 06:19, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
for your behind-the-scenes tagging of articles with the WPBiography project banner, thanks! plange 06:19, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks

Thanks for removing the vandalism from my user page. Scarletspeed7 23:54, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Thank you for Pavel Dybenko

Thank you for Pavel Dybenko.

Now, your CONTENT remarks will be appreciated

AbuAmir 12:20, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Walt Disney

Hi, Studerby. Could I ask why you reverted Smackbot's changes to Walt Disney? Thanks! Powers T 15:03, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

ISBN formatting is fairly minor; whether Smackbot formats them again is dependent on how it's programmed. I may do it myself, shouldn't be hard. Powers T 15:16, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
Actually, the IP whose edits you were trying to revert reverted itself, so that's why it's showing that the page has the correct content. So all I had to do was revert to Smackbot's version. Powers T 15:29, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
Oooh, good catch. I was dumb for assuming who you were trying to revert. =) It's all fixed now. Powers T 15:37, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Name

Hello Studerby. I see you removed a link to a name generator as spam on Name. I genuinely think it could be of use to users of that page and is not intended to be spam. I've therefore replaced the link but if you still feel it is inappropriate feel free to remove it and I won't add it again. Thanks 125.203.198.83 01:12, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Your edits to the articles in the "Pederasts" category

May I ask why you decided to purge that category of those various articles? Haiduc 02:06, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Some of those cats were obsolete, in that the articles had changed yet no one got around to removing the cat. Others are appropriate. I'll restore what makes sense. Regards, Haiduc 04:23, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Republic of China (Taiwan)

I appreciated your intervention in the debate on the "Middle Kingdom" very much. I wonder if you could have a look at our discussion whether the name Republic of China (Taiwan) can be used at all in the heading of the article on China. Some participants seem to argue that only the name used in the constitution of the ROC can be used in the heading of article and that any reference to the ROC (Taiwan) - which is the name the government of Taiwan currently uses - constitutes POV and should be deleted. Several edits and counteredits have taken place already. I find the deletions of ROC (Taiwan) pedantic and stumblingly close to sanctioning the offical policy of the People's Republic of China. I think that it is wiser to have an inclusive approach and include both ROC and ROC (Taiwan) in the first paragraph, with an explanation if necessary. I want to call your attention to the fact that a compromise proposal has been withdrawn by one of the participants in the discussion, which is curious. --Niohe 02:39, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Biography Newsletter September 2006

The September 2006 issue of the Biography WikiProject newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you. plange 00:03, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mary Cassatt

Hello, I was wondering why a link i added to the Mary Cassatt article was removed. It was a link to a very thorough biography on the artist. I have gone ahead and put it back up. the link for Mary Cassatt at WebMuseum is still up and that essay is no where near as thorough as the link i found. So i guess my general question is how come you removed a very useful link, yet did not edit a poor one? I appreciate your and Wikipedia's efforts to maintain a scholarly project and was just trying to help. let me know if the main article is the right place for the link or somewhere else as i feel that it is immensly helpful. thank you.Tylercos 00:04, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] External links

Please see my discussion on the talk page for Albert Bierstadt (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Albert_Bierstadt). There seem to be continual battles regarding external links. Of the three on the Bierstadt article, I feel only mine can be justified as enhancing the article. I feel links to commercial art galleries are inappropriate. I feel links to single museums are inappropriate. I would like to have a real discussion of this, so I chose the Bierstandt article. Please add comments there and give your feedback. Thanks. JJ 13:56, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

I am still looking for a discussion on this topic. JJ 14:02, 28 December 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Helping out with the Unassessed Wikipedia Biographies

Seeing that you are an active member of the WikiBiography Project, I was wondering if you would help lend a hand in helping us clear out the amount of [unassessed articles] tagged with {{WPBiography}}. Many of them are of stub and start class, but a few are of B or A caliber. Getting a simple assessment rating can help us start moving many of these biographies to a higher quality article. Thank you! --Ozgod 22:49, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikiproject Biography March 2007 Newsletter

