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Time Traveler Convention

An article you helped edit is being proposed for deletion. PT ^(s-s-s-s) 18:49, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Articles for Deletion: Magnetic Accelerator Cannon, Plasma Rifle, and other articles

Hey,

I've seen that you've been editing some of the Halo weapons pages. I would like to inform you that they are being nominated for deletion.

If you want to partake in the discussions, just go to their respective pages, and hit "this article's deletion entry" link.

I'll be on vacation, and will be unable to contribute to these discussions.

Cheers,

RelentlessRouge 12:59, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Re: Source for information on the Chevin?

I knocked it down to what i can mark up to specific sources for now. —Skope (talk) 02:01, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. Last I counted there were 272 "citation needed" templates on that page, I'm happy to avoid adding more. :) Bryan 03:20, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Reload?

Image:NGC 3227.jpg that you uploaded was deleted by user Shizhao as it had no source information. Would you like to reload this picture or should I look for another? JMK 20:29, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't think I uploaded it in the first place. At one point I was going through commons looking for images of NGC objects that didn't have a corresponding article and creating articles to go with them, I think that was one of those. Bryan 23:46, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

OK, will look for another. JMK 20:19, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Removing category from my userpage/sandbox

Just wanted to say thanks - I completely missed that! --Brian Olsen 20:44, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

No problem. :) Bryan 02:29, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Reformatting of articles

Your addition of Episode headings is contrary to what's been established in the WP:WHO style guide. We had a discussion about this a long time ago; the adding of episode headers this way adds additional sub-headers in the contents box and also will make the pages inconsistent since not all summaries neatly divide into episodes. The agreement at the time, and as was incorporated into the style guide, was to put in <hr> breaks instead or end it with ellipses. Unobtrusive, and gets the point across. --khaosworks (talk • contribs) 22:58, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Eww. Horizontal rules used to be used long ago to separate articles where multiple different small articles were combined into one page (nowadays we just disambiguate into stubs), so using horizontal rules between episodes like that looks way out of place to me. Can't say I agree with that decision at all. Bryan 02:27, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Little update: I found that the bottom entry in the table at Wikipedia:How to edit a page#Examples agreed with my memory on how horizontal rules are used in general on Wikipedia, and Help:Section#Horizontal dividing line indicates they're not to be used for dividing articles up into sections like this. Perhaps we should start up a new discussion about it at the Wikiproject? Bryan 02:32, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

To be honest, I didn't even insert breaks at all when I started doing those summaries, but they are there if anyone wants to use them. My problem is with inserting subheaders because they will lead to an inconsistent look across articles, create a larger TOC box and just look awkward. If you don't want a horizontal rule, then ellipses is another option. Sure, bring it up again if you want, but that's my take, FWIW. --khaosworks (talk • contribs) 02:34, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Alrighty. I probably won't take it up right now since those few Doctor Who episodes were just a little drive-by I did, I wasn't planning to do any bulk editing just yet. I just discovered that the Stargate Wikiproject has been having the same Notes/Trivia header issue that I brought up with the Doctor Who Wikiproject a while back and it reminded me that I should have been spending more effort on Doctor Who articles too. I'll see whether I wind up embroiled in a big discussion in the Stargate Wikiproject first. :) In the meantime, want me to go back through the ones I did and re-add the horizontal rules for now? Assuming it hasn't already been done that is. Bryan 02:43, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

BTW, since I know it might seem a little rude for me to keep swooping in on Wikiprojects and objecting to long-established aspects of their operation like this, I just wanted to say that I really don't mean to seem arrogant or intrusive. I'm just concerned with the consistency of Wikipedia as a whole. I don't want to create work for people if I don't feel I have to, since all this minor format fiddling takes time away from the more important work of adding and expanding the informational content instead. Bryan 02:43, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

No, not at all. WP:AGF aside, we're all trying to improve things here. I think I've reverted most if not all of the drive-bys back to the horizontal rules, but if you spot any I've missed, feel free to revert (or not, I'll probably spot it soon again anyway). --khaosworks (talk • contribs) 02:56, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Looks like you got them all, thanks. I'll make sure you know when I bring the issue up on the Wikiproject talk page, though I expect you've got it watchlisted and will probably notice anyway. :) Bryan 03:26, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

TOS commodore rank and WP:V

I think its safe to use the primary source (show itself) as a referance as tech manuals are not necesarily reliable. The contravercy over rank insignia can be covered in the aproporate rank article. --Cat out 05:25, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

I'll address this in Talk:Starfleet ranks and insignia Bryan 05:56, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree with C.C. in this case. What is shown on the live action productions (films, TV show) would nautrally outweigh anything in a tech manual. And, while the J.F. book is a great source, not everything in it can be accepted as canon. -Husnock 13:17, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

And as I mentioned over on the ranks and insignia talk page, I've got no problem with that. The problem is citations. You can't substitute uncited material for properly-cited and fully verifiable stuff willy-nilly. I need to be able to verify the new stuff. Bryan 15:55, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

