![]() | This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
2012: January • February • March • April • May • June • July • August • September • October • November • December
2013: January • February • March • April • May • June • July • August • September • October • November • December
2014: January • February • March • April • May • June • July • August • September • October • November • December
2015: January • February • March • May • June • September • October • November
2016: March • April • May • June • July • September • November • December
2017: January • February • April • June • July • August • December
2018: January • February • May • June • July • August • September • October • November • December
2019: January • February • March • May • June • July • August • September • November
2020: January • March • April • July • August • September • October • November • December
Category:Star Trek films is a category for the films, not userboxes. Be careful in selecting and adding categories to the userbox templates so you don't wind up categorizing user pages as films. Imzadi 1979 → 21:38, 3 March 2012 (UTC)
|usercategory=
as a parameter to hold a category for the user pages using the template, but not the template itself. So, add that parameter with the name of the category you propose, and then create the category. There's probably a category "tree" for the "Wikipedians..." categories that's more appropriate than the main Asia category though.
Imzadi 1979
→
20:48, 4 March 2012 (UTC)Some states hyphenate their abbreviations. {{ Jct}} follows that convention, and our articles should be consistent. Tennessee is one of those hyphenated states, so you need to abbreviation highways in that state as US-321, not US 321. Ditto the SRs. Second point, but the first time a highway of a "class" is mentioned in the text (Interstate, US, state, county, etc.) that first name needs to be spelled out in full (Interstate X, US Highway/Route X, etc) with the abbreviation afterwards. We can't assume that our readers know that I-75 is the abbreviated form for Interstate 75. Imzadi 1979 → 01:17, 5 March 2012 (UTC)
Thank you for your suggestion regarding
Don't Censor Me. When you believe an article needs improvement, please feel free to make those changes. Wikipedia is a
wiki, so anyone can edit almost any article by simply following the edit this page link at the top.
The Wikipedia community encourages you to
be bold in updating pages. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes—they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out
how to edit a page, or use the
sandbox to try out your editing skills.
New contributors are always welcome. You don't even need to
log in (although there are
many reasons why you might want to).
Walter Görlitz (
talk)
01:54, 5 March 2012 (UTC)
Are there any templates for displaying a user's military ribbons and medals as worn on his uniform? If not, how can I do it? User:Gadget850 said that he uses the template "Quote box" into which to place his ribbons. Is that good, or is there a better way? Allen ( talk) 11:15, 5 March 2012 (UTC)
Re [1] - please read WP:R2D, which frowns on edits that do nothing but bypass redirects. What's particularly problematic about your edit here is the replacement of the hamlet redirect with an anchored link, which explicitly violates bullet 4 of "Reasons not to change (bypass) redirects include", which reads "Shortcuts or redirects to subsections of articles or Wikipedia's advice pages should never be bypassed, as the section headings on the page may change over time. Updating one redirect is far more efficient than updating dozens of piped links." – T M F 09:17, 6 March 2012 (UTC)
Pick a state. I've picked Michigan because that's where I live. I've also worked on articles for Minnesota and Wisconsin because I'm somewhat familiar with those states. Once you have a state in mind (best to stick to one at first), dive in and edit. Use the resources for that state's task force page, use Google to find additional sources and poke around the nooks and crannies of that state's DOT website. Seek out state library resources that may be online. Ask specific questions on WT:USRD, read WP:USRD/NEW. Get a feel for the structure and standards expected of a good highway article. Yeah, the Interstates and US Highway articles are mostly created already because they tend to be a tad more "visible" and we've been around working on these articles for several years now. There are probably some highway articles for any given state that haven't been created yet.
In any case though, there is always something that can be done to improve an article, even the Featured Articles. Fair warning though, the FAs especially the ones promoted in the last year or two, are probably in good shape. Use those as your model for improving other articles. You don't need to create something from the ground up. Just look for an article that needs some attention!