The March 2007 issue of the Biography WikiProject newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you. Mocko13 22:08, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The WikiProject Biography Newsletter: Issue II - April 2007

The April 2007 issue of the WikiProject Biography newsletter has been published.You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. BetacommandBot 20:24, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Entirely gratuitous nit-picking ;-)

When doing vandal patrol, don't forget to actually look at what you are reverting back to. While rude, the IP was actually commenting on some bad edit that I had missed several days ago. Oh well, at least I got to see one of my reverts that didn't work, which I'd not seen before (apparently the revert skipped a revision). Shenme 01:03, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Talk Alpha Phi Omega

Believe it or not the comment that you reverted on the Alpha Phi Omega's talk page was useful. I managed to track down the IP address (At the University of Maryland) that the comment came from and gave the information to the Alpha Phi Omega sectional staff in question (Section 85: DC, Southern Maryland and the Maryland Eastern Shore). I'm a staffer in the area, but at the National level.Naraht 13:18, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Y'all speak southron too?

Jus like I was suspectin', yer from the south as well ma friend. I jus happened to glance by yer userbox, and it indicated as such.

I must as; though, sir, why are ya deletin' ma stuff? am tryin' to do a charitable effort here, and yer pourin' water on ma dynamite. How's that right? May be... we just do see eye to eye... If ya see it ma way, ya might be reconsiderin' yer actions. am wadin' off vandalism, therefore, I must be doin' somethin' decent, why y'all revertin' somethin' good? yours, ClaimJumperPete 23:13, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Some user nearly blanked the page

Look at Gang's history. It this considered vandalism?? Agtaz 00:36, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Nevermind, I get it now. Agtaz 00:53, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] I don't understand why y'all are gangin' up on me

I can't believe how many darn individuals like yourself have considered my edits vandalism like y'all are callin' it. I ain't makin' sense to me. I thought I'd be deterin' vandalizm for ya and thus makin' yer job easier, I guess I was mistaken badly. I suppose that y'all only see things on one side, y'all don't see the whole picture, 'cause if ya did, y'all would understand it like dis:

"O-rite, this guy's sayin' 'Give yer proper respect to this page', hmmm, maybe he's usin' an eloquent southern accent with humor to deter vandalism here, lets keep his edits and allow him to improve like articles like he would"

Ah well, it's just another matter of timin' 'till am banner fer sure. Y'all don't see it the way I do. Keep yer self-servin' opinions and ban me fer improvin' an encyclopedia like I do. It's not like it ain't been done before. Just look at the user: user:Jimbo Wales, someone did the same exact thing, they used a hidden html comment to deter vandalizm. I was thinkin', "ya know, am not the sharpest knife it the drawer, why not just do the same thing on other articles, and have fun while helpin' people at the same time." Any case, y'all are gonna ban me fer bein' different, and I guess yer admins and your opinion is thus more important, I guess there's nothin' I can do, I can't conform so maybe I ought to leave. ClaimJumperPete 20:28, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Dismissal of U.S. attorneys

Any chance I can persuade you to create a succinct, footnoted, additional introductory paragraph or two out of your well-stated critique? -- Yellowdesk 22:50, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

I considered suggesting some language, but decided against. I actually have very very strong feelings about the topic and have a hard time with NPOV. The very few content edits I've made around the topic take me far too long and have been limited to "new facts" types of things. I'm pretty short of free time for the near future and am unwilling to get sucked in to regular editing right now. Sorry. Studerby 00:36, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
OK. I completely understand. -- Yellowdesk 03:42, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Further news,

  • There's a draft outline on rewriting the "administration planning" section. in the article, which will probably will evolve into more thematic section writing, now that a number of sections were split out into separate articles. Thoughful additions desired to the sketchy and draft outline that prose will be written from.
    In progress at Dismissal_of_U.S._attorneys_controversy/sandbox. See also: Talk:Dismissal_of_U.S._attorneys_controversy#New_section_underway_in_sandbox.
-- Yellowdesk 00:54, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Just a little something for all your contributions!

