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Prompting
I think you should strongly consider running for ArbCom. That said, like most people who are sensible enough to make good Arbs, you probably realize that no sensible person would ever want to be on ArbCom. :) MastCell Talk 00:13, 24 October 2015 (UTC)
- @MastCell: You know, I keep trying to type something like "Well, thank you for thinking I'm sensible" but it keeps coming out as "Are you crazy? Why would you wish that on me? What did I ever do to you??" ;) Besides, if I wrote the decisions they would all say "User X is advised to grow a clue. User Y is recommended to stop F5'ing ANI and get a hobby that involves going outside. User Z is topic banned from drama, broadly construed." Opabinia regalis (talk) 04:43, 25 October 2015 (UTC)
- Which would all be lovely, especially going outside. Four-hours hike here, almost to top of relief, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 17:12, 25 October 2015 (UTC)
- Beautiful! Much better way to spend some time than commenting on arbcom nonsense :) Opabinia regalis (talk) 21:18, 25 October 2015 (UTC)
- Frankly, most ArbCom decisions boil down to "X is instructed to grow a goddamned clue" or "Y is topic-banned from drama", although they're dressed up in pseudo-legalese and take 3 to5 months to produce. I think your approach would be significantly more economical. :) MastCell Talk 03:46, 26 October 2015 (UTC)
- My approach would be to ignore arbcom, not encourage people to nominate themselves, vote only for trusted candidates (which may be zero), oppose all others. Write articles on women instead of complaining about a gender gap and expecting arbcom to fill it. I am known for my dangerous dreams ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:37, 26 October 2015 (UTC)
- My method is more economical, sure, but it doesn't provide a handy isolation chamber for the parties to hang out in and fling mud at each other for months.
- Support no one, I like it. What if they had an arbcom and nobody came? Opabinia regalis (talk) 08:18, 26 October 2015 (UTC)
- In the last election, I think I supported a total of only 3 or 4 candidates, and opposed or was neutral on the rest. I'm not sure that sort of voting accomplishes anything, other than lowering the threshold for getting elected. I think the problem on the Committee mirrors the problem with Wikipedia in general: our systems depend on the assumption that sensible, sane people outnumber clueless ones by a significant margin. When this assumption no longer holds true, then our systems break down. I've been editing controversial content (medical, political, etc) for almost 10 years now, and every year the atmosphere gets worse, because we continually lose the stabilizing ballast of clueful editors. I suspect that the same process has affected ArbCom, since the Arbs are, after all, drawn from the community's shrinking talent pool. I am too old (in wiki-years) and cynical to change that, but I thought maybe I could pawn it off on you. :) MastCell Talk 17:02, 26 October 2015 (UTC)
- Happy day: a clueful editor returned, see my talk (and the sad list)! In case you didn't see my template inviting to create content instead of complaining:
- In the last election, I think I supported a total of only 3 or 4 candidates, and opposed or was neutral on the rest. I'm not sure that sort of voting accomplishes anything, other than lowering the threshold for getting elected. I think the problem on the Committee mirrors the problem with Wikipedia in general: our systems depend on the assumption that sensible, sane people outnumber clueless ones by a significant margin. When this assumption no longer holds true, then our systems break down. I've been editing controversial content (medical, political, etc) for almost 10 years now, and every year the atmosphere gets worse, because we continually lose the stabilizing ballast of clueful editors. I suspect that the same process has affected ArbCom, since the Arbs are, after all, drawn from the community's shrinking talent pool. I am too old (in wiki-years) and cynical to change that, but I thought maybe I could pawn it off on you. :) MastCell Talk 17:02, 26 October 2015 (UTC)
- My approach would be to ignore arbcom, not encourage people to nominate themselves, vote only for trusted candidates (which may be zero), oppose all others. Write articles on women instead of complaining about a gender gap and expecting arbcom to fill it. I am known for my dangerous dreams ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:37, 26 October 2015 (UTC)
- Frankly, most ArbCom decisions boil down to "X is instructed to grow a goddamned clue" or "Y is topic-banned from drama", although they're dressed up in pseudo-legalese and take 3 to5 months to produce. I think your approach would be significantly more economical. :) MastCell Talk 03:46, 26 October 2015 (UTC)
- Beautiful! Much better way to spend some time than commenting on arbcom nonsense :) Opabinia regalis (talk) 21:18, 25 October 2015 (UTC)
- Which would all be lovely, especially going outside. Four-hours hike here, almost to top of relief, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 17:12, 25 October 2015 (UTC)
.