Try picking the Stub-Class articles in your chosen state, and look through them to see what they need. Does the article have the "Big Three", or is everything smushed together into the lead section? (The Big Three are the Route description, History and the junction/exit list.) Is the RD section an appropriate length for the length of the highway and its environment? If it isn't, fire up Google Maps and grab a paper copy of that state DOT's map and start writing. Does the article have photos? If not, use http://images.google.com to find some freely licensed photos. You can even search on Flickr or Panoramio, etc, and politely ask photographers for permission to use a photo. (Ask me for some tips before you do that though, ok?) If you're pretty good with a camera, and I don't mean you have to be Ansel Adams reincarnate, go take some photos of the highway in nice weather. If it's an area that gets snow, now is a perfect time to get some winter photos, which we lack.
Does that stub have a history section? If it doesn't, consider starting one! These are best sources to old newspaper articles or old maps. Try searching through the archives on http://news.google.com . I've found Associated Press wire stories repeated in small-town newspapers in the archives. Who'd have thought that the Ludington Daily News or the The Argus Press out of Owosso, Michigan, would have information I could use about the freeways in Grand Rapids? When using old maps, you can cite a map showing the highway before a change an the map showing the highway after the change. It's fair to assume that the change was made between those two editions of the map. For example, for U.S. Route 131, the opening of some sections of freeway have two footnotes to maps for the before and after conditions of the highway. In a pinch, and best to be avoided, you can use different websites put together by members of the roadgeek community as sources. Please note though that these websites may not be accepted as sources in Good Articles, and they wil' not be allowed in Featured Articles. However, they can be used as a starting point to narrow down the timeline of events for citation with other sources
Lastly, does the article have a section with a junction list or an exit list? Once you get the hang of using the templates (and yes, please, use them instead of raw table code) this can be the easiest section to add to an article. In short, this should be a table listing all of the junctions with other state highways along the entire length of the road. Note though that U.S. Route 41 has a bulleted list instead of a table; U.S. Route 41 in Michigan does have the detailed table. If you're working on a freeway, build the table with the exit column(s). Exit lists contain every exit, while junction lists concentrate on the junctions with other state highways. A hybrid list, like on M-55 (Michigan highway) or U.S. Route 131, will have every exit along the freeway segments but select junctions on the surface highway segments, all in the same table. It does work best if the DOT has inventory logs with the mileposts or maps to calculate the MPs along the highway for the table, but you can use Google or Yahoo Maps to get those numbers as well.
Now, if an article has those three sections, it can be rated as either C- or B-Class by the project. The difference between the two will be how complete the sections are, how good the footnoting and citations are, and how good the writing is. Some articles will need additional sections on tolling or services; some will need future sections to account for upcoming confirmed changes. As long as those potential requirements are met and the article is otherwise B-Class, you can nominate it for review as a potential Good Article at WP:GAN, which will probably be your first opportunity to get specific feedback. Look through the GAs and FAs for your chosen state or neighboring state to see what the articles have; the more recent the review date on the talk page, the more accurate your results. Standards and expectations have increased gradually over the last few years.
