User talk:Aleta Curry/Archive 5

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Hourglass drawing.svg Where Aleta lives it is approximately: 17:40

Aleta stops into the forums somewhere between 0630 and 0900, and works on the wiki between about 1200 and 1500, time and weather permitting.


Oh Recipes!

Please have a look at CZ:Proposals/Recipes_Subpage_and_Accompanying_Usage_Policy#Concrete_Steps_Ahead and kindly do the needful. Supten Sarbadhikari 22:24, 2 March 2008 (CST)

Getting in early

Hi Aleta

Another bad timing month for me puts me into Berlin all week from tomorrow, with limited internet access. So want to send my apols early. Next one. Promise. --Ian Johnson 09:44, 3 March 2008 (CST)

Awww...what? They don't have computers in Berlin?
Guess I'll have to let you slide.
Well, it's nice to know you didn't forget. See ya soon!
Aleta Curry 18:09, 3 March 2008 (CST)

Template:EZnotice

I created Template:EZnotice with three variables, school, subject, and enddate. Have a look see and tell me what you think. --Robert W King 11:48, 3 March 2008 (CST)

That's fab! Well done. Aleta Curry 18:13, 3 March 2008 (CST)

input requested on naming convention proposal

Please check out CZ:Proposals/Naming Conventions for Biographies#Final review? and respond there; if there is agreement, this proposal will move on to the next stage of adoption. Thanks, Anthony Argyriou 13:52, 3 March 2008 (CST)

There's been a significant suggestion for a change to the proposed policy. Please look at CZ:Proposals/Naming Conventions for Biographies#Poll regarding suggested change and respond there. Anthony Argyriou 14:04, 12 March 2008 (CDT)

inclusion

Here is an example of inclusion, Atom/Catalogs/Magnetic_nuclei. This table actually lives at NMR spectroscopy/Catalogs/Magnetic_nuclei but can be seen in the Atom cluster. A reader would not know this unless they tried to edit the table. Chris Day (talk) 14:28, 4 March 2008 (CST)

Write-a-thon theme

Hi Aleta, is there a theme to the current write-a-thon? Meg Ireland 16:57, 4 March 2008 (CST)

Yes! This month's theme is: "Something you absolutely love!"

Wobbly table

Happy parties, as the Brazilians say at Christmas, & thanks for the note.

I wonder if you can diagnose what's wrong with my table at I (that's as slim a blue link as one will ever see). I'm very new to tables: there must be a missing ingredient to explain why it won't 'take'. Thanks - Ro Thorpe 17:41, 4 March 2008 (CST)

Darlin' I know less than you do about tables. By the time I figured it out, Rob, Joe or Steve would have made short work of it and created lasting world peace. You can contact one of them, or Chris or Matt. I'd just put a "HELP!" note at the talk page; somebody will. Aleta Curry 17:56, 4 March 2008 (CST)
Thanks, I'd already put a note on the talk page: let's hope that'll do it - Ro Thorpe 18:01, 4 March 2008 (CST)

Led Zeppelin

Thank you. I'm absolutely humbled by the experience. I didn't expect anyone to vote for it. Meg Ireland 19:05, 4 March 2008 (CST)

Thanks

For the invite - regretfully I was unable to attend - my long suffering girlfriend proposed on Feb 29 and is now to be long suffering fiance - so we were whooping it up at a real party. kind regards --Russ McGinn 03:49, 5 March 2008 (CST)

Oh! Congratulations! Aleta Curry 04:11, 5 March 2008 (CST)

Hi yourself!

Hi, I think you're gonna have to add me to whichever category you think fit. I've been busy all day, and am now really burned out, and don't feel up to emitting coherent prose at this point today. The good news is I'm somewhat caught up on other areas of my life, and hope to be able to write tomorrow (although I'll probably be working on internal stuff first, alas - no fun writing articles for me :-). J. Noel Chiappa 20:45, 5 March 2008 (CST)

Ha! Sounds like you're entitled to a rest! Take a load off. Aleta Curry 21:29, 5 March 2008 (CST)

Spanish Translation

Aleta, I'm hoping you can lend a hand over at the Calcidius article. We have a Spanish speaking author who has attempted to translate an article from Spanish to English, but the prose is a bit shaky. I know you've been pushing the international thing, so I am hoping you have an idea as to if we have a Spanish speaking citizen with a better grasp on English so we can get a smoother translation out of it? I imagine a non-Spanish speaker could do this, but I fear the quality of the article would suffer. So if you can point me in the right direction, that'd be great. --Todd Coles 21:37, 6 March 2008 (CST)

