User talk:Robert W King

Robert W King

Current talk page

Archive 1, Archive 2, Archive 3, Archive 4

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Hi Robert,

Can you please document (give clear brief instructions for) your template documentation stuff? Link to it from within the template that you put on my new template, please. --Larry Sanger 21:02, 12 January 2008 (CST)

Could you help with the template issue on International economics, please? I tried to help,. biut still the thing is not right. Many thanks, Martin Baldwin-Edwards 11:37, 13 January 2008 (CST)

Thanks! I see that it was some omissions from the metadata, that I had not thouight were needed! Martin Baldwin-Edwards 11:47, 13 January 2008 (CST)

Actually, you just forgot the {{subpages}} on the talk page. --Robert W King 11:48, 13 January 2008 (CST)

I have probably messed up the template for Washington Consensus too. Apologies! Please put me right.

Nick Gardner 09:31, 28 January 2008 (CST)

Chisholm

Saw you just added the subpages - I left a message on Matt's talk page, they seem to be lacking from quite a few approved articles. --Todd Coles 21:24, 13 January 2008 (CST)

the 1941 EB

It's too heavy to carry downstairs! I just weighed one volume with a v. accurate kitchen scale calibrated in metrics, then muliplied by 24 volumes, then divided by 454. Result: 99.8 pounds. Including accumulated dust, that's probably 100 lbs. even.... Hayford Peirce 21:55, 13 January 2008 (CST)

Thanks

Thanks for getting that map looking right. I'm useless with anything remotely technical. Denis Cavanagh 12:32, 18 January 2008 (CST)

Unnecessary Redirects

Hey Robert, how are you deciding that these redirects are unnecessary. Some of them look reasonable, such as Habitats going to Habitat. -D. Matt Innis 13:19, 18 January 2008 (CST)

I'm not using any "hard-and-fast" criteria, but I generally decide that some redirects that could potentially be used for other subjects (say as a disambig, or for a similar subject but still different)... others simply had broken redirects. What would be a justification for using a plural form of a word to redirect to the singular anyway? --Robert W King 13:22, 18 January 2008 (CST)

thanks for help on virtual memory

Robert, thanks a million for working on virtual memory (and other computer articles). It doesn't feel so lonely when I see you active too.Pat Palmer 10:22, 19 January 2008 (CST)

Dennis Kucinich

I directly cut and pasted from the government PDF file, so I don't know if someone in the Congress photo crew hated this man :P. But this picture is old anyways, and I might find a better one online. Regards. Yi Zhe Wu 21:47, 20 January 2008 (CST)

Just changed the image to a newer one. Yi Zhe Wu 22:04, 20 January 2008 (CST)

Got Stone?

Ciao Robert,

I went back to your Stone article, made a few fixes and awarded you of the point (it was a core article). Even if you didn't want it - it is an excellent work indeed. Thanks! --Nereo Preto 04:03, 27 January 2008 (CST)

Olympic Games catalogs

Would you be kind enough to check out the following page:

http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Olympic_Games/Catalogs

Check for conformity to CZ naming conventions, as well as whether the proposed catalogs (all currently red linked) are being put in the right sub-dirs. I will use piped links as soon as I am sure they are going to the right place.

James F. Perry 11:40, 27 January 2008 (CST)

Apologies

I was quite needlessly confrontational last night. Looking over what I wrote again this morning, I feel I owe you an apology. Regards. Denis Cavanagh 05:04, 28 January 2008 (CST)

Henry The Navigator

Why do you say this redirect is unncessary? I'm not sure if I agree. There might be a chance that someone types Henry The Navigator instead of Henry the Navigator, don't you think? And that page was not created from an article move. --José Leonardo Andrade 08:44, 28 January 2008 (CST)

It is likely the search engine will find "Henry the Navigator" if someone accidently types "Henry The Navigator". --Robert W King 08:46, 28 January 2008 (CST)

