User talk:Chris Day/Archive 5

The account of this former contributor was not re-activated after the server upgrade of March 2022. ——————————————— Chris' Talk Page ————————————— I am an editor in the biology workgroup | 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, Current talk page (94,080)
The account of this former contributor was not re-activated after the server upgrade of March 2022.	The account of this former contributor was not re-activated after the server upgrade of March 2022. Useful links on Citizendium Myths and Facts Biology Workgroup How to get started How to Edit The current policy outline Forums for discussion Biology forum News Community blog

updating the main page

Given that the main page is the most important page of CZ and it is being updated at least twice a week for the article of the week updates, it seems that we need guidance for people to do this without leaving a mess behind. Can we draft some rules? It is not easy, because there are a lot of things which need to be checked and dealt with. I can try to list some, and perhaps you can help with the technical guidance [you seem to be good at that!], Many thanks, --Martin Baldwin-Edwards 20:42, 5 October 2007 (CDT)

Have people being leaving a mess? I think what I cleaned up was a problem that was external to the main page. I have not tracked down the relevant change but it appears as if the approved tick image was deleted? Chris Day (talk) 21:11, 5 October 2007 (CDT)

Yes, this particular problem seems to be the loss of an image, although the history shows that someone changed the name of the link to the image... Generally, people are updating half of what is needed for the ARticle of the Week etc and forgetting the rest. I am continually correcting the links to the previous week's article, or no links at all, etc etc. There are occasional other problem with the page, but it is mostly the updating for the Article and New Draft things. We do need guidance and rules for the Main Page editing...--Martin Baldwin-Edwards 21:17, 5 October 2007 (CDT)

If I get a vote, I'd suggest using transculsion- create a "Main Page/NDotW" and a "Main Page/AotW", then just add them into the main page. Since they'd only be edited weekly or so, it wouldn't be much of a performance hit (if any). That way, people will know what they should be changing and what is part of the Main Page in general.

If you were feeling really ambitious, we could make a template with "picture", "caption", "title", and "text" parameters. That would almost entirely remove risk of errors, and wouldn't be a performance hit if we lock the Main Page. --ZachPruckowski (Speak to me) 16:42, 9 October 2007 (CDT)

draft

.. is showing up in the cats.. [1]. Matt Innis (Talk) 19:16, 8 October 2007 (CDT)

Not for me? Chris Day (talk) 19:39, 8 October 2007 (CDT)

I'm not sure if this has been discussed yet

but having to do something four times to each page is making me want to figuratively stab the article in it's face. Have any ideas been tossed around on how to automate this yet? --Robert W King 21:09, 9 October 2007 (CDT)

re tl|subpages

Not mentioned in Start article with subpages. ? --Anthony.Sebastian (Talk) 22:03, 10 October 2007 (CDT)

Sorry, I'm confused, what is not mentioned? Chris Day (talk) 22:53, 10 October 2007 (CDT)

subpages

... are looking really good. The <show><hide> was a nice touch. The PMUA dots disappearing almost had me concerned till I realized you did it by design.. Really looks good, CHris. --Matt Innis (Talk) 20:09, 11 October 2007 (CDT)

Are we using this?

http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:CreateArticle

 —Stephen Ewen (Talk) 00:07, 14 October 2007 (CDT)

Not that I know of, although we are using the inputbox on the start article pages. It is the precursor of CreateArticle.

With respect to automation, I have been using urls directly since one cannot use magic words as input for parameters in these extensions (at least I have not figured out how to do it). Here are some examples of what I have been using to allow automatic creation of specific subpage and namespace types.

'''Create "[http://en.citizendium.org/wiki?action=edit&preload=Template%3ASubpages_name&title={{BASEPAGENAMEE}}%2FApproval approval]" page.'''

'''Create "[http://en.citizendium.org/wiki?action=edit&preload=Template%3ASubpages_name&title=Talk:{{BASEPAGENAMEE}} Talk]" page.'''

'''Create "[http://en.citizendium.org/wiki?action=edit&preload=Template%3ABlank_metadata&title=Template:{{BASEPAGENAMEE}}%2FMetadata the metadata]" template.''' 

Create "approval" page.

Create "Talk" page.

Create "the metadata" template.

This code creates new pages at a specific namespace or subpages for any pagename by hacking into the url code. Chris Day (talk) 00:23, 14 October 2007 (CDT)

Also see http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:CSS_Dropdowns  —Stephen Ewen (Talk) 00:59, 14 October 2007 (CDT)

That's a nice location in the sitenotice box. I remember we were trying to figure out how to do that when we originally started down the sugpage route. Also notice that they have the same problems with IE and have not even bothered to try and solve it, instead calling them dumb browsers. How true :) Chris Day (talk) 01:03, 14 October 2007 (CDT)

I see that, too. --Matt Innis (Talk) 19:47, 14 October 2007 (CDT)

http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Simple_Forms  —Stephen Ewen (Talk) 02:10, 14 October 2007 (CDT)

unused pages

Am I safe in assuming that we no longer need to add the {{subpages}} to unused pages? --Matt Innis (Talk) 10:22, 14 October 2007 (CDT)

Basically, I see no advantage in having the unused subpage. It is just as easy to have that information available on the talk page and takes away one layer of complexity from the subpage cluster. So i had thought we should just abandon the unused subpage altogether. Does anyone object? Chris Day (talk) 11:14, 14 October 2007 (CDT)

A long as the list remains at the bottom of the template in the talk section the change seems innocuous enough. If the list dissappears then we probably need to run it by Larry. --Matt Innis (Talk) 11:59, 14 October 2007 (CDT)

That's what I was thinking; we definitely need the list. But I see no reason to have a long discussion about whether to make it simpler or not. If you remember, we had originally floated with the idea of having these unused subpage links in the talk page. At that time the collapsible boxes did not function. now this space saving device is functional it makes a lot more sense to finally go this route. I have tried to update all the relevant policy pages but I may have missed some. if you see any mention of unused pages please update it to reflect this recent change in phiolosophy. Thanks for keeping up with all these changes. It's great to have someone to bounce these ideas off. Chris Day (talk) 12:05, 14 October 2007 (CDT)

Yeah, get rid of it, no need to ask me! Just happened to look in here. --Larry Sanger 12:09, 14 October 2007 (CDT)

Well you'll notice we alredy did it. See you're losing control already. :) Chris Day (talk) 12:10, 14 October 2007 (CDT)

Bone tools

One of my students has put up the article Bone tools - as always, I would appreciate encouragment and feedback! Lee R. Berger 01:38, 15 October 2007 (CDT)

I saw bone tools, I was wondering if it was one of your students. If they would like feed back I'll be happy to weigh in. The changes i just made were all stylistic rather than content oriented. Chris Day (talk) 01:47, 15 October 2007 (CDT)

Please do (re: above) by the way - are you suggesting that there are two ways to spell archAeology?? Why I never!

P.S. could you maybe suggest that both Bone tools and Leopards as taphonomic agents could add some images? Thanks -

Lee R. Berger 14:21, 15 October 2007 (CDT)

I can go with either way, but the CZ workgroup is with an A so everytime it gets put in the category without the A it comes up with a red link. Best bet might be to have redirects in place for the "correct" category. Chris Day (talk) 17:26, 15 October 2007 (CDT)

CD\anj you fivgure out the swubp\avgesw iswswue

I have to go buy a new keyboard, i spilled coke all in mine \anjdc i/'m off to beswt buy. --Robert W King 14:20, 16 October 2007 (CDT)

Thanks for volunteering for wikiconverting

Any ideas what file formats we should accept? Any other idea about this human wikiconverter project?. Will you convert a MS Word ".doc", say, directly yourself or will you utilize some intermediate converting program? If the latter, what program(s)? Comment on my Talk page, in the section asking for comments, so commenters can share ideas. --Anthony.Sebastian (Talk) 19:31, 17 October 2007 (CDT)

Wheat
Common wheat, Triticum aestivum L.
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Plantae Division: Magnoliophyta Class: Liliopsida Order: Poales Family: Poaceae Subfamily: Pooideae Tribe: Triticeae Genus: Triticum L.
Species
T. aestivum T. aethiopicum T. araraticum T. boeoticum T. carthlicum T. compactum T. dicoccoides T. dicoccon T. durum T. ispahanicum T. karamyschevii T. macha T. militinae T. monococcum T. polonicum T. spelta T. sphaerococcum T. timopheevii T. turanicum T. turgidum T. urartu T. vavilovii T. zhukovskyi References:   ITIS 42236 2002-09-22

generic subpages

Chris, is it possible to create the subpage from within the metadata page? As in subpage i <button:add subpage i+1> Where each can have its own name etc etc. Seems that would become handy for subpage creation where these can be manifold. - nevertheless - thanks for now Robert Tito |  Talk  19:35, 18 October 2007 (CDT)

I had not considered that as an option but i see no reason why that could not be included. Chris Day (talk) 19:37, 18 October 2007 (CDT)

Hair pullin'

I added {{Gallery}} and {{Gallery/Sub}}.

Can you figure out why the Add caption here is displaying not translated?

The really maddening part is that it is a pure rip from here and here but does not display at CZ as it does there.

Stephen Ewen 22:49, 18 October 2007 (CDT)

I'm intrigued, is there any reason not to use <gallery></gallery>? Chris Day (talk) 22:53, 18 October 2007 (CDT)

never mind I just figured out that it can be variable in the number of pictures in each row, depending on the browser size. A definite inmprovement. Chris Day (talk) 22:54, 18 October 2007 (CDT)

Thanks, Chris. Stephen Ewen 23:58, 18 October 2007 (CDT)

Article contrib functionality test

Chris; I've created Fire/Contribs to figure out how to functionally generate contribution values based on article-byte sums, if you want to weigh in. --Robert W King 14:22, 21 October 2007 (CDT)

What did I do wrong here?

(Other than not doing the required article cleanup.) Template:IUPAC_nomenclature_of_organic_chemistry/Metadata --Joe Quick 21:33, 23 October 2007 (CDT)

Nothing, it's that bug again. Only this time it won't allow the metadata template to display. in fact this article is the worst case of the bug I have seen yet. There is clearly something very wrong with the subpages template. i have tried to track down without success. Chris Day (talk) 21:36, 23 October 2007 (CDT)

Ah, okay. I hadn't noticed that conversation. So it's appearing in places that were previously okay? --Joe Quick 21:42, 23 October 2007 (CDT) P.S. I laughed when I noticed that your talk page is categorized as a "no approval page" :-P

I see you noticed Origins and architecture of the Taj Mahal - the subpages bug is also causing some templates further down the page to malfunction. Thanks for the revert, btw, I was testing whether it was an unclosed bracket issue and hit the save instead of preview button, then wandered off for a few minutes. --ZachPruckowski (Speak to me) 21:46, 23 October 2007 (CDT)

No problem, i having been thinking about this for a few days now. i have also being checking for open brackets and i can find none. Actually this is not that surprising otherwise this problem would be evident on every page. it is the erractic nature of this that makes it very hard to pin down. One possible issue is that it is just so big that it shuts down prematurely on some pages. Is that at all possible? It sounds crazy but froma few tests this seems to be the case. For example if I remove code from the templates (stuff not used on a particular page) i can often restore function without any obvious reason. Chris Day (talk) 22:08, 23 October 2007 (CDT)

Moving discussion to the subpages talk page. -- ZachPruckowski (Speak to me) 22:16, 23 October 2007 (CDT)

Protein Structure

Thanks Chris, I just type whipped it out this afternoon, from scratch. Give it a good read and write back with any suggestions. To me it is all so obvious that I need to know what is not clear. However, I am headed for vacation so I might not be able to make fixes for awhile. I have been meaning to make nice pictures for each of the amino acids, but that will take some time for all twenty, in both "chemdraw"-like wire versions and nicer neon bond versions (like WP has for all twenty). David E. Volk 16:31, 26 October 2007 (CDT)

Core articles

I added more to 'linguistics' such that we now have 99 articles, all with points. However, I've only just done this, so others will need to take a look. Perhaps you could check what stage we're at. Thanks. John Stephenson 08:30, 27 October 2007 (CDT)

Architecture Core Articles

Hello. I was surprised to find that the Great Wall of China was not present in the list of Architecture Core Articles. Is there any way to know why? --Eddie Ortiz Nieves 13:52, 28 October 2007 (CDT)

Clearly that should be on the list, not that I'm an expert. Try the architecture forum or go ahead and add it removing one you think to be less important. An editor can always revrt you if they disagree. I doubt they will though. Chris Day (talk) 14:07, 28 October 2007 (CDT)

Thanks; I'll do that now. --Eddie Ortiz Nieves 14:08, 28 October 2007 (CDT)

To Approve section of subpages

Hi Chris, another piece of the puzzle. We were working to add the ToApprove section for Symphony and noticed that the green template worked on the article page when he put his name in, but as soon as I put in the article url, I got the #ifeq error. It goes away if I take the version out (though the error still shows up on the talk page). Darned if I know. --Matt Innis (Talk) 20:24, 28 October 2007 (CDT)

I did this edit and it may be OK now. I think we are maxing out on the allowable amount of template transclusions within the subpages template. Obviously the metadata template is transcluded quite a few times so too many additions to that will put the whole thing over the top. Adding that url put it over the top but cutting out the hidden comments brought it back to an allowable size. Maybe :) Chris Day (talk) 22:43, 28 October 2007 (CDT)

Thanks for catching the CZ Live thing Chris. Most of the articles I posted were from Wikipedia with minor edits. I planned to work on them this week, but misunderstood the deal with putting in the CZ Live category. So do we never need to worry about manually adding CZ Live if we use subpages?

That sums it up. Good luck with developing those articles, and thanks for picking them up. Chris Day (talk) 00:08, 29 October 2007 (CDT)

Subpagination bot

Hi Chris. I've been away for a couple of weeks but I'm ready to start the Subpagination Bot again. As far as I can see, nothing has changed so the same code should work. Is there anything I should be aware of? Cheers, Jitse Niesen 09:14, 31 October 2007 (CDT)

Subpages for Systems biology

Chris: I started Systems biology before the 'subpages' concept emerged. I fear I will botch the job putting them in now, and take forever. If you say so, I'll give it a try. If you feel you can do it between heart beats, I'd use my time to try to bring the article up to nomination-quality. --Anthony.Sebastian (Talk) 18:50, 31 October 2007 (CDT)

About an hour later...

Chris: I tried it, seemed to work. Will you check. --Anthony.Sebastian (Talk) 19:34, 31 October 2007 (CDT)

Jack Kramer plaque

Hi Chris, thanks for uploading a much improved (edited by you?) version of the plaque. The strange thing, however, is that it doesn't show up in either the Jack Kramer or Tennis article! The old one is still there. I've tried fiddling around with the edits in various ways but unsuccessfully. Or are my poor old eyes just seeing things this morning? Best, Hayford Peirce 12:07, 1 November 2007 (CDT)

It will show up in time, there is always a lag while the server catches up. I cropped it a bit and squared the corners, I hope that is not too presumptious on my behalf. Chris Day (talk) 12:13, 1 November 2007 (CDT)

Gotcha. The editing was perfect! Thanks! Hayford Peirce 13:07, 1 November 2007 (CDT)

r Template bug

I am not sure if you are the person for this, but check out United_States_of_America/Related_Articles. There is a bug that is not displaying George W. Bush and American English correctly. Matt Mahlmann 17:21, 2 November 2007 (CDT)

Did you note the edit i made on the metadata template. That seems to be the cause of the bug. A real fix is no the way, when I get time. Chris Day (talk) 17:49, 2 November 2007 (CDT)

new tennis template, a quickie

Hi! Would it be possible for you and/or Robert to spend 5 minutes (or less) designing a *very* simple template that we could insert between the existing templates at Famous tennis players? Right now I'm alphabetizing the list so that it starts with Austin, Borotra, Brugnon, and Budge. Next up will be Casey. What I'd like would be a simple template that I could stick in between Budge and Casey, say. All I want to then put into the new template would be something like: "Bob Cane, American, September 23, 1940—December 13, 2005" In other words, we could take all of those other players who are listed below the players in the tables and put them into some sort of order amongst the tabled players. Many thanks for considering this! Hayford Peirce 17:26, 4 November 2007 (CST)

History

Hi Chris, I added a Catalogs page to History but 'Catalogs' doesn't show up on the subpages on the article page. It does show up on the talk page, though. Do make sure I didn't do anything wrong if you would. --Matt Innis (Talk) 15:54, 5 November 2007 (CST)

I can see it now. Are you still having problems seeing it? Chris Day (talk) 20:45, 5 November 2007 (CST)

I see it! Can we say cache:-) I can't believe I bothered you with that one. --Matt Innis (Talk) 21:45, 5 November 2007 (CST)

Linguistics core articles

We now have the 99 articles and I don't think anyone is interested in adding any more. For reference, it's been done by Joshua Jensen and me (both authors), with advice from Richard Senghas (editor). John Stephenson 01:34, 6 November 2007 (CST)

Games core articles

The Games core articles are now at Stage 4. Unfortunately, I've done all the work myself - there have been no responses to my request for help on the workgroup talk page. I doubt I qualify as the most active author in the area, so could you find out who that is and give them a poke to check the list? Thanks. --Peter Blake 19:43, 8 November 2007 (CST)

That area has never had too much activity. So i'm really not sure who is best. Do you feel your list is not definitive? Chris Day (talk) 23:03, 8 November 2007 (CST)

My concern is that, despite my best efforts, the list may reflect my personal preferences too much. Peter Blake 23:51, 10 November 2007 (CST)

One other thing is that there is only supposed to be 99 listed to start with. Chris Day (talk) 23:04, 8 November 2007 (CST)

Really? CZ:Core_Articles says "...Games ... may nominate 198 topics (66 per column)." Peter Blake 23:51, 10 November 2007 (CST)

Yes, you're exactly right. Not sure why I didn't notice that. Chris Day (talk) 02:24, 11 November 2007 (CST)

No problem. I'll leave you to "Stage 5" the list at your convenience. If anyone else makes changes before then, that's all to the good. Peter Blake 13:47, 11 November 2007 (CST)

Print, approved

I noticed when I printed Symphony today to use to evaluate a student for reading miscues that there is a no indication that the article is approved. I wonder if there is anything we can do about that. Stephen Ewen 16:02, 13 November 2007 (CST)

This is alterable in the CSS. It would be possible to add a CSS class that is visible only when printed, and then use that to add a tasteful template to the printed approved pages. This would have to wait for the new subpages template though. I'll grab my CSS reference tonight if I get my homework done. -- ZachPruckowski (Speak to me) 13:39, 14 November 2007 (CST)

approval template

Chris, I cannot get the approval template for "Competition policy" to register in the articles to be approved listing or the relevant workgroups. I had a lot of difficulty with this template, and made multiple saves, including deleting the info-data to stop the #feq nonsense from appearing. Can someone check it out? many thanks --Martin Baldwin-Edwards 16:23, 13 November 2007 (CST)

Let me know if I fixed it Martin. --Robert W King 16:29, 13 November 2007 (CST)

Well, it doesnt appear in the ToApprove listings. Is this something which takes time for updating? --Martin Baldwin-Edwards 16:32, 13 November 2007 (CST)

If you look at Competition_policy/Approval it in the category. I thinking updating categories is low on the job queue so it will take a while to update. Chris Day (talk) 17:10, 13 November 2007 (CST)

subst:

I'm rather stuck figuring out how to get subst: variables to work at Template:Image_notes_ownwork-new (also see Template:Sign_three_tildes). Basically, on the Citizendium Author section I am trying to make the template self-sign and date for the uploader. Can you maybe have a quick look? Stephen Ewen 23:11, 13 November 2007 (CST)

{{<includeonly>subst:</includeonly>Sign_three_tildes}} This is the bit that does not work? I have not come across subst: before so I'm not sure I'll be any more informed than you here. One thing I'm not sure about is what is not working. Is the problem you get three tildes instead of the signature when its used? Where is a starting point for me to see how it works? Do I upload an image? Is there another way to test it? Chris Day (talk) 09:45, 14 November 2007 (CST)

I'm pretty sure that subst is just for templates. I remember trying to do something like this (self signing) last year, bashing my head against the wall for a bit, and then quitting. --ZachPruckowski (Speak to me) 10:50, 14 November 2007 (CST)

Glad to know I'm not the only one to hit this wall with his head. This difficulty is why I (reluctantly) concluded that {{CURRENTUSER}} would be needed to provide the self-signing function, especially when lacking User name brackets. I think if it can be made to only work as a subst: it would be fine. The payoff would be nice: for self-authored images, uploading them is a matter of mere clicks, and filling in one line to describe the file ("A 2-year-old male Great Dane"), perfect to make uploading easy-peasy for all. Yet the uplaod page would provide much fuller info than only what is typed. Stephen Ewen 15:47, 14 November 2007 (CST)

Unused

There are a lot of /unused pages. I'm under the impression that we don't use /unused anymore. --Robert W King 13:28, 14 November 2007 (CST)

We don't use it anymore, its part of the talk page now. One less page to create is always a good thing, especially if creating clusters is not automated. Can a bot be programmed to go through and delete them all? Chris Day (talk) 13:30, 14 November 2007 (CST)

A lot of them are at the orphaned pages link, some of them are at the subpages9 "what links here" page. I would think a mass delete would probably take care of them all. --Robert W King 13:33, 14 November 2007 (CST)

I think after the subpagination bot has finished we should ask Jitse to programme it to delete them all. If possible. Chris Day (talk) 13:35, 14 November 2007 (CST)

Can't someone go into the server side and just run a unix script or whatever to perform a huge delete? --Robert W King 13:36, 14 November 2007 (CST)

I have no idea, I'm illiterate with computer stuff. Chris Day (talk) 13:37, 14 November 2007 (CST)

It is preferable to work through the wiki software where possible. In a sense, it provides a level of security or sanity. If Jitse's bot went bonkers, we could still undo everything it does, but if a techie does something in the database and screws it up, we're back to backups. -- ZachPruckowski (Speak to me) 13:45, 14 November 2007 (CST)

I'd be more worried about me going bonkers than my bot going bonkers. ;) But it will be easy to delete all the XXX/Unused pages with the bot. I probably need to be reminded later. -- Jitse Niesen 11:15, 15 November 2007 (CST)

The bot finished its run, finally. The only articles which do not use subpages are now: articles without checklist (there are quite a number of them), protected articles (which include all approved articles), articles using one of the old templates, and any articles missed because they were created after the bot started.

