User talk:Mav/archive 16

User talk:Maveric149 Archive 16 (September and October 2003)

Thank you for your support

Mav, just wanted to thank you for supporting my nomination for sysop. Hope to collaborate on Wikipedia for a long time. Thanks again. Alex756

And a "me too" from me too. Noel 21:32, 2 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Again, please take a look at Wikipedia talk:Selected Articles on the Main Page. --Jiang 01:02, 2 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Thanks, Mav. ;) There are some horrible little stubs still around here and there, but bit by bit. Next stop: family accounts for all the birds (Jim is not too far off achieving that now), then the mammals after that. With 9000-odd bird species and almost 5000 mammals, I don't think we will get the species accounts complete for quite a while yet!

Hopefully I'll be able to help in a year or two after I'm done with my other projects! --mav

Mav: I just was poking around User:Maveric149/Images - Yosemite National Park. I really like Media:Yosemite Valley from Inspiration Point in Yosemite NP-300px.JPG and I would like to use it as the main photo in Yosemite National Park. The problem (as I see it) is that your photo has about 1/2 the number of pixels as the current photo, so it will make the article seem less nifty. Would it be possible to generate a version at 424x281, to keep the same number of pixels? (It would then probably have to not float right, though). You have the original, so it's probably best if you do it. (If you don't want to go to the bother, I can do it from the larger version, if I have your permission). What do you think? -- hike395 05:01, 4 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I'm starting to poke around .gov sites, looking for neat Yosemite photos. We can use [1] for a similar shot, or perhaps [2]. What do you think? -- hike395

Sorry, I've been gone for a couple of days. The larger version of the Inspiration Point photo is the largest I have, unfortunately. I took that photo before I bought a digital camera and made the mistake of getting cheap digital processing. However, I don't think a valley shot would be best for the main photo in Yosemite National Park since a valley shot is already in Yosemite Valley. Since the logo of the park is Half Dome, then Image:Half Dome from North Dome-300px.jpg would be better, IMO. [3] would also work but it is a bit small and dark. I'm also going to be going back to Yosemite from the 25th-28th this month, so I'll be taking new photos with my digital camera. It is a guided field study so I won't have too much say on what I see, but if there is anything in particular you want a photo of, then just say so and I'll try to get it. Hm. A photo of Half Dome from Rainbow Bridge would be nice (I tried to get one on my last trip but the mosquitoes were so thick that they prevented me from taking too much time setting-up my camera - it was also overcast that day). --mav

Just a little kibitz - since the park is a human creation unlike the valley itself, it helps drive home the point to have some building/construct in a picture for the park article. Ahwahnee Hotel with Royal Arches behind is a classic image of that type for instance. HD in the background would be even better, but I think the trees are now too thick to make that angle work anymore. Stan 23:08, 4 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Hey, that's a good idea. I think we will be visiting the Ahwahnee Hotel too in this trip (although I don't recall being able to see the Royal Arches from the hotel the last time I visited it). --mav

The Ahwahnee is in the Valley, so that falls under your objection about Valley shots. Half Dome is nice. I didn't suggest your shot, because it was taken about noon, and the north face of HD is completely in shadow.. Evening is the best time for HD. I have plenty of old prints of HD, but I would have to go find a scanner. If you happen to go to Olmstead point on CA 120, there is a certain tree growing out of the granite near the parking lot, which frames HD looking from the East. The best place for photos is the top of Mount Dana, the top of Clouds Rest, or the top of Mount Hoffman. Sadly, all I have for those are analog shots. I bet your field trips would not just happen to go to any of those places :-). Have fun! -- hike395

Simply being in the valley isn't a reason to exclude; a better reason is that a nice valley shot from Tunnel View is already included in the valley article (and Inspiration Point is simply a thousand or so feet above Tunnel View which means the shots are pretty similar). I'm also going on field studies to the east Sierra, Lava Beds, Lassen and the Mendocino Triple Point area this year. A scanner (preferably a negative scanner) would be a great investment for you and Wikipedia. ;-) --mav

OK --- we can do the Ahwahnee. I just don't remember what it looks like. It sounds like you are doing a volcanic field trip. Oh boy! Lots of good stuff in the Mono-Inyo Craters and the Mammoth Mountain area. I'll see what I can do about a scanner. -- hike395

