Welcome to Wikipedia! edit

Hello Dantheox/archive1, welcome to Wikipedia!

Here are some tips:

If you feel a change is needed, feel free to make it yourself! Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone (yourself included) can edit any article by following the Edit this page link. Wikipedia convention is to be bold and not be afraid of making mistakes. If you're not sure how editing works, have a look at How to edit a page, or try out the Sandbox to test your editing skills.

If, for some reason, you are unable to fix a problem yourself, feel free to ask someone else to do it. Wikipedia has a vibrant community of contributors who have a wide range of skills and specialties, and many of them would be glad to help. As well as the wiki community pages there are IRC Channels, where you are more than welcome to ask for assistance.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask me on my talk page. Thanks and happy editing, Alphax τεχ 06:37, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)


Find-A-Grave edit

There are basically only a few different things to do in this project: either create articles, make redirects, or check blue links in the list to see if they point to the correct content. If they do, then remove them from the list; otherwise, leave the blue link in the list. That's about it.

Also, the Find-A-Grave dates are known to be wrong sometimes, so always check the gravestones if they have pictures, or find another source. A project this big will take a year or two to complete, at least, so don't feel rushed. — 0918BRIAN • 2005-12-19 05:15

Excellent work on Hipparchus edit

Nice page you made elaborating on Hipparchus' "on sizes and distances". I re-wrote most of that page in the summer of 2003, but got in to an edit war with a previous contributor who insisted that off-topic info written in poor English were maintained. We both abandoned the page, you can still see some debris at the end. It has been remarked that the page is much too long: creating special-topic pages like you do may be a good approach. Go on, Tom Peters 19:47, 22 December 2005 (UTC)Reply


You wrote me on User talk:Tom Peters. If you like you can e-mail me at tpeters sprirallything xs4all.nl . For line drawings I have been using xfig, which is an X Window program, that is as good as it gets on Linux.

Tom Peters 00:52, 24 December 2005 (UTC)Reply

Links on Euler-Lagrange edit

Hi. I didn't put the link to the derivation on the wiki. I only put the external link. I think my site is unique in what it offers, and it's a disservice to the readers to not have a link to it, even though there are ads on it. - Tbsmith


You can take that first link down, but I don't want to deny people access to a fuller derivation of that equation just so that I'll have one less link. Do you have something to replace it with?

Also, I'll wait for other people to vote on all my external links, but some of my pages are jam packed with good example problems and make this wiki a better place by having the link on the page. Will you do an objective, external review of these pages and put the links back on the main site if you like them?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Residue_%28complex_analysis%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Methods_of_contour_integration http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Calculus_of_variations

MacBook Pro image edit

Hi Dantheox,

I had a look at the image. I usually opt against using just any old image off a website - you can't really claim {{promotional}} for them (although I expect, in this case you can). For Apple, I usually get my images off http://apple.com/pr/ , where you will get detailed image usage information and the like. Now, the problem is that your image isn't among the ones listed there (see http://www.apple.com/pr/products/macbook/macbook.html ), but you can copy the usage licenses for another image, for example Image:Macbookclosed.jpg, if you note that you believe them to be equivalent. Also, it's a png, which is not so ideal for photographic content. If you convert it to a jpg, scale it down a little (yes, we usually like fair use images to be smaller than that) and overwrite the previous image ([[1]]) with it, I see little problem however, as long as you note the exact source there. But using real PR images from the PR site is always the better choice.

Hope that helps, -- grm_wnr Esc 10:21, 11 January 2006 (UTC)Reply

History of science edit

Dantheox, please consider joining the proposed History of Science Wikiproject.--ragesoss 01:39, 13 January 2006 (UTC)Reply

Links on Aristarchus edit

I have added links to web pages I have created on Aristarchus and Hipparchus. Please let me know any comments you may have (my e-mail address is o the pages) David P. Stern


Perl script to separate red and blue links for WP:MEA edit

I am currently looking for help (a perl script) to parse and separate red and blue links for various lists at Missing encyclopedic articles. I noticed that you have listed yourself as an expert Perl hacker. I have made a request at Wikipedia:Computer_help_desk#New_cases, but it has languished for over a week. There was a script that does some of what we need it to do developed by Avar, but it only works on a few of the many lists we are currently working on. Specifically I'm looking for something that would separate and sort a list like this:

