User talk:Caesar Schinas/Archive 3

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Caesar Schinas
Current Talk Page
Archives	1, 2, 3

Moved everything except conversations edited today to /Archive 2. 09:14, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Bot guidance

Hi Caesar,

I like [(Robot: Automated text replacement (-{{[Cc]reditline\|([^|]*)\|([^|]*)\| ?Paul Wormer ?}} +{{creditline|\1|\2}})) this sort of edit summary] and wish to encourage you to make this a habit. I am interested in learning to run bot scripts too (mainly for maintaining reference formatting) and would appreciate your guidance. Could you post one of your recent scripts somewhere, so that I can ask questions and comment? Thanks!

Daniel

The scripts I use are all (so far) from the pywikipediabot library, normally either replace.py or template.py.

The command I used with the regex above was simply

python replace.py -pt:2 -start:Template:! -regex "{{[Cc]reditline\|([^|]*)\|([^|]*)\| ?Paul Wormer ?}}" "{{creditline|\1|\2}}" -summary:"Remove Paul's name as requested"

I too like the sort of edit summary you mention, which is the default edit summary for replace.py - but I usually change it to something like - in that example - "removing name from credit per author request" or some such, because I think most Citizens will understand that better. Perhaps I should still include the regex at the end somewhere. Or perhaps I'll create a page in my userspace which lists all the command I use; what do you think of that idea?

Caesar Schinas 06:38, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Daniel, see User:Caesar_Schinas/bot-recent. Caesar Schinas 07:58, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Cool, thanks! --Daniel Mietchen 14:20, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Upload menu

I looked at your upload menu. I don't want to pretend to know about GUI's, yet I like to remark that—just like the old menu—the menu deviates much from what one is used to elsewhere on the internet. More familiar would be four tabs (copyright owner, not copyright owner, advanced, help) with drop-down menus that give the choices. Do the colors of the big squares in the menu, as it is now, have any meaning, or is it just a matter of aesthetics? --Paul Wormer 08:52, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

It's very difficult (or even impossible) to create any form of interactive interface like that on MediaWiki.

The only way I can see to further simplify this would be to have the first page ask just one simple question - "Do you own the copyright? (y/n)", and then have further questions after clicking yes or no. And so on. But this level of "simplification" would introduce a lot of extra steps, which I think would make the wizard less usable.

The colours do have a meaning; they refer loosely to the amount of freedom - green = high free, yellow = low free, red = not free. This colour scheme is already used at later stages in the process; I just brought it forward because I think that it is clearer if the buttons aren't all the same colour.

But it may be that this use of these colours will only serve to complicate matters... what do you think?

Caesar Schinas 08:59, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

what one is used to elsewhere on the internet — can you give me an example (other than Wikimedia)? I would be interested to see an existing upload wizard. Caesar Schinas 09:00, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

See also User:Caesar Schinas/Upload2 for a wizard with a highly-simplified first step... next steps not completed yet.

I revised CZ:Article of the Week...

I just revised the CZ:Article of the Week to provide a place (and instructions) for any CZ author or editor to simply add the names of new nominees.

I did NOT make any revisions to the transcluded versions of the articles that were added by Daniel Mietchen, Caesar Chinas or myself. All I did was provide a new section where anyone can simply add new nominees without having to transclude them.

I also reworded some section headers (and relocated one section) to make clear that Administrators of the "Article of the Week" initiative would do the transclusions.

I did that because I felt many authors and editors would be reluctant to make nominations if they had to do the transclusion themselves.

Caesar, would you review what I have done in detail and make any changes you deem necessary? If what I have done is acceptable to everyone, I will also revise CZ:New Draft of the Week similarly. Milton Beychok 23:31, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

It looks a bit cluttered at the moment, but I like the concept (assumeing that we are going to continue to use the transclusion system, that is). Caesar Schinas 07:00, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Bot to populate Related Articles subpages

I am wondering whether you (or I, if you help me) could run a script that does the following:

1. search for CZ:Clusters that do not have a Related Articles subpage
2. populate the "other related topics" section of this page with anything that links to that cluster from main space
3. add a note on top of the page that the content was bot-generated and would need human intervention

I think this would greatly facilitate navigation on the site, since we have many articles that are not put in context this way yet.

