User talk:Grutness/archive04

This file is an archive - please do not add new discussion here - add it to my Talk page

Stubs

Caribbean stubs

You started {{Caribbean-geo-stubs}} a couple months ago, and I was wondering if it might not be appropriate to complement it with a {{Caribbean-bio-stub}}. Just a thought - if bio-stubs are being broken up (as I see they are) might it not be a useful companion category? Thanks Guettarda 16:32, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Possibly - it would make sense if bio-stubs were broken up the same way as geo-stubs. But it largely depends on how many Caribbean bio-stubs there are. It's worth you suggesting it at Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Criteria, though - that's where the stub-dividing's going on. There are people there working on bio-stubs far more than I am. Grutness|^hello?

About the stub templates...

• Oops - I did not know about the stub categories, or the need for popular support, and I have made a few others. I made a Uganda stub and an honor society stub as well - {{Uganda-stub}} and {{honor-stub}} . Is a stub category functionally the same as an article category? -- 8^D BD2412^gab 03:28, 2005 Apr 14 (UTC)

replied.

Australia-gov-stub

Sorry about creating a new stub without discussing it first; I hope I haven't caused any problems? In future, any stubs that I want to create I will propose on the Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Criteria page for discussion first.

China stubs

I hadn't realized what a mess I was poking my nose into in making a (in my mind) obvious and simple change when I encountered the "Mainland China" title on a stub I was looking at. IMHO it's as absurd as having separate "Alaska", "Hawaii", and "Mainland US" stubs, but I'm in no mood to be drawn into some sort of raging battle.

Personally I agree with you, but terms such as "China", "Mainland China", "Republic of China", etc can be very touchy for some, particularly those who live there. Grutness|^hello? 07:43, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Bangladesh stub

My apologies. I am sorry I haven't read the whole of the stub creation process. Actually, many of the articles on Bangladesh I have started are getting erroneously marked as India stub. This happened 4 times to an article in last 3 days. So, I created the stub related to Bangladesh. I again am very sorry for not following proper procedure in this, and I hope not to make the same mistake in future. I also hope the newly created Bangladesh stub would be kept, as many articles related to Bangladesh are now in stub stage. Thanks again for the constant watch for the benefit of wikipedia. --Ragib 06:33, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

it's all right :) As I said, I didn't propose this one for deletion, since it does look like a useful category, and it doesn't cover ground already covered by other categories. Bangladesh does seem a big enough subject to warrant its own stub category (let's face it, with 100 million people there should be a lot of things to write about!). Grutness|^hello?

Electro-sub

Sorry for adding the sub out of term, thanks for your message to tell me how to do it correctly. I've added it to the Wikipedia:WikiProject_Stub_sorting/Criteria page and I won't continue to re-classify subs until I get some sort of conformation that I can. --ElectraFlarefire 10:05, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Stubbing

Hey you! You beat me to org-stub Jim Henson Foundation. Scanning stubs to put them in proper categories...like me! Ah, wiki. -- TheBlunderbuss 03:42, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The real pain are the SUB-stubs! Keep fighting, soldier. TheBlunderbuss 03:47, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The Actor Stub

OK, what's the issue? ---Isaac R 05:47, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I guess this message crossed the one I just sent you! Grutness|^hello? 05:49, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I understand. Does this have anything to do with the fact that images often fail to appear? If so, you should consider removing the image from the Anime stub template -- I was going to add one, then discovered it already had one that wasn't displaying. Maybe a lot of the stubs need to go image-free. ---Isaac R 06:00, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Not sure, but that could be the reason. Some of the icons provide information (the maps on some of the geo-stubs do, where the regions being stubbed are a bit ambiguous, e.g., the North Africa stub template), but most of them don't. Most of the more frequently used stub templates are now icon free, though. Grutness|^hello?