Unfortunately, no automated scripts will write a Good Article for you. The scripts are great for simplistic, monotonous tasks like fixing dashes, but they're no substitute for hard work. And if you find that information is missing from an article, get a good source to back it, and just add it to the article. If someone reverts your addition, ask them why. If they refine it, see what they did to improve upon your addition. Maybe you didn't have conversions (we pretty much require that metric conversions appear in articles for our American measurements; in fact, we plan on updating the junction list templates to automatically generate a km column for the mileages later this year). Maybe you forgot to spell out the the full designation for first Interstate Highway mentioned in the text. (Foreign readers shouldn't be expected to know that "I-75" is short for "Interstate 75".) Either way, just dive in, edit and enjoy. Yes, it's hard work, but that's why seeing that green plus sign or that bronze star added to your work is so rewarding! Imzadi 1979 → 22:57, 6 March 2012 (UTC)
Automated scripts are tools. Scripts can save us a lot of time; but scripts are not perfect. They are not human and cannot anticipate every possible scenario that may occur. (Trust me; I'm a programmer). Don't blindly apply scripts to articles; they're not always right. A lot of the complaints seem to be coming from your not checking the results of the script to make sure they are right; scripts making mistakes can make things even worse. Please, don't just trust the script; make sure it's doing what you want it to do. -- Rs chen 7754 06:11, 8 March 2012 (UTC)
![]() | This help request has been answered. If you need more help, you can , contact the responding user(s) directly on their user talk page, or consider visiting the Teahouse. |
Can someone upload a free image of the Operational Distinguishing Device (that goes on the Coast Guard's Meritorious Unit Commendation ribbon? I don't have one, but I would like to see it here. Thanks! Allen ( talk) 11:17, 7 March 2012 (UTC)
Regarding your recent addition of hatnotes to Falling Forward and BASIX: Please do not add hatnotes that point only to redlinks (nonexistent articles). Hatnotes are used for the purposes of navigation; if there is no place to navigate to, they are useless clutter. The correct solution is to create the article, then add a hatnote as needed. Regards,-- ShelfSkewed Talk 05:32, 9 March 2012 (UTC)
I ran into your query about spaces, and I figured I'd reply that the rule you learned was for typewriters. Historically, there are different width spaces that typesetters used on printing presses, just are there are different width dashes. The original typewriters are all monospaced, so to emulate the additional space that appeared between sentences and the like, you had to type a second space, among other typewriter conventions. Computers on the other hand are smarter and apply the right width spaces as needed. In HMTL, into which the wikicode we use to create pages is converted, web browsers normally only display a single space at a time, unless you're using non-breaking spaces. Feel free to unlearn that practice though. Double spaces around here are just meaningless. Imzadi 1979 → 07:10, 9 March 2012 (UTC)
I don't know who's trying to block your edits, but I'm certainly not the one doing it. ---- DanTD ( talk) 22:29, 8 March 2012 (UTC)
You know, it's really bad form to edit another user's page unless there's a policy violation. I have increased the vandalism count on my user page over that edit of yours. Don't do it again, ok? Imzadi 1979 → 02:05, 15 March 2012 (UTC)
I have an OpenOffice.org Calc spreadsheet. I have been trying to import it to Wikipedia, while keeping as much formatting (font families, font color, etc.) as possible. How do I get that done? I want a virtual copy of it here? Allen ( talk) 01:39, 11 March 2012 (UTC)
I'm not 100% sure what type of infoboxes you're asking about, but my best guess is the infoboxes on players pages. There are not infoboxes for each team. The template {{ Infobox NFL player}} is used for all active players. The 'currentteam' field changes the infobox colors to the team colors. - Niceguyedc Go Huskies! 07:51, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
Regarding [4], the state portals go on the state-detail pages, not the main Interstate page. -- Rs chen 7754 01:53, 18 March 2012 (UTC)
I just uploaded images to use on my article page but not seeing the image when I do google search. Can someone help me? — Preceding unsigned comment added by RahulCohen ( talk • contribs) 02:06, 20 March 2012 (UTC)
My reasons for removing it, which you have undone in a few of the articles, is because Category:Knight Rider is redundant to Category:Knight Rider television series and Category:Knight Rider films. In personal opinion the films and television series categories did not need to be created in the first place. Quasy Boy 17:46, 25 March 2012 (UTC)
Just a heads up, but the Advisor script did some good and some bad. It flagged some links that went dead after the newspaper reorganized their website, which is fine. It also changed the access dates on several citations to today's date in ISO format. Those references already had access dates in "Month DD, YYY" format. I don't know why it did that, but as the script user, you should be watching what changes it's making, and if necessary, not blindly accepting them. Imzadi 1979 → 00:01, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
![]() | This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
2012: January • February • March • April • May • June • July • August • September • October • November • December
2013: January • February • March • April • May • June • July • August • September • October • November • December
2014: January • February • March • April • May • June • July • August • September • October • November • December
2015: January • February • March • May • June • September • October • November
2016: March • April • May • June • July • September • November • December
2017: January • February • April • June • July • August • December
2018: January • February • May • June • July • August • September • October • November • December
2019: January • February • March • May • June • July • August • September • November
2020: January • March • April • July • August • September • October • November • December
Category:Star Trek films is a category for the films, not userboxes. Be careful in selecting and adding categories to the userbox templates so you don't wind up categorizing user pages as films. Imzadi 1979 → 21:38, 3 March 2012 (UTC)
|usercategory=
as a parameter to hold a category for the user pages using the template, but not the template itself. So, add that parameter with the name of the category you propose, and then create the category. There's probably a category "tree" for the "Wikipedians..." categories that's more appropriate than the main Asia category though.