- Popcorn and others to follow, I'm in the mood ;) - Last election, I supported eight of those who answered my question well, was neutral on the others who answered well, and opposed the rest. It was an AE question, and sure enough several on the real AE thread had said that was a clear violation of the restriction. It wasn't, but kept three noticeboards busy for a month, and we had a female arbitrator less after the ordeal. (Sounds familiar?) Imagine all this writing skill had gone into articles! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 17:57, 26 October 2015 (UTC)
- The original message was 'tis the season. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 18:15, 26 October 2015 (UTC)
- Mmmm, popcorn! Do I have to write two articles now, because my last one was about a man? :)
- The current arbcom seems to be suffering from a bad case of "none of us is as dumb as all of us". I notice I actually registered before you, MastCell, so I think that means you're it ;) Of course you actually stuck around all this time and I wandered off to do other things for a while, so I guess I'm guilty of contributing to the collective clue reduction. Opabinia regalis (talk) 07:14, 27 October 2015 (UTC)
- Being on Arbcom appears to be something like a cross between the Government and Saddam Hussein's defence council. You only get horrible problems thrown at you, and whatever you do will upset a large cross section of people (either you're "draconian" or "pussy footing", sometimes both at the same time by different people). Consequently nobody who's any good at the job will want to do it. The proper answer is to have paid staff as arbs (as the old saying goes, "where there's muck, there's brass"), but I fear that's about as likely to happen as next month's "RfC to create new 'vandal fighter' role" to pass with an overwhelmingly strong support. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 13:51, 27 October 2015 (UTC)
- So which arb is Baghdad Bob? ;)
- I can only imagine that when WMF paid employees - fresh out of the latest gender-gap indoctrination workshop, no doubt, and under orders to clear out white males in order to keep the diversity numbers looking good - start voting amongst themselves on whether to ban Eric Corbett, actual WMDs might come into play. It's hard to tell what exactly is taking up so much time, but the job has evidently expanded beyond a time commitment that volunteers can reasonably keep up with. Since at least the Lightbreather case they've looked overwhelmed, like there's too many moles to whack to actually think about each one. How many ban appeals can they really be getting that require an answer other than "no"? Opabinia regalis (talk) 17:39, 27 October 2015 (UTC)
- The e-Cigs case has certainly ground to a halt, all drafting arbs have vanished, and one longstanding editor who was a named party has retired. Perhaps we need to take up my suggestion on WP:WORLDSEND and get everyone to look at a nice picture of a kitten instead. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 18:08, 27 October 2015 (UTC)
- Being on Arbcom appears to be something like a cross between the Government and Saddam Hussein's defence council. You only get horrible problems thrown at you, and whatever you do will upset a large cross section of people (either you're "draconian" or "pussy footing", sometimes both at the same time by different people). Consequently nobody who's any good at the job will want to do it. The proper answer is to have paid staff as arbs (as the old saying goes, "where there's muck, there's brass"), but I fear that's about as likely to happen as next month's "RfC to create new 'vandal fighter' role" to pass with an overwhelmingly strong support. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 13:51, 27 October 2015 (UTC)
- OR, your good judgement would be a useful addition to AC, but since I like you, I have to recommend in the strongest possible terms that you not run for AC. It is soul-crushing. @MastCell: You have good judgement too, but since I don't like you quite as much, I think you really should run. Of course, we wouldn't need an ArbCom if we all just followed my brilliant advice from many years ago: WP:SOLVED. --Floquenbeam (talk) 18:19, 27 October 2015 (UTC)
- I seriously think the project would be better without arbcom, at least looking at what I saw of it. They tried to solve the infoboxes war by banning one user, and when it didn't work put him under absurd restrictions. They tried to solve gender gap issues by banning one user, and when it didn't work put him under absurd restrictions, and banned some women. In the e-cig case, a clueful user was banned, - all a tremendous waste of time, and kafkaesque. Does anybody of you who are here for a long time remember anything good ever coming from arbcom? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:20, 27 October 2015 (UTC)
- That settles it then. MastCell for ArbCom! First act: motion to disband.
- In the old days I apparently had more self-restraint, so I mostly didn't touch arbcom nonsense. But I did vaguely recall providing a trivial amount of evidence in an old case so I dug it up: Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/CoolKatt number 99999. No wonder there were 116 cases in 2006 if they were taking this kind of glorified ANI nothingburger as a five-week-long case. Has arbcom ever not sucked?
- Ritchie, I've got the cat pictures covered ;) Opabinia regalis (talk) 05:16, 28 October 2015 (UTC)
- It's your lucky day OR, Cats and the Internet has just hit the main page! Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 12:42, 28 October 2015 (UTC)
- Kitteh can haz DYK! My boys are proud. Opabinia regalis (talk) 08:06, 29 October 2015 (UTC)
- It's your lucky day OR, Cats and the Internet has just hit the main page! Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 12:42, 28 October 2015 (UTC)
- I seriously think the project would be better without arbcom, at least looking at what I saw of it. They tried to solve the infoboxes war by banning one user, and when it didn't work put him under absurd restrictions. They tried to solve gender gap issues by banning one user, and when it didn't work put him under absurd restrictions, and banned some women. In the e-cig case, a clueful user was banned, - all a tremendous waste of time, and kafkaesque. Does anybody of you who are here for a long time remember anything good ever coming from arbcom? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:20, 27 October 2015 (UTC)
- Hey, I did my part: I actually ran for ArbCom a scant 8 years ago, when I was much more naive. It was a different time, when candidates only had to answer a dozen or so questions, rather than the hundreds they're asked these days. (Looking through my answers to those questions, it would seem I haven't changed much). Voting was done in the open back in those days, which makes interesting reading, especially at this remove. I remember being mildly to moderately annoyed by some of the opposes, but actually I was much more heartened by a lot of the support (I still get a warm, fuzzy feeling re-reading votes like this).
