User talk:Hydnjo/Archive10

DO NOT EDIT OR POST REPLIES TO THIS PAGE. THIS PAGE IS AN ARCHIVE.

This archive page covers approximately the dates between 1 March 2006 and 30 April 2006.

Post replies to the main talk page, copying the section you are replying to if necessary. (See Wikipedia:How to archive a talk page.)

Main Page election

Thanks very much for your kind words! This project has been challenging at times, but it's been immensely rewarding overall. And of course, it promises to be especially rewarding three weeks from now. (Knock on wood!) —David Levy 03:59, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Firstly, keep in mind that Wikipedia is not a democracy. Are you considering the quality of the arguments presented, or are you simply tallying the votes? I'm far from impartial, but I believe that some of the opposition is based upon rather weak reasoning.

Secondly, I'm afraid that your expectations are unrealistic. No matter how much time and effort goes into such a project, it's impossible to please everyone (or even nearly everyone). Many people would oppose any new design, while others have tastes that fall outside of the mainstream. You may have noticed that we've received some complaints about changing the main page too much, while others believe that we haven't changed enough. To me, this indicates that we've hit our target rather well. —David Levy

I agree that the process should be simpler than this, but it seems that Wikipedia has grown too large for that level of boldness to be accepted or even tolerated. Therefore, it's better to get as much of the tumult out of the way as possible before replacing the main page (to prevent innocent bystanders from being dragged in). —David Levy 02:09, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't concede that point at all. The larger we become then the more likely that any controversial (subjective) subject will achieve about a 50-50 or so acclaim. It may go 70-30 or so but unless it's DRASTIC it'll not go above 80-20 (taboo subjects etc.). It's becoming like the US political arena, nobody for national office gets anything over 51- 60% or so, no matter what. There are some who will vote in the minority just because it is the minority. hydnjo talk 03:00, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree in principle, but we have to work within the boundaries of system that has emerged, however flawed it may be. Had we simply implemented the new main page design, it would have been reverted within minutes. The current climate has rendered a heated debate unavoidable, so it's preferable to confine it to an arena other than the main page proper (where people who simply want to access the encyclopedia would be affected). —David Levy 03:15, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

72 + 75 + 23 = 170, DUH!

Embarrassing, especially because math is one of my strengths.  :-) – Doug Bell ^{talk•contrib} 06:39, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Actually, it ended up that Karmafist missed a tie with BDA by only 2 votes (new list) NoSeptember ^talk 19:28, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

BDA also had 2 after the close votes that were not counted, so either way BDA wins (183/181) or (185/184). NoSeptember ^talk 20:47, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Vandalizing in your name

An anon with the IP 71.252.208.123 has just vandalized Talk:Main Page (diff) using your sig. Just thought you should know. hydnjo talk 01:02, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for letting me know. However, they deleted the middle of the page, leaving the end of one of my comments there. -- user:zanimum

Oops, now I see what happened. :-) hydnjo talk 01:23, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Reply

Haha no problem... anyway I hope the new Main Page wins :-) EdGl 03:53, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Voting page vandalized

Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Usability/Main_Page was vandalized by an anon here, time and IP: 20:04, 8 March 2006 24.209.106.111 (EST, so your time stamp should sync). I'm uncomfortable trying to pull it back in myself - help. hydnjo talk 02:38, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Here's his fingerprint, I think the diff is all of the missing stuff. hydnjo talk 02:42, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Believe it or not, I just spent almost two hours cleaning up the mess made by the newbies who followed the Digg link. I started with the last good version, and then I manually added each new comment individually (refactoring and tagging all the while). Meanwhile, the edits kept coming! I finally managed to catch up a few minutes ago. —David Levy 02:51, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

New articles

Hello. I noticed at the help desk that you seem to think that a newly created article needs "a few weeks" before it can be searched for. This is not the case, a newly created page will be able to be searched for immediately or if thing are running slowly then in a few minutes. Please contact me on my talk page if you need any further help or discussion about this. hydnjo talk 16:14, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

I know for a fact that new articles don't appear in a search. Of course if you type precisely the name of an article or a redirect, you will get to the article. But if you make a search, you will find all articles containing a phrase, but only those that have been around long enough. If you don't believe me, try my examples: searching for "Lenohard" will give you all articles including the phrase "Leonhard", but searching for "Fedigan" will not yet lead you to anything. This is a known fact. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 16:19, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

...Does that mean you agree? -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 16:28, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't really know how long it takes as I hardly ever use WP's Search function. WP search has so many weaknesses such as case sensitivity and spelling rigidity that I quit using it. Instead I use Google's WP specific search engine which is much more tolerant of my mistakes. hydnjo talk 16:40, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Oh, and I also have no idea how long it takes for Google's crawler to update. hydnjo talk 16:43, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

It seems that we have been victims of chronology. Am I correct in now realizing you've posted in my talk page before reading my clarification at the help desk? In that case, thanks for your desire to help. At first I thought you posted it afterwards, so it irritated me quite a bit.

