User talk:Mahanga/archive1

Question from a new user

I'm a relatively new user and I've come across several time where I have to add a reference to some information. I add it at the end of the sentence. However, I'm not sure where or whether it matters or not. Is it like #1 or #2?

1. Link is inside the period [1].

2. Link is outside the period. [2].

This must seem like a pretty trivial question, but it just bugs me. Appreciate any help. --Gflores 03:45, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

Its better to include the citation inside the sentence. It just like writing an essay and saying: I am a boy (Smith, 78). Its better to included it at the end of the sentence to indicate that that particular point comes from this particular source.If it's included after the fullstop, readers might think that the source is for that new sentence, and not the preceeding one. Wikipedia:Cite Sources should fully expand on what I'm saying. Hope that helps. Good luck. Oran e (t) (c) (@) 16:26, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

That little program

Thanks! It helps, though I wish I could figure out how to edit he source so the AMG link would be All Music Guide instead of AMG. Still, it's been a help.--Weebot 22:46, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

I'm glad it's been useful to someone. :) I did it in about 15 min, so it is very basic. I see your point about the AMG thing. I will change that, however, I'm not sure it should be italicized. I could be wrong, but I thought that was only for magazines and such, like Rolling Stone magazine, for example. I will make a quick update to change this and a few other minor things. I'm also working on another program that will hopefully be quicker, although it's very difficult since many of the old albums vary in their implementation, with some missing several fields. I hope to finish this week with the wish of it working with the majority of the albums. If you have any suggestions or comments whatsoever, leave me a note. :) --Gflores 01:14, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

Asking for a favour

Hi Gflores, I am having some trouble with loading an album's cover image, and I don't know if it's something to do with page rendering on my end or if there's something going on at wikipedia's end. I was wondering if you could visit the page where I placed it, and tell me if you can see it? Here's the page: Neighbourhood Threat. Thank you.

ps. I have some bad news about the infobox conversion project--in an hour or so I'm updating the list with everything I've found over the last few days and there's a lot there. Sorry! But I will help you work through it. Meanwhile, here is a flower for you for all the great work you've done so far :) --Qirex 10:33, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

After about a minute of loading, the picture showed up. Same thing was happening to me last night.

Secondly... why must you torture me like this!? ;) Oh well, it was inevitable. I'll try and get that list reduced... again. Oh, and thanks for the flower. :) Gflores 16:29, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Thank you very much for that, I get concerned that there is something more ominous in the air when funny things like that happen. I apologise for torturing you with this seemingly endless well of albums; honestly, it seems a bit ridiculous at times just how much is out there! Just make sure you don't spend too much time on this project, or else you might exhaust yourself, if such a thing is possible teehee --Qirex 03:36, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Do you know when the new infobox template took place? Was it this year? Anyway, I created a program which helps make the conversion faster, which is how I managed to get about 50 or so albums done in about an hour or so. So, I really don't mind doing it. I'll get back to doing this when I get done with all my school work. Can I ask one favor? Can you do the three soundtrack albums when you have time? If not, no problem. :) --Gflores 18:11, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't know when the infobox template came in. I've been around since April or so, but only been a frequent user since... um early September or so. Sure, I can do those soundtracks, no problem. --Qirex 03:10, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Infobox Conversion

On albums the years of the albums release is supposed to have a link. I see that you removed a large chunk of albums form the page and they do not have wiki-linked years. Jobe6 03:22, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

I did? Which albums are you talking about? You're talking about the album's release date and not the prev/next albums years, right? I usually tend to copy and paste what the old infobox has and sometimes I don't notice if the year is wiki'd or not. Generally, they're wiki'd and when doing it manually, I usually make sure it's wikified. Again, could you tell me which albums are not wikilinked and I'll fix them. Gflores ^Talk 04:08, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Reply where ever you want to, personally i reply on their persons talk page as i did herer, but your program does not wikify the years for next and previous albums, which are usually wikified in according to WP:ALBUM. Jobe6 04:27, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

My bad but WUTTTT!?!!?! when did they change this? Jobe6 04:36, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

There's no need for "low added-value items [that] are linked without reason, e.g., 1995, 1980s and 20th century. This also applies to tables, considered by themselves." (see MoS: Internal Links) - Liontamer 00:08, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for doing sooo many infobox conversions (I looked at your program last night and it seems interesting, I just haven't done too many boxes since then). You made that one mistake and apologized, and I just wanted to come here and say thanks for the good work. If I pointed out your mistake I can surely point out all you've done. :) gren グレン 10:30, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Thanks as well. I like seeing the project look more and more complete. I was hoping to get your third opinion on this debate I was having since you do many inbox conversions. Thanks if you have time. - Liontamer 00:08, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Noticed your edit -- is there a formatting quick-reference?