What's your take on that? --Daniel Mietchen 11:38, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Well, that would obviously requite the creation of a custom script rather than a standard one, but it doesn't sound too complex. The only problem I can see is that it would rely on Special:WhatLinksHere, which is often considerably out of date due to the fact that the job queue doesn't run quickly enough. (Actually, the job queue is "only" 980 at present...)

I'll see what I can do when I have time. Caesar Schinas 15:45, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

OK, thanks. I suppose it makes sense to run the script in a regular fashion (once per week or so), and then the little time lag at Special:WhatLinksHere doesn't really matter. --Daniel Mietchen 18:37, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Well, if it only operates on articles which don't already have related articles pages, then all that will matter is the length of the job queue when the bot is run. But fortunately, most changes to links will take effect immediately; the job queue is mostly template transclusions and categories.

But another thing - are all articles linking to an article necessarily related to it, anyway?

Caesar Schinas

No, they are not, but deleting them by hand is easier than putting them in. To avoid confusion, we might use a separate section "Bot suggestions" instead of the existing "Other related" one. --Daniel Mietchen 10:26, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Yes, that's a good idea.

Of course, an alternative would just be to make the Related Articales link redirect to Special:WhatLinksHere for pages with no RA subage.

Caesar Schinas 10:34, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

I do not see this as a viable alternative, as it leaves way more manual work to do than a section with {{r}}-preformatted entries which simply have to be cut-and-pasted into the other sections (or deleted). --Daniel Mietchen 11:14, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Yes, that's true. Caesar Schinas 11:20, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

I just can't resist!

You've been a real busy boty recently. (:>) Milton Beychok 21:24, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

 :-D Caesar Schinas 07:31, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Another for your 'to do' list

Since you are a whizz with bots, it would be nice to have one do the donkey work of enforcing Editorial Council Resolution 0012 - the one that created 'inactive editor' categories for editors who have not made an edit in 3 months, or 500+ in the past year. I have done a few of these but it's hard work. :) Thanks. John Stephenson 10:15, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Best seen in conjunction with the list of active editors. --Daniel Mietchen 10:24, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

I presume that the bot which Jitse used to generate that page would require very little modification to do what John is suggesting. Perhaps we should ask him for the code, rather than start from scratch, even if doing so would be fairly simple. Caesar Schinas 10:33, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Like Daniel's suggestion above, this will require a custom bot - but again, not a complex one. I'll try and find time some time to do both...

Both of these are actually bots which could/should be run automatically every certain period of time. I wonder whether bots like this can be installed onto CZ's servers?

Caesar Schinas 10:30, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

How to use CZ images in a PHP online discussion forum?

I want to use one of my CZ images, Image:Refinery Products Barrel.png, in an online PHP forum (which uses BB markup code]). When I use

[img]http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Image:Refinery_Products_Barrel.png[/img]

it isn't accepted, even when the spaces are converted to %20 .... I think the problem is the colon in the image name. I also tried removing the Image: and using

[img]http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Refinery_Products_Barrel.png[/img]

and that also didn't work.

What can I do, if anything, to make the image display in my posting in the online forum? Thanks in advance, Milton Beychok 19:09, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

The problem is that the URL you're using isn't actually the URL of the image; it's the URL of the CZ page for the image. To get teh URL of the image, go to the CZ Image page, Image:Refinery Products Barrel.png, and click on the preview image. This will take you to the image itself, and you can then copy its URL, which in this case is http://en.citizendium.org/images/6/6d/Refinery_Products_Barrel.png.

So the code you want is [img]http://en.citizendium.org/images/6/6d/Refinery_Products_Barrel.png[/img].

Is this for the CZ forum, or another? (I don't know if "hotlinking" CZ images from other websites is allowed - most/many site owners try to prevent this, since it uses their bandwidth with no benefit to them/their site.)

