User talk:Davidgothberg/Archive 5

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Image license

Sorry, I'm usually pretty good at licenses and attribution, so I missed that one. Thanks for informing me, I'll be more careful in the future. -- penubag  (talk) 06:16, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

Recycling WP templates

Hi, David I note from the template talk pages, that your a template expert. I wonder if you could assist me or point me to the relevant info as I'm attempting to recycle (copy) Wikipedia templates to a Wikia project I started. The Msg box, Ambox and {{ombox}} templates display the Icon and characters outside the box border My version Here. I got a working Navbox look alike but it has faults (i.e. edit buttons centre and don't function correctly and if 2 added to apage they have a space of about 5 lines between them) Example here on my Caterpillar inc. page. Another problem i have is that after {{template}} in text the text jumps to a new line indented like this Example. Is some code missing from other files Like CSS & JS (I Dont fully understand how these work) but have seen these mentioned and an editor on the Wikia site did help a bit to fix Navbox for me?

I want to create a simpler version of Infobox companies, as thats non functioning (it displays loads of markup characters) and is over complex for my needs. Can you point me to a helpful guide to writing Wiki template code and understanding how to follow parameters used. (is there an online editor to help write them ?)

Thanks in anticipation BulldozerD11 (talk) 17:07, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

I have copied this discussion to Template talk:Mbox#Recycling WP templates and responded there, since this discussion is relevant to anyone else that wants to move these templates to other wikis.

--David Göthberg (talk) 22:54, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks David, Have replied on the new page listed above. (replied here to acknowledge move) - BulldozerD11 (talk) 03:50, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

RE:Bot

Perhaps it would've been easier to just ask me to stop the bot instead of block it. :P Whatever though, I can appreciate the usage of force I guess. Anyway, I did read this. While discussion was split down the middle, I noticed that everyone against was saying "there's no reason to, so why should we", and the "it ain't broken so don't fix it" argument is lame. Besides, I still think that this drains a lot of power given how often it is transcluded (I don't care what WP:PERF says because that only applies to the small cases, I'm pretty sure). If we're substituting unsigneds now old ones should also be substituted because of the poor, poor job queue. For what it's worth, here's my reasoning against some examples from that talk page;

1. "Needs to be transcluded so that we can fix it easily if it breaks"; if that was how we ran Wikipedia we wouldn't even have subst: as a function. Besides, everyone substitutes it currently (SineBot as well).
2. "The developers said don't do it"; this seems to throw WP:BOLD out of the window. And besides, Brion himself said that they deny the server load claim only because nobody has tested against it. This is like storing corpses in the drinking water but not removing them despite all the deaths until somebody proves that it isn't healthy.

Reasons not to substitute from WP:SUBST, explained:

• Once a template is substituted, the result is no longer linked to the template, making it hard to find all pages displaying that text (though categories can sometimes relieve this). This problem can easily be worked around by including a link to the template in the template's code. Why do we need to find where the unsigned template has been used? You could always just pagesearch for "Preceding comments..." anyway.
• A substituted template will not be updated when the master template is updated. Unsigned is a stable template, so this doesn't really matter.
• If the template is used to standardize the appearance of something, you probably do not want to do a substitution. An example of this is a table of contents or navigation box. Doesn't apply.
• Substituting en masse — editing thousands of articles with bots — slows down the site and wastes server resources unnecessarily. Not really any more than day-to-day usage. What happened to WP:PERF? Besides, better to take them down then have them continually drain resources.
• Substitution increases the size of articles in the database and database dumps. By a couple of bytes; don't think we need to worry.
• A substituted template can add a lot of wiki-code or HTML to the article, harming accessibility for the less technically inclined. Unsigned isn't complicated at all.
• Substituting templates prevents newcomers from learning to use templates, and prevents users from finding their documentation. It leaves "Template:unsigned" in comments.
  • When a user tries to copy, for example, the warnings for vandaloids created by the templates described at Template:Test, from an existing page to another page where it is needed, that user receives no clue that the content on the existing page was created by a template! If the template has changed recently, then the user might find several undated versions of each warning. The user is left wondering what to do. It looks like each editor copies or makes their own warnings. Which version to use? Write my own? This whole 'subst' feature is weird. Null due to previous statement.
• If the template is just being used temporarily, it is usually better not to substitute. Substituted templates are much harder to remove or modify. Long-term template is long-term.
• When a vandalised template is substituted, it is more difficult to repair than regular vandalism because of the lack of links between the template and its incarnations and the lack of updatability. It won't be vandalised, so no worries.
• Unsubstituted deletion tags for trivial pages (such as categories and redirects) offer the deleting administrator a convenient, meaningful deletion summary. Example: "content was: '{{rfd}} #REDIRECT Wikipedia' (and the only contributor was 'Jimbo Wales')". A precise deletion comment gives onlookers (especially non-administrators unable to view the deleted edits) better insight as to why a specific item may have been deleted. If templates such as {{rfd}}, {{cfr}}, etc. are substituted, the "reason for deletion" field defaults to a blank line. However, pages deleted via {{afd}} and {{mfd}} should be deleted with a link to the subpage where the deletion was discussed. This also doesn't apply.

See what I mean? Cheers, Master of Puppets _{Call me MoP! :)} 07:09, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Oh, and as for the block link, it broke the imagemap template when I used it. I'll find a way around it eventually. Master of Puppets _{Call me MoP! :)} 07:10, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Note to self: I have copied this response back to the talk page of Master of Puppets, where this discussion started, and I have responded there.

--David Göthberg (talk) 08:56, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Fixed the block link. Also, starting a topic at the pump to get widespread consensus on this quickly; maybe I'll even snag Brion in for a bit. So consider this canvassing. Master of Puppets _{Call me MoP! :)} 23:57, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

No problem, I just wanted to make sure we resolve this issue. I've removed unsigned and nowrap, though the bot will substitute unsigned if it is already doing something else on the page (doing multiple things at once now). It won't be making one edit per replacement anymore, but many replacements per edit to maximize usefulness. Oh, and sorry if unblocking my bot was irregular, but I didn't see any need to block it when I wasn't going to use it until we figured this out. Anyway, I hope all is well, Master of Puppets _{Call me MoP! :D} 04:22, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Replied

Hello, Davidgothberg. You have new messages at Chase me ladies, I'm the Cavalry's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Re: selfrefs

Hi. While patrolling Merkle–Damgård construction, I noticed in your edit summary:

“ And Dcoetzee: "Wikipedia" wasn't a self reference here, it was just a word with the right properties. Would have worked in print too. ”

Note that the example fixed by User:Dcoetzee was indeed a (mildly) inappropriate self-reference. As per Wikipedia:Avoid self-references — which was linked to in the previous edit summary — (emphasis added below):

“ The following is a list of self-references in Wikipedia's main namespace that are not encyclopedia-neutral. They should at least be acknowledged or marked as self-references but not necessarily be deleted as they serve their purpose here on Wikipedia.

• Referring to "Wikipedia"
  • The word "Wikipedia" anywhere in an article, unless used where Wikipedia is actually the immediate subject of discussion in the prose.

”

Just a friendly note. ~ Jafet•work•play•watch 12:33, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#mbox type names

Title says it all :D. I expect you'll want to get involved. Happy‑melon 18:02, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads up. I have responded there.

--David Göthberg (talk) 05:29, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Legobot

(x-posted) Do you mind unblocking the bot right now? It will not be substituting {{unsigned}} (or similar) until resolved, but it needs to do some other ones. LegoK^ontribsT^alkM 04:54, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Sure, I have now unblocked the bot since you stated it will only do its other tasks. I have been away for some days so I haven't checked my watchlist lately so I didn't notice your message on your talk page until you left a message here on my talk page. (Next time leave a message at the admins talk page immediately, so you don't need to wait as long.) And since I have been away I don't know what the result is of the discussions whether to let bots substitute {{unsigned}} or not.