I noticed your minor edit of my one-and-only original authored section. Legends_of_Motorsport.

If you go to my talk page, you will see I created myself a sort of Wikipedia quick-reference guide based on other documentation, but abridged.

If such an article already exists as part of the standard docs, then please point me to it. If not, I think the creation of such an article should be considered. I have not edited mine rigorously yet, simply leaving things I could use myself, and removing "fluff". It basically allows me to use the "do something by finding a previous example" principle/practice. SportWagon 21:34, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Hi SportWagon, I don't know of any quick-reference guide to Wikipedia, which is surprising since WP seems to have just about everything. I agree such a guide would be helpful. Another helpful tip is using bold and italics. There are several common things to avoid, including linking to a disambiguaton page and excessive linking. The Manual of Style should generally be followed. If you have some more questions, let me or any of these administrators know. I'll try and talk to some people about the creation of an abridged guide. Gflores ^Talk 22:42, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

No need for a quick-reference for bold and italics since they are in the tool bar above the edit box. Arranging for more stuff to be in the tool bar might be an alternative to some other quick-reference items, too, but it could be difficult to do, or awkward to use, for indentation and lists, etc. True I included a bit on signatures and that is in the toolbar. So maybe it wouldn't be in a permanent quick reference. Or it and some other things (maybe including bold and italics) could be simply mentioned as being on the tool bar. In fact, what I'm looking for is sort of a "tool bar supplement".

--SportWagon 23:28, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Hmm. Based on your more recent edits, it looks like excessive linking a pet peeve of yours? It seems to me that linking only the initial use of a particular word/term/subject puts the onus on the reader, if they notice the term later in the article, to search for a previously-linked reference, which reference might not even exist. Either that, or they need to speculatively try the word by URL bashing, which can be awkward with multi-word terms, especially if capital letters are involved. What is the counter-argument to this reasoning? I find it difficult to believe that there are not at least some established Wikipedians who believe that in a hypertext Document each and every possible instance of a link should be made (which, of course, however, I didn't do either...).

After going away to read the current definition of "excessive linking", I find it's not readily findable from the Manual of Style [note I did not link that one!]. The Google search finds only usages which assume the definition. I'll start more discussion about other detailed points at Legends of Motorsport (discussion).--SportWagon 17:47, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Excessive linking doesn't really bother me too much, but if I see it abused, I will edit it. In your case, I edited the article as an example to tell you about it.

I try to follow this manual. One very common mistake that people (whether new or experienced) make is they link individual years and months. Full dates, such as October 23, 2005 is OK. Generally, it's not necessary. It is not uncommon to link a word twice, rarely three times, in an article if, for example the first link is near the top of the article and again near the end where there's a subsection specifically focusing on that term.

In summary, creating too many links makes reading difficult and puts (unnecessary) attention on that word. Some of this is from the manual and some from my personal preference. But it's just a guideline... if it's broken, it's not a really big deal. Gflores ^Talk 21:33, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps at sometime this conversational section should be moved to my talk page; there seems to be some stuff worth keeping. I'll try to "archive" locally and let you know so it can be deleted. Using a world-wide shared data base for personal notes is not proper. :) No emoticons in WP, I take it?

But regarding the link controversy, people are seeing problems with the way links are rendered as problems with the links themselves. Suppose, for example, most or all links were invisible, i.e. indistinguishable from "normal" text until you moused over them? That might be true hypertext. True, some links are useful to indicate that understanding the term as explained in the reference is crucial to understanding your article, but provision could be made to indicate those. So I think the emphasis should be on creating styles which cause embedded links to be less distracting. Is accessibility for the visually impaired an issue, here (here at WP in general, and in the link controversy specifically), however?

That's actually a good idea. I really don't know how it could be remedied, in regards to visually impaired readers. You should talk to an admin about it because I think it's beyond my scope. There may also be some information on the talk page of the MoS. Gflores ^Talk 00:22, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

{{Album infobox}} bot

Bot's running. I stopped after the first dozen conversions, on the off chance that I'm doing something incorrectly that I'm not aware of. If you could doublecheck these first few edits, I'd appreciate it.

What should I be doing when I find fields that aren't in the standard infobox (like the "Catalogue" entries on Colour by Numbers)? —Cryptic (talk) 03:11, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Wow, that was quick! Everything looks great to me, just a few minor things.

