User talk:Floydian/Archive/2012a

This is an archive of my talk page from January through the end of April 2012

Editing others talk page comments

Regarding this edit summary where you said "Minor and obvious spelling and grammar fixes to other's comments are permitted"; kindly note WP:TPO, which explicitly states:

It is not necessary to bring talk pages to publishing standards, so there is no need to correct typing/spelling errors, grammar, etc. It tends to irritate the users whose comments you are correcting. The basic rule—with some specific exceptions outlined below—is that you should not edit or delete the comments of other editors without their permission.

Please do not mislead other editors into believing the contrary.

While you are, of course, at liberty to invite others to correct your errors; the general principle is not to, and so it is quite correct to revert third-parties' corrections. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:55, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Hmmm... Well in my 8 years experience, I've never received a complaint for fixing minor mistakes. I do it all the time, though I usually do it as I'm adding my reply. Consider this permission for editors to correct typos on my talk page posts insofar as I do not revert it. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 17:31, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Jctint/core tracking

A discussion was started here regarding adding a tracking category to Jctint(/core) so we can find the articles where implementing miles←→km conversions would break the internets. I tried and failed to implement it in the core but the category started filling with every article. I think it has to do with the unit params filling in with nbsp when not called.

PS: every time you form a plural with an apostrophe, Jimbo considers putting ads on the wiki... –Fredddie™ 06:12, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

401 FAC

I don't see the 401 on the list of new Featured article candidates: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Featured_article_candidates . Maybe that's why it's not getting any reviews?

If you need help with the article, I will do what I can. Congrats on getting it buffed to A-Class status! Haljackey (talk) 07:30, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

 Done --Rschen7754 08:22, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

That would explain a lot :P Thanks guys - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 15:29, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

No problem! I was wondering why the nomination sat unnoticed for that long. That would explain it. Haljackey (talk) 17:07, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

WP Toronto in the Signpost

The WikiProject Report would like to focus on WikiProject Toronto for a Signpost article. This is an excellent opportunity to draw attention to your efforts and attract new members to the project. Would you be willing to participate in an interview? If so, here are the questions for the interview. Just add your response below each question and feel free to skip any questions that you don't feel comfortable answering. Multiple editors will have an opportunity to respond to the interview questions. If you know anyone else who would like to participate in the interview, please share this with them. Have a great day. -Mabeenot (talk) 01:57, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Hello, Floydian. You have new messages at Talk:1977 Chicago Loop derailment.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Hello, Floydian. You have new messages at Talk:1977 Chicago Loop derailment.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Road Coordinates

Hi, In relation to the vote (RfC?), going on which is for the usage of coordinates on roads, specifically highways. I only saw the page since an editor said there was a proposal to remove all coordinates from Wikipedia which struck me as somewhat over the top. That's wrong of course but oh well. Your proposal though, it doesn't mention any projects to improve upon the situation and uses arguments like "If they all can't have them, none of them should have them. It is unprofessional looking otherwise.". Think of it like "this article doesn't have a picture so no articles should". Exceptions exist and to make a ruling based on an exception seems absurd. An example would be bridges, not all bridges are applicable to all crossings hence why List of bridge types exists. The rest of your points are fairly reasonable given how annoying roads can be to map, but you didn't mention any other project or proposal to fix that. Is there any? I'm all for making coordinates easier to deal with but it seems over the top to drop the only solution currently because roads are a pain. Can QGIS be used to map out a road, putting the coordinates into GML/GPX then into Google Maps or is that OR? Just something to replace what is removed. Note, I have a problem with tone, what is a dry and semi-logical tone in rl becomes harsh and aggressive on the internet so if that's the case this time apologies and feel free to delete this. Chrissd21 (talk) 04:25, 18 January 2012 (UTC)

I know exceptions exist, but in this case the argument was presented because Pigsonthewing and Tagishsimon have been very to the letter with this issue over the past several months, and I didn't want any loopholes. I personally would like to have our road articles link to a geohack page to map out the road, as it is the fastest way to see it, where it is, where it goes, etc... but a coordinate pair in the title that sticks a point in Google Maps just doesn't cut it for linear features (and indeed, all linear features have had to settle for some subpar substitute because of the insistence on those single-point coordinates). QGIS can open shapefiles, which most governments publish for all sorts of data, including natural resource distribution, natural and political boundaries, contours, peaks, valleys, rivers, lakes, wetlands, roads, rails, cities, airports, canals, and on and on. In the case of roads, the road network shapefile can be downloaded and trimmed to only have the line for the subject road. Several map services also offer something like "Get directions", to guide people from A to B. At least in the case of roads, this would provide a great way of projecting various roads onto google maps.