The citations are offered in the rank specific articles that are linked to the page. They were removed to the specific pages when the article was broke up into several smaller articles. The main article page with a chart lmost serves as little more than an all encompassing redirect page now with pictures. I also mentioned the live action sources for the insignia on the talk page of the article and it is heavily referenced in the rank specific articles as well as well as in the references section at the bottom of the article. -Husnock 16:21, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

As soon as the article's unprotected I'll put the specific cites you mentioned in place, but it's really rather inconsiderate of you to have the cites available and not do it yourself in this situation. Simply reverting to the uncited version makes the article worse as a Wikipedia article. Bryan 16:36, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

For the love of the God, the article is not uncited. It was discussed long ago that the artcle should be split into separate rank specific articles. When it was, the general agreement was that citiatons for specific ranks should go on specific rank articles. I addition, nearly ALL of the footnotes, in every single rank specific article, was researched and posted by me. So, you state I am inconsiderate and not post my citiations when exactly the opposite is true. Here's a list for you to check out: Lieutenant (Star Trek), Lieutenant Commander (Star Trek), Captain (Star Trek) Commodore (Star Trek) not to mention the text in each of those articles which states where the information comes from and from what on-screen production. A final note to all this, and a lesson well learned here, is that if you make radical edits to well established articles, you will often meet heavy resistance. I have done that before, myself. Use the talk page when resistence is met and, if disputed edits are reverted, post them to the talk page and say "how about this?" instead of putting them on the page over and over again. In any event, I'm off to real world stuff now. See ya. -Husnock 16:48, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

The changes were discussed, see Talk:Starfleet ranks and insignia#Heavy citationing needed. No objections were raised until just now, though some questions were asked and answered and I made a correction to a filename when informed of the system by which they were named. As a recent "arrival" to the article, I wasn't aware of any previous discussions about the split-up. Perhaps you can also draw a lesson here, that articles shouldn't require a knowledge of their editing history for their current state to be accepted. Anyway, I also am off to real world stuff. When the article gets unprotected, I intend to start bringing in citations where I can find them and I invite you to help out. Bryan 16:56, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Image:Fentanyl.png listed for deletion

An image or media file that you uploaded or altered, Image:Fentanyl.png, has been listed at Wikipedia:Images and media for deletion. Please look there to see why this is (you may have to search for the title of the image to find its entry), if you are interested in it not being deleted. Thank you. Fritz S. (Talk) 11:22, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Image:STSeniorLCDR.jpg

Alternate insignias. Since you improved two of those images, I was wondering if you could improve this one too? See Starfleet conjectural ranks and insignia --Cat out 11:31, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

I can try. What needs to be done with it? All I can think of doing is trimming off the purple line at the top. Bryan 07:14, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

clearing the neighbourhood

thanks for that table, it adds a lot more clarity to the article! are you an astronomer?--Sonjaaa 03:02, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Nope, though I've been interested in astronomy since I was wee little and have contributed a fair bit to some other astronomy articles. In the case of that table, I simply copied the data from the Soter reference. I'm hoping that there isn't enough creativity in the presentation to make for any copyright issues. Bryan 03:09, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Spoo

Ahoy.

Ages ago you fixed the reference formatting on Spoo, but I was resistent to it and reverted you. I soon came to realize, however, that that particular formatting was superior and I should not have reverted. But, I never got around to thanking you properly for your hard work in the reformatting, so, sorry for being a dunderhead in reverting, and genuine thanks for your hard work. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 12:54, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

That's okay, I recall being a bit hard-headed about forcing the change through myself. I really need to be reminded sometimes that if a hot new bit of syntax really is superior to prior methods then there's no need to rush in implementing it everywhere, it'll just become the de facto standard naturally over time. So I should say both "you're welcome" and "sorry about that". :) Bryan 16:24, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

The Jar

You restored this AFDed article ages ago, and I've let it be for absolutely ages. I have however, now tagged it as unreferenced, and will possibly AFD it later (a few weeks at most). - Hahnchen 03:34, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

I'll ask for references from the users that expanded it from the stub that I restored. Back when I restored it the reference I provided (the Internet Archive version of the Jar's website) covered all the details, it's the newer stuff that's been added since then that needs additional backup. I'll dig around a bit myself as well, but if none can be found how about paring it back down to its previous size? Bryan 03:38, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Looks like everything added after me was by User:Areku. She edits infrequently but did something just six days ago so hopefully I'll get some response. I've also put out a general call on Wikiproject Webcomics. Bryan 03:51, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

I actually think a lot better option would be to have it redirect to the newer webcomic, and then having a section on The Jar there. If you take a look at WP:V you really want external sources and I don't think you're going to be able to get them, as I doubt many professional publications and reliable sources took note. And without these, I don't think people are going to agree that it's notable. - Hahnchen 03:55, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