• If possible, if there is no last or next album, it should be left blank (instead of –).
• All Music Guide (AMG) should not be italicized since it is only a website, not a magazine, unlike Rolling Stone magazine. I also noticed a couple of albums with reviews from All Music Guide but weren't linked, see here. Perhaps you could do a quick check to see if the infobox contains an unlinked review from Allmusic.com and change it to AMG? It's not a big deal though.
• For the catalogue, I really don't know. I've never seen the catalogue in the infobox; most are in a different table near the bottom of the article. example. It's up to you...

Let me know if you have any questions or need help with anything. Thanks again. :) Gflores ^Talk 04:38, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Thank you

Good on you for getting the ball rolling on that infobox bot, you certainly are very pro-active. When you see a need for something either you do it or you organise to get it done. Things just get done when you're involved, it's a tremendous credit to you. --Qirex 11:45, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

CatAZ

Hi Gflores, thank you for your reply to the above at Help Desk. With 200 mosques in our Malay language Wikipedia, I was thinking of using this feature to help navigate around in the Category page.

I have followed your link to the appropriate page, but it doesn't seems to work again. Can you help me see what the problem is. My page is at: http://ms.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kategori:Masjid. — PM Poon 14:57, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Ok, I have made the changes and it should work now, although it's not very helfpul at this point since there's only two different letters being used (D and M). I'm not sure what template you were using since it was in a foreign language. I just replaced it with the text for the CaTAZ template. If you would like to know exactly how I did this, and how you can create a template in your language to it, let me know, I'll be glad to help. :) Gflores ^Talk 15:36, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Hi Gflores, thank you very much for your kind assistance. It works perfectly now. :) — PM Poon 16:21, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Hi Gflores, it didn't seem to work when I modified it to remove the word "Masjid" (meaning "mosque") so that I can filter the name of the mosque by alphabet. Unlike in English where the word "mosque" is written at the back of the name, eg. "Acheh Mosque", it is reversed to read "Masjid Acheh" in the Malay language. Wonder whether sorting is allowed with more than one letter, as in "Masjid A" instead of just "A":

[{{SERVER}}{{localurl:{{NAMESPACE}}:{{PAGENAMEE}}|from=Masjid A}} A]

—PM Poon 16:39, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

I really don't know. I've never seen a page being sorted like that, but it might be possible. Looks like you're going to have to post back at the Help Desk again. Alternately, you can post on an admin's talk page, they're usually knowledgeable in this sort of stuff. Sorry I could help. Gflores ^Talk 20:10, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Thank you, Gflores, for being so helpful. One way is actually to use: [[Category:Mosque|Acheh, Mosque]] at the bottom of an article, but then again, when there are many users involved, some may not be able to follow. I will try to post it again. Thank you once again for being so kind. — PM Poon 18:07, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks for improving the article The Waterboy. I had noticed while watching the movie that the article was very poor and put up a RfE that you seem to have answered. - User:Landon 03:21, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

A RfE has been put up for End of Days... I myself haven't seen it, but I might go for it if its been left alone for 24 hours

Interested in adminship?

Would you be interested in adminship? Given your high quality and consistent editing, I think that you would be great for adminship, which offer a benefits and conveniences, mainly the rollback button. While I'm not sure that you would use those powers very often considering that you are focused on article creation and not vandal fighting, I'm sure that it could definitely help you. You have a few of the criteria nailed down.

• Talking with other users in civil discussions
• Involved with many area of wikipedia
• 1500+ contributions
• Interest in things GNU, and open

Things you may need to work on

• edit summaries, even if it is a minor edit, you need to describe what you did most people voting look for >60%, though they do look at recent history.
• WP:AFD, you should spend a little time here and other "admin areas" even if you don't find that it isn't for you
• Many of the editors may criticize you for only contributing heavily within the last 3 months, so you may want to wait until January till you have your full 3+ months

This assumes that you have not done any vandalism in the last 2 months or so...Thanks for you all your contributions thusfar. --Reflex Reaction (talk)• 15:31, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Thank you for the gracious offer. As you said, I don't think I'd benefit greatly from having adminship powers, at least not right now. I currently plan on simply adding content to Wikipeida, but you're right, I do need to work on a few things (edit summaries, admin areas). Maybe next year I'll be ready and eager to be an admin. :) Thanks anyway. Gflores ^Talk 18:27, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

My Rfa and other stuff

Hi Flores! Gracias for the vote. It's wierd that I've never seen you around! It's a pleasure to get to know about your edits. I see African theatre among the other edits related to Africa. I am wondering if you ever heard about Wikipedia:Africa-related regional notice board. I also invite you to have a look at Gnawa and Gnawa music.