After more digging, I found the CZ:International list and messaged Ro about this, so hopefully that will help and you can ignore this message unless you have someone in mind. --Todd Coles 21:48, 6 March 2008 (CST)

Recipe formalization

Hi, please have a look at CZ:Proposals/Recipes_Subpage_and_Accompanying_Usage_Policy#Concrete_Steps_Ahead and let us complete it so that it can be formalized and moved to the next stage quickly. Supten Sarbadhikari 21:46, 6 March 2008 (CST)

Help archive, please

Okay so where do I put this? user talk:Aleta Curry/Archive 2

and how come it isn't in the little archive box at the top like a good little...whatever it is?

You can just look at my contribs to see what I did to do this it for you. Stephen Ewen 04:00, 9 March 2008 (CDT)
I wasn't sure how to do this either (but don't need to archive for a while yet, anyway), so I took a look at how you did that, too. Thanks Stephen. Louise Valmoria 04:13, 9 March 2008 (CDT)
There are two schools of thought about archiving talk page; one moves the old page to the archive, so the history of those changes goes with it; the other does a cut-and-paste (as here). Each has their plusses and minusses. I wonder if we should have a project-wide standard for how article talk pages get archived? J. Noel Chiappa 09:27, 9 March 2008 (CDT)

Timeline templates

Aleta-

Would you mind testing out a timeline template I've created? It comes in two parts: {{Timeline}} to establish the timeline field, and {{TLevent}} to add timeline events. You can even change the colors and widths and stuff. Let me know if you come across any issues. --Robert W King 17:02, 9 March 2008 (CDT)

Short answer: no (I wouldn't mind at all)
Longer answer: I have no bloomin' idea how to make this work.
Sorry, I tried at: User:Aleta Curry/sandbox but no can do, kimosabe.
Aleta Curry 01:13, 10 March 2008 (CDT)
For what it's worth, (I spotted you talking to yourself in the recent changes section and was dying to know why you were worried about blowing up CZ): an 'em' is a font thing--you can use it to change the width and length of tables and such in whatever scale the font settings already are in.
Try changing the width using percentages (40%) or, I think, pixels (100px), which can give you an exact width, but doesn't scale as well. If someone had a really wide screen resolution, 100px can look really small, but if it was 40% the width would take up 40% of the available space for the table. Louise Valmoria 02:35, 10 March 2008 (CDT) (who will stop nosing around the recent changes page now)
The "em" unit is not only for fonts; it is a valid CSS unit for just about anything. The width is adjusted in percentages (37%) or in em (100em). If you use pixels, it will probably not line up. --Robert W King 08:26, 10 March 2008 (CDT)

Nose around all you want--I need all the help I can get! I suppose I'll come back to this later, right now I'm catching up on Proposals and things while they're all sleeping in the good ol' USA...and trying not to burn my husband's dinner as I do it. Good thing he's a bangers-n-mash kinda fella, just in case.... ;)

Aleta Curry 03:05, 10 March 2008 (CDT)

itsTallong story

see me. D. Matt Innis 12:20, 13 March 2008 (CDT)

BrE & AmE but not (as yet) AuE

Hi, Aleta, have a look at Hayford's talk (Autre...) please & let us have your opinion. Ro Thorpe 19:03, 18 March 2008 (CDT)

Further to your note chez Hayford, would you like to add something re Commonwealth English to the introduction to this? I tried, but am not quite sure how to phrase it. Ro Thorpe 16:16, 20 March 2008 (CDT)

Sure I'll take a stab at it, not because I'm an expert, but because I believe so strongly that it is needed.
Where does "it" live?
Aleta Curry 17:45, 24 March 2008 (CDT)

Red links

In the early days on Wikipedia, we found it was better to leave links as red, rather than redirect them to something which was only vaguely useful (as with African-American -> Soul food). In part, you see it blue, then if you don't check, you think 'ah, good, don't need to do that'. Also there's a function Special:Wantedpages which redirects also make not work. J. Noel Chiappa 14:18, 25 March 2008 (CDT)

Ah, sorry, I see, you were trying to redirect African-American cuisine, and apparently suffered a typo. Never mind! J. Noel Chiappa 14:20, 25 March 2008 (CDT)

