User talk:MJCdetroit/Archive Dec 2005 to Jan 1st, 2007

Welcome!

Hello, MJCdetroit/Archive Dec 2005 to Jan 1st, 2007, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers:

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I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Where to ask a question, ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. Again, welcome!  Izehar 21:45, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Military project

You should check out the military project and see if you want to help. - ApolloCreed 22:29, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

merging of .50 BMG

You can use the {{main | foo}} tag if you'd like to indicate on the page for .50 cal rounds to point at the BMG. However, as the BMG has a rather large article already, and a much storied military history (as opposed to say the .50 alaskan, .50 AE, .500 S&W, etc). As such, I don't think it's a good idea to merge them. If you'd like to discuss it, please post there, or there's also Wikipedia:WikiProject Weaponry. xoxo, Avriette 21:52, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

I have no idea what you are talking about—MJCdetroit

US state widths and lengths

Hi - I noticed you're filling in the table at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject U.S. states. Can you let me know where you're getting the data from? I think we'll ultimately need to cite the source. Thanks. -- Rick Block (talk) 19:28, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. I found that site a while ago as well, and I can't tell where they got the data from either. I would really prefer an authoritative source (e.g. USGS). There was a suggestion some time ago (here) for a possible reference I've been unable to track down. If you're willing and interested, I think this might be available from a major city's public library (just guessing, are you anywhere near Detroit?). In any event, I think I'd rather not use the data from netstate.com. -- Rick Block (talk) 19:52, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

I also found the same data at shgresources. Like I said earlier, the metric values do not appear to have any citation either (they themselves are probably just the converted values from the same poor sources). I am also going to try to email someone who used to teach this kind of stuff at the university level; maybe he'll have a source. And yes I am from Detroit. ---MJCdetroit 20:51, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Paris and acres

I see you are American. I know in the US there are still lots of people who think in terms of acres, particularly in rural areas, that's why I thought it would be interesting to have the figure expressed in acres as well. It seems to me sq. miles don't mean much to many Americans (at least for small surfaces), whereas acres are more easily understood. What do you think? Hardouin 14:42, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

In response to your posting on my talk page: I understand your thinking and I thank you. However, in the U.S. acres are typically used to describe privately owned land or maybe parks (at least in my experience). Acres are not usually used to describe municipalities such as cities or towns (unless they are incredibly small; less than one square mile). For example, in the recent news story [13] where V.P. Dick Cheney shot a fellow hunter in the face, the ranch he was on was a 50,000 acre ranch (~78 sq. mi). Yet Crawford, Texas is described as being 0.9 sq. miles. Central Park in NYC is 843 acres and the property that we hunt on in northern Michigan is 600 acres. To put a French spin on this, the grounds of the Château de Versailles would be described in terms of acres, but the city of Versailles would be described in square miles. Hopefully that gives you a better understanding. MJCdetroit 19:03, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Inconsistent measurements

Hey MJC, your amendments to New Zealand created inconsistencies in measurements, such as using kilometre in full but mi for miles. I have reverted to the consistent version. Cheers. Moriori 19:59, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

My response is on your (Moriori) talk page. MJCdetroit 21:18, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

(yes it is, but it is easier to have it here for continuity, so I have copied it to here). Moriori

In response to your comment on my discussion page from 19:59, 16 February 2006 (UTC): I can see why you may think that both measurements should be abbrivated for consistency, but it is just not correct according to the manual of Style. Here is what the wikipedia Manual of Sytle WP:MoS has to say:

Conversions should generally not be removed. If editors cannot agree about the sequence of units, put the source value first and the converted value second. Spell out source units in text. Use digits and unit symbols for converted values and for measurements in tables. For example, "a pipe 100 millimetres (4 in) in diameter and 10 miles (16 km) long". MoS section on Measurements. That being said-I'm reverting it back. Thanks. MJCdetroit 21:12, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

You are confusing conversions of measurements with abbreviations of symbols. Had you read one par further in the MOS you would have seen the following - "Use standard abbreviations when using symbols. For example, metre is m, kilogram is kg, inch is in (not " or ″), foot is ft (not ' or ′)", That's why I am reverting. Moriori 23:47, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't think that I am confusing anything; "Spell out source units in text. Use digits and unit symbols for converted values". That's why I am reverting back. MJCdetroit 16:38, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

OK, have it your way. However, in my original par here I mentioned inconsistencies. I trust you will revisit the New Zealand page and eliminate all current style inconsistencies. If you don't I will consider you are only trying to make a point here rather than improve an article, and will revert your reversion because text should have consistent style throughout. OK? Moriori 01:57, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

WOW! Unbelievable! Let me reiterate your stance: if there are mistakes in a page and something is clearly wrong, then instead of fixing the one thing that is clearly wrong and moving the page that much closer to perfect, we should not fix anything until all is fixed at once. Here's the problem with that: usually not one person knows the MoS so completely that going through a page and fixing it for all style inconsistencies at once is practicle. The beauty of Wikipedia is that I don't have to know the MoS front to back. If there are mistakes or inconsistancies that I know of — I can fix it and if Joe from England sees an inconsistancy — he fixes it and John from South Africa sees a mistake or something that does not go with the MoS — he fixes it, et cetera. Baby steps, baby steps to a perfect article. To be so protective and narrow is juvenile and I am done with it. MJCdetroit 14:51, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Rubbish. There was no "one thing" that was wrong on the page. You changed one instance of something you thought should be changed, but ignored all of the other similar instances on the page. If you are going to change an instance of style/usage/spelling etc in any article, then change ALL similar occurrences in the article. There is no requirement for anyone to know the MoS completely, but it is commonsense to accept that if we adopt a style within an article then that style should be used throughout that article. Moriori 05:57, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Please point out these similar occurrences in the article.MJCdetroit 00:14, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Barnstared!

		The Barnstar of Diligence
		For your tireless and commendable efforts to have all country articles use {{country infobox}}. Keep on rocking! Glad someone else here is for standardization. —Nightstallion (?) 21:05, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Just going the extra mile! Thanks, MJCdetroit 21:31, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

I second that!--naryathegreat | (talk) 17:59, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Also, I added Template:South Africa infobox and Template:Mozambique infobox to today's tfd. I'm sure you'll want to vote in those as well.--naryathegreat | (talk) 18:16, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

France

Sorry I wasn't able to respond. I took a rather unexpected wikibreak this week (it was spring break). I tried to change France over months ago and it didn't work! I'm glad you were able to.--naryathegreat | (talk) 00:34, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

We have a problem. You've created a bunch of templates like Template:Country infobox data France which are not used and simply sit there. We need to delete these too.--naryathegreat | (talk) 17:35, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Ah, I see it's part of that crazy effort a few months back to create seperate articles for the country infoboxes. I have to say that since that project died, I've been contemplating bringing all those templates up for deletion. A dead discussion with a bunch of useless templates serves no one.--naryathegreat | (talk) 17:41, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

I was/am using the table that is on the Template_talk:Infobox_Country page. I think it was created by User:SEWilco and a bot that he made. I am just using the table as a convenient springboard and a sandbox. Basically to make sure that all the i's are dotted and t's are crossed. I don't care what happens to them after I swap them out for the real deal. I just figured that when I get to the bottom of the list to delete them all at once. MJCdetroit 01:23, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

conversions

Please, could you reply in the topic Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#Conversions. Thanks, --tasc 17:38, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Israel and units of measurement

Please refrain from undoing other people's edits repeatedly. If you continue, you may be blocked from editing Wikipedia under the three-revert rule, which states that nobody may revert an article to a previous version more than three times in 24 hours. (Note: this also means editing the page to reinsert an old edit. If the effect of your actions is to revert back, it qualifies as a revert.) Thank you. Jkelly 21:35, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Probably the best thing to do is to leave a message at the Talk page of any involved article and, for the benefit of lazy people, link to the diff. Jkelly 02:03, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

I changed the Israel infobox back to U.S. customary & Metric measures. Tasc seems to be reverting again. I read the discussion on the MOS talk page. Some people...

