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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Jack Merridew (talk | contribs) at 01:11, 22 July 2010 (→your comments at talk wells: http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Misplaced Pages:Civility/Poll&oldid=300546241#Discussion_.28Zero_tolerance.29). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

User talk:Jack Merridew/Notice

Coding help!

Hey Jack. I was wondering if you could help me with something. How simple would it be to make {{Multiple image}} allow up to seven images, instead of the five it currently permits? ÷seresin 06:21, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Looks quite straightforward; want me to just do it? Anyone gonna get bent? Cheers, Jack Merridew 06:24, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

That would be great; thanks. If anyone gets bent I can just move it to a special template. And, with respect, has "anyone getting bent" ever really been a big consideration? ;-) ÷seresin 06:26, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

 Done Give it a whirl. Cheers, Jack Merridew 06:28, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, but if you see here, there are some extraneous texts in the rendering. A similar thing happened when I tried to do it. Also, it seems that broke all the transclusions. If you're still feeling helpful and want to work on it, would you mind using a subpage, so we don't break the whole wiki? tx. ÷seresin 06:32, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

I must have missed some detail; will look further and run a test somewhere. Cheers, Jack Merridew 06:38, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Ya, initial expression needs attention, too ;) Jack Merridew 06:40, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

See: Template:Multiple image/test and new examples in you sandbox. I believe it's now properly extended to seven. There's an issue with both old and new; see the latter examples where it's vertical and the widths are individually specified; the container's with is set to width1 + 12 even if the others are wider. A huge, nasty expression could find the max-width, but I'm not going to try that. I'll ping Chris for input, though, so... we'll see. Cheers, Jack Merridew 07:40, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

It works for what I needed it to, so I'm happy. You win a hundred internets Mr Merridew. Thanks very much. ÷seresin 07:47, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

You're welcome. Paste it over if you're happy with it (mebbe you did, will look); revert my last on the /doc, too, to get the 7 and example back. I'll be sure and bank those, right away. Cheers, Jack Merridew 07:50, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

and I see where you're using it, too ;) Jack Merridew 07:54, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

I think, actually, what I'll do is just make it a separate template that I'll use instead of merging it back to the main template. As you said there's something hairy about clipping in it, and if that can't be fixed I don't want to break all the templates out there. It works for the specific use I had in mind, so it's all good. So you don't really need to do much else to it, because I don't anticipate anyone using it. Thanks again. ÷seresin 08:23, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

The clipping issue is in the original, too; it's a limitation of the design and may be intentional. The fellow who wrote it is years-gone, so we have to muddle along. See what Chris says; I'm thinking it should go back into the current template. I've also not looked at any of the usages ;) Cheers, Jack Merridew 08:26, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Actually, the clipping is just caused by the template simply using width1 if it's specified. I've updated the sandbox to do a proper comparison, which seems to work fine. If you now want to increase the number of possible images then it should work.

You might want to also note that if you're going to add new images then you need to update the width code as well as adding new conditionals. The vertical one is relatively easy (I wrote it in five minutes) but the horizontal one is ghastly. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 08:48, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. I didn't see that sandbox; I made my own at Template:Multiple image/test. I'll noodle through what you've done tomorrow and probably merge-in what I was doing. I see that it's taking width1 and was hoping for an easy way around it. Cheers, Jack Merridew 08:52, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

It's done; I've expanded the template to cope with seven images, and think I can expand it to cope with more without too much effort (so long as I can keep a grasp of the conditionals in my head). Seresin, can you check if the sandbox code works okay for you now? Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 09:03, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Just caught me; looks good at first peek. Thank you.

seresin, thanks to you too, for bringing this here; I should be doing more of this. Cheers, Jack Merridew 09:12, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Very nice work ;) This should become the live version; better in multiple ways. Cheers, Jack Merridew 22:10, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

This is finally live and working with 10 images. Woohoo. :) Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 12:27, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

;) Jack Merridew 19:16, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

• So we have a problem. With the live templates, the spacing on the side is being cut off. It worked before, but no longer. I don't know far back I would need to get the code so that it would work. So if/until that gets fixed, I've restored the /test subpage and am using that one, because it doesn't have the clipping problem. Thanks for both your help on this, btw. ÷seresin 19:36, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

  Sorry 'bout that. Off to review the sandbox and test cases... Hope the vacation was nice. Too short, obviously. Cheers, Jack Merridew 00:06, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Apologies

Regarding that last sock report you wished help with. I did originally look at the case, but I didn't know enough about the situation/case to make an educated guess, and I didn't wish to shoot in the dark. I'm sorry that I haven't gotten back to you sooner about the matter; life has been rather busy on my end. I've been spending less and less time on wikipedia. Again, sorry for not contacting you sooner about this.— Dædαlus 07:52, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

That was Gabi/Sami, right? I archived that and have not looked much at them. They quack loudly and she'll get dinged one of these times; simply does not get the wiki. Jack Merridew 07:56, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

It was a bunch of IP socks if I recall... can't remember though, been distracted with 3d and mirc scripts. I can't remember the name of any suspected master. And again, I am sorry for not getting back sooner.— Dædαlus 08:00, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

I'd have to look; the one I was thinking is User talk:Jack Merridew/Archive 5#Sami50421/Gabi Hernandez. Jack Merridew 08:08, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

DYK for Musca vetustissima

On June 7, 2010, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Musca vetustissima, which you created or substantially expanded. You are welcome to check how many hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, quick check ) and add it to DYKSTATS if it got over 5,000. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

— Rlevse • Talk • 18:02, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Musca vetustissima

It's weird that you were the first one to notice the article on the Spanish Misplaced Pages. It took me a long time to translate the article using a trick that I taught myself for Google Translate. Joe Chill (talk) 04:05, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

I saw the bot tag the article here with an es-iwlink, and clicked over and fussed a bit. I sussed out their orphan template to help our amigo's notice it. Nice work, Cheers, Jack Merridew 04:11, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Scarlett Johansson

I noticed you de-tabled the theater section, which makes sense because it was just one line, but if it isn't going to be tabled, should it be removed because it's already mentioned (and sourced) earlier in the article? Or do you think it bears repeating the information?  Chickenmonkey  05:28, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

No, I'd not seen that it was mentioned elsewhere; I was not intending that it be a dupe. Feel free to merge/cut it, as you noticed it. I'll look and see, and if you don't choose to act, I may. Thanks, Jack Merridew 05:35, 8 June 2010 (UTC) I just cut it ;) Jack Merridew 05:39, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, I wasn't sure if it might be a good idea to still include it in its own section, but I don't think that would be a good idea since it's just the one role. If it were more, it might be worth duplicating it -- as with films.  Chickenmonkey  06:13, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Lines

Howdy. How do you get thin lines to appear between each parameter? see Parthenon? Can you add lines to the infobox building? Dr. Blofeld 15:23, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Hi. I missed this earlier, today. I've quick-peeked and didn't see an easy option. I'll look again after I deal with something else. Cheers, Jack Merridew 20:36, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Take a deep breath

Come on, how does pasting in that "template" at Talk:Scarlett Johansson help anything? And why does it really matter to you whether the table is blue or green or grey or sortable or not? Please take a step back from this, you seem to just be involved in this dispute for the drama. Fences&Windows 17:49, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

I'm fine, really. I'm not in this for "drama". I've been trying to address a huge coding mess in however many thousands of article for more than three months now. Problem is, they revert just about everything. In February or so, I was reverted on a bunch of articles with reference to WP:ACTOR's "authority" and some characterization of it as a 'governing' body. This is a ridiculous assertion of ownership. I've done a huge amount of clean up on hundreds of actor articles, all of it appropriate and clueful. I'm quite good at markup and styling. As I've explained many times, this is not about "blue vs grey", it's about poor coding practices and a few who claim a false consensus re their articles. The template is humour and was pointed out to me by someone last month; it's in my archive 5. Cheers, Jack Merridew 18:01, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Alright good, then we can all take care to keep this drama-free. Markup and styling matter, sure, but take it slow and keep the humour to a minimum. Humour often doesn't translate well on the web and Wikipedians can be a humourless bunch when stuck in the middle of an edit war. Misplaced humour can just come across as snarkiness. If a group of editors are trying to assert a "local consensus" against style guidelines and consensus established elsewhere then the overall consensus will usually win through, especially if wider involvement is encouraged via WikiProjects or an RfC (rather than it appearing on people's radar via AN/I!). And if the wider consensus doesn't prevail (as it didn't when there was an attempt to add infoboxes to biogs of classical musicians), what's the worst that happens? A few slightly non-standard filmography tables stay around, which I'm sure you can live with. Fences&Windows 19:10, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

You do see that this is all over ANI and VPP the last few days? And that there was a huge RFC, already? And the whole mess last year, that I wasn't involved in, that damned this colour approach? There's talk on VPP and Moonriddengirl's talk about an RfC on colour usage at a site-wide level, and I'm willing to pursue that, too. The other party, however, is ignoring that and is in all-out wiki-war mode. The other option I'm considering, besides an RFC/U, is asking Ryan if this would be something MedCom would take on. Cheers, Jack Merridew 19:34, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

You know, I don't think an RfC/U or mediation would help in the slightest. If you honestly think that would help resolve this dispute then you're naive: that would be escalation. At heart it's a simple dispute and the best way to resolve it is by involving more editors, not by you continuing to make this personal. Whatever the process and outcome of the new RfC, please avoid provoking Wildhartlivie. Just disengage from them. Try to avoid commenting on them, don't revert them, don't post speculations about sockpuppetry (and bringing up a history of sockpuppetry is more than a little ironic, no?). At the moment I'm less concerned about what colours, markup and sorting wikitables have and more concerned about you two taking chunks out of each other. Fences&Windows 12:55, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

This should be a simple dispute and I certainly want more editors involved. It's not proving simple, though, and I've been specifically instructed by the AC to follow Misplaced Pages policy and guidelines, and follow dispute resolution processes to resolve editing conflicts (& DR includes RfC/U and mediation). I intend to abide by that. Ya, there's an element of escalation, but it could help, too. And I'm not being naive or disingenuous here. Other routes can and should be pursued, such as a broad-focused RfC about colour and the skittlepedia effect. I have a lot of good ideas in these area that are wasted on the wrong audience.