Caesar Schinas 06:59, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, Caesar, that did the trick. The image was for an article I wrote in an on-line chemical engineering discussion forum that welcomes articles and images.

By the way, I just sold the first PDF e-book version of my book to a post-grad student in Ireland ... it went smoothly and he seems quite satisfied with the transaction. Regards, Milton Beychok 17:41, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Congratulations! But did you manage to solve the thing about changing the link each time?

When I mentioned hotlinking, I didn't mean the owners of the other website would mind; I meant that it uses CZ's bandwidth with no benefit to CZ. But I don't suppose it matters much for just a few images. Caesar Schinas 08:09, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

About changing the link each time, I just decide to trust people's honesty. And as for that image, while waiting to hear back from you after my question about the image's url, I just linked to a copy of the image that I uploaded to my website ... so I didn't have to link to the CZ copy. Milton Beychok 15:54, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Oh, OK. I'm sure it would be OK for just a few images, anyway - I just wanted to point out that it could be an issue. Caesar Schinas 16:02, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Major Facepalm

I found an easier way. Check out my Sandbox, Sandbox3, and Sandbox2. Yes they are in that order for a reason. Of course, this only encompases one unit of measurement, but it can be adapted as needed. Now to delete all those useless convert templates.Drew R. Smith 07:51, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Wow, that code is hard to follow... I can't work out what a lot of it does. But if it works without all those other templates, great! Well done! :-D

Alot of it is beyond me as well. I asked for help at wikipedia, since I only have a limited understanding of the syntax and they pointed me to some other templates.Drew R. Smith 08:22, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

But what do you mean about only encompassing one unit of measurement? I mean, surely for just one conversion, you could do something like (for inches to cm) {{#expr:{{{in}}}*2.54}} rather than all that code... or am I completely misunderstanding what all that code does?

I'm not sure exactly why, but #exper always seems to give an error on CZ. Perhaps CZ doesn't have the same version of wiki sofware that WP does?Drew R. Smith 08:22, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

It seems to work fine for me - for example, {{#expr:12*2.54}} gives 30.48. Caesar Schinas 08:55, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

By the way, I notice you just created Template:Intricate_template - two things. Firstly, I had been going to integrate this concept into Template:TlDoc, since it is used on most templates anyway, so that on complex templates we could just use the code {{TlDoc|complex}}, or similar. Secondly, even if it is going to be a standalone template, it should be called {{TlComplex}} or similar, as this is how all (or most) of our other meta-templates are named at present.

Ok, I can move these over there if you want. Is there a specific way you want it done, or just "use your best judgement"?Drew R. Smith 08:22, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

I've just im[plemented what I suggested with {{TlDoc}}. Unless you can see anything wrong with it, I'd say just speedydelete the new ones and use {{TlDoc|complex}} instead. Caesar Schinas 08:55, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Caesar Schinas 08:06, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Ok, that looks great. I'll speedy the old one. Do you mind if I add an icon to it, or are there rules against that?Drew R. Smith 09:40, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Well, we don't have icons on any of our other meta-templates at present, and I would be against the idea unless there's a good reason, but I don't think there are actually any rules about this.

I note that the icons which you have uploaded so far are low-quality copies of Wikimedia icons - if you are going to use these, it would be better to upload higher-quality versions. (CZ doesn't accept SVG, unfortunately, but high quality PNG versions of SVG icons at Wikimedia projects can be easily downloaded.) Caesar Schinas 09:45, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Ok, don't want to go against the grain. Though IMO an icon would be a good way to grab a readers attention. Most people just skim the text, and if we want to make sure it gets read an icon might help. On the other hand the maturity level here is much higher than WP, so we really may not need it. Only time will tell. If people break templates that have the notice too often, then I may go ahead and add an icon.Drew R. Smith 09:51, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

It's true that an icon grabs the attention more, but since this is only used on template pages, which most readers won't see anyway, it's less important

Anyway - I don't really object to changing the style of all our notices to use icons, so long as (a) we don't change some and leave others, and (b) we have good-quality icon images.

