User talk:Remember the dot/Archive/7

phishing

still anoying as crap —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.208.129.88 (talk) 18:55, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Windows Vista

Hello Mr. Dot, hope you're doing well! Could you swing by the talk page for Windows Vista and have a look at our recent work on the final paragraph for the lead section of the article? You're probably aware that it's a bit contentious, so I'd like you to have a look at it and see if we've come up with something that you think is satisfactory and strikes the right tone within the context of the article's lead. Thanks. :-) -/- Warren 22:38, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Whitespace

Whoops, I was using 2 newline characters instead of 1. Did I get it right in Template:C-ADOD? MBisanz ^talk 16:25, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Image:Line-height.gif

OK, you've made your point. But I am thouroughly not amused by this action... If you had seen the history, I caught considerable flack for this image by account of it having "copyrightable content" (namely, some IE icons). So while I may seem touchy on this subject, understand that that ordeal caused me a minor trauma. Beside the point that I feel this action is pointless, it only casues extra work for me by having to re-watchlist it again etcetera... I also see no benefit to the project in converting this particular image for the sake of a few kilobutes... especially when it doesn't concern article images. Please delete the PNG version and withdraw the IfD. — Edokter • Talk • 22:01, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Interwiki languages

Hi. I think the languages are supposed to be sorted on their names in their own language. Not on their 2-letters ISO codes. eg. Suomi should be under the S not on the F. Japanese is Nihongo -> N. etc... So I think you are the one who just screwed it up here. :-) --Fenring (talk) 22:28, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

OK. I see your point and I've changed it back. Is there a tool that puts these in the "correct" order automatically? —Remember the dot ^(talk) 03:17, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

No. sorry --Fenring (talk) 08:30, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Re: Spell check

Thanks for the suggestion, but I have tried to download it, and of course the computer won't do anything to make it easy for me. :/ Also, I usually know how to spell correctly, but the problem is sometimes that I want to write the edit summary extra-quick so I don't hit an edit conflict. So, I guess I'm just going to have to preview my edit summary to avoid mkistakes. Thanks, Juliancolton ^{Tropical Cyclone} 13:06, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

That's too bad. What problem did you run into when you tried to download Firefox? It's always been very straightforward for me... —Remember the dot ^(talk) 22:35, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

I tried it a while ago, so I don't remember exactly the problem I had. Also, I was going to try it again recently but because I'm on my parents computer when I edit most of the time, they don't want the computer clogged up with programs. Thank you for trying to help. Juliancolton ^{Tropical Cyclone} 23:54, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Hey

[1] -> Anything I need to change to get this into my monobook.css? --soum ^talk 19:39, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't think so. It seems to work fine for me. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 19:42, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. I like these colors better. --soum ^talk 19:44, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Btw, how can I force the references-small class to always display the references in a single column, overriding the per-article setting? --soum ^talk 19:55, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't think you can without JavaScript because the column-count is set via a style attribute instead of a stylesheet. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 20:35, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Oh OK, I never understood this CSS thing. Thanks, anyways. --soum ^talk 07:21, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Twinkle in Gadgets

Please read [2]. It was removed not due to any technical problems, but rather due to a major potential for abuse that is left unchecked. krimpet✽ 18:44, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Why did you delete Template:Book cover?

You don't seem to provide any rationale. The redirect seemed useful (I reached this myself and was going to (re)create it before I saw the deletion history note. What other use could a template for a book cover have? Free covers wouldn't need such a template. Richard001 (talk) 04:32, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

I'll admit that I should have left a better deletion summary. I deleted the redirect because it was unused and doesn't start with the required "Non-free" prefix, see Wikipedia:Non-free content/templates. Book covers that are about 100 years old or so are actually in the public domain, so a public domain template should be used instead. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 05:14, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

pgcounter

< thedj> hi, does anyone know if this pageview counter system that was once in place is still an "active" system ?
< thedj> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=MediaWiki_talk%3ACommon.js&diff=210869691&oldid=210833168
< thedj> it's from [[:de:User:LeonWeber]] apparently.
< someone> thedj: no, it's offline
< thedj> can it be removed ?
< someone> yes
< thedj> so, stats no longer being collected and never coming back...
< someoneelse> thedj, stats.grok.se
< someoneelse> so there is no need for LeonWP s stats any more
< LeonWeber> wassup?
< LeonWeber> thedj, right, remove that please

From #wikimedia-tech (nicks falsified for privacy reasons). --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 20:33, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Many thanks for the prompt reply. That pageview code is now history. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 20:40, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

User page

I just saw the banner on your user page yesterday while on a computer that hadn't upgraded to IE7. You might also want to add a bit about IE7 having problems showing the pages correctly as well. Quite often if an image is placed below an infobox in the opening there will be a large amount of whitespace seen with either version of IE. Sometimes the amount of whitespace is large enough to ensure that the text does not appear on the screen without scrolling down (17 in monitor).

