User talk:Daniel Mietchen

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AOTW References section

Hi Daniel. I see you added references sections to AOTW ant NDOTW - may I ask what the point is?
For one thing, references should be hidden in noinclude tags anyway, so they shouldn't show up there, and for another they don't mean much on that page; they're only really relevant on the article page itself.

Oh, and out of interest, where is {{ptcl}} going to be used, and what on earth does the name mean? :-p
Caesar Schinas 06:18, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Ad 1: Yes, hiding all references in noinclude tags may be the best solution (though doing this may be a pain in some articles) but I was not sure, and so I thought to give it a try with a reference section. I actually like it this way on the nominations page but do not know how to handle it for the Welcome page.

Ad 2: It stands for partial transclusion, and I have laid out a basic overview of possible usages at http://forum.citizendium.org/index.php/topic,2706.msg21413.html#msg21413. First tries on my user page and on CZ:Eduzendium (from where the references came in my formatting tests). Plan to play around with more of these possible usages and report step by step.

--Daniel Mietchen 10:56, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

{{ptcl}} in disambig pages

Wouldn't this make definition subpages obsolete?
I'm not sure that I do like it, actually, having seen your example - I think just definitions was better.
Caesar Schinas 15:17, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Let's keep one or two such examples for the moment and discuss the whole picture of possible uses together. I tend to think that this arrangement would provide an incentive to write lede sentences other than "A thing is ..." (examples in Music perception and Brain morphometry). --Daniel Mietchen 15:25, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

I revised CZ:Article of the Week. Provided a place for anyone to simply make nominations. Then the program Administrators will do the transclusions.

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 you, 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.

I asked Caesar Chinas to review my revision. After he does, I will also revise "CZ:New Draft of the Week" similarly. Regards, Milton Beychok 23:38, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Looks good so far, though now I will be hesitant to make the transclusions, as I'm not an admin (but perhaps that's a welcome side effect, right?). --Daniel Mietchen 08:35, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Anyone can be an AOTW and NDOTW administrator by simply adding their name to the volunteer list of administrators. Your help in making transclusions would be most welcome. Milton Beychok 15:31, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

I know, that's why I wrote "hesitant", not "hindered". But I try to avoid subscribing to anything regular not in my top priorities (and these are all in real life). So call on me when you need help but otherwise, I'll stay away from it, OK? --Daniel Mietchen 18:34, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Article of the week

Hey Daniel, thanks for the note! That's great. I am sorry I have not been much active recently. I'm starting a new business and I am pretty busy these days. I'll be back in the future with more articles, meanwhile nevertheless I guess possibly there are some I wrote in he past to be proof read. (Are them all done yet?) take care. Dalton Holland Baptista 18:29, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Nice to see you around here again, Dalton! No, proofreading of your articles is far from finished, but it advances nonetheless. Cheers, --Daniel Mietchen 07:10, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Template:Convert

Thank you for taking the time to correct the spelling on the document page for {{convert}}. I have fixed all other instances of this mispelling, throughout the rest of the template. I am glad to see that people are actually taking a look at this template. A lot of work went into designing it. The original idea was to simply import WP's conversion template. This turned out to be disastrous, as their template required thousands of other templates just to work properly. Caesar and I have come up with a much better format, that only needs one template. We also have {{convertrange}}, which, as the name implies, converts ranges of units, such as 10-12 feet into meters.

If you have any feedback about either of these templates, I welcome it. For instance, any conversions that aren't supported, but you think should be. Both templates are still growing, and need all the help they can get. Drew R. Smith 13:35, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Scientific method

What do you think about initiating the approval process for the article on the scientific method? It seems like it is well developed and ready to be approved. (I have left the same message for David Volk and Paul Wormer) --Joe (Approvals Manager) 17:51, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

I would love to see this article approved but so far, it is a bit too philosophical for my taste and would need further input from a more "practical" angle, plus things like illustrations, references for the unreferenced blockquotes, or useful subpages (perhaps with a gallery). However, this is a topic I like to write about (currently here), and so I'll see how to fit it in. It would be great to make this a CZ:Big Collaboration but none of the previous attempts in this direction have been successful. Do you think we should give it another try? --Daniel Mietchen 19:07, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

I see that Paul Wormer nominated the article. Maybe you could find a few minutes sometime in the next couple of weeks to make any adjustments you find necessary and then the two of you could approve it together. (He has been a contributor to the article, so he'll need co-approvers anyway.)