Here is a photo: [4]. I don't know if I'll be visiting the craters or Mammoth but I have in the past and have several photos that I haven't had time to process yet (need to stitch together the the crater photos, for example). --mav

You know, if you showed me this photo, I wouldn't immediately think "Yosemite". Also, is it PD? -- hike395

Just a photo to show what the hotel looks like. It would take some artistic positioning on my part to make sure it gets the Yosemite stamp. Not PD. --mav

Hey, I just found a good photo, too: [5]. What do you think? It's a nifty photo of Half Dome. -- hike395

Very nice! It has the Merced in the photo too. Yes that would be a great photo to have in the YNP article. --mav

Opps. I thought you were talking about this photo. --mav

My bad --- copied the wrong URL. We can used Full.00005 if you like. I'll try to color balance it --- Half Dome is kind of washed out. --hike395

I just cannot make HD stand out from the background. It looks kind of bad when you shrink it. I'll keep looking for HD photos -- hike395

Too bad. I guess I'll have to wade into the frigid waters of the Merced to take the shot. --mav

So, you don't like [6]? We could crop out the skier. -- hike395

It works - I just really like the Merced/HD photo (even if it isn't best for the main YNP image). --mav

I'm just playing with it in a photo editor. The clouds make it too gloomy. And, if I try to brighten it up, the clouds then look alien. (Sorry I'm being so picky). I think either you'll have to get a nice photo in a few weeks, or I'll have to find a scanner. Thanks for your help!! -- hike395

Hi Mav. When do you think the 300000 will be reached ? I suppose you will send yourself the press release. When do you plan to send it ? Anthère

2-3 weeks from now given our current growth rate. But we can wait until the logo contest is done if that takes longer. --mav

oh, I had understood in one of your email to the ml, that it would be in about 1 week. Fine. We have time then. Yes, it might be really worth to wait for the logo decision then. have a good day.

Enjoy. Take great pictures. Tannin

Now remember wear clean underwear everyday and wash behind your ears. - fonzy

Thanks for the nice send off! I'll be back late Sunday early Monday. :) --mav

In response to your question about Simón Bolívar, I had noticed that the events under the Anniverseries tag was getting stale & hadn't been updated for a couple of days. I took a quick look at the events under September 10, & noticed Bolivar's entry under 1823. Since it appeared to be a significant event for both Bolivar & Peru, I didn't check further before I added it. I made a change to the Bolivar article that I hope explains things.

Shoulda known the first time I tried my sysop powers I'd make a mistake. -- llywrch 16:43, 11 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Hey - no big deal. All I wanted was for the acticle to get updated and you did that. All is well and Wikipedia is a better place as a result of your efforts. :) --mav

Hello mav, this short message to let you know that I have finished the images of the periodic table for the periode 5-6 and the actinides. It's on the french wikipedia, and I m too lazy to copy those file here. Greatpatton 07:22, 13 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Thanks! I'll see about porting some over later. --mav

Hi mav, I have been looking around for discussion or briefing of what the anticipated structure of the WikiMedia foundation consists of a how its relationship to the Wikipedia Community is defined/refined. I have not located anything in any useful detail. Are you aware of any discussions beginning or which took place in the past beyond .... We are setting up a nonprofit. We can take donations. Thanks, mirwin 00:09, 15 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Sorry - nothing exists on this yet that isn't already mentioned or linked to in Wikimedia. --mav

Well, I have new photos of the elements on a white background with the vials oriented horizontally instead of vertically (to spread out the sample more and produce a picture that fits well in the table. Also easier to photograph as the vials are top heavy and tend to fall over when vertical). Some photos show a bit of red and/or blue shadow because of the room lighting where I took the photos (a mix of flourescent and incandecent). I am now cropping the original 4 megapixel photos down to just the glass part of the vials. I will upload both the original crop and a thumbnail (sized to fit the table) of that crop in jpeg format after I finish. -- RTC 17:25, 15 Sep 2003 (UTC)