Teddey has smiled at you! Smiles promote WikiLove and hopefully this one has made your day better. Spread the WikiLove by smiling at someone else, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past or a good friend. Happy editing!
Smile at others by adding {{subst:Smile}} to their talk page with a friendly message.

--Teddey 23:54, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Just a little something for all your contributions!

Teddey has smiled at you! Smiles promote WikiLove and hopefully this one has made your day better. Spread the WikiLove by smiling at someone else, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past or a good friend. Happy editing!
Smile at others by adding {{subst:Smile}} to their talk page with a friendly message.

--Teddey 23:56, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "Alleged" crimes once perpetrator is convicted, what is the official policy

Thank you for your extensive and thoughtful comments on this subject over at Wikipedia:Editor assistance/Requests. They were very helpful. --CliffC 01:41, 2 June 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Thank you

Hello Studerby. This is just a note to say thank you for resolving (I hope) the edit conflict on the William-Adolphe Bouguereau page. I was actually in the middle of writing a comment on the talk page to go with a posting on the Requests for Comment page to begin the process of resolving the conflict when I took a quick look at my checklist and found that you had both posted a comment and come up with a solution. You saved me a good deal of time though it was worth learning how these sections of wikipedia work and I apologize for not going to them sooner. I also wish to add that your solution was a most elegant one and I want you to know that the time and effort that you took is very much appreciated. Cheers and continued happy editing. MarnetteD | Talk 22:58, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] whoa

I missed all that garbage on Brigham Young when I was reverting some other nonsense - glad you caught it! Tvoz |talk 14:35, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Waite Phillips revert

Thanks for looking over my changes to Waite Phillips; I understand why it got reverted now. I'll look for some print information to use so I can expand the stub the right way.Pnswmr 16:14, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Your recent edit to Leni Riefenstahl (diff) was reverted by an automated bot that attempts to recognize and repair vandalism to Wikipedia articles. If the bot reverted a legitimate edit, please accept my humble creator's apologies – if you bring it to the attention of the bot's owner, we may be able to improve its behavior. Click here for frequently asked questions about the bot and this warning. // MartinBot 23:44, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Blues musician articles

Howdy! I just wanted to send you a quick thank-you for your assistance in dealing with the YouTube links issue. Peace & plenty. --buck 02:50, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Cole Carpenter

I removed the deletion tag, as I think the article implies a niche role he fulfilled, which would make it pass WP:PORNBIO. However, it's not clear, so I suggest the best step forward would be AfD. What do you think? --Dweller 14:45, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Category sorting

Firstly, let me applaud your efforts in categorising biographical articles. One quick point, though: please read Wikipedia:Categorization of people#Ordering names in a category. It's not obvious, but names with apostrophes and non-iniital capital letters actually have to be mis-spelt to have them sort correctly in categories. Thus, "Denis O'Hare" should be sorted as "Ohare, Denis", not "O'Hare, Denis", and so on, because apostrophes and capitals come before the other letters in ASCII order. --Stemonitis 15:57, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the reference. I was seeing some inconsistencies and just knew there had to be a standard somewhere, but couldn't find it. I think my biases as a computer geek led me to the wrong choice - I'm very used to seeing ASCII sort order instead of the more "human" ordering that Wikipedia has rightly chosen.. Studerby 16:34, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
On the same subject, Ethiopian names typically consist of a given name followed by the father's given name. For example, with Hailu Shawul, "Shawul" is his father's name, not a surname, and so would correctly be sorted by "Hailu". See also WP:ETHM. Thanks, -- Gyrofrog (talk) 19:33, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
No problem, just an FYI after I happened to see the edit on my watchlist. If I'm not mistaken, it's the same with Arabic names (e.g. "Anwar Sadat" file under "A"), but in that case we're possibly talking about hundreds or thousands of entries. Yipes! -- Gyrofrog (talk) 20:40, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Edward McSweegan