I only mentioned WHL's socking because she referred to mine; just above my comment on your page. She also seems to think I'm saying that her ACTOR-friends are her socks; nope, just those 3. See the SPI, and this. Her friends just take DefendEachOther a revert too far.

WHL's saying a lot of stuff about me editing her articles, said somewhere else that she watches 500 articles. I laughed, because I'm watching almost 8,000 pages, including a thousand actor and filmmaker bios I got off Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Actors and Filmmakers/Popular pages. She edits a lot of these, too. See WP:WATCHLIST, which says you can keep track of and react to what's happening to pages you have created or are otherwise interested in. My joining WP:ACTOR amounts to a statement of interest in these articles. They're a mess and need work. I don't see this as personal; I clean-up code all over these projects, and I intend to fix this area, too. She wants her articles left to her and co., and that's a major ownership problem that many have issue with.

I agree with most of what you've said above, and to WHL on your talk page. See the AC motion's second clause concerning advisers; I'll continue to listen to advice you offer. Terima kasih.

Cheers, Jack Merridew 23:51, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

ps; while I've got your attention, could you unprotect User:Senang Hati and User talk:Senang Hati? They're me and I'll explain, but it should be some new thread.

OK, as long as you're approaching this calmly then I can't ask for anything more. Can you drop me a note about those accounts on my talk page? I'm happy to do it once I know why I'm unprotecting (I vaguely remember that this was one of your old usernames, and I see there was an issue of impersonation). Fences&Windows 00:35, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

I've moved that userpage and talk to semi-protected to allow you to add the notices. Fences&Windows 12:21, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll do something; I'm kinda busy. Cheers, Jack Merridew 17:46, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

The Gore Effect AfD

You previously commented on Misplaced Pages:Miscellany for deletion/User:Marknutley/The Gore Effect. A new version of the article has been created in article space at The Gore Effect and has been nominated for deletion. If you have any views on this, please feel free to comment at Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/The Gore Effect. -- ChrisO (talk) 08:18, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

TfD

I'm certainly glad to see you agree with that deletion nomination. Wildhartlivie (talk) 10:34, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Email

Check yours. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 20:25, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

I am, I am... ;) Jack Merridew 20:30, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Um...

You might find this a bizarre request, but here goes. Could you take a look at my user page and see if you can fix the two run on templates in the awards section and see if you could get it to behave so they aren't any wider than the others? I've tried piddling with it and can't get them to behave. Thanks. Wildhartlivie (talk) 11:39, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

This is a bizarre request. For a lot of reasons; I'm amazed. We have had a few disputes, and I see quite a few of the issues we've not seen eye-to-eye on in your request. It strains credulity. Now, I know about AGF, but let me list some of the parallels:

I believe you're referring to the two "Special Barnstars" from User:Crohnie, a friend of yours I've also been in dispute with, and User:Jameszerukjr. These awards were also 'seconded' by others, including Crohnie. These? They're not templates, they're tables that have been subst'd from templates.

• Barnstar awards are implemented with tables

  We've been having a dispute that involves tables heavily

  • including the concern that editors have trouble with table syntax
  • You're dismissive of this issue, hold that more experienced editors will fix things up; me, in this case

• The barnstar awards use rowspans to make the images span multiple rows of adjacent text

  I've been critical of overuse of rowspan because many editors have trouble with their proper use

  • The fix to the mess on your user page is to correct the improper use of rowspans
  • You're dismissive of this issue, hold that it's a non-issue that n00bz will soon get over

• The barnstar awards are praise for:

  kindness, friendship and help

  being helpful, supportive, patient (even in the face of rudeness), and for making Misplaced Pages a better place to be.

  your constant civility even when times get super rough.

  • These users are entitled to have such sentiments, but, as you're well aware, I don't hold such views re you

    I hold views opposed to those views; you're belligerent, rude and not making this a better place to be

    You're asking me to tidy-up awards I assuredly do not support

  • You were just warned for personal attacks and probably should have been blocked, too

    You've been exceedingly uncivil to me, have been attacking me and seeking my head

    • no one much bought it

The first of these was awarded improperly; with bad markup (which I've expressed concerns about;). Oddly, it has two timestamps, and significantly, it does not include the closing |} for the table, so that when others posted just below it, their posts were included in the last cell of the table; second, fix-attempt, Pinkadelica's post gets entangled with the corrupt table, another fix-attempt, ditto from Crohnie, you paste the mess onto your user page, another second gets improperly added.

Do you see the bizarre parallels? How this illustrates a lot of what I've been saying? You, and a lot of other editors, know very little about markup and other technical matters. This is not an attack; I know very little about brain surgery, I am incompetent to speak in that area. You should not be so dismissive of outsiders who know more about things than you do.

 Done teh fix

I've reverted it, too, as there's another possible fix; cut the extra rows on the right-side so that the number of rows over there matches the number of rows spanned on the left.

 Done another fix

Jack Merridew 20:18, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

Thank you. Take into consideration that a lot of that was done over 15 months ago, I have gained more skill with working with tables in the meanwhile, and what you may or may not have gathered from what's been said about my vision disability problems is that it causes problems with tracking. Looking at it for too long makes it meld into mush and I can't track from one line to the next cohesively. It's sort of like the problems that befall toddlers who end up with later reading difficulty because they never learned to crawl before they learn to walk. Crawling helps develop skills in visual tracking. That's why my dickering with it wasn't helpful, I couldn't see across one side to the other, I keep skipping lines. That's why the US government says I'm disabled, finally. A lot of times I run it through Dragon NaturallySpeaking software to listen to what I've typed. It doesn't work on table coding. *shrug* Then add in that as you've said, you are good at this and experienced and you've cleaned up userpages for many editors you don't particularly get along with, so I looked at it, and thought that maybe you could see it much easier than I can. Anyone requires practice to gain competence and unless someone explains where the problem is, as you did above, it ends up being missed. But why did you revert the first fix as vandalism? Surely piddling with something as a request isn't vandalism.

As for the Frances Farmer thing, see it as you want. I tried very hard to be good and the crap flying just got thicker and everything I said was twisted and parroted back. The icing was the psychological issues comment and the copy and paste job on what was clearly a personal attack back to my page. I didn't seek anyone to deal with it, Sarek did it on his own, he doesn't countenance psych comments well. Note that the warning was for the edit summary of asking if we were 5 years old, not for trying to clarify anything or for his assertions, either. It felt so 5 year old to me by then. *shrug* You see it your way, I see it mine (and thinking, "Well, you can't see" isn't it). As I've asked before about the coding, I can see what was wrong when you fixed it and pointed out the problem, finding it through my eyes wasn't so easy. People learn by vicarious experience — seeing is learning. That isn't incompetence, it's being able to see it. I think the odd two time stamp thing came somehow from Jameszerukjr pasting over his intial post somehow. I was surprised that he knew how to even approach doing it, he hasn't edited much here at all. You don't have to see things the way the people who left the "awards" do. Their interpersonal experiences with me vs. you with them or me with you isn't the same experience. I lost it way back when I felt like you were telling me I was too stupid to understand an explanation about the coding. In any case, thanks for fixing what I couldn't see and the willingness to do it, even if it made you laugh. Wildhartlivie (talk) 01:04, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

I reverted it as vandalism because doing so is funny — an allusion to other criticisms. You're welcome. Jack Merridew 01:35, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

And I grinned when I saw it, I thought it was ironic. Wildhartlivie (talk) 03:17, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

I stumbled upon this exchange, and being partly aware of the past issues between you two, and I feel compelled to say that, this thread is worthy of high praise on both of you. Even though there are some expressions that may needed to have been aired, the end result was both parties getting some satisfaction out the exchange. May I send this exchange to the United Nations negotiating commanders as a possible example as to how to solve the Middle East crisis!? LOL! I applaud you both (until next time of course). Victor9876 (talk) 00:45, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

Collapsible sections

The section above was an interesting read; the diagnosis and conclusion were spot on. This is precisely why I keep your talk page on my watchlist. Now that I have finished praising you, I thought I would ask a quick question. Do you know if it possible to create a collapsible section where the show/hide links float correctly next to an infobox? For example, if you look here, you will see that the show/hide links are floating under the box on the right. The template that is creating the collapsible section is not substantially different from {{collapsible list}}. It is interesting that the edit section links float perfectly. I ended up using a hack to reduce the width in the current incarnation. I'm sure allowing such functionality is not a high priority given that such things are not desired in article space. In any event, if you have any thoughts let me know. Any and all responses are acceptable, as I welcome all constructive criticism. Best regards, Plastikspork _―Œ 00:44, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. And I considered not saying much.