I still find it strange that people here reply to messages on their own talk pages instead of using the page of the person who left the message. Anyway, as far as I know a "redirect" page is not that "expensive" and it always takes the person directly to the article. --José Leonardo Andrade 09:00, 28 January 2008 (CST)

I have no absolute position on the redirect; it can stay--I just went through a bunch and marked ones I thought were unnecessary. Also, in regards to responding on their own talk pages, 1.) it keeps everything (the conversation) in one place, and 2.) it's possibly a carry over from forum-influenced behavior where you have "threads" which you reply to. --Robert W King 09:03, 28 January 2008 (CST)

I went to Wikipedia and typed Henry The Navigator. It led me to the article. In Wikipedia is recommended that one should create redirects in all variants as possible, so I'm probably influenced by them. I tried to look for any guidelines about redirects here on Citizendium, but found nothing. I don't really see a need for it to be eliminated, but I also don't see a need to make this a big issue! Greetings, --José Leonardo Andrade 10:36, 30 January 2008 (CST)

The Citizen - help wanted

I saw your notice on the Forum pages and will have a b-i-g help wanted notice for your Citizen in a couple of days. But first I need to get the "scaffolding" built for the article cluster. Now, if I could only remember what the article was that I was working on . . . Oh, well, it will come to me eventually.

By the way, what is The Citizen?

James F. Perry 10:37, 29 January 2008 (CST)

The periodical newsletter I write for CZ. It's our version of the signpost. So far it's scheduled for the first of each month but it may or may not change to the first and 15th (content/activities pending). --Robert W King 10:40, 29 January 2008 (CST)

Found it! I'll get something to you in time for the Feb 1 issue. James F. Perry 10:43, 29 January 2008 (CST)

Thanks for the notice in the "Citizen". I edited it to spell out the article names. CAS actually went to "Computer algebra system". James F. Perry 12:08, 31 January 2008 (CST)

Anytime. I was actually going to ask you about that, but you beat me to the punch. Good work! ;) --Robert W King 12:12, 31 January 2008 (CST)

Eduzendium pages -- not marked anywhere...

Regarding incorrect speedy deletions, I assume you are referring to Bankruptcy. I certainly don't want to interfere in any existing initiative, but how could I have know that that page was related to Eduzendium? It literally had no content either on the page or in the history... Where should I have looked? I now see that it is linked to CZ:Finance3101 101 TempleUniversity Spring2008, as one of the topics people could write about, but, nothing has yet been written on it; in fact, the instructions say that blue links should be stubs; not just one of the student's names. The page should be deleted, if only to make it clear to students picking topics that there is nothing written on that topic yet. I appreciate the information about Eduzendium, but please be more careful before claiming something is in error. JesseWeinstein 20:13, 31 January 2008 (CST)

Thanks for the great newsletter

Robert, I love the newsletter. Thank you for doing it.Pat Palmer 11:25, 4 February 2008 (CST)

(1) Timelines; and (2) Proposal page

Thank you for the Timelines response! I was about to f**k it up. Since there is only ONE timeline, of course it doesn't go in a sub-dir of Timelines subpage.

I recently posted a note (proposal) on CZ_Talk:Related_Articles about changing the name of Other related topics to Cognate topics. Should that have gone on the CZ:Proposals page? It seems rather minor.

James F. Perry 11:38, 7 February 2008 (CST)

The Proposals page isn't set in stone yet, but I encourage you to go to the talk page and voice your opinion, or head to this thread on the forum. --Robert W King 11:47, 7 February 2008 (CST)

Tables

Hello, Todd Coles pointed me to you for this question. I have started a table at http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Major_League_Baseball/Catalogs/Past_World_Series_winners so far, I've done it by hand, is this the only way to do this, or is there someway I can add to that automatically? If it has to be coded by had, that's fine, it's not THAT much work, but I'll feel silly if I do it by hand and find out later that I didn't have to. Thanks. Joshua Knapp 12:40, 8 February 2008 (CST)

