Archive01 Posts through Oct. 30, 2004
Hi NathanHawking, and welcome to Wikipedia.
Thankyou for finding the time to sign up and contribute to our little project. If you're in doubt about anything, you might want to check out some of these pages:
It's also a good idea to sign the new user log and add a little about yourself.
When contributing to a talk page, you can sign your name by typing four tildes after your comments, like this: ~~~~. (Just so you know, some people won't pay attention to unsigned comments).
If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask me at my talk page, or at the Help desk or Village Pump.
Above all, make sure you be bold when contributing, and have fun!
-- T.P.K. 06:54, 26 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Hi; you're quite welcome. I didn't think you removed the interlanguage links intentionally. The spam/vandalism was indeed added by 221.197.20.66—the same spammer/vandal returned today via 221.198.74.212. Since this is an obvious (and shameless) attempt to use Wikipedia to increase the page ranking of the spammer's website (see Wikipedia:Spam), I've put in a request at m:Non-development tasks for developers#Spam regex requests to have the domain shop263.com added to the project-wide spam filter. With any luck, a developer will see the request before too long. Once the domain is on the filter, a page containing the domain cannot be saved (annoyingly, there are ways to get around this, but it usually takes care of the problem).
Anyway, nice work on the rewrite. I hope you like it here and choose to stick around! Cheers, -- Hadal 07:32, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)
neat job :-) | Philip Baird Shearer 08:07, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I would appreciate your leaving the mention in. First Ansel Adams, in his three volume 1980 basic photography series, presented the Zone system this way and he explicitly said, in so many words, that his aim is not to force his own system of photography on anyone, but to encourage photographers to better understand their equipment in order to control the finished photograph. He disapproved of winging it, not of any particular system. The Zone system worked for him. And the Zone system is controversial, believe it or not. I know of at least one vocational school photography teacher (years ago when I lived in Montreal) who told students not to bother with it, and it seems he was not alone.
Also, please wait a few days before doing a major edit job. I liked the article as it used to be and I was sorely tempted to revert most of your changes, but did not. I particularly liked the wording "dynamic range" and miss it, and I'm sorry to say I now personally find the article less approachable to a newcomer.
Dynamic range is very appropriate: for instance (I'm making numbers up here for the sake of argument) if we say reality has a Zone 0 to X range of 1 to 100,000 , then a finished print has a range of 1 to 10,000 , while a typical digital camera will only provide a range of 1 to 1,000 . A move from 100,000 to 10,000 to 1,000 seems pretty dynamic to me...
However, since I'm not going to reread the whole Basic Photography series or even go into a darkroom again (space is at a premium in Tokyo) I'm not willing to put too much effort into maintaining this page. Vincent 05:52, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Hi Nathan,
I was thinking about dynamic range and what it meant- it seems to have a meaning different than range alone. For example; in my mind it is usually associated with logarithmic progressions, maybe not in all cases, but the main ones (luminosity and volume). Like the dynamic part describes the changing quantity of progressive units. The phrase wasn't in any dictionary I have.
Anyway, I'm ok with you phrasing in the zone system article, event though I still like "dynamic range" better :)
And the zone system article is looking very nice with your recent edits, good job. Duk 23:32, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)
You mention this on your todo list. Was wondering what you meant here? dpen2000 01:21, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Regarding Wikification, or most other style questions, feel free to check Wikipedia:Manual of style, specifically the links section. That said, there are a number of ways that the guidelines there could be applied. I tend to favor an "idiot-friendly" approach, in which I link everything that a person has the slightest chance of not knowing, and this is supported by our guidelines; the opposite approach would also be acceptable. In the end, it's a matter of personal taste.
As for British vs. American spelling, the rule is to use appropriate spelling in appropriate articles. For example, in articles on U.S. topics, use American spelling (for example, Chicago has an area of 57 sq. kilometers, vs. London's 57 sq. kilometres). On topics that aren't clearly defined (e.g. pleonasm), go with whatever the original author used. So if somebody comes through and changes your spelling, feel free to revert them.
Hope this helps, and feel free to come to me with any other questions. Best, [[User:Meelar| Meelar (talk)]] 02:23, Oct 16, 2004 (UTC)
Hi there. I saw your questions posted to Meelar and thought I would take the time to answer them since I knew of two articles that related to exactly the questions you were asking.
The generally accepted rule when dealing with the latter issue is to use the style of grammar that is appropriate for that article (i.e. an article about United States Supreme Court cases would use American grammar, while an article about the British House of Commons would use British grammar). With regard to the former question, you'll get a lot of different answers depending on who you ask. Some Wikipedians favor linking most words in an article, some only link ones that pertain directly to that article. Personally, I link words that either have a relation to the article or that I know have a substantive entry that the reader may find useful if they are not familiar with that word/phrase/concept.