--David Göthberg (talk) 05:18, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

{{High-use}} wording

Hi David,

You reverted my wording changes here, pointing to the talk page, but the last comment there is my rationale for the rewording from back when I revamped it. Am I missing something? Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 00:05, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

I had written an explanation for that talk page, but had not saved it yet since I had fallen asleep in between. I have now saved that response.

--David Göthberg (talk) 03:39, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Template stuff

How come? Think making it a percentage value would help? And your edit didn't really solve any problems... the templates are still taking up more space than necessary. Cheers, Master of Puppets _{Call me MoP! :D} 08:32, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

No, a percentage value does not help. It would still look terrible in lower screen resolutions, such as 800x600 and even worse in hand held units. And your edit caused the infobox to overlap the message boxes even in some modern browsers.

We have tinkered with the box flow problems for years, and discussed it for years. I changed back to what is the current best practice. And we even have guidelines specifying that that is the way to do it. I am not a fan of the "accessibility guidelines" since they are mostly handled by a group of syntax theory fanatics with little respect for what actually works in the browsers out there, but since I am lazy, here is one of the guidelines that describe the current best practice: Wikipedia:Accessibility#Lead section.

--David Göthberg (talk) 08:45, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Ah, I see. Well, thanks for letting me know. I just didn't see the point of having two silly boxes eating up some article real estate. Cheers, Master of Puppets _{Call me MoP! :D} 08:54, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I don't like such boxes either. I would prefer that they would go on the talk pages, or at least at the bottom of the articles. Unfortunately it has been decided, and heavily enforced by some users, that most message boxes should be put at the top of articles. :(

--David Göthberg (talk) 09:20, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Merging "tmbox-small" and "ombox-small"

I notice that these two declarations in MediaWiki:Common.css are in fact identical. Should we perhaps unify them? The background is that I am considering how to update templates like {{commons}}, which currently use a rather awkward set of nested divs. I was tempted to use the ombox-small classes as the appearance is very similar but I would prefer to avoid using styles in the mainspace that are really intended for use outside. However, the "ombox-small" class declaration actually only contains positioning information, so if we renamed this to "mbox-small" it becomes namespace-independent and hence acceptable to use in any namespace for a clean right-floating small box, to be manually styled as necessary. I don't think we need feel obliged to implement the complicated |small=yes functionality in other mbox templates as a result. Thoughts? Happy‑melon 11:38, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Also, although I do have reservations, do you think a symmetrical "mbox-small-left" style would be a good idea? Happy‑melon 11:40, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

I have copied this discussion to Template talk:Fmbox#Merging "tmbox-small" and "ombox-small" and responded there, since this was a continuation of the discussion there. And this discussion belongs on a more visible mbox related talk page. (Well, "Template talk:Mbox" would have been best, but since the discussion is already at "Template talk:Fmbox", let's continue there.)

--David Göthberg (talk) 14:15, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Protection categorization discussion

Hi, there's a discussion going about changing the way the protection templates categorize the pages as protected. Since this would affect {{pp-meta}} and the other templates and you've been involved there in the past, I thought you might appreciate a heads-up as part of our (you, me, Happy-melon) little "template triumvirate". :p {{Nihiltres|talk|log}} 03:07, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Hi Nihiltres. Sorry that I have not been able to answer until now. When you left your message I was on a wikibreak, and now I am trying to catch up on things here. I took a look at that discussion. (It is now in the archives of that talk page.) It seems I don't have much of a point of view on that matter. I would have to spend a lot more time digging in to it to have anything to say about it. Unfortunately I currently don't have the time to do that. But thanks for the invitation to take part.

--David Göthberg (talk) 07:12, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Metadata class

I moved this discussion to Wikipedia talk:Article message boxes#Metadata class since it probably also will be interesting for other users. And I have responded there. --David Göthberg (talk) 10:07, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Imbox

Hello... thanks for the note regarding File:Imbox deletion.png. That was definitely not the deletion target; I was trying to get rid of an image uploaded by a spammer, hence the edit summary you saw. That did not work, as the image remains - but apparently the "imbox" file was deleted instead. (Sorry about that - I would have addressed it at the time but I had no idea anything had been deleted, as I didn't receive the usual "x has been deleted" notice or even any of the "protected" warnings.) I'll look into the method I used (through the "Friendly" script") and see if I can determine what caused the glitch. Thanks again. --Ckatz^chat_spy 00:43, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the work on ((hndis)) and ((hndis-cleanup))

I would have been absolutely clueless on the stuff that you did to tidy up {{hndis}} and {{hndis-cleanup}}. And I also re-learned from you how to pipe template links without nowiki! So thanks greatly!

— Sasuke Sarutobi (talk) 17:13, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for stopping by and saying thanks. :)

And yeah, the clean up and additions I did to those templates are pretty tricky stuff. Even for an experienced template programmer like me...

--David Göthberg (talk) 01:30, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

{{Talkspace detect}}

Thanks for the kind words on my template, David. And, likewise, thanks for the {{namespace detect}} templates. I just happened to need something for a project banner that could detect what sort of talkspace it was on and the rest is history. hornoir (talk) 13:37, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Actually, David, while I have your ear I do have a template question: is there a way to determine how a query in a template was answered outside of that template? In other words, a page calls template A in which the parameter query is made equal to 1; is there a manner to call forth that parameter value outside of template A, such as in template B? I know this is an odd request, but I'm looking for a way for a project banner to inherit FA, FL, and GA class listing based on the currentstatus parameter in {{ArticleHistory}}. hornoir (talk) 13:54, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

If I may step in, it is unfortunately not possible to do this - it would require some form of variables (not just parameters) to be implemented, and the devs have stated more than once that it's never gonna happen. A shame really, as I seem to be coming across situations more and more often where variable handling would greatly simplify coding... Oh well, c'est la vie. =P 「ダイノガイ千？！」^{(Dinoguy1000)} 18:43, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Hornoir: Oh, that comment I left in my edit comment on {{talkspace detect}} was just a quick short comment since I was in a hurry. (My dancegirls were waiting for me, we were going out.:) I was planning to leave a much longer comment on your talk page or on the talk page of the template. But here goes: Thanks for figuring out how to do a good talkspace detect template. I have been thinking for a while that we need something like that, but couldn't come up with exactly how it should work and couldn't figure out a good name for it. I think your name {{talkspace detect}} is perfect! And the functionality you choose for it is also close to ideal, although I have a very minor change I am thinking of for the default/other parameters. I'll explain (discuss) that at the template's talkpage later on when I am a bit clearer in my head. (It was a long and intense night out!)

Dinoguy1000: Thanks for stepping in, I always appreciate when people help out answering here on my talk page. Since you never know when I will be back answering, and I might not even have the answer anyway. :)

Hornoir: I took a look at {{ArticleHistory}}, and unfortunately it seems Dinoguy1000 is right. If we understand right what you want to do then it is almost impossible in template programming to do what you want to do.

But only almost impossible. I think there is a very messy workaround you could do which would involve feeding the project banner as a parameter to the {{ArticleHistory}} template. (Or feeding {{ArticleHistory}} to the project banner.) But I think that would be way too messy coding, and would involve changing too many templates. And would be hard for people to understand. So in the end it is much easier to simply manually feed the same status value to both templates.

--David Göthberg (talk) 18:47, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Ambox question

Is there an ambox to place in an article or section similar to {{Trivia}} that discourages a list of quotes from, say, a television episode? Matthewedwards (talk • contribs • email) 07:11, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

I have no idea. I don't really work with such boxes. I just do the technical stuff in the background, such as taking care of the {{ambox}} meta-template that is used to build such "article message boxes".