I'm seeing the show/hide links over infoboxes and you want them to only go so far right as to be almost up to the left of the boxes. The links are positioned with absolute positioning, 3px from the right; 'the right' is the 'containing block' (css term) and to fix this you need to have a containing block that amounts to the area of the page other than the infoboxes's area (i.e. an element with position: relative;). This will entail a revisit of the page's layout scheme. I did about that on a prior version of my user page, which I've just restored. The layout mechanism is in the main page, and it then pulls in subpages and on the left one I added the example.jpg floating to the right. You can skip the transclusion aspect or adapt it to what you're doing with subpages. The key to the layout technique is the the use of a negative margin that agrees with the width of the right column. The usual reference for this technique is:

• http://www.alistapart.com/articles/negativemargins/

Hope that helps. Feel free to revert my user page back when you're done looking. Cheers, Jack Merridew 01:26, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

Yes, that does help. Margin-right appears to be the key. Do I need the px for the units? Thanks! Plastikspork _―Œ 02:00, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

I'm watching and tempted to tweak. CSS wants units (px, em, others; zero's an exception; 0 is zero;), but mixed units can be a problem for layout. Just using margin-right may work well enough, but just dropping one wrapper div with margin-right: -260px; around your content ought to do it. The usual approach for a solid layout is the wrappers and inner and outer divs as I was using. The inner ones get the padding and this is key to solid cross-browser compatibility. All relevant to the above discussion, too, as it's a layout approach that is all about avoiding the use of tables for layout, which has been on most professional shit lists for about 6 years. Cheers, Jack Merridew 02:10, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

Yes, that is much better. This all started after someone dropped a note on my talk page about how bad it looked in IE. I agree that tables shouldn't be used for layout, but I still find myself going back to old habits from back in the early 1990s. Thanks for the help and feel free to modify it more if you feel the urge. Plastikspork _―Œ 02:37, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

I have little sympathy for IE users; theirs are self-inflicted problems. I've also stopped supporting IE6 and IE7. The hasty tweak I added has some extra margin and padding going on that you may want changed. Most of it is for the context I was using it in, which included an outer level around everything and some borders and background colours. Absent that, some can be zero'd out. You see how the show/hide links are 3px in from where the edit links are? That's the positioning in there by default. I'll take a further look at your page. It'll be a bit as I'll be busy for the next week. Travelling, too. The code I added can probably have a level pared out of it and I believe infobox can have things simplified, too. fyi, my first browser was Mosaic. Cheers, Jack Merridew 03:10, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

• Wildhartlivie uses Mozilla Foxfire. (trying to buy some respect?) Wildhartlivie (talk) 03:23, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

  Foxfire? Never heard of it. Jack Merridew 18:25, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

  It is the Russian version – "In Soviet Russia, the web browses YOU!". Plastikspork _―Œ 18:49, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

year-cells as row-headers

I like the way this looks. Better than that bloody "year in film" linked up method. I spend too much time removing those links. That's a very simple change to implement. Wildhartlivie (talk) 06:56, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

this-is-a-test

fix table to go the other way 'round

time's up ;)

The two of you working together kind of chokes me up - really. I'm sure there will be "spats", but... oh, man! Coolness... :> Doc9871 (talk) 07:08, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

You're missing the point. It is not about appearance.

• Separation of presentation and content.
• Semantic markup
  which redirects to a now-missing section; find that in history, too

You need to understand this distinction.

Jack Merridew 07:34, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

p.s. I liked the way she looked in Plenty (play)

Rowspan

re this edit. I am a programmer myself, so I get the whole "keep logic separate" idea; however, it is a guideline and not something universally taught. You mentioned that "rowspan" was deprecated. According to whom and what WP policy? Nymf _hideliho! 10:29, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

By the way, if you're bored, the horrendously coded awards tables is something you could improve. ;) Nymf _hideliho! 11:17, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

If you're thinking I meant site-wide, no. I was referring to in the context of sortable tables. There's a lot of talk about rowspan on my talk page; at least four threads, there's also a thread on User talk:Fences and windows (where I mentioned on old edit of yours) and discussion on WT:ACTOR. See WP:TABLES##Formatting, end of second paragraph; merged cells refers to row/col spans. Cheers, Jack Merridew 20:26, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

A mentor needed

Hello sir, I am above 60, Have been reading a lot on Misplaced Pages, later tried to write, Adil Khan was my first try, later I wrote about Oslo City Culture Award, Oslo City artist award and last article was about Kjersti Alveberg(which is not complete yet). Can you please be my mentor and reply me whenever I need help. Since I am new, I don't know how to make tables, I copied a table from Whitney Houston's page, studied that and changed that to fit my requirements, later I found another table from Shahid Afridi's page, I decided to use the last one for adil khan's[REDACTED] English article and decided to use the Whitney Houston table for adil khans Norwegian profile. Lately I discovered that the Shahid Afridi's table I used for Adil Khan has been deleted: My question is that if there are certain tabels which are reserved for certain person and others are not allowed to use those, is there any possibility if I can use the table which is on Whitney Houston's page because that has remained on Adil Khan's page for some time and was not removed until I changed that. If it is not allowed to use table from Shahid Afridi's page, can you pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeease allow me to use that table from Whitney Houston page because the tabel which is now on adil khan's is completely lifeless. 2: There is a tag attached to my article about Kjersti Alveberg, so far I had added just one Reference, I have to add a lot more References later, if I add more reference, would i be allowed to remove that " citation needed" tag. My second question is if i can give links to "Youtube" as reference, since there is a good deal of material related to Kjersti Alvebergon Youtube. My last question: when I am done with an article, can I ask you for help to correct the article if there is any grammatical error. The reason for this is that English is not my mother language and it is very common for me to make such errors regards Jogibaba (talk) 16:32, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

Well, I'll offer advice, as asked. First advice it to follow the format I've shown you several times in those articles, including the citation format. What you're calling 'life' in tables is gratuitous markup that conveys little or no real meaning to readers. Most table are just fine using class="wikitable". The examples you're looking at are poor examples and they need work, not copying of their formatting to yet more articles. If you add a bunch of good references to the article I tagged, sure, remove the tag. I or someone else will look and re-tag if warranted. Please do not use YouTube; see WP:YOUTUBE for why.

You are way too focused on Adil Khan and I strongly recommend that you shift your focus to the broader encyclopaedia. Adil Khan is likely not notable and may well end up deleted or redirected. I expressed a conflict of interest concern about you and this article before. Best to move on, methinks. You referred to the other one as your article and it's not; they're Misplaced Pages's articles. See ownership of articles. Cheers, Jack Merridew 21:46, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

Hi Jack! I have to object to your characterization of Khan as non-notable. He has won notable awards, and there's loads of coverage in RSs. I honestly can't see how the outcome of a prospective AfD would result in anything but a snow keep. Regards, decltype (talk) 06:55, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

Last I looked there were some sources in the article in Norwegian, so I've little idea about their quality, and I've not gone looking for any. There's another winner of the Norwegian dance fever that was redirected. Thanks for the input; Cheers, Jack Merridew 04:30, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

Hello sir, as far it goes for adil khan, he is more than a winner of dance fever, there are 2 other winners after him, one for danse fever and another for "so you think you can dance, scandinavia", but they are completely forgotten, nobody even remembers their name. While Adil Khan is in the media, tv, newspaper, female magazines. He is just 27 and a star in Norway, he is doing theatre and films, as far i have come to know, the leading publishing house of norway is coming with adil Khan's biography. another rumor is that he is having some contacts with Indian filmmakers. Adil have the potential of being a next big thing.

But the reason I am writing is that I have added around 15 referances for Kjersti Alveberg, are these enough or I should look for more.Jogibaba (talk) 15:59, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

Hi, I wanted to write a message, but I managed to remove the the reply by Jack Merridew to decltype, this i have pasted back to avoid causing problem to myself or anybody else. My apology.Jogibaba (talk) 19:41, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

I've sorted the mess on this page, and I've got the references on Kjersti Alveberg to be using our citation templates. Please keep this use of templates and try and fill in the fields with English. It would help of you fond sources that are in English, as few here speak Norwegian. You might also seek the input of an editor here who also speaks both languages well. Jack Merridew 01:22, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for sorting the mess at Kjersti Alveberg's page. I would love to give references to the english language site, but unfortunately there isn't any such thing available to me. Everything is published in Norwegian, and as far I know, there isn't even one single newspaper or magazine which is published in English Language. But if I manage to get any source in English, I would refer to that, as I have done in the case of one referance in Kjersti's articel. Since I am new here and all of my knowledge is based on copying others by clicking "edit" and seeing how others have done something. Therefore I don't know how to use "citation template" in referances. Are you, please, kind enough to guide me in this matter. Thanks in advance.Jogibaba (talk) 12:26, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

You're welcome. How about you update the titles using Google translate? See one I did. I see that you've been chatting with decltype and that he speaks Norwegian, so you may have better luck with the nuts and bolts issues, there. I don't speak Norwegian. I do like the work of Hans Petter Moland, especially Kjærlighetens kjøtere. Cheers, Jack Merridew 19:50, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Hi jack, I have sorted few references with google translater ( the way you tolf me to do ), now I discovered a new method, can you please check the first reference in Adil Khan's page. ^ Asle Hansen (2006-03-20). "Adil was dancing king". when I click to this link, it shows the article translated in English, please can you click on that and let me know if it does the same for you. If it is so, then I can use the same method for all the references in every article I have written so far and also to those which I am going to write in future. Another question, if it is allowed to translate article from Norwegian[REDACTED] and paste it on the English section. I am asking this question because I saw Gullruten in English section which is really an orphan article. Somebody wrote few lines and forgot to add more information or update that. The recipient of the award are from 2007 while this award is given every year.Jogibaba (talk) 17:59, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