That's fine by me too, I merge and split articles frequently and without remorse. :) But let's wait a little while first to see if anyone I contacted actually does come up with some sources. I'm not too familiar with the webcomics "scene" myself, I just happen to be a reader of Sparkling Generation Valkyrie Yuuki in particular (among my few other regular webcomic interests) and hence had some interest in its predecessor. Check back in a week, maybe? Bryan 04:03, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Re: The Jar -- I'm afraid all the information I added was from personal recollection and what I could find with Archive.org. I know memories are not the most reliable, but I did keep up with the Jar when it was still in production... Should the article get put on the AFD list again, then I suggest putting a section for the Jar in with Kittyhawk's new comic, or in an article on Kittyhawk, as has been suggested. -- Areku

Well, if it comes to that then we should do these things before the article goes on AfD. It's always easier to work on an article without the deletion process hanging over it. :) I'm about ready for bed tonight and I may be busy with other things tomorrow, but on tuesday I'll start going through what's left on archive.org and prune the article down to just the stuff that I'm able to find references for. Then we'll see whether it's enough to stand on its own, merge into a Kittyhawk article, or merge into SGVY. Bryan 05:13, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Spartel cleanup

Thanks for reading through the abstract on Spartel and paraphrasing it; I've disliked that text since I found it. I wonder, though, if copyright issues exist when the author himself submits the text. But regardless, thanks for cleaning it up! -kotra 04:58, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

No problem. If the author himself submits the text there's no copyright issue, the holder of a text's copyright is allowed to licence it however they please (we all own the copyrights to the text we add to Wikipedia when we edit it, after all). But it still needed rewriting to make it more "encyclopedic", so it's a moot point here. :) Bryan 05:08, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

The Stargate Project

Hi, ive noticed that you have made lots of edits to Stargate articles. Perhaps you should add yourself on the participants list at WP:WPSG. You contibute more than some people on the list. Tobyk777 22:32, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Hm. I'm not sure, I've never really been that interested in the self-identification of "alliegence" to particular subject areas like that - I just wander around fixing and tweaking and tinkering with whatever happened to catch my attention (or Special:Random). Stargate just happens to be my favourite SF TV show currently on air so it comes to my attention a lot. :) Thanks for the invite, though, and I'll consider it. I guess there's no trouble with just marking myself down as knowledgeable in that area. Bryan 06:41, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Template: Supertall

How about adding a link in the template to those other ones that are split? Or is that going a bit too far? ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ 02:39, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Personally, I think that sort of tree-like "directory structure" is better suited to categories. But if you can think of a way to add a link in the template that doesn't expand the size unreasonably, go ahead. Perhaps create articles like List of supertall chimneys, or somesuch, and add links to those in the other templates? Bryan 03:02, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

That's not a bad idea. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ 11:06, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Prop B

Thanks for the repair and sorted arrangement of links. I was going to do it tonite but you were faster.

However, you didn't give much constructive feedback about the article. Is it a fair presentation or biased ? 1999 Proposition B in Missouri

ArmedCitizen 03:41, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

I didn't give feedback because I only came across the article as a result of random link following, I wasn't actually interested in the subject matter. But perhaps as a disinterested third party I'll be well suited to checking its NPOVness. I'll take a look at it in a few hours (I was just headed off Wikipedia for now), and if it needs work perhaps I'll be able to whip it into better shape. Bryan 03:47, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Your work on Astrosociobiology

Thanks for adding references/citing sources better on astrobiology. It's an exciting topic, and definitely one where solid sources are needed. Keep up the good work. - JustinWick 01:42, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

No problem. I didn't really do a whole lot, though, just referencize some sources that were already mentioned in the text and then dump in some problematic text from Kardashev scale that I've been trying to figure out what to do with for months. :) I'll take another look through the article now and see if I can actually add some substance, the subject's one that interests me too. Bryan 03:06, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Work on Thailand political crisis 2005-2006 appreciated!

Your work on the Thailand political crisis 2005-2006 article is most appreciated. Patiwat 10:08, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

No problem. There's still a lot of URLs to prettify with citation templates and such, but hopefully I've caught all the duplicates now. Bryan 05:56, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Your opinion, please

Hi! We welcome your opinion, or participation on Wikipedia:WikiProject Sexology and sexuality/WIP-image-guidelines where we are attempting to develop useful guidelines to help solve a variety of problems. Atom 15:25, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Xenoarchaeology

Hi, Bryan! What do you think of the way the xenoarchaeology article is coming along? Steve 06:45, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Image:ADP.png listed for deletion

An image or media file that you uploaded or altered, Image:ADP.png, has been listed at Wikipedia:Images and media for deletion. Please look there to see why this is (you may have to search for the title of the image to find its entry), if you are interested in it not being deleted. Thank you. Fritz S. (Talk) 08:56, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Image:AMP.png listed for deletion

An image or media file that you uploaded or altered, Image:AMP.png, has been listed at Wikipedia:Images and media for deletion. Please look there to see why this is (you may have to search for the title of the image to find its entry), if you are interested in it not being deleted. Thank you. Fritz S. (Talk) 08:57, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict

I'd like to thank you for your reference repair on 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict, which was long overdue. I'm also curious as to what you meant with this edit. Thanks, and keep up the good work, Tewfik^Talk 04:38, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

The URL that was included with that reference - http://www.dailystar.com.lb/War06.asp - gave me a 404 error when I tried visiting it. Fortunately, though, the cite template had other details - title, date, and publisher - which means that even if that URL is forever dead and Internet Archive doesn't have a copy, we could concievably dig up the news story again by other means. That's the great thing about having detailed citation templates rather than just raw URLs like we used to. Bryan 05:43, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Actually, it's moot now. I just found the correct URL in a slightly older version of the article, at some point a bit of the URL got deleted before the entire reference was lost. Bryan 00:02, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Leon Trotsky

Re your message on wikien-l: may I ask why you didn't clean out User:Wumbo's wrong statement? See User_talk:Ahasuerus#Leon_Trotsky.27s_uncle...; it wasn't all that difficult to figure out what was right. Lupo 09:08, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Because it's a long article about a subject I know absolutely nothing about and I didn't feel like digging through it at the time. Despite the amount of effort I spend on Wikipedia in general I am just a volunteer here, you know. :) I would probably have got to it eventually, or at least have put some sort of message on talk: to make sure other editors familiar with the subject eventually would. There isn't a deadline on this sort of thing. Bryan 15:19, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Image copyright problem with Image:Luna3_farside.gif

Thanks for uploading Image:Luna3_farside.gif. The image has been identified as not specifying the copyright status of the image, which is required by Wikipedia's policy on images. If you don't indicate the copyright status of the image on the image's description page, using an appropriate copyright tag, it may be deleted some time in the next seven days. If you have uploaded other images, please verify that you have provided copyright information for them as well.

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This is an automated notice by OrphanBot. For assistance on the image use policy, see Wikipedia:Media copyright questions. 08:07, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Black hole

Black hole is up for a featured article review. Detailed concerns may be found here. Please leave your comments and help us address and maintain this article's featured quality. Sandy 16:35, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Next time...

Hey, thanks for your work on {{Mortal Kombat series}} (and {{Mortal Kombat media}}). While I completely agree with the assessment of the template (and what you split out), it would have been nice if you'd asked/told the MK WikiProject; not only would we (probably me) been happy to do the split and subsequent article editing, but it also would have ensured that we didn't use a generic nav box (which I've reformatted to match). Not angry (this post could be interpreted as mildly antagonistic), just dropping you a line. EVula 14:56, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

No problem. When I saw that there was a wikiproject for that game I figured someone would come along and do some additional editing, and while I'd been secretly hoping that the other template would get switched over to a layout like the new media one I didn't really expect it. I tend to prefer standardization but this being Wikipedia I know that any attempt to force it is a losing game. :) Bryan 16:26, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

So true, so true... EVula 16:29, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Heh, so the split wasn't particularly well received by other members of the MK project. We've revised the series template to have all the information, but a bit smaller. No hard feelings, but I'm putting the media template up for deletion now, as it isn't needed anymore.

Oh, and as for switching the layout over (horizontal vs. vertical), I'll play around with the new current one; now that we've trimmed it down some, it might work better that way.

Again, thanks for your work, even if it was summarily rejected by practically everybody. :-) EVula 17:04, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Ah well. Perhaps I'll try splitting the characters off into their own template sometime, assuming I stumble across MK-related pages again in the near future. I find my work via Special:Random. :) Bryan 17:13, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Reminder: might want to ask first, or at least make a suggestion. :P EVula 18:22, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Hrmph. I predate the entire concept of "Wikiprojects", I would have thought that'd give me some sort of special crotchety-old-editor boldness rights... :) Bryan 05:31, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Haha, I'm very familiar with that feeling. I'm an über-oldie on one board I hang out on... its quite the ego hit whenever I venture elsewhere. ;) EVula 05:36, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

List of Terrae on Mars

Thanks for adding a table to this list. I notice you're listing the West coordinate. I was under the impression that east coordinates are the way of the future.[1] I have been listing east in the actual articles. What do you think? Marskell 15:25, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

I just copied and pasted the information from [2], which happened to use west longitude. I'm certainly not wedded to any particular format. Feel free to convert it over. Bryan 16:55, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Ceres symbols

No, I really have a problem with including the variations at all, since they basically just result from "artistic licence". All that's needed is a single image to show the basic shape (and the most common version—in fact, basically the only one currently used). _└ ^OzLawyer / _talk ^┐ 13:40, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

In that case please avoid leaving misleading edit summaries. I have no particular basis for holding an opinion on this matter myself, but my general feeling is that even rare variants are worth mentioning - especially in this case where there's an entire section dedicated to Ceres' symbol. If we take out the variants the section consists of just a single sentence, which seems kind of pointless to me. Perhaps we should bring it up on the article's talk page? Bryan 17:24, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

The section was created for the sole purpose of removing the ugly and out of place repetition of symbols from the lead section. _└ ^OzLawyer / _talk ^┐ 17:36, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, I doubt you're proposing that we put them back into the lead section, in that case. Where else would you propose putting those symbols? Bryan 00:43, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