I actually don't remember ever hearing about the Big Collaboration. It either escaped my attention or it wasn't publicized very well. With two weeks before the article on the scientific method is currently due for approval, we might have time to give it a shot. If not, I'd definitely like to give it a go for some other topics.

Thanks again. --Joe (Approvals Manager) 15:38, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Weekly change of NDOTW did not work.

Daniel, I just made the weekly change in the NDOTW and it went quite smoothly.

However, those changes you made in the AOTW on June 19th seem to have messed things up. The changes you made added in an extra step of some sort as per the blue font section just below ... and when I changed the article name to the new winner, it did NOT transfer the winning article to the CZ home page:

<onlyinclude><includeonly>{{ptcl1|User:Daniel_Mietchen/Sandbox/AOTW|Ancient Celtic music}}</includeonly><noinclude>{{Featured Article|Ancient Celtic music}}</noinclude></onlyinclude>

Daniel, I dislike being blunt, but I don't think you should make unilateral changes in the AOTW weekly change procedure without letting me and others know and understand what you are doing. If that occurs again, I will resign from my volunteer function of handling the transclusions and the weekly change. Then you or someone else can take over completely. Or, if you so desire, you can take over now ... just let me know. Milton Beychok 05:06, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Fixed. Caesar Schinas 06:54, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Bot to populate Related Articles subpages

I have now written a bot to do this. Example of the result are 10 Downing Street/Related Articles‎ and 101st Airborne Division/Related Articles. What do you think? I'll send you the code if you like. Caesar Schinas 07:44, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks a lot! One brief comment: I think it should also set up the current default sections for manual creation of the page (parent, sub, other). More feedback this evening. --Daniel Mietchen 07:54, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I'd actually been thinking of changing it to do that.

The current code is at User:Caesar Schinas/pwb/cg_related.py.

Caesar Schinas 08:02, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

How about AAR-57/Related Articles ? Caesar Schinas 08:32, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Yes, that's what I had in mind. I think it's ready to go then. --Daniel Mietchen 09:33, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Good. What we really need is to put it on the CZ server and run it every week/month with a cron job. Do you know who to ask / where to propose this? Caesar Schinas 09:48, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

I agree that we are heading towards a cron job but before, we should give it some fine tuning (will get back to that). I don't know who exactly would be responsible but I guess we'd just have to ask those behind the bugs list. --Daniel Mietchen 13:35, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

So who's going to run it? Me? I don't mind doing so for now, but it will need to be run by a cron job in the end. Caesar Schinas 13:42, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

I'll give it a try tonight. --Daniel Mietchen 14:53, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

I've also now created the Inactive Editor bot, the code for which can be seen at User:Caesar Schinas/pwb/cg_inactiveeditor.py.

Two examples of the changes which it would make are this and this.

What do you think? Caesar Schinas 13:42, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

The "inactive" categories need to be created, otherwise it looks fine. However, before applying it on a large scale, let's think about the antidote - those who came back and didn't change their category manually. I should be able to write that variant if the related pages stuff works out fine. --Daniel Mietchen 14:53, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Is there a page somewhere listing all of the bot created RA subpages? James F. Perry 16:48, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes: Category:Bot-created Related Articles subpages lists all those that were bot-created and not yet cleaned up by a human. --Daniel Mietchen 20:14, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

List of biology topics

Hi Daniel, I do have a move button on that article, so you want it moved to CZ:List of biology topics or CZ:List of biology topics A-M? D. Matt Innis 02:14, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

The former, thanks! --Daniel Mietchen 09:45, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Done. D. Matt Innis 11:59, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Messy move

Sorry - so complicated... Ro Thorpe 13:51, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Never mind, and thanks for helping out anyway. --Daniel Mietchen 00:53, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

Equal sign in caption

Daniel, I see you escaped the equal sign. I'm surprised that that's necessary, I would have sworn I used equal signs in captions before. And, how did you know that that was the problem? --Paul Wormer 16:13, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