I have done all the references in Adil's page, these are working for me, hope I would get a feedback from you. If this method is accepted, then I would do the same with other articles.Jogibaba (talk) 23:12, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

These seem steps in the right direction. I'm wondering if there's a proper way to include both the link to the original as well as a link to Google's translation tool in the cite template. Getting the titles translated helps, too. Translating from other language wikipedias is perfectly acceptable. You should include a link to the source page on no: or nn: in the edit summary; a note on the talk page about it would be goodness, too. There may be a template or other mechanism that's deemed standard for this, but I've no specifics in mind; just makes sense to me. Cheers, Jack Merridew 20:08, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Hi jack, there is one very easy way to find out the original version of the google translated reference, you might have noticed that if you have clicked on a google translated reference, you will find two URL, one is at the very top, in the upper browser, that is for the translated version, but you can also see another URL in the lower browser(Google translate..URL..translate), one can copy this URL from the lower browser and paste in the upper one and ENTER, this would lead to the original article/reference:. If just one sentence needs to be checked, just moved the mouse and bring the arrow close to the sentence which is needed to be seen in the original language, there would appear a window with the original sentence, asking if you can offer a better translation. I think this could be accepted as a reasonable soloution. But I must admit that the translation from google is sometime very funny. The title which was supposed to be translated like " The nominees for Hedda Awards 2008/2009 " is translated "The nominees for Hedda Prices 2008/2009". The reason is that norwegian word "pris" means " Price, prize and award", so google chose the first word, another title which should have been " Adil received Røykfriprisen (cigarette free award) on a busy tobacco free day" was translated like "Adil received Røykfriprisen on tobacco busy day" . But still it is better than not to have any translation because one can easily understand what is the article all about. RegardsJogibaba (talk) 18:22, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

NBSP

Why require spaces? I don't get the use of NBSP; seems pointless. Is it really just that people hate to go with the flow and let the line breaks happen when they happen? If you could point me to the relevant guideline I'd appreciate it.

Also since Misplaced Pages forces page names to use capital letters and the page for Template:Anchors and Template:Reflist appear using that capitalisation it makes sense to me to just use that capitalisation. It is one extra keystroke and it looks tidier to me. I don't expect anyone else to do but I wonder why you changed it to lowercase. Again you seem to know what you're doing so I'm wondering if there is some trick I'm missing or yet another guideline somewhere.

At the end of citations I put a line break before the closing ref tag. This doesn't usually make any difference but I got in the habit of it since it makes things a little clearer if two (or more) references are right beside other in the page source, and they don't blend together into quite so much of a great big block of parameters.

I'm trying to show good faith and restore my "lost" edits in small pieces to help make it clearer which were a matter of personal style and which were perfectly good edits that should not have been removed. The poor quality of the built in diff tool is making it difficult and tediously slow to see what details were "lost". Since the other editor showed enough good faith to comment I'm now willing to put in a bit more work of my own to figure out what work was hidden in his edits. – Horkana (talk) 20:35, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

The non-breaking spaces are about proper line-wrap; it's recommended in the WP:MOS somewhere and was done with one of the standard clean-up scripts. The idea is to keep the dashes with the content that precedes them and allow the content after a dash to wrap to the next line, as needed. The case of the initial letter of templates (and articles) does not matter and that, too, was done by a tool. I believe that, too, is about readability.

You should, of course, restore appropriate edits that may have been lost; I didn't review those in any detail. The MediaWiki diff tool gets confused by complex edits; most all such tools get lost in the face of radical differences. MediaWiki's certainly could be better, though. I do often make complex edits as a sequence of smaller edits, but not everyone does, and I don't always. It's more work, but it does give better clarity as to what was done. It's not an unreasonable thing to ask for in areas of dispute, but people will often take the path that is the least work for them and leave it to other editors to muck through what they did. See how I just formatted the refs in Jessica Biel; it's a good format to adopt.

fyi, wildhartlivie is a she, not a he, and I've seen her get offended when other editors do not realize it. Cheers, Jack Merridew 20:53, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. Again I feel like I'm missing a trick by not using all these fancy tools. I suppose I should chase it upstream but I'll just get on with editing. My revert was based on taking the path of least work too, it seems like the standard approach to disputed edits. Still forced to do more work and justify ever small edit but your reformatting of the links at least takes some of the pain out of it.

I noticed WildHartLivie referred to me as she, she is welcome to do so if she likes. I try to refer not to use too many pronouns and just refer to "editors", I will try to be delicate in my use of pronouns. If she is annoyed by others unknowingly using the wrong pronoun makes it seem all the more strange to me that she wants to use the word actor and not actress.

Thanks for your time, I've spent far too much of my time on this for now and must get on with other things but I'll probably continue to try and improve the Jessica Biel article if you care to check back on it and make suggestions. – Horkana (talk) 21:17, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

Reverting is a standard approach concerning editing disputes. But it's not supposed to be. In the case of a large edit where an aspect is under dispute while other aspects are not, it is often best to simple edit to address the specific area of dispute, but there is a trade-off involved when a pretty large chuck of an edit is problematic. One may also revert and then restore part of the revert edits. And sometimes it is appropriate to full-revert; judegement is required on Misplaced Pages and those with good judgment do better. Happy editing, Jack Merridew 21:23, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

Deleting older file uploads

Hey Jack, I need to delete some files due to forgetting to redact some info. I re-uploaded the files with the redactions, but I can't find where to delete the originals. Can you help? They are here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/File:Power_of_Attorney.pdf

http://en.wikipedia.org/File:TWCC_Award.pdf

...at the bottom of the pages are the old files of June 12th that need to be deleted. Thanks in advance! Victor9876 (talk) 22:41, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

seems to have moved along. Happy editing, Jack Merridew 19:38, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Jessica Biel

Thanks for fixing the odd pagemove to User:Horkana/Jessica Biel, but please remember to provide attribution for copy/paste moves somehow as indicated at WP:COPYWITHIN. Cheers! VernoWhitney (talk) 22:42, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

Hi. I was in a bit of a hurry ;) I had had and edit conflict with the move and was intent on getting that saved. I've left an oldid in and edit summary there. Cheers, Jack Merridew 19:37, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! VernoWhitney (talk) 20:23, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

No problem; thanks for the reminder; nb: it's not csd'd after a note to Horkana. redink, soon enough. Cheers, Jack Merridew 04:40, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Infobox Jericho episode

It comes complete with a morse code section. Plastikspork _―Œ 01:36, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

FYI

Misplaced Pages:Editor assistance/Requests#Jack Merridew. ÷seresin 18:23, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. I'm traveling at the moment. It's amusing. And a tad surreal. Cheers, Jack Merridew 04:26, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

Speedy deletion of Template:Multiple image/test

A tag has been placed on Template:Multiple image/test requesting that it be speedily deleted from Misplaced Pages. This has been done under section T3 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because it is a deprecated or orphaned template. After seven days, if it is still unused and the speedy deletion tag has not been removed, the template will be deleted.

If the template is intended to be substituted, please feel free to remove the speedy deletion tag and please consider putting a note on the template's page indicating that it is substituted so as to avoid any future mistakes (<noinclude>{{transclusionless}}</noinclude>).

Thanks. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 09:46, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

Filmography table

Hello Jack, I'm going to update any filmography tables that I notice that are still using the previously used header format. I realize the color question still hasn't been resolved, but the format discussion has, and I agree with you on that. So, I don't think it should fall upon one editor to do all the updating, and I'm happy to change any that I find. Can you please have a look at Jane Alexander as one example, and let me know if I've done that correctly. Thanks Rossrs (talk) 14:09, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

Also, I know it's been mentioned in discussions, but I'm not sure what the end result was for tables that combine film/television with two header sections within a single table. Example Sasha Alexander. Have you been doing anything with those? Rossrs (talk) 14:15, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

Hi. I have no issue with what you did to Jane Alexander, as far is it goes; I took it further and hope you'll follow suit. The edits I just made begin with key other fixes that are uncontroversial, such as proper quotes on the rowspans and a fix re an omitted cell. The others are not essential but are all good form. There's more, but I've little time at the moment.

The bugged together tables such as on Sasha Alexander are semantic gibberish due to the weird headers; both due to the tv section headers being in the middle of the table and the colspanning rows for film/tv. I've been meaning to have a chat with User:HJ Mitchell about this; Lindsay Lohan and Miley Cyrus, specifically. How about you start a neutral chat with him and I'll chip-in circa Monday? I have touched a few of these, but not much or many. I am, of course, against the embedded markup in those. I've tidied that-up, too. All ignoring the blue elephant in the room... Cheers, Jack Merridew 06:57, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

p.s. Please stop converting "–" to "&ndash;"—they are the same character and this site uses UTF-8 encoding, not ASCII or ISO-8859-1, so we should use the real character. About the only character entity that is appropriate is the &nbsp;. (nb: clarified postscript)

I also have no issue with the subsequent edits you made to Jane Alexander, with the exception of the removal of "U.S" from the infobox. I don't think the MoS specifically covers using or not using the country in the infobox, but it is used on (as far as I have noticed) the majority of U.S. actor infoboxes, and it's also the only place in the infobox that denotes country of origin/nationality. In the article body I would never say "Los Angeles, California, U.S." but in the infobox I would. Regarding the bugged-together film/tv table, I was mainly thinking about the headers rather than the bugging-together of them, and you've answered my main question on that point. I'm not sure what to say to User:HJ Mitchell as I'm not sure you and I are talking about the same thing here, but if you start a discussion with him at some point, I'd be glad to discuss.