The above discussion made me think. Do we need all the empty XXX/Approval pages? Why don't we create them only when necessary? The circles A which would normally lead to the Approval page could go to a pre-filled edit form if the approval page does not exist. -- Jitse Niesen 09:36, 16 November 2007 (CST)

Template question

Do you know the command for getting a section of something from a template? I'm trying to extract just the name of the file from a special:random/image call (which gives me a random image), so if something is Image:Test.jpg I want to extract just the "Test" part. --Robert W King 20:14, 16 November 2007 (CST)

Cut and paste this table into the page you are interested in and see which magic word gives the desired answer. Chris Day (talk) 21:23, 16 November 2007 (CST) {| width=100% |style="background-color: #cccccc"| <nowiki>{{../../Metadata|info=pagename}}|| {{../../Metadata|info=pagename}} |style="background-color: #cccccc"| {{{{BASEPAGENAME}}|info=pagename}}|| Template:Chris Day |style="background-color: #cccccc"| {{{{BASEPAGENAME}}/Metadata|info=pagename}}|| Template:Chris Day/Metadata |- |style="background-color: #cccccc"| {{SUBPAGENAME}}|| Archive 5 |style="background-color: #cccccc"| {{FULLPAGENAME}}|| User talk:Chris Day/Archive 5 |style="background-color: #cccccc"| {{BASEPAGENAME}}|| Chris Day |- |style="background-color: #cccccc"| {{PAGENAME}}|| Chris Day/Archive 5 |style="background-color: #cccccc"| [[/]]|| User talk:Chris Day/Archive 5/ |style="background-color: #cccccc"| [[../]]|| User talk:Chris Day |- |style="background-color: #cccccc"| [[../../]]|| [[../../]] |style="background-color: #cccccc"| {{/}}|| User talk:Chris Day/Archive 5/ |style="background-color: #cccccc"| {{../}}||

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——————————————— Chris' Talk Page ————————————— I am an editor in the biology workgroup | 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, Current talk page (94,080)

Notes to self

• European Physical Society [r]: (EPS) A not for profit association whose purpose is to promote physics and physicists in Europe. ^[e]
• EPS [r]: Add brief definition or description

The European Physical Society

{{Quote|A|B|C|D|E}} gives:

‘	A	’
—B, C

{{PAGESIZE:User talk:{{BASEPAGENAME}}}} gives 94,080

{{PAGESIZE:User talk:{{BASEPAGENAME}}|R}} gives 94080

{{#ifexpr: {{PAGESIZE:User talk:{{BASEPAGENAME}}|R}} > 3000 | large|lemma }} gives large

{{#ifexpr: {{PAGESIZE:User talk:{{BASEPAGENAME}}|R}} < 3000 | large|lemma }} gives lemma

See:

- /Notes to self

- /Previous discussions

movelink

{{{1}}}

• How should the r template deal with links to catalogs? Could use a separate 4th level definition but which related articles page should it link too?
• Apostrophe bug means that the tabs are not the correct color. Fix the code to account so the if statement compares the url code.
• Manual placement of {{dabdef|Fossilization}} needs the basepagename added manually too. If follow Noel's description will need a field in the metadata for any article that is the target of the basename redirect. No other way to figure out the basename for the {{dambigbox}} template otherwise. Alternative is do have a much more manually (for example, {{dambigbox|the process in [[palaeontology]]|Fossilization}} ) template but probably better to have it placed automatically. Drawa figure to make this more comprehensible.
• Need to write a summary document describing the uses of {{RD}}, {{R}}, {{Rpl}} and {{pl}}.
• For {{R}} should probably remove the {{Dabdef}} template and just write what is required. Could then have a specific template for the disambiguation request for a definition page if it is needed (I suspect no one would use it and instead just make the disambiguation page). One exception might be Daniel in combination with the RD template at CZ:List of words with multiple uses
• Subpages template misinterprets location on the talk approval talk page (not sure I can replicate this).
• Think over subpages format. Possibly need subpages style as third layer template with intermediary ones to define the magicword variables? Initiated this, see {{Parameters1}} and {{Parameters2}} in conjunction with {{Subpages test}} and {{Subpage style test}}.
• If no footer or header add specific category to note this fact, preferably no other categories too. See homeopathy/Trials example.
• must think about the status of these sub and subsub defintion pages. Note also that they exist as definition onlys rather than recognising the existance of the basepagename.
• Lemma articles mess up the related only category such that related articles can only exist if there is some metadata. Try and write around (is this true? not sure I can replicate this either).
• Finish userplan simplification and more focus on workgroup participation.
• Fix move cluster - partially done, still need to fix approval page bug (when article has no approval page or when there is already an approval page present)
• {{Lemma}} idea, see {{Test lemma}} too. Need to utlilise the pagesize magic word so we get a lemma when there is no, or very little text in an article.
• optional photo credit
• Article task and notification list
• Metadata edits always current so should tie speedydelete etc to that one page. This will get around the maintenance categories often being out of date.
• Think more about /Catalog/Masterlists See User_talk:Aleta_Curry#Masterlist for examples. Fix the same page blank code, At present there is a capital letter requirement bug as well as need to get second string if used. Also catalog masterlists and transclusion in general. No need to maintain information at multiple sites. Is substitution bot an option?
• Figure out utlity of transcluding refs with the r template redirects.
• Make error boxes more concise and smaller.
• Finish up the periodic table navigation, specifically whether element data shoul be in a switch page on on individual subpages

{{r|Nova (astronomy)#Supernova|Supernova}} gives:

• Supernova [r]: Please do not use this term in your topic list, because there is no single article for it. Please substitute a more precise term. See Nova (astronomy)#Supernova (disambiguation) for a list of available, more precise, topics. Please add a new usage if needed.

{{r|Supernova}} gives:

• Supernova [r]: An astronomical object exploding to a brightness similar to that of an entire galaxy. Caused by a catastrophic explosion of either a white dwarf system or an aged star about five times the size of the sun, which occurs when the star collapses; a neutron star or a black hole may be formed as a result, or the explosion results in no remaining compact object. ^[e]

Iteresting that the top version does not work as expected. Might need to fic the r template to asccomodate tis , if possible. 06:54, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

/Wanted

Need to figure out the disconnects between the rare earths periodic table of elementses and the template:periodic. Did uranium, but others need fixing too. See Uranium/Periodic table of elements

Category:False Start Move

Category:Incomplete Move

Category:DeleteMove

Too many pop-up alert messages when starting a new article

Chris, two things that have niggled me for quite some while:

• Whenever I create a new article in my Sandbox and then use the "Start Article" link in the left-hand navigation panel:

As soon as I cut and paste the article from my sandbox into the new article (including the subpages template) and save it, three or so large popup alerts are displayed on the main article page (ahead of the article text) telling me why they have appeared and alerting me to do certain things (like filling out the Metadata template). They must be overwhelmingly confusing to a new user writing his first article. The various pop-ups are separated by a heck of a lot of white space ... so that one must scroll down quite far to even see the main article text that I just cut and pasted from my sandbox.

Can those pop-ups be made smaller, with less excessive white space between them? Or can they be combined into one pop-up and made less wordy?

• After I've created the Definition subpage and the Talk subpage:

The Talk page has more pop-ups telling me to create the Related Articles, Bibliography and External Links subpages. Again, one must scroll down to below those pop-ups before adding a post or reading any existing posts.

Once the Main Article, Metadata template and Talk page have been created, why not autiomatically create the Definition, the Related Articles, the Bibliography and the External Links pages complete with the subpages template included in each of them? Then, instead of all those pop-ups on the Talk page, all that would be required is one sentence stating that the Definition, the Related Articles, the Bibliography and External Links subpage need to be populated as soon as possible.

I think the above suggestions would greatly simplify the task of starting a new article. What do you think? Milton Beychok 07:00, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

The messages (including the whitespace) for starting an article could easily be changed in Template:Orphan subpage.

Concerning the talk page messages I have already filed a wish in CZ:Wishlist "Obtrusive requests to edit subpages". Again, they could easily be made smaller without having to create them at once. (I do not think that it is useful to create empty pages.)

However, both messages are as they are on purpose. Thus the pro-and-contra should be discussed, at least briefly.

(I agree with you, Milton) --Peter Schmitt 11:13, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Glad someone else said it. I thought it was just my ignorance, you know, like it wouldn't bother people born into the Internet era.

Not to insult the original crafters, because we've all been working in the dark on this and I still think that clusters are a brilliant idea, we just need to tweak every once in a while.

While we're at it, could we PLEASE remove Albert from the metadata fill in form? I keep re-creating page Albert Einstein and getting a 'you're messing this up' error message, which confuses me no end.

And let's remove CanE and AusE as options in the language variants. No one writes in Canadian English or Australian English, we might as well have Indian English or Trinidadian English. We only need American English and British (or Commonwealth, if you'd rather) English.

Aleta Curry 22:11, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

I have removed "Albert Einstein" from the field in the blank template. (I hope that nobody minds.) On this occasion I found a Metadata template wrongly attributed to Einstein. (There may be more. And there are quite a lot of Metadata requiring "abc=Einstein, Albert" that will need to be fixed.) --Peter Schmitt 01:31, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

In retrospect, it should have been Werner Heisenberg. --Howard C. Berkowitz 03:23, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

You're just so certain of that, aren't you. Russell D. Jones 14:14, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

I do not think these alerts should go completely but we could hide most of them behind ONE generic message per page saying "Hey, something is missing or wrong. For details, click [show].". An example for such hidden stuff is at Category:Bot-created Related Articles subpages#Index. --Daniel Mietchen 15:09, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

I happen to like the alerts. As rarely as I create and/or move pages, I don't remember the procedures and all that has to happen; and I'm not willing to go look up those procedures every time. But having the alerts reminds me of what I need to do to get the article "off the ground." It's a checklist, but not in a checklist format. I was unaware of the Einstein Bug. I don't know that I'd like the "something's missing" format either. It smacks of "we know something you don't, he, he." If the templating can tell me what needs to be done to get the cluster to an operating standard, then it should. Russell D. Jones 16:16, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

I think you have to place yourself in the shoes of a newbie, Russell -- all of these alerts, and *long* blank spaces down through which one has to scroll, are *baffling*. "Hey, they asked me to create an article, I did, and NOW what?! WTF is goin' on here? Where's my article?! What am I supposed to do with THIS?!" Etc. etc. Even to me, after starting maybe 150 articles, I find it annoying. And THEN there's the stoopid Talk page, with the big blank space in the middle with the mysterious boxes on the right telling us to start a Related Articles page and a Bibliography, and god knows what else! It looks terrible! Fortunately I've found an answer to this: I click on each one of these demands, go to the newly opened page, type in an "x", save it, and do the same for the next one. Which at least cleans up the Talk page. Let's ask ourselves: for *whom* are we creating these minotaurian complexes? Howard and his Lemma articles? Heisenberg and Einstein and Schrodinger and his Kat to do Thought Experiments with? or for Billy Bob Thudpucker in Las Cruces, New Mexico, who just wants to write a brief article about the third-string banjo picker of the Rolling Stones? And while we're asking questions, I wonder how many of the dozens of new Authors who arrive here and then *never* contribute anything have actually *started* to write something, and then got scared away by all the inscrutable baloney they're then *apparently* required to do? So they curse, or shrug, and go away, never to return.... Hayford Peirce 16:30, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

I would consider pages started empty or with an "x" as their single content as close to vandalism. The blank spaces can be removed easily, and it should also be possible to place the talk page messages more effectively. --Daniel Mietchen 16:35, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

If the blank spaces and messages can be removed or made less intrusive, then why aren't they? Who put this stuff in there in the first place? And putting an X in there isn't remotely *close* to being vandalism -- it's exactly the same thing as going into an edited page and putting in a Null so that the damn server or whatever decides to notice that a change has been made to the Metadata page, such as when we change the ABC and then it doesn't show up on the Workgroup page until the Null has been put in. Hayford Peirce 16:50, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

(undent)Can a variable be set in a user profile, which is then available to templates? The default might be "newbie". Russell would want a "verbose" mode. I would want to suppress the "suggestions"--in user design speak, "terse" or "expert" mode.

In some respects, the idea of the lemma came about as a means of entering minimum useful content without going through full cluster setup, some of which will never be relevant.

Daniel, separating the issue of removing spaces, there is no real reason to demand External Links or Bibliography. Many articles will never have them, so they can go to the list of optional pages such as Catalogs and Debate Guide. Related Articles as a suggestion, yes. The suggestion of having other articles link to this article is useful only to people that understand the overall structure, who then should not need the reminder. Now, a link to a tutorial on knowledge navigation is another matter.

Hayford, your point is well taken about scaring away newbies. The newbie mode might even suppress anything beyond the minimum and post the article to a page for more experienced people to clean up. Remember the art historian? How much work would we have saved if she had just written the article and let us do the other pages? This is one of the reasons I hesitate to make instant Editors.

Eduzendium also shows that it's rather overwhelming; Daniel's macros/templates helped a lot. If I may try an analogy, we are "cataloging". When I went to work for the Library of Congress, I was amazed to discover how much skill and knowledge is needed to create a correct catalog card. There is an enormous difference between even the scholarly users of the Library, and the professional catalogers. We are simpler at present, but does the newbie even notice the "workgroup" tab on the left? At LC, the catalogers needed to go far beyond that, but both are still controlled vocabularies. I still am confused when something is "Media" vs. "Journalism". --Howard C. Berkowitz 16:46, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

I happen to think the templating here is exceptionally sophisticated and I appreciate that it can sculpt the CZ experience. I agree with the above that some of the mechanics are skewed (e.g., having to create a null edit in order for the server to update its status), but the "white space" experience, I think, is not intended for you to scroll through to get to the article; it is intended for you to fix the problem that is identified. But for people who create a lot of pages, I can see that it might be tedious to go through these hoops again and again when all you do is a null edit. Also, I see the problem of EZ. I take about 200 students a semester through the learning process of editing on the MediaWiki software and I can tell you that for a lot of them, even learning where to click to actually open the edit window can be a challenging undertaking. Complicating the scene with sophisticated templating raises the intimidation (or fear factor) of the site.

So I see three levels of users here.

1. An author new to wikis who doesn't want to or will be overwhelmed with cluster set up. (maybe in the article creation process the article could automatically be tagged (category) with a request to set up cluster; experienced hands could take care of the list.)
2. An experienced author who likes the process checklist to set up a cluster.
3. An experienced cluster setter-upper who knows what to do and can't be bothered with the alerts.

Also I see issues of what exactly is needed for a bare-bones cluster set up: Metadata, certainly; definitions? maybe. Bibliography? probably not. talk page? shouldn't need a null edit. Russell D. Jones 17:27, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

I took out some of the talk page alerts — feedback welcome. Will take a look at the page creation stuff later. --Daniel Mietchen 17:56, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Since this has evolved to a discussion of the merits and dismerits:

I think that the information seen from the subpages template is enough: It shows what subpages exist. Those who know about them and are willing to work on them can easily start there -- if they do not want then they will ignore the templates as well. (I do ...: many pages do not need external links, and many will not get a bibliography, and why create either when one has no good idea what to enter? The same is true for definitions - better no definition than a bad or incorrect one.)

Moreover, CZ explicitly encourages to start articles the "easy way" (see CZ:Start Article) -- without subpages.