Ooh--took me several passes at this (with husband glaring impatiently over my shoulder because he wants computer to check out BBC news for some reason) to figure out what you were saying.
You're right--typo caused by piped link, I think.
I think I now need to ask someone to delete African-American so that it still shows up as a red link.
Aleta Curry 17:50, 25 March 2008 (CDT)
Just throw a {{speedydelete|<your reason here>}} on any page you created in error and want deleted. Every so often a Constable comes along and janitors them all off to the trash. J. Noel Chiappa 19:43, 25 March 2008 (CDT)
I {{speedydelete}}d it and deleted for ya, D. Matt Innis 11:33, 26 March 2008 (CDT)

Rottweiler

Aleta, I have made a few modest suggestions for the Rottweiler article on the talk page. If you could make the suggestions happen, I will nominate the article for approval. David E. Volk 11:47, 27 March 2008 (CDT)

Just to let you know I got your message, David, and must take care of it later. Husband gave ample warning we were to leave at 08:30, it's now 08:19 and I'm about to prove I can check mail, make coffee, set the fire, get dressed and get out in time, 'cause I'm a woo-maHn, w-o-m-a-n; if I don't make it, I'll hear about it all day, you know how you boys are. Heigh-ho, heigh-ho, it's off to the Royal Show....ciao! Aleta Curry 16:22, 28 March 2008 (CDT)
Aleta, I have nominated Rottweiler for approval. Thanks for the changes. Don't worry about itme 2 or 6. As I said, they were suggestions only for consideration. David E. Volk 08:52, 1 April 2008 (CDT)

Write-a-Thon ready to go

Everything is cleared and archived, except for the theme and suggestion sections. --Todd Coles 22:15, 30 March 2008 (CDT)

I've put forward a suggestion of a 'Great people' theme. Get some biographies written. Derek Harkness 07:23, 31 March 2008 (CDT)
Grateful thanks, Todd.
Derek, I love it. I'm bumping it up the theme list. Aleta Curry 18:20, 31 March 2008 (CDT)

Hey Aleta

Hey Aleta... yes I'm back making edits here and there. I see you're on the council now and whatnot... congratulations :) Eric M Gearhart

Quantum comprehension

Did you ever get a chance to take a gander at Quantum mechanics? I'd love to hear if the new approach is in fact comprehensible to mere mortals. (If your head hurts after a while, don't worry, you're in good company - the heads of every physicist who has worked on this, up to Einstein, hurt after they thought about it! :-) J. Noel Chiappa 00:38, 3 April 2008 (CDT)

I did indeed take a look, and I've now made a couple of edits based on what I thought was being said. Naturally, if I've gotten that wrong...!
This was a big ask, and you fellows have done a great job with it.
I read down as far as the section about the pussy cat. I'll get to that later, and if I forget, you have my permission to nudge me.
On a seemingly non sequiturial but actually related matter, I am very disturbed by the fact that the footnote popups have now disappeared (since the launching of the new skin). Having to "click" to the bottom to read parenthetical notes is a pain of large quantum scale!
Aleta Curry 17:41, 3 April 2008 (CDT)
Aleta, very good that you looked at QM, thank you for that. Be not afraid to point out unclarities, the idea of the article being that you understand most (say 90 percent or ideally 100 percent) of it. If you understand less, we have to go back to the drawing board.--Paul Wormer 19:22, 3 April 2008 (CDT)
Thanks for taking a look. I saw your edits, most are good, a few I may have to put back because they subtly changed the sense of what I was trying to say, and made it less accurate.
I agree 100% with Paul's comment that unless the average reader can understand at least 90% of it, we've made a mistake. (Not everyone seems to be on that page; see some of the discussion at Talk:DNA/Draft. J. Noel Chiappa 21:59, 3 April 2008 (CDT)
No sweat. While you're at it, take another look at paragraph no....2, I think, under the section about that evil bastard torturing the poor puddy cat. I think that needs a little background. I'll explain at the TALK page rather than just changing. Aleta Curry 22:04, 3 April 2008 (CDT)

Fictional dogs

Aleta, see last entry, http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/User_talk:Anthony.Sebastian#Dog.2FDraft. --Anthony.Sebastian 18:49, 4 April 2008 (CDT)

Olympics theme

Aleta,

I do have serious objections about supporting the Olympic games in China, but no "strenuous" objections to the theme for a CZ Wrytathon. Depending on how the theme begins to develop -- the sentiments of the participants -- I may choose to pass on the party. --Anthony.Sebastian 13:45, 5 April 2008 (CDT)