Regarding your new post: I use Wikipedia's search every now and then, but have learnt that its database isn't updated frequently mostly by answering to people asking why the article they have created doesn't appear in the search. (btw if you want to reply, you can do so here). -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 16:45, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, we're just too fast for our own good! Sorry about the mixup as my brain's frame of reference is the Go rather than the Search button. hydnjo talk 16:58, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, the point is that I guess most users, myself included, just press "enter", which acts like "go" when there is an article with the exact name, and like "search" otherwise. This, and the delayed update thing, confuses many people. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 17:02, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

I also meant "enter" for "Go". Now that you've piqued my interest, I'm goin to keep watch for the Linda Marie Fedigan article to show with Google's and WP's search engines just to see how long it does take for the annotated versions to appear. hydnjo talk 17:39, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Good idea. Don't hold your breath, though; I've seen articles a month old not appearing in search. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 17:54, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

• March 17 2006: WP:HD entry indexed by Google.
• March 18 2006: Category:Primatologists and User talk:Meni Rosenfeld indexed by Google.

• copied from WP:VPT March 21 2006:

I've been watching the recently created article Linda Marie Fedigan. This (still incomplete) timeline may help.

• March 8 2006: Article Linda Marie Fedigan started.
• March 9 2006: Article discussed at WP:HD, User talk:Meni Rosenfeld, and User talk:Hydnjo.
• March 17 2006: WP:HD entry indexed by Google.
• March 18 2006: Category:Primatologists and User talk:Meni Rosenfeld indexed by Google.
• March 21 2006: As of this date (noon, UTC) the article itself has not yet been indexed by WP or Google nor has the reference on my talk page  :-( I'll keep watching for the links mentioned and also for this fresh reference on this page. hydnjo talk 04:01, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
• March 22 2006: Update, User talk:Hydnjo reference found to be indexed by Google as of this timestamp.  :-) hydnjo talk 04:17, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
• March 24 2006: Linda Marie Fedigan main article found to be indexed by Google as of this timestamp. Neither the article nor references to it yet indexed by WP. hydnjo talk 03:15, 25 March 2006 (UTC)
• April 11 2006: More than one month now and not yet available through the WP search function.
• May 7 2006: Two months, not yet.
• May 26 2006: Nope.
• June 8 2006: Three months since article was started and still not searchable with WP Search.

• June 17 2006: The article Linda Marie Fedigan which was started on March 8 2006 has been indexed by WP sometime after my last post and before this one.

anything going on?

Hi - I've been inordinately busy in the real world for the past several weeks (to the point of not even logging on). Anything in particular going on that I might be interested in? I see we've passed 1,000,000 articles. Anybody else significant gotten fed up and left (Radiant!'s the last one I heard about). Just curious. Per the note I just added to my talk page, I'm not gone or anything - just extremely busy. I expect the current level of busy-ness to continue for a while  :( , but I fully expect to resume my previous level of activity eventually. In any event, just thought I'd drop by and say hi. -- Rick Block (talk) 05:02, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Wiki Cream

Sure, and I'm flattered. For whatever it's worth, I started out as an enthusiastic and idealistic editor, but I've pretty much stopped contributing, due to variations on this problem. I try to view WP as a social construct and find interest in watching and analyzing some of the things that happen as various personality types interact and assumptions clash, but I am tired of working hard on edits that vanish into the grey goo. I tried to make some more-concrete points about the problem (not without more analogies - rolling boulders up hills, I think) to the discussion on stable versions -- most of which has been archived, I guess. Too bad about Monty, though. Jgm 02:43, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

By the way, how the heck did you come across that?Jgm 02:55, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Wiki cream (written by Jgm):

"... I'm beginning to see Wikipedia articles (and, by extension, the Wikipedia itself) as analogous to whipping cream. At first there is great anticipation as the raw material is revealed and the process of whipping it into shape begins. When conditions are right, at some point, the churning and friction result in something approaching ideal -- well structured, tasty, substantive.

The problem is that the whipping never stops. What was near-perfect turns into homogenous goo; the main ingredient hasn't changed and it's still capable of meeting basic dietary needs, but far less enjoyable to consume."

