User talk:Russell D. Jones

See Also User talk:Russell D. Jones/Archive 1

Welcome!
Welcome to the Citizendium! We hope you will contribute boldly and well. You'll probably want to know how to get started as an author. Just look at CZ:Getting Started for other helpful "startup" links, and CZ:Home for the top menu of community pages. Be sure to stay abreast of events via the Citizendium-L (broadcast) mailing list (do join!) and the blog. Please also join the workgroup mailing list(s) that concern your particular interests. You can test out editing in the sandbox if you'd like. If you need help to get going, the forums is one option. That's also where we discuss policy and proposals. You can ask any constable for help, too. Me, for instance! Just put a note on their "talk" page. Again, welcome and have fun! Dan Nachbar 14:07, 17 November 2007 (CST)

Welcome and thanks
I'm just spending some time this morning thanking the newer/returned people who did weekend wiki work. So, thanks, nice to have you here! --Larry Sanger 08:17, 19 November 2007 (CST)

Welcome Back!
Welcome back! two items: We'd love to have your students write CZ articles. Richard Jensen 16:18, 18 February 2008 (CST)
 * 1) can we make you an editor? CZ policy requires three editors approve history articles and the others have vanished on us so we need your help.
 * 2) how can we link CZ with the EMU History Wiki ?? have you seen our Eduzendium project? see http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/CZ:Citizendium_Press_Releases/Jan242008
 * My fear is that I'd be just another absentee editor. I'm not here enough to be doing an editor's job.  How dire is the situation?  Are you the only historian/editor? Russell D. Jones 20:55, 18 February 2008 (CST)
 * in practice, yes...alas. (N=15 nominally) dire.  But the excitement is to get students to work.  I'm retired but next week will be talking to a VPAA about my teaching a historiography course in which the kids write CZ articles. Richard Jensen 23:00, 18 February 2008 (CST)
 * I don't mean to eavesdrop exactly, but Richard, the latter is great news! I hope you can swing it. --Larry Sanger 23:06, 18 February 2008 (CST)
 * Sure, I'll apply.
 * Hey great! we'll try not to seize your weekends and summer vacations. :) Richard Jensen 20:31, 19 February 2008 (CST)
 * Yes, great, nice to have you on board, Russell! --Larry Sanger 22:00, 19 February 2008 (CST)

--Larry Sanger 21:45, 19 February 2008 (CST)

You made my day
I needed a good chuckle! Thanks for that! Lord knows I've been there and got the T-shirt! D. Matt Innis 00:29, 30 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Happy to please. :) BTW, I had sauteed snowpeas with julianned onion and pepper and two varieties of broccoli over pasta.  I feel much better now.  --Russell D. Jones 01:04, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Approval nomination for Grand Trunk Railway
Russell, I responded at Talk:Grand Trunk Railway to your request that I look at the subject article. Regards, Milton Beychok 22:17, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Kamehameha I
In my opinion, Kamehameha I is as close to being "complete" as it can be. I think I have covered all major aspects of his life. I am asking you four; Joe Quick (as approvals manager), Roger Lohmann (as a history and politics editor), Russell Jones (as a history editor), and Howard Berkowitz (as a military editor), to look over the article and suggest any changes you think neccessary. Between the five of us, I don't see why we can't get this article improved. Thanks for your time. Drew R. Smith 09:50, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

new editor
We have a new editor in the history, journalism, and media workgroups. He seems like just the right person to oversee the approval of moving panorama, which was written primarily by another history editor named Russell quite a while ago and seems very good to me. Since he's brand new, I thought maybe you could offer to be a sort of mentor for his first approval. You could also be a co-approver. I haven't said anything to him yet. --Joe Quick 13:27, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Articles on books...
I'd like to write an article on a book I recently read, The Age of Ra by James Lovegrove, and I wanted to take the time to ask a couple people about the mechanics of articles about books.


 * 1) Are plot summaries ok?
 * 2) Are lists of Characters ok, main characters or otherwise?
 * 3) Is it ok to take a picture of the front cover to use as a picture for the article?
 * 4) Is it ok to include an average retail price?

and finally

If included, should any of these things be put on a subpage?

Thanks Russell - Drew R. Smith 05:10, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Is there a Technology subgroup??
Russell, I noted your mention of a Technology subgroup on Howard's Talk page. Is there such a subgroup? What workgroup(s) is/are it affiliated with? Is there a list somewhere of all the subgroups? Milton Beychok 18:15, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

I was proposing to Howard a CZ:History of Technology Subgroup. There is not one to my knowledge, but there should be one. Interested? Russell D. Jones 18:21, 21 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Perhaps. I'll think about it. Milton Beychok 19:07, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Image Transparency Problem


Here's the problem: there is a bunch of white space around the image. How do I make the white space go away? In other words, how do I make the image transparent to the background?

Related: how do I make TOC's transparent as well?

To see my problem, look at this page.

Thanks, all. Russell D. Jones 18:46, 22 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Its a problem with the thumbnail. If you had used a non thumb image the whitespace wouldn't be there.