I propose putting them nowhere. Like I said, they're basically artistic licence variations—no different, really, than if you draw the symbol for Jupiter differently (say, with only a little or quite a lot of curve on the blade). I essence, they're not real variations at all. We pick one artistic variant (the one that is in virtually sole use nowadays), and forget all the rest. _└ ^OzLawyer / _talk ^┐ 16:32, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

There's been the start of some discussion of this over at Talk:Ceres (dwarf planet)#Symbols already, shall we take it up over there? I honestly have no idea how common those variants are or once were, I just restored them because the reason you gave for deleting them in the edit summary didn't make sense. Bryan 00:31, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Review for Deletion for WikiFur

Do you honestly beleive that WikiFur was a bad faith nomination? Kingjeff 16:16, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

No, as I explained when I put it on deletion review I feel that the deletion discussion didn't get consensus to delete. Where did I say it was a bad faith nomination? Bryan 00:28, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Ref tags for List of Star Trek Planets

Do you know a way of consolidating a single reference tag for multiple planets? Like if several planets are mentioned in one episode they can all reference the same source. Or are you planning on consolidating this list to separate alphabetized articles? Cyberia23 08:06, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm thinking I'll probably split the article into alphabetized sub-articles, lots of other similar lists have had that done elsewhere in Wikipedia. Afterward, though, merging duplicate references is definitely on my to-do list. See Wikipedia:Footnotes#Citing a footnote more than once for information about how this works. It'll be easier to do after the article's split and there aren't ~650 references to look through for duplicates, though. :) Bryan 08:21, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Well good luck with that - I was going to do that myself but it looked like a pain in the ass. Cyberia23 00:54, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

The chopping-up process itself is quite easy, actually - I could probably have the whole thing done in half an hour or so. The hard part of chopping up lists like this is usually when other editors start yelling at me for having done it. :) I'm still fiddling with references right now, though - it looks like it'll actually be easier to merge duplicates while everything's together on one big page like this, it lets me use searching on everything at once. Bryan 00:58, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

I was afraid of screwing it up :) Cyberia23 05:39, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

I was making a few corrections to entries - spelling and such, I'll hold off if you're changing things. Cyberia23 06:12, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Nah, go ahead - I've got some TV shows I was wanting to watch. I'll get back to this in a few hours. :) Bryan 06:14, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Dear Bryan,

I'm seeking out Wikipedia experts to share their methods for the benefit of all. I've set up a Virtual classroom for Wikipedians to learn, teach, and share advanced wiki-skills. Right now the participants are engaged in a show and tell of their user interfaces (the tools we use to navigate and work on Wikipedia, including programs, extensions, scripts, settings, etc.). I hope you will stop by to share and compare. Interiot, Rich Farmbrough, and CBDunkerson have been kind enough to help get things started by describing the interfaces they use. User:Interiot has even completed a new Firefox extension to make navigating Wikipedia easier. It is available in the announcements section on the Virtual classroom page. I'm really curious what tricks and techniques you use. Hope to see you there.  The Transhumanist   11:46, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Vampire citations and external links

Hey Brian, a question on your revert on Vampire lifestyle. If I understand what you are saying from you edit summary it is somehow against policy to remove or otherwise change citations even if I find their inclusion in the article to be inncorrect? NeoFreak 03:17, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

No, I was against turning citations into plain external links. As you can see with what I've done with the article subsequently, putting references into ref tags allows full bibliographic details to be included. I was making no judgements as to whether the citations themselves were "worthy". Bryan 03:23, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Ah, I see. So you have no objection to their plain removal based on my issues with them? I find their inclusion as primary or secondary sources for those statements to be entirely inappropriate. NeoFreak 03:27, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Depends on the specifics of each reference. I'm just looking through a few of them now and I don't see any that appear to be inappropriate to me, so I suspect that yes, I would oppose removing them. They may not be the best possible sources but they do support the statements they're associated with, and given the choices of having statements with poor references and statements with no references I think it's best to have poor references. How about bringing up the ones you've got issues with on talk? I'm not very familiar with the "vampire lifestyle" thing, it's just left over on my watchlist from an old spree of vandalism I helped deal with long ago. Bryan 03:34, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

"given the choices of having statements with poor references and statements with no references I think it's best to have poor references". It seems you and I have a fundemental difference in wiki-philosophy. If good sources can't be found for a statment then that statement probably shouldn't be included in an encyclopedic article. I've been trying to clean up some articles that use original research and self published personal websites as sources on several demographics and I ended up at Vampire lifestyle via a "see also" link. I've already started a discussion on the talk page if you would like to join in. NeoFreak 03:40, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

It's quite possible. My usual approach to statements I find dubious or poorly supported is to put {{citation needed}} stickers on them and then come back in a few months to see if anyone's done anything to fix them up. I rarely delete stuff outright unless it's gone for a very long time, and even then I often move stuff to talk for future restoration. There isn't a deadline, after all. Bryan 03:50, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Episode article naming