-Peter Schmitt 23:00, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

I now also hid the alert messages for missing metadata. The following pages are some of those that do not yet have the {{subpages}} template, so you can use them to fiddle around with the new mechanism and to provide further feedback:

Nucleoside [r]: A purine or pyrimidine base attached to a ribose (used in RNA) or deoxyribose (used in DNA). ^[e]

Nucleotide [r]: A repeating unit in nucleic acid polymers consisting of a purine or pyrimidine base, a pentose sugar, and a phosphate group. ^[e]

Lipoprotein [r]: A molecular mixture of long chains of fatty and amino acids. ^[e]

Critical pathway [r]: schedules of medical and nursing procedures, including diagnostic tests, medications, and consultations designed to effect an efficient, coordinated program of treatment ^[e]

Third molar [r]: Molars located at the rear of the mandible, commonly referred to as Wisdom teeth, that usually appear between the ages of 17 and 25 in humans. ^[e]

Transcendentalism [r]: Philosophical, religious, literary, cultural, and social movement associated in particular with early 19th century New England intellectuals such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and others. ^[e]

Hardy–Weinberg principle [r]: Add brief definition or description

Sleep initiation and maintenance disorders [r]: A range of disorders that deal with the inability to fall asleep or stay, appropriately, asleep ^[e]

Hypertensive urgency [r]: Add brief definition or description

Aldosterone antagonist [r]: Compounds that inhibit or antagonize the biosynthesis or actions of aldosterone, which is part of the renin-angiotensin system. ^[e]

Team-based learning [r]: Pedagogical techniques in which the learners work in small teams rather than as individuals ^[e]

Agile software development [r]: Software development methodology based on "close collaboration between the programmer team and business experts; face-to-face communication" and "frequent delivery of new deployable business value". ^[e]

Alpha adrenergic blocker [r]: Add brief definition or description

British Doctors Aspirin Trial [r]: Randomized controlled trial started about 1980 that was designed to test chemoprevention with aspirin for the primary prevention of vascular disease. ^[e]

Health Professionals Follow-up Study [r]: Add brief definition or description

Transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation [r]: Add brief definition or description

Autoimmune polyendocrinopathy [r]: Autoimmune disease affecting multiple organs ^[e]

Bacteriuria [r]: The presence of bacteria in the urine which is normally bacteria-free. ^[e]

Janus kinase [r]: A family of intracellular tyrosine kinases that participate in the signaling cascade of cytokines by associating with specific cytokine receptors. ^[e]

Serum osmolality [r]: Add brief definition or description

Vena cava filter [r]: Add brief definition or description

Rifampin [r]: Add brief definition or description

Patient discharge [r]: Add brief definition or description

Nephrotic syndrome [r]: Add brief definition or description

Hyponatremia [r]: Add brief definition or description

American Heart Association [r]: Add brief definition or description

Craniocerebral trauma [r]: Add brief definition or description

Palpitation [r]: Add brief definition or description

Apolipoprotein [r]: Add brief definition or description

Respiratory failure [r]: Add brief definition or description

Antiphospholipid syndrome [r]: Add brief definition or description

Intravenous infusion [r]: Add brief definition or description

Cytochrome P-450 CYP2C19 [r]: Add brief definition or description

Chronic fatigue syndrome [r]: Add brief definition or description

Human Immunodeficiency Virus [r]: Add brief definition or description

Sick sinus syndrome [r]: Add brief definition or description

Microscopic polyangiitis [r]: Add brief definition or description

Queckenstedt's maneuver [r]: Add brief definition or description

Mechanical ventilator [r]: Add brief definition or description

Dysphagia [r]: Add brief definition or description

Natriuretic peptide [r]: Add brief definition or description

Ideal body weight [r]: Add brief definition or description

Diffusion magnetic resonance imaging [r]: Add brief definition or description

Reserpine [r]: Add brief definition or description

Thrombophilia [r]: Add brief definition or description

Spontaneous abortion [r]: Add brief definition or description

Protein S [r]: Add brief definition or description

Thrombophilia [r]: Add brief definition or description

Zygapophyseal joint [r]: Add brief definition or description

Opiate dependence [r]: Add brief definition or description

Vertebra [r]: Add brief definition or description

Tramadol [r]: Add brief definition or description

Pre-eclampsia [r]: Add brief definition or description

Urinary retention [r]: Add brief definition or description

Pheochromocytoma [r]: Add brief definition or description

Glycoprotein IIb-IIIa inhibitors [r]: Add brief definition or description

Veterinary medicine [r]: Add brief definition or description

Polymyalgia rheumatica [r]: Add brief definition or description

Principal components analysis [r]: Add brief definition or description

GTP-binding protein [r]: Add brief definition or description

Intracranial hemorrhage [r]: Add brief definition or description

Adderall [r]: Add brief definition or description

Habitual abortion [r]: Add brief definition or description

Diagnostic error [r]: Add brief definition or description

--Daniel Mietchen 13:55, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Daniel i think your solution of hiding things looks great. Milt does this satisfy you? I admit the templates are a pain it is important to have some kind of visual reminder that there is an incompatibility between the metadata and the article. Hopefully they are more subtle now. Chris Day 23:09, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

That's great, Daniel! Many thanks for getting rid of all of the baloney! I just created John Dickson Carr to test your changes and everything is terrific except ONE thing: I foresee BIG problems ahead if you leave things exactly as they now are. Once one has created the article and saved it, on top of the article one sees something like needs metadate and show. If one clicks on the metadata link, one is directed to the page explaining metadata. I will bet you that *some* people will try to put their metadata into the template shown on that page! My suggestion: change the wording to what metadata means and go here to add metadata for this particular article. Thanks! Hayford Peirce 23:47, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Chris, I'll comment after I next create a new article ... which I hope will be a few days from now. Thanks, Milton Beychok 08:49, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Ad Hayford, I changed the phrasing to avoid that kind of confusion.

Ad Milt, proper functioning of the templates can also be validated by putting the subpages template on any of the articles in the long list I prepared above.

--Daniel Mietchen 15:43, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, Daniel, that's a lot better! Now one last thing. When you click on the show button and are taken to the next page, you are shown some info at the top of the page BUT there is then a LARGE blank space beneath that info, so that unless you KNOW that you should scroll down to the bottom of the page, you won't know that you SHOULD scroll down in order to click on the "fill out the metadata" link etc. I'm sure that many people would go to this page, simply look at the top of it, wonder what the hell they were doing there, and then leave, *without* filling out any of the metadata. Can't you get rid of this useless blank space? Hayford Peirce 16:32, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Done. --Daniel Mietchen 22:17, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Great! I'll have to create another new article (sigh) to check things out one last time.... Hayford Peirce 22:40, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Daniel and Chris: I just created a new article, Crude oil desalter, and I must agree that the changes made in all those pop-up alerts is a great improvement over what they were before I started this discussion. Thanks to all. Milton Beychok 05:24, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

That seems just about perfect, Daniel, at least given all the previous template stuff that you have to work with. I just created Philip Atlee and have a one *minor* suggestion. When the main article has been created, we now have a header in black that says something like "The metadata is missing; if you feeling like doing it, please create it; details" then there's a blue link that says SHOW. I suggest that you rewrite the longer stuff to say something like, "The metadata is missing; if you feel up to creating it, please click on the SHOW link to the right" and REMOVE the word "details" -- it's *slightly* confusing.... Hayford Peirce 23:31, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Good suggestion. I made the change. --Peter Schmitt 23:57, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Peter, that's perfect! Kudos to you and Daniel. I really think that there is now going to be a lot less confusion! In fact, I'll drink to that! (Goes off to make a Scotch and soda....) Hayford Peirce 01:50, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Moving

Hi Chris. From what I can tell, you've been trying to clean up a few articles and put pages in their proper places recently. I noticed that this has resulted in a bibliography and external links page attached to an article about a different subject.

As I'm merely a lowly 'author', I don't think I am allowed to move pages. I thought about cutting and pasting, but then I thought it might be better if the pages were moved properly.. so I thought I'd drop you a wee note.

The article the subpages belong to is, I believe, United Empire Loyalists.

Cheers (and sorry for adding to your workload!). --Mal McKee 03:05, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

I moved the two files. By the way: There are no "lowly" authors. You could have made the move yourself. (You are only asked to be carful, of course.) --Peter Schmitt 10:06, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Chris, or someone else who knows what s/he's doing...

...could I prevail upon you to do the archiving thing with the January Write-a-Thon and leave me a blank page for February? Thanks! Aleta Curry 03:49, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

More on metadata

I'm sorry to throw the proverbial spanner, boys, but this didn't occur to me before.

I have only just created a new article since the (excellent, I may add) changes to the setup.

Could I just ask, if it's possible, for the 'create a metadata page if you feel up to it' notice box thingy to appear *after* a body has 'saved' the new article, not before? At present it appears if you "preview". Now, if you click through to metadata creation on a "preview" page, you have to remember to go back and 'save' the original, or all your hard work is lost!

I haven't (yet) tried it the other way, so I don't know what appears if you ignore the 'create metadata' bit and just click 'save' first.

Aleta Curry 01:18, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

You write: "Could I just ask, if it's possible, for the 'create a metadata page if you feel up to it' notice box thingy to appear *after* a body has 'saved' the new article, not before?". I'm not sure I understand this exactly. How do you normally start a new article? Chris Day 04:25, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

This problem/request was not related to the "Who's on First?" metadata problem, right? Chris Day 04:55, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Chris, I think I recognize Aleta's concern. Once the subpages template goes into a new article, "preview article" brings up the metadata prompts. From bitter experience, if I write a new article of any appreciable length, I make sure to save before inserting the template. It's not hard to get lost in the prompts, decide not to fill them in, but neglect to save and thus lose the work. --Howard C. Berkowitz 05:11, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Now I understand, I never use preview so I have not been down that route. All I can suggest is bold letters saying first save your work. Would that be sufficient? Chris Day 05:13, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

I just added a warning message to save. Hope it helps. However, one will never be able to prevent all mistakes. If there are too much warnings they will not be read anymore ... Probably one has to make one's mistakes, and learn from them.
Preview can be usefull. I sometimes use preview, and sometimes not. Sometimes I wished I would have used it instead of showing my stupidity in the history ;-) --Peter Schmitt 10:25, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes, Howard got it in one. I'm not as brave as you are, Chris, I almost always use 'preview', I look entirely too foolish otherwise. Trust me, no one should see my 'scrap paper'! The down side, of course, is how many times I forget to actually 'save'--sigh Aleta Curry 10:41, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

p.s. Chris, was the Who's on First metadata problem caused by my mistake in the status field? Let's face it: I'm a genius! Aleta Curry 10:47, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Just a hint: If one has forgotten to save it is often still possible to go back to that edit page using the the browser's back button. --Peter Schmitt 12:44, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Er...yes, but when I say 'forgotten', I really mean it. Like, I've shut down the computer, turned off the generator, taken the dogs for a walk, had my hair done (okay, that's a lie), made dinner...and then I come back next day wondering where that incredibly excellent 240 page cluster that I started is! Aleta Curry 22:15, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

The "Fair Use" upload summary

Chris: In the last few days, I uploaded two logos by claiming Fair Use. They were the logos for ASTM International (ASTM) and for International Organization for Standardization (ISO). When I went to CZ:UPLOAD / I am not the copyright holder / This use of the work is Fair Use, I arrived at the upload file form to be filled out. It has a one-line window in which to write the rationale for claiming Fair Use (i.e., the window labeled "Notes").

Here is what I wrote as my rationale: "The logo image is used to identify the International Organization for Standards. The significance of the logo is to help the reader identify the organization, assure the readers that they have reached the right article containing critical commentary about the organization, and illustrate the organization's intended branding message in a way that words alone could not convey. The entire logo is used to convey the meaning intended and avoid tarnishing or misrepresenting the intended image. The logo is of a size and resolution sufficient to maintain the quality intended by the organization, without being unnecessarily high resolution. Because it is a logo there is almost certainly no free equivalent. Any substitute that is not a derivative work would fail to convey the meaning intended, would tarnish or misrepresent its image, or would fail its purpose of identification or commentary."

It was very difficult to write all of that into a one-line window and to check it for spelling, grammar and omissions. Is there any way to revise that upload file form so that the "Notes" window is at least 6-8 lines wide?

By the way, most of my above rationale was borrowed from WP ... because I could find no similar rationale help in CZ. Milton Beychok 04:27, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

I made a reply ing the forum. But in case you missed that. For me, I use the upload primarily as a decision tree to get the correct templates. I often make changes and additions to them after the upload is complete. In this case that might be the best way to go.

As to the technical suggestion of adding a larger edit window. I would, if I could, but I'm not sure where to make such changes. Or what to change. Possibly Peter might have a better idea? Chris Day 04:30, 8 February 2010 (UTC) test

Thanks for getting the water freezing point straightened out (if it just stays that way).

Thanks, Chris. Milton Beychok 06:28, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

New template

Hi, Chris. Thanks for your offer of further help (not that I can find it...)

Can you make the unknown letter at Template:Common misspellings prolog show itself, please?

Ta! Ro Thorpe 17:42, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

Where are you not seeing it? Chris Day 17:44, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

I think I understand your point now. It will not show on the template itself. But look at the page where the template is used and you will see the correct letter there. Chris Day 17:50, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

That's what I thought I was doing - but anyway, it all seems to be fine now - thanks. Ro Thorpe 18:03, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

Pedia tricks

Thanks for following up on it! --Daniel Mietchen 17:26, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Categories, bots and templates

Categories can be removed fairly easily by a bot. Let me know if that would be worth it (haven't found the page you use to track these). Also, could you please take a look at {{Basic elemental def}}, perhaps in conjunction with User:Daniel Mietchen/Sandbox/Elements? I am thinking of prepopulating the empty pages via preload templates, but would appreciate some more input. --Daniel Mietchen 19:23, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

If the bot can do that, great, although It might be tricky to program since it might not be able to predict every type of category or combination to remove? I just made an addition to your template. Check it out on an element page and see what you think. Chris Day 19:48, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

The bot can in principle be given a list of applicable categories, or wildcards could be used in defining their names. No need to program for combinations — it will simply edit the same page again when working on the next category.

Thanks — the addition is valuable, but the current setting (not mine, by the way) is not compatible with {{r}}:

Neptunium [r]: Add brief definition or description

--Daniel Mietchen 20:44, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Now I understand. i thought you wanted to populate the element article pages but you're actually after a template to add the definition. I'll modify it as best i can, will probably have to have the definition pages {{BASEPAGENAME}} added as a parameter, i.e. {{Basic elemental def|Parameter}}, since it will not transclude properly otherwise. Chris Day 20:55, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

I tweaked it enough now that i think it will work with the r template and also with a lemma article. Chris Day 21:29, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Daniel, are you trying to modify the template so it will work for the "Hydrogen (element)" format? I noticed that you had all those links on your page too. Chris Day 22:21, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Daniel and Chris, I hope you do not mind, but I wonder if it would not be better -- and require the same (or even less) effort -- to create the definitions with a bot (using the same logic as in the template)? Or even manually copy the definitions from Daniel's page to the definitions? --Peter Schmitt 23:58, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't know for sure but I was thinking that Daniel might be planning to use a substitute script along those lines? Chris Day 00:56, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

I am not too eager on using a bot for just those 100 elemental definitions (too time-consuming, relatively speaking, to get it approved), so I thought I would create those pages by means of preload templates, similar to the CZ:Eduzendium course setup wizard. Ideally, there would be no piping (e.g. by integrating {{Basic elemental def}} with {{r}}.

I do plan, however, to set up a bot that creates lemma articles in place of empty pages for which a definition already exists.

On a related note, I am inclined to think that {{r|foo}} should also display Foobar/Definition if Foo redirects to Foobar and Foo/Definition does not exist. No idea how to make the template recognize a redirect page, though. --Daniel Mietchen 18:40, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

As for Hydrogen vs. Hydrogen (element), I would prefer the latter to be applied throughout, but think that would be up to the chemists to decide. My idea was just to prepare the templates such that a coherent system can be easily achieved. --Daniel Mietchen 18:46, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

I think using (element) is not a bad idea, but I'm not a chemist.

As for {{r|foo}} using foobar definition if there is a redirect from foo->foobar, I agree that might be good but I'm not sure if it is possible to read the target if the redirect? You do know you can pipelink with the {{R}} template?

With regard to populating the pages. If you want to use all the subpages with the properties for each element they will have to be moved to the new name, i.e. Boron/Atomic number to Boron (element)/Atomic number if you do not want to have a parameter in the template. This could be done easily by moving every element along with all its subpages. I'll modify the {{Basic elemental def}} template so it does not need a piped parameter. Chris Day 19:22, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

May I remind you that using single properties subpages is a disputed matter? --Peter Schmitt 00:33, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm aware of that. So far, I am just asking questions of Daniel and tinkering with the template since I'm not 100% sure of what he is proposing. One thing I do think is important is to have a basic page for each element. Chris Day 02:04, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

I am aware of that too, and it actually inspired me to have another look at the matter, thus prompting my tinkering with these templates. The point here, however, is to have a consistent format, which can be achieved by means of a template transclude predefined content onto the definition page, and it can easily be adapted to either the current system with multiple properties subpages or the discussed alternative with one centralized metadata-like page. --Daniel Mietchen 23:20, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

On pipelinking, I am well aware of that too, but many non-bot starts of Related Articles pages are made by simply dumping in a list of related topics, formatted using {{r}}, without much regard for which articles actually exist. So we often have the case described above that {{r|foo}} does not bring about a definition, even though one exists at [[foobar/Definition]], when Foo is a redirect to Foobar. I am wondering whether this is the way it should be. --Daniel Mietchen 00:37, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

(unindent) Not related to the chemistry stuff but well within the scope of this section: Can you please take another look at Template:Bot-created related article subpage, which I attempted to modify such that it accommodates Lemma articles? Example to play around with: Biomedical engineering. Thanks! --Daniel Mietchen 16:53, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Daniel, looks good to me. What is your rationale that these need to be distinguished? So we can fortify our navigation network with lemma related articles pages? Chris Day 17:47, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Does not look good to me — Category:Lemma Bot-created Related Articles subpages is full of articles which do have metadata. I suspect there is a problem with a wrongly placed pipe in the template or with the way I check for the presence of the Metadata page, but I couldn't figure out the details.

The rationale for this distinction is that if there is no metadata, then the names of the categories at the page will be broken, since they are by default composed from the metadata. And yes, extension of the related articles grid is the purpose of the bot, which can be configured to work with lemmas too. --Daniel Mietchen 20:12, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Strange. I'll double check. Chris Day 20:14, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

That was it. Thanks! --Daniel Mietchen 20:36, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Automated handling of content - doubts

Sorry that I am negative. But I have serious reservations against any automatic handling of content. Providing a standardized definition for the elements is rather easy (and in principle I like thinking of the logic behind such programs) but I don't think that they are really useful. Giving the atomic number in the definiton is trivial, but not very informative. Some element specific information (about its importance, or some peculiar property, etc.) is much better. Now, of course, the generated definition can alway be replaced. -- but it is much more likely that a non-existing definition is provided than that an existing one (correct though simplistic) is rewritten.

Concerning the idea to automatically convert all definitions without main page to lemma articles: I think there is a legitimate use for lemma articles (ask Howard), for definitions to redirects, but also for definitions without a page (only intended to be used in Related Articles). The difference is that -- if the page does exist -- a link to that page will look correct though it may be better to link to another page. This decision cannot be made by a bot. (For the same reason I think that one also should be careful with redirects and only use them for "correct" titles. but not to lead from incorrect titles to a correct one.)

--Peter Schmitt 00:49, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

I think I disagree with the first paragraph, while I am not sure I understand the second. But once we have a coherent template system, I wanted to bring the matter to the forums anyway. --Daniel Mietchen 23:23, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

The purpose of lemma articles is discussed in this dedicated thread at the Forums. --Daniel Mietchen 09:53, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

About National Institute of Standards and Technology and metadata templates without provisions for subgroups

Chris, the National Institute of Standards and Technology was written before there were any subgroups and the Metadata template specified only the Physics and the Chemistry workgroups. I added the Engineering workgroup.

The was no place to add a subgroup, so I added sub1, sub2 and sub3 to the template. Then I specified Chemical Engineering as sub1.

The bottom of the Main Article then listed the categories as Physics, Chemistry, Engineering and Chemical Engineering as it should. The National Institute of Standards and Technology shows up in the Physics and Chemistry and Engineering workgroups as it should do ... but I cannot get it to show up in the Engineering and Chemical Engineering subgroups despite twice making a null edit to the article's Talk page. Can you please get it to show up in the Engineering workgroup and the Chemical Engineering subgroup?

There are a good many of the older articles that have metadata templates which don't have sub1, sub2 and sub3 in them ... so perhaps they should be added somehow. Milton Beychok 17:41, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Milt the null edit needs to be made to the article. i just did that and it is now listed as you'd expect. Chris Day 18:50, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

As to the sub1-3 field holders, yes they were a fairly recent addition so many metadata pages will not have them. Possibly Daniel could add them with a bot? Chris Day 18:54, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

That's one false move for man ...