As for the ndashes, fair enough. That's something I didn't know, so thanks for pointing it out. Rossrs (talk) 13:58, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

"U.S." is gratuitous in the context of "Boston, Massachusetts", as would be "Earth" and such. I chose to not continue an insipid bit over the use of United&nbsp;States vs {{nowrap|United States}} (on Natalie Wood); the character entity is the more appropriate of the two as it is succinct and presents less snot in the wikitext than a template invocation entails, and outright omission is fine unless doing so results in a real ambiguity. Mebbe the county Georgia and the US State share a place name... I don't believe there's been much discussion about the bugged-together film/tv tables, but believe that User:HJ Mitchell may be a proponent of that format. I'll ping him next week, when I have more time. Cheers, Jack Merridew 23:15, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

I'm not trying to engage you in conversation while you're busy, but I'll reply while this is fresh in my mind. I don't see "U.S." as gratuitous. I see it more as comprehensiveness and consistency and it is very widely used, although the widely used argument should be countered by other crap exists when it's wrong. The same logic should dictate that people should know "Paris", "Berlin", "Shanghai" and "Oslo", and that the city name alone should suffice, because those names are well known, virtually unique and linking to the city article page removes all possible ambiguity, but we still include "France", "Germany", "China" and "Norway". Similarly, we don't usually use only "Sydney, New South Wales", or "Melbourne, Victoria", even though the inclusion of "Australia" is stating the bleeding obvious to an Australian. Bearing in mind that this is English language Misplaced Pages, a lot of users are not in the U.S., and for a lot of people geographical knowledge extends barely beyond the world that they've actually experienced. About a week ago someone was telling me something about Mexico, and long story short, it was about Albuquerque, and you and I both know that's not in Mexico. I tried to tactfully explain the difference between Mexico and New Mexico and got a blank look. Not that I'm in favour of dumbing down our content to accommodate my geographically unaware colleague, but instead of tailoring the infobox to the level of knowledge of "many" users we should be tailoring it to "as many as possible" users, even at the risk of redundancy. As I said before, in the article body I would absolutely not use the full thing. When I was about 10 I would say I lived in Brisbane, Australia, Southern Hemisphere, Earth which is pretty ludicrous. The infobox as a short summary should be a "stand-alone" entity in providing basic information. The lede section would say "Famous person (born Los Angeles, California, January 1, 1920) is an American actor" without restating the "U.S." even though it would still give the same information if it said "is an actor." Anyway, you're busy, so let's leave this for another time. I'll keep a lookout on User:HJ Mitchell's talk page. I thought the bugged-together tables had been mentioned somewhere along the line, but I wasn't sure if it had been discussed further. Rossrs (talk) 00:02, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

I'm not taking a hard stand on the country bit, although I do believe we should avoid catering to the lowest common denominator. I looked at a fistful of random bios, not just actors, and the country is often there. As said, avoiding a pissing match with you-know-who was in my mind. If I wasn't clear, United&nbsp;States vs {{nowrap|United States}} produce the exact same effect and avoiding breaking the two words is not really necessary; and "U.S." avoids that issue. Feel free to stick "U.S." back; on Wood, too.

I'd not realized you were in Brisbane, Queensland, Oz, Down Under; you know John? You should; he knows all about me ;) I know lots of mates and sheilas. Cheers, Jack Merridew 01:09, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

I've often argued against catering to the lowest common denominator, and I didn't see it in this issue until you mentioned it. I don't think it's a deal breaker though. I see it more as bringing everything to an equal playing field. I've noticed there are some types of bios that don't use the country in the infobox. Politicians for one example. A number of the "instruction" page for several infoboxes advocate the use of country, and some don't, and I guess it springs partly from there. I usually change "United States" to "U.S." to avoid the wrap issue. I don't know John, but as he's a Brisbanite, I'm sure he's a bonzer bloke. Rossrs (talk) 09:27, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

If you end up pinging User:HJ Mitchell, Jennifer Aniston might be a good example to refer to. Rossrs (talk) 08:37, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

I take a site-wide approach, and most editors here don't; they only care about some areas of interest. Generally speaking, this is less than ideal as it results in too much local thinking and produces fault lines within the project. It also results in massively unbalanced coverage of topics when swarms of the like-minded band together.

Consider this: an editor sees a geo-reference that does not give the country and they don't understand it; a) they keep going and don't learn, b) they go look and learn where, for example, Maralinga is, and may then learn about the shite that occurred there. If it was fully qualified, many will simply focus on the appended country name and move on. Methinks we've few actors or filmmakers from there; prolly a few films about there...

Ever ask yourself why you're on this project? One of the things that drew me here and keeps me here is that I learn things everyday. Sure, a lot of it's crap, but I now know what SORAS is. I also learn things worth knowing. The wiki is founded with a level-playing field concept in mind, but we go too far enabling all the anybodys. We may assume good faith, but we all know that some are not acting in good faith, and some are outright malicious. Then there's the half that's of below average intelligence; most will have something useful to offer, but I really don't expect a lot from them. And too many are here because wiki model affords them a platformplatform they're not going to get in the real world.

John's really from out back of Bourke and spent lots of time in Melbourne.

Jennifer Aniston is a mess; I do need other examples as the others are all muddied-up, now. I especially loved the complete list of awards and nominations on the page along with the presumably more complete one on its own page; note that it has a different riot of colour going on. Presumably the work of the other half.

I'll ping HJ tomorrow and will get back to MRG's RfC, too. Cheers, Jack Merridew 04:15, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

Interesting points and something for me to think about. I fit into the "most editors" who don't take a site-wide approach, at least in editing. I look at a lot of stuff and I soak up a lot of information but I edit mainly in my areas of interest. I knew about Maralinga and now I also know about SORAS, and if I filter out about 5 years worth of crap, I think I've learnt quite a bit here. The other side of what keeps me here is the belief that occasionally I may contribute something that someone else can appreciate. I agree with your comments about editors and motivations, but it's not likely to change. Just have to take the good where it exists.

If I find any other glaring examples, I'll keep note of them rather than fix them. To be honest, I stared at the Jennifer Aniston page for a few minutes before I decided that I wasn't up to the task. I was also rather intrigued by the complete list of "awards and nominations" and it's not quite identical twin sister. I don't like the format of that table even aside from the splash of colour, and it was that more than anything else that made me step cautiously away from the article. For something completely different, I noticed that "Their divorce was seen, and is still noted to be, the most shocking celebrity divorce in history." I'm not sure how something like that is measured and whether they're talking about recorded history or since the dawn of time, but my big question is why there isn't an award for "most shocking celebrity divorce in history" so that it can be included in the table? Not as a nomination either, but a very clear "won". Do we really live in a world where large numbers of people are "shocked" by the failure of Jennifer Aniston's marriage? Maybe we do. What a thought. Rossrs (talk) 07:58, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

Liked teh edit summary, although I don't think she's a particularly good actress; just popular. And I've a lot of relevant experience making such calls.

Sure, we take what good anyone offers; we also discard the ungood, both edits and editors. I saw a lame comment recently to the effect that some seek to remove the good faith contributions of others, which I view as a bad faith stance. We quite appropriately remove good faith efforts all the time as a well-intentioned edit may still be a bad edit. Making such determinations is a core task that the editors with seriouz clue undertake.

I can fix that duplicate page easily; redirect it. I looked at the history and it's light; interesting, too, to review what the main IP's gotten up to on other stuff. I could not care less about about her divorce. A huge part of the problem with wp's coverage of actors is all the fans seeking some sort of vicarious participation in the personal lives of celebrities. Beyond the lists of works, the sections on who they fuck are the primary focus of most of these bios. Cheers, Jack Merridew 20:13, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Beelzebub

Hi, Jack, you are quite the interesting individual, and tech savvy. I'm very technologically challenged (not to be confused with being stupid) and cannot figure out how WP email works. Well, I could probably make it work if I could find it! I can get this far. Would you care to instruct me? (Unhidden agenda—I'd enjoy discussing LotF with you.) Regards, —Yopienso (talk) 22:50, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

I don't subscribe to such lists; I've spent too long living with email as a firehose and have little interest in reading most of what I expect would be in there. Try filling out the form. Ya, I'm familiar with LotF and I saw that you said you knew it. Teh article could use some work. Jack Merridew 23:21, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

I'd hoped to be able to email you about some tie-in to MMORPG and a recent survey. Oh, well. —Yopienso (talk) 01:27, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

Oh. You're looking for this, although I see little reason to engage in off-wiki dialogue with you about this. Jack Merridew 20:18, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Ah, it's not an in-house email service, but just using our regular email. Think I'll pass. But thank you very much.

You're the puzzle—a serious contributor who mocks the WP system and culture. Anyway, what I wanted to discuss was that if I understand you—a precarious assumption—you see WP as a game with the object of gaining power while pretending to disdain it. The contest includes deft matching of wits combined with loutish bullying. But you've chosen to float like a butterfly and sting like a bee…and still market saleable honey instead of knocking opponents out cold, unless they're slow-witted and boring. Yes? (I'd hate to see you master of Zaroff's hounds.)