Love the Superbowl picture on your page. Go Steelers! Keep up the good work on the infoboxes. Roxi2 02:54, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Iceland

Hi, I note that you added English units to this page (and I guess others as well). Given that the source units were originally metric, and that Iceland is a metric country, shouldn't the sequence be km first with miles following in parentheses, rather than the other way around? I think this also conforms to the MOS. What do you think? Nelson50 12:33, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

The only reason that I sometimes put the metric units second is because they have universal abbreviations: km, m, et cetera. Where as the English units can vary slightly depending on where in the English speaking world that you learned them. The MOS states that the first unit should be spelled out and the second abbreviated in parentheses. For this reason, it maybe best to spell out the English measurements and abbreviate the SI units. Also, sometimes the metric unit are already abbreviated in text (they should be spelled out), so it is easier to put parenthses around them. However, there is no right or wrong, provided that the WP:MOSNUM format is followed. For example, 100 kilometres (62 mi) or 100 miles (161 km). It is more of the editors' consensus as to what looks better and how they should go. I hope that you have an understanding to my original reasoning for my edits, but if you want to switch them around I have no objection to that. Thanks. MJCdetroit 13:58, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Mauritania

Sorry about that, I didn't mean to revert your edit. I've put it back now. -- Vary | Talk 04:07, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the consideration and heads up. :)—MJCdetroit 16:53, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Commas and MOS

The MOS says "may" which means you may choose to use it or not. Commas in Canadian mean the same as a period because Canada is bilingual with commas in french meaning period. To avoid the misunderstandings, commas are not used. --Jeff3000 02:09, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Oui, Je sais. Je parle Français aussi, mais parce que this is the English edition of wikipedia. I don't think somebody in Montreal will get too confused with the commas. In any case please discuss this change on the Canada talk page first before making it. MJCdetroit 03:28, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

portal in the infobox

You wrote:

" it is not much better than having it out of the infobox and below. "

The problem was that the portal link did not show below. It was showing to the left of the infobox. Today I see that the arrangement is OK in Republic of Moldova. Someone simply placed {{portal}} above the infobox. `'mikka (t) 17:49, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

TfD nomination of Template:Country infobox data Hong Kong

Template:Country infobox data Hong Kong has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. Hunter 16:06, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

tfd

can you tfd this redundant orphan Template:Republic of China infobox after you moved the contents into the article? SchmuckyTheCat 21:32, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

re: Highest point in State Infoboxes

Hi - I saw the update to the template that put the governor and senator in the same box, and updated every state to get rid of an extra blank line. While doing this I noticed some of the state infoboxes had gotten considerably wider than they used to be, at least in some cases due to the addition of the highest point. It took quite a while to figure out what to do with this (I'm not really a css expert). I think the newer version of the template is better - multiline table entries that are supposed to align is really pretty bad form (although I've done this myself). Doing this was interesting, I learned something. -- Rick Block (talk) 00:06, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

City infobox

I say merge the two infoboxes (given that now they have almost the same layout and content). However, I tried to deprecate the US city infobox, but Boothy443 vehemently objected to the inclusion of a skyline image within the infobox (it seems that he has recently relented). Have you asked him about it? Pentawing^Talk 02:34, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

another barnstar

		The Working Man's Barnstar
		For chasing down and adding US measurements to every state's infobox! Rick Block (talk) 05:00, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

BTW - would you have any interest in being an admin? I'd be happy to nominate you. Just let me know. -- Rick Block (talk) 05:00, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

The ability to protect pages and block vandals...why not. Sign me up. —MJCdetroit 01:05, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

I've created your nomination page at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/MJCdetroit. To accept the nomination, you must formally state your acceptance and answer the questions on that page. Once you have answered the questions, you may post your nomination for discussion (update the closing time and date as appropriate), or I can do this for you. Good luck! -- Rick Block (talk) 02:27, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

I notice you've accepted and answered the questions. Do you want to link the page into WP:RFA, or would you like me to? Just let me know. -- Rick Block (talk) 13:52, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Yes, can you please link to that page. Thanks, MJCdetroit 12:53, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Your nomination is up! Some folks add additional questions, so please pay at least some attention to it (I'd recommend not obsessing about it, although it may be nearly irrestible). -- Rick Block (talk) 15:14, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Hmmmm. Based on the current split (7-6) this isn't going to work out well. If you'd rather not suffer through a week of this, please let me know and we can get the nomination withdrawn (although the numbers could well change). I know you didn't seek this out, and I apologize if this is painful. In any event, if you at any time want to call it off please let me know. -- Rick Block (talk) 01:38, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

I answered the additional questions that were posted. So we'll see what happens. Although one comment had me confused. Someone was discussing how I only had 160 edits. Do you know what he meant? I'll stick it out just to see what happens. In any case, the nomination is a honor by itself. Thanks—MJCdetroit 02:49, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

No clue. I'll post as polite a response as I can. -- Rick Block (talk) 03:15, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

I think the comment is about the voter, not you. -- Rick Block (talk) 03:21, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Any chance you might want to enable an email address? -- Rick Block (talk) 03:58, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Not at this time. I would have to switch email accounts (I wouldn't use my main account). I figure that my talk page is good enough for now.—MJCdetroit 11:56, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure why it's not closed yet, but your nomination is clearly going to fail. I'm very sorry to have put you through this - I have not paid much attention to RfA lately and it seems to be substantially different than it used to be (and I should have picked up on this before nominating you). Judging by the comments, what it takes these days is active participation in WP:CVU and its associated IRC channels and thousands of meaningless edits done by a tool like the Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser (which, of course, only runs on Windows) - or to be well known enough that the 20-30 pinheads with these sorts of unreasonable requirements are only 15% of the voters. If you ever want to pursue this again (or need anything done only an admin can do - I am one as you might have gathered), please let me know. -- Rick Block (talk) 18:52, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Not a problem. I figured that I will let it finish and I'll leave some type of closing comments thanking all the voters—pro, con and neutral. I am sure that in a few months I'll get nominated again. Thanks. MJCdetroit 19:05, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

More params for infobox country?

I've updated template:Infobox Country so visual rows are separate TR rows. I've noticed there are a couple of params that include BRs. Other than leader_titles/leader_names (for which I added params) and established_events/established_dates (for which I didn't - yet), do you know of any other params like this? Thanks. -- Rick Block (talk) 19:05, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

I think that sometimes motto and athem have breaks entered between the native/Latin language and the English translations. I think that many of the multi-language countries have breaks between the languages. I would look into it but I can't—the Yankees are in town and I got tickets.—MJCdetroit 20:31, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Have fun at the game. Breaks in an entry are OK as long as they're not used to create rows that cross cell boundaries. I think the motto, anthem (and title) entries are fine. -- Rick Block (talk) 21:57, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

There are breaks still between the following

• {{#if:{{{conventional_long_name|}}}|<br />'''{{{conventional_long_name|}}}'''}}

  • This one's fine - it's the table title (no other cells involved).

• {{{capital}}}<br /> <small>{{coor dm|{{{latd}}}|{{{latm}}}|{{{latNS.../small>

  • Also fine since there's no corresponding title in the adjacent cell (it really is part of the single "capital" entry).

• {{{sovereignty_type}}}'''<br />{{{established_events}}} (which you said you know about)

  • Not so fine, because the labels given by the established_events param are for the dates given by the established_dates param and these two params are in different cells and have multiple values for lots of countries (separated by BRs).