  1. Link 1 External search for link 1 Comment about link 1 with link to another article]
    Nested comment about link
    Second nested comment
  • Wrongly nested comment
  1. Link2 Notice space has been removed
  2. Link3] Malformed links with [malformed link
  1. Link4 Renumbering because of space
  2. Link 5
  3. Link 6

into a list like this

Red links

  1. Link2 Notice space has been removed
  2. Link3] Malformed links with [malformed link
  3. Link4 Renumbering because of space

Blue links

  1. Link 1 External search for link 1 Comment about link 1 with link to another article]
    Nested comment about link
    Second nested comment
    Wrongly Fixed nested comment
  2. Link 5
  3. Link 6

This is a worst case example. The current script works well, but it evaluates link by link, not line by line and so any comments about the link would be removed.

See separting reds and blues for more comments.

Your help would be greatly appreciated. --Reflex Reaction (talk)• 22:00, 17 January 2006 (UTC)Reply

Thanks for looking into this and recognizing what needs to be done! I apologize for the delay in getting back to you. While there are other programs to identify red links and some to separate individual red and blue links, as far as I'm aware you are the only one to reply to me directly about the issue. If you have any other questions feel free to ask. --Reflex Reaction (talk)• 05:00, 19 January 2006 (UTC)Reply
 

It works! Thank you very very much. You have saved me literally days of work. I have used the script to sort a list of Universities that I'm working on. As you can see it looks like Perl has some difficulty with accented characters but I'm willing to live with that. But if you have an easy solution I'm ready to listen. Thank you very very much. --Reflex Reaction (talk)• 14:14, 19 January 2006 (UTC)Reply

If it's a trivial fix then to sort out accented characters then having them sorted would definitely be a boon. --Reflex Reaction (talk)• 15:13, 19 January 2006 (UTC)Reply

I just wanted to thank you again for developing the script. I has been used at several lists at WP:MEA for great effect. I've finished sorting a list of books, songs, films, colleges, newspapers, TV stations, Catholic encyclopedia entries thanks to your script. It has saved many hours of work. --Reflex Reaction (talk)• 19:20, 30 January 2006 (UTC)Reply

Re: GCD problem edit

My Euclidean algorithm code is really an optimization because it actually reduces the system runtime by contracting the modulo-assignment statement with two operators into one single complex assignment with one operator, and at the same time check if the number equals 0. This contraction in the while-loop construct greatly reduces the runtime as the total number of operators is reduced by two. Deryck C. 09:43, 24 January 2006 (UTC)Reply

Image copyright problem with Image:Ferdinand Van Derveer (brigadier general, born 1823).jpg edit

Thanks for uploading Image:Ferdinand Van Derveer (brigadier general, born 1823).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 on Wikipedia 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}}.

Please signify the copyright information on any other images you have uploaded or will upload. Remember that images without this important information can be deleted by an administrator. You can get help on image copyright tagging from Wikipedia talk:Image copyright tags. -- Carnildo 04:52, 31 January 2006 (UTC)Reply

Image copyright problem with Image:Willem_van_der_Zaan.jpg edit

Thanks for uploading Image:Willem_van_der_Zaan.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 on Wikipedia 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}}.

Please signify the copyright information on any other images you have uploaded or will upload. Remember that images without this important information can be deleted by an administrator. You can get help on image copyright tagging from Wikipedia talk:Image copyright tags. -- Carnildo 08:29, 3 February 2006 (UTC)Reply

Stub percentages edit

Quite interesting. There isn't really any set procedure for what gets added to the statistics page; in fact, there are probably a number of efforts like yours that aren't listed there, simply because nobody knew about it or thought of it. It would probably fit well under the Analysis section.

Incidentally, I would observe that the increase in articles marked as stubs does not always correspond to an increase in the percentage of articles that are stubs, if that makes any sense. Some of what you've observed I would attribute to the growth and systematization of the stub-sorting project. --Michael Snow 06:45, 1 March 2006 (UTC)Reply

Other stats edit

I loved your stubs graphs. One other thing I've been curious about is the number of non-article pages, i.e "redirects, discussion pages, image description pages, user profile pages, templates, help pages, portals, articles without links to other articles, and pages about Wikipedia"—but how many are there of each? This also doesn't appear to be tracked anywhere. I'd be curious to see how the proportion of each of those have changed over time too. GeorgeStepanek\talk 06:30, 7 March 2006 (UTC)Reply

Image copyright problem with Image:DataUrlLarry.gif edit

Thanks for uploading Image:DataUrlLarry.gif. 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}}.