Caesar Schinas 10:01, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Personally I like the majority better without icons. It looks more professional, and gives more weight to the ones that do have icons. For now, we can just leave it as is, and if it looks like people aren't paying attention to the template then we can add an icon.Drew R. Smith 02:52, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Is there any way to get that ugly template loop off the doc page?Drew R. Smith 02:57, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

No, not that I can think of... Caesar Schinas 08:55, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Hope I'm not bothering you (too much)

Now that I'm more familiar with the code, and how it works, I can see exactly how all that code in {{In to Cm}} actually works, and why it is better that way. You are right, for a single conversion using #expr would work better. However, that is basically what the code in {{In to Cm}} does, with a few optional parameters. It automatically appends "in" and "cm" to the proper places in the conversion, it can do ranges, 2d, and 3d (for area and volume). You can specify that the abbreviations are turned off which will produce "inches" instead of "in". It also has a spelling parameter that will change the spelling of the full "Centimeter" to the commonwealth spelling of "Centimetre". There are other conversions that could stand to be templated as well, such as the reverse (cm to in) as well as alot of the more widely used SI and Metric units. I will begin working on some of the ones that will likely be used, and if there are any specific conversion you can think of that probably should be templated, let me know. Don't worry, I will make sure to properly document them all, and will probably create a CZ namespace how-to guide for the basics of each template. I'm not sure what the CZ equivalent of wikipedias "Manual of Style" is, but I think a quick blurb about the conversions could be posted there as well.Drew R. Smith 03:28, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Oh, don't worry about bothering me... :-)

I've just been looking at {{In to Cm}}, and I don't actually like the way it prints the number you're converting from - if you want that, you can write it anyway, and if you don't, you're stuck with it. I prefer a template that just converts the value, leaving you to use it in any way you want. This would also be easier to use for people who aren't familiar with using complex templates, IMO.

Also, just a minor point - I think it would be better were it called {{in to cm}} - the abbreviations for units aren't usually written with initial caps.

The documentation on In to Cm is very good, well done.

Caesar Schinas 07:05, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Oh, I see there is a lowercase redirect anyway, making that last point less relevant... Caesar Schinas 07:06, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean in your first point. What is it you don't like about it?Drew R. Smith 07:46, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

I took a second look at the documentation I wrote up for it, and it seems to me that you can get whatever output you want, so long as you looked at the template before using it. For example it uses the abbreviated form "in" by default, but with the proper parameters it can say "inch", "inches", "in", "inch", and "inches". Perhaps changing "in" to "in." might be prudent, but that is a fairly simple task.Drew R. Smith 07:50, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

What I don't like is that instead of just converting a number in one unit to another unit, and printing the result as a number, it also prints the number you're converting from, and the names of the units. I think it would be better just to print the result. So, for example, if I were to type something like {{convert|1|in|cm}}, I would expect the result to be 2.54 - whereas your template would give me something like 1 in (2.54 cm).

If that's still unclear, I'll try again.

You mention adding a dot after the abbreviation - if you do so, make sure you leave it off if the spelling is set to Commonwealth - it's not used outside the US.

Caesar Schinas 07:59, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Well (I thought) the point of the conversion templates was to provide both forms of measurement so that the encyclopedia is easier to use for people of either nationality. In order to get something with both forms of meausurement using your method, you would have to type something like 1in. ({{convert|1|in|cm}}cm) in order to get 1in (2.45cm). In which case it just seems more prudent to template the entire proccess.Drew R. Smith 08:06, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

As for leaving the dot off for the commonwealth spelling - I don't really think it would be an issue. Spelling only takes effect when abbreviations are turned off. But if you are saying not to put a "." after "cm", I won't, that's obviously wrong.Drew R. Smith 08:13, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Well, it would be very simple to create a wrapper template around my one which would show names and the original value as well as the conversion. Or to just have an extra parameter which would tell my conversion template to show them. Or, actually, to have an option to tell yours not to show them... all I'm saying is that it ought to be possible to just use it to convert measurements without having to show all that other stuff too.

(Actually, whatever the output, I still think my template system would be easier to maintain... but never mind, your system is OK.)