• {{{population_density_rank}}}]])<br />{{{population_densitymi²}}}/sq mi 

  • Fine, since there's no corresponding label in the adjacent cell (density is the label for the row, and the value is the metric value, rank, and optional US value). If the units were identified in the label "cell" with metric on one "row" and US on the next, this would be a problem.

Hope this helps.—MJCdetroit 12:42, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Yup. Thanks. -- Rick Block (talk) 14:05, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

OK. Looks good to me—MJCdetroit 14:26, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

around this evening?

Hi - I just updated template:Infobox City in much the same way as the recent update to template:Infobox Country. I won't be logged in this evening - if you could watch for breakage complaints and try to fix any issues anyone notices I'd appreciate it. I'll leave a similar note for user:Harpchad (although I don't know timezone he edits from - looking at his contribution history I suppose he's someplace in EST). Hopefully, at least one of you will be around. Thanks. -- Rick Block (talk) 23:35, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Possibly unfree Image:FireMILLENsaddam.JPG

An image that you uploaded or altered, Image:FireMILLENsaddam.JPG, has been listed at Wikipedia:Possibly unfree images. If the image's copyright status cannot be verified, it may be deleted. Please go to its page to provide the necessary information on the source or licensing of this image (if you have any), if you are interested in it not being deleted. Thank you.

--Rory096 07:38, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Delete it. I uploaded this 6 months ago and forgot about it. At the time I was was new to wiki a not fully aware of the copyvio policy.—MJCdetroit 14:56, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Possibly unfree Image:Pope Fire Millen.jpg

An image that you uploaded or altered, Image:Pope Fire Millen.jpg, has been listed at Wikipedia:Possibly unfree images. If the image's copyright status cannot be verified, it may be deleted. Please go to its page to provide the necessary information on the source or licensing of this image (if you have any), if you are interested in it not being deleted. Thank you.

--Rory096 07:38, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Delete it. Same as above.—MJCdetroit 14:57, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Possibly unfree Image:Sheriff Mark Hackel HeadShot.jpg

An image that you uploaded or altered, Image:Sheriff Mark Hackel HeadShot.jpg, has been listed at Wikipedia:Possibly unfree images. If the image's copyright status cannot be verified, it may be deleted. Please go to its page to provide the necessary information on the source or licensing of this image (if you have any), if you are interested in it not being deleted. Thank you.

--Rory096 07:41, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Delete it. —MJCdetroit 14:59, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Image Tagging Image:MJCchem1.gif

This media may be deleted.

Thanks for uploading Image:MJCchem1.gif. I notice the 'image' page currently doesn't specify who created the content, so the copyright status is unclear. If you have not created this media yourself then there needs to be an argument why we have the right to use the media on Wikipedia (see copyright tagging below). If you have not created the media yourself then it needs to be specified where it was found, i.e., in most cases link to the website where it was taken from, and the terms of use for content from that page.

If the media also doesn't have a copyright tag then one should be added. If you created/took the picture, audio, or video then the {{GFDL-self}} tag can be used to release it under the GFDL. If you believe the media qualifies as fair use, consider reading fair use, and then use a tag such as {{Non-free fair use in|article name}} or one of the other tags listed at Wikipedia:Image copyright tags#Fair_use. See Wikipedia:Image copyright tags for the full list of copyright tags that you can use.

If you have uploaded other media, consider checking that you have specified their source and copyright tagged them, too. You can find a list of 'image' pages you have edited by clicking on the "my contributions" link (it is located at the very top of any Wikipedia page when you are logged in), and then selecting "Image" from the dropdown box. Note that any unsourced and untagged images will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you. Rory096 07:53, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

This was self generated. I fixed the tag.—MJCdetroit 14:51, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Adminship nomination

On this occasion, your request for adminship was not successful. I hope that you will continue your useful contributions to Wikipedia, and may consider standing again in future. Remember, many of those voting against are just waiting to see more of your work! Warofdreams talk 19:33, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

My comments are here Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/MJCdetroit. Thanks, MJCdetroit 19:43, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

FYI, Wikipedia IRC channels are listed at Wikipedia:IRC channels. I don't do IRC, but I suspect actively participating on IRC would help your name recognition. -- Rick Block (talk) 14:53, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Thank you

Thank you for the compliments regarding the United States article.--Ryz05 _t 18:25, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Deletion review for User metric-sucks

I have initiated deletion review of our favorite template.

Nova SS 03:02, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

I think that it should not have been a speedy delete. That it should have been put up for a community concensus if it was in question. By the way, that template is just a moditfied version of very old template still in use by about 60 users. Anyway, I got the code for it and you know you have my support. —MJCdetroit 03:59, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

infobox tweaks

Is User:MJCdetroit/Template Sandbox2 closer? The shading in the title column looks a little funky - not sure what to do about this. BTW - I'm pretty sure it's "council" (an assembly of persons) not "counsel" (what you get from a lawyer, or priest). -- Rick Block (talk) 03:16, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

My spelling does suck! Sometimes a fresh eye helps.

Yes, it is a little better. I'll play with it a little more in the coming days. I am messing with the shading a little. I don't want the shade to be the same as Government. I probably won't use any. Thanks. MJCdetroit 03:50, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

No problem. -- Rick Block (talk) 04:01, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Is there way not to bold the font in the first cell; where the city council names 2,4,6,8 etc appear in my example?—MJCdetroit 16:19, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Of course. This is the difference between "!" and "|" when starting a table value. "!" means the entry is a table header (HTML TH rather than TD), which is bold by default. Note that in a #if, "|" has a meaning related to the #if, so you have to use "{{!}}" (which is template:!) where you want to use "|". -- Rick Block (talk) 23:45, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the explaination. That helps. Most of the stuff (code) that I have learned has come from trial and error. I work with chemicals all day—not computers. Thanks, —MJCdetroit 03:39, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the change to Template:Infobox City, however would it be possible to have a field to designate the title of the board, like is done for the "Leader." Some cities have a Board of Alderman, not just a City Council. Thanks for all your hard work! --Assawyer 20:20, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Probably. Post your concern on the talk page for the template. I'll look into but it may be a few days. —MJCdetroit 20:29, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Richwood, West Virginia

Try that page again to check the infobox map. i can't get it to load for the life of me, and I sent the article to a couple of friends just now, and they cannot get it to load either. Thanks for your help. youngamerican (talk) 14:45, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

It is odd, if you change the px size it will work, but now not at 250 and 200. It worked at 225 so I changed it.—MJCdetroit 14:48, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. youngamerican (talk) 14:49, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

I'll check back on it later in the day.—MJCdetroit 14:53, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

sq mi versus mile²

Hi,

I notice that you said mile² looks odd. I also think 'sq mi' looks odd. There are lots of variations on this and a few different local standards within Wikipedia interest groups. Would you mind if we asked for opinions somewhere global? I do a lot of unit amendments for consistency and it would be nice to have an agreement. Perhaps in the MoS talk page would be a place to start. Regards. bobblewik 17:27, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Not a problem. —MJCdetroit 18:32, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. I mentioned it at: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers). Feel free to say whatever you think is best there. I am surprised that symbols for square miles have not been discussed before. Regards. bobblewik 21:56, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Image:ChuckNorris1.jpg

This image is labeled as fair use. Fair use images are not allowed in the user namespace. Could you remove it please?Geni 01:47, 15 June 2006 (UTC) Done. —MJCdetroit 02:38, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Canada

Whats wrong with the addition? is it the wording?Rodrigue 20:30, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

First, it was poorly worded. Second, comparing it only to the United States gives the appearance that the writer was trying to snub the U.S. Also, I am not sure if the introduction was the best place for that information. However, a better way to write it would be:

• Canada has been ranked several times consecutively in the past with the highest Human Development Index and still ranks among the top 10—higher than any other G8 nation.

