User talk:Modest Genius/Archive 1

Well, wikify just means to format it so it looks like other wikipedia articles, plus add links etc (see

Wikify), so I wouldn't be worried about that! So long as you can provide one source (a book, or a website or something) then it shouldn't get removed. Modest Genius ^talk

19:20, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

For anyone who's interested, it was rendered redundant by an svg version of the same thing Modest Genius ^talk 17:33, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

I tried to create a decent article out of the FA one, leaving the controversy part untouched because it will result in a flame war. Please tell me what you think about it. LSky —Preceding comment was added at 14:12, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

I still have the old email address. How are you and what are you playing these days? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.130.194.227 (talk) 21:26, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

<replying here as I don't know if the IP varies> Wow, a bit of a blast from the past! I'm doing well, though work and a five year old computer mostly keep me from gaming these days. I can't seem to find your email address, but I think all of mine continue to work if you still have one. If not, or in any case, I suggest you check out forums.worldatwarmod.com , which is where the OTF relocated to. Modest Genius ^talk 22:35, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the support on the talk page! Most people seem to favor this change. I'd like to invite you to help out as we try to improve 1346, or at least to pop in every once in awhile to see how it's going. Wrad (talk) 06:08, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, I may pop in at some point. Modest Genius ^talk 17:34, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

I replied on both subjects. Since items tend to be quickly deleted once they're resolved, you may wish to look at the history. (Namely, ITN was updated and there's discussion on their talk page and I shortened the anniversary entry a bit). -- lucasbfr ^{ho ho ho} 12:40, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree. Although the increasingly front-loaded primary-season schedule means that the Iowa caucus and New Hampshire primary are the two most crucial events in the choosing of US presidential nominees, and whoever wins the two of them will almost certainly end up as one of the two people who have a chance of becoming the next US president, this caucus is basically NN. The United States of America, unlike Malta or the New England Patriots, is a fairly small nation whose president has had next-to-nil impact on the rest of the world for the last seven years. To me, the real question is whether we should be maintaining articles on local celebrities like Obama and Huckabee in the first place. Obama is a senator from Illinois, only one of fifty states, and Huckabee is a governor of another one of these states. To my mind, this sort of thing is basically electioncruft and primarily of local interest. It's unencylopedic to include this sort of shit, IMO. Who really cares who becomes the next president of that shit country? I don't really care if a bunch of major media outlets on other continents carried it as front page news - they probably feel obligated to do that, and no one really even wants to read it. Also, so what if Obama is black in a nation that has never had a black nominee before, and got a strong majority in a nearly all-white state? It doesn't really matter who wins; the winner will just be a puppet of the US corporate-military cabal behind the scenes. Bravo, Nil Einne and other men of character, for keeping this sort of information off the Wikipedia front page and limiting it to where it belongs: the front pages and lead stories of various fraudulent house organs of the international capitalist class, from the BBC to Der Spiegel. Now, how about those New England Patriots? Speaking of grievances that I have, why the extremely short run for the following important ITN item: "Queen Elizabeth II formally opens the new Channel Tunnel Rail Link and London's St Pancras terminus, the new home for Eurostar trains (pictured) linking London with Paris and Brussels." This seems like some heavy stuff. And yet it only ran for a few days on ITN, only about ten times longer than news of the likely US presidential nominees, despite being about one hundred times as important. WTF? 65.190.89.154 (talk) 22:30, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

In all of history, I have found only one example where an event in an ongoing and lengthy process of government formation was included in ITN: "Belgian King Albert II intervenes to take state reform off the table in the 2007 Belgian government formation, which has lasted a record five months." This is the only example, ever. To be honest, I only clicked on one historical version of ITN to conduct my search and found this example without any effort at all, but it is likely the only example of its kind. 65.190.89.154 (talk) 22:42, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

What I don't understand is why USA-Americans feel the obsessive need to dominate this encyclopedia with their own localism, just as they feel the need to dominate other countries. As long as USA-Americans are allowed to edit here unfettered, this encyclopedia will be no more than a compendium of their various local obsessions and complexes, as they understand little outside of their own borders. And as long as they are allowed to contribute to ITN, it will be cluttered with babbling about the lengthy process of their government formation, and free of important information about trains in England (=important country, very European these days), events in the lengthy process of government formation in Belgium, and the New England Patriots. I think we seriously need to consider some sort of action.65.190.89.154 (talk) 22:50, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

I refuse to be unoriginal. (I'd like that translated into

YOU SAID ":____))I"--xgmx (T | C | D | R | DR)

Uh, what? edit: the above post apparently wasn't made by the user in the signature Modest Genius ^talk 19:14, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

sorry double posted--xgmx (T | C | D | R | DR)

Hi there. I wanted to set up my talk page with an introduction and, being an experienced programmer, I did not want to type anything in but rather steal something and 'file off the serial numbers'. So I hunted around, liked the look of your introduction and copied it. I hope that's okay. FerdinandFrog (talk) 19:12, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Not at all - I copied it myself anyway! It's a

substed copy of Template:User talk, generated using the wikicode {{subst:User talk}} Modest Genius ^talk

23:31, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Fair point, I've been a bit lax about that lately Modest Genius ^talk 18:47, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. ⇒SWATJester ^{Son of the Defender} 16:22, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Hi,

As a regularly contributing UK Wikipedian, we were wondering if you wanted to contribute to the Oxford bid to host the 2010 Wikimania conference. Please see here for details of how to get involved, we need all the help we can get if we are to put in a compelling bid.