Josh, this sounds like a job for the Tennis/Catalogs/Famous_players example! I would look at that page, and then look carefully at Template:Tennis header2 and Template:Tennis player2. I think you'll find that perhaps you want to develop two templates, one of which is the overall table header, and the other is a data template you can simply make a call to. I'm not too fond of using the wikitable template method, as I usually create tables by hand using {|s, |s, and |-s and then fill in all the manual details. This can get ugly in the process, but if you check out an example like 2008_United_States_presidential_election manually defining the table can net you impressive results. Think about how you want to arrange the data, what you want to include, and how you want to format it. --Robert W King 12:55, 8 February 2008 (CST)

Re nbspnbspspspttptthh!

See User talk:Anthony.Sebastian#nbspnbspspspttptthh! --Anthony.Sebastian 14:58, 9 February 2008 (CST)

See again User talk:Anthony.Sebastian#nbspnbspspspttptthh! --Anthony.Sebastian 15:28, 9 February 2008 (CST)

Eduzendium project

Oh. Well, the first paragraph is/was patently nonsense. And was submitted here a *year* ago. So that's one year that nonsense has been sitting here. What are we to make of that? Hayford Peirce 11:45, 10 February 2008 (CST)

Check the history again, the first submission was 7 February 2008. --Robert W King 11:47, 10 February 2008 (CST)

Yeah, I should have had a second cup of coffee this morning -- sorry! Hayford Peirce 11:49, 10 February 2008 (CST)

Break?

So, are you on a break or not? :-) Denis Cavanagh 08:33, 12 February 2008 (CST)

Yeah sorta, it's just... complicated. --Robert W King 10:27, 12 February 2008 (CST)

Proposals..

See the New proposals page for my attempt to pick up your ideaGareth Leng 07:47, 14 February 2008 (CST)

Re: Delayed coking image ... thanks.

Robbert: Thanks for centering the flow diagram image. That is something I always do with large images and I don't know how that "left" snuck in there. Some gremlin I guess.

What did you think of the article as a whole? - Milton Beychok 13:22, 15 February 2008 (CST)

Infoboxes and the Red Sox article

From your comment on the Red Sox talk page about infoboxes, i'm beginning to wonder if I should stop adding to Citizendium except in regards to New Hampshire politics and law.

That's why I came on here, to provide myself and others a quick(er) reference to that kind of stuff. But I strayed out of interest in the project. But i'm definitely not going to bother in the internal political process of this project, and i'm wondering if i've already invested too much effort if the project doesn't take itself seriously, and in my opinion, if the project doesn't want to look good(i.e: infoboxes), that means the project doesn't take itself seriously. Andrew Sylvia 15:29, 24 February 2008 (CST)

Well, chacun a son gout. Some people think info boxes look childish. At WP they are *way* out of hand.... It's not a question of seriousness -- it's a question of what people want the project to look like, and what sort of information it should give, and in what ways. Why don't you go to the Forums and start a topic about infoboxes, stating why you think they should be used. You'll get a dialog going, and, who knows, you may change some minds. Hayford Peirce 15:49, 24 February 2008 (CST)

Hayford sums it up. I think that we should have infoboxes but they should not be an avalanche of meaningless stats and data; I don't know where the line is. --Robert W King 16:05, 24 February 2008 (CST)

Kim Komando spelling

Robert, for the questionaire I sent you, I might have misspelled Kim Komando, and some of the misspellings lead directly to a porn site, so could you please double the check the spelling to avoid any misadventures? David E. Volk 13:14, 26 February 2008 (CST)

I will double check ;) --Robert W King 13:35, 26 February 2008 (CST)

Subpages

Perhaps I'm confused, but I thought this was the state of affairs:

{{Subpages}} is the latest version - but only for all pages other than the metadata page. Used on the metadata page, it produces a slightly erroneous display. For that reason, {{No metadata template}} (which calls {{Blank metadata3}} to actually include the blank checklist) instead uses {{Subpages3}}, as you can see here.