Just a suggestion. Regards, MJCdetroit 12:33, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Country infobox

Hi - Any idea why noone's commenting at Template talk:Infobox Country#Current look not stylesheet-friendly? I suspect the thread might have gotten buried. It's perhaps a significant enough topic to warrant its own page, with a pointer from template:Infobox City as well as the Country template (and maybe some of the subdivision infoboxes as well). I'd really like to get to a more uniform look. -- Rick Block (talk) 21:20, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

It did get buried. I posted my opinion. I do agree that more uniform would be better. I think for a lot of people it is very techinical and as long as they see a picture on the screen they are happy. I compared two examples side by side and I liked country1 a little better. If you don't get much of a response than just be bold and do it...and wait for any reactions. —MJCdetroit 01:09, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

test template

Hi - I've deleted Template:MJCdetroit Test Template per your request. -- Rick Block (talk) 02:36, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks again

Thanks again for your help on templates. In a few months when you get some more experience in multiple areas under your belt, let me know if you are up for RfA again. youngamerican (ahoy-hoy) 03:25, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks

For your reversion of my mistake on that template. Rich Farmbrough 22:07 23 June 2006 (GMT).

Standardized look for geographical infoboxes

Hi - I created a proposed guideline for geographical infoboxes I expect you might be interested in, please see Wikipedia:Geographical infoboxes. -- Rick Block (talk) 23:53, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

re: TfD question

Greetings Rick,
Before I list all the Template:infobox country_data_s for TfD, can you look at User:MJCdetroit/Sandbox to make sure that I am listing all those templates correctly. Is there any problem with listing them as such? Please comment on my talk page: User talk:MJCdetroit. Thanks, MJCdetroit 17:09, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Looks OK, but I think you're going to have to tag each of them with template:tfd (which is relatively easy with AWB, but I seem to recollect you use a Mac [as do I] which means you can't use AWB). -- Rick Block (talk) 22:43, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Yep, I just bought a Mac mini. WOW, what a difference! I have a Dell at work, but I don't want to download anything on it. So I guess I will start tagging, but not tonight. Thanks, MJCdetroit 00:30, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Looks fine to me. —Nightstallion (?) 12:00, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Central Asia

WikiProject Central Asia has finally been created! If you're interested, please consider joining us. Aelfthrytha 21:51, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

more template formatting

Hi - Can you take a look at User talk:Rick Block/Template:Infobox City and let me know what you think? There doesn't seem to be much activity at Wikipedia:Geographical infoboxes, so I thought I might simultaneously try to work it from the bottom up. I think I've picked up that you're a "shading is good" kind of guy, so I'm curious how it strikes you. BTW - thanks for the comment at Template talk:Infobox Country. user:CieloEstrellado seems pretty firmly stuck on "it must look exactly like it does now", which I don't think is possible in an interoperable sort of way without putting the table inside some other rectangle (div or another table), which means it's not just a CSS style thing. -- Rick Block (talk) 23:51, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Just like anything...too much of one thing is not good. I like some of the shading in the city infobox but it does have too much. I like that the section headings "Geographical characteristics" and "Government" are shaded. However, I do not like the light shading of the other fields such as Area, Population, Mayor, or basically anything to the left. I think that is just a little over-kill.

That being said:

If you are not going to use "section headings" with shading (which would be fine with me) than at least use some borders to separate the infomation a little. Visually, it seems jammed together. Also, I would not indent (or would align left) Area, Elevation, Population, Time Zone, if possible.—MJCdetroit 13:02, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Do you not see the section borders (between coordinates and Country, for example - there are 6 altogether matching the section divisions in the current template))? Or do you mean there should be more (perhaps between County/Founded and Urban/Elevation)? The labels you mention are not actually indented - they're left aligned with the leftmost content (1 em from the border, consistent with the "spacier" look of template:infobox Country). Perhaps this is part of Cielo's concern with full width separator lines - full width lines make these labels look a little indented. I don't want to sit on this too long, so I'll bring this up at template talk:Infobox City fairly soon. Please let me know if the separator lines are invisible for some reason. -- Rick Block (talk) 16:27, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

No I did not see the lines. I went back a double checked. Here's what I found:

• When the page is displayed in either Firefox (windows or Mac) or Netscape 8.1 (viewed as Firefox) the lines do NOT show up.
• When the page is displayed in IE 6.0 (windows) or Netscape 8.1 (viewed as IE) the lines DO SHOW UP.

I have no idea why that would be (I am a chemist by trade). I remember that there was a similar oddity with respect to the nicknames in infobox city (Discussion here). --MJCdetroit 17:55, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Arrgh. So, I assume you're not seeing lines in the US State infobox either (e.g. Michigan)? BTW - what skin do you use (the default is monobook)? -- Rick Block (talk) 18:21, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

And what version of Firefox? With 1.0.4 on Windows XP I can see the lines in monobook and classic. -- Rick Block (talk) 18:39, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Edit Conflict....(I use Win2000pro at work). Here is what I was going to write...

I use the default monobook.

Here is the wierd part. Netscape by default is viewed like Firefox but has a view like IE option. When the page was view like Firefox—no lines. Then switched to view like IE—lines. Then switched back to view like Firefox again— lines are in there. Hope that you followed that. Anyway, when Michigan and your template are viewed in Firefox 1.0.6 for Windows (I won't be able to check on my Mac until Monday) the lines never show up. —MJCdetroit 18:44, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Can you try a forced reload (probably shift+reload) in Firefox? I added the CSS style that makes the lines show up to common.css not too long ago and I guess it's possible your browser hasn't reloaded the styles (and, so, doesn't know about the new ones). Until the browser picks up the new styles, the lines don't show up. One more BTW - you should probably create a redirect from user:Mjcdetroit to your user page. As it stands, to get to your page it must be typed exactly as M-J-C-d-e-t-r-o-i-t. After adding the redirect, as long as the letters are right, any case will work. -- Rick Block (talk) 18:54, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

I was just going to type that when I hit reload a few times the lines showed up. I think that we are good. It worked in both Netscape and Firefox 1.0.6. Also, the alignment seems good as well. All and all it looks good. The lines made the difference for me. Thanks, for telling me about the redirect. Out 'til Monday. --MJCdetroit 19:08, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Fredericton infobox

I'm curious to know why you switched the Fredericton, New Brunswick infobox from a Canadian city template to a generic city template. It does seem to be more versatile (from the long list of empty fields), but it isn't customised for Canada. The new infobox removed the postal code span, the link to the list of Canadian provincial symbols, and the list of Mayors (which is admittedly red) and seems to have added nothing. I DO admit it looks nicer and it's more compact... but I'm wondering why you switched it? - BalthCat 00:37, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

You have some of it correct, already. Template:Infobox City looks much better than the the Canadian city infobox and is much more versatile. I will take a second look at Fredericton, New Brunswick to add back in some of the elements that you mentioned back in. I debated (discussed here) adding more unique Canadian fields to the Template:Infobox City, but the only unique field that I added was Metro density (an sc stat). Many of the other fields were not needed. The Infobox city template tends to be a little easier to add to.

Also, there is a push to use standardize templates for geographical infoboxes. This has already taken place in respect to countries and the various city infoboxes are slowly being replaced. The U.S. city infobox was replaced. There are many reasons for this standardization, among them is the thought that the template will look and function better if many editors contribute to its upkeep instead of just a couple. --MJCdetroit 12:39, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

I added the postal code to the footnotes field and if you click on seal that will link you to the list of provinical symbols. In the map caption field, I added the list of cities in Canada. Let me know what you think? --MJCdetroit 13:26, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Looks good. Thanks for replying :) - BalthCat 23:13, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Seeing Pin Coords as you're converting articles?