That's great! --mav

Great Eastern Sierra edits! And nice photo for Hetch Hetchy, too. -- hike395 04:30, 16 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Thanks! I have about 200 photos to go through still (the Hetch Hetchy one was from a trip to Yosemite a year and a half ago; I hadn't noticed that the article existed until tonight!). --mav

Owens Lake - should it be Audubon Society, or is there really an Auburn Society? BTW, this page is 48k now, cheers, Jim

Correct on both counts. I'll archive a bit later though. Thanks. :) --mav

Please could you consider protecting List of nicknames for George W. Bush to stop the current edit war. I've edited the page before so I don't want to protect it. There was an agreement to add only those nicknames which appeared in 1000 Google hits but BuddhaInside is objecting to the fact that this rule is not applied to all articles and expressing this objection through anedit war rather than by discusing it. Thanks. Angela 06:25, Sep 23, 2003 (UTC)

Hi, mav. Thanks for all of the Eastern Sierra photos! I really appreciate them. Just had a few questions for you:

For Mammoth Mountain, you had a dark photo that was labeled as a placeholder, so I substituted one of my own on that page. Is that OK with you?
For Sierra Nevada (US), I see you took a photo of the Minarets (from Minaret Summit?) . I've thought about putting up a Minarets photo at that article, but I didn't do it, because the Minarets are dark metavolanic rock, while most of the Sierra is bright granite. If one of us can find a good granite-filled photo, would you mind if we substituted such a photo for the first one in the article? If you want a Minarets photo, I have quite a nifty one taken from the base of the Minarets. I don't know if it would look good small, though.

For Inyo and Mono Craters, could you see the Talk page? I'd like to move the page to match the USGS terminology.

Thanks again for all of the nifty content! -- hike395 04:19, 24 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Thanks for the compliment!

I really like your photo, but what I really want is a photo that clearly shows Mammoth as a composite dome and for that photo to be taken from within Long Valley Caldera (since the two are joined at the hip); the perspective of your photo makes it look like a more conical/typical composite/stratovolcano shape. No biggie (hopefully I'll be able to retake the photo this weekend).
Although not typical in composition, the Minarets do remind us that the Sierra isn't all about granitic rock and that the proto Sierra were in fact a volcanic belt. More photos are needed to create balance. The photo was taken from close to the Devils Postpile entrance; that is also where I took the photo of the Mammoth Ski Area.
I agree.

--mav

Nice nest picture. I've moved it to the family page Hirundinidae for the time being, because the Swallow article is about a different species. It can go to Cliff Swallow when that page gets written. (Big iron is working through the N American species. To avoid confusion, I've moved the Swallow page to Barn Swallow, but left the links on the European form, since that is what they mainly refer to. I'll also add a comment when I've done this. I've actually seen one of the seven Cliff Swallows to get to the UK! Jim

Thanks! I was wondering why the Swallow taxobox was about one species. --mav

Donations

Hi Mav, I must admit I was lazy in trying to follow what is going on exaclty about donations. I saw you suggestion the donation page here was no more relevant. Could you make us a quick drawing of what is currently important, links relevant to understand the current situation, for us to know what to do with international wikipedias ? Thanks in advance

Anthère

The most important thing are the form donate buttons and the first and third paras here. --mav

UK vs. GB

I see that you've linked [[United Kingdom|British]] to a couple American Revolutionary War battle articles. The UK was not formed until 1801. Try [[Kingdom of Great Britain|British]] instead. --Jiang 00:09, 29 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Hello Mav

Yesterday, just before going to bed, I thought of dropping you a word, to ask you if the press release was postponed again. And then I thought, that if every international did that, you would be flowed under messages. So, I carefully check the ml for information, and I check the press release on meta, and there it was still written the 1rst. So I sent 2 mails. And now, well inside the 1rst, I discover that it is postponed again. Please, Mav, would you tell us postponing before the day things were actually planned ? :-( ant

Note that I am on digest, but I usually receive several digests a day. Whatever, it is no big deal, there are other big news networks, but your text mentionning that we can still send the release and that the english will still be a week later is not very clear to me. --ant

We are at the 300,000 milestone so distribute the press release if you want. But I've already noted why that isn't a good idea until the servers get upgraded. Sorry for the late update but I was waiting for an upgrade that hasn't happened yet. --mav