The fact that Google Maps has a wikipedia layer means that some form of correspondence has happened between the two. I'm sure with some work an even better solution is possible... such as clicking on the route marker in the map bringing you to the wiki article (as a USRD member suggested to me on IRC). The point is that the current system doesn't work for roads, and it shouldn't be used as a bandage solution as that invites complacency. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 04:42, 18 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation, that makes a fair amount of sense. In which case pardon the intrusion. The editor who was crying words of doom left out those salient details, and you seem to have it all under control with some decent ideas as to a new system. A single point for a road is indeed silly, even more than getting rid of points in all categories. :P Good luck on pushing through a better system, too many bureaucrats here to make it easy. -.- Chrissd21 (talk) 14:15, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

The joys of democracy... or bureaucracy - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 14:43, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

question about google maps

Floydian, you said "The fact that Google Maps has a wikipedia layer means that some form of correspondence has happened between the two. I'm sure with some work an even better solution is possible". Can you give me an example? I haven't noticed it when I have used google maps in the past. Thanks. stmrlbs|talk 16:34, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

Hey long time no see... I was actually going to contact you regarding that little mess of an RfC to see what your thoughts were. For me at least, I can open google maps and click the drop down arrow beneath "Maps" (usually it says "labels" when you first load the page), there is a Wikipedia layer. All of the W's that come up are based on title coordinates in our articles. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 17:35, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes, it's been a while! I work with a 2 hour commute (1 hour each way) and have family things going on. I work with computers all day, so a lot of times I don't even open my laptop when I get home. Plus, to be honest, I was getting kind of disillusioned with Wikipedia.

But I saw the "blackout" and was very glad to see Wikipedia and Google fighting this. What a statement! I had written my representative about a month ago about this bill but didn't have much hope of it getting stopped with the industries they have lobbying for it. So, I was impressed with Wikipedia's action.

I thought I would take a look around, see what was going on, and decided to clean up my user space. Boy, am I rusty with using Wikipedia (as you can with all the corrections I'm doing). Then I saw your note about google maps and thought I would check it out. But, I still don't see what you are talking about. Can you give me an example? Also what RFC are you talking about? stmrlbs|talk 18:48, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

Hmmm... not sure if it doesn't show up over there for some reason. here's a screenshot of what I see. The RfC is at WT:HWY with some spillover to the talk page for the GeoCoordinates group. Beware, its a read. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 20:32, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

Ok, I see - it is an option that you request when you go to Google Maps. Cool! As for the RFC, yikes.. it will take me a while to read it! Will get back to you. Thanks, Floydian. stmrlbs|talk 00:20, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Floydian, I read through most of the RFC. However, since I haven't been following all the past history, I'm basing my opinion just on my view as a reader looking at a road article. I don't see anything wrong with adding coordinates of important points of a road to a road article (endpoints, junctions). I think that with more and more people using GPS, google maps, etc. - coordinates are useful. I do agree that having a bunch of coordinates displayed in the page would be distracting. I think having a table at the bottom where the person could reference them if they wanted to would be better - I think that was in one of the proposals. I certainly wouldn't make it a requirement - I think it should be optional.

One place where coordinate information would be useful (whether displayed or linked to) is in the major intersection table where there aren't articles defined for the points – like Argyle in Kawartha_Lakes_Road_8. Right now, you click on Argyle and end up in Kawartha. So, is that really the intersection? I don't know. But an addition icon linking to coordinates would give the reader the ability to link to a map where they could see where the Argyle intersection was. It would give them a better visual image of where those points were in relation to the road as a whole even if there was no wikipedia article for this intersection at this time.. If the road project starts using shapemaps or something like that, a set of coordinates of the "important" points in the road would be useful to highlight those points in the road shapemap.