Thank u!

Thanks for your message :) i'm off cleaning up some again ;) User:Fuzzbox usertalk 11 march 2006

VIP/RFI

Wikipedia:Requests for investigation was called Wikipedia:Vandalism in progress until it was moved to the new title just yesterday. See Wikipedia talk:Requests for investigation#Schism. Schzmo 14:58, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Screename Change

I actually didn't tell anyone I changed my screename. I figured there'd be too many people to tell, and that people would either notice it was me, or think I was some sort of sock puppet, but that'd be an easy thought to reverse. How are you guys doing? -- SmthManly / ^ManlyTalk / ^{ManlyContribs} 03:35, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

70.88.242.206

Hi hydnjo! TexasAndroid has blocked 70.88.242.206 for a week. We're generally reluctant to block what may be a shared IP for a prolonged period because of colateral damage. However, thsi block should give you a week of peace. I hope this helps. ➨ ❝REDVERS❞ 21:36, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Featured content

Thanks, I'm glad you like the page. I responded to your question about when it was created at WP:HD#WP:???. Like most things it was a process rather than all at once. The 'main page redesign' project was looking for a way to link all the featured content to the Main Page and decided to use what I'd built at Portal:Featured content for that. Hence the name change and shortcut. --CBDunkerson 13:59, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

BTW - if you're interested in how it works (I was), there's a subpage (like a template) that selects which date to display based on the current hour and minute (see Wikipedia:Featured content/SetDate). You get a different result (different date) every minute, but if you look at it at the same minute within the day you get the same results every day (i.e. it's distinctly not random). -- Rick Block (talk) 19:02, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

True. However, the order of the dates displayed each minute is randomized and I update it every couple of weeks to include the latest 'of the day' materials... re-randomizing the order each time. So unless you hit the page at the same minute within a few days of each other it will usually display a different result for that minute. Not truly random, but giving the appearance of such in most cases. --CBDunkerson 11:06, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

• I'm going to copy this discussion to Wikipedia talk:Featured content#Featured content discussion to gain greater exposure. See you there! --hydnjo talk 19:39, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

re: watching?

Hi - This is my kids' spring break week (and I'm taking off from work), so I'm trying to catch up on a bunch of stuff (updated Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by featured article nominations, for example). BTW - did you notice this? Interested? I also need to get around to updating the main page appearance date listing in Wikipedia:Featured_articles_nominated_in_2006 (etc.). Seems like there ought to be a tool for this :) . Glad to see you're still around. I'm not sure I've ever met Heidi, but say Hi for me. -- Rick Block (talk) 04:53, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

My (HereToHelp’s) RfA

Thank you for supporting my RfA. I’m proud to inform you that it passed with 75 support to 1 oppose to 2 neutral. I promise to make some great edits in the future (with edit summaries!) and use these powers to do all that I can to help. After all, that’s what I’m here for! (You didn’t think I could send a thank you note without a bad joke, could I?) --HereToHelp 12:57, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

RFA Thanks

Hi Hydnjo! Based on your congratulation message I guess you've already seen that my RFA was successful based on 111 support and 1 oppose. Thanks for your support. --CBDunkerson 17:27, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

-P.S. The same 'voting block' pun ran through my mind when I saw the votes by Rick and Steve. :]

Notice

The Community Portal was recently reverted to a version that appeared months ago. Therefore, I've called for a vote to restore to the Community Portal the version that had developed there up until that reversion. There are three drafts competing for the privilege, each representing entirely different approaches, including the current revert version. To show your support for which design should be displayed as the Community Portal, VOTE HERE. Sincerely, --Go for it! 18:14, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Template Magic

(from CBD's talk copied here in case CBD well... whatever):
Hello again. Our paths began to cross when I inquired at the HD about a place that turned out to be WP:FC. Well, from there I, after some additional prompting from Rick, I decided to learn more about the underlying wiki markup. I was astonished at the amount of code required to do something as seemingly simple as providing a random selection of our best and featured stuff, at that time I had no inkling of switch or case. Anyway, I then saw how you you took a routine like day+1 and used your skills to re-implement it as tomorrow and I said wow! From there I found your RfA still in progress and AzaToth's recently failed bid (I have notified him of my intent to support him in his next bid). Hmmm... I forgot why I started this conversation... ooh ooh, now I remember, is there a place for me (or anyone ) to learn about all of the wiki markup available to us or do we need to learn it piecemeal by studying the works of folks like yourself, Rick, and Aza (you... you... template masters you). Thanks BTW for your very detailed response to my thoughts about "improving" FC, it seems that you have thought it out quite thoroughly without my meddling. As for my own skills, a true challenge for me was to find a way of recoding a program on an HP 48 to accomplish in 1 minute what was requiring 10 minutes (perhaps that's why I admire your template work so damn much). hydnjo talk 23:14, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

