Revision as of 23:48, 7 June 2008

jbmurray is busy in real life and may not respond swiftly to queries.

I prefer to keep both sides of my discussions together. If you leave me a message here, I will reply here, probably with a copy to your page. But if I left a note on your talk page, feel free to reply there or here. Thanks!

With perhaps rare exceptions, I will now only be editing at weekends.

Archives

2007 • Jan-Mar, 2008 • Apr, 2008 • May, 2008 • June, 2008

Monty Hall FAR

Hi - You made some comments at the FAR page for Monty Hall problem (now archived at Misplaced Pages:Featured article review/Monty Hall problem/archive2) but didn't really follow up. The FAR is now closed (with a keep), but I'm still interested in improvements to the article. If you have the time (and interest), please bring up any issues you might still have at talk:Monty Hall problem. Thanks. -- Rick Block (talk) 02:20, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks!

Thanks for informing me about the citation stuff over at Sandy's talk page. Now I can resume working on my article, hurray. — Wackymacs (talk ~ edits) 18:01, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

No probs. If I've won another person to the cause of {{Harvnb}}, all the better! :) --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 18:03, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Oh, well I am still using {{Citation}} because it's so easy to use. I can't really see what more {{Harvnb}} actually offers. (And I don't want the burden of converting all the existing refs, really). Maybe I'll use it on my next article rewrite though? — Wackymacs (talk ~ edits) 18:28, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Nah, you'd still use Citation. What's the article? I can show you. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 18:31, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

My rewrite is temporarily at User:Wackymacs/Fordson tractor until it's finished to replace the existing Fordson tractor article. — Wackymacs (talk ~ edits) 18:36, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Easier than I thought, but it would be nice if there was a way of getting the publication year into brackets. — Wackymacs (talk ~ edits) 18:43, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Pah. Doesn't matter. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 18:44, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Hello again. Looks good - let me know when you're done, and I will copy and paste this into my text document (I have been writing this offline so far, and only put it in my user space for your convenience). I will find the publication places. — Wackymacs (talk ~ edits) 19:54, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Oh, I'm done. Good luck with it! --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 19:56, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

I have added the places of publication, although I couldn't find out place info for the Crestline Imprint books. Does it look OK? — Wackymacs (talk ~ edits) 08:27, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

You can get this info from . Easiest is to click on the ISBN (on your article page), scroll down, and then click on "Find this book at WorldCat free online catalog of the world's libraries." I fixed a few problems, but you might want to check them with the books themselves. NB preferably use the new, full, ISBNs, which begin with 978-. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 09:03, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Hah, I think you meant worldcat.org, not .com...I clicked your link and came to a power boat website...so my first reaction was "What the..." ;-) Anyway, worldcat.org is useful - thanks for letting me know. I'll check the rest. Thanks for your help again. — Wackymacs (talk ~ edits) 09:07, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Heh. Sorry! --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 09:09, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

The archiving here

Just to let you know, the top archive tag and your closing comments should be inside the section header. Enigma 00:36, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

OK. In fact, I just copied the immediately preceding example (now itself archived). Thanks. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 00:39, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

The way I learned this was by incorrectly archiving on a noticeboard (I also put the {{discussion top}} before the section header) and was later informed that that isn't the right way to archive. I guess we learn from our mistakes. :) Enigma 00:45, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Muntz FA

Madman Muntz was just promoted to FA tonight, so I wanted to thank you for your help. I think for the moment I need to step away and try to work on something else, but I will get the page numbers in for the book citations sometime this week. And, of course, feel free to improve as you see fit. As for the stuff about Muntz's family, I'm pretty sure I'll be able to expand on it in the future once the documentary about him comes out. There ARE newspaper articles out there about his two famous wives, but the New York Times wants money to read them online and I'm a cheapskate. :-) Anyway, cheers. Nobody of Consequence (talk) 02:25, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Well, congratulations! NB if you want material that's behind a paywall, send me the details and I can email them to you. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 06:01, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Okay, will do. They may turn out to be useless, but worth a look. I'm not sure the URLs are permanent, so if you do an archive search (pre 1981), these are the titles that caught my eye:

• PATRICIA STEVENS DIES; Founded Nationwide Modeling Agency and School
• Joan Barton Wins Divorce
• Muntz to Make Conditioners
• Muntz Car Co. to Handle Graham-Paige Products
• Highway Stereo: Sprechen Vous Italiano, Senor?; Highway Stereo
• For That Big Model, Try a Used Car; Used Auto Lots: Bastion of Bigness

That last one is about another Used Car Dealer who copied the Muntz "Madman" persona. Hopefully some good info in these articles. Cheers! Nobody of Consequence (talk) 20:25, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Peter Wall

On 4 June, 2008, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Peter Wall, which you created or substantially expanded. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

--BorgQueen (talk) 07:02, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Weekend

Good sir, I was willing to grant you "long weekend" through Monday, but as of yesterday, I see you are still editing. I insist you change your template to read: "I will now only be editing at weekends, except when I don't." --Laser brain (talk) 13:54, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Practice

Got a job for you to practice admin buttons. See user talk:Gimmietrow. (Note spelling). Gimmetrow 20:29, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

I left a note for Slp1 as well, so one of you can practice, but if you're interested, please have a look at the issues at the minor BLP, Alex Wolff. Best, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:01, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Quickie MOS question

What's the best way to format "Three other coaches, Art Shell, Jon Gruden and Bill Callahan, have also taken the Raiders to the playoffs."? It doesn't look right to me. I was thinking something like "Three other coaches—Art Shell, Jon Gruden and Bill Callahan—have also taken the Raiders to the playoffs." because it's really a break in the sentence. Thoughts? Gary King (talk) 07:25, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Dashes would work, as you suggest. (And I agree that the original sentence is confusing.) I should say, however, that I do have a perhaps irrational dislike of the dash. And I say that even though in the document I'm working on right now, I happen to have just written a sentence with a dash in it. I much prefer the parenthesis.

Perhaps a still better option, however, would be to break the sentence into two. At present, after all, and however you do it, the three names rather intrude between the grammatical subject and the main verb. The effect is at best a tease, at worst frustrating. So you could try the following:

• "Three other coaches have also taken the Raiders to the playoffs: Art Shell, John Gruden, and Bill Callahan."

This would enable you to be more informative. Here are some further options:

• "Three other coaches have also taken the Raiders to the playoffs: Art Shell (in 1962), John Gruden (1974), and Bill Callahan (1981)."
• "There are three other coaches who have also taken the Raiders to the playoffs: Art Shell (in 1962), John Gruden (1974), and Bill Callahan (1981)."
• "Three other coaches have also taken the Raiders to the playoffs. They are Art Shell, whose team lost in the quarter finals in 1962; John Gruden, who took them to the Superbowl in 1974; and Bill Callahan, whose campaign ended with a defeat to the Bills in 1981."

Obviously enough, I'm making up the dates and other details. And note the Oxford comma, of which I'm also a big fan. HTH. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 07:40, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Okay thanks. Also FYI this is not a sentence I wrote :p I also like the Serial comma, although some other regulars at FAC don't like it. I dislike parenthesis because I usually skip those when reading something as I assume they will break the flow of the text since they are often used for extra information that is not important. Gary King (talk) 07:47, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

VNQDD

Hi Jb and thanks for the copyedit. When you were referring to choppiness, did you mean grammar/raw prose or did you mean that the logical development of the narrative seemed a bit disjointed? Blnguyen (bananabucket) 08:43, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

More the latter: transitions and connections between sentences and paragraphs. (There are a few grammar issues, too, but this is mainly a question of style.) --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 08:45, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

rfa thanks

j.b., I just wanted to thank you for participating in my recent RFA. I've prepared an in-depth RFA analysis based on the comments that were made, including your comment about the social networking/blog-like activity. i've explained what my "hello world" is (now) being used for, admittedly the february and march entries weren't encyclopedic. i'd appreciate your further comment on if you think it's a worthwhile endeavour. also, some templated thank spam is available below. cheers, xenocidic (talk) 23:12, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

RFA

Standards

This user page is currently inactive and is retained for historical reference. It was last substantively updated 14 August 2008. If you want to revive discussion regarding the subject, you might try contacting the user in question or seeking broader input via a forum such as the village pump. It was last substantively updated 14 August 2008.