I hope it is just a generalized olympics theme. --Robert W King 14:15, 5 April 2008 (CDT)
Oh, yes, The Olympics in general, I would think. If someone chooses (and I expect they would) to write about the Beijing Olympics in particular, that's fine.
Anthony, I believe I understand. I would completely respect your passing on that write-a-thon on moral grounds, but I would so much rather you *wrote* about the issues that concern you.
Seems to me that Olympic protests are a theme in themselves. I remember the African one, the Soviet one, and then after protesting loudly and vehemently that the Olympics should be non-political, the American boycott. Can't wait to see the TALK page about an article titled Hypocrisy at the Olympics.
Then we had the Nazi Olympics, Jessie Owens, the Munich massacre. My Lord, I'd rather we wrote about all these things rather than allowing them to be forgotten.
Aleta Curry 18:18, 5 April 2008 (CDT)

Finally!!!

I finally finished a huge translation contract : State of the Evidence 2008: The Connection Between Breast Cancer and the Environment Edited by Janet Gray, Ph.D., published by the Breast Cancer Fund

I think I'll have time to behave as a proposal driver now, if the proposal manager doesn't mind this delay. I have ideas, yes I do, and now, my mind is more in peace...

Thanks for this message, that comes exactly the day I finish this job!!

Pierre-Alain Gouanvic 02:35, 7 April 2008 (CDT)

That sounds like a pretty impressive piece of work. I'll have to have a look.
I'm sure we'll all be glad to have you back working on the proposal, whenever you can.
Aleta Curry 19:56, 7 April 2008 (CDT)

What a cute little hound

- I was about to write on the talk page when I got your message. Will continue... Ro Thorpe 18:43, 11 April 2008 (CDT)

Mini Foxie

Thanks for a welcome break from the history of the Porfiriato! (Uh oh. Looks like I might have an article to write.)

The article looks really good. I made a couple of very minor changes for clarity and ease of reading, which should be uncontroversial, I think, though you may want to check them for accuracy anyway. :) I did get a little bit lost in the section titled "History of the breed club" but I think this was mainly because I've already been reading all day and I'm not familiar with dog breeding in Australia; since that is a section that would primarily be of interest to those who already have some familiarity with the clubs and individuals mentioned, I don't think my confusion is a big deal.

It seems like that would be a good one to put up for approval. Maybe by the same people who signed on to approve Rottweiler?
--Joe Quick 20:29, 11 April 2008 (CDT)

Hi

The Terrier article is excellent Aleta! We used to have a Jack Russel who looked just like one of the dogs in one of the pictures. Well done! Denis Cavanagh 16:05, 14 April 2008 (CDT) PS- Sorry for originally posting this on your userpage.

Thanks, Joe. Yeah, I saw it was on the userpage--no sweat--was going to get around to moving it....
Oh, and thanks for nominating it for new DOW as well.
Aleta Curry 18:35, 17 April 2008 (CDT)

Internationalisation sandbox subpage

So, Aleta,

I am inviting you to read "Implementation, version 2" of the proposal, and to modify it to your will. I expect the talk page of this proposal to be a place where we can discuss how we'll formulate a possible future where all non-Anglophones can work nicely, gather collaborators, and bridge the language barrier. We're grown ups, aren't we? What I have written shows how easy and self-evident it is to welcome somebody who is not comfortable to write about his or her fondest topics in a second languange, English, but who would take all the necessary steps, with the help of others who care for these topics, to get their article or part of their article, approved, both in English and in whatever language it was written primarily.

This is a powerful system. It relies on the innate tendency of people that are passionate about their subject to bridge language barriers, and it should (it must) repel all fears of International citizens taking too much energy from our good ol' EN-based CZ. Actually, as I try to emphasize, it will boost the core article initiative and it will increase the number of approved articles.

The whole concept of making simulations of possible (and desirable) scenarios appeared as the best solution, after days of reflections. What do you think?