But the place to look to find such cleanup boxes is Wikipedia:Template messages/Cleanup. Oh, and a tip: That page and its "mother page" with all the other message boxes can be reached by clicking this path: "Help" in the "interaction" menu on the left side of any page - "Templates" under the "Resources and lists" section - "Cleanup".

--David Göthberg (talk) 10:29, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

FYI, there's {{quotefarm}}; {{tl|quotefarm|list of episode quotes}} would do the trick. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 15:44, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks Chris. Yeah that seems to be what Matthew needs.

--David Göthberg (talk) 22:53, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Thank you, both. That'll do nicely. :) Matthewedwards (talk • contribs • email) 03:55, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Broken refs in templates/infoboxes/etc.

I wrote about the subject of broken refs in templates/infoboxes/etc. in Help talk:Cite errors. Would you please have a look? I might have made an oversight in some of it, which you would probably catch. Debresser (talk) 22:23, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Ouch, that was a tough one. And yes, I found a better solution. I have responded over at Help talk:Cite errors#Broken refs in templates/infoboxes/etc..

--David Göthberg (talk) 12:19, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Sister projects links

Hi. Regarding the thread at Wikipedia talk:Wikimedia sister projects#Wikipedia:Template messages/Sister projects - link order problem, do you think we need more people agreeing before changes are made, or is it a clearly sensible change that I/we could implement now? If you think we need more input, I guess I'll go talkpagespam all the relevant templates(?). Thanks. -- Quiddity (talk) 20:52, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

I think you should go ahead and start updating those message boxes. Sure, we were only three editors discussing it so far, but we all agreed about what needs doing. And the change is fairly minor. And if nothing else doing the updates is a way to get attention from other editors.

--David Göthberg (talk) 15:20, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Hi

Back from my own semi-wikibreak, and just thought I'd say "hi" : ) - jc37 00:24, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

I know I'm not exactly David ( XD ), but I've seen you around and never greeted you before... so, hi! ^_^ 「ダイノガイ千？！」^{(Dinoguy1000)} 03:44, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

lol, and "hi" right back : ) - jc37 06:10, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Oh, welcome back from your semi-wikibreak Jc37.

Haha, you guys are hilarious. You make me feel very welcome back! And I guess that is your evil plan, right? That is, to make me feel so welcome here that I will spend more time here instead of with my dance girls...

--David Göthberg (talk) 07:06, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

But of course! (Muhahahaha!) If it weren't for people like us, Wikipedia would be Dull and Boring... and no one wants that. =) 「ダイノガイ千？！」^{(Dinoguy1000)} 07:33, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Upgrade for pp-meta

Hi, I've implemented in the {{pp-meta}} sandbox an improvement that allows the template to disappear and apply Category:Wikipedia pages with incorrect protection templates when the page is inappropriately protected for the given template. It should work well, and would make some of the code currently used on the individual protection templates, to do the same thing, redundant (that is, it would centralize that code). Since it's reasonably complex, I'd appreciate it if you'd give the new code a look-over before I implement it, as protection against any stupid bugs I've missed.

The general form of the code is to look for the type parameter, and if it's move or create, check whether the move- or create-protection there is non-null (equal to sysop, for the move). If it's not move or create, it checks for non-null edit protection that doesn't match an optional disallowlevel parameter.

I'd also be open to cleaning up the code if you feel it's messier than it should be—though I hope that's not the case as I've spent a while thinking about exactly how to implement this. :) {{Nihiltres|talk|log}} 18:18, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Hi Nihiltres. I should have informed you of this a long time ago, but here goes: When you guys made the code in the protection templates much more complex some year ago (last year?) I gave up on it. That is, I decided to focus on the other templates I work with. And currently I don't even have enough time to take care of the templates I do feel responsible for. I am on average about 5 days behind in working my watchlist and 2 months behind in my to-do list.

So I am sorry that I won't be spending time on the protection templates. But I trust you will make those templates work fine!

I have noticed that you are now automating them, and I really like that. (That is, auto-detecting if a page is semi or fully protected etc. and then show the right padlock etc.) By the way, I left a message regarding an addition to that over at Template talk:Pp-template#Merge and automate some days ago.

--David Göthberg (talk) 20:46, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Template:Expand-section

David, some people seem to have obtained a consensus to make this message box smaller and less prominent. Therefore a smaller box is required than {{ambox}} provides. I wonder if you could look in on the discussion at Template talk:Expand-section#More subtle style and advise on the best way to implement this? Thanks, Martin^msgj 10:34, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Okay, I'm on it.

--David Göthberg (talk) 11:53, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

I've thrown down my thoughts on the technical discussion at Template talk:Mbox#Left-floating small box; seems a much more sensible place to put it given that it touches on at least the ambox template, probably ombox as well. Happy‑melon 12:33, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Navbox subgroup

Hi David, I copied the template Navbox subgroup to Turkish Wikipedia but for some reason the template doesn't work (tr:Şablon:Karbonhidratlar, tr:Şablon:Navbox subgroup). That's it, I am not sure about what should we do to fix it. if you have the time and/or interest can you help with it please? Thanks --Gökhan 00:23, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, I think we have it fixed now. This whole navbox thing is so complicated, It gives me a headache.--Gökhan 04:54, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Gökhan: I see that you now have updated to a newer version of {{navbox}} so it has the stuff needed to support {{navbox subgroup}}. So yeah, seems you fixed it yourselves. And yeah, {{navbox}} is scarily complicated.

Everyone: I am not especially involved in {{navbox}} and {{navbox subgroup}} anymore. And even if I were, the place to ask questions about those templates is on their talk pages, not here. Since a discussion about a template often is a good future reference for other editors who come there. And if you don't get any answer in some days, then you can leave a message on the talk pages of some of the editors who understand the template to come to the template's talk page and comment.

--David Göthberg (talk) 20:59, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Subst problem with /doc pages

Sorry about that, I didn't realize it would be a problem. I was updating categories and I didn't realize I needed to turn off the "genfixes" feature. I will go back and see if there are any more problems. --Eastlaw ^talk ⁄ _contribs 02:34, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

All right, I think I fixed all of them. If you notice any more problems, please let me know. I really try to be careful with template edits, so if I screw up please don't be too cross with me. --Eastlaw ^talk ⁄ _contribs 02:53, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Oops, I didn't mean to sound cranky, but I guess I did. Sorry. I just wanted to report the error to you so you could fix it and wouldn't continue to do that. And I thought it might be your tool causing it, and not you yourself. So just a routine "bug discovered, bug squashed" matter.

--David Göthberg (talk) 03:27, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Just FYI, I don't know how much familiarity you have with AutoWikiBrowser, but among the things it does is apply a range of general fixes to the pages one edits with it. 99 times out of 100, this causes no major problems, and is in fact a positive feature. Apparently, I unwittingly stumbled upon that one time out of 100 where it causes problems! Oh well, you live, you learn... --Eastlaw ^talk ⁄ _contribs 04:48, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

AWB can't run on my operating system. But I think you should consider suggesting to the AWB coders to make it so that it doesn't do any such "general fixes" when in the "Template:" and "MediaWiki:" namespaces, since it causes problems there.

--David Göthberg (talk) 20:29, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Hello

hi my name is bella but my nick name is beller i like nglish too. its pretty cool. i got an "A" in english. see im in 6th grade. i love school and sports. any way please reply i get bored sometimes just fixing up pages

-Bella/Beller same thing :] —Preceding unsigned comment added by XxXbellerXxX (talk • contribs) 00:09, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Hi Bella. Welcome to Wikipedia. Take care out there and only do edits that you think is an improvement to pages. Remember that you can experiment on your own user page.

--David Göthberg (talk) 02:31, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Unflag please

Please review the Jace Hall page and unflag it as an advertisement.