We are also in the process of forming a new UK Wikimedia chapter to replace the soon to be folded old one. If you are interested in helping shape our plans, showing your support or becoming a future member or board member, please head over to the Wikimedia UK v2.0 page and let us know. We plan on holding an election in the next month to find the initial board, who will oversee the process of founding the company and accepting membership applications. They will then call an AGM to formally elect a new board who after obtaining charitable status will start the fund raising, promotion and active support for the UK Wikimedian community for which the chapter is being founded.

You may also wish to attend the next London meet-up at which both of these issues will be discussed. If you can't attend this meetup, you may want to watch Wikipedia:Meetup, for updates on future meets.

We look forward to hearing from you soon, and we send our apologies for this automated intrusion onto your talk page!

Hi Genius,

I noticed that you readded the hatnote I removed from

Happy editing,

Neelix (talk) 11:01, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

With the recent deprecation of date autoformatting, "raw" dates are becoming increasingly visible on Wikipedia. Strong views are being expressed, and even some edit-warring here and there. A poll has been initiated to gauge community support to help us develop wording in the Manual of Style that reflects a workable consensus. As you have recently commented on date formats, your input would be helpful in getting this right. Four options have been put forward, summarised as:

1. Use whatever format matches the variety of English used in the article
2. For English-speaking countries, use the format used in the country, for non-English-speaking countries, use the format chosen by the first editor that added a date to the article
3. Use International format, except for U.S.-related articles
4. Use the format used in the country

The poll may be found

Once again, it's not a rant. You may feel it looks like one, but it is not a rant. It's factual information that corrects and explains the nature of misleading information. The only way the statement can be legitimately removed is to remove the misleading information it corrects. Crimsone (talk) 23:18, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Hi - You sent me a message saying that I had vandalized the entry for Roman Consul. In fact I was browsing the page and noticed the vandalism and editing the page to REMOVE said vandalism. Please place blame where it belongs, not at the feet of those trying to remove inappropriate material from pages. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.174.237.171 (talk) 17:02, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, so you did, whoops! I must have clicked the wrong IP address, I meant to go to 216.120.134.231. Many apologies! Modest Genius ^talk 17:05, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

		The Tireless Contributor Barnstar
		For being diligent in spotting our poor spelling and grammar on the main page I award you this barnstar. Keep up the awesome work! :) Master of Puppets Call me MoP! :D 09:42, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Cool, thanks! Modest Genius ^talk 21:59, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

I tweaked this article a little bit, it was not really in need of improvement, I just thought some more detail of the run into the lock gate would be good to have, also, to emphasize a bit that just hitting the lock gate itself was an achievement.Mtsmallwood (talk) 05:03, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

Hi, I notice that you had some interest in physics. Might I interest you in joining

On April Fool's, 2009, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Everything, which you recently nominated. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

Gatoclass (talk) 08:18, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

In case you are not aware, the

Indeed. I have never attempted to revoke the license, and the specific creation of GFDL 1.3 for the purpose makes things moot, though does seem rather underhand and deceitful. I actually believe that CC-BY-SA is a superior license. I am aware that the template makes no legal difference; it is there to make a point, mostly in the anticipation that the foundation might at some stage attempt to release wikipedia as public domain, though now we're moving to CC-BY-SA that becomes very difficult. Modest Genius ^talk 00:23, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Re this, please return and clarify which Banner you're referring to. It'd probably be good to know which version of which browser you're using on which platform. Finally, it doesn't look like an error to me, but a report of a cosmetic problem, so it should probably be placed at the foot of Talk:Main Page, rather than in the ERRORS section. Thanks --Dweller (talk) 15:28, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

I was referring to the 3 millionth article banner (which is the only banner I could see on the main page...). It had been removed by the time I checked back. Modest Genius ^talk 16:02, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Not posting here for any real reason, except that I need to make an edit to test something. Cheers!⇒SWATJester ^{Son of the Defender} 16:50, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

um, fair enough! Modest Genius ^talk 16:57, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

No worries, was just testing something to see in what format various edit timing features came out. ⇒SWATJester ^{Son of the Defender} 15:39, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

On 15 December 2009, In the news was updated with a news item that involved the article Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, which you recently nominated. If you know of another interesting news item involving a recently created or updated article, then please suggest it on the candidates page.