My RFA standards are still being refined, but I rarely base my support on arbitrary cut-offs like number of edits, or length of time editing. More often I will attempt to determine the clue level of a candidate. If high levels of clue are present, they will earn my support, regardless of whether or not they have 5000 non-huggle edits and 6 months of regular activity. This is based on a fairly brief review of their contributions, moreso on their answers to the questions. I have an optional question that I often pose to candidates that helps with this.

Self-noms and the acceptance line

• Neglecting to follow the bolded instruction #6 to delete the acceptance line in the self-nomination instructions will cause me to register a neutral unless a preponderance of clue has already been detected.
• I do this because it is a fairly simple and easy instruction to follow. Not following it is (in my opinion) indicative of a deeper tendency to not thoroughly read and follow instructions generally. Adminship is no big deal, but applying for adminship is. The fact that a candidate hasn't fully versed themselves in the process of RFA prior to jumping in doesn't build confidence that they will accurately follow guidelines and policies in applying administrative actions.
• An example of how this could apply to a real-world admin situation: When blocking for an inappropriate username, it is customary to uncheck the "Prevent account creation" and "Autoblock any IP addresses used" boxes. However, an admin who doesn't thoroughly follow instructions might not do this and as such Misplaced Pages could lose an otherwise constructive contributor.
• One user has mentioned that leaving this line in could be justified by ignore all rules. Quite frankly, I disagree. There is no good reason to ignore this rule, and following it is painless. Attention to detail is a quality I value in an administrator.
• As I mentioned, leaving this line in isn't always a deal breaker and if the candidate's actions indicate to me that this oversight is an anomaly, I may change to, or otherwise support. Furthermore, if they remove the line using only a herring, I will most certainly lend my support, though I may ask that they first bring me a shrubbery.

Participation

1. Thingg - nom, support (69/32/4)
2. WBOSITG 2 - support (114/10/4)
3. Zginder - neutral became moral support in the neutral column and then oppose (8/34/9)
4. Ro098 - oppose (0/3/0)
5. Jbmurray - support (161/1/2)
6. Vivio Testarossa - oppose (8/25/7)
7. Bluegoblin7 - neutral (6/13/10)
8. Guest9999 - support (48/31/4)
9. Paulyb - oppose (0/4/0)
10. Strennman - oppose (0/6/0)
11. Tyw7 - oppose (with moral support) (0/1/0)

    Tyw7 2 - oppose, switched to strong oppose (3/14/1)

12. Xenocidic - candidate (72/13/2)
13. InDeBiz1 - moral support (5/15/2)
14. Useight (RFB) - support (28/16/6)
15. Tinkleheimer - moral support (15/16/8)
16. Ironholds - oppose (12/24/10)
17. Kevin - neutral, switched to support (54/2/0)
18. Pinkville - support (54/0/1)
19. Ali'i - weak support (70/55/14)
20. Cenarium - support (42/2/2)
21. Soxred93 3 - neutral, switched to support (87/7/3)
22. Avruch - support (104/35/10)
23. Cedarvale1965-08 - oppose (0/2/0)
24. Karanacs - support (119/4/3)
25. Plyhmrp - oppose (0/4/0)
26. SarekOfVulcan - support (76/11/2)
27. Golich17 - support (19/36/11)
28. Headbomb - support (17/38/11)
29. oren0 - support (67/21/13)
30. Ryan - support (17/36/2)
31. EricV89 - support (13/43/9)
32. Frank - support (59/11/4)
33. Masterpiece2000 - neutral (10/19/3)
34. JeanLatore - neutral (0/12/1)

    JeanLatore 2 - oppose (0/6/0)

35. RyanLupin 2 - support (32/28/4)
36. Blakegripling ph - support (9/30/9)
37. Lomn - support (54/1/1)
38. Shoessss 2 - support (23/26/7)
39. Tanner-Christopher 2 - support (64/3/4)
40. the demonhog 2 - support (100/1/1)
41. TomStar 81 3 - support (80/18/2)
42. Cailil - support (66/8/5)
43. Lady Aleena 2 - neutral, switched to oppose (28/31/10)
44. Red Phoenix - support (13/7/2)
45. No longer updating, see my RFA participation report

Optional question

Thanks

Thank you for your support

I would like to thank the community for placing their trust in me during my recent request for adminship, which passed 72 13 2 . Rest assured, I have read each comment thoroughly and will be addressing the various concerns raised as I step cautiously into my new role as janitor. In particular, I would like to thank Balloonman for putting so much time into reviewing my contributions and writing such a thoughtful nomination statement after knowing me for only a brief period of time (and for convincing me that I was ready to take up the mop now, rather than go through admin coaching).