It's interesting to look back at that election: Brad was elected, and of course he's been a model Arb, but otherwise it was sort of a disaster. Two of the other appointees were basically AWOL non-entitites, another brought a serious amount of bad press down on Wikipedia because of his egregiously poor judgement, and as for FT2... well, the less said, the better. In any case, looking back, I think that not being elected in 2007 was the single best thing that's happened to me on Wikipedia. You should totally run, though. :) MastCell Talk 16:17, 28 October 2015 (UTC)
- So I should run but be very careful not to win? ;) I'd be useless as a doctor, lawyer, or congressperson, so you're already way ahead of me.
- Now there's an interesting bit of history. I was active at the time and didn't vote; I really was smarter back then. I wondered what the questions for NYB would look like: 54 entries, some with multiple subparts, 168k of text, even then! Opabinia regalis (talk) 08:06, 29 October 2015 (UTC)
- A kitten and moar, help yourself, and I will add the women's heart also to Crying out loud. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:26, 5 November 2015 (UTC)
- ps: look at my evidence if you can't imagine - if it's still there that is, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:27, 5 November 2015 (UTC)
- So far so good! But I wonder how my real-life experiments would turn out using the standards of evidence the arbs seem to be applying here. I haven't found the motivation to wade back into that mess yet. Opabinia regalis (talk) 02:58, 6 November 2015 (UTC)
- I stay. Did the same in the infoboxes case and got restricted, as the nurse on the battleground ;) - Standard of evidence then: an arb (who no longer is one) presented a diff, was "deeply concerned" and voted #6 to ban the user, reaching the majority. None of his colleagues looked at the alleged evidence, or they would have noticed that it was harmless to even helpful. The user was not banned because another of the then arbs changed his vote because he didn't want a prolific user banned on such a small margin. A year later, the user was honoured by Jimbo. We will have to wait for a similar picture with Eric ;) - Seriously: the whole AE procedure should be reflected as a party, as the title correctly says, but can't be because they all involved. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:14, 6 November 2015 (UTC)
- So far so good! But I wonder how my real-life experiments would turn out using the standards of evidence the arbs seem to be applying here. I haven't found the motivation to wade back into that mess yet. Opabinia regalis (talk) 02:58, 6 November 2015 (UTC)
- (Hello kitten) I too think Arbcom needs to change radically, and I would definitely vote for you. Please run. Yngvadottir (talk) 18:19, 7 November 2015 (UTC)
- You first ;)
- There's at least four former arbs telling people it sucks, don't do it. Two of the current batch have quit. I mean, who wouldn't want to run for arbcom? Sounds like a glamorous job with pay to match. Opabinia regalis (talk) 23:55, 7 November 2015 (UTC)
- Thank you for finding a way to mention in and edit summary "thoughtful, considered, and mature", in a thread related to arbcom, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:52, 8 November 2015 (UTC)
- I have never been U :-) ... that it sucks is one of the reasons it needs a new broom or 9. Yngvadottir (talk) 11:19, 8 November 2015 (UTC)
- Mature indeed. Maybe if all the decisions had a lolcat summary, they'd make more sense?
- That's funny, to my American ears both sides of that table sound posh :)
- Now where do we find people who don't suck, who are willing to spend the next two years doing something that sucks? Opabinia regalis (talk) 04:16, 9 November 2015 (UTC)
- I wouldn't expect ArbCom to change radically if "our people" got elected. It's worth examining to what extent the mess we're in is institutional, and to what extent it is personal. Alakzi (talk) 19:48, 9 November 2015 (UTC)
- And no female candidates so far, eh? I thought maybe we could encourage some people, but that would be a lot like campaigning for universal conscription. Alakzi (talk) 19:52, 9 November 2015 (UTC)
- Lord help me, I wrote a statement. If I actually post it someone hit me with a brick.