Am I missing something? J. Noel Chiappa 12:59, 27 February 2008 (CST)

{{subpages3}} is depcrecated. All pages should be using {{subpages}}. Upon creation of the page, the first placement of the subpages template will include a link that automatically generates the content of the metadata page. Chris is aware of the erroneous display on metadata pages, but that doesn't affect the way the system is actually working, just what is visible. --Robert W King 13:02, 27 February 2008 (CST)

Ah. Well, perhaps you can see how I became confused, what with use of {{Subpages}} producing an erroneous display on the metadata page, and {{No metadata template}} referring to {{Subpages3}} (not to mention how {{Subpages}} uses {{Approved3}}, etc, etc). I think you can see how, in light of those coincidental facts, it was natural to assume that /Metadata pages should be using {{Subpages3}} - especially since Metadata pages that use it work correctly!

Sigh, let me further update documentation, then. J. Noel Chiappa 13:39, 27 February 2008 (CST)

Your proposal "Article Content Request help"

Hello. The proposal record for "Article Content Request help", for which you are listed as driver, says that the current step (community discussion) was due to be completed 22 February. Could you please update the proposal record on CZ:Proposals/Ad hoc, changing your self-imposed deadline and perhaps the next step? If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask me. Your newly-appointed Proposals Manager, Jitse Niesen 16:24, 3 March 2008 (CST)

More tables?

If you're in the mood, there are 'list of irregular' two-column tables needed at the top of A, O and U now. I'm sending this same message to Chris. Thanks - Ro Thorpe 15:49, 5 March 2008 (CST)

Should be a matter of copy and paste, more or less. If Chris doesn't get it first, I'll get it when I get home from work. --Robert W King 16:11, 5 March 2008 (CST)

style guides

I welcome your participation Robert. David E. Volk 11:52, 6 March 2008 (CST)

testing out something

It looks terrific to me! I think that even *I* could understand the next time I upload an image! Hayford Peirce 15:15, 6 March 2008 (CST)

Heinlein pix

Hi Robert -- I thought that I *had* replied to you! I certainly meant to. Lemme go back to my email program and see exactly what's going on there. Maybe I didn't reply, or maybe they're jammed up somewhere. Hold on.... Hayford Peirce 12:30, 9 March 2008 (CDT)

I just compared all four pix several times. I looks as if you have definitely improved both of them but it's definitely a question of making something out a sow's ear -- there's only so much that can be done! As I recall, I once spent a while in PhotoShop screwing around with the two of them, then gave up. I'll let you decide what you want to do with them -- and what you want to about putting one or both in the article. All the best! Hayford Peirce 12:40, 9 March 2008 (CDT)

Okay, I will upload both of them, and then either stick them on my own user page or in the TI article about Heinlein. Or both. Unless you have some other suggestion. Hayford Peirce 12:58, 9 March 2008 (CDT)

Timelines

Robert, it looks impressive! It's also going to take me a lot of time considering the number of entries involved :). Can I make a suggestion? The colours probably need to be more subtle for these. Bright colours tend to be off-putting for readers. If I was to do these, I would rely mainly on tints of grey shading with only subtle colour hints on the box borders. Something that doesn't distract the readers. Well done though. Meg Ireland 17:48, 9 March 2008 (CDT)

Your proposal "Technical Consolidation"

Hi Robert. You need to create a page for your proposal to consolidate the different fora to discuss technical matters. This page allows you to develop the proposal in more detail, and it allows the rest of us to discuss the proposal. You can create the page by following the link "Start complete proposal" in the section "Technical Consolidation" on CZ:Proposals/New. -- The Proposals Manager, Jitse Niesen 07:27, 12 March 2008 (CDT)

I suppose you lost interest in the proposal as you haven't done anything, so I moved the proposal record to CZ:Proposals/Discarded. If you want to revive the proposal, just update the deadline in the proposal record and create the proposal page. -- The Proposals Manager, Jitse Niesen 16:39, 19 March 2008 (CDT)

How make a template

Robert, can you make a "how to make a template" section for the CZ:How To page? David E. Volk 10:25, 13 March 2008 (CDT)

Recording

Great! You'll find links to all the letter pages on my user page, plus the apostrophe, which is part of the same series. I'm watching them all, so you can leave any comments/queries on the talk pages.