Chris, I think I understand that a page is placed in Category:False Start Move when the metadata template is not completed, but can you explain how United States War Department shows up in that category when that page is only a redirect? Russell D. Jones 18:40, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

This is normally because it was in the false move category and then the metadata gets cleaned up, thus it is out of the category. Now the flaw in our system (auto placement of categories), the article is listed in the categories that exist when it was last edited. It should be removed from the category after a minor edit to the article. Chris Day 18:44, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

I just looked into this a little more closely and it is actually due to it being on the talk page (See Talk:United_States_War_Department). Citizendium differs from other wiki's in that a talk page will show up on a category without the name space being listed. BUT, sometimes you can distinguish this since it will be listed in the category under T. The reason we do this is that many of the housekeeping categories are placed on the talk page, so such categories do not have every entry starting with "Talk:". Chris Day 19:00, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Ah-ha, I've got it. Thanks for the clarification. Any reason why I can't do a clean-up? Russell D. Jones 19:06, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

No reason, that is what you should do. The subpages template should be removed from that page as it does not work on talk pages of redirects. The talk page could be speedydeleted if it is empty too. Chris Day 20:51, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

I've discovered that some Lemma articles are showing on this list. Any advice there? Russell D. Jones 21:33, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

I just jogged Evolution of language and it got removed from the category. I'm not sure why it was in there, looking at the history there is no clear reason. All I can imagine is that Daniel added the subpages template to start the lemma article before the he created the definition page. In that order there would be a false start category that would disappear with the creation of the definition subpage. In such instances the article will always need to be jogged with a null edit or it will remain in the false start category, even though the category no longer appears on the page. Chris Day 21:42, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Correct guess on Evolution of language, Chris. I did that on purpose to test how the {{subpages}} machinery would react to this unusual order of page creation, and think we should somehow include this scenario into the phrasing of the warning messages, depending on whether a definition already exists or not. --Daniel Mietchen 22:01, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Here's another quirk of the functionality: If a user creates a page all in one edit with a subpages template, the page will get categorized as "False Start Move" but it will not show up on Category:False Start Move. It requires two edits to the article page before it will show on the category page. See Declaration of the United Nations. Russell D. Jones 22:33, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

So presumably an edit only uses categories that are already on the page. I wonder if that is the case with manually added categories? By the way, these are general issues with the wiki software. I think you'll find they exist on your in-house wiki, as well as wikipedia. Obviously this is less of a problem when there are a lot of edits. One of the advantages of having a ton of vandalism?? Chris Day 22:40, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

I just tried creating a page and adding the category manually. In that case the edit does register correctly. So it is the auto-generated categories, only, that need the double kick. What a pain. Chris Day 22:44, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Wow

Noticing changes that you and Howard made to the "Criticism of US foreign policy" article -- excellent idea to make military spending as a % of GDP; you guys are pros. Impressed.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 01:35, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Error correction/s

There needs to be a better way of handling external complaints than going public with the emails on the Talk page. My suggestion is to leave the 'complaint' on the appropriate workgroup forum or forward the post to the appropriate mailing list. The workgroup mailing lists and workgroup forums are currently under-utilised. 01:10, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Sounds like a good idea. Chris Day 01:24, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

There are no errors in the article btw. Listen is a totally different group/line-up to Obs-Tweedle. Noddy Holder as 'roadie' is referenced. Meg Ireland 01:27, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Having no access to the images I can't comment further, however since my information was gleaned off Bill Bonham who played in the band Obs-Tweedle, I'm fairly confident his information is correct. Meg Ireland 04:20, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Chris, I just spoke again to Bill Bonham who confirms the article I wrote as being correct. Bill Bonham knows Noddy Holder very well. You can visit Bill Bonham's MySpace site at http://www.myspace.com/quiffo . Meg Ireland 08:10, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

For what it's worth I uploaded the pictures on the messageboard. For the record I don't doubt your sources. Chris Day 17:17, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks Chris. Some of those newspaper clippings appear to have been taken from scans on the LedZeppelin.com forum thread called 'HOBBSTWEEDLE' (yes I know, an incorrect name by another poster) originally scanned by a guy in Birmingham called Chris. I was a part of that thread discussion on Obs-Tweedle. I might reuse some of those clippings for the Listen article, rather than the Obs-Tweedle article since they are two different bands. While it may have been possible Noddy Holder was roadie for Listen, my insertion of Robert Plant's quote was based on Plant's recollections which are referenced from Q magazine and repeated in subsequent newspapers, and from what I could gather from my interview with Bill Bonham in 2009, before I composed the article. On the quote about Bill Bonham playing keyboards with Hari Kari while Robert Plant was singing for Obs-Tweedle, here is an email response I received from Bill this morning: 'Yes I was in Hari Kari but when I was in Hari Kari was way after Terry Reid and Led Zep came out with there first album.. Obs-Tweedle split when I joined Terry Reid or some time after I left' He is clear he didn't join Hari Kari until after Obs-Tweedle folded. Meg Ireland 22:16, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

(Unindent) I don't know anything about the pros and cons of the info in this article or of the worth of the newspaper clippings -- I merely brought them to your attention. But please review the CZ guidelines on what Wikipedia loves to kick around as Original Research. Our own strictures are less rigid, but they *do* exist. Larry, for instance, made it clear, when I first joined, that the fact that Robert A. Heinlein told me that one book or another was his best book could NOT be incorporated within the Heinlein article. He encouraged me to write a Topic Informant article, however, (TI:Hayford Peirce/Heinlein,) with this information in it, and a link to that article now appears at the top of the Heinlein Talk page (Talk:Robert A. Heinlein). It may be that some of the information in this article should be handled in the same manner.Hayford Peirce 22:36, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

This is not original research. The quote, which seems to have sparked that email, is referenced from a reliable published source (according to WP standards). External references are used throughout the article. There are no errors in the article. This appears to be a case of someone who confused Listen with Obs-Tweedle and/or dislikes the fact that Robert Plant referred to their idol Noddy Holder as a roadie. Nothing is 'made up' or unverifiable for this article. Meg Ireland 23:45, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

I do not see any reason to exclude "personal communications" (they are used in scientific literature, too). Why should a personal communication to an author be excluded (if labelled as such) when a source that cites a personal communication would be accepted? --Peter Schmitt 16:20, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Because the source citing it is deemed to have checked and certified it. Authors on CZ have no recognized authority to do that. I don't know whether editors do. Peter Jackson 17:32, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Talk:Quintile

Chris, this is a minor issue, but it could lead to establishing some general policy. By accident, I noticed that you deleted Talk:Quintile (after copying part of it to Talk:Percentile). I left it with the redirect because it is part of the history of this page, and it does not hurt if it remains there. (My tendency is to preserve as much history as possible, e.g., by blanking rather than deleting.) --Peter Schmitt 16:31, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Thank you!

Thank you for helping me to edit that list. Nick Bagnall 16:18, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Copyedit to protected page

Hi Chris,

in {{Community}}, can you please change the "Main Page" in

|width=10% align=center style="background:#F5F5F5"|<small>[[Main Page]]</small>

to "Welcome Page"? Thanks! --Daniel Mietchen 18:43, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Daniel, that was a cascading protect from kim's talk page. I edited her page and it seems to have removed the protection on that template. I'll change it though too. Chris Day 18:59, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

CZ:Request Approved Article Copyedit

Chris, with Matt being AWOL for the past 10 days or so, the list of approved articles needing copy edits is growing. I have about 10 approved articles listed there myself. Can you fix those?

If you need a volunteer to do some of that work, either temporarily or permanently, I am available ... but I will need some tutoring on how to do it. Regards, Milton Beychok 19:49, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks very much for your prompt response. There is still Chemical engineering where Meg Ireland corrected spelling of succesfully to successfully. Could you do that one as well? Thanks, Milton Beychok 21:06, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

I think that was specific to the draft as it is not in the main article. Chris Day 21:22, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Intron

Hi I found some new info about Intron but I wasn't sure if you wanted to include it in the article; currently it's in the sandbox User talk:Thomas Wright Sulcer/sandbox7 plus some pictures and diagrams. Feel free to include it; I'm not a scientist, and I found that while I couldn't make much sense of the technical articles, when reporters explained it, I could grasp the basics.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 04:56, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Looks good Thomas. Feel free to paste it into the article. I can work on it there. Chris Day 20:06, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

OK, thanks Chris, like I'm not a scientist and so it's cool that you can catch glitches which reporters make.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 00:42, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

The Image:Gasoline Fuel.jpg

Chris, I don't know how you did it, but your merge of the two photos is very much better than my original one. Thanks very much. Milton Beychok 18:22, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

When I cut out the gas pump I made sure the selection tool cut all the white out. I merged the two images using the anti-alias option so the edges of the pump did not look too sharp. Third, I brightened up the pump to make it a little more striking. Glad you like the changes. Chris Day 20:09, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Intersection of cat adoption and tall tale?

Tall tail?

(I am not making this up: Mr. Clark rejected tuna, wet disgusting cat food, and his expensive hypoallergenic dry cat food. He insisted on going upstairs into the general cat area, and into the bin of regular dry cat food -- in which he then went to sleep.) Howard C. Berkowitz 19:10, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

2012

I'm kind of looking for a green light before working on "2012" -- not that I'm that interested in it, but wondering what the policy is and whether others here will support it. It's a hot article on WP even though it's kind of a stupid subject (futurism stuff) as well as a movie. Wondering if there's some kind of "approvals in advance" place to get permission for dubious articles.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 17:54, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

I really don't know much about it. But it would be no worse than an article about UFO's or astrology. Chris Day 18:28, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

OK, thanks, so you're saying if I write it, that you don't think I'll have problems with it. Thanx, Chris.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 18:41, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

I can't think of a reason why there would be a problem. Chris Day 18:44, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Asking for your comments

Chris, would you look at the "Nitrogen cycle" section of the Air article ... and make any revisions you think are needed? Thanks, Milton Beychok 19:30, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

Can you improve Image:Venturi Tube.png ?

Chris, the only drawing program I have is Microsoft's Paint program that is included with Windows XP. As you can see in Image:Venturi Tube.png, the lines that are not horizontal or vertical (that is, the angled lines) are quite "jagged". Does your program create angled lines that are not jagged? If so, could you replace the jagged lines in Image:Venturi Tube.png with lines that are not jagged? It would greatly improve that image. Milton Beychok 05:54, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Milt, there are multiple free graphics packages out there that far exceed the capabilities of MS Pain(t) — to the point of being hypercomplex. Two that probably merit a look for diagrams like these are Open Office Draw and Gimp. --Daniel Mietchen 08:59, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, Daniel. One of these days I will take the time to download one of those and learn how to use it. Milton Beychok 17:31, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

Chris, thanks for fixing the Venturi image for me. It looks much better now. Milton Beychok 17:31, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

Your talk at the New Communication Channels for Biology Workshop 2008

Hi Chris, can you send me your slides from that workshop, or put them online? They may be useful for drafting the OKCon 2010 paper. Thanks! --Daniel Mietchen 18:38, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Wow, i'd forgotten about that. I'll root them out. Just looked on this computer and no sign, it must still be on my semi-dead (screen is broken) lap top. I'll boot it up tomorrow and see if i can find anthing on its hard drive. Chris Day 03:17, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! I put the slides up here for everyone to work on. --Daniel Mietchen 09:47, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

CC vs. PD

How, for Pete's sake (as some would say), can I upload (and correctly credit) an image directly as PD? The only option I saw to do so always leads to it being labeled as CC0-1.0, and at least in this set of three images (which shall serve to illustrate the Panton Principles), I do not want to have any name attached to it, because that is the message of these Principles. --Daniel Mietchen 14:04, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

I just looked at the upload file link and it seems to be click on the "I am not the copyright holder" tab. Then select the "in the public domain" option. Then for the license select "creator has released into the public domain". Are you not seeing those options when you do the upload? Chris Day 14:15, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

I do, though this time I went there via "I am the copyright holder" and "Release into the Public Domain", which gave the CC0 attribution. I think the problem with the upload wizard is that Caesar left when he was mostly but not entirely done with it. --Daniel Mietchen 14:19, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

[EC] OK, I just followed the "I am the copyright holder fork" and now I see how you got to "Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal License". I guess that is equivalent to public domain? But this is beyond my ken. If Caesar was not done with it, possibly the PD license option should be at that point too? Chris Day 14:20, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

The two are practically equivalent in the US but CC0 is more universal, since most jurisdictions do not have PD, but all have copyright law. Anyway, CC0 means that also no BY is needed. --Daniel Mietchen 14:41, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

I've just spent 10 frustrating minutes at Image:Drink to Yesterday.jpg trying to "Upload a new version of this file". Can't be done. All you can do is start all over again and upload another file under another name AND fill out all the @#$%^&* information that you had to do with the first one! And unless you're maybe a combination of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, you can't "Edit this file using an exterior application" either. Geez! Hayford Peirce 00:37, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

That doesn't sound right. Are you using the link titled "Upload a new version of this file" just above the Links section title. Chris Day 00:43, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Yes. Hayford Peirce 00:55, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

PS -- I use Chrome as my browser. Could that be affecting things in some mysterious way? Hayford Peirce 01:03, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

If you choose the new file to upload and then save, leave everything else blank, then it will be fine. You'll see. It will ask you if you want to ignore all warnings. Select yes and then you're done. Chris Day 00:59, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

It keeps telling me that I need License info, and the license info isn't what I want. And it won't work unless I choose a license. No way. Hayford Peirce 01:03, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

I just tried it, and it works fine with jpg, but when I use .png, I get "The file is corrupt or has an incorrect extension. Please check the file and upload again." --Daniel Mietchen 01:08, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

It still doesn't work. I have, on my computer, a *smaller* version of the present image. It has the same name and is a .jpg. A few minutes ago I had a slightly different name on it, but it was the same .jpg file. It doesn't matter *what* it's called. No matter *what* I do, I am told that I MUST choose a license. If I don't choose a license, it will NOT upload the file. Period. Hayford Peirce 01:24, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

I just tried and it worked fine. All I did was choose the new file on my desktop. Then save. Then chose ignore all warnings. That's it. All the files data and licenses are intact. Chris Day 02:21, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

A box doesn't pop up and tell you that you have to choose a license? Do you have a Papal dispensation, or what? Hayford Peirce 03:48, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

No, I've never seen that and I've updated images at CZ quite a few times. Chris

Day 04:15, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Off to bed, but tomorrow I'll do a screen capture of the box I get and I'll email it to you. Don't know what else to do. Hayford Peirce 04:43, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Space Invaders

Sorry, I thought I'd got the hang of new pages but apparently not. I've seen the changes you made and will follow the example when making futher pages. --Chris Key 00:29, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Lemma formatting

What do you think of displaying the definition above the instructions in lemma articles? I just did the switch (also this one). --Daniel Mietchen 11:32, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Somehow, the definition pages do not display properly now, and I guess {{subpages}} would have to be remodeled to accomodate the change I made. Do you think that's worth it? --Daniel Mietchen 19:50, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

I reverted both changes and moved the testing to the test wiki: Lemma, Def only. --Daniel Mietchen 01:31, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Could not pinpoint exactly what the problem was, so I went back to normal for the time being. On a related note, what do you think of merging {{Def only}} and {{Lemma}}? --Daniel Mietchen 23:07, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

I would not be against that. I'll have a look and see how it can be streamlined, or do you already have a plan? Chris Day 03:34, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

I do, but can't put it in words easily (other than moving the conditionals from {{Def only}} to {{Lemma}}). Will thus give it a go on the test wiki, and let you know how things go. --Daniel Mietchen 07:32, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

I merged them and added some categories, which makes {{Def only}}, Category:Definition Only and Category:Related Articles Only redundant. Please check and adapt as you see fit. Thanks! --Daniel Mietchen 11:46, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Things work fine on the test wiki, but the display problem that started this thread interfered when I did bring the changes over to the live wiki (where {{subpages}} has not been updated yet. So please transfer this edit to {{subpages}} (possibly with this typo correction) and then revert this edit. Test clusters: Glia, Open Knowledge Foundation. Thanks! --Daniel Mietchen 12:49, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Daniel, i made the change but is the definition page the way you intended? Chris Day 17:56, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Fixed and streamlined. --Daniel Mietchen 22:22, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Nice work Daniel, that's a big improvement. Chris Day 23:11, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

The section on "Nitrogen cycle" in the Air article

Chris, about two weeks ago I asked you to look at the section on "Nitrogen cycle" in the Air article and revise it in any way you felt was needed. I know you've been busy, but I would still appreciate your review as a biology editor of that that section. Thanks in advance. Milton Beychok 16:56, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

Hi Milton I looked at the Nitrogen cycle article and proposed a revamping here in a sandbox: User talk:Thomas Wright Sulcer/sandbox2 I expanded it but I'm not a scientist or technically-minded like you or Chris so I'm deferring to your judgment. I'm finding my paint program doesn't work well, so I hand-drew a diagram, but still am unhappy with it. I'm wondering if there's a good paint program that is simple, powerful, works with Ubuntu Linux so I can do better quality stuff here.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 02:25, 27 March 201UTC)

Thomas, my request of Chris was simply to take a look at the small section of the Air article that briefly describes the nitrogen cycle ... briefly on purpose.

What you have written in your sandbox2 is a an expansion of the stub article on the Nitrogen cycle ... which I very much agree needs to be expanded, but which is out of my field of expertise. So I don't believe that I am really qualified to comment on your expansion of that stub article. I would suggest that, in addition to Chris Day who is a biology editor, you contact Anthony Sebastian who is also a Biology editor and quite active. I would also point out that a very good drawing of the cycle is available in Wikimedia Commons [2] where it is designated as being in the public domain. Other good drawings can probably be found with a bit of Googling. Regards, 03:27, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

Does Anthony Sebastian have the "Nitrogen cycle" article on his watchlist? If so he'll see a note I placed there. I did this article first so that I would be in a position to help you with the "Nitrogen cycle" section of the "Air" article. But I'm not an expert by any stretch either. Good idea to get the picture on Wikimedia Commons -- my drawing didn't come out as well as I had hoped, but I still have illusions of being an excellent CZ sketch artist!--Thomas Wright Sulcer 14:27, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

False start move

Hi Chris, I think Category:False Start Move is overpopulated, and at least partly with what should rather be in Category:Lemma Article, e.g. pages like Citizen science/External Links. As far as I can tell, the culprit is the if nesting in {{Subpages}}, so I can't fix it. Please check. Thanks! --Daniel Mietchen 23:24, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Daniel, is this still a problem? There did not seem that many there or is that because you have processed them? From what i could see they were mostly left over subpages or lemma like pages without a definition. Chris Day 18:06, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

I think I see what you mean, now that i have looked more closely at the example of Citizen science/External Links. At present the only lemma subpages supported are /Related Articles and /Definition. Are you suggesting that we should allow /External Links and /Bibliographies too? Chris Day 18:11, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes, and Video. In principle, I would like to have all subpages enabled for Lemmas. This allows to collect materials in the right place even though the article has not been written yet. --Daniel Mietchen 18:34, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

I'll look at the coding and see if it is an easy fix or not. If so I'll do it as soon as possible. Chris Day 18:39, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

If you would unlock it over on the test wiki, I could join the coding. --Daniel Mietchen 19:49, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

I have changed and tested it on the test wiki. Please transfer it here. Thanks! --Daniel Mietchen 20:20, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! My edit also contained a typo correction. --Daniel Mietchen 08:29, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

Nomenclature for botany articles

Plant hormone or plant hormones or plant growth hormones?

• Auxin or auxins?
• Cytokinin or cytokinins? The animal article is cytokines.
• Gibberellin or giberellins?

• Tissue culture
  • Plant tissue culture

I'm beginning to think I need to become your student... --Howard C. Berkowitz 22:54, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

I've been his student for years...Anthony.Sebastian 03:09, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Checklist22

Hi Chris, please comment on this, either there or here. Thanks! --Daniel Mietchen 19:13, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

You just want to know about the test link? That was a hyperlink to walk authors through a move cluster sequence. I did that by opular demand to try and make the process of moving a cluster more efficient and transparent. It never really did serve the purpose as things got complicated if the article was moved before the metadata template. Since then, it got broken with a mediawiki update and i could not figure out a good work around. I had forgotten it was still available as an option. We should probably just remove and delete all the templates associated with it. Chris Day 19:25, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, fixed. --Daniel Mietchen 20:15, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

Please join with me in urging Hayford not to resign

Chris, see my plea to Hayford not to resign as Constable (on his Talk page). Please join me! Milton Beychok 20:04, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Listing-defined references test

As of September 2009, the Cite.php extension was modified to support list-defined references. These can be implemented with the parameter to the {{reflist}} template, or by using a pair of HTML tags (<references> and </references>) in place of the <references/> tag. These reduce clutter within articles, by putting all the citation details in the section at the end where the footnotes are displayed. As with other citation formats, these should not be added to articles that already have a stable referencing system, unless there is consensus to do so. When in doubt, use the referencing system added by the first major contributor to use a consistent style.