Hi - Are you seeing many articles that use a pin coord sort of mechanism for plopping a dot on a map (rather than individual maps for each location) in the template references you're converting to template:Infobox City? Per template talk:Infobox City#Pin coords parameter, I'd be willing to recover this functionality from template:Infobox U.S. City (with my magical admin powers, I can see articles that existed in the past - they're working on letting us see articles that will exist in the future as well!). Please let me know how often you're seeing this. BTW - about the missing lines discussion we had above, I asked around and it turns out the file with the stylesheet definitions, common.css, is configured (in the software) to be cache-able for 31 days so most browsers won't reload it any more often than that unless the user does a forced reload. This seems ridiculously infrequent to me. -- Rick Block (talk) 14:30, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

The only one I can remember was Reading, PA. I have been converting Canadian cities (see discussion directly above) lately. I would ask User:Harpchad. He did a large part of converting the templates. --MJCdetroit 15:41, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

He's been kind of scarce since June 25. If he turns up again, I'll ask him. -- Rick Block (talk) 23:37, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Jnk also did some converting of Infobox U.S. city to infobox city but Jnk has not been active since June 15th. Sorry, I couldn't be of more help. —MJCdetroit 01:07, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Barnstar

I awarded you a barnstar for your fine work on templates. I, however, had trouble formatting it corrrectly, so feel free to adjust as neccesary. Keep up the good work. youngamerican (ahoy-hoy) 15:28, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, --MJCdetroit 16:00, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

I meant on your user page... youngamerican (ahoy-hoy) 18:26, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, I misunderstood. Looks great. Thanks again. --MJCdetroit 20:28, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Re: MOSNUM

Thanks for your message, MJC, and for supporting me on the talk page. As no-one else had commented, I was beginning to wonder if I was completely out of line. Maybe it's just that no-one else was bold enough. It's hard to be both bold and sensitive, unfortunately. Stephen Turner (Talk) 03:50, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Welcome!

Welcome!

File:World map.gif

Hi, and welcome to the Countries WikiProject! As you may have guessed, we're a group of editors working to improve Wikipedia's coverage of counties.

There are a variety of interesting things to do within the project; you're free to participate however much—or little—you like:

• Starting some new articles? See some model pages such as Cambodia!
• Want to know how good our articles are? The assessment department is working on rating the quality of every country article in Wikipedia.

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask another fellow member, and we'll be happy to help you. Again, welcome! We look forward to seeing you around! Shy1520 10:26, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Templates_for_deletion#September 6

A bunch of country specific infoboxes have been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the link above. Thank you. This is to delete the templates that were created when the various country specific infoboxes were switched to this one. Here is a further chance to delete another bunch of them at once. --Bob 22:08, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Another bunch is found at Wikipedia:Templates_for_deletion#September 7, I don't know how many more are out there. --Bob 19:01, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

France infobox

Thanks for your message. I already expressed my concerns at Talk:France#Infobox. Unfortunately, the guy who runs these standard infoboxes don't really seem to pay attention to details. Maybe they are details, but they are important details I think. Have a look. In any case, we have two options: a- restore the specific infobox, which I doubt will happen, b- tinker with the standard infobox till we find a way to restore all the little subtleties that existed in the specific infobox, which is gonna be quite complicated. Hardouin 11:16, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't understand your last message. What does sock-puppetry has to do with France's infobox and with you?? Who accused you of sock-puppetry? I don't get it. Perhaps you got confused by the message left on my talk page by User:ThePromenader, who didn't properly create a separate section to put his message. Hardouin 18:42, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Sorry for that slip-up, MJCdetroit - I code by hand, and formatted too hastily. You're certainly not the sock-puppet here : ) THEPROMENADER 18:48, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

I fixed my mistake - perhaps you would like to alter your message on Hardouin's talk page as it sure looks odd now. Again apologies. THEPROMENADER 18:53, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

EDIT CONFLICT: --What I was going to type:

It was a separate section but it seemed as if it was directed at me because the history of your page —13:12, 7 September 2006 ThePromenader (Talk | contribs) (→TfD of France infobox)— so I put in the extra = =. If he wasn't directing that toward me then I will certainly appologize. MJCdetroit 18:54, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Wait a second, you lost me - I didn't screw up? Okay. Don't worry about it; no damage done at all.

Come and have a look at the vote section of Tallest buildings and structures in Paris if you want a full explanation of what the fun's all about.

Cheers. THEPROMENADER 19:14, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Acually, no more need to worry: Hardouin has removed all messages save your first one from his talk page. No more sock-puppetry either. Sociable chap, that. Cheers. THEPROMENADER 19:22, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Citing unit sources

You wrote: Hi Bill, I like your changes to the WP:MOSNUM. I commented over at WP:MOSNUM's talk page, but can you provide an example of how a cited unit would look? —MJCdetroit 13:53, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Appreciate your note—been rather busy lately so haven't caught all the material on my watchlist.

Adding examples is a good idea. I commented further down the article. Presume you meant in the standard itself; if you want to do so, you have my support... Skål - Williamborg (Bill) 04:02, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Niagara Falls Images

I posted a comment to the talk page for Niagara Falls regarding the removal of the gallery. -- tariqabjotu 03:20, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Template:Infobox City

Hi. I wanted to let you know that I reverted your edit to {{Infobox City}} because it caused class="mergedtoprow" to appear in all of the transcluding articles. Please be careful and give it another try. Regards ×Meegs 12:26, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Infobox city tweak

Hello Rick,

I was wondering if you could help me out? I am trying to move the location of the postal code in the box to the bottom. I have moved it and aligned it to the left, but I can't figure out how to place a line between the postal fields and the footnotes section. Here's my sandbox for it: User:MJCdetroit/Template Sandbox1 and these are the two sandboxes I've been using to compare with and without the postal codes: With codes and Without codes. Thanks. MJCdetroit 12:59, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Rather than just fix it, I'd like to explain it so you understand how it works (and I apologize if this comes across as a lecture - I know you're not a programmer, but I also know you're not stupid). If you strip the table down its basics, there are rows which start with |- (or, because "|" has meaning within an "if", {{!}}-) followed by cell content. The general format for a row is

  |-  optional formatting informaton for the row
  | optional formatting for this cell | cell contents
  | optional formatting for this cell | cell contents

The row formatting information is specified on the |- that comes before the cell contents for that row. Similarly the cell formatting information precedes the cell contents. Both the row formatting and cell formatting are optional, and if not specified the format comes from the table or may be specified in a CSS style someplace that might seem to be hidden. If there's no cell formatting specified, there's an abbreviated form that looks like

  |-  optional formatting informaton for the row
  | cell contents || cell contents

The major formatting change I made a while ago changed the table to use 'infobox geography" to define its style. This is defined in CSS in common.css. With this style, by default each row has lines on the top and the bottom with 0.4em blank space between the line and the text. So, a row with no formatting information specified, like the website row in the template, has lines above and below. The "mergedrow" styles are styles for creating blocks of rows without lines between them. The general setup is

 |- style="mergedtoprow"
 | row 1 contents
 |- style="mergedrow"
 | row 2 contents
 |- style="mergedrow"
 | row 3 contents
 |- style="mergedbottomrow"
 | row 4 contents

which creates a block of 4 rows with lines above row 1 and below row 4, 0.4em space between these lines and the text, and with no lines and 0.4em space between the rows in the block. In reality, whether a line shows up between two rows depends on the formatting of both rows. So, for example,

 |- style="mergedtoprow"
 | row 1 contents
 |-
 | row 2 contents

probably looks like there shouldn't be a line between these rows, but there will be because row 2's style (the default style) includes lines above and below. Row 1's style says no line below row 1, but row 2's style (which includes a line above) essentially overrides this so the end result is there's a line. The spacing is a little funky as well. To get the spacing right between rows without lines between them the mergedtoprow style says to include 0.2em space below the text (meant to be half the space between the text of two rows). This space ends up as space before the line above row 2 (in the example shown above), so this makes the table look just a little bit off.