Please consult me beforehand if you have any doubts, particularly about the British pronunciations, which, as I'm a Londoner, will tend to precede the American ones. Indeed your American accent will add some desirable balance there. You may even notice where we need to add AmE elements to the texts.

Thanks: I really appreciate your enthusiasm. Ro Thorpe 12:18, 14 March 2008 (CDT)

Can you give me a rough idea of a framework of what you'd like to have recorded? --Robert W King 12:23, 14 March 2008 (CDT)

Well, as User:Stephen Ewen suggested on Talk:S, just reading the article is probably the best way. Have a look at X, a nice short one, and rehearse it in your mind. Any problems with that page? (I've just put in the AmE pron of 'excoriate', so that's one improvement already!) Ro Thorpe 12:53, 14 March 2008 (CDT)

Ok, I'll give that one a shot. --Robert W King 13:02, 14 March 2008 (CDT)

Also, can you read the articles on A, O and R, please, which are the letters where AmE & BrE differ most. Actually, I have an article on the differences between the 2 types: perhaps I should upload that first? Just tell me how confident you are about the BrE pronunciations, because, if you get them right, we won't need two versions. Ro Thorpe 13:10, 14 March 2008 (CDT)

Brackets, oh, sorry, that's BrE for parentheses - of course you can leave out the plug for English phonemes & in other cases you'll only need to say the word once, because if you read the parenthesis you'll be repeating it, if you see what I mean! - Ro Thorpe 13:21, 14 March 2008 (CDT)

Of course if you'd rather just do an American version, no problem... Ro Thorpe 18:30, 14 March 2008 (CDT)

Clarke

Yes, I saw that last night just before going to bed. I suppose I ought to start a stub about him to go with the Robert A. Heinlein one. And there should be an Isaac Asimov at some point. So much to do.... Hayford Peirce 11:28, 19 March 2008 (CDT)

Your proposal "Article Content Request help"

Hello. The proposal record for "Article Content Request help", for which you are listed as driver, says that the current step (community discussion) was due to be completed 14 March. Could you please update the proposal record on CZ:Proposals/Ad hoc, changing your self-imposed deadline and perhaps the next step? I don't like it that there has been no discussion or progress for a month. -- The Proposals Manager, Jitse Niesen 16:49, 19 March 2008 (CDT)

"How To" navigation

Commenting that out, as opposed to deleting it, might have been a better idea... I dunno if that would be OK with you, which is why I didn't just go ahead and do it. J. Noel Chiappa 22:30, 19 March 2008 (CDT)

Well, you know it's there, someone else might not... J. Noel Chiappa 11:16, 20 March 2008 (CDT)

It was just a table. In any case, it doesn't matter right now because I was largely creating artificial classifications for the document categories, when it was probably just best to let it be determined by the actual howto content itself. It was premature. --Robert W King 11:18, 20 March 2008 (CDT)

Droplet picture

Larry thought the page looked rather plain at one point, and wanted something to fill the large whitespace hole. J. Noel Chiappa 11:17, 20 March 2008 (CDT)

There are better things to put there than some random picture. --Robert W King 11:19, 20 March 2008 (CDT)

I'll let you and Larry work that out! :-) I was just trying to answer your question about 'why is this here' (I happened to recall Larry's edit summary for it). J. Noel Chiappa 11:25, 20 March 2008 (CDT)