I see that you use google maps in the references. So, in a way, you are using coordinates to visually show parts of the road - but only if the person notices the references and realizes they are maps. It is nice what you did, but not obvious to the reader unless they follow the reference. As a viewer of road articles, it would be nice to have this facility be a more accessible part of the article. Even a standard for optionally including links to maps highlighting the different parts of the roads like your references do. don't know if that would be against wiki standards or not. stmrlbs|talk 06:18, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Never mind.. did some more reading, and I see that you can't directly link to a google directions map or a google map of a point - the googlemaps template creates an external reference, and the in house geo applications which you can link to can't give you what you need. So, they (Andy-mostly) are saying to display coordinates (which people will copy/paste and plug into an outside map service like google :)). So, everyone is seeing how they can get wikipedia to reinvent the wheel (do the same thing google maps does) in order to provide what the reader would be interested in, and still satisfy wikipedia standards. A quandry, for sure. Well, I still think a set of coordinates for a road would be handy to have - end points, junctions, outermost boundary points (to determine display map size and zoom), any point of interest in the road for which there is no wiki article. I think it should just be kept in a table at the bottom so that if people want to see it, they can. But mostly for the purpose of having them in the future for when you do have the ability to pop up a decent map of whatever you are trying to see. Better to add it now, then later. my 2 cents - having not followed all the nuances of this discussion. stmrlbs|talk 17:34, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

I think the geolocating info is certainly useful to have, and I make use of it myself when its available. But, it raises a bunch of questions that weigh readability/clutter against bells and whistles functionality (ie do we need to provide access to the readers favourite map service, or just any accurate map service?) I've come up with what I think is a workable solution on Ontario Highway 77, which avoids a bunch of DMS coordinate but still gives the ability to lookup any junction on the highway. Ideally I'd like to have a link in the infobox that takes you to geohack, where you could select your favourite mapping service, and the route shows up as a "Get Directions..." line or highlighted in some other manner. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 17:51, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

I like that. What you did enables the user to at least be able to pop up a map with 2 clicks if they don't get overwhelmed by the vast number of choices on the geomap page. But the direct link to google maps is right there on top of the geomap page - people will figure it out. I would put add a column before the Notes column, with the title "Geomaps" (or whatever), and put the icons there. That way, if the reader doesn't know what the icons mean, at least they will see "maps" in the title and probably click the icon.

It is too bad you can't input a point set which would do the same thing, only go to google maps with the directions request. Which I think is what you were saying in the RFC. stmrlbs|talk 18:13, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Township Maps

For your future reference here is a link to old County, Township and Town maps throughout most of southern Ontario. It is part of the Canadian County Atlas Digital Project at McGill University. You may find it useful when conducting historical and geographic investigations in those areas. Secondarywaltz (talk) 17:04, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

That is a wonderful source that I've had to reference when going through the MTO annual reports from the 50s, when highways were assumed on a township by township basis. I only wish there was a similar resource for the northern Ontario districts. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 17:19, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

28 January 2012

I found that you oppose to the addition of the genre "nu metal" in the System of a Down article, before continue with the discussion in the talk page i want to know some things: How works that reference "A" discounts reference "B" thing; and which wikipedia policy states that allmusic genre tags aren't reliables, i want to learn more. Nicrorus (talk) 03:47, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

What I meant is a few of the reviews of System of a Down make a specific point to say "some people label them as Nu-Metal, but they aren't even close", and so when several editors (including myself) had a discussion a few years back (you can see it in Archive 7 on the talk page), we gathered as many sources as we could and tallied the number of times each genre was mentioned. Each review that discounted a certain genre subtracted 1 from the total of that genre. In the end, we took the four genres with the most refs that adequately showed the full range of styles. I suppose the guidelines that best covers this is WP:UNDUEWEIGHT.