Thanks

RG

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.236.243.16 (talk) 23:51, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Hi RG. I assume you contacted me since I am a Wikipedia admin? But admins have no special powers when it comes to deciding if an article should be tagged with such clean-up boxes or not.

If you think the article no longer has the problems that the clean-up box mentions then you can simply remove that box yourself. If you are in doubt or are reverted by another user then bring it up for discussion on the talk page. If you don't get any feedback then there are ways to call in other users to discuss.

But I don't know much about such things, since I mostly edit articles about cryptography and program templates. (Two pretty calm and conflict free areas of Wikipedia. :)) And I was only made admin since I worked with protected high-risk templates. So I am not very good at the policy and guideline stuff. Sorry.

But there is one advice I can give you: Do get an account, and sign your talk page messages using four tildes "~~~~" or the sign button above the edit window. Since that gives you much more credibility, thus other users will be much more likely to cooperate with you. Its confusing for the rest of us if we don't know if we are talking with the same person again. And if you have an account people can check your edit history and see if your other edits are good or bad, thus decide if they should trust and respect you.

--David Göthberg (talk) 00:47, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

How do I do this kind of thing?

Hello, im new to this. Can u tell me how to do things?

—Preceding unsigned comment added by Nation Group (talk • contribs) 15:53, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm just wondering, is there a way to chat in here with u. I dont like it when it takes long times lol

—Preceding unsigned comment added by Nation Group (talk • contribs) 19:18, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Hi Nation Group.

You have already figured out how to contact other users. That is, the way to talk with people here on Wikipedia is to leave a message on their talk page, just like you did here on my talk page. This can seem like a slow method, but it means we can communicate even if we don't happen to be online at the same time. I for instance live in Europe so if you live in another part of the world you might not be online at the same time, still we can communicate well with this method. And it can even be a pretty fast method sometimes, when both persons are online at the same time.

If you want to chat in real-time with other Wikipedians then you can try the Wikipedia:IRC channels. But if you don't know what IRC means and don't have an IRC program installed on your computer, then you should probably stick to using talk pages to communicate.

I see that another user has already left a list of links to good pages to read for beginners on your talk page. I suggest you read those pages to get started. And by the way, a good place to do experimental edits is on your own user page. And when you edit, use the [Show preview] button often (that button is below the edit window). It is the most useful tool we have here on Wikipedia.

So, welcome to Wikipedia.

--David Göthberg (talk) 01:16, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Template talk:DAYMONTH

I made a template which I found usefull. When I tried to move it to its proper name, that name turned out to be blacklisted. Then I made a talk page to request the move. Suddenly I had a very big question, related to the template, and I posted it there too. Perhaps you have the answer? Debresser (talk) 23:40, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

That's odd. I assume you mean you wanted to move {{DAYMONTH}} to {{CURRENTMONTHDAY}}. But as far as I can see {{CURRENTMONTHDAY}} is not titleblacklisted, nor is it create protected. But there might be some other kind of create/blacklist protection system that I am not aware of. Anyway, I recommend that you avoid using all upper-case since that makes it look like a magic word. Instead use the name in all lower-case. I left a longer answer over at Template talk:DAYMONTH.

--David Göthberg (talk) 02:57, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

First of all, thanks a lot for adding the documentation to the template and the explanation on the talk page. Please have another look at the suggestion I made after understanding your words. Debresser (talk) 06:44, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Okay, I have responded over there.

--David Göthberg (talk) 13:45, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

I have moved the template to Template:Currentmonthday. I have made a documentation page Template:Currentmonthday/doc. The proposal is up at the Village pump (technical). Debresser (talk) 15:14, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Somebody has made a template {{Currentdaymonth}} for Europeans, but see Template talk:Currentmonthday that it doesn't really work.

It is nice that people liked the idea, but it seems no great support for making it into a Magic word is forthcoming. Debresser (talk) 13:09, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

1: The bug you probably are referring to is not discussed at that talk page, but at the Village pump. And the {{currentdaymonth}} template works fine. The problem is in the buggy {{day-1}} template. (I took a look at that template some day ago and decided that I should stay well clear of that scary piece of code.)

2: Regarding getting a magic word {{CURRENTMONTHDAY}}: As I stated at that talk page: "Add some example to the /doc of usage of this template, like when we feed month+day to the clean-up templates." And the reason I stated that is that to get support for a change in the MediaWiki software (like adding a magic word) you must show that it is needed, not just that it is a cute and technically feasible feature. So you need to mention that "date={{CURRENTMONTHNAME}} {{CURRENTDAY}}" is used a lot in templates such as {{cleanup}}.

Of course, the template works just as well as a magic word, so here on the English Wikipedia we don't really need the magic word anymore. But adding it as a magic word makes it available to all other Wikimedia projects and MediaWiki based wikis.

--David Göthberg (talk) 14:23, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

The reason I didn't do that is because I didn't understand you. We do not use the date in the {{cleanup}} template, just the month, as far as I know. Debresser (talk) 19:59, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Gah! You are right. This is just one of those days when all I do goes wrong... You are right, the cleanup templates use month+year, not month+day.

And while I am at it: I have to apologize for what I did with the documentation of {{currentmonthday}}. I think I kind of "enforced" my style on that documentation twice (effectively reverting you) while I was doing additions to it. But I didn't mean to enforce my style, I just did it out of habit. Please change it to how you prefer it.

--David Göthberg (talk) 23:53, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

That's fine, no problem. I try to always welcome any improvement, even if it is better than what I did previously. :) Debresser (talk) 14:44, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

NowCommons: File:Imbox license.svg

File:Imbox license.svg is now available on Wikimedia Commons as Commons:File:Imbox license (1).svg. This is a repository of free media that can be used on all Wikimedia wikis. The image will be deleted from Wikipedia, but this doesn't mean it can't be used anymore. You can embed an image uploaded to Commons like you would an image uploaded to Wikipedia, in this case: [[File:Imbox license (1).svg]]. Note that this is an automated message to inform you about the move. This bot did not copy the image itself. --Erwin85Bot (talk) 04:15, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Note to self: There already exists an exact copy of that image at the proper name commons:File:Imbox license.svg. I have brought this up for discussion over at User talk:Ipatrol#Imbox license.svg since it was he who did the new copying that caused the message above.

--David Göthberg (talk) 05:05, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Protection templates

I did some work in the Category:Wikipedia pages with incorrect protection templates. Over 180 entries had accumulated there. It brought that down to 9 (see my talk page). There's some 9 left. Part of them need administrator priviliges (which I don't know if you have them). Part of them need a good idea. And 2 of them are actually yours. Smile! Debresser (talk) 20:02, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I am an admin.

Anything that says /sandbox or /test usually can be ignored in such tracking categories. Since we often use things wrong on purpose on such pages to see what happens.

But I am in the middle of a major update/deployment of new functionality to the {{ambox}}, but I 'll try to squeeze in some time to take a look at that later.

--David Göthberg (talk) 20:16, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

All 9 of them are gone. Two of them were {{editprotected}} suggestions of mine implemented by admins. Did you take care of yours? If not, somebody else did? Or were the search parameters changed? Debresser (talk) 12:46, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

I wish we had some way to check the "history" of a category...

I have not done any work there. But my guess is that it is Nihiltres that has fixed those cases. He edited my old test page User:Davidgothberg/Test18‎ to stop that one from error reporting. And Special:Contributions/Nihiltres seems to confirm that he fixed many other cases.

I haven't worked with the protection templates for ages now. Instead it is Nihiltres who is taking care of those templates and he is currently doing changes to them.