The example below shows what list-defined references look like in the edit box:

The Sun is pretty big,<ref name=Miller2005p23/>
but the Moon is not so big.<ref name=Brown2006/>
The Sun is also quite hot.<ref name=Miller2005p34/>
==Notes==
{{reflist|refs=
<ref name=Miller2005p23>Miller, E: ''The Sun'', page 23. Academic Press, 2005.</ref>
<ref name=Miller2005p34>Miller, E: ''The Sun'', page 34. Academic Press, 2005.</ref>
<ref name=Brown2006>Brown, R: "Size of the Moon", ''Scientific American'', 51(78):46</ref>
}}

Below is how this would look in the article, once you had previewed or saved your edited section:

The Sun is pretty big, but the Moon is not so big. The Sun is also quite hot.

Notes

---

Defined references must be used within the body; unused references will show an error message. However, non-list-defined references (i.e. ordinary footnote references fully enclosed with <ref> and </ref> tags) will display as normal along with any list-defined ones.

---

The Sun is pretty big, but the Moon is not so big. The Sun is also quite hot.

Chris, I tried this because it is such a great improvement ... but I cannot get it to work. Milton Beychok 22:35, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

I tried it in my WP sandbox and it works perfectly. But the identical edit box coding does not work in my CZ sandbox. Has that Cite.php extension revision been implemented for CZ? It would greatly improvement the readability of edit boxes and make editing revisions, rewrites, etc. very much easier. Milton Beychok 23:36, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

I agree with you with regard to why we want this here. I'm assuming this does not work here at CZ, I was testing it here. The text above might be confusing, it is a direct cut and paste from wikipedia. I'll ask Dan if he knows what to changes need to be made to the Cite.php exension here to make this workable.Chris Day 21:04, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

Categories for images

What do you think of letting images inherit the categories of the articles they are used in? I think this should not be too complicated — the code for this is all in the {{subpages}} system, and images are placed via {{image}}. The only problem I see is that imagemaps are currently not compatible with the latter. --Daniel Mietchen 20:38, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

How would the categories be placed on the image page? What is the mechanism for "inheriting" the categories from the articles they are placed in?

As to the plan, it sounds like a good way to know what images are being used in each workgroup or subgroup. A problem I forsee in the future is that such categories are too broad. A better way would be able to break them down further into groups of categories, i.e. pictures used in articles on "Biology AND Chemistry" or "Biology AND Chemistry AND Health Sciences" Would that be possible? Chris Day 21:15, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

The more I think about it, the less sure I am about the mechanism, at least with the currently installed extensions. My initial thought was that we would need an {{images}} template on each image, which could then place categories much like the subpages system does. The problem is that there is just one place where the relevant information is stored in the subpages system, and unless we introduce some metadata system for images (which would probably not be a good idea), there will always be several such places for images used on more than one page. SemanticMediaWiki, however, may come to the rescue, so by the time we really need the feature, we may actually have it. --Daniel Mietchen 16:24, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Re-approval of Gasoline

Hi, Chris, I think that I have responded to the points raised by you and by Howard on Talk:Gasoline. Howard has asked for your help in how to do the re-approval nomination (see Talk:Gasoline). Would you please help him? Thanks, Milton Beychok 20:45, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

" Nitrogen cycle" section of Air

Chris, I noted your very recent edits of Nitrogen cycle. I would much appreciate your looking at the "Nitrogen cycle" section of the Air article and correcting/revising/whatever you believe is needed. Thanks, Milton Beychok 00:08, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Better use of subgroups?

As you may have noticed, I've been creating quite a few subgroups (e.g., the specialties of internal medicine, veterinary medicine), assorted computing topics, etc. In general, I conceived each subgroup as highly correlated with a mailing list, professional organization, or some other recruitment target.

If they are to be a recruiting and work planning tool, would it be possible to display the article status in the list of articles for the group, rather like rpl? Howard C. Berkowitz 06:42, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

It also might be useful to display the list of subgroups from a link on the left, just as we do for workgroups. Someone else probably has to do that.

The Subgroups article seems to suggest there can be subgroups of subgroups, but doesn't explain the syntax. Here would be an example:

• CZ Internet applications subgroup
  • CZ World Wide Web subgroup
  • CZ Electronic mail subgroup
  • CZ Distributed computing subgroup

--Howard C. Berkowitz 15:12, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

As I have already said elsewhere: The idea of workgroups, subgroups, and potential subsubgroups should not be used as a substitute for a good subject classification (we will need one!). Unless there are at least three (better more) authors interested a "group" makes no sense. --Peter Schmitt 15:53, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

I'm not suggesting these as a substitute for classification. I'm suggesting these as preparing for an agreed-to recruiting campaign just to get such members, for which we clearly don't have enough current Citizens. For example, CZ: Internet operations is the specific goal of the North American Network Operators Group, which has a mailing list to which I subscribe and at which I've been active. If I send a mail to the list soliciting membership, including a pointer to the subgroup gives potential Citizens an idea what exists as resources, what can be improved, or, perhaps under the homepage for the group, what is needed. In like manner, I'm on a Trauma and Critical Care mailing list, which covers two subgroups. Web people tend not to be interested in email and vice versa. Howard C. Berkowitz 16:00, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

I have to agree with Peter. Don't we have to have three interested editors before we create a subgroup? D. Matt Innis 16:12, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Actually, no -- anyone can create, although endorsement requires editors. I haven't always had an endorsing editor, although I myself have the Editor status for most except medical. Nevertheless, under "be bold", what is being broken? This is additional information and doesn't delete anything in place.

Yes, if it might be also of value as an interim categorization system, how is it bad to help readers find things for which the current workgroups are at too coarse a level of granularity? Simply as an author, I find them useful to see what exists and what is needed. Howard C. Berkowitz 16:15, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

You've been Nominated!

Someone has nominated you for a position in the new Citizendium. They have noticed you're dedication to the project and like what they see. To be listed on the ballot for the position, it is necessary that you accept the nomination on the [[Archive:Citizendium Ballot for the Management Council|Nomination page]. Just place accept next to your name along with the four tildes. The nomination period will close at midnight October 7 (UTC). Article 54 of the new charter details the requirements:

Article 54

• In conjunction with the Declaration of the Editor-in-Chief regarding the effectivity of this Charter, there shall be a call for nominations for the following offices: Managament Council (five seats), Editorial Council (seven seats), Managing Editor (one), Ombudsman (one). This shall be the effective date of the Charter.
• Any Citizen may nominate candidates for these positions.
• Nominations shall be collected and collated by the Chief Constable.
• Nominations shall be accepted no more than fourteen days after the effective date of the charter; the ballot shall be available starting on the twentieth day after the effective date of the charter; the election shall be completed no more than twenty-eight days after the effective date of the charter; all elected officials shall begin their term of office on the thirtieth day after the effective date of the charter.
• Only candidates who accept their nomination shall be eligible to appear on the ballot. Nominated candidates can accept nominations for no more than two official functions. Accepting a nomination serves as a declaration of commitment, in the case of being elected, to fulfill this function until the limit of the term.
• All positions shall be elected by a simple majority of the voting citizenry. In the case of a tie, an immediate run-off election shall be held.
• In the event that a candidate has been elected for two functions, the candidate shall declare which one he or she accepts within three days of announcement of the election results. In the event that such a declaration has not been made during this period, the candidate shall be considered elected for the position for which the nomination was accepted first. The same procedure applies to a reserve member that becomes elected by a seat being vacated this way.

If you would like to make a statement to help voters, click the "Statement" link to the right of your name.

Thanks again for the commitment you're making to assure that Citizendium becomes the premier quality online source we all have envisioned.

D. Matt Innis 13:17, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

Re your Pinkwich5.js page

Chris, on your Pinkwich5.js page [3], you show:

// install User:Pilaf/Live_Preview page preview tool
document.write('<script type="text/javascript" src="'
+ 'http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Pilaf/livepreview.js'
+ '&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript&dontcountme=s"></script>');

May I ask what functionality that code provides you, and how does one implement that functionality?

Thanks.

BTW: I use WikEd, it works well in latest versions Firefox and Chrome, but not IE9 (beta) or Opera. Anthony.Sebastian 20:06, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Tony, I stole it all from someone's page, I forget who. It was so I could get preview functionality. But I don't know anything about how the code works. Sorry i can't be more helpful. Chris Day 23:41, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Vote!

Hi Chris! Did YOU Vote??? See the orange Sitenotice header! D. Matt Innis 23:59, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

The page I went to was a lot of nominations but I didn't notice a place to vote. I'll look again. Chris Day 02:09, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

That's scary! If you couldn't find it :( You have to follow the links to the voting pages for each one. D. Matt Innis 02:11, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

I got it now. I just didn't read it properly. I was expecting to vote on the charter but that was all long gone. I'll vote now. Chris Day 02:13, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Oh, didn't think of that! I changed the banner - see how bad we need YOU! D. Matt Innis 02:17, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Well it would help if I had read the prolog instead of jumping right to the tables. Anyway I voted. Chris Day 02:30, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

There you go! Democracy in action! D. Matt Innis 02:34, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Perfect proof, I would say, that Democracy Is For The Birds! (hehe) Hayford Peirce 03:08, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Approval for Thylakoid

Chris, I prepared what Gareth calls a "short and sweet" article, Thylakoid. Will you look it over to see if you could add your name to the Approval banner? Otherwise let me know what you think it might need. Thanks. Anthony.Sebastian 15:22, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

New Biology editor

We have a new Biology editor named Dorian Q. Fuller. Perhaps you may wish to put a welcome message on his Talk page. Milton Beychok 16:47, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Re Thylakoid Approval

Chris, I responded to your comments on the Thylakoid Talk page, making a number of edits and adding images. If it looks okay to you, will you consider adding your name ToApprove. Thanks. —Anthony.Sebastian 04:52, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

New Biology author

User:James Parker is a new Biology author, a student at Edinburgh interested in molecular genetics. Bruce M. Tindall 17:32, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

!

Hi, Chris, thanks for dropping in again, I knew you would. I have a question for you... Ro Thorpe 19:25, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

Nomination for the Management Council

You have been nominated for a seat on the Management Council in the July-August Special Election. The nominator was myself. To accept or decline this nomination, please visit the Nominations page by midnight UTC on July 27th. You may write an election statement for each if you wish (linked from the Nominations page).

The Management Council seat expires on either June 30th, 2014, or June 30th, 2015 (the successful candidate with fewest voting receiving the shorter term). In the event that Referendum 1 is passed, all seats will expire on June 30th, 2014. Thanks! John Stephenson 17:18, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

Removing Talk:ArticleName/Draft

Thanks for your note. The one thing I haven't been able to do is completely remove the /Draft Talk pages for articles with status '0' while retaining the information in the Talk page banner. The {{subpages}} template has been altered so that clicking 'Talk' in the banner goes to the main article's Talk: page, but for articles with citable versions (former approved articles), this still redirects to Talk:ArticleName/Draft and not just to Talk:ArticleName, because only the former displays the definition, unused subpages, etc. I tried to fix this by altering the 'To Approve Inner' template by removing the references to 'Draft', but this results in all the information in the banner of the Talk page disappearing if the status is '0'. I tried various other edits and templates, but no joy. Can you suggest anything? Thanks. John Stephenson 15:35, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

No suggestion off the top of my head. I'll have to re-familiarize myself with the code, but I'll take a look. Chris Day 18:58, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

You've been nominated as a candidate in the June 2014 election

You've been nominated as a candidate in the June 2014 election. Please visit this page to accept or decline each position. No action will also be treated as declining. If you accept, you may choose to write an election statement for each position - see the election page for further details. Alternatively, contact me via my Talk page or privately via e-mail. Regards, John Stephenson 18:43, 5 June 2014 (UTC)

You've been nominated as a candidate in the June 2016 election

You've been nominated as a candidate for the post of Managing Editor in the June 2016 election. Please visit this page to accept or decline. No action will also be treated as declining. If you accept, you may choose to write an election statement - see the election page for further details. Alternatively, contact me via my Talk page or privately via e-mail. Regards, John Stephenson (talk) 19:16, 27 May 2016 (UTC) |- |style="background-color: #cccccc"| {{../../}}|| {{../../}} |style="background-color: #cccccc"| {{NAMESPACE}}|| User talk |style="background-color: #cccccc"| || |}</nowiki>

Not sure if I was clear on what I was asking, but also it seems like your caught up, so clarify later. --Robert W King 20:32, 16 November 2007 (CST)

OK I was just looking at your recent edits and I'm not sure i can tell what you're up to although i think I know what you are trying to do. However I'm still at a loss as to how you can mine that info. Chris Day (talk) 22:02, 16 November 2007 (CST)

If I can capture the image name part of the image from a random page call (for images), then I can just include that in any old page. --Robert W King 21:04, 16 November 2007 (CST)

"IF". Even if you can get the url, I assume that is what is being generated, you'd have to crop it out. i think you'd need a script to do it. I'm not even sure how you'd get access to the url, since I presume you'd have to click the link and then you would leave the page. I should stop now since I have no clue what i am talking about. Chris Day (talk) 22:08, 16 November 2007 (CST)

work around

I found out that if I disable page cache in my preferences, the Talk and "?" show up now. Thought you might want to know!

work around fix for subpage template dysfunction

--D. Matt Innis 21:03, 16 November 2007 (CST)

Interesting, what does that do? Any unwanted side effects? Chris Day (talk) 22:05, 16 November 2007 (CST)

So far so good. I just found this out, so I haven't been able to see if it slows me down when returning to pages, but I will let you know as soon as I notice anything. --D. Matt Innis 21:08, 16 November 2007 (CST)

Electric motors

Hi Chris. I just wanted to bring up three issues regarding the article Electric Motors:

1. I think it should be moved to Electric motor (I can do this but not sure how that will effect the subpages).

2. It is written by someone (George clinkscales) who does not have a bio and with a nonconforming user name (could be one of those self-registered accounts), so I think the user needs to be quizzed about his status.

3. The article is badly written, I mean it doesn't try to tell the readers what an electric motor is, and makes claims like "There is much confusing and contradicting published material about electric motors. Also, motors bridge the skills of electrical and mechanical engineers as exemplified by the equation p = iv = Γ ω." without any references.

Thanks. Hendra 18:24, 17 November 2007 (CST)

I agree with all of these points. I could see the article was heading in dubious direction and had already deduced that electric motor is a natural home. Regardless, this topic is worth having in citizendium so i thought at least building up the subpages might be worthwhile. Chris Day (talk) 18:29, 17 November 2007 (CST)

The subpages are fine I guess, it's just the main article doesn't read very well. Okay, I guess I'll put this article on my "to do" list ... but it's been a very long while since I took a course that covers this special topic. Hendra 21:46, 17 November 2007 (CST)

I was just going to write a stub-like article and then wait for someone with a real interest to expand it. Chris Day (talk) 07:09, 18 November 2007 (CST)

Unchecklisted

Hey, thanks for the help. I've got a headache, so I'm gonna quit now, but at this rate, we could get the list down to zero in no time!

I think we might need to think about how to better educate incoming authors about the necessity of filling out the checklist. --Joe Quick 02:23, 20 November 2007 (CST)

I beg to differ. The stats are that more articles are being made and less are being checklisted. There are still articles dating back over eight months that have yet to be checklisted and the list is growing rapidly. 268 new unckecklisted articles in November alone! Unless we make a simple and obvious way to checklist (such as forcing the checklist before the new article can be saved) then we will continue to get further and further behind. Derek Harkness 08:21, 20 November 2007 (CST)

I think we all agree what is needed but can we get someone to program it? Preferably, anytime someone starts an article on hitting save the author is take to a page with drop down menus. One cannot save until the menus are filled. The pagename should be filled automatically as is the authors signature on the checklist. Once the fields are filled the author hits save again. This time four pages are created, the article, the talk, the metadata template and the approval page. We need this yesterday. Chris Day (talk) 11:21, 20 November 2007 (CST)

I just started a thread in the forums http://forum.citizendium.org/index.php/topic,1382 Chris Day (talk) 11:30, 20 November 2007 (CST)

check this out

Could you take a look at this? --D. Matt Innis 08:59, 26 November 2007 (CST)

subpages problem

Chris, everytime I add the subpages deal at the top of a new page, I get crazy looking output. Is this because I have the catagory tags at the bottom. That is the only thing I see different between my version and your version, for Geographical center of North America. I have the same problem on other pages when I try it. I must be missing something.

David E. Volk 09:38, 28 November 2007 (CST)

You need to create the metadata template. Without that the subpages function will not work. For example see Template:Geographical center of North America/Metadata Chris Day (talk) 09:40, 28 November 2007 (CST)

Recent contributions on the Vitamin C article + Transport section

Thank you for these edits. This French mindset I have often makes my English writing overly complicated, sophisticated or heavy. Now, the TOC is much clearer. I worked a little more in this direction, in part to make the intro and the TOC "match". The chem box is now in the talk page (for future use, if absolutely necessary -- the potassium page doesn't have such an info box and it's pretty okay as it is; also see the talk page).

I am about to propose a tentative summary for the Transport section that we worked on recently. Please stay tuned!

--Pierre-Alain Gouanvic 12:48, 6 December 2007 (CST)

Checklist allows for only three categories

Chris, what if the article requires five categories. For example, I'd like the main article Oxidative stress to show categories Health Sciences, Biology, Chemistry, Physics, and History. How can I arrange that? Thanks. --Anthony.Sebastian (Talk) 13:56, 11 December 2007 (CST)

How come the category :food science catalogues

shows up as a red link? I clicked into it, just to check, and there are eight pages in the category.

So, do I need to type something redundant in there like this contains lists of...? Aleta Curry 20:26, 11 December 2007 (CST)

Subpage question

One more thing, while I'm at it: I remember Rob King asked a question about whether every single topic warranted subpages. Do you recall if this was ever decided once and for all? I'm asking because I just did a micro-entry on parmigiana--dash it all, do we really need a cluster? I'll happily do it, but I feel a little silly creating one.... Aleta Curry 21:14, 11 December 2007 (CST)

Re 'wiki-converting'

Chris: Regarding your volunteering to 'wiki-convert' word-processor files from subscribers, please see: http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/CZ:Wiki-converting. For tracking, use section with your name as title. --Anthony.Sebastian 19:42, 18 December 2007 (CST)

subpages and categorization

Hey Chris, check out the huge category following "z" in the list of live articles: http://en.citizendium.org/wiki?title=Category:CZ_Live&from=Z Those are the articles for which the "abc" field isn't filled in on the metadata template. I assume this isn't how the template was intended to work. Do we need to fill in the abc field for all of those or can something be changed in the template? --Joe Quick 18:11, 24 December 2007 (CST)

Hi! I just came with the same question but Joe was here before :) Aleksander Stos 08:38, 25 December 2007 (CST)

PS. Needles to add it'd be great if we could fill just one field in most cases. Now, the (numerous) articles with the field "abc" filled by "nbsp" are listed at the end of the appropriate category (categories) in no particular order. Category browsing is somewhat broken (link "next 400" points to something like "%C2%A0", regardless the actual entry). Perhaps it's easy to fix (important e.g. for unchecklisted articles). Just to let you know :)

Being nice to the dial-up folks

See {{editintro}} and the usage notes. Am I right? Stephen Ewen 04:15, 27 December 2007 (CST)

BASEPAGENAME

Any idea why {{BASEPAGENAME}} is not working as stated at at this documentation? I created MediaWiki:Newmediatext so as to load as an edit intro here through an <inputbox> form at {{Image_notes_flickr3}}. Yet as can be seen in #5 in that example, the code to place the image, {{BASEPAGENAME}} is calling the subpage as well, hence [[Image:Test Image 5.JPG/credit appears when the subpage "credit" shouldn't. Bangin' my head here, and clue? Stephen Ewen 23:16, 1 January 2008 (CST)

Check the bugtrack for MW? Give me an example and I'll try to look at it? --Robert W King 23:23, 1 January 2008 (CST)

Ah! Alas! I deduced what MUST be the problem: Subpages for the Template namespace are not enabled in LocalSettings.php! The proof is at Template:Test_Image_5.JPG and Template:Test_Image_5.JPG/credit. If subpages were enabled for that namespace then the subpage there would show a link back. Stephen Ewen 23:40, 1 January 2008 (CST)

The logical question here is, would enabling it break any of the templates Chris has made. Stephen Ewen 23:43, 1 January 2008 (CST)

Party! You're invited!