The "if" structure (in this template) is generally set up so that the row indicator included in the "if" is the one for the next row, not the one for this row (the reason for this is complicated, perhaps we can talk about this some other time). For example,

  {{#if:{{{footnotes|}}}|
  {{!}} colspan="2" align="center" {{!}} <small>{{{footnotes}}}</small>
  {{!}}-
  }}

which includes the content for the footnote row, but the row indicator for the next row (and, in this case, makes the next row a "normal" row with top and bottom lines). The format for the "footnote" row is specified by the immediately preceding "|-", wherever it might come from. For the version in your sandbox, that means it might come from the postal_code row, or the DST timezone row, or the timezone row (there's a non-conditional "|-" right before the timezone). It turns out that "extra" row indicators are ignored, and I'm pretty sure last one wins, so

 |- style="mergedtoprow"
 |-
 | contents

ends up as a "normal" row (with lines above and below).

So, if you want lines above and below the postal_code entry I think there are two problems. One is if there's no DST entry (and it looks to me like there's no line between timezone and footnote if there is a footnote but no DST), and the other is that there's never a line below. If you have any trouble figuring out how to fix either of these, please let me know. -- Rick Block (talk) 14:21, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks Rick.
I will mess with it a little at lunch today if I get the chance. Funny thing is is that I didn't want this field in the infobox to begin with but if it is gonna be in there it should at least not be an 'eye-sore'. I'll let you know how the progress is going. MJCdetroit 14:49, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Ok, I think I fixed it. If I am understanding that correctly, then the line in the top of footnotes is determined by the what the last conditional style entry was just before (because it is a #if) and if there is not a conditional style entry then it, by default, will have top and bottom lines because of the style sheet; in this case "infobox geography". So with that understanding I removed the class="mergedbottomrow" from the postal code section. It seems to have rectified the situation. I tested it with DST and without DST and with and w/o postal codes and everything seems normal. —MJCdetroit 16:29, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

I changed the format of the postal code row to match the other rows. Seems better this way - what do you think? -- Rick Block (talk) 23:58, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree it does look better. I was thinking about that earlier today but I got real busy and started using my work PC for...work. I hate when that happens! SatyrTN created these fields on September 2nd. They were really oddly placed and centered. Much better now. I'll make the change over at infobox city. MJCdetroit 03:15, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Infobox Country

I suspect you watch this page, but just in case you don't user:AzaToth changed template:Infobox Country to a version that looked almost identical to the one I proposed from a while ago (but not using class="infobox geography"). I've further changed it to use this class. We'll see how the discussion plays out, but I suspect there will be some rather heated arguments in the next couple of days. Just thought you might want to be aware of this. -- Rick Block (talk) 03:44, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

You suspected right. I'll give it a close look and pipe up when needed. —MJCdetroit 15:33, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

BP

Can you explain why are are changing dates from Before Present to "years ago"? These are not necessarily equivalent. Guettarda 21:30, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Using BP as some measure of time is very unfamiliar to a general audience. It is even less familiar than the BCE/CE method sometimes used in articles for eras. We should try and use the best terms possible to convey a message. In this case BP is not the best term possible; 7,000 BP or 7,000 years ago. If I read the article correctly, BP is used more in carbon dating something, e.g. Noah's Ark was carbon dated to 7,123 BP (<--I made that up). To use BP in the terms of 'at least 7,000 BP' seems even more incorrect. It seems way too technical of a term for this setting. I've heard BP used to describe an oil company and batting practice, but never as a measure of time. Regards,MJCdetroit 12:51, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

But BP is actually set at 1950, so changing BP to "years ago" can be misleading. If a source uses BP, I would be inclined to follow it (as I did in those articles). The date you changed was based on the Banwari Trace site, which is the oldest known site in Trinidad. Since the site is dated to 7000 BP, it makes sense that there were people there at least that long ago. BP is just an alternative to the old BC/BCE/AD/CE system.

BTW - really cool about the Tigers! Guettarda 16:42, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

I've been to a bunch of games this year and because I know someone who works the gate, I'm going try to weasel into the ball park if they make it to the World Series.

As far as sticking to what your source states —it does say:

with radiocarbon dates indicating a chronology of approximately 7000 B.P.

and it starts out by using 5000 BC or 7000 BP. It also sprinkles BC dates throughout the article.

Because the source says approximately then it would safe to change it for ease of comprehension to at least 7,000 years ago. I suppose that an alternative would be to say "by at least 5000 BC". That way the comprehension is there and it is as the source states.

Without somehow linking the 7,000 BP to radiocarbon dating it seems very odd the average non-technical reader. The one line could be changed to something like:

Radiocarbon dating evidence suggests that Trinidad was first settled by pre-agricultural Archaic people at least 7,000 BP.

Even that seems odd to me.

I was just trying to make it read a little easier to the average Joe/Jane. What do you think? —MJCdetroit 17:33, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Taichung City

I am new on WikiProject Cities. I have added considerable content to the first city I am working on, which happens to be the city of my residence, Taichung City. Would you mind taking a few minutes to look it over and leave comments on how you think I can make it better to bring it up to WikiProject Cities standards in a section of the discussion page for the city’s article page that I have set up.

Thank you. Ludahai 03:52, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Replied at Talk:Taichung —MJCdetroit 13:00, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

RfA thanks

Thank you very much for your support in my RfA, which passed on October 17, 2006 with a tally of 53/6/0. I am equally elated and humbled by my new capacity as administrator of Wikipedia, and I send my heartfelt thanks for your unflinching support. If you need me for anything, just ask me! With gratitude, 210physicq (c) 03:55, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Harpchad

Hey - user:Harpchad seems to have disappeared. Do you have any clues where he might have gone? -- Rick Block (talk) 04:24, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Prison? North Korea? Hit by a bus? I don't know. I was wondering the same thing. He was the force in standardizing the city infoboxes. I've been trying to switch over some of the Canadian cities when I have time, but I just don't have much time lately. I do most of my editting at work when it's slow and I am bored. However, General Motors and the military have kept me busy the last few months. —MJCdetroit 12:14, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Template:Infobox City on Canadian cities

Has there been consensus to replace Template:Canadian City with this infobox? If not, I suggest you wait until there is (and until the infobox is perfected). I've noticed some problems with it for Canadian cities where you've placed it, not the least of which is that it throws away some information our infobox contains. Also, you've placed the coats of arms as "seal" (at least on Toronto and Mississauga), which is both inaccurate (Canadian cities generally do not have seals), and causes the link to not go to the right article Coat of arms of Toronto, for instance. Even if it is switched to "shield" (which is itself a wrong designation, as a shield is just one aspect of a coat of arms), for the City of Toronto, since the official name is listed as "City of Toronto", the link goes to Coat of arms of City of Toronto, which is not the title of the article. You've also listed the members of provincial parliament as MLAs, which is correct for most of Canada, but not Ontario, where they're called MPPs (in Quebec it's MNA and Newfoundland and Labrador it's MHA). _└ ^OzLawyer / _talk ^┐ 13:58, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Hmm... I see the infobox has been on Toronto for some time now. Still, it does have some bugs, but I guess this is an issue for the template talk. _└ ^OzLawyer / _talk ^┐ 14:14, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

— EDIT CONFLICT — I hate those.