--David Göthberg (talk) 13:48, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

I saw on Special:Contributions/Nihiltres that it is indeed he who took care of all of them. Debresser (talk) 14:13, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Problem with template in Tolui

{{Khagans of Mongol Empire}} was centered, which stood out strangely among the other templates in this article. I can't get it to the left. If you'll do it, I'll learn. :) Debresser (talk) 14:02, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

I was working in {{Khagans of Mongol Empire/sandbox}} doing some simple fixes. But I see now that Ms2ger at the same time updated the template itself to use the full navbox styles. And he fixed the line wrapping in the first list. That is, he did a better update than me. However, I think you should take it one step further and update it to use {{navbox}} since that will cause simpler code that will be easier to manage for other editors later on.

I have studied the fixes that you Debresser tried to do. I assume you still want to know what the problem was? The culprit was the "margin: 0 4em 0 4em;". That means "margin: top right bottom left;", and "4em" means four characters width. Thus it had four characters margin on the left and right sides, thus making it "centred". Simply removing the margin code, or setting it to "margin: auto;", and preferably also setting "width: 100%;", would have made it use the full page width.

If you are going to work with CSS styles then I suggest you start studying and using the official specs themselves. The official document is fairly readable (but just barely), so not much need to go to other sources. It is available as web pages online: www.w3.org/TR/CSS21/. But I recommend you download the zip file and unpack it on your own hard drive, since that gives you much faster page loads when you jump around in the pages while using it as a reference.

--David Göthberg (talk) 17:54, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

I was afraid that piece of code was the problem, but since I do not know style sheets, I didn't know for sure and I didn't want to start experimenting. Removing the <center></center> tags was a good start, as far as I was concerned. :) Thanks again for helping me to fix something. Debresser (talk) 21:45, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Template styling discussion

Hi David,

Care to take the issues brought up in this edit summary to the discussion, or suggest a better place to have it? I first brought the subject up over four months ago, and it's pretty well-deployed across most high profile message boxes now (which required a great many requests for editprotected). To say that I'm "currently enforcing" it makes it sound like I'm pushing this out against the wishes of others, when there's been very little in the way of opposition even given that many opportunities. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 11:14, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

For my own reference, and for others since I know others are reading this talk page and this discussion might eventually be copied or moved elsewhere:

This is about the text content in article message boxes such as {{cleanup}} and {{3O}}. And this is the edit summary I wrote:

"Cleaning up after Thumperward's rework: Removing left over </small> tag. (But I don't agree with the style without linebreaks that Thumperward is currently enforcing on the article message boxes.)"

This is going to sound cranky, and I guess I perhaps am a bit cranky, but I couldn't find any other way to express this without giving you less than a full answer. So here goes:

1: I wrote that edit summary since I didn't want anyone to think that I support the style you are currently changing all those boxes to, since me fixing things after you without reverting could otherwise be interpreted as support.

2: I reserve the right to add such disclaimers any time, anywhere, when I do edits. And I won't let any complaints about it stop me from continuing adding such disclaimers. (I am not sure that you really are complaining about my edit comment, you probably just want to ask me to come discuss. But other editors who disagreed with me have many times before tried to order me to stop stating my opinions in edit comments.)

3: I am not especially interested in the text content of article message boxes, even though I sometimes have opinions about it like in this case. But I don't have the time nor the interest to pop in to whatever talk pages this is discussed/announced to. I am already several months behind in my to-do list, and this item isn't even on my to-do list since I don't find it important enough. That is, I have much more pressing things to attend to.

4: I have seen people complain about it in several places. But I don't have the time to find those places for you, since again I have more important things to do.

5: From what I have seen lately when working my watchlist it is you who single handedly is deploying/enforcing that new style to the text in the article message boxes.

--David Göthberg (talk) 00:58, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

It wasn't meant as a complaint so much as a genuine request that any issues are brought to a forum where they can be discussed to resolution rather than hinted at in a way where they can't. And yes, I'm doing most of the deployment - but there's nothing wrong with that, so long as it isn't opposed. Lots of thankless work is performed by single editors around here, as I'm sure you're aware. :) Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 12:18, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Ah, as I hoped then, you simply wanted me to come discuss. Anyway, don't worry too much about it, I don't care that much about the text content of the boxes.

--David Göthberg (talk) 00:32, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Last template loop

I have 1 unfixed template loop left in Category:Template loop warnings. It is User:Will Pittenger/templates. This user is himself an experienced template maker. See his talk page that he also doesn't know how to fix it. The problem doesn't seem to be just technical, more conceptual. Do you have any good ideas? Debresser (talk) 21:53, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

For starters: He is mixing wikimarkup and HTML markup for the table code, which means I can't even see which pipes "|" belong to the table code and which belong to the if-cases and template parameter separators.

So I recommend that the first thing he/you should do is to change the entire code to only use HTML markup for the table code, and indent the code properly. Thus making it readable. Then you can start to study the code to try and find out what is causing the errors. Often we already find many of the bugs while doing such basic clean-up.

--David Göthberg (talk) 01:26, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

I'll probably look at it when I get back home (Illinois). I am in Florida at the moment with only public computer internet access. Will (Talk - contribs) 22:30, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Problem with infobox UK places?

It took me a long time (10 edits) to circumvent the template loop in Earsdon, see the history. When I found the problem, I tested it on High Heaton, see that history. The question is, what is wrong with Template:infobox UK place?

20 minutes later: The "circumvention" I mentioned before was to use Template:infobox UK feature. Needless to say that a "feature" is not a "place".

I didn't stop at that, and with some more experiments I found the problem. The county parameter (whether it is metropolitan_county or shire_county) has to be internally linked.

I'll add a line about this in the documentation. Debresser (talk) 21:40, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Barnstar!

		The da Vinci Barnstar
		For your excellent work on adding the "autoreport" feature to {{Backlog}} and {{Adminbacklog}}, I hereby award you this barnstar. Great work! –Drilnoth (T • C) 03:04, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Haha, thanks. You added the barnstar before I even had finished the update (I had not updated the documentation yet).

--David Göthberg (talk) 03:49, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Heh. Well, I needed to get some sleep and wanted to give it to you around the time that you were making the edits, rather than 10 hours later. :) –Drilnoth (T • C) 13:18, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

From IRC

hey David, I'll check out the templates section ASAP - see if it's something I can get up to speed on. — Ched ~ ^(yes?)/_© 19:29, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Datelinking RFC

David, please be aware that many editors have spent weeks determining what the RFC on datelinking/autoformatting should be. Because this was the result of such a collaborative process, it is expected that any changes to the format should be made as a result of consensus. Please note that the option you added to the RfC does not follow the format for the other options, and it was added after hundreds of people had already registered their opinion. Several editors have now told you that your action was premature and you have been encouraged to discuss on the talk page. I consider your repeated reinsertions after that to be edit-warring and request that you please stop, or risk being temporarily blocked. Talk pages are a good thing; please make use of them. Karanacs (talk) 19:19, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

For your convenience, I've started a discussion on the issue: Wikipedia_talk:Date_formatting_and_linking_poll#.22Option_0.22. I moved your post and !vote there so it has not been lost. If you add the option back to the main page without consensus you will be in violation of 3RR. (As for your vote, you may place that in comments for now if you feel that none of the other options are acceptable.) Karanacs (talk) 19:25, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

David, the point was not to delete your vote, but to represent your opinion within the confines of the RfC format. Other users have voted support for Option 1 while their comments state clearly that they believe that no links are appropriate. The first time, I intended to only revert your addition of option 0; it was inadvertent on my part that your vote was restored in an improper section, and I apologize for that. The second time, I moved your vote in its entirety to the talk page, so that it has not been lost. Please feel free to weigh in on the talk page (link above) if you feel strongly about adding an additional option. Karanacs (talk) 19:52, 1 April 2009 (UTC) P.S. While I understand that this is a topic that draws a great deal of tension, I encourage you to please maintain a more civil attitude and assume a bit more good faith. Karanacs (talk) 19:53, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

You first changed my vote to another option. Then when I reverted that you deleted my vote. (Or as you call it "moved it", but that meant moving it off the vote page, thus hiding it.) That is you doing vote fraud and vote censoring.