I am well aware of the slowliness, but I fear the upgrade won't be done before weeks :-(

We still have at least one more week before the 300,000 number becomes stale news. If the upgrades are not done by then, then we can wait another month for the 300,000 alternate count milestone (or the 1/3 of a million official count milestone and the announcement that there are more articles in other languages than there are in English for the first time - we are almost there right now but that requires counting the UseMod wikipedias). --mav

I thought the 300 000 had been reached about 1 or 2 weeks ago ? Well...fact is our last promotion was in may, and it was really a boost. We had many hits this month, which is good news, but on the other hand, we had a drop in new contributors. And at the same time, we badly need "non-european" contributions...hum...ok, we'll see what this promotion implies (perhaps, they won't be willing to put it in their news anyway :-)).

It's so much nicer when you're around. Everyone behaves better. -- Someone else 07:31, 2 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Really? I do try to mod things down a bit... Thanks though! :) --mav

welcome back, i am working on an offline version of the wikipedia periodic table. version 1.1 alpha an be found here: http://meta.wikipedia.org/upload/2/2b/Wikipedia_Periodic_Table.zip -fonzy

Cool, thanks. --mav

Oh, you had to go there, didn't you? Should I mosey on over to meta and make a "Wikipedians by minority group" page? :) -- Jim Regan 17:39, 2 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Already there. Specifically: http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queer_Wikipedians Have fun! :) --mav

Wow. "Sub-cultural affiliation" is so... PC. I'd have preferred, say "The oppressed Wikipedia masses" or some such. Actually, I was envisioning a page where people could describe just what it is you'd be guilty of by disagreeing with them. Something like:

Jim Regan - if you disagree with me, you are furthering the oppression of the proletariat, furthering anti-Irish stereotypes, etc.

You know. Damn, now if it happens it'll be my fault :) -- Jim Regan 10:09, 4 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I was looking at webelements.com, looking at Ununhexium (116). it was one of the elments taht was created with the fabriatced data in 1999. But it appears in 2000 some scientists in russia did discover Uuh, this is a first to me. I will update the table unless you know this data is also faulty.

This needs a good deal of confirmation. Since the break-up of the USSR Russian scientists have made many claims that later turned out to be fluff. --mav

Contact info on donation page

Could you put some basic contact info on the Wikimedia page -- e.g. Jimbo Wales, mailing lists?—Eloquence 01:13, Oct 6, 2003 (UTC)

Donation tracker?

Hi Mav, I was wondering if there is any news about you having access to create a progress counter for the Wikimedias donations (even if it is manually :). I strongly believe that having such a tracker would be an incentive for a lot of people. Thomas Strohmann

Thought of you when I was trying to think of someone who would remember this far back; I'm wondering about edits by this user with regards to the "Ptolemaic Vandal". The vandal came in from California, though, ~~and this user is in New Jersey~~(scratch that; ISP is ATT Worlnet based in NJ, so the user could be anywhere). I don't know enough about the subject matter to tell if these edits are legit; was wondering if you'd have a look? Thanks. - Hephaestos 20:18, 6 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Some of the new articles by this person look rather trivial, but I don't see anything vandalistic about this person - yet. I'll keep an eye on those pages just to make sure. --mav

Onging discussion regarding edit page notice

I cleaned up the fundraising page, it was really getting long and for someone who knows nothing about Wikipedia all that stuff is a bit overloading, but regarding overloading at some point we have to get back to that discussion about changing the text on the edit page that was started on the discussion list. I made some user subpages in this regard and tried to add stuff about the Warranty Disclaimers and your suggested Wikipedia:Terms and Conditions (which I renamed as Wikipedia:Submission Standards as that sounds a little less legalistic. I know it is a lot of boilerplate but some of it is not settled Wikipedia policy so maybe this can get resolved or at least discussed and discarded: Here are the relevant links for your convenience:

Once this stuff is vetted it can be moved to a meta page (or do you think it should be moved now to foster more discussion). This is the proposed boilerplate to put on the edit page:

All submissions are released under the [[GNU Free Documentation License]] (see [[{Project name}:Copyrights and Warranty Disclaimers]] for details). If you don't want your writing to be edited mercilessly and redistributed at will, then don't submit it here. You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource. By clicking save you also affirm that the submission is not, to your knowledge, defamatory or in violation of any applicable law, and you have read the [[{project name): Submission Standards]] and agree to those terms (including indemnification). DO NOT SUBMIT COPYRIGHTED WORK WITHOUT PERMISSION! (Please record any copyright permissions in the summary box).