The Manual of Style has a lot of great information and helps you avoid stepping on people's toes. I suggest learning a bit by reading and then learn a bit by example and editing. When in doubt, be bold and let it be. If someone doesn't like it or it conflicts with Wikiquette, don't worry about it. You can be sure another user will come along soon enough and change it.
Hope this helped you a bit. Welcome to Wikipedia!
Wikipedia is knowledge. Knowledge is power.
Skyler 02:45, Oct 16, 2004 (UTC)
Dear Nathan, The sentence as I revised it reads:
The key issues are as follows. This strategy is a general strategy to reduce psychopathogy in the children who would otherwise come out of such families. It is not specific to suicide, whereas restricting the means is. That is what the general was about, flagging that this is more general than the other strategies. Those which are not specifically expanded, such as research, are meant to imply research on the topic and thus be specific to suicide. The issue of reducing substance abuse is that it is protective of these children if it is targeted at families and that is why I added that, albeit clumsily. Reducing substance abuse in adults who live alone will also reduce their suicide risk but will not have the long-term, flow on effect that this particular strategy is also meant to produce. The original before your edit read:
Your edit, while simplified, did lead to a reduction of information, my inserts have been a bit clumsy. We have lost the research backing for this but I don’t really mind that since I am not offering a reference. After thinking about this one sentence now for some time I am happy with the following.
How do you feel about that? -- CloudSurfer 06:37, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Sorry, but I'm busy doing other things. Try asking User:Nohat instead. [[User:Poccil| Peter O. ( Talk)]] 23:02, Oct 23, 2004 (UTC)
I originally intended to re-write a part of the article on logorrhoea when I had more time but I had forgotten about it. Thanks for the reminder! I removed the NPOV tag. - Dejitarob 05:09, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I'm not sure that giving up is the right solution. The best option, I think, is to go to the talk page and try to come to a consensus you can both live with. If that's not going to work, you can ask the opinions of others, either informally or in a mediation request. Good luck, and don't give up--as soon as you edit the page, it will show up on watchlists, and the conflict will continue. Best, [[User:Meelar| Meelar (talk)]] 17:32, Oct 26, 2004 (UTC)
I understand you've tried to protect Prolixity. Unfortunately, it won't work because 1) you're not an administrator; and 2) even if you were, you must not protect pages in order to win an editing dispute. I'll remove the {{protected}} notice. [[User:Poccil| Peter O. ( Talk)]] 22:50, Oct 26, 2004 (UTC)
Hey, just read your post at the Help Desk, and thought I could help you on this problem. I had the same darkening problem with Photoshop, where images were getting darker when saved.
To avoid these problems, you can see how the image will really look like by clicking on "View -> Proof Setup -> Monitor RGB". Note that you'll have to do this every time you open any image, since this option isn't saved for later. Hope that helps. Cheers :) — Kieff | Talk 03:11, Oct 27, 2004 (UTC)
External links often have their own section in an article. They rarely occur within an article, except when citing the source of a quote or paper. See Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style#External_links. [[User:Poccil| Peter O. ( Talk)]] 00:49, Oct 28, 2004 (UTC)
I turned the n-dashes into ordinary dash characters but I bet someone turns them back within 48 hours.
I believe the bolding and italics are more or less necessary if the page is to be comprehensible, which is, after all, the point of the thing. Is it possible that someone will mess it up? Yes, but I for one will keep it on my watchlist, and I doubt those errors will last long. -- Jmabel | Talk 01:27, Oct 30, 2004 (UTC)
I personally feel that the use of a dash with no space before it and with space after it is quite wrong here. Literally the only place I have ever seen that in print is either to split a word across a line or to allow something to be suffixed to a word: e.g. "him- or herself". But I really don't care a lot, have at it, change it to what you want; with all due respect, if you don't like my formatting I have more important things to work on. -- Jmabel | Talk 02:01, Oct 30, 2004 (UTC)
A bona fide attempt to change the pronunciation system, and all I get in return is shouting? Remember, assume good faith. This is the second time you've detested my edits. [[User:Poccil| Peter O. ( Talk)]] 07:26, Oct 30, 2004 (UTC)
Nathan, it looks like you need to get past the idea that articles you create are "your" articles. They are not. They are Wikipedia articles that can be edited by any user or visitor to Wikipedia. (See the bold text under the edit box when editing any page: "If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly and redistributed at will, do not submit it.") OTOH, I understand your frustration about your "plans" for articles being disrupted, so to avoid such problems why don't you just create articles that you'll be developing over a period of time as subpages of your user page, as I have for a few articles I'm working on. If it's under your user page, you have an absolute right, as I see it, to revert any unwanted edits. If it's in the main article namespace, however, you really don't have any standing to consider your vision for the article to be the only allowable one. - dcljr 18:35, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Archive01 Posts through Oct. 30, 2004
Hi NathanHawking, and welcome to Wikipedia.