Hiya, there is currently some discussion about the proper naming of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle episodes, and as I see that you have been involved with that the discussion in the past, I'd like to ensure that we have your input. It's being discussed both at Talk:List of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987) episodes and Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (television), and your thoughts would be greatly appreciated at both locations, to indicate whether or not you prefer a consistent method of titling TMNT episodes, or a method of "disaambiguate only when needed." Thanks, --Elonka 23:52, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Stargate-title.svg

You recently replaced my .jpg version of the Stargate title art with your own SVG art. However your version is incorrect: the Stargate title isn't just Times New Roman with a funny A. Please look at my JPG - the letters are specifically crafted (and compare to the show). I don't know how to make an SVG, but if you could do a direct convert from my version that would be better. Otherwise I might be able to send you the Stargate font i used to make my version. (reply on my talk page please) --Alfakim-- talk 18:00, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

WP:ELAC task

Hi Bryan, could you transfer Xiandai Hanyu changyong zibiao to Wikisource. This will facilitate this project. P.S. maybe you would like to join our new group: WP:Extra-Long Article Committee? Thanks: --Sadi Carnot 14:37, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

TMNT move

Hiya, there appears to be a dispute at various TMNT articles over episode naming. Since you're one of the editors who's been involved with those articles for a long time [3], I wanted to make you aware of the discussion, and ask what your preference was on how the articles should be named? I encourage you to participate at Talk:List of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987) episodes#Disambiguation and make your opinion known. Thanks. --Elonka 02:32, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Ref conv

Sorry for the downtime. References converter is now back up and running. About a week ago the hard drive in my server crashed. Luckily it stayed together long enough to allow me to pull all the data off onto a new hard drive, but I still had to go through the process of installing Linux on the new hard drive, installing all the necessary programs, and loading in all of the old data from the server. I got all of my essential services up within two days (CVS, Apache, Wiki), but I kind of forgot about web scripts, which I finally got around to fixing today. Everything should be fully functional again. If you see any bugs, just send me a message. You are receiving this message because you are on the spamlist. If you no longer wish to receive these messages, simply remove your name. --Cyde Weys 19:13, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Amateur astronomy / Skygazing merge

Did you have a specific goal in merging these two articles? They should probably be merged (or at least Skygazing should be redirected) but copying Skygazing into Amateur astronomy has made some massive problems because Skygazing is so very un-encyclopedic, full of redundant sections that should be in other articles, and suffers from general translation problems. I am planning to revert this merger unless you are in the middle of some kind of refinement of the resulting article I am not aware of. Halfblue 23:42, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm not in the middle of refinement, since I'm not familiar with the topic and have other stuff on my plate I hadn't planned to go into detail on it. The purpose of the merger is to allow others to continue refining the article. It's a simple case of collaborative editing, which is what Wikipedia is all about. I don't see how reverting the merge makes any sense since it's progressing in the opposite direction of how the article should ultimately develop, a direction that you yourself agree with. If you have specific problems with the material, why not work on improving it? Delete the redundant sections or move them to the other articles they should be in, for example. Bryan 00:28, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

I can see your point of moving things along by being bold on the merger. The problem is Skygazing really has nothing useful that could be added to the Amateur astronomy article. Skygazing is a translated French “how to” article. It resembles the state English Amateur astronomy was in a few months back. Amateur astronomy has been heavily edited by User:Izogi to correct all the problems you currently see in Skygazing (Amateur astronomy is now an article describing the field of Amateur astronomy whereas Skygazing is a manual "instructing" someone how to observe the night sky). Izogi had Skygazing available when he did his edit but (correctly in my mind) chose not to use any of it because of its encyclopedic problems. At this point in time almost none of Skygazing belongs in Amateur astronomy because the only usable parts are redundant. The rest of the article could be used in there respective topics (sky phenomenon, telescope description, ect) but that does not mean it should be dropped into Amateur astronomy. I think no one has taken an axe to Skygazing because they can see a lot of useful stuff in it that could be used in other articles, or they just couldn't figure out where its place was in the wikipedia world. Skygazing should probably be a redirect as a slang term for Amateur astronomy with no merger and its "contents" moved off to someone’s project page. I may do that. At this point in time I am going to revert the merger and try to find time to integrate some of Skygazing’s content or simply move it off to WikiHOW. Halfblue 23:24, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

The merge template has been sitting there since January. I'm an eventualist myself, but this is still rather a long time and I expect as the other old merges from that era are winnowed out others will wind up doing the same things too. If you feel strongly about it I'd suggest working it into your editing schedule to ensure it's done to your tastes. Bryan 00:42, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks

I quickly put that template together and was meaning to make those changes. Also, thanks for editing the category out of my sandbox. :: Colin Keigher (Talk) 01:32, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

No problem, that's what collaborative editing is all about. :) Bryan 01:39, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