— Alex756 03:59, 7 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Well I think the current version is fine. A move to meta would be a good idea since it is a bit taboo to edit other user's subpages. Then point people to the meta page for any more changes. Minus any loud objections at that point, then we can make the changes to language.php. --mav

Cache refreshing

Just pointing this out in case you are the anon in question: Wikipedia:Village_pump#Anon_updating_cache. Angela 12:52, Oct 10, 2003 (UTC)

The hostility I get from people while editing anonymously is rather disturbing. Would it not be better to treat anons with more respect and less suspicion? --mav

What is this Anon 64.174 doing: "Update cache"? Later on, Anon 165.196 started doing the same thing too [7]. --Menchi 04:45, 10 Oct 2003 (UTC)

From User talk:64.174.7.191

Why are you doing that? It is really annoying. Angela 23:32, Oct 9, 2003 (UTC)

Updating the page cache so that the 'support' message can be seen by anons.

Is there not a way for a developer to do this automatically? The problem I have with it is it may be wasting people's time as he is doing it with often-bookmarked pages, meaning people need to check the whole history of each page to see if any actual changes have been made. Also, it is being done mostly with pages that anons are not likely to see - ie those in the Wikipedia namespace. As most people come to main article pages via Google, I don't think it is worthwhile. I don't know who the anon is, but it is an IP that mav has used in the past. Is it mav? Why is it being done anonymously? Angela 06:05, Oct 10, 2003 (UTC)

Angela is right. Is it really that important to have the message updated right now and in return, obscuring real human-oriented changes to these pages? Fuzheado 07:20, 10 Oct 2003 (UTC)

It can easily be done automatically by a developer. Whoever is doing it should stop. -- Tim Starling 07:34, Oct 10, 2003 (UTC)

I've informed Anon 64.174 this. --Menchi 07:43, 10 Oct 2003 (UTC)

They're making an actual useful change, moving the huge piles of language links out of the way to the bottom to make the pages easier to edit. There's nothing wrong with this, and if they happen to be instigated by the desire to update cached pages, so what? --Brion 17:55, 10 Oct 2003 (UTC)

What Brion said. I guess I should have mentioned that I was also fixing some formatting. I was bored, so sue me. ;-) And most of the pages I edited were in fact regular articles (everything linked on the Main Page). I was going to do the same to all listed top 10 Google hit articles next, but if a developer can update all pages, then that would be better - but that would seem to be a low priority until both our severs are at 100% and successfully upgraded (I don't think we could spare the CPU time until then). Oh, and it was being done anonymously so that I could see, or not see, exactly what an Anon would. --mav

Mav, crisis over, and no one's suing anyone. But you have to see it from our point of view -- massive changes happening from anon user for unknown reason. And I had looked at the changes and saw the language links changed. In the future what's the best way to inform people of to reflect the intent? Perhaps a message on Anon's talk page saying "This is really so-and-so, and I'm doing this..." Fuzheado

Next time I'll just put "fm" in the edit summary (which was what I was doing; although as Brion stated the reason why I was making those edits was to update the cache). --mav

I've been on mav's side of the fence too and experienced a hostility way in excess of anything I'd ever get as my usual self, when editing anon. It was only on the part of one or two sysops but it might only one or two comments to put off a future brilliant prose writer. "do not bite the newcomers" (or in mav's case the oldcomers) :) (all this whilst still seeing your point of view as you outlined - it's not that we shouldn't tackle mistakes/unusual behaviour.... just need to do so in a nice way.) Pete 23:07, 10 Oct 2003 (UTC)

The newcomer issue is not relevant -- we're always nice to newcomers! :) But it was obvious these changes were not from a newcomer. It was not the mark of newcomer-type action in terms of the sheer number of pages or the nature of the edit. Fuzheado