PS I found a caption with a few equal signs: Angular_momentum_coupling#Proof_of_the_triangular_conditions --Paul Wormer 16:21, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Templates don't go well with "=" because it's an operator in there. The figure at Angular momentum coupling is not set in template syntax. --Daniel Mietchen 16:34, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

I see, I thought that Caesar's bot replaced all [[ ... ]] by {{ ... }}, but apparently not. When he will replace all, more problems may pop up. Are these regexp operators that give problems? --Paul Wormer 16:57, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

I also thought he did but have seen several cases where the old notation persists. Not sure how "=" and regexp relate in the context of MediaWiki templates. --Daniel Mietchen 06:28, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Response to your entry on my talk page

Hi Daniel. I left a response to your entry on my talk page. I explain there why it took me so long to respond. Cheers. Dan Nessett 15:21, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks

Hello Daniel,

Thanks for your advices. I believe these will be very useful for me.

Regards. --Javier Abellán Sánchez 12:15, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Hi, Daniel. Thanks again for your help. I did not know the proper functioning of the categories.

Greetings.

And also Thanks from me for your help and all the ideas! Celine Caquineau

Eduzendium

Quick question: Who should I contact to register a course in eduzendium? Thanks Celine Caquineau

For the moment, no official registration is necessary. So you can just set up a course page (recent example: CZ:POL 214: US Political Parties and Interest Groups), along with the course's policy on collaborative editing (CZ:POL 214: US Political Parties and Interest Groups/EZnotice) and templates for the article structure (CZ:POL 214: US Political Parties and Interest Groups/Template article) and their subpages' metadata (CZ:POL 214: US Political Parties and Interest Groups/Metadata template). With these pages set up, the pages for the course's articles can be set up in a semi-automated manner (I can do that for you), and then it's up to you to initiate students to wiki syntax and Citizendium policy so they can start writing. If you are not sure about any of these points, just ask again. --Daniel Mietchen 14:09, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your help! will give it a go! Celine Caquineau

You are most welcome. Let me know if you run into problems. --Daniel Mietchen 13:33, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

disclaimer image

Image:Disclaimer text background crop.png Shouldn't the links be colored blue? Though I actually have clicked on both links recently, it's disconcerting to think that they would appear purple even if I hadn't. I'd replace it myself but I don't know how to do the fancy stuff with having different parts of the image link to different places. --Joe Quick 19:00, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

The image is a screenshot and thus won't change colours as a function of your clicks. I had accessed the pages before, and so they were purple then. Fixing this is not high on my priority list but if you send me a decent screenshot, I might do the imagemap stuff. --Daniel Mietchen 19:48, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

No, it shouldn't be a priority. I'd much rather you were spending your wiki time on writing and approving ;-) actual content. It just struck me as odd looking. If I create a screen shot of the exact same dimensions as the one you uploaded and simply replace it, will the image mapping still work the same? --Joe Quick 21:15, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Yes, if you keep the dimensions, the mapping remains intact. --Daniel Mietchen 21:37, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Anthony.Sebastian approves 24-Jul-2009 version Scientific method

Daniel, a fine article. Anthony.Sebastian 17:20, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Empty redirs

I was under the impression that redirs were supposed to be created even where no article currently exists at the "target" page. The reason is to avoid two people working on the same topic under different titles. What is to be avoided is someone writing an article on "Basho" and another person writing an article on "Matsuo Basho" without either of them knowing of the other person's work.

I recall asking specifically about this (creating redirs to empty "targets") on the forum and the consensus was to make them, make lots of redirs, precisely to avoid duplication of effort.

James F. Perry 14:06, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

Just checked the forums and couldn't find such a thread. Can you give me a hint? Thanks, --Daniel Mietchen 14:10, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

Maybe my memory played a trick on me. Still, I think it is a good idea - and this could be brought up specifically on the forum. I recall just recently creating an article on the "History of education in the United States" and then discovering an article entitled "Education, history, U.S." or something. An empty redir could have avoided the problem as I would then have known of the pre-existing article. In that case, I just merged them, so no harm done. Remember, "Redirects are yoiur friend". It just makes good sense to make them, or so I believe.