List of villains

This article, which you started back in '04, was marked for a prod. I removed the tag, saying "divide, not delete" If the article goes to AfD in its current state, it will probably be deleted. Gives you a day or so to fix it. I also notified Marcus2. DGG 01:53, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Heh. If the article goes to AfD I'd be tempted to vote delete as well. A list of this scope is probably not appropriate for Wikipedia, and I'm not sure if splitting it would solve the problem unless the dividing lines were very specific and strict. I could see "Villains from the Hebrew Bible" or "...Christian New Testament" sections making good lists in their own right, for example; their scope is quite solidly bounded. But "Villains from films" would be a vast and formless mass and I don't see any obvious way to salvage it. Bryan 02:15, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Geotimeboxes

I thought that you might be interested that AMK152 proposed, in a series of edits on 27 December 2006, a geotimebox for various articles dealing with the Geologic time scale. For example: AMK152's edit of Hadean looked like this. See discussion at Template talk:Geotimebox. --Bejnar 21:09, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Existence

Hello. You kindly supplied some comments on the above article in November. I wrote most of the article and obviously I am concerned if the article seems to be completely unintelligible to most readers. But, being a philosopher, and philosophy being such a notoriously difficult subject to make 'accessible', it's always difficult for me to see how this could be improved.

I asked for comments on the talk page, but no replies. I would like your comments, if possible. If you are not a philosopher, that is great, because I specifically want to hear from non-philosophers. Dbuckner 12:43, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

SVG on Commons

The only problem? The software I use doesn't utilize or recognize SVG. And I have no idea how to translate or any software (freeware) that is available. So if someone would point me in the right direction and give me a few pointers about how to do SVG... well, maybe then. The idea of "cleanup", however, is insulting - as it suggests something "wrong" with the image. Rarelibra 14:03, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

The program I use for general SVG editing is Inkscape, which is free and open-source. There may be other programs that are specifically designed for maps, though - I use BKchem for work with chemical structures instead, for example, because it has a lot of tools meant for working with those. I did some quick Googling and found this page of links to various map-related SVG software, does anything here look like it might be useful? [4]. It's got a list of commercial SVG mapping software but some of those may have free demo versions. svg.org might also have something. I'm not familiar with the common file formats used by cartographic data so I can't tell what specific programs look most useful.

The "cleanup" tag isn't meant to be insulting, it's meant to suggest that a specific improvement is possible in this case. The most wonderfully drawn high-resolution PNG map could still be improved by switching to SVG because there are things that can be done with SVG images that just can't be done with other formats. For example, the labels on place names could be translated to different languages without even needing an image editor; one could just open the SVG file in a text editor and replace the names with translated versions (SVG is an XML-based format stored in an ordinary text file). But in the meantime there's nothing wrong with having a high-resolution PNG instead so don't stop uploading maps if you don't find any SVG tools you like. Eventually someone else will come along who can convert the PNG files to SVG, it's the wiki way. Bryan 20:56, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Ivory Coast move

Since you participated in previous discussions on Ivory Coast, you might be interested in the requested move at Talk:Côte_d'Ivoire#...Requested_move. —  AjaxSmack  06:13, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

AQ Wikiproject

Hey Bryan Derksen, I noticed you have an interest in AQ. I'm trying to start a AQ Wikiproject. It'd be cool if you could go to Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals and add yourself to the list of interested Wikipedians so that we can start up a Adventure Quest Wikiproject. Thank You. SupaSoldier 01:07, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

All I did was turn an external link into a reference, which is something I reflexively do on any Wikipedia page I visit. I don't think I qualify. Sorry. :) Bryan 02:53, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Ostrich

Hi,

I'm probably going to remove the reference you just added to the ostrich article, 'cause it's dead. I tried several versions and a brief google search and couldn't find anything. Sorry!

WLU 16:31, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

You shouldn't simply remove dead references, see Wikipedia:Citing sources#What to do when a reference link "goes dead". If you can't find a replacement reference you should put in a link to the archive.org version instead. I'd do it myself but I don't have a lot of time right now, I'll check in on things later today and see what I can do. Bryan 17:29, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Gosh and begorah you're right, I added the link back in using webarchive.org. Thanks for the great tip, I wasn't aware of it. The link still isn't a great one considering the website basically existed to sell ostrich products, but oh well. WLU 19:40, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Better than a {{citation needed}}, at least. :) Bryan 20:11, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Old information

This might save you some typing. (SEWilco 21:17, 17 January 2007 (UTC))

I'm afraid I'm not sure what you mean. I wasn't planning on doing anything more with that article, my editing in December was just a drive-by. Did I break something? Bryan 00:36, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

!