Thankyou for finding the time to sign up and contribute to our little project. If you're in doubt about anything, you might want to check out some of these pages:
It's also a good idea to sign the new user log and add a little about yourself.
When contributing to a talk page, you can sign your name by typing four tildes after your comments, like this: ~~~~. (Just so you know, some people won't pay attention to unsigned comments).
If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask me at my talk page, or at the Help desk or Village Pump.
Above all, make sure you be bold when contributing, and have fun!
-- T.P.K. 06:54, 26 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Hi; you're quite welcome. I didn't think you removed the interlanguage links intentionally. The spam/vandalism was indeed added by 221.197.20.66—the same spammer/vandal returned today via 221.198.74.212. Since this is an obvious (and shameless) attempt to use Wikipedia to increase the page ranking of the spammer's website (see Wikipedia:Spam), I've put in a request at m:Non-development tasks for developers#Spam regex requests to have the domain shop263.com added to the project-wide spam filter. With any luck, a developer will see the request before too long. Once the domain is on the filter, a page containing the domain cannot be saved (annoyingly, there are ways to get around this, but it usually takes care of the problem).
Anyway, nice work on the rewrite. I hope you like it here and choose to stick around! Cheers, -- Hadal 07:32, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)
neat job :-) | Philip Baird Shearer 08:07, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I would appreciate your leaving the mention in. First Ansel Adams, in his three volume 1980 basic photography series, presented the Zone system this way and he explicitly said, in so many words, that his aim is not to force his own system of photography on anyone, but to encourage photographers to better understand their equipment in order to control the finished photograph. He disapproved of winging it, not of any particular system. The Zone system worked for him. And the Zone system is controversial, believe it or not. I know of at least one vocational school photography teacher (years ago when I lived in Montreal) who told students not to bother with it, and it seems he was not alone.
Also, please wait a few days before doing a major edit job. I liked the article as it used to be and I was sorely tempted to revert most of your changes, but did not. I particularly liked the wording "dynamic range" and miss it, and I'm sorry to say I now personally find the article less approachable to a newcomer.
Dynamic range is very appropriate: for instance (I'm making numbers up here for the sake of argument) if we say reality has a Zone 0 to X range of 1 to 100,000 , then a finished print has a range of 1 to 10,000 , while a typical digital camera will only provide a range of 1 to 1,000 . A move from 100,000 to 10,000 to 1,000 seems pretty dynamic to me...
However, since I'm not going to reread the whole Basic Photography series or even go into a darkroom again (space is at a premium in Tokyo) I'm not willing to put too much effort into maintaining this page. Vincent 05:52, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Hi Nathan,
I was thinking about dynamic range and what it meant- it seems to have a meaning different than range alone. For example; in my mind it is usually associated with logarithmic progressions, maybe not in all cases, but the main ones (luminosity and volume). Like the dynamic part describes the changing quantity of progressive units. The phrase wasn't in any dictionary I have.
Anyway, I'm ok with you phrasing in the zone system article, event though I still like "dynamic range" better :)
And the zone system article is looking very nice with your recent edits, good job. Duk 23:32, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)
You mention this on your todo list. Was wondering what you meant here? dpen2000 01:21, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Regarding Wikification, or most other style questions, feel free to check Wikipedia:Manual of style, specifically the links section. That said, there are a number of ways that the guidelines there could be applied. I tend to favor an "idiot-friendly" approach, in which I link everything that a person has the slightest chance of not knowing, and this is supported by our guidelines; the opposite approach would also be acceptable. In the end, it's a matter of personal taste.
As for British vs. American spelling, the rule is to use appropriate spelling in appropriate articles. For example, in articles on U.S. topics, use American spelling (for example, Chicago has an area of 57 sq. kilometers, vs. London's 57 sq. kilometres). On topics that aren't clearly defined (e.g. pleonasm), go with whatever the original author used. So if somebody comes through and changes your spelling, feel free to revert them.
Hope this helps, and feel free to come to me with any other questions. Best, [[User:Meelar| Meelar (talk)]] 02:23, Oct 16, 2004 (UTC)
Hi there. I saw your questions posted to Meelar and thought I would take the time to answer them since I knew of two articles that related to exactly the questions you were asking.
The generally accepted rule when dealing with the latter issue is to use the style of grammar that is appropriate for that article (i.e. an article about United States Supreme Court cases would use American grammar, while an article about the British House of Commons would use British grammar). With regard to the former question, you'll get a lot of different answers depending on who you ask. Some Wikipedians favor linking most words in an article, some only link ones that pertain directly to that article. Personally, I link words that either have a relation to the article or that I know have a substantive entry that the reader may find useful if they are not familiar with that word/phrase/concept.