Although not designed as such, WP is, among other things, a social experiment, whether Jimbo accepts that fact or not. I've long thought it was similar to the boys on that island—a microcosm where human nature takes its inevitable course as the pecking order is established and justice lurches blindly. Does altruism exist? or does the altruist smugly reap his righteous reward of knowing he behaved altruistically?

My motive in honestly trying to improve Misplaced Pages is to learn more from grappling more closely with issues than I would if I merely read about them. I also enjoy the mental challenges and the iron-sharpening-iron pleasure of working with other editors. (Yeah, and occasional unseating one in fair jousting.)

Thanks for your wit, time, and space. If you'd rather not have me occupying them, please advise.

Now look what you've helped me figure out, though I've not a notion of how to get it combined with the time stamp or the four tildes.

Yo pienso —Yopienso (talk) 07:27, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

If you want that as your sig, paste:

<span style="font-family:'arial bold',serif;border:1px Solid Blue;">] ]</span>

into the sig field in your prefs and check the box under it.

I'm really unsure just what to make of most of the rest of your post, though. Your assumptions are just that; assumptions that seem, oddly, to be assumptions of bad faith and personal attacks that also seem to be made in good faith. You seem fascinated by my history and choice of user name and my role in these projects, and motivated by a desire for some sort of philosophical discussion of it. I've gotten this before, from a few trolls. Are you one? Mebbe User:samneric? You've been here a long time yet seem to have only made a fistful of edits. I usually make quite a few more edits a month than you've made in over 4 years. User:Erik9 was fascinated by the Blood and Roses quote and you've referenced MMORPG, which it links to. When I first posted that quote, in 2005, Blood and Roses was a redlink, which seemed fitting, given the colour of blood and the colour of most roses, but now there's a film there (about vampires). I later changed to link to MMORPG as a commentary on what I see others doing on this project. This, I think, is the key thing you're seeking to understand about me. The whole Blood and Roses piece is a way of making a commentary on inappropriate approaches I see unimpressive people taking to this project. My mother once told me that I often speak in what she called an obscure voice. You're doing this, too. It amounts to seeing if people are paying attention and if they are able to suss-out an implication. A method of gauging people, if you will. The same is the case with my choice of Jack Merridew as a user name. It does not really mean that I see myself as Jack, rather that I see Jack in others. Others have seen this project as a cyberspace version of Lord of the Flies; see Wikipedians Leave Cyberspace, Meet in Egypt by James Gleick, although I said it first ); Gleick's a sharp guy; I've read a few of his books. You might also care to read Cyberchiefs: Autonomy and Authority in Online Tribes, which someone really should start an article on (glances at bookshelf and wonders where that first edition has gotten to…). And if you like The Beast theme, read Grendel, too.

Thank for the allusion to Rainsford. I've not read that in a very long time, but I will when I have a moment. Before you follow that link, you should unify your account by visiting your prefs or going directly to Special:MergeAccount. I'm an admin on s: and you might like it there. It's not a toxic project; that's only a disturbing aspect of this place. If I ever ask for a rename, I might use a name derived for that story. You should look at some of the names I used for my socking. A few of the names were just throw-aways, but most of the names were specifically chosen for reasons I'll not offer at the moment ;) a way of gauging you, as it were.

Cheers, Jack Merridew 00:08, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

Hi, Jack, sorry to take so long to get back to you.

By way of review, we first met here, after the 4th convenience break, and then again here.

Me, a troll?? :D Definitely not. This time I'm trying to use my serious voice, not the obscure one, so you don't have to guess at my meanings, though you're good at it; also trying to be kind and to adequately express my appreciation for your kindness in the help you so freely offer me and other editors. But I also need to frankly point out that imo your user and talk pages are "trollish" (if I understand the word--had to look up troll) in that they seem to be deliberately provocative. Flaunting your former status (and yes, it's former), displaying rude language and unpleasant images, and appearing to blatantly flout WP rules in an attempt to "gauge" people does invite queries, doesn't it? This page you provided a link to helped explain the mystery, but I wouldn't have found it on my own.

I don't understand this: "...assumptions of bad faith and personal attacks that also seem to be made in good faith." I initially agf with you, but when I looked at your user page, remarked "it looks like I either took a sock puppet's bait or we have one way-too-cute editor here." But since you explained it all on Diannaa's talk page I've agf.

Personal attacks? No, I had no intention of attacking or offending. A few lines above may seem like attacks, but please agf and realize I'm merely putting my perceptions of your WP persona, which may differ from the real you, into words.

The reason I have fewer edits than you is that you make more edits than I do! I'm not prolific, consulting WP more than editing it. Originally, I was curious about the content this new project, and then curious about how it worked. I was an IP user for quite a while, and even created an article on the Caqueta River just to show students how unacceptable WP was as a source since even I could whip out an article for it. (It's since been merged into the Japura River.) Unfortunately, they were impressed I had an article online and the lesson was lost. I do a great deal of online learning, not only at WP by any means. Then, I enjoy a trivia site that often posts refs to WP. (The more academic ones there used to balk at using WP.) I like to correct simple errors I run across, and only last summer when I was laid up with a broken toe did I begin to learn about the WP culture, going to mediation to learn the ropes. It was an illuminating but disappointing revelation, as I had come to believe WP was more serious and reliable. I'm presently poking around Citizendium, as their approach appeals more to me. They are still in the beginning stages, though, and it's only reasonable to expect they will devolve into another island full of warring boys unless Sanger is a strong and ruthless dictator.

All to say, I'm not a "player" here, though I've enjoyed dabbling. Maybe you could tell me about the "Cabal." I know there's a page explaining it doesn't exist, or if it does, it's only in my mind. Sure seems to exist! Articles do seem to have owners, or at least fierce watchdogs. Is the "Cabal Approved" sign intended to be entirely tongue-in-cheek? As in, anyone who displays it is asserting it's a figment of the imaginations of the whiners and ne'er-do-wells?

Both here and at the trivia site I gravitate toward the brighter sparks of intelligence; your dazzling expertise as a programming wizard, along with your intriguing obscure voice and reformed rake posture attract me. (Although the "reformed" bit wasn't readily apparent.)

Thanks for the tips on the sig and on merging accounts if I go to Wikiquotes, a new puzzle. I have an account at the Spanish language WP but rarely use it. I'm guessing all those would be one?

I hope I've explained myself to your satisfaction. The only time I was intentionally rude on WP was in this one passage in a long discussion with an irate and unreasonable editor. (It's been collapsed.)

That kind of "butchering" I call dissecting and mounting. So, bottom line, you are calling Sternberg a liar, right? Just like Northfox said, "An avid editor repeatedly called Sternberg a liar in a recent discussion section." The description is now both "recent" and "repeated" in every sense of the words. You could have saved yourself the trouble of denying it, and me all that time in the lab dissecting.

I did think he deserved it.

I spied Oryx and Crake at the library the other day and will check it out when I return what I'm presently reading, a collection of Ibsen's plays. I've never actually read The Handmaid's Tale but have a notion of the plot and theme, a much darker take on gender roles than Ibsen's "A Doll's House." Best, --Yopienso (talk) 07:37, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Here's a cheeky example of MMORPG at WP: "Can't help playing games - Misplaced Pages is a giant game of Nomic, rendered non-pointless only by WP:IAR." --Yopienso (talk) 04:05, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Hi, I know I owe you a reply; I've been busy, other shite afoot. I've notice you've a Hockey Stick in the Climate Change issue, too, which is interesting ;) My take is that the science types know their field and are right that CC is very real, but that some are editing inappropriately re NPOV and BLP; excluding other views and attacking bios of critics; I support some of that in the news and in politics, but not here. Tomorrow. Tip; copy off the screen, not out of the address bar; it bypasses the underscores and character encoding. See this edit for a tweak to your link. Cheers, Jack Merridew

User:Jorge Stolfi/Templates that I sorely miss

Hi, I see that you have edited the markup in the above page.

I do not mind your edits, but I am afraid you wasted your time. Perhaps you haven't realized that it is not a Misplaced Pages article, but merely a parody of editorial templates, that I wrote in the (vain?) hope of persuading our compulsive article taggers and template creators to amend their ways. That is why I carefully avoided to use templates in that page, and made a point of using only the most basic markup. All the best, --Jorge Stolfi (talk) 04:13, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Hi, Jorge. Someone pointed me at those mebbe a month ago and I found them quite funny. And being there, I twiddled a few bits; it's a wiki. I even pasted one of them somewhere. Anyway, I'm glad you're not fussed over my edits. Pleased to meet you, Jack Merridew 06:43, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

The thing is, it's actually much easier to create this sort of parody using the {{ambox}} template to do the hard work. Then your parodies are guaranteed to be consistent and up to date. ;) Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 12:22, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Canvassing

Your recent canvassing, re: Jack Lord#Filmography, was not inappropriate. For some reason, I felt the need existed to tell you that.  Chicken monkey  00:30, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. I knew that, but it's good to hear; it wasn't inappropriate and it wasn't canvassing, either. Don't believe everything you read on teh interwebs, the barriers to entry are really low. Cheers, Jack Merridew 16:55, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Hi, Jack! What's all this, then? ""Jimbo wants it deleted" is no argument for keeping it, and a bit insulting to those who happen to agree with me, most of whom I haven't spoken to about this entry at all." This is "Jimbo just commented on her, characterizing her comments as 'insulting'"? Really? You don't want to let go here, do you? You're being a bit "daft" here, methinks. "White" my comment out again if you will – but you really should "check" yourself. This isn't a freaking "pig hunt", you know. I'm getting a bit irritated with all this, now. You and Chowbok need to get off her case for good: he's gotten the message (not). WP:MEAT? It takes two to tango. Move along, now... Doc9871 (talk) 12:47, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