Imzadi 1979
→
20:48, 4 March 2012 (UTC)Some states hyphenate their abbreviations. {{ Jct}} follows that convention, and our articles should be consistent. Tennessee is one of those hyphenated states, so you need to abbreviation highways in that state as US-321, not US 321. Ditto the SRs. Second point, but the first time a highway of a "class" is mentioned in the text (Interstate, US, state, county, etc.) that first name needs to be spelled out in full (Interstate X, US Highway/Route X, etc) with the abbreviation afterwards. We can't assume that our readers know that I-75 is the abbreviated form for Interstate 75. Imzadi 1979 → 01:17, 5 March 2012 (UTC)
Thank you for your suggestion regarding
Don't Censor Me. When you believe an article needs improvement, please feel free to make those changes. Wikipedia is a
wiki, so anyone can edit almost any article by simply following the edit this page link at the top.
The Wikipedia community encourages you to
be bold in updating pages. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes—they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out
how to edit a page, or use the
sandbox to try out your editing skills.
New contributors are always welcome. You don't even need to
log in (although there are
many reasons why you might want to).
Walter Görlitz (
talk)
01:54, 5 March 2012 (UTC)
Are there any templates for displaying a user's military ribbons and medals as worn on his uniform? If not, how can I do it? User:Gadget850 said that he uses the template "Quote box" into which to place his ribbons. Is that good, or is there a better way? Allen ( talk) 11:15, 5 March 2012 (UTC)
Re [1] - please read WP:R2D, which frowns on edits that do nothing but bypass redirects. What's particularly problematic about your edit here is the replacement of the hamlet redirect with an anchored link, which explicitly violates bullet 4 of "Reasons not to change (bypass) redirects include", which reads "Shortcuts or redirects to subsections of articles or Wikipedia's advice pages should never be bypassed, as the section headings on the page may change over time. Updating one redirect is far more efficient than updating dozens of piped links." – T M F 09:17, 6 March 2012 (UTC)
Pick a state. I've picked Michigan because that's where I live. I've also worked on articles for Minnesota and Wisconsin because I'm somewhat familiar with those states. Once you have a state in mind (best to stick to one at first), dive in and edit. Use the resources for that state's task force page, use Google to find additional sources and poke around the nooks and crannies of that state's DOT website. Seek out state library resources that may be online. Ask specific questions on WT:USRD, read WP:USRD/NEW. Get a feel for the structure and standards expected of a good highway article. Yeah, the Interstates and US Highway articles are mostly created already because they tend to be a tad more "visible" and we've been around working on these articles for several years now. There are probably some highway articles for any given state that haven't been created yet.
In any case though, there is always something that can be done to improve an article, even the Featured Articles. Fair warning though, the FAs especially the ones promoted in the last year or two, are probably in good shape. Use those as your model for improving other articles. You don't need to create something from the ground up. Just look for an article that needs some attention!