Please signify the copyright information 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. Thank you. Shyam (T/C) 07:35, 10 March 2006 (UTC)Reply

NCAA tournament page edit

Took a quick look at it. Not too bad for a first pass. :) However, there are a couple of things you need to keep in mind:

  1. You need to make sure the names of the schools correctly link to the universities, not to states. I'll edit your test page accordingly in the not-too-distant future.
  2. Until 1981, there was a third-place game in the Final Four. Still earlier in the tournament's history, there were third-place games in each regional.

Keep up the good work! — Dale Arnett 09:14, 12 March 2006 (UTC)Reply

More NCAA comments edit

Dan, another thing you may need to consider when you're doing your scripts is school name changes, either official or for rebranding purposes. Some examples:

I could go on, but you get the idea. — Dale Arnett 15:23, 12 March 2006 (UTC)Reply

1946 NCAA edit

Dan, looks pretty good. Just two things:

  1. Oklahoma A&M should link to Oklahoma State University - Stillwater, not "Oklahoma State".
  2. New York University should display as NYU, like this: [[New York University|NYU]].

I'll also give you a few more schools that should display as abbreviations, or non-intuitive short forms:

  • University of Nevada, Las Vegas = UNLV
  • City College of New York = CCNY
  • University of North Carolina at Charlotte = UNCC before 2000, Charlotte since 2000
  • University of Alabama at Birmingham = UAB
  • University of California campuses (all formal names are "University of California, {campus location}"):
    • Berkeley = California
    • Los Angeles = UCLA
    • All others = UC [campus location]
  • University of Southern California = USC
  • University of Texas at El Paso = UTEP since 1967-68 season; Texas Western before
  • Indiana University-Purdue University at Fort Wayne = IPFW (not sure if they've ever been in the tournament)
  • Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis = IUPUI (I *know* they've made the tournament)
  • University of Illinois campuses:
    • University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign = Illinois
    • University of Illinois at Chicago = UIC
  • University of Connecticut = I'd recommend "Connecticut" in the lead paragraphs and "UConn" in the tournament tables and brackets.
  • University of Massachusetts Amherst = UMass
  • University of Southern Mississippi = Southern Miss

Hope this helps... :) — Dale Arnett 00:45, 13 March 2006 (UTC)Reply

More NCAAs edit

I just fixed the links in the 1986 tournament page. A couple of other things:

  • Sports media don't disambiguate St. John's or Xavier. Although there are other universities that use those names, St. John's in New York and Xavier of Cincinnati are the only Division I schools that use those names.
  • The University of Memphis (current name) was Memphis State University (display as "Memphis State") before the 1994-95 season.
  • Before the 1999-2000 season, two schools in Louisiana changed their names to "University of Louisiana":
    • University of Louisiana at Lafayette --> University of Southwestern Louisiana
    • University of Louisiana at Monroe --> Northeastern Louisiana University
  • I also forgot another important abbreviation: Louisiana State University = LSU
  • The service academies:
    • United States Military Academy = Army
    • United States Naval Academy = Navy
    • United States Air Force Academy = Air Force

Just for your information. — Dale Arnett 01:00, 13 March 2006 (UTC)Reply

Upload tools... edit

Sorry, don't know of an upload tool.  :( — Dale Arnett 16:02, 13 March 2006 (UTC)Reply

NCAA tournament pages edit

I noticed that you have started to create all of the tournament pages and I hope you have read the messages I posted on Talk:2006 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament. If not, the main thing is that at some point you should generate the bracket tables in an actual HTML table (preferably using the Wiki table syntax). The tab-delineated format that you are currently using will ultimately get screwed up by an automatic Wikipedia bot that will think that the extra tabs are not necessary. I do not really care if you use a template such as Template:16TeamBracket or generate tables directly on the articles similar to what the Shrp Sports web site has. Just as long as you replace the tab-delineated format, we will be fine. Thanks. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 20:54, 13 March 2006 (UTC)Reply