I don't understand. Jimbo did make a critical comment that can only have been in response to Wildhartlivie's comment because he paraphrased her, and it was Jimbo who used the word "insulting". Did it need brought up and mentioned again at User:Fences and windows? I don't think so, and I wish it had been left out, but it's not inaccurate in my opinion. Please consider this: a lot of sniping and bad feeling have been swirling around for a long time. Try to forget for one minute who is at fault in each aspect of each disagreement and look at the broader picture. Everyone needs to tone down their language and start talking to each other like human beings who deserve basic courtesy. Everyone should think about their behaviour and the tone of their comments and wonder how they would feel if they were on the receiving end of them. Everyone should understand that even if they don't intend for their actions or words to offend or hurt somebody, that may still be the result, and that the result is their responsibility. Everyone should consider whether they are helping to move towards a resolution, or whether they are part of the problem that keeps this festering. I include myself in this. It's disappointing that this is how a bunch of people behave each time they get together, and it's disappointing to consider how much we fail to achieve in terms of quality editing because of the time and energy that gets diverted to these side discussions. So, Jack to answer your question, I am willing to act as a mediator subject to Wildhartlivie's agreement. I have no idea how effective I may be, and I may end up being totally useless. You must understand that someone who is familiar with a situation and has an opinion about it, is not always impartial as a mediator. If we proceed in this direction, I will try to be, and that's all I can promise. If you consider that reasonable, please let me know. In the meantime, let's wait until Wildhartlivie has given her opinion, before this is discussed any deeper. Rossrs (talk) 13:57, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

I've said before that I like Jack, and I still do. I don't like certain things he does – same goes for me and any other editor (including WHL). There seems to be a real "vendetta" here that won't go away: I'm pointing no fingers. The situation needs to change – that is certain. Rossrs, you've got your work cut out for you... Doc9871 (talk) 14:08, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

The situation does need to change, no question but I do not have my work cut out for me. That implies that it's all upon me, and it's not. As I said above...everyone. Not just Rossrs. Cheers Doc. Rossrs (talk) 14:39, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

You're the mediator – I'm the "bad cop". It will all pan out in the end... Doc9871 (talk) 14:56, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Ah... well... I see. Good cop/bad cop. Now I get it. You should have told me this before. Rossrs (talk) 15:01, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

True. You're the good cop. Jack knows what I am. I'm itching for the reply... Doc9871 (talk) 15:13, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Good points, although some will seek to infer insult absent that intent and I'll not take responsibility for that. I'm disappointed at how little progress has be made at cleaning up all the poor coding in the articles WP:ACTOR is supposed to be improving. For me, that's where this began: *bad* code. You see some of this and I appreciate that you're taking aboard some of what I'm advocating. You commented at F&W's page about having to repeatedly revisiting pages as "prevailing attitudes change"—this is key to why I'm seeking to remove most hard-coded styling from articles. Ever plow snow? Certainly not in Brisbane. You have to angle the blade to dump the accumulated load or you'll quickly be unable to make forward progress. Hard-coded markup is like that; it cements things in place and is a huge maintenance impediment, although it's not the only impediment. It is short-sighted when done simply without understanding the long-term aspects and is disruptive when done deliberately.

I see you've pinged WHL about this but don't see any direct reply; her last @ F&W did seem to dismiss the idea. I'm still game; I see your familiarity with all of this as more useful to resolution than the bits we disagree on might inhibit resolution. You've said you'll try and I consider you reasonable. Either way, I find our dialogue useful and we should continue it. Cheers, Jack Merridew 17:27, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Well, yes, I agree if someone takes offence at something unreasonably that's not your responsibility, but everyone's definition of "reasonably" is slightly different and needs to be considered, is what I was getting at. Wildhartlivie has not yet replied. I've never ploughed snow anywhere but I get your point. Snow in Brisbane .... that would be something to see. Rossrs (talk) 23:38, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

I'll wait and see if she comments about this anywhere I'll notice. I do get your point re "reasonable" and I think we both see what is and is not reasonable, as will others. I'm focused on the discussions at User talk:Moonriddengirl/RfC for the moment. Absent a nuclear winter, you're more likely to see a 10 metre rise in sea level in Brisbane than snowfall. It a metaphor I used quite some time ago in the context of software development and maintaining a grip on a huge code base. Large software packages consist of million of lines of code and management of complexity becomes a major concern because it takes huge amounts of time to effect changes when things are not structured wisely. I take it you're not someone with a software background; to those with a serious such background this is really old news. Also; consider the nature of teh wiki: it's a database of revisions of pages; millions of pages and billions of revisions. Software people have been using such systems for decades. We call them revision control systems. In that sense, I've been editing articles with revision histories for a few decades more that the wiki's been around, except that the articles were in assorted programming languages. This is what the folks who developed MediaWiki used as a model.

Are you doing the endash fixes by hand? There are scripts about to do this shite in one click. Start with WP:AUTOED. Cheers, Jack Merridew 00:09, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

I was thinking tsunami should be my greatest risk, but I hadn't considered a nuclear winter. You're right, I do not have a software background, and I think it's safe to say I don't have a software future either. I don't have a legal background either, and I sometimes feel that I need some kind of degree to wade through the levels of policies and guidelines. You said earlier about learning every day, and that's another type of learning for me. I'll have a look at WP:AUTOED. I have been doing them by hand from an old list. It's tedious shite but I find that by looking at each article manually I spot a lot of other stuff – spelling, grammar, overlinking, shocking divorces etc, and I try to fix everything I notice in one visit. Rossrs (talk) 09:51, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

I take it back. I tried the script for correcting dashes, and I like it. I can still check manually for any other craziness, but I like this. Thank you for letting me know about it. Rossrs (talk) 14:22, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

Glad the dashes part works for you; there are more such tools you'll like. I should go freshen the ones I'm using. I'll point you at more useful bits, too. I'm thinking the list you mention is how you select things; there are tools and cats to help with that, too. Cheers, Jack Merridew 14:44, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

Hi, Jack. I'm not talking about Jack Lord#Filmography, but about this. I think it's probably best that you not notify others of the existence of the RfC. There were canvassing concerns with the last RfC, and I plan to make sure this one (once we launch it) is properly advertised in all the right locations. Even if you only notify neutral parties, your motives are likely to be suspect...and the opinion of those you notify may well be tainted by a perception that you've cherry-picked them. (Too, in this particular case, your header — "Colour is inappropriate to convey information" — may well seem non-neutral.) I think it's best to let the community derived processes of central announcement work here. I will publicize this at the relevant policy pages, guideline pages, at WP:CENTRAL and WP:VPP. Promise. Once it's ready, I'll make sure that word gets out. --Moonriddengirl 13:08, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

I'll defer to your view on this, and see you're getting ready to launch rather sooner than I was expecting; I've added a further request re the background and my core concern. And, of course, once it's up, I'll post a statement. Any claim of canvasing here is pretty off, methinks, as DGG has been a strong critic of me, and I took quite a risk notifying him. That he didn't bring prior issues to this reflects very well on him. As you say, it's also about perceptions. I had not considered the section header's neutrality; it was just a paste and my intent was that he find the specific spot on the page where I discussed his prior comment. Cheers, Jack Merridew 14:44, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. I realize that your section header was link specific. :) I think getting this up and running ASAP should be a priority. As we know, RfCs can run a bit long, and resolving this issue would be a big help, I think, with the conflict between you and Wildhartlivie. It may not resolve everything, but it may simplify that resolution if we get this out of the way. --Moonriddengirl 15:07, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

I think we're good. See my latest comments on the subpage. I was only suggesting that *today* might be too soon, as I'm busy and WHL has not commented on the last bits. Until tomorrow would seem sufficient pause. Nominally this sort of thing should run on the order of 30 days, so I think we're talking 'July'. And I do hope it will sort the overall dispute, as there are a lot of things that need fixing. *My* POV is that my intent to clean-up this mess has been thwarted for four months and that the thwarting has been occurring since last June. Cheers, Jack Merridew 15:54, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

Mediation and Claudette Colbert

Hi, I think the excessive talk on Fences and Windows's page may shortly test his patience. In regards to the suggestion to act as informal mediator, well I'm still willing. Perhaps the best venue would be a neutral place. I was thinking I could set up a sandbox page in my talk space and that could be a place you and WHL could talk without others necessarily having input. Although Crohnie has offered to help and I told her that as far as I'm concerned she's welcome. It occurs to me now that I should have checked with you and WHL first. I don't actually know what each of you expects in this process and what points specifically you want to deal with. I guess that would be the first thing to establish, and then take it from there. I haven't heard from Wildhartlivie so I don't know how she feels about it right now. I suspect she's feeling wounded by the discussion about Claudette Colbert etc. Her role in that was very minor you know. I made a reversion and started the talk page discussion, but it still ended up being all about her. I understand there are editors who have issues with her, but talking about just the Colbert situation, that escalated from a very minor and routine edit that she made. She did nothing wrong in that edit. You said you could understand me feeling stung. That's probably as good a word as any. Only a few days ago, Chowbok did the same thing at Talk:Dawn Wells by immediately introducing his personal grievance in a discussion that had, until he entered it, been all about the article content. It was also me that was contributing to that discussion, and WHL had not even commented. So twice in less than a week is twice too many. I showed him the courtesy of explaining myself at the Colbert talk page and I'm willing to defend my editorial choices, but how am I to defend myself against someone who isn't interested in discussing the topic but reserves the right to accuse me of being part of a cabal?