As for allmusic, I can't find it anymore, but there have been lots of discussions at both the reliable sources noticeboard and the talk page for the Music WikiProject and its considered reliable for biographies, but rather liberal with its use of non-existent genre combinations. Cheers - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 04:56, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

I see, i just don't thought that the "Discount thing" were that way, you know, if we apply that criteria to more bands, the nu metal genre would practically dissapear from wikipedia's infoboxes, in example Korn and Slipknot themselves disagrees with the label, and for each reference calling the music of a band such Deftones or Linkin Park nu metal, there are like six or more claiming that they don't, and even that they never were, what do you think, we shall apply the criteria to the rest of the bands or not? Nicrorus (talk) 05:37, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

I think that just like System of a Down, they should have a discussion to decide on the genres for the infobox. The genres shouldn't be changed without these discussions since it leads to edit warring and opinion bashing. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 06:11, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the info, can i count with you in the future as a backup and to advise another editors about the policies and consensus in the future? you are an experienced user who have done it and succeeded in the past, so your opinion is very valuable. Nicrorus (talk) 02:18, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Of course! I'm happy to help out wherever I can. Cheers, ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 02:22, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification

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wikiproject highways search - project and subprojects

Floydian, just to let you know, I created a search that will search the Wikiproject Highways and subprojects - main and talk pages here: User:Stmrlbs/search/roads I used it to see where other discussions of coordinates were (and just because I sometimes look at this project). It is easier than searching all of wikipedia or searching each page separately. click on the SHOW below the search to see what areas I search. stmrlbs|talk 18:24, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Templates and stuff

You might like to look at Template:Streets in Montreal. I also created Colborne Street as a disambiguation page. Open it up and you'll see that it was also the former name of part of Peel Street. Peter Horn User talk 16:38, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

In cases like that, we'd move Colborne Street to the disambiguation page and have a hatnote on Colborne Street pointing to Peel Street (since the dab only has two entries, and one of those two doesn't use the name Colborne Street today). The streets in Montreal template is a navbox, so it's meant to go at the bottom of articles. The Toronto street articles were all merged together (they were about 45 separate stubs articles before; now that information is available in 3 articles), and so I created those templates as table of contents. Montreal streets seem to be in a bit better shape than Toronto's were, but many of them could also be merged since you can only generally find information on the origins of the name and the landmarks on the street. Cheers - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 16:56, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification

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GAN for Ontario Highway 410

Hi. I reviewed your good article nomination of Ontario Highway 410 and placed it on hold pending the addressing of a few concerns. You can read the review here. –Grondemar 16:35, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Highway 8

Your exit list on Ontario Highway 8 is linking, in the last two rows, to the disambiguation page at Hamilton instead of to the Ontario city at Hamilton, Ontario — but when I try to fix it by changing the entry field from "division" to "municipality" (which seems, from the way the template is coded, to be the correct solution), it causes that box to expand in width an extra column, pushing "Rockton" and "Peters Corners" into the km column instead of the location one. Could you fix this so that the table's actually linking to the right topic? Thanks. Bearcat (talk) 01:42, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Yeah I need to do the documentation :/ My bad, in this case it was me setting the templates to not treat Hamilton the way they should (fixed). FYI, municipality is for when you want it to span division and location (sets the colspan to 2). division_special is an override. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 01:51, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Hokay, gotcha. I'm no expert in template coding anyway, so I wouldn't likely have figured that out by myself. Bearcat (talk) 01:56, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

US roads, KML, bots, USGS

You might want to drop in on User_talk:The_Anome#Coord_missing_and_the_new_linear_feature_KML_thing. --Tagishsimon (talk) 01:23, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:List of roads in Toronto/eastwestTOC

Template:List of roads in Toronto/eastwestTOC has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 11:24, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification

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Los Alamos County KML

Hey Floydian, I saw your edit to the Los Alamos county KML. What did you spot/change? Why do you think a coordinate was an error? I'm curious as the KMLs were exported from US Census TIGER line shapefiles using qgis. --Dschwen 23:15, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

When I viewed it (it looks great by the way), I noticed a weird line in the corner near the city of Los Alamos. The area I fixed is here. Before, the line followed the road to the dirt trail (as it does now), but then rather than travelling due west along the dirt trail, it jolted north-north-west ~100 ft. I suspected from that dirt trail that it should be a straight line from there several miles westward, and confirmed with the county map.[1]

Hope that makes sense. Cheers, ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 23:58, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Additions to Highway 401 Article

Hi Floydian! I've been doing what I can to help with the 401 FA... This nomination must really be stressing you out! Anyway I have been working on another chart showing lane count and distance for the 401. What do you think so far? Do you believe it can be added to the article?