Regarding the dot - what I meant was that outside the US, dots aren't usually used after abbreviations at all any more, and particularly not after unit abbreviations. So instead of in. and cm. it would be in and cm with no dots.

Caesar Schinas 08:19, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Well the point is to make the measurement accesible to users of both systems. To the people who use inches, the shortened form is "in." To the people who use centimeters(or metres) the shortened for is "cm" Of course, I don't think anyone would see "in" instead of "in." and not understand, so I'll probably leave it the way it is.

As for adding the possibility of simply converting, without appending the units or the original number I ask the question: Why can't you use a calculator? Or more specifically:How many people who want to display a single number are going to even know about conversion templates? In most cases people would just run off to calculator.com and find it. The template is meant to be an accessability feature, not a calculator.

Ultimately these templates are works in progress. While they work right now, there are always little things that could be added here and there. I just don't know that they need to be added. For instance, I'd like one central template that can call up a specified conversion subtemplate (similar to how {{convert}} was supposed to work) however it just isn't worth the work at this time.Drew R. Smith 08:42, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm not talking about using it as a calculator - that's not how a template is used. I'm talking about using it in a CZ article where unit conversions are needed, but the original unit isn't. I agree that often both measurements will be needed, but I think that sometimes only the one may be wanted. This would also allow it to be used within other templates. But never mind; you're the one creating it, so do it your way.

Well if only one unit is needed, most people would just do a search for a conversion calculator.Drew R. Smith 09:03, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't understand your last statement about {{convert}} - isn't that what you are doing? If not, what are you doing? Lots of individual templates like {{In to Cm}} which have to be called directly? You seem to say that it is hard to create one central template, but why is it? I don't understand... sorry! Caesar Schinas 08:48, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

{{Convert}} needed thousands of pages just to get one conversion to work properly. That isn't the kind of template I want. When I do start working on a central template, I'll try to find an easier way to do it. I'm not saying it's the hardest thing in the world to do, I just think it's hard enough to not worry about it yet. As it is, there couldn't be a simpler method than simply typing what you want to convert as the template. If you want to convert 10 ft to metres for instance you would simply type {{Ft to M|10}}. I think its a bit simpler actually than using {{convert|10|ft|m}}.Drew R. Smith 08:59, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

I fully understand about why the WP convert template is no good; that's what I've been trying to say from the start. But a template like the one I created at User:Caesar Schinas/Template:Convert or User:Caesar Schinas/Template:Conv has none of these problems, and is very simple. It could also easily be changed to output the original unit too, like the templates you are creating. What's wrong with that? Caesar Schinas 09:03, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

I like the way the first one works, but all I get is errors when I try to use the second one. I can probably adapt the first one for use with all the individual templates, however I still think it is easier to simply type {{In to Cm|1}} rather than {{Convert|In to Cm|1}}, or even {{Convert|1|in|cm}} Individual templates cut down on the number of letters needed, and make it easier to use. Ease of use is a big deal, especially when dealing with people who aren't familiar with wiki-markup or html.Drew R. Smith 09:31, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

That's strange; they both work fine for me :
Using User:Caesar Schinas/Template:Conv :
12 inches = User:Caesar Schinas/Template:Conv centimetres.
1 mile = User:Caesar Schinas/Template:Conv kilometres, to 2dp.
30 miles = User:Caesar Schinas/Template:Conv kilometres, to 6dp.
Using User:Caesar Schinas/Template:Convert :
12 inches = User:Caesar Schinas/Template:Convert centimetres.
1 mile = User:Caesar Schinas/Template:Convert kilometres, to 2dp.
30 miles = User:Caesar Schinas/Template:Convert kilometres, to 6dp.

I disagree that the individual templates are easier to use - for one thing, I think most people will expect one template to perform all conversions, and for another, the convert format makes more sense because it mimics speech - "convert 1 cm to in" is more like {{convert|1|cm|in}} than {{Cm to In|1}}.
And lots of individual templates are certainly harder to maintain. But if you'd rather do it that way, go ahead...
Caesar Schinas 09:36, 15 June 2009 (UTC)