I'm still investigating how to thumbnail it without the whitespace. Be back soon. Drew R. Smith 03:28, 23 August 2009 (UTC)


 * From our friends at "The Other Place" (personally I hate using that phrase) I found that it is a mediawiki wide problem that mediawiki doesn't seem concerned about. There may be obscure tricks to get rid of it, but I can't find any. Drew R. Smith 03:45, 23 August 2009 (UTC)


 * But removing the frame or thumb also removes the caption! Russell D. Jones 13:32, 23 August 2009 (UTC)


 * I have a simple, though probably not a very desirable solution. See above. I still haven't figured out how to remove the whitespace around a thumb. As I said before, it is a mediawiki problem, and they don't seem very concerned about it. I haven't even found any backdoor's or tricks to do it, which I'm usually pretty good at finding. I'll keep looking though. Drew R. Smith 09:19, 24 August 2009 (UTC)



Aha! You can box the whole thing (picture and caption) for the same effect as a thumbnail minus whitespace. Still not as easy as a normal thumbnail, but it works. Drew R. Smith 09:22, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

"Related: how do I make TOC's transparent as well?" - Not sure what you mean. If you mean non-existant its pretty simple. If you mean see through I haven't the foggiest, but could probably find out. Drew R. Smith 09:24, 24 August 2009 (UTC)
 * ==>Drew, like an image, a TOC is place in a box with a white background that is opaque to the background. 12:42, 8 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks, Drew. I've posted the question at MediaWiki help too, but they weren't as speedy or as helpful as you.  Thanks.  Russell D. Jones 11:39, 24 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Drew, check out this CSS solution. Russell D. Jones 13:19, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Okay. Drew, you put me on a path to a work-around. Here:

 A picture of the Earth and Moon from space. NASA photograph. Attempts by humans to travel above Earth's surface had been made for hundreds of years. Evidence of mankind's serious study of flight was discovered in 1898 in an Egyptian tomb in the form of a winged wooden model, dated 200 BC, that reportedly was truly a flyable model, curiously designed without birdlike claws and unlike birds, had a vertical tail. I now have to rewrite the image function as a template to see if that will work, e.g.,

And if you are using the Pinkwich5 skin (I don't which is why I put the yellow background around the above examples) here it is again:

A picture of the Earth and Moon from space. NASA photograph. Attempts by humans to travel above Earth's surface had been made for hundreds of years. Evidence of mankind's serious study of flight was discovered in 1898 in an Egyptian tomb in the form of a winged wooden model, dated 200 BC, that reportedly was truly a flyable model, curiously designed without birdlike claws and unlike birds, had a vertical tail.

I'm not sure how this looks on your browser, but on Opera and Google chrome its simply horrendous. Still, if it works for your other-wiki needs, go right ahead.

Well maybe in Opera. This page looks pretty much the same in Chrome. The first flights page, I had to scale up the page until the images looked right. I have to scale up everything on the web anyway because you young people make everything so small here in cyberspace. But I see what you meant. I also found out that Chrome won't load my site's changes to the monobook skin, so I'm stuck with the crappy WP presentation through chrome. And on pages that have a lot of images, they tend to pile up across the screen and push text around. No, it's not the perfect solution, but it's better than these white holes in the page. But, if I can't get my changes to monobook to take, this is all pointless.

Here's what it looks like in Opera and Chrome

Admittedly, Chrome at least has the text under the pic, but woudn't it be better with a frame? The text below the pic without a frame makes them seem almost, almost, unconected. Drew R. Smith 04:55, 25 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Yes, I know. I'd like a frame too.  But my job queue length right now is enormous.  Russell D. Jones

Pinkwich5 Skin
For anyone who is in the know: How does the Pinkwich5 skin get the gradient backgrounds? I can get the Gray-to-white background to work fine in the outside (header and menu) space. But my gradient for the white-to-gray background in the text space stops halfway down a page. See this example. Any advice? Thanks. Russell D. Jones 15:02, 24 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Hmmmm. Where do I get the Pinkwich skin? I guess if I had that, some of my problems would be solved.


 * Go to "my preferences" at the top of your pages, click on "Skin" and make your selection. Be sure to read the Note at the bottom of the list of skins.


 * Personally, I use IE6 as my browser and the Monobook skin and there is no visible white space around any photos or other images. Milton Beychok 15:17, 24 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Yes, that's because the both the whitespace and the monobook text space are both white. But in the Pinkwich skin, the text space is not white; it is a gradient.