Had you just moved my vote down to the comment section, then at least it wouldn't have been a clear case of vote fraud.

I have not touched your vote. The only one with any obligation here is you: You should stop censoring my vote.

--David Göthberg (talk) 20:09, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

• David, I’m on your side here. There were no “Option 0” at the start of the RfC so it would be too problematic to attempt to add one mid-stream. I too am deeply opposed to linking. However, from previous RfCs on this subject (1, 2, and 3), it was clear that the community consensus was that there were some instances where date linking would be permissible. The proponents (myself included) of option #1 for month-day and option #1 for year came up with that wording as it comes closest to no linking. We felt our proposal came closest to what represented the widest spectrum of Wikipedian’s. For whatever it’s worth, both Option #1s get rid of most of the linked dates you will encounter.

  A huge, huge amount of effort went into designing the structure of the RfC. This issue of “no linking at all” was discussed and was not included as an option for a reason. Please try to affect change by using the options available. Believe me, that is the best route. Further, you should know that your edit comment is more meaningful than your vote. Edit comments are central to understanding the community consensus and the reasoning of the editors comprising our community. If you really want no linking at all, I would suggest that both option #1s are your best course and that you should leave a cogent, well considered comment that you don’t think dates should be linked at all. Greg L (talk) 20:22, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

I have cast my vote. (I might change it, if I reconsider, but that is up to me, no one else.) Do not pester me on my talk page to try to convince me to change my vote. I suggest you keep discussions about that topic on the pages designed for it.

I have templates to fix and create, site-wide CSS bugs to fix, how-to guides to write (for Wikipedians, not for articles), and template programming support questions to answer. You guys are wasting my time. All I wanted to do was to cast my vote. But clearly, that was unacceptable to you guys since I didn't vote the way you want.

--David Göthberg (talk) 20:45, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

• Quoting you: Do not pester me on my talk page to try to convince me to change my vote. I don’t know if that part was directed at me or not. (Oops, I now see your edit summary: Greg L: You guys are wasting my time. All I wanted to do was to cast my vote. But clearly, that was unacceptable to you guys since I didn't vote the way you want.) I truly couldn’t give a holy dump how you vote, as long as you aren’t trying to change the structure of the RfC options (Option 0) that weren’ there at the start of the RfC. Your leaving a non‑vote where it now is, in the comments section where it neuters your voice, is perfectly satisfactory. Sorry to have bothered you with what should have been obvious. Greg L (talk) 23:32, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Karanacs changed my vote to option #1. And you Greg L expressly asked me to vote for option #1 in your previous section above. And now you say that "it neuters your voice, [which] is perfectly satisfactory", which just goes to show that you are happy when my vote isn't counted. But you know, comment sections do count here at Wikipedia.

In the country I live in, when we vote for parliament etc., then all votes are counted. We can write any party name we like on the vote sheet, even names of parties that doesn't exist. And the government has to publish the full results. And that's why we know that the Donald Duck Party usually beats Mickey Mouse. But you guys think you have the right to decide what votes we can cast and not cast? Shame on you.

So again, I ask that you (and I mean both of you) do not pester me on my talk page. And if you don't understand what that means: Don't leave any messages on this page, get lost, I don't want to hear from you anymore. Dra åt pipsvängen era valfuskande töntar.

--David Göthberg (talk) 01:11, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Note to self: More users have been very disturbed by the behaviour of these editors. There now is an arbcom case about that: Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Date delinking.

--David Göthberg (talk) 00:33, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Template:Example images

I wasn't just deleting that because I thought it didn't fit (although as the text read at the time, it didn't fit). I deleted it because it was added by a persistent sockpuppeting vandal and because it didn't fit. As it sits, the template now kind of has the wrong name, since it contains a sound file along with the images. :) Flopsy Mopsy and Cottonmouth (talk) 07:20, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Odd that a sockpuppeting vandal comes with a good suggestion like that. Ah well, even they have their good moments.

Anyway, I think it was a good suggestion to add the Ogg file there. And as I wrote over at File talk:Example.jpg#"Example images" notice box: "We could move this template from {{example images}} to {{example media files}} or {{example files}}." I am not sure which of the two alternative names I prefer, so I'd like your input about that. Could you perhaps respond over at File talk:Example.jpg#"Example images" notice box with what you think about the changes I made to the template and what name you prefer?

--David Göthberg (talk) 14:15, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Done.  :) Flopsy Mopsy and Cottonmouth (talk) 19:06, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for all the input. So I have moved the template to {{example files}}.

--David Göthberg (talk) 06:38, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Fmbox-warning in Common.css

Re this, I'm a little confused. Why would we have divs with the fmbox-warning class? We have messages created using {{fmbox}}, which uses a table, and we have messages that are already wrapped inside divs, which we explicitly name and style. I'm not aware of any messages that are wrapped in divs that we can assign classes to, without being able to use fmbox; can you give examples? Even if div.fmbox-warning is needed, is there any reason not to have table.fmbox-warning too? I'm not really sure why all the mbox styles have the table. prefix anyway: is there a reason for that high specificity? Happy‑melon 13:43, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Hehe, I was just about to save a message I had written on your talk page when I got the big orange "You have new messages" banner. Here is my message:

Hi Happy‑melon. I see you stumbled on a thing I expected someone to stumble on sooner or later. You changed "div.fmbox-warning" to "table.fmbox-warning" in MediaWiki:Common.css, so I had to revert you. See explanation at Template talk:Fmbox#Div based warning messages.

I should note that that explanation is rather old and has some errors. I will update that explanation with my latest findings and conclusions. That means I will respond over there.

--David Göthberg (talk) 13:56, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Ok, I'll look for an update there. I see from the system messages linked there that we do in fact still have div.fmbox-warning in use, in MediaWiki:Editingold. Although I can't see any reason not to do to that message the same as the others and use {{fmbox}} directly. Happy‑melon 14:32, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Petty stuff

Hi, David! Just so you know, I don't have a 21" monitor with 1600x1200 resolution either, but simply find it confusing when identation jumps back and forth for no reason. I obviously have no control over this when it comes to comments of others, but mine, at least, I am trying to keep in orderly fashion. Nothing personal. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 20:08, April 8, 2009 (UTC)

No worries. I was supposed to be out almost every night this week with some of my smart/fun/hot/cute/good-dancing female friends. But instead I am home with a slight cold. So I guess I am a bit grumpy today.

But still, that deep indentation doesn't work well for us with really low screen resolutions.

--David Göthberg (talk) 20:33, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Just how low is yours? I mean, on a PPC with 640x480 screen, I have no troubles with the identation whatsoever (although I need to scroll horizontally, of course). Anyway, I am a bit grumpy today myself, so let's close this silly thing—feel free to re-ident any of my comments the way that works best for you ;) And get well soon!—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 20:46, April 8, 2009 (UTC)

Infobox / ambox

Thank you. I removed the change from my monobook.css file and everything works great. Have a good day --Trödel 19:20, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Template:Vertical images list

Hallo, David. I don't know if you know the template Template:Vertical images list. But I translated it some days ago into the Upper Sorbian version: hsb:Předłoha:Wertikalna lisćina wobrazow and added there a new parameter, that isn't in the English version (yet). What do think about this adding? I also translated the Upper Sorbian version into German: de:Vorlage:Vertikale Bilder and some other languages (dsb, eo, sk). - The added parameter defines a background colour for the box. But it was a little bit tricky, to make it work. - I just saw, that the author of the English template was active in 2008, but not any more in 2009. Greetings --Tlustulimu (talk) 18:23, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

(+) I just created a testing page at User:Tlustulimu/Template:Vertical images list. The the background colour formatting works very well. Greetings --Tlustulimu (talk) 18:57, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

I don't think I have seen that template before. I was only aware of a template that could stack two images on top of each other (but don't remember its name). I have often had a need to stack images on top of each other in a compact way, so I think this template can be very useful.