Lane count

Location		Highway 3 to Dougall Parkway	Dougall Parkway to Essex Road 42	Essex Road 42 to Highway 402	Highway 402 to Highway 403/410	Highway 403/410 to Highway 427	Highway 427 to Highway 27	Highway 27 to Highway 409	Highway 409 to Brock Road	Brock Road to Salem Road	Salem Road to Burnham Street	Burnham Street to Frontenac Road 38	Frontenac Road 38 to Montreal Street	Montreal Street to Quebec Border
Lane Count		4 Lanes	6 Lanes	4 Lanes	6 Lanes	18 Lane collector-express system	8 Lanes	10 Lanes	12-16 Lane collector-express system	10 Lanes	6 Lanes	4 Lanes	6 Lanes	4 Lanes
Distance		2.5 km	43.1 km	127.5 km	161.3 km	5.8 km	0.8 km	3.9 km	43.3 km	6.0 km	68.3 km	138.2 km	8.2 km	209.0 km
Number of through lanes on Highway 401 (excludes ongoing or planned widening projects)

In addition I found this photo of 401/Allen from the 1970's in the commons. I think it could be a good addition or replacement of another image (maybe the Meadowvale Road one).

File:401-Allen.jpg

Anyways that's it from me for now. Good luck with the nomination! Haljackey (talk) 18:49, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Looks good. I'd make the top row not be a header row (so only "Location" is bold). I'm not sure where to put it, but I'll leave that to you. As for the photo, I believe it is a scan of a postcard based on the colouring (I know I've seen the image before, not on here)... if it goes in it will probably get some inquiring eyes. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 18:59, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Ok, I've added the lenghts and fixed the spelling of Dougall and the bolded text. Here's the final version. Have a look over it as I'm not 100% sure the distances are correct (I need another pair of eyes). Once it's good to go I'll find a place to tuck it in the article. Haljackey (talk) 19:15, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Just adding the km's together I get 826.1, which doesn't match the article (but its not a very large difference)... might want to double check some of the sums. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 19:31, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, got it fixed (Montreal Street to Quebec was wrong). (=2.5+43.1+127.5+161.3+5.8+0.8+3.9+43.3+6+68.3+138.2+8.2+209=817.9 in Excel). Into the article it goes! Haljackey (talk) 19:59, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Looks good. I'm on my way out the door, so I can't change anything; but, the 6 km from Salem to Brock should be 6.0 for consistency and precision. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 20:11, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

I changed the 6 and 209 to add the .0 and added it to the article, but it was taken out (by Rschen7754) for not being sourced... I got the numbers from the article itself which are sourced. Odd. Either way it's ready to go in again. Haljackey (talk) 02:48, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Congrats!

You did it!. Imzadi 1979 → 21:42, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

P.S., two footnotes have gone broken (#56 and 57). They're both in the lane counts table, which honestly, I'd just jettison in its entirety. Imzadi 1979 → 21:47, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Ontario Highway 401

Well done on its promotion. From where I'm sitting, it's been a long slog, and I didn't even write the article! Your patience in dealing with my picky issues is appreciated, and I hope (as I do with all featured content nominators) that this encourages you to continue to promote our best work, that you continue to promote our best practices. Really well done. All the best, The Rambling Man (talk) 21:42, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

		The Tireless Contributor Barnstar
		Congratulations on getting Ontario Highway 401, one of the most important roads in the world, featured, and for sticking through the process that took a few years. Rschen7754 21:46, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Floydian, following a brief discussion between us today Graham did the honours but note that you still have two outstanding citation formatting issues (#56 and #57) -- pls attend to those ASAP. Tks/cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 21:48, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks everyone, it's been a long haul! I'll get to those errors right now. TFA for Canada Day is the next goal. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 01:22, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

It was a long road, but you finally reached the finish line!