- I expect you're right; the basic problem is the institution, and individuals with various combinations of ego, enthusiasm, and stubbornness arrive with big piles of reform ideas, quickly discover that getting anything accomplished is like trying to punch mud, and either quit in disgust or give up and wallow in it. The problem seems to be that it's almost impossible to make that argument effectively without having actually seen the behind-the-scenes work, and everyone who's seen it is too burned out to do anything about it. Opabinia regalis (talk) 21:44, 9 November 2015 (UTC)
- I would be happy to give you a little of my perspective from my time in purgatory, if it would help you decide. On- or off-wiki. Only if desired, it's not really about me. As mentioned above, you'd be great, but (I think) would probably hate it. --Floquenbeam (talk) 21:50, 9 November 2015 (UTC)
- I sent you an email. Can you email a brick? Opabinia regalis (talk) 02:19, 10 November 2015 (UTC)
- I would be happy to give you a little of my perspective from my time in purgatory, if it would help you decide. On- or off-wiki. Only if desired, it's not really about me. As mentioned above, you'd be great, but (I think) would probably hate it. --Floquenbeam (talk) 21:50, 9 November 2015 (UTC)
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Template question
Hiya, I have a question for you. On Oct 23 (and the 24th) there are a ton of TfDs regarding Episode count. I think this is some incredibly shifty editing by the user - they substituted/removed all of the transclusions of the templates, and then claimed that they were unused and thus unnecessary. I'm in the process of reverting those edits until the TFDs are closed, but is there anything that should be done other than that? Primefac (talk) 02:05, 1 November 2015 (UTC)
- Never mind. The multiple-transclusion removal was only on four templates (Simpsons, South Park, Spongebob, and Aquateen), so it's not quite as bad as I originally thought (all the others had only one transclusion). Primefac (talk) 02:24, 1 November 2015 (UTC)
- @Primefac: Oh good, glad it was sorted out. I don't know about these in particular, but usually AussieLegend is pretty good at keeping the TV articles and related templates under control, which otherwise tend toward the entropic. Opabinia regalis (talk) 04:10, 1 November 2015 (UTC)
- Yeah, looking at their edits it appears they know what they're doing. I think in this case they just got a little ahead of the game by changing things before a decision was formally reached (I know I've done that a time or three). Primefac (talk) 04:14, 1 November 2015 (UTC)
- As I've explained at the TFDs, there are 36,000+ articles using {{infobox television}} and these templates are used in only a handful of articles. These templates are also contrary to WP:TG, which says that templates should not be used to hold article content as this makes it more difficult to edit the content. All these templates do is hold an episode count that is transcluded to articles and there is a much easier way to do what these templates do, simply by editing the articles in the normal manner. I removed them from articles because they were completely redundant, as my edits demonstrated. There is nothing wrong with making a template redundant and then nominating it for deletion. I could just as easily have made the templates and not nominated them for deletion at all, but I decided to do the right thing. We don't have to wait for a TfD outcome before fixing things, especially when we're talking about pretty ridiculous templates that do exactly what they shouldn't and reverting constructive edits that were made to 32 pages with the aim of reducing redundancy, complying with the MOS and making things easier for editors, as Primefac did, simply because the templates are under discussion, is really inappropriate. Primefac's efforts may have derailed attempts to improve the encyclopaedia and calling my edits "shifty" beggars belief. It now looks like I'm going to have to raise the matter of such templates at WT:TV, which I can't do now until after the current TfDs have ended. --AussieLegend (✉) 06:13, 1 November 2015 (UTC)
- I see that a bunch of these have been closed; it's awfully convenient if you're offline for a while and someone solves your problem in the meantime :) AFAICT, Aussie's original changes did not affect what was displayed in mainspace, so there was no compelling reason to revert them, but there are a lot of repetitive TfD nominations with short rationales, and it might have been less confusing to bundle them and explain the background behind the removals in more detail.
- I guess it's the standard on the TV articles, and it makes sense to remove an infrequently-used alternative system, but I have to admit that transcluding the main series page just to extract the episode number isn't terribly intuitive to me. I initially thought Primefac was reverting because the alternative solution was to have each individual article's text contain the number, which seemed very difficult to maintain. I don't know the answer to this offhand, and maybe it's better discussed elsewhere, but is Redrose64's comment here correct that there's a performance issue with transcluding the whole series page? Opabinia regalis (talk) 20:52, 1 November 2015 (UTC)
- I don't know for sure, but I would guess so (and would also explain why it was so dreadfully slow when I was reverting the original removals), since it has to go through the entire page just to find the <onlyinclude>. Definitely something to bring up on the TFD itself. Primefac (talk) 20:55, 1 November 2015 (UTC)
- The MediaWiki transclusion mechanism works by transcluding the whole page, after which it strips out anything outside
<onlyinclude>...</onlyinclude>
(and anything enclosed by<noinclude>...</noinclude>
). This means that when you use{{:The Simpsons}}
, which has no<noinclude>...</noinclude>
and only one<onlyinclude>...</onlyinclude>
, something like 140,732 bytes must be processed even though the net effect is that just three bytes are transcluded. --Redrose64 (talk) 21:13, 1 November 2015 (UTC)- Redrose64, to answer your question, see here. Basically when two people try to add a paragraph in the same place at the same time, the software will (sometimes?) just put one after the other, rather than announce an edit conflict. (And thus, previewing an edit is no longer sufficient; one must "post-view" to check that a silent edit conflict hasn't destroyed the context of one's post </rant>.) Adrian J. Hunter(talk•contribs) 22:27, 1 November 2015 (UTC)
- Right, so it should be slow to edit/save, but presumably not for readers to load, since the page would then be cached, yes? I don't have a ton of time right now, but probably this problem should be sorted out at WT:TV rather than on that one TfD. Do any other wikiprojects use this system? Opabinia regalis (talk) 21:26, 1 November 2015 (UTC)
- WikiProject Trains has a series of templates to give passenger usage statistics, for example
{{Tubeexits2011}}
. --Redrose64 (talk) 21:31, 1 November 2015 (UTC)- (ironic edit conflict with Adrian) That could work, but it seems like AussieLegend was trying to get away from storing this data in a hard-to-find place - makes sense to keep things simple since the editors in this area tend toward the younger side. Having a separate "episode count" template for every TV series doesn't seem like a good solution either, though.