Thank you for pointing some of these things out. The "Image_shield" was recently added to the infobox to fix the seal/coat of arm problem. As far as MLAs and MPPs goes I transferred that infomation from the previous infobox's infomation —Mississauga my diffs in edits. There was/is a push for standardizing the various city infoboxes into one standard infobox. The main editor of this was Harpchard. I know that the Infobox U.S. city was switched over to the Infobox city. If there is anything that we could place in the Template:Infobox city to better accommodate the Canadian cities let me know. I would love the help and input. MJCdetroit 14:30, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Judging by some of your contributions, can I assume that there are things about Template:Infobox city that you like better than the Canadian one? MJCdetroit 20:22, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Tigers' pitchers...

...need to be made aware that they, from time to time, must throw to bases other thatn home plate. I don't have a horse in this derby, but my heart is breaking for you guys. youngamerican (ahoy hoy) 16:50, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

as;ldkfjt oihqg[agnkadks l <---smashing the keyboard. The pressure on these rookies is killing us! I could go on, but my 31 year old heart might explode! Let's just hope that history repeats itself. Detroit was down 3 to 1 in 1968 to St. Louis and came back to win it. If not, it has been a good ride for me who has been there through all those terrible years. —MJCdetroit 17:02, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Aparently someone else doesnt like Tigers pitching. A user with vandal proof reverted my message the first time I posted it then put a test warning on my talk page. If its not to big of a deal, would you mind making a note on my talk page that this wasn't vandalism? youngamerican (ahoy hoy) 17:06, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Nevermind, its all good. youngamerican (ahoy hoy) 17:14, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

RE: Great Name

Thanks! I got it from a late-70's TV cartoon character. Captain Caveman

Happy ?

Sorry to make you wait 5 seconds ;P Jcam 17:29, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

I checked your contrib page before I reverted to see if you were actively working on a climate section for Michigan since you had never edited to Michigan before. To answer your question: Yes, I'm happy; you even used a citation. I may even contact my congressman to a have a building named after you —The Jcam hall of Justice or something like that. Although you didn't put the converted metric values next to the inches and that may upset some of our European comrads (even though they never ever do the same for us). Happy editing. —MJCdetroit 18:27, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

No need to name a building after me, although with Detroit's crime rate, a "Jcam Hall of Justice" would probably have very high visibility, indeed. Instead, on my next visit to Michigan, I shall be expecting copious amounts of fudge (that's right, fudge) free of charge. Jcam 18:57, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

I'll be at 46°08'N 86°W at an elevation of 834 feet just off of Federal Forest Highway 13 in two weeks (rifle-deer season opens). In order in get there, I'll be passing through fudglandia — ummmh....fuudddge. —MJCdetroit 19:23, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for supporting my RfA

Thank you for your support in my RfA, which passed with a final tally of (56/0/2). It was great to see so much kind support from such competent editors and administrators as commented on my RfA. I know I have much reading to do before I'll feel comfortable enough to use some of the more powerful admin tools, so I'll get right to it. Again, thanks; └ OzLawyer / talk ┐ 13:40, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Thank you...

...for supporting my RfA. I look forward to working with you again in the near future. If you need anything, you know where to find me. Cheers. youngamerican (ahoy hoy) 18:42, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

weatherbox

Hi. Sorry, I had originally created the infobox for the respectives articles in the Portuguese Wikipedia, and I thought of using the information here as well, forgetting to change the commas to periods. Sorry for forgetting to put information in °F and inches as well. I doubled checked the information and the supplied data today, most of the information does match with the supplied source data, a mistake of mine was in the Toronto weatherbox, where I did put one wrong entry at avg. highest, and made following entries wrong as well, and writing cm instead of mm in the Montreal weatherbox, even though the information there is in mm.

I had also, in the total avg. annual precipitation, added the avg. monthly precipitation from the converted data in mm, instead of converting directly from the source data (total avg. precipitation in a year) in inches, so there was some difference between both data (of 2-3 mm), so I changed the information, converting the total annual in inches rather than adding the monthly in mm.

I used mm instead of cm, based in the NYC weatherbox. I did use 1 decimal place (i.e. 13,8 °C, and not 14 °C) for temperature and precipitation, I don't know if that is appropriate/allowed or not. I did the necessary changes, and put the weatherboxes at the respective articles again, please have a look there if they are ok. Regards, Leslie Mateus 05:58, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Moved discussion and response back to your talk page per my talk page policy. 15:43, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

You may just want to stick to what the source states.

Well, I sticked with the information given by the source, although they are in F/in. only, and had to convert each entry manually to C/mm. Sorry about the "Fonte" too, forgot to translate it to English :/

I do like the idea of a standard format (colors, information, etc) to the weatherboxes, and I think the resultant weatherbox template in Toronto is excellent. Although you put the template directly in the article; being that large, I think it's better in a separate template city weatherbox. Leslie Mateus 06:39, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

www.weatherbase.com opens in Imperial units but if you look at the top there are two small tabs —one says °F and the other is °C. The °C switches all the infomation into metric units of °C, cm , km/h, and metres for altitude.

I think it is easier to edit directly in the article and it does not produce another single use template. As far as size it increased the article size by no more than 2 kb. —MJCdetroit 13:58, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

small favor

I was wondering of you could help me out with getting votes for expanding an article I started a while back. My old US Australia relations article is currently being considered for expansion by the Wikipedia:Australian Collaboration of the Fortnight. To vote, go here and scroll to the bottom.

Thanks! Sharkface217 05:16, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

RfA thanks!

My brand-spankin' new mop!

My RfA done I hope to wield my mop well (Her name is Vera) I appreciate The support you have shown me (I hope I don't suck) Anyway, I just wanted to drop you a line (damn, haikus are hard)

Have no fear! Just because I'm an admin now doesn't mean there will be any less profanity or Zombie Survival Guide editing. :-) EVula // talk // ☯ // 16:58, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Sandbox templates

Hi MJC! Thanks for your input regarding the Infobox Former Country template. I can see that you are using the template to experiment in your sandbox and that is fine, but are you aware that it also places your sandbox edits in the categories used for former countries? Would you mind not including the category generation functionality in the versions of the sandbox template that you use? This can be done simply by moving the "noinclude" tag. Cheers, -- Domino theory 13:05, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Sorry. I meant to delete that. One of the dangers of copy and paste. You could have fixed that in my absence. I would not have minded. Thanks for noting this. —MJCdetroit 17:35, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

 

Template formatting question

Discussion carried over from User talk:52 Pickup for continuity reasons 14:16, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Hello 52,
Do you know how to make/force images to wrap in an infobox? There has to be a way and I sure that it is simple, so I was hoping a fresh set of eyes could help. I am working a problem for someone for the city infobox where as some cities have different types of emblems (coat of arms, flag...) and need to be displayed as such. Long story short—I am thinking that if someone enters all four parameters (which is unlikly but could happen) that all four images will not show up in a line thereby widening the infobox. I would like to have it so that there are two images then it wraps and the other two are below them. My template sandbox is here and the example is displayed here. Like I said, I figure a fresh set of eyes would be great. Let me know what you think? Thanks. —MJCdetroit 01:42, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Infobox question reply

Hi there. I have come up with a possible solution (template and example). The template first checks if more than 2 of the 4 images are given. If so, a line break is placed, forcing a maximum of two above and two below. The captions have been shifted to fit within this setup. The problem with this new setup is that it looks a little funny if 3 images are used. With only 1 image, there is no problem. Hope that helps.

One other question: is this infobox planned to be something generic for cities everywhere? This is a good idea, but there are a number of good region-specific templates out there that might not be integrated so well into a generic template. For example, there's a good template for Australian locations which covers cities, towns, suburbs and local government areas (Template:Infobox Australian Place) which could not really be absorbed by a generic city template. - 52 Pickup 09:32, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Just saw that this IS a generic infobox. Silly me. But since the Australian one covers more than entries than just cities, it should be left alone in the future. But some elements of Infobox City can be transferred to the Australian one. - 52 Pickup 09:37, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, 52

Looks much better. I wonder if when there are 3 images if they can be centered?