I just wanted add in my congratulations for finally getting Highway 401 to become a featured article. I remember it was nearly two years back (was it really that long ago?) when you rewrote the article and were hoping for featured status. Over time, the article progressed from a B to a GA to an A and now finally to FA. Give yourself a pat on the back, you deserve it! Haljackey (talk) 05:05, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Just over two years... It was between December and March that I rewrote the bulk of it. Didn't think it would take this long! You've helped out a lot along the way as well, so give yourself some credit :)

Next stop: July 1st TFA, the (supposed) 60th anniversary of the numbering. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢

For the record, I am against the coordinates system. If you need me to restate my opinion somewhere, feel free to let me know! Haljackey (talk) 23:56, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

The discussion has become such a mess that I couldn't really tell you where. I'd make it more clear on the 401 talk page what your position is, but otherwise keep an eye out for an opportunity. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 00:55, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

Watching my talk page

Hey- have you stopped reading my talk page. I posted a comment last night- explaining how concerned I was that your good move had been reversed. It is usually more effective to work steadily that being too frenetic. Have a look at my talk page and try to recover the situation- I have left some advice there. --ClemRutter (talk) 18:32, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Help desk

Greetings - any particular reason why you deleted a reply I posted to the Help Desk?--ukexpat (talk) 01:35, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

My apologies! I wasn't even aware that happened, but I believe it's from a misclick on my phone. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 02:02, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

No problem, I have had my share of those!--ukexpat (talk) 03:33, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

File mover

I have granted file mover rights to your account following either a request for those rights or a clear need for the ability to move files. For information on the file mover rights and under what circumstances it is okay to move files, see Wikipedia:File mover. If you do not want file mover rights anymore, just let me know, and I'll remove it. Good luck and thanks. —Tom Morris (talk) 03:53, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

Thank you sir :) - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 03:57, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

Ever considered adminship?

It's not often I see competent, old-timer accounts at WP:RFPERM. Have you considered runnning for adminship? I see from your logs that you had rollback removed back in 2009 and then restored over concerns, but that doesn't seem like a big deal: it's more than two years old now. And you've got DYKs and GAs, so why not? —Tom Morris (talk) 04:01, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

Some FAs as well. I've made one or two attempts, as it would come in especially handy with my template skills. Unfortunately my passion over the topics I cover have led to some heated arguments (not edit warring or abusing rollback, but not biting my tongue unfortunately), and those are quickly held over me. I had a good clean streak going for the better part of a year but I think the recent coordinates RfC and the fallout from it have kiboshed my chances. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 04:10, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

If you wait a few months, you might have a good chance though. --Rschen7754 07:14, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

Re:Repentigny AMT station

The reference page by AMT calls it Highway 40. I had the same thoughts when I made the entry, because I may also have a tendancy to call them Autoroutes in Quebec. Secondarywaltz (talk) 17:19, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Works for me! If I tackle Quebec one day (when Ontario is done) I may do a little research behind it, but it makes sense that English Quebec would use the English term. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 17:29, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

a heads-up

Yesterday Secondarywaltz created redirects at Cherry Street (Toronto) and Commissioners Street. He or she did so just prior to leaving his or her comment at the Unwin {{afd}} -- about drafts I started User:Geo Swan/Cherry Street (Toronto) and User:Geo Swan/Blue Jays Way.

I initiated discussions at WP:RFD for those redirects.

I decided I should look to see if there were similar redirects to List of north–south roads in Toronto and List of east-west roads in Toronto.

As I was going through the redirects I found that not only were these all plausible topics for articles, but when I started looking at their histories they had started as articles. I saw that those ones had been nominated for deletion -- and the {{afd}}s had resulted in either "keep" or "no consensus". However, it seems you then redirected them to List of north–south roads in Toronto.

I didn't see any sign of a discussion that preceded these redirections. So rather than initiate further RFD on the following redirects I thought I would ask you for some background. Would you mind filling me in as to whether there was a discussion prior to these redirections? If there was, could you point me at those discussions?

You used the word "accusation" when you referred to some questions I had of you. You used the word "intimidation" here on your talk page. From my perspective you started that {{afd}} with an inappropriately accusatory tone, and it only got worse. I have been doing my best to refrain from responding in kind.