That's funny, I thought I was editing slowly due to a slow Wikipedia server. :) Oh, and we are not always nice to Anons, newcomers includes those who log-in (and we do tend to cut them much more slack). --mav

mav, I sincerely apologise if you felt my message on your "anon" talk page was in any way hostile. It was not meant that way. I treated you no differently as an anon as I would have done had I put the message on this page. In fact, I considered doing so as I was almost completely sure it was you. What I'm saying is that the terse nature of my comment was unrelated to whether or not you were logged in. Put it down to severe annoyance at the server being down so much yesterday or just general stress or whatever, but please don't accuse me of purposefully treating anons with hostility. I'm sorry my message came across the way it did. I should have thought about it more before hitting save and expressed my annoyance in a more congenial way. I do of course usually intend to do this but sometimes slip up. With apologies, Angela

Apology accepted. I'm sorry for being short myself. The server situation has made me jumping as well. :( --mav

Referring to User talk:Tim Starling#pump message: I can't be everywhere Mav, just most places ;) I responded to the comment on WP:VP just on the basis of the information there, because that's all I had time for. The cache can easily be updated. Brion put in a "cache epoch" variable (currently set to September 13). All cache files stored before this date are automatically ignored. I'll move it forward to, what, 19:00 October 9? Probably best to wait until off-peak time, i.e. ~05:00 UTC.

Sorry about that Tim - I've done the same thing as you did a few too many times. The date and time you suggest would be fine (although I'm not aware of Wikipedia having any off-peak time nowadays). --mav

we can all write in our underwear

Mav, (you write: "we can actually wear whatever we want during meet-ups... And of course we can all continue to write in our underwear!")

I'd like to suggest the little iron-on name labels. They're very convenient ;) -- Someone else 20:18, 12 Oct 2003 (UTC)

LOL! --mav

RE: Ununhexium.

Mav did u find out anything about if Russia's data was faulty or have u not looked? - fonzy

Anniversaries section of main page

We discussed this before. I will repeat - it is no longer an "anniversary" if it happenened the day before. By listing "October 15" as the first item in the list, it is implied that the events occurred on October 15th. Otherwise, we could retitle it "weekly anniversaries" or "week of October 13th". The current setup implies that the list is meant to be a summary of the day's anniversaries, not a list of anniversaries past. --Jiang 06:31, 15 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Actually, come to think of it, maybe getting rid of the current day will be a good idea, since it's not the same date everywhere. --`Jiang

Again, you are the only person who has a problem with this. Might as well apply the same logic to Current events - since they are no longer current the day after (yesterday's news). So although "Recent anniversaries" would be more explicit, it is too long. Any other word we can use other than "anniversaries" that isn't as long? I'm all ears. -- mav

You said the same before, here is my response again: ""Recent deaths" and "Current events" are in no way limited to one day. "Current" and "recent" are not words that expire after 24 hours. However, anniversaries only last for a single day [if the event itself only lasted a single day]."

--Jiang 06:43, 15 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Discussion copied to Wikipedia talk:Selected Articles on the Main Page

The problem is with the title, not with how the section is used and should be used. I've never really liked the title - please come up with something better. --mav

Get rid of the date link? --Jiang

No - that is a link to an acticle which most definitely fits under the heading. What you seem to have trouble with is that is just an article - it has no more relation to the other entries than does the Knights Templar relate to the White House. --mav

Mav: Hope you are enjoying Mount Lassen. Don't fall into Bumpass Hell! :-). Anyway, I've just uploaded media:Little_Lakes.jpg, taken at Little Lakes Valley in June. What do you think of it as the first photo in Sierra Nevada (US)? We can move the Minarets photo down into the article, if you like (although I'm not sure where). I just thought the photo of the Sierra should have granite-y goodness.