- Just a quick note, I just deleted a bunch of these from the discussions that were closed earlier. Opabinia regalis (talk) 22:35, 1 November 2015 (UTC)
- You've hit the nail square on the head - Many TV editors simply have no clue when it comes to editing. They generally want to change something about their favourite TV program and don't necessarily understand policies, guidelines or even how to properly edit. We therefore need to make editing easier for them. As I explained at the TFDs, and above, we now have 36,212 articles using {{Infobox television}} and, at least in 36,202 of those articles, enter the raw episode count in the
num_episodes
field. To do things differently in only 10, or rather 2 now that the other templates have been deleted, is inconsistent and confusing for inexperienced editors. We do have a core group of experienced editors watching various articles but most of these don't understand templates or tables either. We do regularly transclude season articles to List of episode pages in the manner described at Template:Episode list/doc#Sublists so editors understand that it works, but not how it works. The non-template method of transcluding the episode count is consistent with the way that we transclude season articles and with the way that we include episode counts in the main series articles so it is far less confusing for editors, especially the younger ones. As for having individual templates for each series, normally the episode count only exists in 2 places, the main series article and the List of episodes page and the figures are normally not transcluded from/to either, so there is no need for separate templates for each series. The train type templates that Redrose64 mentioned would be absolutely useless for the TV project. They contain a lot of information and work well for trains, but all we are transcluding in the TV project is a single 3 digit episode count from only 2 articles. If we combined them for South Park and The Simpsons the counts would be constantly corrupted by well meaning but (for want of a better word) "clueless" editors who don't understand how templates work. --AussieLegend (✉) 06:24, 2 November 2015 (UTC)- Well, viewed from the outside, this system does look kind of clumsy and inefficient. But since it doesn't affect readers, and the editors of these pages are apparently comfortable with it and are not complaining about slow editing, I think WP:PERF says forget this thread ever existed :) @Primefac and Redrose64: you've both made comments about efficiency at this TfD, one of the last two remaining; what do you think? Opabinia regalis (talk) 16:32, 2 November 2015 (UTC)
- {{The Simpsons episode count}} was being transcluded on ten pages, which shows that it is widely used. Just because we don't have an episode counter for every series does NOT mean that we can't have one episode counter for a VERY popular series. Looking at the edit history of the template, it has been regularly updated with (apparently) no fuss or complaining. Why fix what isn't broken? Primefac (talk) 16:45, 2 November 2015 (UTC)
- Well, viewed from the outside, this system does look kind of clumsy and inefficient. But since it doesn't affect readers, and the editors of these pages are apparently comfortable with it and are not complaining about slow editing, I think WP:PERF says forget this thread ever existed :) @Primefac and Redrose64: you've both made comments about efficiency at this TfD, one of the last two remaining; what do you think? Opabinia regalis (talk) 16:32, 2 November 2015 (UTC)
- You've hit the nail square on the head - Many TV editors simply have no clue when it comes to editing. They generally want to change something about their favourite TV program and don't necessarily understand policies, guidelines or even how to properly edit. We therefore need to make editing easier for them. As I explained at the TFDs, and above, we now have 36,212 articles using {{Infobox television}} and, at least in 36,202 of those articles, enter the raw episode count in the
- WikiProject Trains has a series of templates to give passenger usage statistics, for example
- As I've explained at the TFDs, there are 36,000+ articles using {{infobox television}} and these templates are used in only a handful of articles. These templates are also contrary to WP:TG, which says that templates should not be used to hold article content as this makes it more difficult to edit the content. All these templates do is hold an episode count that is transcluded to articles and there is a much easier way to do what these templates do, simply by editing the articles in the normal manner. I removed them from articles because they were completely redundant, as my edits demonstrated. There is nothing wrong with making a template redundant and then nominating it for deletion. I could just as easily have made the templates and not nominated them for deletion at all, but I decided to do the right thing. We don't have to wait for a TfD outcome before fixing things, especially when we're talking about pretty ridiculous templates that do exactly what they shouldn't and reverting constructive edits that were made to 32 pages with the aim of reducing redundancy, complying with the MOS and making things easier for editors, as Primefac did, simply because the templates are under discussion, is really inappropriate. Primefac's efforts may have derailed attempts to improve the encyclopaedia and calling my edits "shifty" beggars belief. It now looks like I'm going to have to raise the matter of such templates at WT:TV, which I can't do now until after the current TfDs have ended. --AussieLegend (✉) 06:13, 1 November 2015 (UTC)
- Yeah, looking at their edits it appears they know what they're doing. I think in this case they just got a little ahead of the game by changing things before a decision was formally reached (I know I've done that a time or three). Primefac (talk) 04:14, 1 November 2015 (UTC)
- @Primefac: Oh good, glad it was sorted out. I don't know about these in particular, but usually AussieLegend is pretty good at keeping the TV articles and related templates under control, which otherwise tend toward the entropic. Opabinia regalis (talk) 04:10, 1 November 2015 (UTC)
As a note, I can agree that the fact that we're transcluding an entire article for three characters isn't breaking anything, but it's still inefficient and unnecessary. Primefac (talk) 16:52, 2 November 2015 (UTC)
- Ten episodes is hardly widely used and at least one of the uses was problematic. At Fox cartoons on 24 October 2015 the text originally said
As of 2014 a total of 578 episodes of The Simpsons have aired, the series is currently airing its twenty sixth season.