I already know how it's going to go down anyway, but thanks for the FYI Template:Codewink. --Robert W King 11:30, 20 March 2008 (CDT)

Recipe template

Looks great!. Chris Day (talk) 11:57, 20 March 2008 (CDT)

Thanks Template:Codesmile --Robert W King 11:58, 20 March 2008 (CDT)

I was referring to the structure. I'd not worry about the colours or Larry's comments. The functionality trumps all that. Chris Day (talk) 13:00, 20 March 2008 (CDT)

By the way, why the codesmile template? Are you planning to upgrade it to a small gif? Chris Day (talk) 13:01, 20 March 2008 (CDT)

nope, no Gif. I just hated typing <code><nowiki>:)</nowiki> over and over just for an emoticon. Plus : and ; mean something in wiki markup. --Robert W King 13:28, 20 March 2008 (CDT)

You can't just write it in the regular text? Like this :) ? Granted it would be a problem at the beginning of a sentence. How about ;) ? That seems to work within text too. I guess you have been putting those smilies at the beginning. Chris Day (talk) 13:29, 20 March 2008 (CDT)

Doesn't look right. I grew up with DOS and unix, which use Courier/System and or FixedSys that are either non-truetype or terminal based fonts. --Robert W King 13:32, 20 March 2008 (CDT)

Oh I see, I have to admit it never crossed my mind. :) True, it does look different, who'd have thunk it. ;) Oops, I mean ;)Chris Day (talk) 13:34, 20 March 2008 (CDT)

{{codesmile}} Template:Codesmile Typing html opening and closing tags also gets old. --Robert W King 13:36, 20 March 2008 (CDT)

What if I need to {{codegrin}}? Template:Codesmile Or {{codepokeouttongue}} ? Chris Day (talk) 13:38, 20 March 2008 (CDT)

What does grinning look like? I've used :] and ;] interchangibly with Template:Codesmile Template:Codewink ({{codewink}}). I'd probably make a {{coderasp}} for ;P as that is known as "giving the raspberry". --Robert W King 13:41, 20 March 2008 (CDT)

What does grinning look like? How do I know, I thought you were the expert? :) Chris Day (talk) 14:16, 20 March 2008 (CDT)

Well, technically :D is laughing. :| is just indifferent. :l might be grinning. I think it's time for an emoticon article. --Robert W King 14:40, 20 March 2008 (CDT)

new chem infobox

Robert, please see Template:chem_infobox. It is not a real template, but it shows you exactly what data, and in what order, I would like things to appear in the chem_infobox. It also lists the variable names that I would like to use. David E. Volk 14:53, 20 March 2008 (CDT)

PD

The PD info looks good, definitely clear enough to start a go if you want. Stephen Ewen 11:14, 21 March 2008 (CDT)

I forget where the table has to go (I mean the page header when you click on the PD part). And then the licensing dropdown needs to be sorted out. --Robert W King 11:18, 21 March 2008 (CDT)

Your proposal "Article Content Request help" II

Hello. May I please remind you of my earlier message, dated 19 March, on your proposal "Article Content Request help". As far as I can see, you haven't yet updated the proposal record on CZ:Proposals/Ad hoc, nor have I seen any sign of activity on the proposal page. If nothing happens within a week, I'll have to assume that you are no longer interested in the proposal and thus remove you as its driver, which will render the proposal inactive. -- The Proposals Manager, Jitse Niesen 18:30, 26 March 2008 (CDT)

Tabs

Hi Robert, what are your tabs looking like these days? I notice there collapsable tables are back so maybe the "nowrap" style is working again for you too? Chris Day 13:15, 28 March 2008 (CDT)

They're ok, except for "Related Articles" --Robert W King 13:26, 28 March 2008 (CDT)

OK so nothing has changed. I may consider the recode to get around this IE problem. Is this IE6 specific (I seem to recall that is the one you use) or a problem in their latest version too? Chris Day 13:32, 28 March 2008 (CDT)