In any case, the articles on Basho, Buson, Issa will be created. When, I don't know, but they are the three most important figures in Haiku poetry. James F. Perry 14:25, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

I basically like them the same way you do (as an author) but when I came here, those that I had created were quickly deleted - I think on grounds of usability for the reader (who expects a click on a non-red link not to lead her to an empty page). That may be the more relevant argument, and before starting to author an article, it is perhaps always a good idea to check for articles with similar scope (hopefully, the related articles should help make this easier). --Daniel Mietchen 14:34, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

I've never had mine deleted (to my knowledge). And never questined - until now. So I guess the next step is to broach the subject on the forum to find out what is the "official" ploicy. I really don't have any problem with either way of doing it (or not doing it), but we should find out. James F. Perry 14:39, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

Panshjir Valley

I'm puzzled technically by the moves to article name on Panshjir Valley, as they don't seem to be showing up. On a more substantive basis, though, I don't believe disambiguation suffixes should be non-English and non-Roman. It's perfectly all right if there are redirects with such, but not part of the name.

I don't know if the additions are Dari, Pashtun, or something else. Really, the culture of Afghanistan would call, at least, for both. Nevertheless, the article title, above all, has to be reasonably friendly to search engines, and needing to enter a nonroman string to get an exact match is not.

What did you have in mind? Howard C. Berkowitz 16:52, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

I don't get your point either - I simply moved Panshjir Valley to Panjshir Valley, since this is the best way to represent the name in English, given that پنج (five) is pronounced "panj" (similar to the drink punch which has the same etymological origin) and شير (lions) "shir". Moving did leave redirects, and I do not see a need to enter non-English characters. --Daniel Mietchen 18:37, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Update: May be I understand your puzzledness now - the "non-Roman characters" you saw were just the edit summary, no part of the page title. I put them as an explanation, didn't mean to confuse. --Daniel Mietchen 18:50, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Aralsk

Hi Daniel, what do you make of Aralsk (also by Kulik, the author of WHO .. SWINE FLU )? --Paul Wormer 09:06, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

This for the moment, though a full reset might be best. --Daniel Mietchen 09:18, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

{{Convert}}

Hi Daniel, {{convert}} is a template that Caesar and I had worked on (mostly Caesar). Hayford pointed out that using a comma in the input (for example: {{convert|30,000|ft|m}}) produces an error. I can't figure out any way to make the template support the use of a comma. I would have asked Caesar for help, but he seems to be missing at the moment. I figured you would be the next best person to ask. Do you have any idea how to fix this problem? Drew R. Smith 23:27, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

Several possible fixes come to mind, none of them being very handy (but I am not a big fan of this template anyway, or of non-SI units, for that matter). Perhaps the easiest way would be to add an optional parameter that tells the template how to display things, not just what to convert. You can see this implemented in several templates here, e.g. in {{r}} where

{{r|Natural language|Language}} produces

Language [r]: A communication system based on sequences of acoustic, visual or tactile symbols that serve as units of meaning. ^[e].

Hope this helps. --Daniel Mietchen 00:08, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Related Articles - bug?

Hi, Daniel. It seems that your bot adds the newly created /Related Articles pages to the Category:Speedy_Deletion_Requests (without putting in a template, of course). See User talk:Hayford Peirce#and with this one? (Link has 2 consecutive spaces that do not work) Peter Schmitt 19:33, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Character (keyboard)

Hi Daniel, what do you have in mind with "character (keyboard)"? Is this different from "character (display)" or (codepage)? If these are the same, then why not "(computer)"?
This brings up another question: How to call the non-computer "character"? alphabet, writing, typography?
Peter Schmitt