By the way Firefox has a couple of minor problems. Unlike IE Firefox correctly formats the {{reflist|2}}. Now if that is combined with a bare http references, it causes this, even on a 19 in monitor, but it's an easy fix by using [] and a title. This is the only other time I've seen Firefox have trouble with a page, caused by putting the images in a table, but I suspect that no browser can cope with that properly. Cheers. CambridgeBayWeather Have a gorilla 17:07, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Firefox has some other rendering problems as well, for example failure to support inline-block which Internet Explorer has supported pretty much forever. It also has some quite nasty memory leaks. Firefox 3 resolves these issues (although the minor ones you brought up are still there), so once FF3 is officially released, I will have a solid basis for telling people to ditch IE altogether. I still think Firefox 2 is overall better than IE7, but it's a harder sell.

By the way, I haven't recommended Opera because its user interface has a scroll button quirk that annoys me and it doesn't come with spell check. But its standards-compliance is great! —Remember the dot ^(talk) 00:24, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

I only use Opera on my USB key and that's because of the email support. Well, my sockpuppet seems to like Opera a lot but that's just to save on having to keep logging in and out while I follow up my extended watch list. CambridgeBayWeather Have a gorilla 01:36, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

I just rememebered another major problem with IE. Navboxes that use "collapsed" don't collapse. I've seen stubs where the navbox is twice the size of the article. CambridgeBayWeather Have a gorilla 01:46, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Upload

Since you've been the maintainer of this page, I'm pointing you at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#Wikipedia:Upload MBisanz ^talk 22:04, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the note, I've left a comment and I am definitely interested in seeing how this will play out. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 01:54, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

I posted a question for you there. The Transhumanist    09:14, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

By the way, since you are the maintainer of the page - why have you ignored the complaints and reports posted on its talk page? Why haven't you fixed the problems that have been pointed out there? The Transhumanist    09:14, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Moving system messages

I see you moved the system messages Uploadtext/en-ownwork, Uploadtext/en-withpermission and Uploadtext/en-nonfree out of the MediaWiki namespace to allow non-admins to edit them. While I see your point and agree that this could well be a good idea, there's one little problem: redirects from system messages don't work. The only reason the customized upload forms didn't break immediately is that (as I understand it) Wikimedia's servers are set to cache these messages rather aggressively, so that any change is likely to take a few days to have any effect.

Fortunately, there does seem to be a workaround in this case. I've edited the messages you moved to replace the redirects with transclusions; this seems to work on my test wiki at least. We'll see in a few days whether it works here too. (Unfortunately, even this won't work with the corresponding license selector pages, since those aren't actually parsed as normal wikitext.) —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 09:07, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Ah, that explains it. I didn't think that redirects would work, but after I moved the pages I checked and it seemed to be working fine, so I left it. Thanks for fixing the pages to use transclusion instead. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 00:58, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Upload

I strongly disagree with your boldness. Obviously there was absolutely no consensus to unprotect the page. There is a difference between being bold, and just going against consensus. You have a whole thread of a bunch of people saying do not unprotect, and you just went and unprotected it. I was tempted to just reprotect it, but I figured I would ask you to readd the protection before I made any actions. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk ♦ contribs) @ 07:36, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

If we have any sort of problem with the page being semiprotected instead of fully protected, go ahead and increase the protection again. I'm not here to pick a fight. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 07:42, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm not here to pick a fight either :) It's not so much whether or not we have problems or such. It's the fact that basically everyone stated that the protection should stay as it is. Consensus was fairly clear, and yet you still decreased the protection. The reason the page should be full protection is because we do not want someone to make a good faith edit/vandalism that may break a link or cause a problem, right before some new user goes to upload a photo. Confusion annoys people, that is why we have a version that we know works, and we keep it like that until someone shows us a better version that has been tested and we know it works. The Transhumanist should just create a version in a sandbox like we have always done (feel free to keep the convo here). « Gonzo fan2007 (talk ♦ contribs) @ 07:49, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

There were people lined up on both sides of the argument. We could keep bickering about it, or we could try it out and see what happens. If it doesn't work, then we can go back to full protection. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 07:55, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

See my reply here. And please do not confuse my comments with bickering, its degrading. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk ♦ contribs) @ 07:58, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

This is really quite ridiculous. What you've done, is teach us that if we bitch and moan long enough, somebody will come along and give us what we want (opposition be damned). I'm exceedingly disappointed, but shockingly not surprised. Well done. - auburnpilot talk 13:40, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