This question [of different emblems] arose a while ago because of a need by some Canadian cities. At least this is a step toward a solution.

Thanks.—MJCdetroit 14:16, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm still not too clear on talk-page etiquette, sorry.

It is possible to set the images to center if three images are given, but a number of other if-cases will be needed to cover all eventualities, making things a bit more confusing. You will need to decide if the layout should be 2-1 or 1-2 or unimportant. Perhaps there is an even simpler way of doing this, I'm not sure. - 52 Pickup 15:17, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I added a pair of conditional colspan="2"s in the second row, which I think makes a single image in this row centered. -- 15:31, 5 December 2006 (UTC)—Preceding unsigned comment added by Rick Block (talk • contribs)

Edit conflict

Not a problem, I actually wanted the discussion over here anyway because it deals with my problem (so to speak). Anyway, I think that 2-1 would be ok but it is really unimportant. I like said before I just wanted to cover all my bases and I don't think that it would come up often (then again I could be wrong). BTW, I was about to answer some of your points over at infobox city talk (but work keeps pulling me away). —MJCdetroit 15:37, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Infobox City question...

Hi, MJCdetroit. Got a question for you: Do you see a difference between Charlestown, New Hampshire and Wikipedia:Sandbox/Infobox City2? I see an extra space under the Town Seal on the first one, but not on the second one. The really weird thing is I can't see a difference between the two templates - (respectively) Template:Infobox City and Wikipedia:Sandbox/Infobox City. If you have a moment, would you take a look and see if you can figure out where that extra space is coming from? Thanks!!! -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 23:56, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

I took a look at it, but I don't have much time. I'll play with it some more later. —MJCdetroit 19:25, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Ok the problem seems to occur when either |image_flag = or |image_seal= or both are entered without the other two images. It does not occur when either of the other two images are entered; not when they are by themselves or entered with the flag and seal (all 4 together). It looks like when the |image_flag = is enter by itself the problem gets even worse. The solution that you came up with (Wikipedia:Sandbox/Infobox City) will not work. Look what happens when there are more than one image: Wikipedia:Sandbox/Infobox City2. I tried messing with it a little in my Sandbox but without any luck. I am just not sure as to why it does that. I'll see if someone else can look at it. —MJCdetroit 01:26, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

My Template Sandbox and how it displays ——MJCdetroit 01:38, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

The issue seems to be blank lines generated in the table from the #if's for the parameters that aren't provided. I've tried a couple of workarounds which don't seem to work. I'll get more help. -- Rick Block (talk) 02:36, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Rick, MJC - you guys are awesome :) -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 05:13, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Seeing what progress we are making, I also asked 52 Pickup to take a look at it.—MJCdetroit 13:20, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

One possible cause of the problem is the use of {{border}}. You get a lot of funny alignment problems when using that. Since only image_flag currently makes use of this border, this is perhaps why there are extra problems when image_flag is involved. For example, {{border|[[Image:Flag of France.svg|30px]]}} [[Image:Flag of France.svg|30px]] → . Until border is improved, it shouldn't really be used. There might be something else causing problems, I'll keep looking. - 52 Pickup 13:51, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm certain border has nothing to do with it. I asked user:Ligulem to take a look, his response is at Template_talk:Infobox_City#It_is_really_screwed_up. It won't talk long to make a version of the inner table using HTML table syntax which will fix the immediate problem. Mixing HTML table syntax with wkitable syntax is not generally recommended, so we might want to consider converting the entire thing to HTML syntax. -- Rick Block (talk) 19:57, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

The version in MJC's template sandbox now uses HTML for the inner table. I think the extra vertical space issue is fixed, but if there's only one of flag or seal it's left aligned in the top row (this is fixable as well). I need to get back to work at the moment, but will take a look later to see how things are going. -- Rick Block (talk) 20:10, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Hmm - maybe not fixed. Take a look at Wikipedia:Sandbox/Infobox_City2. That's the exact information from Charlestown, New Hampshire, but using the template from MJCdetroit. -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 21:46, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

So, what's the current state of this? I tried some changes today that didn't seem to help. Is this simply still pending a fix? -- Rick Block (talk) 04:22, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, I made a stab at table-fying the template and think I've got it somewhat down. The "somewhat" is because I didn't do the fancy bit that would always put two on a row. In any case, take a look at Sandbox/Alpha2, where I have an example of each possible combination of Seal, Flag, Coat of arms, and Logo. Let me know what you think, and if someone with more experience with #expr wants to do the fancy bit, that would be great! -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 14:48, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, I've been a little M.I.A. lately with Christmas and all and I'll continue to be for about another week. However...

I took a look at the Sandbox/Alpha2 and I am sure that someone will complain about the single images "stacked" on top of one another when for example an instance of Seal and Coat of arms ocurres. I think that the single images and the 3 and 4 images look great. It seems that this is the best so far. I would be in favor of going live with this.—MJCdetroit 21:34, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Are Rick or 52 Pickup reading these? Maybe they could clean up that last issue? -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 22:27, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm reading, but haven't looked at fixing it yet (I'm still puzzled by the "extra space" issue). The code to fix it has to decide whether a new row is needed after the 2nd image (if both the first two images are there) and after the 3rd image (if two of the first three images are there). This shouldn't be terribly difficult. I'll take a look sometime soon. -- Rick Block (talk) 23:52, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, Rick! I knew the logic that should be used, but am too inexperienced in wiki coding to have done it. The extra space seems to have come from some combination of the wiki tables and the code. -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 00:28, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, been caught up on other things lately...
Going from SatyrTN's work, I've put up a modified version at User:52 Pickup/Template Sandbox2 which might solve the problem. Since the only problem now was what to do when there are only 2 images given, the template first checks if there are any images at all, then checks if there are exactly 2. If there are 2, then it creates a single row of 2 elements and fills the first one by checking for the presence of flag-seal-shield-logo (in that order). To fill in the second element, it checks these elements in the reverse order (logo-shield-seal-flag) - this way, nothing is duplicated. After this, the only options left are if 1, 3 or 4 images are given, which are already nicely handled by SatyrTN's version. All possible combinations are shown at User:52 Pickup/Alpha1.
To help get more people involved in helping with such infobox issues, do you think it would be worth forming something like WikiProject Infoboxes as a place for infobox developers to come together and help each other? Just a thought.- 52 Pickup 08:23, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Wow - very nice! I wouldn't even have thought of doing it that way! Which is a good argument for having a WP:PI... :) Thanks very much! -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 15:41, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Looks perfect! —MJCdetroit 15:42, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Weather infobox

I've made a duplicate of the template at Template:Infobox Weather metric but using metric first for countries that are mainly reporting that way. Can you take a look and see if there is anything that needs to be changed. Thanks. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 11:04, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

There maybe a way to combine the boxes and give the option to change the order as desired. Also, I debated as to use mm or cm. I ended up using centimeters because the source I used was using centimeters. It looks like all the field parameters are the same; which is good. I will try to figure out away to have one box where we can flip the units as desired. —MJCdetroit 13:56, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Done and works pretty well. I think it would be best to have just one infobox. If you don't mind I will make the needed changes to places like Toronto, so that we use only one infobox but that the unit order will be displayed as desired (ie. Metric first). See the talk page on Template:Infobox Weather. Regards, —MJCdetroit 15:22, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, that's a better idea. I've deleted the metric version as it's not necessary. As to the cm/mm. In Canada (and I think other places) snow is measured in cm and converted to mm while rain is measured in mm. Both ways of reporting have their disadvantages. If cm are used then dry areas may have very small numbers but if mm are used then very wet areas have large numbers. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 17:07, 13 December 2006 (UTC)