Technically your addition of that colour parameter works pretty well. But I guess some will complain that such boxes should have one look only.

But the code of those boxes are scary. I would not code them like that. And the current code has an obvious bug (but that bug is not your fault): It sets the whole box width to 200px and the image inside it to 200px too. That means that in several browsers the image sticks out of the box. It looks pretty bad in my Firefox 2.0.

--David Göthberg (talk) 08:49, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Template:Infobox Indian Jurisdiction/doc

This template document page needs both a {{Reflist}} and a <references/> tag to show all references. I wouldn't have though of it, but Wuhwuzdat fixed it. Do you know why this is, and how it can be fixed? Debresser (talk) 01:27, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

I don't know much about the references and reflist system. I took a look and did some tests, but I have no idea why that happens. My guess based on my experience is that something further up the page causes it, so you have to do like programmers always have done: Remove things above one by one until you get a change, then study the item that caused the change. Since it is many items then we usually use a binary search = Remove half of the items, if that doesn't help, remove the other half, and then when you know which half, remove half of that and so on.

I hope you have checked that {{reflist}} still works on other pages?

--David Göthberg (talk) 08:40, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Fixed it!! There was another {{Reflist}} somewhere inside. I removed it, and made some minor fixes along the way. Debresser (talk) 17:07, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

String lengths

Hi, I've just been admiring your string length templates and I have a question.

When using characters with accents, it seems that two bytes are needed sometimes. Therefore the length of a string is not always the number of its bytes. Therefore the following code can sometimes say "not equal":

{{str ≠ len|{{TALKPAGENAME}}|{{PAGESIZE:{{TALKPAGENAME}}}}|Not equal!}}

I'm wondering if there is any way of

1. counting the number of bytes used for a string; or
2. comparing the length of two different strings.

What I am actually trying to do is to determine when a page is a redirect to a particular page. If it is, it's normally 14 bytes more than the string length, but that only works without accents as far I can see!

Many thanks, — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 19:30, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Oh, thanks! And I have copied your question to Template talk:Str ≥ len#String lengths and responded there. Since I think our discussion might be interesting for others that will use those templates.

--David Göthberg (talk) 23:40, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

CodeFixer

I have a question for you at User:Drilnoth/codefixer.js/doc, if you could take a look (and watchlist the page until the discussion ends, if you haven't already). Thanks! –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 03:03, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Note to self: I have responded there.

--David Göthberg (talk) 01:44, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, Davidgothberg. You have new messages at Template talk:Fmbox.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

-- IRP ☎ 22:01, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Note to self: I have responded there.

--David Göthberg (talk) 01:45, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Fmbox

There are two more MediaWiki pages that you may want to convert:

• MediaWiki:Titleprotected
• MediaWiki:Spamprotectiontext

-- WOSlinker (talk) 11:35, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

I've just done these. Any more you can spot, WOSlinker? Happy‑melon 12:34, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Searching

		The Random Acts of Kindness Barnstar
		For going above and beyond the "call of duty" when answering questions on Wikipedia Talk:Searching! Plastikspork (talk) 03:26, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Oh, thanks! You had a good question which would result in useful knowledge on that talk page, and I knew I would be able to answer it. So I thought it was worth spending some time on figuring out how it worked.

And thanks for fixing my "Leave a new message" URL at the top of this page. Now it gives the correct URL for users that log in through the secure server. I had forgot about that. So using the {{fullurl}} magic word is much better than using hardcoded URLs. (But I guess you perhaps already know that.)

--David Göthberg (talk) 09:28, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

No help

this page was no help for me. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.201.99.36 (talk) 15:42, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Signature

Many thanks. I did not realize what was wrong. --Bramfab (talk) 16:17, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Editnotice loader

David, Please see User_talk:Xaosflux#enot_response. Thank you, — xaosflux ^Talk 12:38, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the quick reply, and again apologies for any inconveniences caused by this oversight. — xaosflux ^Talk 02:21, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

On using summaries as a substitute for conversation

David,

Despite your repeated assertion that I "don't have consensus" for this, I have not yet been pointed to any indication that there is anything other than sporadic disapproval for it, what with it having been rolled out over practically every highly-used ambox by now. I've spent month trying to reason with you on this and all I've gotten back is casual dismissal, or indeed outright reversion with snippy edit summaries. My time is not worth less than yours and your opinion is not worth more than mine. You do extensive work in templatespace and you are well aware of the best places to coordinate work like this, so throw me a frickin' bone here and try to point me in the right direction instead of derisively using edit summaries to knock back things which you don't like. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 16:34, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

I was just writing a longer comment about this at Wikipedia talk:Template messages/Cleanup#Standardisation of template styling. As you can see there Ipatrol and I are disagreeing with you. And Quiddity is not sure about point 5 there, which is kind of the main point. There is also a comment from ViperSnake151 further down on that page, but I can't figure out if he agrees or disagrees with your new style. So I see some users disagreeing with you, and no user fully agreeing with you. So you don't have consensus for the new article message box style you are enforcing.

And regarding me reverting your edits: I think I have mostly reverted your edits when you have broken the boxes. And you have broken the boxes on several occasions. Sure, I could spend time fixing the part of the code you have broken, but why should I? I have no reason to help you deploy a new style that I disagree with and that you don't have consensus for. So it is simpler and faster for me to just revert your edits back to the previous version of the boxes, thus fixing both the code you broke and restoring the traditional style. But then you have again added your style, thus enforcing your own new style. Then I have on some occasions reverted you, since you should not enforce a style for a template when you have already been reverted.

--David Göthberg (talk) 17:03, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

I'll follow up on that talk page. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 17:22, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

I'd like you to have a look

I'd like you to have a look at my question here. Thanks. Debresser (talk) 12:33, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

If I'm already asking for your help... At this page there's a template loop too. Caused when the second parameter is invalid. Could you add a fix to this template so that in such a case it shouldn't loop but report the error, e.g. "invalid parameter", just as it does when an invalid first parameter is used? Debresser (talk) 12:39, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Protect search link?

Hi David. I believe you are an admin, so I was wondering if you could protect {{search link}}? I am planning to deploy it on WP:list of common misspellings, and before I do so, I think it would be best to have it protected. If some bug should arise, I can always have it unprotected to fix it, but it appears to be working well. Thanks again for all your help! This is going to make those pages much more readable. Plastikspork (talk) 00:07, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

 Done I was able to solve my own problem after my RfA passed. Plastikspork (talk) 17:07, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

I made a new template

I made a template {{Monthyear+1}}, showing the name of the month and the year as they will be in another month. I checked it, and it's working fine. I made a small documentation page to go with it. Since you had a look at my previous templates, {{Currentdaymonth}} and {{Currentmonthday}} and their documentation pages, perhaps you'd care to have a look at this one as well. Thanks. Debresser (talk) 09:51, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Why don't you just use {{#time:F Y|+1 month}}? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 10:13, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Now implemented (by MSGJ). Very nice edit! I updated the remark inside the template. I also created {{Monthyear-1}} analogously. Debresser (talk) 11:12, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

I also created {{Monthyear}}. See User_talk:MSGJ#Time_parser_function for a discussion about the use of these templates over using the time parser function itself. Debresser (talk) 11:32, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

I updated those two old templates with this time parser function now. Debresser (talk) 14:59, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

I knew randomly looking through user pages would eventually pay off! I'm in need of some expert assistance and you seem like the right editors to ask. I've been a registered user on en.wp for about 5 months because I'd had enough of looking at pages with spelling mistakes and other errors. Anyway, Tomorrow has a bit of code that tells you the day tomorrow. I think it's a bit of fluff but people keep adding something back, but it doesn't always work. Could Debresser, MSGJ/Martin or David himself please have a look at the page and insert some code that works for all browsers at all times, as looking through the page history readers are still having trouble with it... Thanks in advance, sorry to interupt your work! Bigger digger (talk) 21:04, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Script documentation

This discussion has been moved to MediaWiki talk:Clearyourcache#Script documentation. --David Göthberg (talk) 05:01, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

You ok?