Perig (Pierre-Alain) Pierre-Alain Gouanvic 02:17, 19 April 2008 (CDT)

Hi, Perig.
Thanks for that. I think it's a good way to go, and I'll certainly add/modify/comment when I'm feeling up to it. My first thought was that the letter needed a little tweaking. Tired today and I wouldn't tamper with anything so important when the grey matter isn't fully functional. My first thought though, was that I wasn't sure who was doing the initiating. Again, I'll read it over again when I'm clearer thinking.
Yes, I feel that the simulated models help make what you envision more concrete.
Aleta Curry 20:33, 19 April 2008 (CDT)

Moving a cluster

Hi, the "move" tab only moves the main article page and the talk: page. All the other subpages (including the metadata) must be moved by hand, separately. Try reading CZ:Article structure and related pages, that might help (although I have yet to redo the "how to move a cluster" documentation). J. Noel Chiappa 21:34, 19 April 2008 (CDT)

Yeah, I could see from the steps you took it was something like that. #$%^&(^#*!!! Aleta Curry 21:42, 19 April 2008 (CDT)
Yeah, it's too bad we don't have anyone who can work on the MediaWiki code. I keep threatening to learn, since we could really use it... J. Noel Chiappa 21:47, 19 April 2008 (CDT)

This guy

I can't fathom why you haven't written an article about this guy yet! --Robert W King 11:39, 28 April 2008 (CDT)

Your problems....

....with related pages on New Year's Eve are due to a bug in the subpages. I have fixed it now. Thanks for pointing it out. :) Chris Day 20:30, 6 May 2008 (CDT)

I'd accept your thanks if it were due to my own brilliance-but NOT! Thanks, Chris! Aleta Curry 20:39, 6 May 2008 (CDT)
One thing for sure, when Aleta's not happy, things get done! :-) --D. Matt Innis 22:06, 6 May 2008 (CDT)

Congratulations....

..you are the first person to start one of the new definition subpages :) Clearly you're feeling adventurous today after your fight with the related articles bug.  :) Chris Day 17:22, 7 May 2008 (CDT)

Sorry, I jumped the gun. Denis Cavanagh beat you by an hour. Sorry. But you were second! Chris Day 17:25, 7 May 2008 (CDT)
Aargh! You don't say? That Denis! Aleta Curry 17:38, 7 May 2008 (CDT)

Not gone unnoticed

Aleta - your bids to get me to participate in the Write-A-Thons have not gone unnoticed; it's just simply not a good day for me to dedicate hours to CZ-editing. Lately I seem to have much more time on the weekends. Thanks for the active encouragement though - it's appreciated Eric M Gearhart 01:02, 14 May 2008 (CDT)

No problem. It's always good to hear from you, Eric.
If Wednesdays are a no-go, you can have official dispensation to add yourself to the Keen-as-Mustard-and-jumped-the-gun crew the weekend before. No sweat!
Aleta Curry 18:29, 14 May 2008 (CDT)

More definitions stuff at Chris'

Hi Aleta, please take another look here. -- Daniel Mietchen 02:07, 14 May 2008 (CDT)

Ooh, I'm almost afraid! Just signed on this morning; I'll be right over, Daniel. Aleta Curry 18:31, 14 May 2008 (CDT)
Aleta, something you can do is use 'right-click/Open in New Window' (that's in IE, FireFox has tabs) so that you can have both the instructions, and the thing you're working on, on the screen at the same time, in separate windows, and you can click back and forth between them, so you don't have to remember anything. And then you can use use 'select, copy and paste' to copy those code fragments over, you don't have to retype them. Or are you doing all that already, and I'm just confused? J. Noel Chiappa 19:34, 14 May 2008 (CDT)
Noel asked:'Or are you doing all that already, and I'm just confused?'
Well, yes and no: I do know how to open another tab, or another browser window for that matter. Trouble is, one still has to remember things like, where one was, in what order one went back and forth using the well, the back and forth browser arrows, that sort of thing.
OMG, Noel! Of course I *always* cut and paste code, at least till I have it memorised. (I do of course think I'm brilliant, but there *are* limits! :)
One of the reasons I'm talking this all through out loud is to keep in mind what the problems are for newbies. As I go along learning stuff, naturally it all gets easier, so I forget how hard it once was. Must be multiplied to the nth degree for you folks for whom this is second nature.
Thanks for dropping by.
Aleta Curry 20:37, 14 May 2008 (CDT)
I generally don't use the back and forward browser buttons as much as I just use extra browser windows. (I have 9 CZ windows open at the moment, to various things I'm working on...) One advantage is that I can keep a previous version of a page in one window, and a new version of the same page in another. Can't do that with backwards/forwards.. :-) J. Noel Chiappa 20:54, 14 May 2008 (CDT)
What?! Nine?!! Isn't that a lot of clutter? I see I'm going to have to get used to a new way of thinking, here. Aleta Curry 21:10, 14 May 2008 (CDT)
Well, they're not all open at the same time! Most of them are minimized, except the 2-3 I'm actively working with. I have doubled the width of the taskbar (the stripe along the bottom of the screen that lists all your active windows, including the ones that are minimized and don't show on the screen) to hold them all better! (If you want to do that, hold your mouse just over the boundary, and you'll see a little up-and-down arrow - left-click, and you can now drag that boundary up and down.) J. Noel Chiappa 21:38, 14 May 2008 (CDT)