You made a cryptic comment about how my comments reminded you of some comments some person named User:Oakshade made years ago. For the record I have never heard of Oakshade. I saw comments on Talk:List of north–south roads in Toronto where others referred to acrimonious discussions between the two of you. Those discussions have nothing to do with me, so could you please try to stop flashbacks to unpleasantness with them slop over into your interaction with others? Geo Swan (talk) 19:37, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

1. Don Mills Road
2. McCowan Road
3. Kennedy Road (Toronto)
4. Islington Avenue
5. Jane Street
6. Avenue Road
7. Avenue Road (Toronto)
8. York Regional Road 3
9. Warden Avenue
10. Browns Line
11. Scarlett Road
12. Runnymede Road
13. Birchmount Road
14. Sherbourne Street

I'll give you a brief history. Last October or November I started to do in depth research into the histories and etimologies (origins behind the names) of the major roadways in Toronto. In doing so I also discovered that we had terribly written, uncited, incomplete articles for each and every major road in the city. I took a scenario used by the US Roads Wikiproject called the Rockland County Scenario, in which geographically tied roads in a single city or region are grouped into one article (this situation is also employed for the secondary highways in northern Ontario, ie List of secondary highways in Cochrane District), and created List of roads in Toronto. I merged all the usable and correct content in from each stub article, and added my research into the origins of each street name, and created placeholders for all the important roads that lacked information. A few were worthy of keeping separate, and they remain so. The end result was the removal of about 40 unsourced five sentence stubs, replaced instead with a single article where one could look at a brief history for all the major roads in Toronto.

A user came in (one who was author of several of the articles originally), and began restoring the original separate article claiming they all met the GNG, thus get separate articles regardless of length. Several were recreated with the exact same unsourced content, and a table of pictures of buildings were added by that user (who has since not made any other edits to the articles). This led to several heated battles on Talk:List_of_north–south_roads_in_Toronto as well as a general discussion at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Toronto#Roads_in_Toronto that got some response. Since then, they have generally remained as-is. The text at List of east–west roads in Toronto and List of north–south roads in Toronto can be expanded without fear of deletion discussions or trying to make a street appear notable, and eventually forked into separate articles when they are organized and substantial.

There were also several afd's, some of which resulted in delete (ie Birchmount Road), others which did not (ie attempting to rename Queen Street East as Queen Street (Toronto) and merging the road content from Queen Street West (since the latter is an official neighbourhood of the city, but the former is not). All in all an ugly situation, but one that erased a lot of road cruft, bloat, original research and advertising from the site. It resulted in the schism of WikiProject Canada Roads and WikiProject Canada Streets; the roads project is cleaning its articles up rapidly, while the articles in the street project have been neglected entirely since. The final result was me losing any and all interest in editing street articles on Toronto, with Mount Pleasant Road as my final contribution. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 21:53, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

Infobox state highway system

400-series Highways
Shields for Highway 402 and the QEW
The current 400-series Highway network in Southern Ontario
Highway names
Highways:	(King's) Highway nn; Queen Elizabeth Way (QEW)
System links
Ontario provincial highways Current Former 400-series

I updated {{infobox state highway system}} to support Canada, however it's not truly globalized. I did a mock up for the 400-series highways article. It uses the same subtemplates for colors, lengths, and links from {{infobox road}}. I'll let you play around with it if you want to use it. Imzadi 1979 → 03:03, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

Sweet! There's definitely a few pages in need of something just like this. Thanks :) - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 18:21, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

List of roads in Toronto

I restored the templates to User:Floydian/List of roads in Toronto/northsouthTOC and User:Floydian/List of roads in Toronto/eastwestTOC. I will leave it up to you to move these back to template space if you feel there are reasons why other TOC options are not feasible. Thanks! Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 00:36, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

Thank you :) - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 07:45, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Dispute resolution survey

Dispute Resolution – Survey Invite Hello Floydian/Archive. I am currently conducting a study on the dispute resolution processes on the English Wikipedia, in the hope that the results will help improve these processes in the future. Whether you have used dispute resolution a little or a lot, now we need to know about your experience. The survey takes around five minutes, and the information you provide will not be shared with third parties other than to assist in analyzing the results of the survey. No personally identifiable information will be released. Please click HERE to participate. Many thanks in advance for your comments and thoughts. You are receiving this invitation because you have had some activity in dispute resolution over the past year. For more information, please see the associated research page. Steven Zhang DR goes to Wikimania! 02:04, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

ZON

Wouldn't it be better to turn ZON into a disambiguation page instead of placing a link on the ZON Multimedia page? Whaddayathink? --L.Willms (talk) 17:23, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Normally a hatnote is used when there are only two cases (WP:TWODABS), but if neither qualify as a primary topic than a DAB would make more sense. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 18:10, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