As for Claudette. Yes her alleged sexuality has been discussed before and has been archived. In 2007 several editors (one really, I think it was a bunch of socks) took exception to anything in the article that portrayed her as anything less than a saint, and even changed the text to refer to her as "Mrs Pressman" rather than "Colbert". When it was removed (perhaps by me, I can't remember) he launched into a tirade saying we were trying to suggest she was bisexual by avoiding the use of her married name. He could barely speak English and turned out to be in Japan, and told me I couldn't possibly understand Colbert because I'm Australian. Ended up leaving bizarre comments on my talk page such as & & & He called me a "Vivien Leigh fun" twice, but I think he meant "fan". Although that doesn't make any more sense than "fun". Back then I was concerned about keeping gossipy sex-life details out of articles as I consider them irrelevant to the person's notability, but I've accepted that's a lost cause, and now I only insist on reliable sourcing. This anon or one of its socks still comes along from time to time, and considering I've been watching it for all of that time to keep the crap out, and that dealing with that anon was pretty much a nightmare, Chowbok's cabal comment is so far out of line it's not even funny. The problem is that everyone in this series of disagreements is a good editor at heart. Chowbok's been around for a long time, and a lot of his edits are constructive and useful, but he can't seem to help himself when it comes to Wildhartlivie or anyone he thinks is in league with her. If everyone just calmed down the actual content issues are not huge. It seems to me that everyone just wants to be right and with all the past history it only takes a small thing and someone reacts, whether it's you, me, Chowbok, WHL or any of the others who take part. There's always a reaction and before we know it, it's escalated again.

I opted in to X!s Edit Counter, out of curiosity. It's interesting to see a breakdown of edits by type and by month, but I don't see a lot of value in it listing the most frequently edited page from the various page categories. In terms of the visibility you mentioned, I don't see how showing the top few articles, is helpful. Am I missing something? Rossrs (talk) 15:31, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

You're the mediator; start this up. It's not about Colbert. Cheers, Jack Merridew 10:23, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Terse due to other things; you know the issues; start a framework of some sort and I'll work with you on teh details. I saw Wells; assume I miss little ;) The stuff re transparency is not for you; it's about being open and honest with the community. That counter is now opt-in per de:privacy laws, which are robust and ethical (toolserver is in Deuchland). Good faith editors accept transparency in teh wiki-context. Cheers, Jack Merridew 11:42, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

I'm not entirely sure I want to mediate after the comments that appeared on my talk page today, but that may be because I'm tired and angry. Tomorrow I may be back to myself. I noticed you mentioned my name in an edit summary about the Jack Lord filmography, but I don't quite understand. Again, that may be because I'm exhausted, but if I'm missing something obvious, could you please clue me in. thanks Rossrs (talk) 14:49, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Checks: . Please don't bail on this, now. I knew the name but not the userbox. That edit summary indicated that I see the whole approach she's taking there (brute force assertion of her will, while the whole mess is disputed and the new RfC imminent) as something we could address via mediation. If you don't agree to mediate, I'll go the next DR step. You're her friend and a mediator is typically a neutral party (none have appeared, but I could ask). I'm willing to accept you because you're a reasonable person and you know much of the back story, which will help at lot. Cheers, Jack Merridew 21:04, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

My eyes ...

How this is considered appropriate astounds me. The entire WP:SYNTH in articles in this series is also disturbing, with average call out scores, ... Plastikspork (talk) 19:00, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

The goggles... they do *nothing* ;) Jack Merridew 10:23, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

I gets much worse. Plastikspork _―Œ 05:41, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Fucking-worthless goggles ;) You do see the thread immediately below , right? Cheers, Jack Merridew 05:46, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Some people still don't get it, and now he wants to be an admin. Plastikspork _―Œ 19:58, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Launched

The RfC we've been discussing on color and consensus is launched and located at Misplaced Pages talk:Consensus/RfC. I am in the process of publicizing. --Moonriddengirl 15:35, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

My signature

Thanks for informing me of the extra span-element in my signature (I don't like using the abbreviation "sig" because... I don't know why, but it just doesn't sound, or look, right to me). I'm very much a novice at any sort of code, though, I do like to think I'm capable of intuitive use (perhaps that's an unwarranted thought, but a thought nonetheless ;)) I know you're just ribbing me about the colors, but, for clarity sake, the suggested contrast ratio is at least 5:1 and I'm currently at 8.8:1. The one problem I thought may arise is size, but I haven't had any concerns brought up yet. Is there another concern you have with my signature? (or did you really have any to begin with?)  Chickenmonkey  00:51, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

I don't like colourful or boxy signatures, but they're allowed. For now ;) And your signature is valid code, although that span, that I see you've removed, was just clutter that gunks up the database and amounts to more goop people have to read around in the edit box. (pro-tip: go to preferences and hit the editing tab; change Editbox dimensions: Rows to something more than the default (25, I think), say 50; as large as will fit on your screen. Also check: Widen the edit box to fill the entire screen.) Beyond not liking flashy signatures, I've seen countless signature implementations that are invalid and some screw-up subsequent posts. They are a vector for poor code getting into the system. You signature is using the html small-element and the effects of that tag vary by browser. There are a lot of signatures (what a pain to type that whole long word so many times;) that use <big> or <font> to increase the size and that's against policy, as it's attention-seeking. Sometimes, I give it to them. My concerns here are real, but my comments to you are just in fun. You should consider the impression you make on others with it; you will be taken less seriously by some based solely on your signature; all the more if they disagree with something you're saying. It's kind of like ignoring people emailing from AOL accounts.

I've fiddled with your above sig to tighten things up; you should adopt this. I added a bit of border, too. As I said, I breathe this stuff. It took about a minute. See here for more of the sort of code I stick into the wiki. Scroll down slowly and revisit the page; it's dynamic. Cheers, Jack Merridew 01:27, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

Interesting, I'll look into the "preferences -> editing" suggestions. I'm not all that concerned with the impression my sig makes on others. If someone chooses to take me less seriously due to that, well, I'm not too sure they were prepared to take me very seriously in the first place. Although, I haven't seen an email from an AOL account in about seven parsecs. I've implemented your suggestions for my signature, but I've removed the border. Was there a reason for the border?  Chickenmonkey  02:50, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

The border was just a suggestion. I was lazy and didn't do an orange one around 'monkey'. It prolly would not have gotten under the 255-char limit, anyway. If someone doesn't take you seriously per your signature while you're talking sense, they're likely hopeless. Of more concern are those with ludicrous signature who are also talking nonsense. Those who listen to sensible talk posted over whatever signature rulz teh wiki. That's the message some are missing; I callz them littluns. Your take on signatures may serve you well to sort'em from teh biguns. I'll marinate on that. Oh, I didn't show up on your talk page today because it was 'occupied' and it would have defeated the intent of leaving the other stall. I knew this, too, but forgot while composing that reply. The editing→prefs suggestion is mostly useful on higher resolution displays. For most seriouz editing, I use an external editor. Cheers, Jack Merridew 03:21, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

Well, everyone knowz uh rulz teh wiki. It might as well be written in Basic.  Chickenmonkey  07:17, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

Terima kasih ;) 2 badz teh luttun donz getz it. Jack Merridew 07:24, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks

Support Jack
defending teh wiki since 2004 ;)

Thanks for directing me to WP:DENY. I appreciate any and all input. By the way, have you ever run for adminship? N419BH 02:31, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

I'm an admin on another project, but I've never run for adminship here on teh toxic wiki. I've a history, too. I've only been here for five and a half years. Your sig needs help; I'll get back to you on that. Cheers, Jack Merridew 02:36, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, I've been watching your talk page since you showed up at 2010 Polish Air Force TU-154 crash. I read all about the history. I agree, there's a good bit of toxicity, but you just might make it. Hey, you made it back from an indef... And any help on the signature would be appreciated. There's got to be a better way to do the same 6 letter signature with 1/2 the code. N419BH 02:39, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

See this; I refactored the 02:39 sig. It's a bit shorter and much better code. You should take it. Should be much more consistent across platforms. And it doesn't use the deprecated font-element from teh 90s.

There's talk, but I have sorted a lot of problems, as necessary, and some are forever in battleground-mode. Sincerely, Jack Merridew 03:05, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

Wow, that's nifty. The only things I've ever coded were that and a radical-simplifying program on my TI-83. And for the record, I'd support you in a RfA. N419BH 03:07, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

Much appreciated. I think the first thing I ever programmed was an HP calculator. Reverse Polish notation, rulz, too. Then I upgraded and sold the old one to an impressed physics teacher. You should paste:

<span style="font-family:'arial bold',serif;border:1px solid Black;">]]</span>

Into your prefs.

—Sincerely, Street-Legal Sockpuppet Jack Merridewthis user is a sock puppet 03:52, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

appologies from a overzealous editor Weaponbb7 (talk) 23:47, 7 July 2010 (UTC) has given you a dove! Doves promote WikiLove and hopefully this one has made your day happier. Spread the WikiLove by giving someone else a dove, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past (this fits perfectly) or a good friend. Cheers!

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