To my fellow admins - please let me know right away if I ever take any mis-steps with my new tools. Should I make a mistake, and you reverse the action, I will not consider it to be wheel-warring (but please tell me so I can understand what I did wrong).

To everyone - please feel free to slap me around a bit if I ever lose sight of the core philosophy of Misplaced Pages as I understand it - the advancement of knowledge through the processes of mutual understanding and respect. As always, feel free to drop by my talk page if I can be of any assistance. =)

Sincerely,

~xenocidic, 01:04, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Analysis of my RFA

Uriel Sebree

Thank you for your recent comments on Benjamin Franklin Tilley's FAC. I'm working to address your concerns. Do you have a better one-line summary that I can use for the Spanish-American war? The ones that I came up with generally weren't NPOV or were too short. I'm just thinking that I may drop the "introduction to the war" entirely since it may not need context as it's a generally understood historical event, but that doesn't feel right either.

You know, I wouldn't worry about it. I may have a search around for a better one-line summary, but as I said on the FAC page itself, it's far from being a deal-breaker as far as I'm concerned. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 20:50, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

As a side note, since you had very good comments for Tilley, would you possibly have time to take a look over another article I recently finished editing, Uriel Sebree. I have a peer review of it open and afterwards I will probably submit it to GA? or FAC. Your commentary would be appreciated before I submit it, so that I can have it be as good as possible for the review process. JRP (talk) 18:23, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Will do. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 20:50, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

I just took the quickest of glances at the article. Like Benjamin Franklin Tilley, it looks pretty good. A certain GA, and not far from FAC. You certainly make good use of the nineteenth-century newspaper sources. I do think that here, as at the other article, the prose is a little uninspired; anything that could be done to polish it up and make it less proseliny would be good. I'll try to return to it later. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 21:09, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm playing around with using a timeline box, like the one I did on Henry Minett. (Very much a work in progress, but you get the idea.) The dilemma is that certain things in the box should be in the article, and the last thing I want is to try and boil down a career into such a simple list. Possibly having such a list on Sebree would allow me to skip in prose some of the less interesting postings. But at the same time, it's hard to have a full view of his life in the prose if you skip large portions of it. JRP (talk) 21:21, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Anglesey Central Railway

(crossposted to assorted user's talk pages, if you're thinking this looks a bit familiar)
While looking at WP:GAN for other articles to review (I don't like nominating things without reviewing one if possible), I've come across Anglesey Central Railway. Looking at the creator's history, all they've worked on is this article and articles related to it (aside, bizarrely, from Characters in Asterix). While I can't in all honesty pass this at the moment – it has serious structural failures, as well as bending the MOS to breaking point – this is so much better than a new editor's usual "my favourite band" starting effort that I'd really like to get this one through the GA hoop. (IMO there's enough sourced content there to get it to FA.) I'll have a go at cleaning it up, but you're generally much better at the "nuts and bolts" side of things than me; would you mind having a look at it too, as I really think this looks like an author who should be encouraged. (What I know about Welsh railways can be summarised as 1) they're railways and 2) they're Welsh, so I don't think I'll be much use in content-adding.) — iridescent 21:38, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

RCC FAC

This message is being sent to all opposers of the Roman Catholic Church FAC. Thank you for taking the time to come see the page and give us your comments. I apologize for any drama caused by my imperfect human nature. As specified in WP:FAC, I am required to encourage you to come see the page and decide if your oppose still stands. Ceoil and others have made changes to prose and many edits have been made to address FAC reviewers comments like yours. Thank you. NancyHeise (talk) 23:48, 7 June 2008 (UTC)