Not a problem--the minute I saw that he generated 945 hits on Yahoo, I figured this article could be salvaged. Maybe you could lend a hand as well ... Blueboy96 17:56, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

McSweegan had detailed, in one of those edits where he line by line replied, that the nature ofthe writing defined it as a work subsequently used by the .gov. I believe is was an exception based on being voluntary and autobiographical. I erred on the side of caution, given that this is a BLP issue. You're welcoem to cite the case-law and restore it, but given the nature of the situation, I'd use only outside sources, as we've seen how McSweegan's already reacted to his article. ThuranX 04:18, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] July 2007

Be careful not to blank comments on talk pages, as you did here. Thank you. ~ Wikihermit 18:29, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Huh. I am careful not to do that, and am appalled that that happened. I'm assuming I somehow ended up editing an older revision and didn't notice the usual warnings about that. It certainly wasn't intentional. Studerby 13:13, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Claims of inappropriateness.

My comment on Yolanda Salidvar was not inappropriate. It was an opinion ("seems to be written...") posted on a discussion page which in actuality, isn't far from the truth. If you went beyond your own emotional interpretation, you would have seen how true I was. And yes, it had an ethnic reference, but, was I wrong? garzj019 20070726PST184301

[edit] Re:"Possibly living people" category

I have read your comments on this and I understand them. The one thing that bothers me is that we are assuming that people who were born beyond 1884 are still alive. I will use the living people category more on the biographies I do despite the fact that the probability that the person who may be born between 1884 and 1925 may be in all liklehood dead when you consider the average life span of most people these days. Chris 13:00, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Patrick Syring

Hey, thanks for all of your help with the Patrick Syring article. Can this info be included in the article?

http://www.nd.edu/~ndmag/w0304/letters.html

Another editor said that this is original research, but I'm not sure if a google search can be considered research. Popkultur 23:50, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] peer sorting

If you do not already know about it, you might want to be make use of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography--all college and university libraries should have access, either print or electronic. All people with an individual article there are considered unquestionably notable, and there's always enough information for a good WP article.DGG (talk) 22:35, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Ramón Peña

I saw the edit and edit summary you left when removing the accent marks on Ramón Peña's category sort. I believe you, but may I ask where it says that accent marks shouldn't be included in the {{DEFAULTSORT:}}? Just out of curiosity, as I have made a couple other edits involving this, and I want to be able to revert them, but I just want to know where it says that. Ksy92003(talk) 19:31, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Argh... Wikipedia bugs are frustrating. Well that makes as much sense as anything else in this crazy universe :) Thanks for clearing that up for me; I will begin removing those accent marks when I see them. Ksy92003(talk) 19:42, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Scrolling TOC

Perfect. Thanks. I looked for it before asking for help but could not find it. Inexperienced user.
vapmachado talk.cw 22:02, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Category sorting

Thanks for helping me understand how category sorting works. Cheers! Sebisthlm 20:15, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your input on my updates to some sort keys. I'm not sure that I agree with you on the letters Å, Ä and Ö, which are parts of the Swedish and Finnish alphabet, as well as the Danish and Norwegian alphabet (although the appearance of Ä and Ö are slightly different there).

In these alphabets those letters are individual letters. They are not considered accented variants of other letters - though that may have been their origin - and words, names, etc, are sorted accordingly: i.e. they appear after Z, in the order mentioned above.

The same thing goes - I think - for the German/Austrian alphabet.

As a contrast, É and È are considered accented characters, and would be sorted as if they were "ordinary" Es.

It seems logical to me that if you take the trouble of storing Swedish/Danish etc articles under their correct representation in the English Wikipedia, they should also be sorted correctly. I mean, if you write an Ö, there's no logic in expecting it to appear together with O, alphabetically.

Are you sure there is a consensus about this?