There seems to be another case of there being no eternal truth and no one-size-fits all solution. --L.Willms (talk) 20:32, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Main page appearance: Ontario Highway 401

This is a note to let the main editors of Ontario Highway 401 know that the article will be appearing as today's featured article on April 14, 2012. You can view the TFA blurb at Wikipedia:Today's featured article/April 14, 2012. If you prefer that the article appear as TFA on a different date, or not at all, please ask featured article director Raul654 (talk · contribs) or his delegate Dabomb87 (talk · contribs), or start a discussion at Wikipedia talk:Today's featured article/requests. If the previous blurb needs tweaking, you might change it—following the instructions at Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests/instructions. If this article needs any attention or maintenance, it would be preferable if that could be done before its appearance on the Main Page. The blurb as it stands now is below:

Ontario Highway 401 is a 400-series highway in the Canadian province of Ontario stretching from Windsor to the Quebec border. The segment of Highway 401 passing through Toronto is the busiest highway in North America, and one of the widest and busiest in the world. Together with Quebec Autoroute 20, it forms the transportation backbone of the Quebec City–Windsor Corridor, along which over half of Canada's population resides. The entire route is maintained by the Ministry of Transportation of Ontario and patrolled by the Ontario Provincial Police. The posted speed limit is 100 km/h (62 mph) throughout its length. In 2011 construction began on a westward extension of Highway 401. This new route will generally follow, but not replace, former Highway 3 between the current end of the freeway and the E. C. Row Expressway, at which point it will turn and follow that route to a new border crossing. (more...)

UcuchaBot (talk) 23:02, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

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Hydro One in Commons

See Media related to Hydro One at Wikimedia Commons - I hope it can help you. I got a drive-by of Leaside TS and a quick shot at Bridgman TS. I'm having some camera problems or I would have better ones for you. Secondarywaltz (talk) 21:07, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

Ah, thank you! I suppose you saw the article in my userspace? I've been taking shots of the progress at Leaside (it's about a five minute walk from me); definitely going to look different driving along the DVP once they're done. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 01:21, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

Nice work...

...on the KML parameter. Any thoughts on creating a separate icon that looks a little different? Imzadi 1979 → 16:47, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

I want to... but I'm wondering what it should be since they're pretty similar to a map? - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 18:15, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

I was kinda thinking of a different map, maybe using the color combo used by WikiMiniAtlas, or a something using the WMA globe icon? Imzadi 1979 → 18:22, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

The globe icon] would do nicely, perhaps with a little red line drawn onto it? Or just as is. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 21:52, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

How about the KML icon File:Google Earth logo.png, or is it copyright? Secondarywaltz (talk) 22:08, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

I've just taken File:USRD MTF.svg and added a KML over the top to get -- WOSlinker (talk) 22:35, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

Secondarywarltz, see [2]... that icon is under copyright. Personally, I'd rather use the globe icon from WMA than the text superimposed over an existing icon that already has a specific meaning (it's the logo for USRD's Map Department). Imzadi 1979 → 22:39, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

The globe icon would be suitable because it is unused in English article space and would currently have unique symbolism. Text within another symbol, as in the example above, becomes illegible when reduced to icon size. Secondarywaltz (talk) 23:02, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

Based on the feedback here, I created and for the KML missing and unknown statuses with a matching icon minus the additions for the bit red X or the question mark the unmodified version for articles that have a KML. If desired, I can update the thickness of the red path line across the globe (which is to represent the line drawn by a KML). Imzadi 1979 → 03:03, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

I like the globes, but the red line needs to be thicker to be visible at 20-30 pixels. –Fredddie™ 04:31, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Much better. I can see the line now! –Fredddie™ 04:53, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

BLP policy and contentious material

Floydian, I know you've been around here long enough to know better than this. Please take it to the talk page. Thanks, Paul Erik ^{(talk)(contribs)} 16:52, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

I'm honestly better off stepping back from what I can clearly see is an area where the encyclopedia has taken an opinion on the matter. Every environmental topic is made out to support the very contentious IPCC opinion on man-made global warming. Nay-sayers just get banned or stonewalled. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 17:18, 30 April 2012 (UTC)