Apart from that, I see that you are a fan of Ronaldinho! I am a lifelong supporter of Barca (since 1980) and consider that player as one of the best 5 ever! Don't forget about Messi. Cheers -- Svest 03:28, 18 December 2005 (UTC)  ^{Wiki me up™}

Ken Kutaragi

I'm requesting your opnion about this dispute. Lot of POV-Pushing, the article is currently blocked. --GroundZero 23:54, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

malo's RfA

Thank you!

Gflores, thanks for your support on my RFA. I was rather suprised at the overwhelming support I received. Thank you for your confidence in me. I hope that I'll live up to your expectations in the future as well. -- malo (tlk) (cntrbtns) 05:42, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Regex

Hi, thanks for the regex for the bad links project. However, it doesn't appear to catch the http links. I copied it straight and put it into AWB and it doesn't appear to work. See here... Transcendental meditation. Gflores ^Talk 02:16, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Oops, actually it does work. There are just too many '\'s. \\[\\[http:\\/\\/(.*)\\]\\] -> \[\[http:\/\/(.*)\]\] . That works. However, it doesn't seem to catch these links. [[http://www.towandaonline.com Towanda Online]]. Also, could it be possible to instead of having 2 separate regexes, just to have one?

I wrote the regexs with the intent of having them implemented directly into the AWB's code. If put in the code, the extra \ "escapes" the following ones. Hence, it will work embedded in the AWB's code but not in the find and replace - plus, in the code, it can be two regexs. I'll try the link you gave me, with the regexs in AWB's code. — MATHWIZ2020 ^{TALK | CONTRIBS} 02:25, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Oh, I see. Thanks for the quick response! Gflores ^Talk 02:29, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

I tested the program, and it does fix the Towanda link. I'll implement the fix as soon as Bluemoose e-mails me the lastest source code. — MATHWIZ2020 ^{TALK | CONTRIBS} 02:34, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

You're right, it does fix the Towanda link. Can you test this...

be [[http://www.dap.com/msds/79400.pdf less than half]] TSP.  So even "regular" TSP found at the hardware store may be half TSP and half "TSP substitute".  Savogran's brand [http://www.savogran.com/Information/TSP_MS.pdf actually contains] 80% trisodium phosphate dodecahydrate.

Thanks.

It works. — MATHWIZ2020 ^{TALK | CONTRIBS} 02:53, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

AWB bad link repair

On the AWB talk page, you expressed interest in a script to repair bad links. Well, I wrote one and sent it to Martin/Bluemoose. Martin uploaded the new version (1.6.3) about half an hour ago, so you can download it and use it to fix bad links. It fixes both bad internal and external links as per Wikipedia:Bad links - more specifically, it:

• Internal links
  • Fixes double spaces
  • Removes space at beginning
  • Removes space before "#"
  • (Note: Wikipedia:Bad links now lists a new item, space at end, that I just noticed - I'll write a regex for it ASAP.)
• External links
  • Fixes double "[[" (only, however, if it begins and ends with a double bracket - it doesn't fix uneven bracketing yet)
  • Replaces "|" with " "

Tell me if you notice the script malfunction. It can be accessed under the "general fixes" checkbox. — MATHWIZ2020 ^{TALK | CONTRIBS} 01:07, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

I just sent Martin a new script. It fixes the space at the end of internal links, and fixes (surprisingly well!) uneven bracketing. I haven't heard back from him yet, but I think Martin will include it in the next version of AWB. — MATHWIZ2020 ^{TALK | CONTRIBS} 01:37, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Lindsay Lohan

I've reverted this edit. Given your good history, I have to admit this addition surprised me; as written, your change suggests that it was somehow Ms. Richie's fault (or, at least, that it was somehow under her influence) that Lindsay lost that weight. While it's certainly possible, the inference as written is inflammatory at best, and libelous at worst. Would I be out of line to ask what you were thinking? RadioKirk talk to me 03:53, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Bah, I've been reading too much gossip. Sorry, I really wasn't thinking. I'm going to refrain from editing the article from now on. My mistake, won't happen again. :) Gflores ^Talk 04:00, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, I don't see that you need to refrain from editing; POV doesn't always hit us immediately, and I've been guilty of it, as well. I do try, though, to read carefully over my edits from all possible sides, especially from the standpoint of what (or who) influences what. So do you. We all get in a hurry, or something similar :) RadioKirk talk to me 04:05, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your support

Thanks for backing me up on Typo. If you ever need me to return the favor, don't hesitate to ask. If you like, you may delete this after reading it. Chris the speller 20:34, 16 January 2006 (UTC)