--BorgQueen (talk) 08:48, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Per WP:FOOT, the current page style in place, and my edit summary explaining my change, your subsequent revert does not make sense. Could you explain it or self-revert? Thanks. Viriditas (talk) 00:56, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

The citation refers to the optical photometry, not the rest of the sentence. Therefore the ref tag belongs inside the brackets, so it's clear which bit is being referenced. This is different to placing a ref at the end of a sentence, where the tag can be before or after the full stop without ambiguity. Modest Genius ^talk 01:26, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the quick reply and explanation. If you look at the text in question, the end of the phrase is "space observatory" which is followed by a comma. That's where a citation would be placed for the content you describe. But, in this instance, the parenthetical itself is cited after the parens, not before. Notice, this does not change or imply that it is referring to the phrase, because if it were, it would appear after the comma, not the parens. Does this make sense? Viriditas (talk) 02:48, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Err, no, not really. The citation refers to the optical photometry only, NOT the space observatories. Nor does it supply verification for the 'every available' bit. A ref tag outside the bracket would be ambiguous and possibly misleading; one inside is not. Both are allowed by the guideline, so it seems logical to use the non-ambiguous version. Modest Genius ^talk 13:29, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

I thought it was perfectly clear. Let me try again: We've already established that the citation refers to the optical photometry only, but it goes outside the parentheses. This is neither ambiguous or misleading, it is house style, especially in an article that already uses punctuation before footnotes. You seem to think we mix and match in one article; We do not. We use one style per article, consistently throughout. A proper reference to the rest of the text would appear outside the comma. Those are two different placements, and there is nothing at all ambiguous about this; It is how we use footnotes. Let me show you with an example from the page in question:

A "spectroscopic minimum", or "X-ray eclipse", appeared in 2003. Astronomers organized a large observing campaign which included every available ground-based (e.g. CCD optical photometry)^[1] and space observatory, including major observations with the Hubble Space Telescope, the Chandra X-ray Observatory, the INTEGRAL Gamma-ray space observatory, and the Very Large Telescope.

Do you see the comma after "space observatory"? That's where your source would go supporting that part of the sentence; A footnote after the parentheses would only support what is within the parentheses. So, there is no ambiguity. But the question must be asked, where are the rest of the sources for this paragraph? Viriditas (talk) 14:18, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

I realise we don't mix and match, but full stops and brackets are different things, and in this case the placement outside adds ambiguity. Your example only demonstrates that - the reference appears to refer to all of the sentence which is before it, not just the brackets. There is no requirement for a reference to have to wait until the next punctuation mark. As for where the rest of the references are, I have no idea, I didn't write it. Now can we please stop arguing over the extremely minor placement of a reference tag and punctuation mark? Modest Genius ^talk 21:47, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

They are not treated differently, so I don't know why you think they are. In any case, since you aren't interested in adding citations and cleaning up the article, then I hope you won't mind if I will, and when I do, I expect you to refrain from making another unsupported revert. Thanks. Viriditas (talk) 23:33, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

assuming good faith. If you have the time, motivation and resources to add more references then please do (quite what makes you think I'm "not interested" I don't know). I'll treat them identically to any other addition to one of my watchlisted articles. As for 'unsupported', what did you expect? Me to call a vote over one punctuation mark? Modest Genius ^talk

23:52, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

You are welcome. As anyone can see from the beginning of this discussion, I assumed good faith and I did not revert your unsupported revert. I came here politely asking for an explanation, and I received one that conflicted with the current article style and guideline, and I was told that proper citations were ambiguous. When asked about the citations, I was given the response, "I have no idea, I didn't write it", at which point I informed you that I have an idea and I was trying to fix the article before I was reverted for no good reason. So, if you aren't going to help me, then please, don't stand in the way. Thanks. Viriditas (talk) 00:23, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

If you wish you can email me and I'll attach the articles in question. Regards. Materialscientist (talk) 00:35, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the offer, but I'd already gone to bed by then. Looks like things have moved on overnight. Modest Genius ^talk 16:13, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

I hope you don't mind my bothering you about something trivial. I'm basically computer illiterate. I want to expand a sentence (to include a link) to an article, but I don't know where the symbol is that is used in the template e.g. apple apple, between apple and apple. Can you advise? Thanks in advance. Denisarona (talk) 15:19, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

The | (pipe) character? On my (UK) keyboard, I hold shift and press the key to the left of the Z. I believe it's different on US keyboards. See

Pipe (character). Modest Genius ^talk

15:44, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, now I can proceed! Oh, BTW, my keyboard's not a US keyboard, but rather a UK/Italian hybrid. Again mille grazie. Denisarona (talk) 16:00, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Who do you supprt politivally? --RealentPottage (talk) 16:52, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Whoever has the best policies at the time. Why do you want to know? Modest Genius ^talk 22:08, 14 March 2010 (UTC)