LarRan 08:28, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Category sorting ÆØÅ are letters that come after z in the alphabet

The letter Ø (and Æ and Å) are not accented letters and ligatures (Æ is in som languages but not in Scandinavia where Sønsteby is from). They are separate letters. Wikipedia script sorts them after z because that is correct. Making provisions for those who are less informed and think Ø is an O with a / will only confuse things for those who know the facts. Gunnar Sønsteby should be after Maria Szyszkowska. I hope you will take this into consideration in your further work. Inge 08:29, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Couldn't agree more. LarRan 11:17, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
I see no mention of the relevant case in the policy you have pointed to. I assume you refer to this: "Punctuation, such as apostrophes and colons (but not hyphens) should be removed, and accented letters and ligatures should be replaced by their unaccented or separated counterparts." I again point you to the articles Ø, Å and Æ where it is explained that these are not ligatures or accented letters but separate letters in their own right. The frequent use of OE, AE and AA as replacements of ØÆÅ in English has been done as a less than desired solution to these letters being missing from a standard English keyboard/typewriter. With the advent of apropriate codes the letters can be typed from any keyboard so this "solution" is no longer warranted.
Even though this encyclopedia is written in English it is an international encyclopedia. Your reference to Scandinavian as "foreign" is in that respect inapropriate. Accomodations for situations that differ from those found in England must be made.
The main point: These are separate letters, not variants or ligatures. In order for them to be collated correctly in any language they should be recogniced as such. If you want to change wikipedia policy to exclude these letters then you should raise this discussin at the apropriate page. Inge 14:16, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Sorting

Thanks for the tips on sorting. I've already run into several non-standard names (read that as 'firstname lastname'), and have avoided the whole mess. I've seen several examples of 'not everyone does the same thing' and have no wish to fall in there just yet. I found the Naming page several days ago and it was as clear as mud on foreign names - which leaves me fumbling around with apostrophes! I think I'll stick to finding the sortings that are screamingly wrong - like the one where someone had copied a totally different article's sorting line then forgot to change the name. =) (The problem with the apostrophes is that I do not consider them to be non-English, I guess. I see too many names like O'Brien. =) Elanna-Rose 17:42, 17 September 2007 (UTC) (PS - My screen width is 800 x 600, so your 'to be is to do' box covers your 'Vandalism information' box. Pity, I was curious what vandalism you were referring to.}

[edit] Old bad Smackbot DEFAULTSORT edits

Thanks Studerby. Looks at first sight like they are articles where there was a space before the | - I should be able to fix this when I get home later today or tomorrow. Rich Farmbrough, 09:11 20 September 2007 (GMT).
I've found a few others. Scan not complete yet, but easy enough to fix them all -may need another scan next dump. Rich Farmbrough, 18:12 20 September 2007 (GMT).

[edit] Cheers

Thanks for that... though I already know not to add user pages into the main namespace categories. It was a mistake - thanks for correcting it! - Ta bu shi da yu 12:58, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] So how did you find out about this?

I found an interesting edit on one of the pages and I decided to check the background of all the users. Apparently ClaimJumperPete dates back for months. With all of his "buddies" just popping out of the blue, in very short succession of another. Per your comment on "Jack's" page, how did you stumble upon this ressurected barrage? HowIronic 23:26, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WikiProject Biography Newsletter 5

The Biography WikiProject Newsletter
Volume IV, no. 4 - September 2007
Project News
  • The three-month long Summer Assessment Drive, organized by Psychless, was a huge success! It ran from June 1 – September 1, and reduced the backlog of unassessed articles from 113,385 to 56,237. In all, over 100,000 articles were assessed. Over 60 people contributed in some way.
  • A barnstar has been created for exceptional work on Wikipedia biographies and for assisting the project. The Biography Barnstar is listed with the other WikiProject awards and can be awarded easily with a template. See the template page for more details.
Member News