Um, that wasn't my question. Where to I acquire the pinkwich skin so that I can install it on my own mediawiki site? That's my question (I think). A google search gives me a lot of discussion about it but no purveyor. Russell D. Jones 15:28, 24 August 2009 (UTC)


 * The example you showed occurs when there's a problem in the .css file for the skin. I wouldn't be able to tell you exactly what the problem is without looking at the file (and maybe not even then), but I would guess that the gradient is set to go to a certain number of pixels, instead of a certain percent of the page. I've looked at other pages, and on the shorter ones the problem doesn't occur, or if it does, it's much closer to the bottom. Drew R. Smith 04:59, 25 August 2009 (UTC)


 * One other thing. I've recenty learned how to do some digital image restoration, so if you (or anyone else) wants an image "tuned-up" give me a shout. I took the liberty of doing a small restoration of the flying machine blueprints, but I could do a much better job with a svg png or tiff image. The most noticable difference is the rotation of the pic isn't off anymore. I also did a little patching up around the edges, where the rotation distorted some of the color. Take a look and tell me what you think. [[Image:Flying Machine.png|right]] Drew R. Smith 05:32, 25 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Okay, I found a better source image for the file and did a minor restoration on that one. [[Image:Flying Machine2.jpg|right]]Drew R. Smith 06:11, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Charter drafting candidacy
Hi Russell,

Thanks for accepting your nomination to be a candidate for election to the drafting committee for the Citizendium charter.

If you'd like, there is a provision in the plan that provides a place for you to compose a position statement. You are not required to do this in order to be a candidate for election to the committee, but it would be helpful to others during the voting period. Even if you don't compose a statement before the election period concludes, should you be elected it might be helpful for other members of the committee to know what you feel are the most important issues to address with the draft. You can find a red link to the page where you can write your statement here, along with instructions for doing so.

If you have any questions, just let me know. --Joe Quick 15:26, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Article approvals sought
Hi - I have done as much as I can with two articles, Scarborough Castle and Great Siege of Scarborough Castle (specifically the versions here and here), and am looking to move these articles into 'approved' status. I made sure to use only authoritative sources (published books, English Heritage castle literature, things like that). Can you have a look and see if you feel that there is anything preventing them being approved? Thanks. John Stephenson 06:25, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

another article to consider for approval
First, thanks for getting Scarborough Castle headed for approval. I announced the nomination on the History Workgroup mailing list with the hope that it will draw a little attention. I don't know how many people are actually signed up for that list, but it has to reach at least someone.

One goal of mine as Approvals Manager is to get at least one article in every workgroup approved, but there are several workgroups that don't have any approved articles yet. Linguistics is one of those. I think our best shot is Noah Webster, since it's also listed in History. It was originally a Wikipedia import, so it might need a little work, but I think we could find someone to give it a little attention if necessary. What do you think? --Joe (Approvals Manager) 04:58, 30 September 2009 (UTC)


 * I've gone over it, cleaned it up a bit, but there are problems. See Talk:Noah Webster.  But I have a larger prejudice in that I'm very reluctant to approve something that has been written someplace else. Russell D. Jones 00:10, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

"Britain, history"- dispute over title
I should appreciate your intervention to resolve the dispute that has developed concerning the title of the article on Britain, history. I fear that the recent alteration will strike readers as absurd. Nick Gardner 22:55, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Thank you Nick Gardner 22:34, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

I hope that it meets with your approval. You've put a lot of effort into the article over the past years or so. Russell D. Jones 23:17, 2 January 2010 (UTC)


 * I am afraid that it hadn't occurred to me that "Britain" can be taken to exclude Northern Ireland. My fellow - English contacts do not interpret it  that way in  colloquial conversation, but it seems that Ulstermen do - and, on reflection, I have to admit that strictly speaking they are right.  (I believe that the derivation of "Britain" goes back to the Romans - who did not invade Ireland). Anyway, I am sure that you have made the right choice, and I should welcome any other criticisms of the article that you have time to make.Nick Gardner 11:21, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Wot? Wat!
Sending a quick ‘hello’ out to all of you who wanted a weekend write-a-thon. Also, a nudge, push, and a shove to all those who haven’t made it out in a while. This Sunday, 10th January, is your Big Chance. Party theme is ‘stubs’. Now, what could be easier? Write about anything you want! (At least come on over and say ‘hi’—we’ve all been much too quiet lately and I rather miss everybody.) Aleta Curry 21:17, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Is school out for the summer?
Good to see your name poppin up! D. Matt Innis 22:08, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. Russell D. Jones

Labor and other subgroups
There are enough things related to organized labor, as well as the overall working environment, that a Labor Subgroup might be useful. Is "Labor Subgroup" an adequate name? Are working conditions too far afield?

You may have noticed I've been putting up more subgroups, such as CZ: International relations Subgroup. While I'm feeling my way, I think they will be a nice complement to workgroup cores. Some, however, are difficult to characterize: terrorism? revolutionary warfare? counterterrorism? (not all terror is international). Intelligence??

The capitalization wasn't immediately obvious, but since a fair bit of software introduces capitalized Subgroup, I think I'm going to have to change some things to all initial cap. Howard C. Berkowitz 13:14, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

Battleship, Cruiser and Destroyer
You've commented on battleship in the past; the others are at similar stages. Since there are no other active Military editors, and battleship especially has a historical and history of technology role, would you consider looking at these for comment and, when ready, Approval nomination?

There are complementary articles, less well developed, on fast attack craft, ocean escort, aircraft carrier and submarine. --Howard C. Berkowitz 20:23, 24 May 2010 (UTC)