The Manual of Style has a lot of great information and helps you avoid stepping on people's toes. I suggest learning a bit by reading and then learn a bit by example and editing. When in doubt, be bold and let it be. If someone doesn't like it or it conflicts with Wikiquette, don't worry about it. You can be sure another user will come along soon enough and change it.
Hope this helped you a bit. Welcome to Wikipedia!
Wikipedia is knowledge. Knowledge is power.
Skyler 02:45, Oct 16, 2004 (UTC)
Dear Nathan, The sentence as I revised it reads:
The key issues are as follows. This strategy is a general strategy to reduce psychopathogy in the children who would otherwise come out of such families. It is not specific to suicide, whereas restricting the means is. That is what the general was about, flagging that this is more general than the other strategies. Those which are not specifically expanded, such as research, are meant to imply research on the topic and thus be specific to suicide. The issue of reducing substance abuse is that it is protective of these children if it is targeted at families and that is why I added that, albeit clumsily. Reducing substance abuse in adults who live alone will also reduce their suicide risk but will not have the long-term, flow on effect that this particular strategy is also meant to produce. The original before your edit read:
Your edit, while simplified, did lead to a reduction of information, my inserts have been a bit clumsy. We have lost the research backing for this but I don’t really mind that since I am not offering a reference. After thinking about this one sentence now for some time I am happy with the following.
How do you feel about that? -- CloudSurfer 06:37, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Sorry, but I'm busy doing other things. Try asking User:Nohat instead. [[User:Poccil| Peter O. ( Talk)]] 23:02, Oct 23, 2004 (UTC)
I originally intended to re-write a part of the article on logorrhoea when I had more time but I had forgotten about it. Thanks for the reminder! I removed the NPOV tag. - Dejitarob 05:09, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I'm not sure that giving up is the right solution. The best option, I think, is to go to the talk page and try to come to a consensus you can both live with. If that's not going to work, you can ask the opinions of others, either informally or in a mediation request. Good luck, and don't give up--as soon as you edit the page, it will show up on watchlists, and the conflict will continue. Best, [[User:Meelar| Meelar (talk)]] 17:32, Oct 26, 2004 (UTC)
I understand you've tried to protect Prolixity. Unfortunately, it won't work because 1) you're not an administrator; and 2) even if you were, you must not protect pages in order to win an editing dispute. I'll remove the {{protected}} notice. [[User:Poccil| Peter O. ( Talk)]] 22:50, Oct 26, 2004 (UTC)
Hey, just read your post at the Help Desk, and thought I could help you on this problem. I had the same darkening problem with Photoshop, where images were getting darker when saved.
To avoid these problems, you can see how the image will really look like by clicking on "View -> Proof Setup -> Monitor RGB". Note that you'll have to do this every time you open any image, since this option isn't saved for later. Hope that helps. Cheers :) — Kieff | Talk 03:11, Oct 27, 2004 (UTC)
External links often have their own section in an article. They rarely occur within an article, except when citing the source of a quote or paper. See Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style#External_links. [[User:Poccil| Peter O. ( Talk)]] 00:49, Oct 28, 2004 (UTC)
I turned the n-dashes into ordinary dash characters but I bet someone turns them back within 48 hours.
I believe the bolding and italics are more or less necessary if the page is to be comprehensible, which is, after all, the point of the thing. Is it possible that someone will mess it up? Yes, but I for one will keep it on my watchlist, and I doubt those errors will last long. -- Jmabel | Talk 01:27, Oct 30, 2004 (UTC)
I personally feel that the use of a dash with no space before it and with space after it is quite wrong here. Literally the only place I have ever seen that in print is either to split a word across a line or to allow something to be suffixed to a word: e.g. "him- or herself". But I really don't care a lot, have at it, change it to what you want; with all due respect, if you don't like my formatting I have more important things to work on. -- Jmabel | Talk 02:01, Oct 30, 2004 (UTC)
A bona fide attempt to change the pronunciation system, and all I get in return is shouting? Remember, assume good faith. This is the second time you've detested my edits. [[User:Poccil| Peter O. ( Talk)]] 07:26, Oct 30, 2004 (UTC)
Nathan, it looks like you need to get past the idea that articles you create are "your" articles. They are not. They are Wikipedia articles that can be edited by any user or visitor to Wikipedia. (See the bold text under the edit box when editing any page: "If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly and redistributed at will, do not submit it.") OTOH, I understand your frustration about your "plans" for articles being disrupted, so to avoid such problems why don't you just create articles that you'll be developing over a period of time as subpages of your user page, as I have for a few articles I'm working on. If it's under your user page, you have an absolute right, as I see it, to revert any unwanted edits. If it's in the main article namespace, however, you really don't have any standing to consider your vision for the article to be the only allowable one. - dcljr 18:35, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)