Hi Chris — Your neighbourhood Mistress of Ceremonies here. Don’t forget to come on over to the party and sign in at one of the categories! Aleta Curry 16:24, 9 January 2008 (CST) say ‘hi’ to me here.

This is what happened

See these posts on CZ-Tools:

• https://lists.purdue.edu/pipermail/citizendium-tools/2008-January/000207.html
• https://lists.purdue.edu/pipermail/citizendium-tools/2008-January/000209.html
• https://lists.purdue.edu/pipermail/citizendium-tools/2008-January/000210.html
• https://lists.purdue.edu/pipermail/citizendium-tools/2008-January/000211.html

I assume it happened right then and there. --Robert W King 17:07, 9 January 2008 (CST)

Great, thanks for keeping on top of that. It looks like a cosmetic problem not a functional problem. I'll try and fix it. Chris Day (talk) 17:52, 9 January 2008 (CST)

Is this a response to the same thing you asked on my talk page? I just noticed the problem a couple of days ago. Monday maybe? Maybe before - I've been looking at metadata pages an awful lot recently... --Joe Quick 22:17, 9 January 2008 (CST)

Yes, I asked you both since you are the two who'd most likely pick it up. Chris Day (talk) 22:19, 9 January 2008 (CST)

Unexpected error with subpage template

Hi Chris, wasn't too sure who to ask on this one ... I have just started a page on Prague and received an 'unexpected error' after filling out the template, instead of the usual approval page. Not too sure where to go from here. Could you please advise on what I did wrong here and how I can fix it? Thanking you ... Louise Valmoria 18:29, 9 January 2008 (CST)

Hi Loiuse, here is our problem. When i get the new streamlined version of this template finished it will have error messages so this kind of error can be spotted more easily. Chris Day (talk) 21:12, 9 January 2008 (CST)

Ahhh, thank you very much for that, and for fixing the page. I'll keep a closer eye on how I'm filling out the templates in future! Cheerio.Louise Valmoria 21:25, 9 January 2008 (CST)

Are you on cz-tools?

I want to make sure you see https://lists.purdue.edu/pipermail/citizendium-tools/2008-January/000213.html which is different from what is talked about above. Stephen Ewen 23:30, 9 January 2008 (CST)

Core Articles Earth Sciences

Chris,

some core articles in Earth Sciences were written, but authors didn't claim the points. I didn't "approve" so far because I wasn't asked to do so. Should I, and should I decide who gets the points? Note that in most cases it will be straightforward, as there is only one author per article. Ciao, --Nereo Preto 03:01, 10 January 2008 (CST)

That was on my to do list and if you want to do that it would b great. I am way behind in smoothing the core articles along. i think most people are not playing the point game but just writing. Nevertheless, once it gets going it might get some momentum. Chris Day (talk) 05:48, 10 January 2008 (CST)

Great. I'll take care of it, for Earth Sciences, in the next days. Yes, I believe most authors are just writing. This is not a bad thing though, and attributing unrequested points shouldn't harm. Thanks, Aloha. --Nereo Preto 04:07, 11 January 2008 (CST)

Two quick things

First, please don't edit the subpages template during the Write-a-Thon. It wound up not being a serious problem yesterday, but it's probably best not to do high-load maintenance like that on days known to be specifically busy. That said, you don't get enough kudos for all the excellent that you do with the subpages template. I'm not trying to come down on you, just suggesting that waiting a few hours would have been a bit easier on things.

Second, I found a useful page which might help you out as Core Articles Coordinator. Special:Wantedpages is a page which lists the most common redlinks. While I recognize that Core Articles is more about important articles than popular ones, you might want to spread it around to the relevant editors.

Thanks --ZachPruckowski 15:24, 10 January 2008 (CST)

I completely forgot about the lag time issue. Its a good thing I didn't do more than I did. Thanks for the wanted pages link too. Chris Day (talk) 18:37, 10 January 2008 (CST)

New Skin for CZ

Chris- you may want to get involved with whoever is thinking up a new concept for the CZ skin, being that there's an interest (and frankly, I agree that it should have been in from the get-go but that's not the way things go ;) ) of building the subpages template concept right into the MW skin, so it becomes a part of our MW implementation by default. --Robert W King 13:35, 15 January 2008 (CST)

I agree, from the first day subpages were discussed the goal was to have it as part of MW. Not sure how well I can help except to answer questions on the current set up. Chris Day (talk) 23:19, 15 January 2008 (CST)

Standardizing subpages for medical and drug topics

Could we create a standard list of subpages for medical topics? Perhaps:

• Etiology/cause/pathogenesis (how ever you like to word this)
• Classification
• Diagnosis
• Treatment
• Prognosis

There are probably other pages, such as those listed at Wikipedia: Template for medical conditions, but this would get us started. Can we launch medical articles without subpages, then use then only then the article gets bulky? Eventually, doing the same thing for drugs might help, eg a subpage for biochemistry and for listing brand names. Also, tutorial I think is a current standard subpage. What does this label mean - an introduction to a topic? If so, it seems there might be a better label than 'Tutorial'. Thanks. - Robert Badgett 16:22, 23 January 2008 (CST)

Sorry I missed this before Robert, I'm just going back as figuring out what I missed on this talk page. You will need to put a proposal together for these subpages; see CZ:Subpages. It sounds like a good idea and it would be easy to add to the subpages template when the time comes. Chris Day (talk) 01:21, 8 March 2008 (CST)

Table in Bacteriophage draft

Hi. I see that on Sept. 25 you deleted a table I had formatted in Bacteriophage/Draft. I searched for your name on the talk page and didn't find anything. I'm just curious as to why you deleted the table. --Catherine Woodgold 19:22, 27 January 2008 (CST)

I put it in the catalog subpage. See Bacteriophage/Catalogs Chris Day (talk) 15:09, 30 January 2008 (CST)

Subpage problem

Aleta Curry suggested I bring this problem up with you. On the following page:

http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Olympic_Games/Catalogs/Olympic_medalists_in_cycling/Olympic_medalists_in_cycling_(women)

I have been unable to get the subpages to display properly after several attempts (both Aleta and I have tried). She suspects there may be a problem with the number of sublevels (the Olympic Games cluster really needs that many though). I think it may be the line length of the path. The latter could be solved by choosing shorter filenames. Hope that's all it is. Anyway, could you look at it and let me know what is wrong?

James F. Perry 10:25, 28 January 2008 (CST)

I think you sorted this out. For the record, three levels is it. I could not figure out a way to make it work any deeper. Besides, i don't think you want these going deeper than three levels. The catalog page needs to be designed in a way to allow the location of all the available catlogs to be obvious. How many olympic catalogs are you planning? Chris Day (talk) 15:17, 30 January 2008 (CST)

Check this out for a chuckle

[4] --D. Matt Innis 19:58, 29 January 2008 (CST)

It's an entry at CZ:Humour. :-D Stephen Ewen 20:11, 29 January 2008 (CST)

Interesting. Not sure how that happened. I thought I was adding a four day default approval, I had not realsied it was four days from todays date. Chris Day (talk) 15:20, 30 January 2008 (CST)

Party, again

Aw, Chris--where you been, amigo? Aleta Curry 22:00, 6 February 2008 (CST)

CZ:Proposals/Ad_hoc

Hi Chris, Have a look at: CZ:Proposals/Ad_hoc and please give your comments. Supten Sarbadhikari 22:50, 13 February 2008 (CST)

Re Life/Draft

Chris, Gareth Leng indicated his willingness to approve Life/Draft as replacing Life (see http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Talk:Life/Draft#Thanks_Anthony ). I believe you originally aproved Life. If you agree with Gareth, will you set up Life/Draft for approval. I believe I have responded to most of the feedback critiques I received. Thanks. --Anthony.Sebastian 13:41, 18 February 2008 (CST)

Chris, I still remain eager to replace Life with Life/Draft. Will you put the to approve banner on Life/Draft with a one week waiting period? I should finish checking vitality of the external links by then.

Thanks. --Anthony.Sebastian 14:57, 21 February 2008 (CST)

---

Chris, still hoping you'll nominate Life/Draft to replace current version, Life. --Anthony.Sebastian 14:52, 26 February 2008 (CST)

Problems with moving a page

Chris, Matt Innis told me that you might be able to help with this:

Yesterday I moved an article so as to rename it. The main article was moved but none of the subpages were ... even though I had checked the box asking to have the Talk page moved.

It took me about an hour to find the unmoved subpages (Talk, Related Articles, Bibliography and External Links) ... and then it took me about another hour to copy and paste each of them into the renamed article.

That was just too laborious and took too much time!! Is it possible to devise a way to move all of the subpages when moving an article?

At the very least, the Move page should warn us that the subpages will not be moved and it should tell us how to find the unmoved subpages.

I will watch for your reply here on your Talk page. Thanks in advance, - Milton Beychok 11:55, 21 February 2008 (CST)

The only soltion is to change the media wiki code. I expect it can be done but is a low priority. I certainly could not code it. Chris Day (talk) 01:18, 8 March 2008 (CST)

Table?

Hi, Chris, I need to make a table, and I can't work out how it's done. User:Hayford Peirce suggested I ask you. Thanks for your attention - Ro Thorpe 13:00, 1 March 2008 (CST)

But we cracked it. Cheers - Ro Thorpe 15:23, 1 March 2008 (CST)

image issues

Hi Chris,

Any idea why the image File:Stone walls palau will not appear even though the coding is correct in my article on Palau under the Archaeological & Palaeontological Research section?

Lee R. Berger 06:30, 3 March 2008 (CST)

Thanks Chris! you would think I would pick something so basic up after all these articles... Thanks a lot - won't let that happen again!

Lee

Re: the references - convention in the various journals I have published in would tend to place the references after the full stop. I think this is worthy of taking to the editorial council for adoption if you are in agreement.

Lee R. Berger 03:18, 4 March 2008 (CST)

TOC-right, TOC-left

The standard TOC does not produce inline content, instead it forces everything past the TOC. I developed TOC-left based off of TOC-right which is inline. --Robert W King 15:13, 3 March 2008 (CST)

I'm being a bit slow here? Is this in relation to this edit? Chris Day (talk) 15:21, 3 March 2008 (CST)

I think I'm retarded. Nevermind. --Robert W King 15:35, 3 March 2008 (CST)

LOL, I did like the one you added to DNA, if that makes you feel any better :) Chris Day (talk) 15:36, 3 March 2008 (CST)

DNA and Life are just so... inherently bonded I guess I confused them for a minute. --Robert W King 15:50, 3 March 2008 (CST)

Subpages, documentation, etc

Hi, I actually did manage to mostly work out how it all worked before I posted in the forums - my post was actually to ask if there was some documentation I hadn't found, because if not, I was proposing to write some (provided people would find it useful). Yes, I undertook to clean up the errors in the existing documentation because I figured they would horribly confuse any naive users (especially those who are not computer people). I was planning on writing a bunch more documentation, and rationalizing what's there, I just hadn't gotten around to it yet; been busy catching up with other stuff.

Anyhoo... One quick question I'm curious about (because I didn't see a compelling reason to do it this way): why did you all decide to put the meta-data (and photo credit stuff) in the Template: namespace? It's going to make a listing of all the entries in that namespace less useful (although I suppose it's easy enough to automatically filter out entries ending with /Metadata). It would have been easy enough to use another namespace, no? (Although I guess there's no immediately obvious candidate.)

Anyway, thanks for the note. I'll see if I can do something about the documentation. -- J. Noel Chiappa 19:32, 3 March 2008 (CST)

Location of references in text

Chris, the examples in Citation style show <ref>...</ref> after the punctuation mark (e.g., after a comma if within sentence, after the period at end sentence.

With successive <ref>...</ref>s, I often separate them with a non breaking space (& n b s p;) for reader's ease. 

cf.

If the Harvard style used, put ref before punctuation (Day 2008; Sebastian 2009). --Anthony.Sebastian 14:16, 4 March 2008 (CST)

References Cited

Day C. (2008) My best book. Wherever & Co., New York.
Sebastian A. (2009) Themes on schemes. Journal of Retractable Results 100:1-8.

Notes

--Anthony.Sebastian 14:16, 4 March 2008 (CST)

I

Thanks for the table, Chris, it's perfect - Ro Thorpe 09:07, 5 March 2008 (CST)

Exccept that it's not...sorry, I was so impressed, I should have had a closer look. Ro Thorpe 09:25, 5 March 2008 (CST)

More tables?

If you're in the mood, there are 'list of irregular' two-column tables needed at the top of A, O and U now. I'm sending this same message to Robert. Thanks - Ro Thorpe 15:51, 5 March 2008 (CST)

Sailing approval

According to the recently revised approval process, before doing the honors sysops should:

"Examine the talk page. Make sure it's clear that there are three editors who are in agreement about the approvability of the article, or, if it seems there is an individual approval going on, make sure that the person approving the article has not worked much on the article. (For that, examine the article's history.) Also ensure that at least one editor currently supports the approval of the article version mentioned in the approval metadata. If there is any reason to doubt editor support, request clarification before doing the honors. Reasons to doubt editor support include the nominated version not being the latest one and/or the existence of unanswered author critiques."

Therefore I don't think sailing should have been approved. Can you undo the approval? Warren Schudy 09:55, 8 March 2008 (CST)

I thought that was one univolved editor that approved? I guess I was going on what I had seen happen in the biology workgroup where one univolved editor could approve or three involved editors. I had not noticed the thread you linked to, I'll go and read about the changes.

Is there any reason why other sports editors are not signing on? Or is it a critical mass issue (i.e. not enough editors?) Chris Day (talk) 11:59, 8 March 2008 (CST)

The only sports editor who has edited the wiki since sailing was nominated for approval is User:Gary Giamboi, and he's made only two edits since then! So yes, an extreme case of not enough editors. I just asked him to comment. Warren Schudy 12:22, 8 March 2008 (CST)

But Michael Grey is listed as a sports editor? Chris Day (talk) 12:59, 8 March 2008 (CST)

OK I just read the changes made to the process. I was assuming approval had not occurred due to the date bug mentioned above by Matt. I thought this was one that had fallen through the cracks. In that case i think the best thing is to remove the approval tag with the stated reason as "No editor available to confirm approval". The {{approval}} template can be used to document such an occurance on the approval page. Chris Day (talk) 13:07, 8 March 2008 (CST)

I just partially undid the approval pending the comments from another sports editor. If no response I will delete the draft page too. Actually I just went ahead and deleted the draft page, so the cluster is back to its original state except for the approval page. Chris Day (talk) 13:14, 8 March 2008 (CST)

Thanks! I modified the metadata template to remove the to-approve banners; you documented why approval was terminated but didn't actually cancel it I think. Warren Schudy 14:03, 8 March 2008 (CST)

That's the way it should be, thanks. Chris Day (talk) 14:06, 8 March 2008 (CST)

Eduzendium template

Argh! I thought the -auto one was the correct one to use, as it added the article to the Eduzendium category? What gives? J. Noel Chiappa 10:17, 10 March 2008 (CDT)

Never mind! I just worked it out! J. Noel Chiappa 10:19, 10 March 2008 (CDT)

Yes, exactly - as soon as I saw you'd only changed the sample invocation, and not the instructions, the penny dropped... J. Noel Chiappa 10:35, 10 March 2008 (CDT)

Life ver 1.2 Approved!

Good work! Keep going, --D. Matt Innis 22:20, 10 March 2008 (CDT)

Yes, congrats! --Larry Sanger 12:30, 11 March 2008 (CDT)

Empty subpage category

Hi Chris, did you notice that Category:Subpages is now empty? That shouldn't be...were you perhaps fiddling with the templates? --Larry Sanger 12:30, 11 March 2008 (CDT)

I made one change recently to add a category to the approval page. I don't believe i changed anything else, and off the top of my head I don't see how the change I did make would have had such an effect. I'll review my edits and try and figure out what happened. Chris Day (talk) 12:33, 11 March 2008 (CDT)

Could this have anything to do with why the draft for Phosphorus ended up in the Approved Category? --D. Matt Innis 12:45, 11 March 2008 (CDT)

No. Give the server time to sort it out. I see no category on the draft page so it should not appear in the category. Chris Day (talk) 13:01, 11 March 2008 (CDT)

Talk page link in sig

How do you do that? I thought raw signatures were disabled? Or have they been turned back on? Or are you doing subst: with a template? J. Noel Chiappa 20:58, 11 March 2008 (CDT)

Originally it was possible to do it. Then there was a media wiki upgrade and the feature was lost; don't know why. For some reason my signature is still in the system though. I have been told that if I make a change to my preferences I will lose the signature and it will revert to default. This thread might be of interest to you. Chris Day (talk) 21:31, 11 March 2008 (CDT)

Cluster/sub-page hackery

Hey, looks good. I particularly like the metadata page display. (And you'd a lucky SOB with your signature! :-) J. Noel Chiappa 10:45, 12 March 2008 (CDT)

Thanks it's a goliath and I'm trying to vastly reduce it's size. The current metadata used to work that way too but in the media wiki upgrade something changed (along with the signatures). Possibly some of the magic words? I'm trying to get it back to where it was before. Chris Day (talk) 11:12, 12 March 2008 (CDT)

Hi, I would rate myself as a 'beginner' at 'advanced template hackery'; I've only been doing it for a week or two, and it still makes my head hurt to read the documentation! Still, I have have some useful bits.

The material at Template_talk:Subpage_style#reminder is from an old version of that help page; it has been rewritten with the deployment of the new preprocessor. I believe this particular behaviour was caused by the semi-infamous bug-5678 (see also here). I looked at Special:Version to try and see if we have the a version of MediaWiki with the new preprocessor, and it looks to me like we should, so perhaps the thing that was worrying you (at #reminder) is no longer with us?

I don't guarantee any of this, because like I said, I'm just getting into this now, but perhaps there are some useful dribs and drabs above. J. Noel Chiappa 12:40, 13 March 2008 (CDT)

I don't think we're (CZ) on the new preprocessor? --Robert W King 12:44, 13 March 2008 (CDT)

No, we're not - I just ran a test (here) and we're still getting the buggy behaviour. The same thing works fine on Wikipedia. I would suggest it's not worth a ton of effort trying to work around this, since it's likely only temporary. J. Noel Chiappa 12:48, 13 March 2008 (CDT)

I don't think anything like {{ {{ #ifexpr:.. |a|b|c}} parameters}} (actually, {{ {{ #ifexpr:.. |a|b|c}} | parameters}}) is going to work, because I don't know of any #if statement (#if, #ifeq, #ifexpr, etc) that allows for three possible outcomes; they all have only two (partA if true/etc, partB if not). It would have to be something like {{ {{#if <something> | a | {{ #if <something_else> | b | c}} }} | parameters}}.

The only way I can immediately think of to do it in one step is to use a #switch, i.e. something like: {{ {{ #switch: <selector> | <case1>=a | <case2>=b | <case3>=c }} | params }}, which is pretty clunky, longer in fact than the one above.

Is there a problem with the {{ {{#if <something> | a | {{ #if <something_else> | b | c}} }} | parameters}} formulation? I used something much like it here and it seemed to work fine. Let me try it, and report back. J. Noel Chiappa 00:41, 14 March 2008 (CDT)

Take a look at this template and this caller; that seems to do what you want. It only evaluates the params ({{{2}}}} once, and picks one of three different templates ({{MW}}, {{WM}} and {{WP}}) to call, based on {{{1}}}.