Changed to computer. --Daniel Mietchen 08:41, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

changes to two templates

Hi Daniel, though I am a complete beginner I have dared to meddle with two templates Template:Community and Template:Editor Policy, by trial and error (and guessing from other templates). Could you check if the result is acceptable? I wanted to be able to start the "Editor Policy" box hidden by default. (Otherwise it doesn't make sense to hide it ...) Peter Schmitt 00:20, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Hm, bin selbst kein Template-Experte, werd aber heut abend mal reingucken. Was soll denn "transfer your edits here" heißen? --Daniel Mietchen 07:13, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, ich habe zuletzt diesen Eindruck gehabt (subpages template, etc.). Wer ist denn hier der Software-Experte, damit ich die Frage an die richtige Adresse weitergeben kann? Peter Schmitt 08:29, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Ich hab mich nur tiefer reingehangen, weil sich die Cracks — Caesar Schinas, Chris Day und Robert W King — momentan etwas zurückhalten. --Daniel Mietchen 09:25, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Jetzt verstehe ich "TRANSFER ANY EDITS YOU MAKE TO THIS PAGE to {{Community without category}}." Das geht am besten über ein Extra-Template. Ansonsten ist die Dokumentation nicht sehr user friendly. Schaff ich vor dem Wochenende aber beides nicht. --Daniel Mietchen 19:33, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Keine Eile. Inzwischen habe ich (glaube ich zumindest) die Grundprinzipien bei den templates verstanden (auch wenn ich sicher viele Möglichkeiten nicht kenne), und bin mir eigentlich sicher, daß die Änderungen in Ordnung sind. Was die Dokumentation betrifft: Vorher war ja gar keine da... Die Parallelführung kann man vermeiden, wenn "without category" die Parameter an "community" weitergibt. Aber vielleicht geht das doch noch eleganter?
Aber der Fall ist ja übersichtlich. Wesentlich wichtiger wäre eine Dokumentation der subpages templates, damit sie auch von jemand adaptiert werden können, der nicht bei der Entwicklung dabei war.
Peter Schmitt 20:48, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Doku sollte eigentlich immer unter /doc stehen und auf die Template-Seite transcluded werden (Besipiel: {{Featured Article}}). Parallelitaet wird zum Beispiel in {{R}} durch Unter-Templates erreicht - guck da mal rein. Doku der subpages ist mir auch etwas zu spaerlich, aber CZ:Using the Subpages template is n guter Anfang. --Daniel Mietchen 21:14, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Ok, das /Doc kann ich anlegen. Allerdings sehe ich nicht, was das für einen Vorteil bringt. Es wäre eher praktisch, wenn man die Dokumentation beim Schreiben gleich "weiter unten" anhängen könnte. Übrigens hatte ich gar nicht die Absicht, mich näher mit templates zu beschäftigen -- ich wollte nur nachsehen, ob es mir gelingt, eine von mir gewünschte Funktion einzubauen. Ob es da vernünftig ist, sich auch noch mit "Verbesserungen" zu beschäftigen? Es gibt derzeit ohnehin so viele Threads und Issues, daß sie ganz davon ablenken, "Content" zu liefern... Peter Schmitt 22:45, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Der Vorteil besteht darin, dass die Seiten, auf denen ein Template genutzt wird, weniger kB fressen, wenn dessen Doku ausgelagert ist. --Daniel Mietchen 08:33, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Verstehe (wenn immer das ganze File gelesen wird). In dieser Hinsicht wäre es aber auch effizienter, auf die Aufsplitterung in viele kleine Templates zu verzichten, da wohl der häufige Zugriff auf viele Files aufwendiger ist als auf einziges ... Peter Schmitt 12:46, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Es gibt da sicherlich ein Optimum, nur sind mir dessen Parameter nicht bekannt. --Daniel Mietchen 13:22, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Wasn't sure

..if you saw this. I wish I had more for you, bu tthat is all that I can find. Let me know if there is somewhere else that I should be looking. D. Matt Innis 00:53, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, Matt - hadn't seen it yet. It's good for a start, and I'll get back to you if I need more. --Daniel Mietchen 07:08, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Daniel, I'm not sure if you're looking for comments on it, but FWIW I'd also urge applicants (much earlier in the article that you do) to read and understand the real names policy here and here. Applicants should understand that they will be expected to be who they are. Sorry for the eavesdropping. Russell D. Jones 14:40, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

1. Eavesdropping is welcome.
2. I just wanted the source code of that page to study the usage of templates and inputboxes therein.
3. Since we have an editable version of this page now, we might as well improve the phrasing and overall structuring of the document. Please go ahead — Matt can feed it back into the system.

--Daniel Mietchen 14:47, 12 August 2009 (UTC)