Aleta, once all the Template:Def Article name definitions have migrated to the defintion subpages you'll find this whole process is much easier. None of the cutting and pasting noinclude' code, for example, that is needed to move those pages right now. But, you'll have to live with the code, there is no good way around that until real programs get this sorted out. Chris Day 00:50, 15 May 2008 (CDT)

ABC

Can it be defaulted? The short answer is no. Even if it could, would we want it to be a default field? A human eye in figuring out where to index different articles might well be a good thing, no? Or have I misunderstood your thinking aloud edit summary? Chris Day 00:50, 15 May 2008 (CDT)

Sorry, Chris, I must've forgotten to answer this. Or I didn't click 'save' (imagine).
What I was thinking was that when I first started with this checklist bizzo, the instructions for the field called &nspb& (something like that) said something like, 'think about how you want this alphabetised and delete that & sign and wierd letters if you want it alphabetised differently'.
In the old days, if I just left 'Fox Terrier' alone, it would be listed under F. But I don't want that, it's a dog, not a fox, so I would *change* that field to Terrier, Fox. So that if I changed the order, now my Terrier list would say'
Terrier, Australian
Terrier, Australian Silky
Terrier, Fox
Terrier, Miniature Fox
Terrier, Soft-Coated Wheaten
Terrier, Tibetan
Whereas in the old days, if I *didn't* make any change to that field, those dogs would show up under A, F, M, S, and T respectively.
That's what I meant.
Aleta Curry 16:06, 18 May 2008 (CDT)

Disambiguation

I made a somewhat minor change to the diambiguation thing which should take care of some of your issues. Basically, what I did was say (in effect - I should transplant this to make it perfectly clear, will do so once I'm done here) 'in all cases where we would now have one particular article at "{BaseName}", and all the others at "{BaseName} ({Disambiguator})", we will have the redirect at "{BaseName}" point to that article, and not to "{BaseName} (Disambiguation)"'.

The effect of this is that things will work exactly as it did before, i.e. someone can write an article with links to dog, tree, ball, etc and get exactly the same articles as they would before this proposal (if it's adopted). You won't have to type any extra characters, you won't have to check to find out the proper article title to link to, etc, etc.

Someone else, however, can come along later (perhaps assisted by a bot) and update those links to go directly to "dog (animal)", "tree (plant)", etc, and not via the redirect at "{BaseName}".

The only difference you'd notice, if this gets adopted, is that when you click through to dog, tree, etc the article titles will have the dismabiguator in them. If I can get everyone to agree on my proposal to allow the page-identifier (the thing you link to) and the article-title (the words in large bold font at the top) to be different, we can fix that too - at which point all this stuff will be completely hidden. J. Noel Chiappa 07:48, 17 May 2008 (CDT)

By the way, I don't have a problem with your title-different-to-identity proposal, as I now understand it, as long as *I* don't have to do anything particularly to make it work. I don't know if I can handle more code at this point. I've long since lost track of where that proposal/discussion is, but if you'd like some lay support, do let me know.
Okay, with respect to what's on the table now: you're saying that if we now have "dog" and "cat", linked anywhere, no problemo, they'll go right to the "animal" article, then later some human or automated thing will adjust behind the scenes so they go to dog (animal) and cat (animal). Okay, fair enough.
I do apologise, but I'm still unsure of something: So we've implemented your policy, and six months from now, Sally Jane from Littledownupton writes a very credible article on baker. Sally's not old enough to have heard of Howard Baker or Sir Samuel Baker, so it doesn't occur to her to write baker (cook). Or would that be baker (occupation) or baker (food)? (I know, I know, enough with the red herrings already!) But back to Sally:
Could we please NOT have 50 zealots superciliously informing the poor mite that she hasn't adhered to "CZ:23.02 naming conventions"? And how about all the *future* writers who type baker as links in their articles? The humans clean it? The bots clean it?
Aleta Curry 16:25, 18 May 2008 (CDT)
Disambiguate red herring (U.S. securities regulation), red herring (tomato sauce), red herring (victim of red tide), red herring (ideology)?
Howard C. Berkowitz 19:07, 18 May 2008 (CDT)
Hahahahahahaha - glad to see you keeping yer sense of humour! Five-pointer, Howard! Aleta Curry 19:29, 18 May 2008 (CDT)

Formatting troubles

The high-level question (whether to organize things by lists of books, or authors) I obviously don't have any solution for! For your formatting issues, however, I can offer some help...