I'll be travelling for a week, so no big rush to decide. -- hike395 11:14, 17 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Also uploaded [[media::Tenaya_Lake.jpg]] as a potential photo for Yosemite National Park. I like the photo of Yosemite Falls, but should we use it both for the park and for the article Yosemite Falls? Or maybe we should just stick [[media::Tenaya_Lake.jpg]] down in the middle of the park article somewhere. Let me know what you think -- hike395

Oh hell ya! Your photos are great, please use them as you suggest (although I have high res photos of Tenaya Lake from my last Yosemite trip a few weeks ago, but haven't had time to do the 'name, crop, upload' bit). BTW, the photo I took of Yosemite Falls is not nearly as great as I would like it to be; the whole damn thing was in the shade at the time and I had to use the GIMP to heavily touch it up. I would like to eventually retake that photo from the same place under better conditions. And no, I didn't lose any limbs at Bumbass Hell (I did walk on the crust in order to get a better look-see, though ;-). --mav

Help pages at meta

Hi mav, I've got a question about the help pages that are being taken to Meta, like m:MediaWiki User's Guide: Setting preferences for example. Should that be the only place the information is kept, or is it going to stay here too? At the moment it is here, but I don't see the point in duplicating it. Is it ok to just change the page here to point to the version on Meta? Secondly, what is the plan for other languages? Say I translated it into Arabic, should that translation go on Meta or on the Arabic Wikipedia? Angela 11:26, Oct 19, 2003 (UTC)

The reason it makes sense to put the English MediaWiki-specific pages on Meta now is due to the fact that we have four different Wikimedia projects in English. So for now it is fine, and in fact preferable, that the non-English MediaWiki-specific pages are on each non-English Wikipedia (where they will get the most development since Meta isn't exactly non-English friendly yet).

nod. That makes sense. Angela

Duplication of effort is bad, so the MediaWiki specific pages here, IMO, should be closed down either entirely or partially and all links to the completely closed down ones should point directly to the Meta version (since blind interwiki redirects are Evil). I had planned to do this myself but simply ran out of time. :-( --mav

Oh. I could help. I just didn't want to step on your toes if you were already planning on doing it yourself. Angela 18:15, Oct 20, 2003 (UTC)

Any help would be greatly appreciated. :-) I'm spread a bit thin lately - but I still can't get enough of the whole Wikimedia/free content/wiki thing. This stuff is really consumming my life and I love it because I feel that we are doing very important work here and future generations will be very grateful for it. --mav

Mormons and Jesus

That was me in my other capacity as People Against Mormon Propaganda. Adam 06:42, 20 Oct 2003 (UTC)

It attributes everything to 'what Mormons think/say', so I fail to see how that is propaganda. --mav

United States Park Service

I think it needs to be moved to National Park Service (United States). The current title is somewhat misleading since the title does not contain the correct name of the organization. Then the original National Park Service page could become a disambig page if it ever becomes necessary. Thanks. Ark30inf 03:05, 21 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Perhaps. "National" in this context is not specific enough and "United States National" is redundant. So the natural disambiguator is thus "United States Park Service." I just don't like parenthetical disambiguation is cases where a natural disambigutor will do just fine. --mav 03:16, 21 Oct 2003 (UTC)~

We should use the most common name which is the official name National Park Service. It should be disambiguated by listing what country. There is no such thing as United States Park Service. I'm afraid its going to be fairly confusing to the reader. Ark30inf 03:32, 21 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Used your “Useful Resources” paragraph in Wikipedia:he

Thanks. Just some minor remarks:

I used http://www.acronymfinder.com instead of your acronym site.
Savetz's Unofficial Internet Public Domain Index, by Kevin Savetz was last Updated 15 December 1996. Isn't that too ...?
the site "Web Reference Database for the Sciences" points to a dead URL

BTW I sure added a link to your User site (So that the credits for the links will be yours) Thanks again. Let me tell you that mentioning your user site in our Wiki inspired some of our contributors.
Dod1 21:11, 21 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I'm glad you find it to be useful. :) However, it is just a list so you don't need to credit me. --mav

Interstates Nomenclature

In case you don't Watchlist Talk:Interstate highway, wanted you to have opportunity to consider checking my full edit beginning

Seeking further discussion of Interstates, including Route Nomenclature

The topics of nomenclature for both Interstates & state routes have been idle 14 months on thisTalk:Interstate highway page. Before editing here on the subject, if it has been continued or made a standard elsewhere, can anyone direct me where? ... --Jerzy 20:28, 2003 Oct 25 (UTC)