You've been away for quite some time, without any sort of announcement it seems. Are you ok ? —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 01:43, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, where are you? Just having a nice holiday, I guess! — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:47, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

I also looked for some notification about a wikibreak. You are highly valued. Debresser (talk) 22:23, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Amalthea's message above would seem to indicate David's on a break, but my being unable to find any mention of it here or on Amalthea's talkpage/archives (not that I searched very hard =) ) would suggest that perhaps David told him on IRC or email or something...? I dunno, I'm just throwing ideas out there. ;) To David: I echo the above people's concern; where you at? =D 「ダイノガイ千？！」^{(Dinoguy1000)} 05:14, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

No, just a reasonable assumption, David has gone on unannounced wikibreaks before. I guess those are the ones that work best. :) Amalthea 23:47, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Who authorised this holiday? That's what I want to know. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 07:25, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Yes I am on a wikibreak. I don't know when or even if I will come back to Wikipedia. But I might come back at least temporarily to tie up some loose ends. The main reason for this wikibreak is:

1: I had too many incidents lately where people made my work here on Wikipedia unnecessarily hard. There are too many naysayers and fools around here. The latest incident of many is this one: Template talk:Pgn#Titleparts

There are also some additional reasons:

2: I should probably get back to the work where I can be of the most good for humanity. The last two years here on Wikipedia has really just been a break from my work in serverless p2p networking. I needed a break from that since one gets pretty dizzy when researching randomised algorithms.

3: I have a new girlfriend.

4: It is summer here, which means there are a lot of nice outdoor activities to do. My female friends keep my fully booked this time of the year...

And thanks for the concerns guys. And as always: Feel free to help out and answer any questions that people put on this talk page, since I might not be around answering them or I might not even know the answer.

--David Göthberg (talk) 11:55, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Aww David, we do miss you, hope you come back in the future. MBisanz ^talk 11:58, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Lol, I felt sorry for you when I read #1, but after reading 3 and 4 I don't anymore :) Good luck and come back if/when your girlfriend allows it! — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 15:30, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

It will always be a pleasure to see you around. Have fun and lots of success. Debresser (talk) 17:01, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Good to hear you didn't drop off the face of the planet; enjoy your break! =) 「ダイノガイ千？！」^{(Dinoguy1000)} 17:16, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Defined parameter testing template

Hey David, when you get back (if you ever do ^_^ *fingers crossed* ), you might like to have a look at {{ifparadef}}, a template I just cooked up that takes a parameter and returns whether it's defined or not. It can also differentiate between an empty defined parameter and a nonempty defined parameter, although I'm not 100% sure on whether the logic there is correct. Enjoy your wikibreak 'till then! =) (and to everyone else watching this page who has the slightest clue what I just wrote, beyond talking about a template, you may like to play around with it too ;) ) ···「ダイノガイ千？！」^{? Talk to Dinoguy1000} 07:22, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Just thought I'd drop an update to say I got the functionality for its intended use working correctly, but there are some uses that are specifically not supported (direct use on articles and other "top-level" content), or simply not tested yet (used with two or more template levels between itself and the top-level content, or used to test unnamed (numbered) parameters). I've also successfully deployed it on {{Infobox animanga character}} to test for some bad parameters, if anyone wants to see it in action (not much to see, though ;P ). --Dinoguy1000 (talk · contribs) as 66.116.12.126 (talk) 05:15, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

*poke* After seeing how efficiently you (and others) have done some of the things you have with templates, it wouldn't surprise me if there were a more efficient implementation of this template... Thoughts? 「ダイノガイ千？！」^{? · Talk⇒Dinoguy1000} 07:47, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Well, I just wanted to take a look and change the way it handles an empty fourth parameter, but seems like I was late to the party. :) Amalthea 11:20, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Oops, I had forgotten to answer here. I already checked the code of your template some time ago, and at first look I thought: "Hey, good code, seems to do what it should."

But since you poked me, now I took a second really hard look and saw two minor issues. So I wrote up a longer answer with new code over at Template talk:Ifparadef.

--David Göthberg (talk) 11:38, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

I saw, and wrote up a decent-length (though nowhere near as long as your initial explanation! =) ) reply. 「ダイノガイ千？！」^{? · Talk⇒Dinoguy1000} 11:54, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Vertical Lines sometimes missing from Template:Filmography table head

		What a Brilliant Idea Barnstar
		your Template:Filmography table head is a great idea! 74.178.249.77 (talk) 07:16, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Vertical lines are sometimes missing from tables. Fixed Template talk:Filmography table head by the way.

It only happened if: row 1 cell 1 is linked to BOTH row 1 cell 2 AND row 2 cell 2, as shown below. The fix does NOT negatively affect tables with one row to one cell correlation.

74.178.249.77 (talk) 07:16, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Note to self: That template has since been heavily edited by several other template coders, so this is probably fixed by now.

--David Göthberg (talk) 12:59, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

Something to cheer you up?

T20437 got fixed. We have subpages in Help, Help talk and Category talk now. Woot! Happy‑melon 22:07, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

DavidClock modification

I just added your clock addon, and I gotta say it's pretty neat. I've got two questions, and I'm sure you must get them a lot:

• If I wanted it to be in a different timezone, how would I accomplish that?
• If I wanted the static clock only but I wanted that to be the edit section 0 link, how might I do that?

Much obliged, it really is a nice script. ~ Amory (talk) 22:15, 6 June 2009

Feel free to make changes to meet your objectives or remove. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.151.112.37 (talk) 03:35, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

For others who read this: Here is the DavidClock documentation and the DavidClock source code.

The above unsigned comment wasn't left by me (David). No, don't edit my scripts in my user space. I made those scripts primarily for my own use, but documented and shared them so others can use them too. But if you want other functionality then anyone can of course copy my scripts to for instance their own user space and then modify their own version. By the way: All .js pages are protected so they can only be edited by the user himself and by admins, so most users could not modify my script anyway.

Amory: The whole point of the DavidClock and other similar Wikipedia clocks is that they do not show your local timezone, instead they show UTC time. That is the same time as the Wikipedia servers use. That is the time shown by default in your watchlist and in user signatures and so on. These Wikipedia clocks help us keep track of that time.

If you want the static clock only but want that to be the edit section 0 link, then you have to copy the script to your user space and modify it, sorry. I might of course sometime in the future add an option for that, but at the moment I am on a long wikibreak. However, a better option is to enable "my preferences - Gadgets - User interface gadgets - Add an [edit] link for the lead section of a page". That gives you an edit section link that is shown the usual way right at the top of section 0.

--David Göthberg (talk) 15:39, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Wikibreak

Does this mean you are back? I thought your reasons for taking a wikibreak sounded quite healthy, so I hope there weren't any problems. All the best. Plastikspork (talk) 17:05, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Based on his above comment, it sounds more like he's just dropping by to check his messages. Still, it's nice to see he hasn't forgotten about the rest of us poor, deluded blokes doing all this work for free... =D 「ダイノガイ千？！」^{? · Talk⇒Dinoguy1000} 19:01, 17 July 2009 (UTC)