== Response to your question on my talk == --CBDunkerson 23:58, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

(from CBD's talk in case well... same as before)

Hi Hydnjo. There isn't a single 'training guide' for markup and templates, but there are a number of useful pages. The best single page to start at is Wikipedia:Markup#Wiki_markup... which contains an overview of all aspects of Wikipedia 'coding'. From there Help:Table is the standard document for table markup - though MediaWiki:Common.css is also critical for understanding the pre-defined CSS styles used in most tables. From there the real 'coding' aspects can be found in Help:A quick guide to templates, Help:Template, and m:Help:Advanced templates... which are progressively more detailed (and less organized) examinations of template and parameter logic. Finally, Help:Magic words, Help:Variable, Template:Wikivars are largely redundant pages for information on special tags and commands which are often very useful to templates (both WP:FC and the various date templates rely on these to work at all).

All that being said, I think I picked up more from just jumping in and seeing what was out there than I did from the help documentation. The above links are good resources for looking up details, but experimenting is the most certain way to learn. Believe me, it doesn't take long - a few months ago I didn't know what a Wiki-template was. The best place to look for good examples of existing templates (and most of the 'utility' templates which make others easier to write) is Category:Wikipedia special effects templates and especially the 'if templates' and 'boolean templates' subcategories there.

Finally, you might just keep an eye on the contributions of User:AzaToth, User:Netoholic, User:Locke Cole, User:Ed Poor, and other skilled template writers to see what sort of template work they are doing currently. Alot of this stuff evolves as people come up with new ways of doing things and then we all debate the pros and cons of each methodology. --CBDunkerson 23:55, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Comment on Monty Hall

I'm not sure whether your comment is meant to be taken seruiously or not. My irony guage isn't working with that one. Jooler 00:12, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Response at Jooler's talk. hydnjo talk 01:05, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Monty Hall changes

Hi - I've made some changes (I'd claim improvements:) ) to the Monty Hall problem in the last couple of days. Feedback? I'm working my way down from the top. I'm up to "Aids for Understanding" so far (although I flipped the "Venn diagram" images to match the original Parade description). It may be sort of subtle so far, but I would appreciate your opinion. -- Rick Block (talk) 03:13, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback. I used GIMP to flip the images (horizontal flip the whole image, then cut out the numbers and flip them back individually - I had to redo the numbers on the small image since there wasn't a "1", which is why the font changed). I'm not sure what to do with Another way of getting the solution. It seems a little tortured. I may add it back elsewhere eventually. I think Double Think's basic point belongs in the "Aids to understanding" section, and it's essentially there now although perhaps not as prominent as he'd like. I'm pretty sure I'll make a new section for the probability diagrams (and probably remove the "coin flip" ones - which I think were added in response to a critical article elsewhere on the web). It is difficult to be precise and concise simultaneously. -- Rick Block (talk) 19:18, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Main page edit

How is it that Robin Patterson was able to edit the Main page header today? He doesn't seem to be listed at WP:LA. Thanks, hydnjo talk 21:03, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Robin has been a sysop since 4 August 2004. He's listed in the "Semi-active" section. —David Levy 21:36, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Duhh! Thanks, hydnjo talk 22:03, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks for the offer of help. Your joke was amusing anyway. :-) Steve 22:44, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Your edit on my talk page

I have taken notice that you tried to permanently change my usertalk page, editing Karmafists's welcome message with your username. As of now, I do not know if you had the right to do that, therefore I kindly demand an explanation. I will inform Karmafist of this issue in case you do not reply. LIllIi 23:51, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I did alter that portion of your talk page having to do with Karmafist's signature link to his manifesto. The change (edit) was not permanent as I see you have reverted my edit back to Karmafist's original welcome. The reason for my edit was that one result of the request for arbitration regarding Karmafist's link to his manifesto as part of his welcoming message was:

*1) Karmafist is prohibited from welcoming with any template or wording other than {{welcome}}. He may not link to personal advocacy pages, or include political language, in the welcome message, signature, or edit summary. He must use a reasonable, civil, relevant edit summary. "Welcoming" is to be interpreted broadly, to prevent gaming. If Karmafist violates this remedy, he may be blocked for a short time of up to one week. After five such blocks, the maximum block time is increased to one year.