re Wikifying NCAA Tournament Brackets edit

  • They could easily be more compact vertically. There's a lot of whitespace between the team name and the black line below it. This looks especially funky in the first round. I'm aware that this is probably an issue with the way brackets are implemented using tables, but it should be fixed if at all possible.
    • I am not currently happy with the formatting right now because of a bug in IE: the black line below the team name does not show up at all in the second and later rounds until the team name is actually filled into the table cell. The spacing itself is due to the "cellpadding" parameter of the <TABLE> HTML tag. I might try something similar to http://sports.yahoo.com/ncaab/bracket.
  • Would it be possible to implement byes using metatemplates? If it's possible, would it be advisable? My thinking is that if "RD1-team05" and "RD1-team06" are left unspecified, then the gridlines for that game in the bracket would be colored white. Using some combination of metatemplates like Template:Qif, Template:Unless defined and Template:booland would presumably do the trick.
  • Was there any particular reason you chose not to include a line for the bracket winner? There's enough information there to deduce who won, sure, but it's so satisfying to see that one team on a line all their own...
    • I was meaning to add them in, but it seemed such last priority at the time... I just wanted to get some sort of bracket on there.

Zzyzx11 (Talk) 00:44, 16 March 2006 (UTC)Reply

When I do add the line for the bracket winner, the parameter will simply be
winner=X
Zzyzx11 (Talk) 08:26, 16 March 2006 (UTC)Reply
  • In doing the byes, the "display" parameters, and using all of the special effects templates, I am thinking of putting these brackets on seperate templates. That way, I do not accidently screw up {{16TeamBracket}}, etc. while other users are editing 2006 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament. I also would like to keep 16TeamBracket, etc. as a more generic template without any of the esoteric functions to be used as a reference, and let users with limited template experience to also use it. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 21:42, 16 March 2006 (UTC)Reply
You can use a user subpage as a template, except that you use
{{User:Dantheox/whatever}}
Zzyzx11 (Talk) 22:58, 16 March 2006 (UTC)Reply

re: Sample bracket with byes edit

It seems I am ahead of you a bit. I was experimenting on 1956 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament#Bracket with the new Template:3RoundBracket-Byes I recently created. I did not quite take the approach you did... I took the {{Qif}} route instead of adding new parameters. Now I have to think about if I want to use this route with the 16-team bracket or use your method... Zzyzx11 (Talk) 06:23, 17 March 2006 (UTC)Reply

Stubs and Stats edit

Hi!

  • I just saw your note on User Talk:Xiong and saw your charts on stubs. Great Job! (I made it an internet shortcut... assuming you'll update it from time to time.
  • One comment though - I've spent roughly half my editing expanding stubs. Sometimes it makes sense then to remove the 'stub' template, but there are many others where I feel I should leave it so that the article can undergo further expansion by someone more 'into' the topic. I suspect many others do the same. Many stubs are 'good first stabs' at a topic, IMHO, your analysis might be a bit more alarming than is the reality. One obvious feature that Wikipedia enjoys over printed encyclopedias is the luxury of virtually unlimited space so that we can treat a topic in depth and breadth not available to those media. I've seen a fair number of articles that would be cut as too long in such venues, but which still have stub status.
  • In the end, this uncertainty will remain with us for a long long time, so long as there is no one giving orders or who is made to be responsible for non-performance. But that's the of a volunteer service.
Still nice work, keep it up!FrankB 17:12, 17 March 2006 (UTC)Reply

Xenosaga edit

Hey there; I didn't write that/cite that blurb from another article (it was an unsigned comment by another user). However, I'll look into it and see if I can help find a source, because that also piqued my interest at one point. — Deckiller 03:25, 21 March 2006 (UTC)Reply

Image:KrydersLaw.png edit

You mentioned that the spreadsheet you used for creating the KrydersLaw image is available? How does one obtain it? If it is not generally available, can you please email me a copy at zenyatta00@hotmail.com? Thx! 68.164.24.210 19:16, 21 March 2006 (UTC)Reply

Barnstar edit

  The {{subst:#switch: {{{2}}} m=Running Man w=Running Woman f=Running Woman wiki=Running Wikipedian #default=Running Wikipedian

}} Barnstar

For your work in creating articles for every NCAA Division I basketball tournament, you deserve this! — Dale Arnett 15:34, 27 March 2006 (UTC)Reply


re: group parameters in bracket templates edit

  • Yes, I did not explain it carefully that it should be vertical with letters spaced by BR tags. And, yes, now that I think about it, I think it would look better in the second round columns. I made a temporary save on the 1951 article and I'll fix the templates later. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 23:42, 27 March 2006 (UTC)Reply