A close look at my posts in that discussion will reveal that I tried in good faith to address the reasons. Many participants expressed their opinion of what should be done (that is, they !voted), without explaining why it should be done that way. Others voiced general concerns about some vague dangers without being specific about what those dangers are, what specific problems would likely result. Without specifics, we can't determine how bad they really are or if there is some easy solution for them. So persevering by asking questions and discussing the reasons is a good thing - it's the basis of building an intelligent WP:CONSENSUS. The Transhumanist    14:00, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

RtD, you made a decision, a decision I disagree with albeit, but that was your choice to make. I voiced my concern, and asked you to revert your changes. You declined, and after sleeping on it I really don't care enough to "wheel war." Let me make it clear, because The Transhumanist said something on WP:AN about how "we" (I think he means admins) are treating editors childish or something like that. I just want to say that I am not thinking about people who are uploading their 50th photo, I am thinking about the newbie who is uploading his first. I remember how difficult that can be when things are working, and I would hate to drive off an editor due to confusion, or getting caught between majors changes. I also want to point out that when I redesigned the header for WP:AN, that we had cross-browser compatibility problems, and a lot of people complained of this, because I did not test for multiple browsers. So I am a little wary about major redesigns for that reason. I also think that a new design of a page like this could really benefit from a sandbox layout first, but thats just me. But I am done discussing this issue, have a good time editing. Cheers, « Gonzo fan2007 (talk ♦ contribs) @ 18:02, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

You've given me some ideas. We can proactively innovate ways to assist newcomers. For example, we could provide a link to a tutorial for first-time uploaders. I agree that overhauls of a high-traffic page heavy on graphic design (tables, borders, multi-columns, backgrounds, special visual effects, complex templates, complex css coding, etc.) should be beta-tested on a draft page before being implemented. But grammar and style fixes, like those this page needed, generally do not affect browser compatibility. And simple tweaks, like those that have been implemented on Help:Contents over the past couple of years are also pretty harmless. I've viewed the upload page on Firefox and IE, and it shows up fine. Come to think of it, a link to report problems with the page might also be a good idea, and may reduce response time: "Problems with this page should be reported to WP:AN immediately." The most valuable aspect of unprotected pages is that they prompt or inspire collaboration between editors. Protection has a dampening effect on creativity and teamwork. So we should avoid it if feasible.

Concerning newcomers and their being caught by errors, I think we should explore what type of errors are likely, and what problems they would cause. If we understand what could go wrong, then perhaps we can come up with ways to minimize such problems without having to protect the page. Achieving the best of both worlds would be great if it can be done, and may provide valuable experience that can be applied to other high-traffic unprotected pages as well. The solution is in the details, and it's pretty hard to come up with solutions when posed problem scenarios remain vague. Fear of the unknown is one of the worst fears. If newcomers get caught in conundrums due to vandalism or development mistakes, we should study those occurrences to see how they can be prevented or handled more effectively in the future, rather than merely protect ourselves from potential problems that we don't understand. Maybe our present protocols (protecting the page when vandalism gets thick, etc.) will work. If not, I'm confident we can develop effective ways to deal with new problems as they arise without sacrificing community support of the page. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

I look forward to working with both of you on Wikipedia again, wherever we happen to meet. Cheers. The Transhumanist    23:13, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Upload semi-protection

Hi RTD,

Some of the participants in that discussion over at WP:AN sure seemed worried about something. But since potential problems were either vague or unspecified, they seemed pretty ominous, like a legendary big hairy monster.

The concerns seemed over-dramatized. But what could actually happen? I went looking around and found a few possible problems that could occur from the page being unprotected, but they just don't seem that dangerous. I've mentioned them on the thread over at WP:AN.

Thank you for reducing the protection on Wikipedia:Upload. I've finished my clean up. I'll take a closer look at the whole upload system when I have time, and will let you know what I discover.

Again, thanks.

The Transhumanist    14:00, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Moved pages

I noticed your moves.  ;) I'll carefully proofread/copy-edit those pages as I find time.

Meanwhile, it might be a good idea to let some people know about those pages, so they can watchlist them.

Nice job.

Keep up the good work.

The Transhumanist    00:30, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

You're welcome, but be aware that the changes to these pages are also experimental. I actually didn't mean to move every single one of them, that happened because I left on the "move subpages" when I moved MediaWiki:Uploadtext thinking that there might be talk archives or something. So, if we have problems then it's back to full protection.

There's a list of interface pages and their talk pages at the top of Wikipedia talk:Upload. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 00:57, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Yep, I saw you updated it.

By the way, my eyes glazed over whenever I looked at the upload forms, and they all look so much alike, it's easy to get lost. So I enlarged and centered the main heading of each page (except one - see below), to make it easy to tell which page you are on.

The Transhumanist    03:23, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Upload/Uploadtext/en-screenshot

This one's still protected.