'Passed 7-0'

You are of course allowed to edit your talk page as you see fit. One way around this situation would be for you to provide a link to Karmafist's manifesto on your talk page without it being part of a signature as which would be against the arbcom's ruling. Regards, hydnjo talk 20:50, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Oh, and although I have provided the explanation that you have so kindly "demanded", I have no problem and in fact encourage you to keep Karmafist advised of my action. hydnjo talk 21:11, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

And as an act of good faith, I have left Karmafist's welcome without the objectionable link. I hope that this resolves the issue. If not, please contact me or another user for further clarification. Regards again from, hydnjo talk 01:20, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

• I actually found his welcome message to be informative and neutral. I did notice that there's a link to his userpage, which I didn't visit, so it was not of my knowledge that it included some kind of text, entitled 'manifesto', closing with the following line: "This document has been inspired by the 95 Theses of Martin Luther". I did not 'kindly demand' an explanation, I asked for one. LIllIi 23:51, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

I only copied the text from your first paragraph: "...therefore I kindly demand an explanation... " But, my edit had nothing to do with that and I'm sorry to have even brought it up. My edit was intended to reflect the decision of the Arbcom. hydnjo talk 20:00, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

• Part of my reply seems to have been slightly aggressive, which wasn't my intention. My suggestion to you: make a usertalk entry prior to a change. This might leave the other party less baffled :) - that said, I guess there is legitimate reason to keep Karmafist from welcoming new Wikipedia users but at the same time, the welcome message he wrote to me was very friendly and neutral. Whatever 'Arbcom' is, I do not see any reason why I have to follow their 'decision'. Have a nice rest of the weekened, LIllIi 23:51, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

• Point taken. I was trying to undo tens of "Welcomes" which had been deemed inappropriate by the Arbcom decision. I apologize to you for my hasty rv'ing of Karmafist's "Welcome" message to you. I'll leave it up to you to make your own decision as to the legitimacy of an Arbcom ruling but the usual response to a user defying their ruling has been to ban/block that user for some period of time. In Karmafist's situation, after being blocked, he started a "sockpuppet" account, User:KFSP, which was quickly traced to him.
  

Karmafist and I have no animous towards each other and have comunicated here publicly and privately via email. He and I don't always agree on issues but do respect each others right to our own and each other's opinions. I sincerely hope that he will return to be a respected member of this community. He will however, in the meantime, be required to abide by the decisions of our arbitration processes. Again, regards from hydnjo talk 23:00, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

• FYI, these are the links to the Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee sometimes referred to as the ArbCom. Oh well, the more important you are then the more names you have!  ;-) hydnjo talk 23:37, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Monty Hall Problem?

Are you sure that the odds are 1 in 3? I am pretty confident that it's actually 1 in 2 because there are two doors, so each door must be a 50% chance. Consequently I have changed the entire article to reflect this.

Just kidding... :-) The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese! - Abscissa 00:36, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

This is so precious that I copied it over to Talk:Monty Hall problem#Everybody has one (sorry, no index link) along with my typically corrosive response. hydnjo talk 02:00, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

==Monty Hall, Monty Hall, Monty Hall,Monty Hall, Monty Hall, Monty Hall, continued...==

Actually, the odds of losing by not swapping has more to do with the number of doors at the outset than anything else. Starting with only three doors seems to be the most likely way to confound the greatest number of people, and that is the point after all. Imagine if you will that the "show" were to be lengthened so as to accommodate say one hundred doors with Monty dutifully revealing ninety-eight goats each night - wow! wouldn't that be a thriller, no viewers, no sponsors and no show. So, lets reduce the number of doors to the minimum - three. That way we can maximize the confusion (along with our profit). Clever. Look at the folks here at WP that are unwilling to "see the light", some marketeer got wealthy over that one!

It's still fun however, especially if we get a convert now and again. ;-) hydnjo talk 01:22, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

This response to Abscissa's talk can be found at either Abscissa's talk or at Monty's talk. hydnjo talk 02:21, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

omg more monty hall!!11!!!!!1!!!!!!!! lol

This so called "two players problem" that is on the talk page... the whole thread is a mess and my explination isn't as clear as it could be. But it appears to be an intersting questoin... do you think it has any place in the article? (or would it just make it more of a gigantic mess) - Abscissa 21:11, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Never mind, something similar to it seems to be in the article already. - Abscissa 21:15, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Hello!

Hmm...I haven't seen you for a while. How are things these days? --HappyCamper 20:10, 27 April 2006 (UTC)