		The Surreal Barnstar
		Bryan, I award you the Surreal Barnstar for always adding the special flavor to Wikipedia. Keep it up! Awarded by Kamope · talk · contributions 13:02, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Your signature

Hello, Bryan! I think you might want to change your signature because there is a user with a username of "Bryan" and when he signs his posts, people may get confused. Kamope · talk · contributions 23:31, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Hardly seems fair considering I've been on Wikipedia since mid 2001, but I'll be magnanimous and change my sig rather than asking User:Bryan to give way to seniority. :) Bryan Derksen 05:39, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Arecibo

Re. Arecibo and Pluto: the radar does not work out that far. We don't work beyond Saturn. I'm also not sure what 'at the time' means: Pluto isn't classified as a planet now, and not many scientists have considered it as such for about fifteen years. Pluto cannot ever be observed with Arecibo, so I'm not sure what the relevance is. Michaelbusch 03:00, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

My point was that one shouldn't remove actual information (the fact that Pluto dropped below Arecibo's field of view in 1989) simply due to a semantic quibble over what the object is classified as. My impression from your edit summary was that this was the main reason you removed it. If there are other valid reasons for doing so then that's fine, though perhaps in this case it would still be better to point out that Arecibo couldn't do radar observations of Pluto even when it was within its field of view. More information is almost always better than less, IMO. Bryan Derksen 03:36, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Ref in Freemasonry

I'm sorry to have to remove the reference you put in Freemasonry again, but as written (<ref>[[Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition|1911 Encyclopædia Britannica]]</ref>) it did point to the Wikipedia article on Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, and as I'm sure you are aware cannot be used as a reference. May I suggest that you find an online copy of the 1911 EC and link to their article on Freemasonry if you feel this reference is important? WegianWarrior 04:25, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Oy. I've run into this misunderstanding before. The reason why there's a Wikipedia link is because there aren't any good copies online; the only ones are laden with OCR errors and other glitches. The choices are between a wikipedia link explaining what the reference is and a plain bit of text with no link at all. I'll expand the bibliographic reference a bit more, will that satisfy? Take a look at the first usage example at Template:Cite book, it has a wikilinked title just like I've done in this case. It's perfectly valid. Bryan Derksen 05:25, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

It's better, allthought not perfect (I'll accept the fact that there are no good copies online thought). However, my, and I'm sure BlueBoar's, problem was the fact that the reference, as written, simply pointed to the Wikipedia article on the 1911 EC. WegianWarrior 05:57, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

My position is simply that improving a badly written or incomplete reference is far preferable to deleting it. If the wikilink is truly intolerable, then simply delinking the text would have been preferable (though I don't see the problem with wikilinking titles myself). I haven't even really looked at the fact that's being cited in this case, I just saw that a reference was being removed from it and reflex kicked in. Bryan Derksen 07:25, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

The wikilink is not the problem. The problem is that a vague citation to an entire edition of an encyclopedia is completely useless to back up a specific statement, especially when the wikilink points to an article that has nothing to do with the topic. My response said as much; and you apparently misiniterpreted it. Without some way to link a reference directly to the article in question (so the reader can find it if he or shw wishes), citing it does nothing. If you cannot find the EB Freemasonry article, don't add the citation in again. Furthermore, what good is an incomplete citation? For example: "Smith, J. pg. 12" - does this at all aid you in finding whatever it is I'm talking about? Probably not. If you can't get away with it in high school, why should you get away with it on WP? MSJapan 18:56, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

When an article is imported from the old Encyclopedia Britannica, it has been long-standing practice on Wikipedia to put the template {{1911}} at the bottom as the source. It's no more specific than the reference in this case, and even wikilinks to the same article I linked to. What is worse about attaching this reference to a specific line instead of an article as a whole? And what is better about having no reference at all instead of one with poor specificity? Bryan Derksen 05:18, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, we didn't import the EB article into Freemasonry at all, and a poor citation is worse than none, because it looks like fabrication of sources (which is exactly what it is). We've got the actual article as an external link for anyone who wants to read it. MSJapan 18:49, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

If the source is fabricated, by which I take it you mean the information isn't actually supported by the source being cited rather than the source not actually existing, that's a whole other kettle of fish. In that case replace the cite with a {{citation needed}}, or simply remove both cite and cited information. But if the information is indeed in the source then I simply can't agree that a poor citation is worse than no citation. A poor citation is at least a step up from "we have no idea if this was just dreamed up out of thin air." Frankly, I'm still convinced that the article's quality has been damaged by this and I can't really understand the position the rest of you guys are taking on the talk page - it seems to have shifted several times and none of them make sense. But I'm tired of this one little detail, so whatever. I've got lots of other things to work on instead. Just please bear in mind next time you encounter a citation that has a wikilink in it that it might actually be citing the named source itself rather than the Wikipedia article about that source. Bryan Derksen 00:58, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Primary Topic in Disambiguation

Hi,

I noticed that you were a major contributor to WP:D. I have a question regarding naming convention guidelines in WP:D regarding the situation when one entry is a primary meaning. What is your opinion on how you determine whether one meaning is the primary meaning relative to other meanings? For example, if there is a topic XYZ and multiple meanings for XYZ, but one stands out as the primary meaning to me, what necessary and sufficient evidence would you require to be convinced of that, if it's not obvious? Thanks in advance for you consideration of this issue. --Hamsacharya dan 21:50, 30 January 2007 (UTC)