Is that the kind of thing you were looking for? Obviously, the #ifeq: can be replaced with #if: or #ifexpr: depending on exactly what you are doing. J. Noel Chiappa 00:58, 14 March 2008 (CDT)

BTW, if what's behind all this is that you're trying to minimize the number of times {{{param}}} is evaluated, don't worry about it; the new parser (above) only evaluates arguments if they are actually needed (or so I gather; I'll find where it talks about that tomorrow - off to bed now). J. Noel Chiappa 01:29, 14 March 2008 (CDT)

It's not that important but i was interested as I came across the problem. It's not to do with the parameters but rather the expansion on the templates. As currently written the subpages template is massive since all the associated templates count towards the page size regardless of their use. This code trick, that Zach pointed out to me, means that only those templates actually used on the page count towards the page size. Chris Day (talk) 01:44, 14 March 2008 (CDT)

Ah, got it! Your "a|b|c" stuff made me think you had three different alternatives you wanted. I don't think there's any special character you need; in fact, you don't want anything at all in there, just something like {{{2}}}{{{3}}} because you want the two parts of the template name to be run together and wind up as single token, which they won't if there's a ' ' in there.

Now I'm just trying to remember if there's a bug in the old parser where {{{2}}}{{{3}}} didn't recognize the output of the two as a single token; I saw something about something like that, but I can't remember what (or where) now. Let me just try it and see... J. Noel Chiappa 01:34, 14 March 2008 (CDT)

I just assumed it would read as one template if they are together, how would it know where to chop the string? Chris Day (talk) 01:39, 14 March 2008 (CDT)

Now you have me confused again! I thought that what you wanted was you had three strings, A, B and C (say, "aaa", "bb" and "cc"), and you want to call either template "aaa" or template "bbcc". No? I don't get why it would need to "chop the string" - or did that mean 'between "aaa" and "bbcc"?

If that is what you want,take a look at this template and this caller; that seems to do what I thought you wanted. It picks one of two different templates to call - either {{MW}} (which is hardcoded, but it could have been an argument), or the template whose name is the concatenation of {{{2}}} and {{{3}}} - based on {{{1}}}. J. Noel Chiappa 01:48, 14 March 2008 (CDT)

I see where you're coming from. The problem is the big picture of the subpages template. It places templates on various pages each page being distinct. So I want either A or B+C templates on a page. I could have B and C as one template but that does not work since on some pages i want only B and on others only C. Instead of having two templates I could use three, a BC hybrid along with B and C. The reason i will not do that is i only want one location for each template to be edited. Which now makes me realise the solution! Just make a template that includes {{B}} and {{C}} and call it {{BC}} . Thanks for jogging my thoughts on this. I'm not really computer literate so I sometimes miss the obvious. Chris Day (talk) 02:13, 14 March 2008 (CDT)

Ah, OK, now I finally get it. You want to call either template A with <params>, or the two separate templates B and C with <params>. Yeah, there's no way to do the second part without at some point having (effectively) {{B | params}} {{C | params}} - or your hack, a template BC, called with <params> (i.e. {{BC | params}}) which just contains calls to B anc C.

Mind, I'm not sure (especially with the old parser) that it's going to make much of a difference how much memory is used (at the point of maximum expansion) either way; they pretty much amount to the same thing. As long as all the terms are evaluated/expanded before the #if: is evaluated (which is what the old parser did, if I understand it correctly), you're going to get maximal expansion. It's only when the #if is evaluated before terms are evaluated/expanded, and unused terms ignored (which is, again, what I think the new parser does) that you'll get any significant savings.

Although now that I think about your BC case again, maybe not... too tired to think straight about complicated things like this!

Anyway, probably the 'right' thing to do is push for installation of the newest Wikimedia release, with the new parser. Too bad I don't know more about PHP and MediaWiki, or I could offer to help there too. Oh well, maybe I just need to turn to and read up on all that too! J. Noel Chiappa 02:46, 14 March 2008 (CDT)

The key here is that the subpages template is never even close to maximum expansion since it is used for many different organising tasks with a unique role on each page of a cluster. The subpages template was so huge that the it was exceeding the 2MB pre-expand limit of each page and Zach had to bump it up to 4MB. The knock on effect before being bumped up to 4MB was that other templates (such as citation templates) in the article stopped working once the 2MB limit was exceeded. So a smaller subpages template is important for the articles that have a large number of citations or a high usage of other templates. Ideally, according to Zach (I don't know why it's ideal) the limit will be brought back down to 2MB if the subpages templates pre-expansion size can be reduced. Chris Day (talk) 11:59, 14 March 2008 (CDT)

My guess is that it's because the larger the maximum size of the page during MediaWiki-markup -> HTML processing (i.e. during the template expansion/evaluation phase), the longer it takes to render, i.e. more computational load, and slower to serve pages. If so, I wouldn't worry about that too much - a lot of this stuff we're doing with templates is going to have to get replaced with hard-coded support (e.g. in PHP) anyway, if this site ever takes off the way Wikipedia did. J. Noel Chiappa 13:16, 14 March 2008 (CDT)

By the way, can you think of any reason I should not be using the {{BC|param}} hack? It seems to work well but there might be some unforeseen problem? I bump into those regularly given my low breadth of knowledge in the code area. Chris Day (talk) 12:02, 14 March 2008 (CDT)

No, as far as I know, there shouldn't be any problems.

The only downside I can think of is, like I said in my long note, because it's string expansion, not code execution, anytime you wind up doing: {{A|args}} {{B|args}} , then in either parser you're going to wind up expanding 'args' twice (I think :-).

I'm not sure if there's any way to get around that, in either the old or new parser; I'd have to better understand how things get evaluated. It might be that if you had an 'AB' template (i.e. the text of both run together into a single template) it might help (especially in the older parser, where arguments are expanded first). However, it all depends on exactly what order things are done in - i.e. what forms that long string (which is the template expansion) goes through as it gets processed.

I'll go read the documentation (such as it is :-) on how the parser operates again; hopefully, I will understand it better now, and will then be better positioned to answer questions like this for you. J. Noel Chiappa 13:16, 14 March 2008 (CDT)

WP bug

 :-) I did originally try {{localurl: }}; I ditched that in favour of {{anchorencode: }} because localurl didn't handle embedded spaces properly - it turned them into '+'s, not '_'s, so attempts to call {{WP}} with page names with spaces in them (that weren't manually converted to _'s) didn't work. Only now I find out that anchorencode bashes '#'s and '/'s! I can't win! Extension:StringFunctions will let me win easily, but that package isn't installed here. I've asked Zach if we can get it. J. Noel Chiappa 01:29, 14 March 2008 (CDT)

I asked for that a while back. I think i sent an e-mail to the technical guys and I can't even remember why I wanted it now. There might be something in the forums too. Chris Day (talk) 01:31, 14 March 2008 (CDT)

More on templates

Interesting numbers. I forget which term means what, but isn't there also a number you are given for the maximum size reached during expansion? E.g. if I look at the HTML output from looking at one of my tests, I see:

Pre-expand include size: 3775 bytes
Post-expand include size: 606 bytes
Template argument size: 224 bytes
Maximum: 4194304 bytes

and I would think the last number (the maximum reached during evaluation) would be an equal concern. J. Noel Chiappa 12:12, 14 March 2008 (CDT)

Dohh! I just realized the "Maximum" number is the largest it's allowed to get to (i.e. the parameter Zach tweaked). Never mind! :-) J. Noel Chiappa 12:54, 14 March 2008 (CDT)

Yes, that's the 4MB I was talking about. Chris Day (talk) 13:47, 14 March 2008 (CDT)

Also, I wrote up a magnum opus on this whole expansion thing, trying to clear my brain and understand the stuff I alluded to last night (above) about it not mattering whether you did A and B directly, or via AB. I'm not sure if it's any use to you (or if you have the patience to read all the way through it :-), but it so, it's at: User:J. Noel Chiappa/TemplateExpansionNote1. J. Noel Chiappa 12:12, 14 March 2008 (CDT)

I have not read it yet but it looks great. Thanks for the help, if nothing else for an academic interest. You're right that the subpages template should disappear into the hard code as soon as possible. However, who will do, or find the time to do that, is a problem. One of the reasons I stopped with the improvements was I thought it might be around the corner, but I guess not. Chris Day (talk) 13:45, 14 March 2008 (CDT)

Alas, as shown herewe're still using the old pre-processor.... J. Noel Chiappa 14:29, 14 March 2008 (CDT)

Cool tool

Hey, did you know about Special:ExpandTemplates? J. Noel Chiappa 15:56, 14 March 2008 (CDT)

News to me. Returning to the theme of the using the {{BC}} hack, you might be interested that i just tested the two version of the template i was playing with:

NewPP limit report for small template (using {{BC}} hack):

Preprocessor node count: 20/1000000

Post-expand include size: 36/2048000 bytes

Template argument size: 0/2048000 bytes

NewPP limit report for large template:

Preprocessor node count: 16/1000000

Post-expand include size: 20/2048000 bytes

Template argument size: 0/2048000 bytes

With two templates expanded of six NewPP limit report for small template:

Preprocessor node count: 27/1000000

Post-expand include size: 9368/2048000 bytes

Template argument size: 0/2048000 bytes

With two templates expanded of six NewPP limit report for large template

Preprocessor node count: 24/1000000

Post-expand include size: 11684/2048000 bytes

Template argument size: 0/2048000 bytes

As far as I can tell there will be no advantage with the new processor, the post expand size is very similar, as you predicted. The {{BC}} hack requires more nodes but it is trivial stuff with regard to the limit. Chris Day (talk) 16:24, 14 March 2008 (CDT)

Interesting data. Also, I found these, which are useful (although tough sledding):

• Help:Expansion
• Help:Recursive conversion of wikitext

The second definitely caused my brains to liquify; I've merely noted it, and will go back to re-read it later.

No luck so far finding documentation on how the pre-processor (as opposed to the parser - found two sources on that) operates inside, although I seem vaguely to recall seeing something about it somewhere a couple of weeks ago; probably somewhere in TimS's spaces. J. Noel Chiappa 20:32, 14 March 2008 (CDT)

I should point out that the above numbers are not directly comparable with the templates I tested at citizendium. The content was different and so the post-expandsize is not comparable. The relatively small reduction in the post expand size is comparable with the values I tested here; in this case a modest reduction to 80% of the original size. I have no idea why the template argument size came out as zero. Also of note was that there is a limit of the number of #ifexist statements that can be used, up to 500. From our respective, if we get the new preprocessor, that means there is a theoretical limit to the number of subpages that can be managed by a template. Since we currently have less than twenty flavours, I suspect that limit might not be something to worry about. Chris Day (talk) 00:37, 15 March 2008 (CDT)

"Start article" user problems - for Chris or Steve?

Hi, Chris,

We seem to have identified a bit of a problem with starting articles. To me, it now looks simple enough for new users to jump in, but people who started at CZ with the pre-cluster subpages ('old' method - using the checklist) might be in a bad way. They can no longer find the checklist, and if they try just putting 'subpages' at the top of the Talk page, they get that huge green mess. Paul Wormer said, for example, that he didn't feel like reading pages and pages of help material to be able to figure out what was going on.

When/if you have time, can you look at:

• http://forum.citizendium.org/index.php/topic,1632.0/topicseen.html

which was prompted by:

• http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Talk:Count_Rumford

Thanks!

Aleta Curry 17:15, 17 March 2008 (CDT)

Thanks for your concern

An old dog is finding new tricks hard, that's all. If I have a problem next time I start a new page, I'll get back to you with the specifics, OK? - Ro Thorpe 17:51, 19 March 2008 (CDT)

I understand both, so 'houseplants' is American, then? Ro Thorpe 18:04, 19 March 2008 (CDT)

I guess, or potted plants, when I told my friends here I had pot plants they thought I was growing marijuana. Chris Day (talk) 18:09, 19 March 2008 (CDT)

I *think* "houseplant" has just about taken over, although I wouldn't swear to it. Hayford Peirce 18:11, 19 March 2008 (CDT)

I'm totally confused. Could one of you handle the botany, please? Ro Thorpe 18:17, 19 March 2008 (CDT)

Chris, you're a Brit in America, is that right? Ro Thorpe 18:21, 19 March 2008 (CDT)

Yes. Chris Day (talk) 18:24, 19 March 2008 (CDT)

See the article for the scoop on "houseplant" etc. Hayford Peirce 18:28, 19 March 2008 (CDT)

Will do, Hayford. So where are you exactly, Chris? I've finished my little store, and you have some nice ones, so would you like to put them in, or shall I? Ro Thorpe 18:33, 19 March 2008 (CDT)

Store? Don't Brits say Shop where we 'Merkins say Store? As in, "I'm going down to the S...."? Hayford Peirce 21:04, 19 March 2008 (CDT)

Wisconsin. Make sure you keep those with double meaning together. I'll let you add them in. :) Should be a fun article, as well as helpful. Chris Day (talk) 18:35, 19 March 2008 (CDT)

Messed up article?

I was looking at Category:Incompatible editor status and I noticed Metabolism was listed. I tried to fix it, and got it partially fixed, but i) the article itself contains a duplicate second (old, I gather) approval header template, and ii) the talk: page wasn't moved to /draft. I can't fix either of these, can you? Thanks. J. Noel Chiappa 20:53, 19 March 2008 (CDT)

I fixed the DNA one, there was no approving editor. I also looked at metabolism and I could not figure out what had happned. I'll track down Matt, since he might have some institutional memory. It may just be the absense of the approving editor and oversight at the time of approval. It was one the first approved so the format may reflect that subpages did not exist at the time. Chris Day (talk) 21:41, 19 March 2008 (CDT)

I got the {{subpages}} header to work OK for metabolism by editing the metadata, which I have access to. However, the article page contains: {{approved|editor=Pedro Silva|group=Biology}} (the old approval method) at the head of it (underneath the {{subpages}}), and that's what's producing the second 'approved' header, and I can't fix that because I'm not a sysop (yet :-). We also need to move Talk:Metabolism to Talk:Metabolism/Draft, but I can't do that either because the target already exists (with trivial content) - ditto on sysop comment. J. Noel Chiappa 22:38, 19 March 2008 (CDT)

PS: What's up with all the entries in Category:Incorrect metadata pagename‎? I looked at a lot of them, and most seemed OK. J. Noel Chiappa 21:00, 19 March 2008 (CDT)

Some I have corrected and are still there, it takes a while for them to clear. Some are there as a realised a problem there was a problem I had not encountered before and I changed the test. They will clear from the category soon too.

If i compare the pagename field in the metadata page with {{BASEPAGENAME}}, my original test, it turns out that "Metabolism" vs "metabolism" will be flagged. Of course, as far as the template is concerned, "metabolism" is just as good as "Metabolism" so i didn't want to populate the whole category with such examples. A worse problem is encountered with a pages like "Ampere's rule" which is actually correct in the pagename field but for some reason the test fails. Same with "Hans Küng". So I changed the test to use the pagename value and ask if that page exists. So basically this is an imperfect test. Any page that is moved will leave behind a redirect. So if a metadata page is moved but the pagename is not corrected, my original target for this error check, it will pass fine since the redirect still exists. I'm currently mulling over how to redesign this test. Chris Day (talk) 21:39, 19 March 2008 (CDT)

I seem to vaguely recall something about testing for redirects. I'll try and find it tomorrow. J. Noel Chiappa 22:38, 19 March 2008 (CDT)

Template doc error?

I think the documenation in Template:TOAPPROVE stuff (i.e. after the <noinclude>) is wrong; it says "Editors who want to nominate an article for approval should place this template on the top of the article talk page." which I think is obsolete, yes? (I didn't want to go ahead and fix it myself, saving you the trouble, because I'm not 100% sure how it all works, and didn't want to mess it up.) J. Noel Chiappa 22:56, 19 March 2008 (CDT)

Yes that is obsolete. Thats what happens when you patch together things from previous versions. I thought I had caught most of the stuff. Thanks for keeping an eye out and figuring the Metabolism problem. I plan to write a more thorough documentation once i have tweeked out the bugs. You can see it evolve at Talk:Test article. Chris Day (talk) 22:59, 19 March 2008 (CDT)

Yeah, I've been watching that come together... J. Noel Chiappa 23:57, 19 March 2008 (CDT)

variant

I think the real problem is that the variant variable is not descriptive enough. If the variable was say "English_variant", people would know what it means. Also, if we could tidy up the actual metadata initial page to make it more readable, people might read the instructions. I would suggest putting all of the instructions at the top, leaving a crisp clean variable section. Or do this:

variant <- choose AE, BE or CE for American, British or Canadian English->

Putting the instruction on the actual variable line might help. I just don't quite like the current initial metadata page that pops up, and we can probably make it easier for people to follow. David E. Volk 09:16, 20 March 2008 (CDT)

Good point. That would need a bot to go through and fix, which I can't do. We can make the todo list more descritpive. One thing I have done is change the parameters so that if the English variant is the only thing that needs to be done the ToDo list does not pop up. Chris Day (talk) 09:20, 20 March 2008 (CDT)

chem infobox vs. element infobox

We need to make two infoboxes for chemistry, one is for chemical elements, and the other is for chemical compounds (molecules). The two boxes are not interchangeable, because compounds don't have standard oxidation states, symbols, electron config etc. David E. Volk 15:14, 20 March 2008 (CDT)

I understand. My only point was that you could use that element info box as a starting point for your new one rather than rewriting the code from scratch. Chris Day (talk) 15:16, 20 March 2008 (CDT)

I'm already working from scratch! --Robert W King 15:18, 20 March 2008 (CDT)

Suffix table

To me, a deep mystery as to why 'rancor' & 'theater' are misplaced - but I have faith... Ro Thorpe 16:56, 20 March 2008 (CDT)

This edit fixed it. Chris Day (talk) 21:34, 20 March 2008 (CDT)

one molecule

My text says that the evidence indicates the DNA in a chromosome is a single molecule. No time now to review, will look into it later. Thomas Mandel 08:54, 22 March 2008 (CDT)

Your text must be defining DNA as being double stranded. I would dispute that definition from a chemical perspective although it may well be the working usage in the biology field, but I think it is more slang than accurate. Biologists do distinguish between single stranded and double stranded DNA (ssDNA vs dsDNA) which makes me think it is wrong from a biological perspective too. Regardless, a chromosome has a variable number of molecules. The useful unit for such a statement is chomatid not chromosome. Chris Day (talk) 09:02, 22 March 2008 (CDT)

Editintro lost?

I thought you added {{editintro}} to what got included in the article page? (And probably the talk: page would be good too, for people who stick comments at the top without a header?) However, it isn't showing up at any of the articles I'm working on... J. Noel Chiappa 10:56, 22 March 2008 (CDT)

Should be there, I'll check why it's not showing up. I'll add it to the talk page too. Chris Day (talk) 20:47, 22 March 2008 (CDT)

I forgot to add the {{Not Approved Article}} template to the {{To Approve Info}} template. Juggling too many balls here. Thanks for spotting that. Chris Day 00:56, 23 March 2008 (CDT)

fixed!