Image:LinkFA-star.png Congratulations to the editors who worked on the newest featured biographies: Augustus; William Shakespeare; Adriaen van der Donck; Alfred Russel Wallace; Alison Krauss; Anne Frank; Anne of Denmark; Asser; Bart King; Bill O'Reilly; Bobby Robson; Bradley Joseph; CM Punk; Ceawlin of Wessex; Colley Cibber; Cædwalla of Wessex; Dominik Hašek; Elizabeth Needham; Frank Macfarlane Burnet; Georg Cantor; Gregory of Nazianzus; Gunnhild Mother of Kings; Gwen Stefani; Hannah Primrose, Countess of Rosebery; Harriet Arbuthnot; Harry S. Truman; Henry, Bishop of Uppsala; Héctor Lavoe; Ine of Wessex; Ion Heliade Rădulescu; Jack Sheppard; Jackie Chan; Jay Chou; John Martin Scripps; John Mayer; Joseph Francis Shea; Joshua A. Norton; Kate Bush; Kazi Nazrul Islam; Kevin Pietersen; Martin Brodeur; Mary Martha Sherwood; Mary of Teck; Maximus the Confessor; Miranda Otto; Muhammad Ali Jinnah; P. K. van der Byl; Penda of Mercia; Pham Ngoc Thao; Rabindranath Tagore; Ramón Emeterio Betances; Red Barn Murder; Richard Hakluyt; Richard Hawes; Robert Garran; Roman Vishniac; Ronald Niel Stuart; Ronald Reagan; Roy Welensky; Rudolph Cartier; Samuel Adams; Samuel Beckett; Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough; Sarah Trimmer; Sargon of Akkad; Shen Kuo; Sophie Blanchard; Stereolab; Sydney Newman; Sylvanus Morley; Tim Duncan; Timeline of Mary Wollstonecraft; Uncle Tupelo; Waisale Serevi; Wallis, Duchess of Windsor; Walter Model; William Bruce; William Goebel; Yagan; Zhou Tong; Æthelbald of Mercia; Æthelbald of Mercia

New Members

Congratulations to our 225 new members
From the Editors

The newsletter is back! Many things have gone on during the past few months, but many things have not. While the assessment drive helped revitalize the assessment department of the project, many other departments have received no attention. Most notably: peer review and our "workgroups". A day long IRC meeting has been planned for October 13th, with the major focus being which areas of the project are "dead", what should our goals be as a project, and how to "revive" the dead areas of our project. Contribute to the discussion on the the new channel (see below)

We decided to deliver this newsletter to all project members this month but only those with their names down here will get it delivered in the future.

This is your newsletter and you can be involved in the creation of the next issue. Any and all contributions are welcome. Simply let yourself be known to any of the undersigned or post news on the next issue's talk page

New irc channel

Lastly, a new WikiProject Biography channel has been set up on the freenode network:

#wikipedia-en-bio

Our thanks to Phoenix 15 for setting it up.

Contributors to this Issue
Complete To Do List

Assessment Progress
We couldn't do it without you!

To receive this newsletter in the future, please list yourself in the appropriate section here. This newsletter was delivered by the automated R Delivery Bot 16:02, 7 October 2007 (UTC) .

[edit] Holcomb article cleaned up

I updated the Steven Holcomb article if you wish to look. Chris 14:39, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Peter André

If you have some time, would you please read over Peter André and make any necessary changes. Some recent edits may not be accurate. Thanks. -- Jreferee t/c 15:25, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] No Free Nickname

Thanks for leaving him a note. I was going to do so. I've left a follow-up pleading with him to clean up his own mess. --Orange Mike 20:54, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Jim e sims

Another editor has added the "{{prod}}" template to the article Jim e sims, suggesting that it be deleted according to the proposed deletion process. All contributions are appreciated, but the editor doesn't believe it satisfies Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion, and has explained why in the article (see also Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not and Wikipedia:Notability). Please either work to improve the article if the topic is worthy of inclusion in Wikipedia or discuss the relevant issues at its talk page. If you remove the {{prod}} template, the article will not be deleted, but note that it may still be sent to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion, where it may be deleted if consensus to delete is reached. BJBot (talk) 16:59, 31 January 2008 (UTC)