Try picking the Stub-Class articles in your chosen state, and look through them to see what they need. Does the article have the "Big Three", or is everything smushed together into the lead section? (The Big Three are the Route description, History and the junction/exit list.) Is the RD section an appropriate length for the length of the highway and its environment? If it isn't, fire up Google Maps and grab a paper copy of that state DOT's map and start writing. Does the article have photos? If not, use http://images.google.com to find some freely licensed photos. You can even search on Flickr or Panoramio, etc, and politely ask photographers for permission to use a photo. (Ask me for some tips before you do that though, ok?) If you're pretty good with a camera, and I don't mean you have to be Ansel Adams reincarnate, go take some photos of the highway in nice weather. If it's an area that gets snow, now is a perfect time to get some winter photos, which we lack.
Does that stub have a history section? If it doesn't, consider starting one! These are best sources to old newspaper articles or old maps. Try searching through the archives on http://news.google.com . I've found Associated Press wire stories repeated in small-town newspapers in the archives. Who'd have thought that the Ludington Daily News or the The Argus Press out of Owosso, Michigan, would have information I could use about the freeways in Grand Rapids? When using old maps, you can cite a map showing the highway before a change an the map showing the highway after the change. It's fair to assume that the change was made between those two editions of the map. For example, for U.S. Route 131, the opening of some sections of freeway have two footnotes to maps for the before and after conditions of the highway. In a pinch, and best to be avoided, you can use different websites put together by members of the roadgeek community as sources. Please note though that these websites may not be accepted as sources in Good Articles, and they wil' not be allowed in Featured Articles. However, they can be used as a starting point to narrow down the timeline of events for citation with other sources
Lastly, does the article have a section with a junction list or an exit list? Once you get the hang of using the templates (and yes, please, use them instead of raw table code) this can be the easiest section to add to an article. In short, this should be a table listing all of the junctions with other state highways along the entire length of the road. Note though that U.S. Route 41 has a bulleted list instead of a table; U.S. Route 41 in Michigan does have the detailed table. If you're working on a freeway, build the table with the exit column(s). Exit lists contain every exit, while junction lists concentrate on the junctions with other state highways. A hybrid list, like on M-55 (Michigan highway) or U.S. Route 131, will have every exit along the freeway segments but select junctions on the surface highway segments, all in the same table. It does work best if the DOT has inventory logs with the mileposts or maps to calculate the MPs along the highway for the table, but you can use Google or Yahoo Maps to get those numbers as well.
Now, if an article has those three sections, it can be rated as either C- or B-Class by the project. The difference between the two will be how complete the sections are, how good the footnoting and citations are, and how good the writing is. Some articles will need additional sections on tolling or services; some will need future sections to account for upcoming confirmed changes. As long as those potential requirements are met and the article is otherwise B-Class, you can nominate it for review as a potential Good Article at WP:GAN, which will probably be your first opportunity to get specific feedback. Look through the GAs and FAs for your chosen state or neighboring state to see what the articles have; the more recent the review date on the talk page, the more accurate your results. Standards and expectations have increased gradually over the last few years.