Hi Chris, hopefully I am not jumping the gun here, but it seems that the recent work you've been doing on the subpages has fixed our 'missing talk tab' and question mark! Also, it sure is nice to see the information in the metadata page without having to 'edit' it! --D. Matt Innis 16:12, 23 March 2008 (CDT)

I suspect I cannot take credit for fixing the missing tab and question mark. If so, it was fortuitous. Not sure if you have really seen the changes yet. One error catch I put in was with you in mind. Now you can't add an approving editor without also changing the status to 0. Other improvements include not being able to type in an incorrect pagename and, I hope, no scenario where the dreaded green mess appears. Chris Day 17:09, 23 March 2008 (CDT)

Those will be helpful. It is hard to find some of those misnamed meta pages. So far so good with the tabs. I'll keep my fingers crossed. --D. Matt Innis 17:34, 23 March 2008 (CDT)

Status 0 before adding approving editor? Should this value be 1, and only become 0 after the approving editor adds name and the 1 week or whatever time delay is complete? David E. Volk 09:03, 24 March 2008 (CDT)

David, the status value only becomes 0 after the constable moves the editors name from the ToA editor space to the A editor space. It's what turns the template green and changes it from 'ToApprove' to 'Approve'. When you put your name in the ToA editor space, status should remain 1. I do the rest after the 'week' is over and it is approved. --D. Matt Innis 09:31, 24 March 2008 (CDT)

Re the Category:Chemical Engineering Workgroup

Chris, please read my response to your comment on my Talk page. Thanks, Milton Beychok 19:17, 23 March 2008 (CDT)

Note to self: need a subgroup version of Template:Wk gp tbl

[[{{{subgroup}}}|{{{subgroup}}} article]]	[[:Category:{{{subgroup}}} Subgroup|All articles]]	[[:Category:{{{subgroup}}} Subgroup_Draft|Draft]]	[[:Category:{{{subgroup}}} Editors|Editors]]
	Recent changes	Recent changes	[[:Category:{{{subgroup}}} Authors|Authors]]	Mailing list: {{{mlist}}}

in appreciation

Just a note to let you know I appreciate your help and especially how you go about it. I also appreciate being allowed to work on the article and virtually change it all around. These two factors is what makes us so different from Wikipedia. I glanced at their DNA article a couple days ago and can see how there are so many subtle inconsistencies within it. It is obviously written by someone who does not work with DNA. I am beginning to see our article taking shape. My goal is to write it so that one can learn from it. A long time ago I had to learn what the Calculus was about. My professor gave me twenty calculus texts to read. Imagine that! But the one book that enabled me to figure it out was a very small programmed text (which I lost) that started out by asking simple questions that I could answer without having to refer to some other text. If I answered correctly I was asked another question. If I answered incorrectly I was referred to a page which explained the right answer. Calculus is about a series of relationships ending up with an equation that has all the relationships within it. My hope is that we end up with an article that is self instructive. Oh, the reason "translation is the purpose of DNA" sounds so odd is that I made it up. I was thinking in terms of the entire process. That is the purpose (along with replication of course) of DNA is to translate a code into a product. My underlying intent was to include a independant section that will tie together the string of events. Later I want to include recent history too. Again thank you for your patience and help.Thomas Mandel 10:58, 24 March 2008 (CDT)

English spellings

Hi, there, Mr Table Man. I'm making a rather complicated one at the above, which I'll probably make a terrible mess of, so I'd be grateful if you'd keep an eye on it. Thanks - Ro Thorpe 11:46, 24 March 2008 (CDT) - Exactly, many thanks. Ro Thorpe 14:48, 24 March 2008 (CDT)

Thanks for all your help. Now, what were your suggestions for compressing this page? Ro Thorpe 13:33, 29 March 2008 (CDT)

Subpages and articles with / in them

I see you've been adding {{subpages}} to pages which have an "/" in them, like 1/f noise. Needless to say, all sorts of warning headers appear... Are you going to be fixing this, or should we apply the standard kludgy solution (move the article to a name without a "/", and turn the "/" name into a redirect)? J. Noel Chiappa 14:47, 25 March 2008 (CDT)

I didn't do anything as i wanted to see what would happen. The GNU/Linux is the example i gave, I'm not sure i see anyway around moving them to a new name, but what should be used instead of a backslash? The GNU/linux solution is a cop out. Chris Day 14:50, 25 March 2008 (CDT)

Ah. I agree I can't see any other solution than the redirect hack. Well, for cases like GNU/Linux, where there is an elegant plausible solution, let's by all means use it. And for things like 40mm/56 caliber gun and 5"/38 caliber gun we could have 5"-38 caliber gun - yes, it's not absolutely correct (we could have a template like Wikipedia has for eBay, iPod, etc), but it will do, I think. Can you think of any cases where "-" for "/" will produce an absolute ugliness? J. Noel Chiappa 15:39, 25 March 2008 (CDT)

Name in metadata template?

Hi Chris,

Is it possible to change things back so that when creating a new article, the new name pops up automatically in the metadata template thing?

Also, I just used this and found it a bit confusing as to which were instructions and which were actually fields to be entered. I think (if I read it correctly) a couple of fields are separated from the others.

Well, hope it doesn't sound too critical, because I think it's fabulous that you've done this much.

Aleta Curry 20:59, 26 March 2008 (CDT)

I have no problem with criticism. But in this case I'm not sure what you are asking, did the new name ever automatically appear in the metadata template? And if so, something changed when I was gone and I must have unintentionally lost it in one of my recent edits.

With regard to the text feel free to play around with it. I think the template has been locked since it is associated with the sub pages but I'll put a version in my user space that you can edit. If you can make it more comprehensible that would be great. See User:Chris Day/Metadata for a version you can edit. Thanks. Chris Day 21:05, 26 March 2008 (CDT)

I think I just figured out the change I made that you'd like to see back. Check out, and edit, the new version here. Is that what you were looking for? Chris Day 21:22, 26 March 2008 (CDT)

Speaking of subpages I should probably mention that somehow the subpage tabs are now approximately 3 times too tall in height. --Robert W King 14:22, 27 March 2008 (CDT)

Interesting. Any chance of a snap shot? Larry wanted the letter to be bigger and the tabs not to be a fixed size but to fit snmuggly around the letters. Clearly that is not a good fit with IE. Chris Day 14:31, 27 March 2008 (CDT)

Give me like, three minutes. --Robert W King 14:34, 27 March 2008 (CDT)

See!

I see the problem the "nowrap" comamand is not working in the button cells. I'll have to think about this. Can you check the mono? Just to see if its a skin issue rather than a template issue? I'd hate to chase around after somthing that has nothing to do with the templates function. I've already doner that a few times. Thanks for the prompt screen short :) Chris Day 14:43, 27 March 2008 (CDT)

Happens in monobook also. --Robert W King 14:58, 27 March 2008 (CDT)

I just changed a few things but I doubt it will solve the problem. It's certainly due to the nowrap style not working and that is a flaw that is hard to fix with out recoding the template. Thinking back to last night there was a change that occurred in the mediawiki around the time I was changing the buttons. What ever changed means that the collapsible boxes do not work now either, in monobook too. I bet it is the same problem. So, for what ever reason, the mediawiki is not recognising the more sophisticated markup in tables. Any idea what might have changed in the media wiki last night? Another thing that has changed is i don't have any edit buttons at the top of my edit box anymore. Chris Day 15:24, 27 March 2008 (CDT)

I still see two copies of edit buttons. --Robert W King 15:26, 27 March 2008 (CDT)

As always, the problematic little "#". Chris Day 15:35, 27 March 2008 (CDT)

Interesting the collapsable tables and edit buttons are back! Someone must be working in the background. Chris Day 22:15, 27 March 2008 (CDT)

Any idea who, and where? If it's MediaWiki: they are editing, it should show up in Special:Recentchanges, no? J. Noel Chiappa 00:45, 28 March 2008 (CDT)

I looked and could not find anything. I've noticed there are often little upgrades. One that confused me for a long time was the nature of the metadata template. It's properties changed from a template to a subpage with respect to MAGICWORDS. Chris Day 10:23, 28 March 2008 (CDT)

Hmm. Well, we need to figure out who it is, and what they are doing, to make sure it's co-ordinated with other work. J. Noel Chiappa 11:42, 28 March 2008 (CDT)

Almost!

I just realized another long-standing issue that I don't think I ever brought up; Whatever page that you're currently on has a corresponding tab that is highlighted blue, correct? However, when you switch to a talk page, both the "Main Article" and "Talk" tabs are blue! --Robert W King 15:19, 27 March 2008 (CDT)

That was by design to distinguish a subpage talk from a draft talk from an article talk. It's not great but if you're savvey you can use it to your advantage. Chris Day 15:24, 27 March 2008 (CDT)

Oh. --Robert W King 15:26, 27 March 2008 (CDT)

Also, the inventor of the egg mcmuffin died. --Robert W King 15:26, 27 March 2008 (CDT)

dna ready for approval process

Chris, I am going to have to change tracks. There is much more I would like to look at in the DNA article but I need to shift my focus to creating an article on general systems theory. So could you take a final look at it and then submit it for approval? I think the section on translation needs some more detail, and I haven't looked at much below that point. Thomas Mandel 18:20, 27 March 2008 (CDT)

I'll look it over. Good job on what you did. You obviously put in a lot of research. I think it reads a lot better now. Chris Day 22:17, 27 March 2008 (CDT)

CHRIS!!!

Poof!

On the collapsable table, not only is there a gap between the table title and the table itself, but as soon as you click "Show" the subpage "Talk" tab freaking disappears and doesn't come back (at least on IE6)!!!!!! --Robert W King 15:32, 28 March 2008 (CDT)

And it only does it in the new skin. Argh... --Robert W King 15:37, 28 March 2008 (CDT)

Change it back to what works for you. What go you mean by gap? And what could the talk tab have to do with anything, so strange. Does it reappear after you change it back? It cannot be just the collapsable table alone as they are on all talk pages and do not seem to cause a problem for you there. Chris Day 15:38, 28 March 2008 (CDT)

Is there another page with the collapsable table and a subpage header? --Robert W King 15:41, 28 March 2008 (CDT)

I Just tried it on Wristwatch by collapsing the TOC on the front page, and it makes the same thing happen. --Robert W King 15:42, 28 March 2008 (CDT)

Only the talk pages that I know off. And this page worked well for you when I first introduced it, right? There must be a problem with the embedded tables but even then I'm not sure that is the real problem as that format is on the talk pages too. Chris Day 15:44, 28 March 2008 (CDT)

True the TOCs are collapsable too. So collapsing any TOC makes you lose the talk tab? Chris Day 15:46, 28 March 2008 (CDT)

So the talk tab must get hidden behind the body of the template. But why not the little question mark too? They should be coded the same way. Forget that you did lose that too. Chris Day 15:49, 28 March 2008 (CDT)

Chris, the collapsible tables are working fine for me; both the two on the talk: page (unused-subpages/checklis) and the TOC on the main page. I'm using IE 6.0 with security updates. J. Noel Chiappa 16:14, 28 March 2008 (CDT)

Thanks for the info, do you have the same problem as Robert with the text in the subpage tabs wrapping? Chris Day 16:18, 28 March 2008 (CDT)

No, they are working fine. But I wonder if that's a function of the font, window size, etc? I'm using 120% fonts (i.e. standard "large" setting), text size (in IE) "smaller", and the window size looks to be about 800x800 pixels. Oh, I'm using the Monobook skin too. One thing I did notice is that when I expand/collapse the "unused subpage" thingy that the subpages headers all squirm around a bit; it looked to be that the "Main article" tab is a little wider with the unused subpages hidden, and it gets a bit narrower when they show up. No idea if that's anything to do with what Robert's seeing. J. Noel Chiappa 16:58, 28 March 2008 (CDT)

Subcategories in blank metadata

I want ahead and added the subcategories to Template:Blank metadata; hope that's OK, and not premature. J. Noel Chiappa 18:36, 28 March 2008 (CDT)

PS: If they're here to stay, let me know, and I'll update the documentation (e.g. at CZ:Using the Subpages template‎, etc), etc. J. Noel Chiappa 18:49, 28 March 2008 (CDT)

I'm guessing it is here to stay. It will have to happen at some point. So if you don't mind updating the documentation that would be great. By the way, I don't feel any ownership with regard to the subpages template, and you seem to have a lot of great ideas, so don't feel like you can't get stuck in there and change things around. Any improvements would be appreciated. Thinking this wrt your additional suggestion below. Chris Day 22:43, 30 March 2008 (CDT)

Separating page name (identifier) from article title

I've cooked up a fairly simple way (using an optional metadata field, and some small changes to the skins) to allow us to separate page names (identifiers) from article titles (i.e. the large bold name displayed at the top of the page). There's discussion at CZ Talk:Naming Conventions#Royalty and on the forums here. I'd be interested in your opinions... J. Noel Chiappa 22:17, 30 March 2008 (CDT)

Other than go for it! :) Chris Day 22:39, 30 March 2008 (CDT)

Sigh, not everyone is so enthusiastic. :-( J. Noel Chiappa 01:07, 1 April 2008 (CDT)

Maybe they need to see it in action? Chris Day 01:28, 1 April 2008 (CDT)

Nah, I don't think that's it. I think people are just offended somehow by the concept of multiple articles with the same concept. Go read the thread on the forums to get the flavour of the responses.

From my perspective, the thing that's most unfortunate is that name clashes are endemic to human naming systems. However, instead of designing the system to deal with them, we make everyone lie on the Procrustean computer-bed of 'every article shall have a unique title'. Shades of 'you will enter your first name and middle initial'. J. Noel Chiappa 01:37, 1 April 2008 (CDT)

Template for metadata element access

Is there a template to get access to metadata elements? E.g. something like {{GetMDElement|<fieldname>}}, where one passes in the field name one wants, and it evaluates to the value of that element of the metadata? I ask because I was thinking of tackling upgrading {{Authors}} to pick up the editor(s) from the metadata (for approved articles), and it would be a lot easier to write that code if something like GetMDElement existed.

Note, I wouldn't use in in templates that get used a lot (e.g. {{subpages}}) because templates are inefficient. However, one could always code templates with it, and once they were working, do a subst: to replace the call to GetMDElement with the expanded code. J. Noel Chiappa 01:07, 1 April 2008 (CDT)

I have not written a template for that. What i do is call it once with using the {{subpages}} template and then propagate it through all the subsequent templates as a template parameter, i.e. I use:

|A editor={{{{BASEPAGENAME}}/Metadata|info=A editor}}

and in susequent templates I use {{{A editor|}}} to get the value. I'm not sure if that was more efficient or not but my gut feeling was that it would be more efficient. Not to mention, i have to use a trick to call on metadata when on a subsubpage so it slimmed down the {{subpage style}} template by almost 50%, which was also desirable. The subsubpage trick is:

|A editor={{../../Metadata|info=A editor}}

and in susequent templates I can still use {{{A editor|}}}. I'm not sure how "subst:" works, excuse my ignorance, I expect this is something I should know about. Chris Day 01:22, 1 April 2008 (CDT)

Rottweiler

Thanks, Chris! Aleta Curry 04:32, 1 April 2008 (CDT)

A better place to start

Thanks from me, too. Daniel Mietchen 09:30, 1 April 2008 (CDT)

Subpage template colors

Where do you change 'em? --Robert W King 15:47, 1 April 2008 (CDT)

The're coded into the {{subpage list}} template. Chris Day 16:02, 1 April 2008 (CDT)

Fast forward to DNA now

While looking for significance found this. http://www.biologynews.net/archives/2008/01/23/international_consortium_announces_the_1000_genomes_project.htmlThomas Mandel 01:36, 2 April 2008 (CDT)

Articles by Cheris Carpenter

Chris, I have finished the other articles, just to let you know and we don't redo the same work. See the Wiki-converting page/ David E. Volk 09:37, 2 April 2008 (CDT)

Thanks for the heads up. I was going to tack a few more today. On to other things :) Chris Day 10:18, 2 April 2008 (CDT)

DNA article

Before you get all worried, I wouldn't actually rewrite DNA (unless you asked me to, of course :-). J. Noel Chiappa 21:50, 3 April 2008 (CDT)

Reading some of the back-and-forth, it strikes me that one idea that's missing, in terms of analyzing/expressing the relationships between all the various mechanisms y'all keep discovering (codons/genes/etc/etc), is that the whole hierarchy of stuff just grew like topsy, without someone keeping an eye on it to make sure that it stayed organized and in a proper hierarchy.

So unlike in human information system design (well, any system engineered into subsystems, actually), where we take a bunch of low-level thing and group them into a level-1 thing, and then group a bunch of level-1 things into a level-2 thing, etc, and there's some overall structure, some conceptual framework that everything fits into reasonably nicely, with nice clean boundaries, these biological systems basically don't have any of that.

They weren't carefully built from the top down, or the bottom up - they were coded by a bazillion monkeys writing random programs and trying them, and someone kept the programs that did something useful, and gave them to quintillions more monkeys to mix and merge in all sorts of random ways, etc, etc.

So it's not too surprising that although if you think really hard, you can impose a certain amount of structure on the whole blasted mess, it remains - fundamentally - a blasted mess, and any 'rule' you find is going to have 17,283 exceptions.

Sure, there are some exceptions, some places where there is more order, especially at the lower levels, where there just aren't many options. (The 'characters' in the DNA strand are always one of just four possibilities, for instance.) But the further up the abstraction hierarchy you go, the more exceptions you find, because instead of it being designed, somebody just plugged wires together randomly until it worked...

Anyway, maybe I'm full of it, but that's the sense I get! J. Noel Chiappa 01:38, 4 April 2008 (CDT)

Trust me that biologist are quite comfortable working with no absolutes, I guess we are used to it. I can tell you that it drives some students absolutely nuts and they are almost always from an engineering background (biomedical engineering). They can't comprehend a science that can have multiple right answers for a single question. Chris Day 01:50, 4 April 2008 (CDT)

They'd have to be comfortable with it, wouldn't they? Drive them mad (or to another field) if they weren't! :-)

I understand some of this stuff (disorganized growth) because I'm a specialist in very large information systems, and we see all sorts of pseudo-biological behaviours in them over very long life-times (i.e. 10-30 years), so we regularly 'borrow' y'all's terminology to describe what we see - we even have a condition we call 'cancer' (because its uncontrolled local growths). J. Noel Chiappa 19:21, 4 April 2008 (CDT)

Elem Infobox

OK, so...how do I get the periodic table picture here:

Lead 207.2(1) +2 +4   Pb 82 [Xe]6s24f145d106p2 [ ? ] Post-Transition Metal: Properties: corrosion-resistant, dense, ductile, and malleable blue-gray metal Compounds: see here Hazard: toxic

to link to the periodic table of elements?--David Yamakuchi 03:24, 4 April 2008 (CDT)

Looks like you got it to work. Right? Or am I missing something? Chris Day 03:28, 4 April 2008 (CDT)

No. The current link is to the Image.jpg. I thiink it might be handy if we could link to the article Periodic table of elements from the little picture, and use the "element symbol" link Pb to link instead to the catalog of data for the element. What I was trying to do is something like:

|-

|{{#if:{{{PTImage|}}}|[[Periodic table of elements|{{{PTImage}}}]]

but the #if pukes on the pipe in the link...any suggestions?--David Yamakuchi 03:42, 4 April 2008 (CDT)

Thx for fixin the tables in the infobox BTW--David Yamakuchi 03:44, 4 April 2008 (CDT)

Try this: |{{#if:{{{PTImage|}}}|[[Periodic table of elements{{!}}{{{PTImage}}}]] although I'm not sure if you can pipe link this way for an image?

The {{!}} template gives you a functional pipe. As far as the picture is concerned, when I click on it it redirects me to the Periodic Table of Elements, because of your edit here, isn't that what you want? Chris Day 03:52, 4 April 2008 (CDT)

Yeah but it's not the same. It requires a similar link for every other element. An implementation in the template standardizes it so they all look the same (if they have a pic)...--David Yamakuchi 04:58, 4 April 2008 (CDT)

Something like this might work. But I have no experience using that kind of markup. Chris Day 05:06, 4 April 2008 (CDT)

check please!--David Yamakuchi 05:12, 4 April 2008 (CDT)

Check? As in see if it works? Chris Day 05:16, 4 April 2008 (CDT)

Nope, as in, ohmygoshlookwhattimeitisgottagoseeyabye :-) Thanks again for all the help.--David Yamakuchi 05:21, 4 April 2008 (CDT)

Chris how big are those little boxes in pixels? --Robert W King 11:52, 5 April 2008 (CDT)