However, as of the end of 2014 only 561 episodes had aired and, as of 24 October 2015, the series was currently airing its 27th season. This is really an article that should be manually updated to ensure currency. At Wikipedia:Fancruft#Popularity the templaate was used simply to keep the number updated in a sentence that readsDebates often arise between contributors who point out that the topic on which they are writing is popular (and thus important) and those who believe that, regardless of a fictional universe's popularity, having 578 articles devoted to specific episodes of an American animated television series and a single article on Paradise Lost makes Wikipedia appear biased towards pop culture and against "serious" subjects such as the Western canon.
There is absolutely no reason why the template should be used here. A phrase such as "over 500", or "nearly 600" could easily substitute for the template, it's not a figure that needs to be precise when it's being compared to a single article. Other articles using the template really need to be reviewed for the necessity to actually transclude the episode count at all. As for inefficiancy, WP:PERFORMANCE says,You, as a user, should not worry about site performance. In most cases, there is little you can do to appreciably speed up or slow down the site's servers. The software is, on the whole, designed to prohibit users' actions from slowing it down much.
The "in a nutshell" comments also saysServer performance is very important, but it's taken care of by the sysadmins, who know what they're doing. Try not to make policy decisions based on your understanding of performance issues.
In other words, the efficiency is not something we need concern ourselves with. --AussieLegend (✉) 17:51, 2 November 2015 (UTC)- Primefac, if the episode count system the TV project is using isn't breaking anything, then why does it matter if it's inefficient and unnecessary? :) In fact I'm doing something inefficient and unnecessary at work right now, but sparing myself five minutes to catch up on Wikipedia isn't worth the development time, so I'm not fixing it. 00:24, 3 November 2015 (UTC)
{{cite isbn|9781103521210}}
Where the ISBNs gone? ({{cite isbn|9781103521210}}) Unbuttered parsnip (talk) mytime= Sun 23:51, wikitime= 15:51, 1 November 2015 (UTC)
- @Unbuttered Parsnip: The {{cite isbn}} template and its relatives have been deprecated because the one-template-per-ID system was becoming unmaintainable; I deleted a large batch of orphaned ISBN templates a few weeks back. The preferred solution is {{cite book}}. If you use the RefToolbar you can enter the ISBN and it'll auto-fill the rest of the bibliographic details. Opabinia regalis (talk) 22:36, 1 November 2015 (UTC)
- @Opabinia regalis: I was informed some time ago that for pings to work not only do you need to sign (again), but you also need to insert a new line. Alakzi (talk) 23:03, 1 November 2015 (UTC)
- Really? Apparently I never noticed that. (No ping from your second edit, but do you get pinged to your own talk page?)
- OK, let's try this again: @Unbuttered Parsnip: Either I will finally get this right, or I am now cluttering up your mentions :) Opabinia regalis (talk) 23:18, 1 November 2015 (UTC)
- A new line is not necessary. The two most important things are that your post must add a link to the other person's user page, and it must also add a new signature. Overtyping an existing signature won't work. So, this edit should notify Alakzi, even though it has no new lines. --Redrose64 (talk) 00:00, 2 November 2015 (UTC)
- It didn't. (See mw:Manual:Echo.) Alakzi (talk) 00:15, 2 November 2015 (UTC)
- @Alakzi: Wait, so you're telling me this won't work either, because it splits sections? Opabinia regalis (talk) 04:08, 2 November 2015 (UTC)
- It didn't. (See mw:Manual:Echo.) Alakzi (talk) 00:15, 2 November 2015 (UTC)
- A new line is not necessary. The two most important things are that your post must add a link to the other person's user page, and it must also add a new signature. Overtyping an existing signature won't work. So, this edit should notify Alakzi, even though it has no new lines. --Redrose64 (talk) 00:00, 2 November 2015 (UTC)
- @Opabinia regalis: I was informed some time ago that for pings to work not only do you need to sign (again), but you also need to insert a new line. Alakzi (talk) 23:03, 1 November 2015 (UTC)
RTFM
Reading the manual is for wimps! Opabinia regalis (talk) 04:08, 2 November 2015 (UTC)
Your recipe
I bring you chocolate chip cookies with sprinkles in recognition of your helpful recipe at the AE2 case discussion. Thank you! Bishonen | talk 23:40, 4 November 2015 (UTC).