Hayford's I fixed (assuming what's there now is what he wanted). Yours is a bit harder to fix: the problem is that the {{r}} template seems to be inserting a 'new line' (which will terminate any active ':', '*' or '#" block) before it gets to any of the text (including the '*' it inserts), with the result that you're effectively getting:

* [[Madeleine L'Engle]]
:*
* [[A Wrinkle in Time]]

which of course gives you this:

which is what you're seeing. You'd have to talk to one of the people who fiddle with the 'R' template, and get them to take that extra new line (before the '*' they insert) out of there, and then you could say:

{{r|Madeleine L'Engle}}
:{{r|A Wrinkle in Time}}

and the right thing should happen. I think Chris is currently working with R, although Larry has worked on it on the past. I'll drop him a line, since I had another gripe about this thing anyway... :-) J. Noel Chiappa 17:57, 19 May 2008 (CDT)

Thanks for the explanation and the fixes; I'll go have a look. Aleta Curry 18:06, 19 May 2008 (CDT)
Hmmm...okay, what happens if I write...?
as opposed to:
Frankenstein A precursor science fiction novel written in 1818 by Mary Shelley.
Aleta Curry 19:13, 19 May 2008 (CDT)
okay, if you put {{def|whatever}}, the whatever definition is not editable, but if you use {{r|whatever}}, you can edit the definition. I'm assuming both these "defs" live at the same place, which, if I understand anything at all, would be [[Whatever/definition]] --right? Aleta Curry 19:13, 19 May 2008 (CDT)
Right.
I'll ask Chris about the edit link thing. Maybe we'll put together an {{edef}} that is like {{def}}, but has the edit link too. J. Noel Chiappa 20:44, 19 May 2008 (CDT)

Larry worked with R and it was originally a single purpose template. Now it is being used for many other things. Problem is that too many drastic changes will destroy the format on many related articles pages. Ideally I could take out the bullet but I'm not sure that is wise. So I have made the R default for a single bullet but that can be overridden in the cases where you need something else. For example, instead of writing: 

{{r|Edgar Allan Poe}}
{{r|Jules Verne}}
**[[Journey to the Center of the Earth]] {{def|Journey to the Center of the Earth}}
**[[From the Earth to the Moon]] {{def|From the Earth to the Moon}}
**[[Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea]] {{def|Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea}}
{{r|H.G. Wells}}

it is now possible to write: 

{{r|Edgar Allan Poe}}
{{r|Jules Verne}}
{{r|Journey to the Center of the Earth|indent=**}}
{{r|From the Earth to the Moon|indent=**}}
{{r|Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea|indent=**}}
{{r|H.G. Wells}}

To give the following:

Alternatively you could write: 

{{r|Edgar Allan Poe}}
{{r|Jules Verne}}
{{r|Journey to the Center of the Earth|indent=:#}}
{{r|From the Earth to the Moon|indent=:#}}
{{r|Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea|indent=:#}}
{{r|H.G. Wells}}

To give the following:

Or other variation on any indentation scheme. Is the indent field the best name? At this point you can choose which ever is best for you as this has not been implemented on any page. Chris Day 01:43, 20 May 2008 (CDT)

Cool, Chris! Such a {{R}}-compatible indent scheme would also be good for pages like CZ:Biology_Workgroup#High_priority_articles. So Aleta, please name the variable, and we can start playing around with this new functionality. -- Daniel Mietchen 01:53, 20 May 2008 (CDT)

Also, notice that without a variable such as {{r|Frankenstein|indent=}} you can get rid of the bullet:

I'm not sure if that is useful but its good to know the default bullet can be lost without having to indent. Chris Day 02:14, 20 May 2008 (CDT)

I think it will be very useful. Very clever! Aleta, do let us know about the argument name - I had suggested 'fmt' to Chris (for 'format'), as being shorter, but really anything would do. I suppose we could even make it a second, optional, un-named, parameter? R never has another argument now, right? J. Noel Chiappa 07:47, 20 May 2008 (CDT)
Chris and I decided no name at all was the simplest option! See Science fiction/Related Articles‎ (and Template:R/Doc if your're up for it :-). J. Noel Chiappa 11:22, 20 May 2008 (CDT)

Oh, this is simply MARVELOUS!