Please take a look at the enlarged centered headings of the other upload forms, and use the same code to enlarge and center this one's main heading.

And please change the following sentence:

"To upload a file from a different source, please return to the upload wizard"

to:

"To upload a file of a different kind, please return to Wikipedia:Upload"

Thank you.

The Transhumanist    03:23, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

 Done The Transhumanist    01:35, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

MediaWiki:Nstab-main

Actually, Midom IS a developer, please don't revert him. MaxSem^{(Han shot first!)} 08:20, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the note. Is there a complete list of developers somewhere that I could consult? I'd like to avoid making this sort of blunder in the future. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 01:01, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

mw:developers. MaxSem^{(Han shot first!)} 16:47, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

PERF

Hi! Let me quote few things from PERF: In the overwhelming majority of cases means that there's slight minority of cases that has different issues. On the rare occasion they occur, follow instructions from the system administrators who come in to pick up the pieces, and everything will be fine. - well, you just reverted one. Obviously you shouldn't do exactly the same thing again - but you did. listen to the system administrators if they tell you not to do something - it is even in bold. oh well. but the safeguards we have in place are not perfect. - indeed they are not, and thats why we have to do performance engineering. Domas Mituzas (talk) 08:22, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Apologies, I did not realize that you were a developer. The only reason I put that code there was so that we wouldn't have to use an even more ugly and inefficient JavaScript hack to change the text on the main page's tab. I'm fine with you removing the code from MediaWiki:Nstab-main, but I am not going to let the JavaScript hack we used before back in. If there is demand for this feature then you developers will have to come up with some other way to implement it.

Anyway, happy editing, and I'll be more careful about reverting your edits in the future. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 01:00, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Could use some help

I'm in the process of preparing for a big upcoming event.

Please help promote it, by placing the following notice on your user and/or talk page where others are most likely to see it.

Coming July 15th to the Awards Center: The Around the World Competition. Three types of awards will be presented, including a World Champion Trophy! Hone your advanced tools skills, 'cuz you'll need them! If you'd like to be kept up to date on this and other happenings at the AWC, sign up to receive the AWC Newsletter here.

I'd appreciate it.

The Transhumanist    01:38, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Allan Bonner

Hi:

I appreciate you getting back to me so quickly and trying to resolve this issue.

I am not sure what "weak keep" means. The reason his book as multiple citations is due to information from other industry experts or quoting people such as Marx etc... Many reputable media outlets have used him as a pundit in fact he is on BNN tonight speaking about a current controversial matter. I am not sure what NPOV inhection means. And he has been referenced by many media outlets and notable people so I am not sure what "too badly infected with spin" refers to. Is there information that should be removed for this to get approved?

Thanks again you are very helpful. Sarah Sarahanders1712 (talk) 16:45, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:StephenBuxton" —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sarahanders1712 (talk • contribs) 16:47, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

PNG crusade bot

Hello, Remember the dot - I was just curious, is the above bot still operational? The category of images tagged with {{ShouldBePNG}} is getting quite badly backlogged. Kelly ^hi! 22:57, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

I don't really run it any more...it had some performance issues that I never got around to fixing, and I'm not even sure it still works. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 02:30, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply - it looks like east718 has come up with a replacement bot for it. Kelly ^hi! 02:31, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Firefox 3

Following on from my comments above. I see that 3 does show Downtown Dallas correctly. Sadly though TabMixPlus no longer works which means I'll probably stick with 2 at home for a while. Other than that it looks good so far. CambridgeBayWeather Have a gorilla 03:31, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

I downloaded it yesterday, but I've had a few issues. One is that obviously it isn't compatible with many of the add-ons. Two is that I lost everything from my last session on Firefox 2 because SessionSaver is incompatible. Three is that its increased security may be a little too restrictive. For example, it won't allow voting on the secure server set up for the board elections. like this. "wikimedia.spi-inc.org uses an invalid security certificate.

The certificate is not trusted because the issuer certificate is unknown.

(Error code: sec_error_unknown_issuer)"

I'll have to add it as exception, I guess. By the way, did you vote yet? Enigma ^message 21:26, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

I hope you voted correctly! Download manager no longer has a link to open or save, which I assume is what you were referring to. That is a strange change. Enigma ^message 05:10, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks fo the link. It looks to be working OK. I'll try it some more tomorrow when I'm home. Here's another reason not to use IE. If you have Roboform installed and the number of edits on a Wikipedia page excedes 100, clicking on the history tab will cause the browser to hang for 2-3 minutes. CambridgeBayWeather Have a gorilla 05:28, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Yep, the beta of TabMixPlus works fine. I installed 3 then TMP and it immediately restored the last session. Thanks. CambridgeBayWeather Have a gorilla 15:59, 19 June 2008 (UTC)