- Oooh, perfect! It's hard to keep arguing when your mouth is full of cookie. And rainbow sprinkles make everything even better. There we go, solving arbitration problems with things every kindergarten kid has figured out. Opabinia regalis (talk) 07:03, 5 November 2015 (UTC)
Cookie
Constructive contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, but a recent edit of yours to the page Wikipedia talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Arbitration enforcement 2 has an edit summary that appears to be inaccurate or inappropriate. Please use edit summaries that accurately tell other editors what you did, and feel free to use the sandbox for any tests you may want to do. No one cares about kittens when chocolate chip cookies are in play! NE Ent 03:31, 5 November 2015 (UTC)
- Not even this one? Sad kitten. No one shared any cookies. Opabinia regalis (talk) 07:15, 5 November 2015 (UTC)
Article Access Help
Hi there Opabinia, YGM! TylerDurden8823 (talk) 06:16, 5 November 2015 (UTC)
- @TylerDurden8823: Hmmm, looks like it landed in the bit bucket again. Others have emailed me through Wikipedia recently without problems, and there's nothing in the spam folder... are you getting the copies you can send to yourself? Anyway, I'll try emailing you instead. Opabinia regalis (talk) 06:40, 5 November 2015 (UTC)
- OK, I just sent you an email and did receive the self-copy. Opabinia regalis (talk) 06:44, 5 November 2015 (UTC)
- I received the email you sent. I'm not sure why it hasn't been working the other way around but at least we established contact. TylerDurden8823 (talk) 07:30, 5 November 2015 (UTC)
- (talk page stalker) @TylerDurden8823: Problems of this sort usually come down to "what is the sender's email provider?" see Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 129#Is "Email this user" on the blink? and the threads linked back from there, also phab:T66795. It mainly affects Yahoo, and the recipient's email address has little to do with it. --Redrose64 (talk) 14:44, 5 November 2015 (UTC)
- I'm not using yahoo and the feature was working for me before. TylerDurden8823 (talk) 14:54, 5 November 2015 (UTC)
- (talk page stalker) @TylerDurden8823: Problems of this sort usually come down to "what is the sender's email provider?" see Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 129#Is "Email this user" on the blink? and the threads linked back from there, also phab:T66795. It mainly affects Yahoo, and the recipient's email address has little to do with it. --Redrose64 (talk) 14:44, 5 November 2015 (UTC)
- I received the email you sent. I'm not sure why it hasn't been working the other way around but at least we established contact. TylerDurden8823 (talk) 07:30, 5 November 2015 (UTC)
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Things that make you go "hmmmm"
So, what was he thinking [1]?
BTW, I used to live wit a 23-pound Maine Coon Cat, so that lovely little kitten who watched me post was not particularly intimidating. You've never enjoyed a meal until you've been glared at by a hungry coon cat while you eat carry-out sashimi. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 04:58, 7 November 2015 (UTC)
- It sure is something, from the author of stuff like When God Writes Your Love Story. I was going to add an ironic quote from that article, but it's impossible to pick just one. I guess JC's Girls must've been fun to write.
- 23 pounds of cat! I bet that's a handful. You think I need an upgrade? How about this one? She looks like she has something to say about humans who don't share their sashimi ;) Opabinia regalis (talk) 08:46, 7 November 2015 (UTC)
- I recall getting into a bit of a quarrel when I removed a bunch of images from JC's Girls, complaining that Wikipedia was not the Daily Star ... maybe I should have just focused on cats. Oh yes, I did. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 09:01, 7 November 2015 (UTC)
- Oh wow, and now we have the commons categories. Yuck. Given this, I can only imagine what categories he'd put poor DN's girl in....
Forcing oneself to resist premarital sexual and romantic temptations is torturous, but...listening to God's plans makes waiting much easier.