Much betterer on the definitions, fellas! Thanks and well done.

Sorry, I'm just seeing this at 0830 on Wednesday, Oz time. Husband decided to completely change plans yesterday (won't bore you with details, but you know how you boys get) so of course I had to drop everything while he started doing horrible things with a 23-tonne excavator. You should see the mess!

Just one bit of confusion lingers (that's good for me, isn't it?). I'm not understanding the relationship between asterisks and colons in these formulae.

If I use "**" to indent a line, say Journey to the center of the Earth

  • Jules Verne [r]: (1828-1905) French author and science-fiction pioneer, some of whose novels involved travel through outer space and under water before technology had made these possible, and whose work has been widely translated and made into a number of films. [e]

Why do I change that to "*::" to indent twice?

  • Dog [r]: Domesticated canine often kept as a pet or as a working animal and known as 'man's best friend'. [e]
    • Terrier [r]: A member or descendant of any of several dog breeds or dog landraces originally developed for hunting or vermin routing. [e]
    Fox Terrier [r]: Small to medium-sized hunting terrier developed to rout fox and vermin. [e]

Smooth Fox Terrier aka Modern Fox Terrier [r]: Add brief definition or description Fox Terrier, Miniature ("Mini Foxie") [r]: A small Australian vermin-routing terrier, developed from 19th Century Fox Terriers and Fox Terrier types. [e]

Okay, I just "previewed". I was doing well until I tried to indent the Fox Terrier types, here Smooth Fox Terrier and Mini Foxie. Did I type the code wrong or does it not work for another level? Could I use numbering instead? ("#" - though for some reason that very rarely works for me. I always end up with things like

1 1.1 1.1

instead of

1 2 3

and I give up Aleta Curry 17:52, 20 May 2008 (CDT)

Aleta, this is more to do with the way that MediaWiki handles nested lists (both unnumbered and numbered), and not so much the {{r}} template. Basically the deal is that in a nested list you can't have any other 'lines' of text (remembering that a line in WikiMedia markup - i.e. any string of characters that doesn't include a new line character - can often be a whole paragraph) in the middle of a nested group, you can't 'mix and match'. I.e. something like:
* (stuff}
** (stuff}
** (stuff}
*** (stuff}
*** (stuff}
** (stuff}
is ok, but:
* (stuff}
** (stuff}
** (stuff}
: {other stuff}
** (stuff}
isn't, because that line starting with ':' intrudes. Once you start on a nested list, using either '*' or '#', a line starting with anything else terminates that nested list, and the next line starting with '*' or '#' starts a new nested list. (And if you start a nested list with a line starting with a "**" or something, basically anything other than a plain '*' or '#', you get something ugly.)
Exception: you can mix and match ':' and either '*' or '#' to do wierd stuff, but I can't tell you exactly what the rules for all that are - because I don't know if they are written down anywhere, and I haven't fully figured them out myself!
But basically if you stay with simple nested lists, you should be OK. If you want to try and copy stuff that uses things like "::*" that works, feel free, but it's a 'trial and error' situation if it doesn't work (for people like Chris and me too) - and this is doubly true if you mix that and use of the {{r}} template, for reasons you really don't want to think about (because it will drive you to drinkin' - not to mention unladylike cussin' of computers and computer people) - but it you really want to know more, see Template talk:R. J. Noel Chiappa 18:38, 20 May 2008 (CDT)

Oh, part of the reason your terrier example didn't work was that you had an extra '|' character in the last two lines. (Computers = stupid moronic small children who have zero common sense.) So: 

{{r|dog}}
{{r|Terrier||**}}
{{r|Fox Terrier||*::}}
{{r|Fox Terrier, Smooth|Smooth Fox Terrier aka ''Modern Fox Terrier''|*:::}}
{{r|Miniature Fox Terrier|Fox Terrier, Miniature ("Mini Foxie")|*:::}}
{{r|Poodle||**}}

does produce:

The lines with the "*::" etc keep the nested group 'going' without producing bullets (cool, I had never seen that trick before) so when you later have another 2nd level bulleted entrty (the poodle) it comes out looking right. J. Noel Chiappa 18:44, 20 May 2008 (CDT)

Where's the article!

Come on, the Ned Kelley thing was totally in your backyard! I'm sure you can find all kinds of stuff easily and locally. --Robert W King 13:45, 25 May 2008 (CDT)

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