Unfortunately, no automated scripts will write a Good Article for you. The scripts are great for simplistic, monotonous tasks like fixing dashes, but they're no substitute for hard work. And if you find that information is missing from an article, get a good source to back it, and just add it to the article. If someone reverts your addition, ask them why. If they refine it, see what they did to improve upon your addition. Maybe you didn't have conversions (we pretty much require that metric conversions appear in articles for our American measurements; in fact, we plan on updating the junction list templates to automatically generate a km column for the mileages later this year). Maybe you forgot to spell out the the full designation for first Interstate Highway mentioned in the text. (Foreign readers shouldn't be expected to know that "I-75" is short for "Interstate 75".) Either way, just dive in, edit and enjoy. Yes, it's hard work, but that's why seeing that green plus sign or that bronze star added to your work is so rewarding! Imzadi 1979 → 22:57, 6 March 2012 (UTC)
Automated scripts are tools. Scripts can save us a lot of time; but scripts are not perfect. They are not human and cannot anticipate every possible scenario that may occur. (Trust me; I'm a programmer). Don't blindly apply scripts to articles; they're not always right. A lot of the complaints seem to be coming from your not checking the results of the script to make sure they are right; scripts making mistakes can make things even worse. Please, don't just trust the script; make sure it's doing what you want it to do. -- Rs chen 7754 06:11, 8 March 2012 (UTC)
![]() | This help request has been answered. If you need more help, you can , contact the responding user(s) directly on their user talk page, or consider visiting the Teahouse. |
Can someone upload a free image of the Operational Distinguishing Device (that goes on the Coast Guard's Meritorious Unit Commendation ribbon? I don't have one, but I would like to see it here. Thanks! Allen ( talk) 11:17, 7 March 2012 (UTC)
Regarding your recent addition of hatnotes to Falling Forward and BASIX: Please do not add hatnotes that point only to redlinks (nonexistent articles). Hatnotes are used for the purposes of navigation; if there is no place to navigate to, they are useless clutter. The correct solution is to create the article, then add a hatnote as needed. Regards,-- ShelfSkewed Talk 05:32, 9 March 2012 (UTC)
I ran into your query about spaces, and I figured I'd reply that the rule you learned was for typewriters. Historically, there are different width spaces that typesetters used on printing presses, just are there are different width dashes. The original typewriters are all monospaced, so to emulate the additional space that appeared between sentences and the like, you had to type a second space, among other typewriter conventions. Computers on the other hand are smarter and apply the right width spaces as needed. In HMTL, into which the wikicode we use to create pages is converted, web browsers normally only display a single space at a time, unless you're using non-breaking spaces. Feel free to unlearn that practice though. Double spaces around here are just meaningless. Imzadi 1979 → 07:10, 9 March 2012 (UTC)
I don't know who's trying to block your edits, but I'm certainly not the one doing it. ---- DanTD ( talk) 22:29, 8 March 2012 (UTC)
You know, it's really bad form to edit another user's page unless there's a policy violation. I have increased the vandalism count on my user page over that edit of yours. Don't do it again, ok? Imzadi 1979 → 02:05, 15 March 2012 (UTC)
I have an OpenOffice.org Calc spreadsheet. I have been trying to import it to Wikipedia, while keeping as much formatting (font families, font color, etc.) as possible. How do I get that done? I want a virtual copy of it here? Allen ( talk) 01:39, 11 March 2012 (UTC)
I'm not 100% sure what type of infoboxes you're asking about, but my best guess is the infoboxes on players pages. There are not infoboxes for each team. The template {{ Infobox NFL player}} is used for all active players. The 'currentteam' field changes the infobox colors to the team colors. - Niceguyedc Go Huskies! 07:51, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
Regarding [4], the state portals go on the state-detail pages, not the main Interstate page. -- Rs chen 7754 01:53, 18 March 2012 (UTC)
I just uploaded images to use on my article page but not seeing the image when I do google search. Can someone help me? — Preceding unsigned comment added by RahulCohen ( talk • contribs) 02:06, 20 March 2012 (UTC)
My reasons for removing it, which you have undone in a few of the articles, is because Category:Knight Rider is redundant to Category:Knight Rider television series and Category:Knight Rider films. In personal opinion the films and television series categories did not need to be created in the first place. Quasy Boy 17:46, 25 March 2012 (UTC)
Just a heads up, but the Advisor script did some good and some bad. It flagged some links that went dead after the newspaper reorganized their website, which is fine. It also changed the access dates on several citations to today's date in ISO format. Those references already had access dates in "Month DD, YYY" format. I don't know why it did that, but as the script user, you should be watching what changes it's making, and if necessary, not blindly accepting them. Imzadi 1979 → 00:01, 26 March 2012 (UTC)