Indeed. That and thousands of naked pictures on commons. - Ritchie, you forgot something important in that pink cat article. How the hell did anyone get a cat to sit still to be dyed? If I tried it, I guess they might get a little pink from me bleeding on them. Opabinia regalis (talk) 23:12, 7 November 2015 (UTC)
- One time total emersion dip, while wearing protective garments, outdoors of course. Where no one will mind forever pink splatter in the grass. Simple; like bathing a feral... Fylbecatulous talk 14:40, 8 November 2015 (UTC)
- I wonder why the smart one is giving me that suspicious look he usually saves for the times the big vacuum or the cat carrier emerge from the closet... Opabinia regalis (talk) 03:54, 9 November 2015 (UTC)
- After about nine years, my cat had learned that the carrier could mean any of three things: to the vet, on holiday, or back home. Since he learned not to fear the vet after his dislocated jaw had been put back in at about age six, and he stopped fearing travel once we cut out car journeys over hills (which always made him throw), he would obligingly walk right into the carrier when I opened its door. --Redrose64 (talk) 10:06, 9 November 2015 (UTC)
- My former 23-pound coon cat roommate (now deceased) loved to go for Jeep rides, and would hang his head and paws out of the passenger side window. He would greet other drivers at traffic lights, etc., with a deep, friendly MEOW! A lot of folks could not believe he was a real cat (at least until they got close). I stopped using the cat carrier for him at some point because he enjoyed the Jeep rides so much. He did get bored with long interstate drives after a couple hours, and would curl up under one of the Jeep seats and sleep until it was time for a gas station break. Never saw anything like the spastic, panicked, in-car behavior described by other cat owners. Then again, coon cats aren't really like other domestic cats. More like a dog in a lot of ways, and as big as the K-cat was, he always acted as if he were even bigger. Completely fearless and comfortable around large dogs. Good breed to have if you also have large dogs in the house; they fit right in. Of course, I was raised by German shepherds, so I'm biased. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 18:11, 9 November 2015 (UTC)
- One time total emersion dip, while wearing protective garments, outdoors of course. Where no one will mind forever pink splatter in the grass. Simple; like bathing a feral... Fylbecatulous talk 14:40, 8 November 2015 (UTC)
- Oh wow, and now we have the commons categories. Yuck. Given this, I can only imagine what categories he'd put poor DN's girl in....
- I recall getting into a bit of a quarrel when I removed a bunch of images from JC's Girls, complaining that Wikipedia was not the Daily Star ... maybe I should have just focused on cats. Oh yes, I did. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 09:01, 7 November 2015 (UTC)
OR, my new favorite article creation: Chimney breast. I had no idea what I was going to find when I clicked that link, half expecting some medical condition with which I was unfamiliar. But we can't say his interest in "breasts" isn't comprehensive. LOL Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 18:11, 9 November 2015 (UTC)
- Damn, if I ever saw a 23-pound cat hanging out a car window meowing at me I'd fall off my bike. (Yes, I'm some kind of useless treehugging hippie; what of it? ;) Sounds like a fun travel buddy; sorry to hear he's gone.
- I'm jealous of all these calm cat stories. One of mine is the terrified-quivering-lump type and the other needs to stick his nose in everything everywhere and therefore meows like he's dying if confined in any way.
- Chimney breasts, huh? Welp, I learned something new today. It hadn't occurred to me that that part of a chimney had a name at all. I checked, out of morbid curiosity, and found myself a little disappointed that chimney booby et al. have never existed. Opabinia regalis (talk) 21:19, 9 November 2015 (UTC)
- I learned some interesting comments to my two questions from the arb candidates. I had tried not to mention people, but met one person who said "that's me". I gave him a different question ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:32, 9 November 2015 (UTC)
- All of these cat stories are reminding of the one time I took my cat on an airplane. It was the early 1990s and back then, flying was more relaxed and planes would often be half-full. So, I took a seat in the last row of the plane and after a half-hour, when my cat was in the carrier under the seat ahead of me, I took him out and he slept in my lap for the rest of the trip until we started descending and the stewardesses and other passengers were cool with that. My how times have changed. I can't remember the last fight I was on where there was one free seat on the plane. Liz Read! Talk! 22:23, 9 November 2015 (UTC)
- Wow! Redrose's cat gets in the carrier without complaint, Liz's gets out in a roomful of strangers, and Dirtlawyer's doesn't need one at all. A few years ago I flew with cats for the first time - I made the vet give us cat drugs, and they slept the entire time. Lucky beasts; the humans had to settle for overpriced airport beer and crap in-flight drinks. Did they make you take the cat out of the carrier at security back then? Opabinia regalis (talk) 02:27, 10 November 2015 (UTC)
- All of these cat stories are reminding of the one time I took my cat on an airplane. It was the early 1990s and back then, flying was more relaxed and planes would often be half-full. So, I took a seat in the last row of the plane and after a half-hour, when my cat was in the carrier under the seat ahead of me, I took him out and he slept in my lap for the rest of the trip until we started descending and the stewardesses and other passengers were cool with that. My how times have changed. I can't remember the last fight I was on where there was one free seat on the plane. Liz Read! Talk! 22:23, 9 November 2015 (UTC)
- I learned some interesting comments to my two questions from the arb candidates. I had tried not to mention people, but met one person who said "that's me". I gave him a different question ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:32, 9 November 2015 (UTC)