• You removed my beautiful Vostok icon! (sob) Seriously though, maybe it would be a good idea to remove all the stub icons and put messages on the template pages asking people not to put them back. Otherwise, people will just keep adding new ones. Eliminating them all would cut server load a little, and make some of us feel a little less, uhm, slighted. ¶ In any case, you should probably replace icons you delete with an HTML comment explaining the problem -- people probably don't check the history before adding graphics.---Isaac R 23:46, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

NYC-stub

I've changed the wording to, I think, make it more useful— linking to the WikiProject rather than the "main" Wikipedia article. What's the point of more links to New York City anyway; maybe this should be a general practice with stub notices?--Pharos 03:35, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I don't think there's a standard practice, but quite a few stub templates link to both the article and the project (have a look at {{comics-stub}} to see what I mean). I'd agree that with a lot of stub categories the subject of the category is well-enough known not to need a link, though. Grutness|^hello?

chile-geo-stub

thx for telling me. I work on geo worldwide, what would be nice is support of two-letter country codes for geo stubs. some countries have really long names. just an idea ... best regards Tobias Conradi (Talk) 03:00, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

Some of the longer ones do have abbreviations (SM-geo-stub for Serbia-Montenegro, for instance), but for the most part the full name is seen as the easiest thing to remember rather than looking at a coding sheet every time. Grutness|^hello?

easiest thing to remember rather than looking at a coding sheet every time no problem for me - I know almost all two letter codes ;-) thx for the list Tobias Conradi (Talk) 03:11, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

Dn

Tomahawk, Kew (you shouldn't have missed that one - you pass it often enough), Corstorphine, Concord, Bradford, Brockville, Kaikorai, Balmacewen, Wakari, Glenleith... Did you mention Macandrew Bay, Broad Bay, Portobello...? I'll give you a while. Splendid as far as it goes. Robin Patterson 04:51, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Use of MINOR tag

I like your addition to Mana regarding political party names, but (IMHO) any addition like that should not be marked as "minor", that reserved for changes like editing correction spellings, fixing links, etc. That said, my visit to your user page got me into your art as shown on your web pages. I really like it! I assume you sell pieces. I'll explore your web page further and see what I can learn about techniques and prices. - Marshman 18:06, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

You're right of course - I've been working on changing stub template messages so much lately that it's become automatic for me to click the button for "minor edit". I'll have to be more careful about it.I'm glad you like my art! Yes, I do sell work, though I haven't got any prices listed on my site - they tend to range approximately from $US 250 to 500 (plus packing/postage), depending mainly on the size of the paintings. The site needs a bit of updating too, come to think of it - quite a bit of new art and quite a few of the older pieces have sold. If you're interested in any of it, let me know! Grutness|^hello?

Bucharest... in Bulgaria?!

Hi Grutness. I'd like to know why you labelled the article over at Titan, Bucharest as a Bulgarian geography stub. Bucharest is of course the capital of Romania! I'm not trying to be arrogant here, would just really like to know why you thought that article was related to Bulgaria. Cheers, Ronline 12:00, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Buna seara Ronline - put it down to tiredness. I sorted about 4000 geostubs over the course of a month; there was bound to be the odd error. Maybe I should check to see whether there are any articles about Sofia in the Romanian-geo-stubs! :) My apologies! Grutness|^hello?

Hello again! 4000 geostubs! That really is a lot, indeed, and of course at that level errors are bound to occur. I was just curious because there really have been people who have come up to me before and confused countries like that, and were really insistent about it :) That's great work you're doing by the way, since it's wonderful to see definite categories for stubs that editors can then work on in their certain "field of expertise". Have a nice day, Ronline 12:28, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

By the way, I see you're in New Zealand. I have just come back from visiting over there, since I'm on a one-month trip to Australia & NZ. I didn't actually go as far south as Dunedin, stopped at Christchurch, which is a great place. Loved the European feel of the city. I'm currently in Sydney, Australia, and going to return to Romania in a bit more than a week.

RFA thanks

Thanks

Thanks for supporting my adminship nomination. Coincidently I finished my BSc at Otago, at this time of year I'm gald to be in Canberra :) --nixie 12:07, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I wasn't entirely sure about nomination etiquette, so I thought I'd thank people as they voted, if I don't get to the required number I still appreciate the vote of confidence. --nixie 12:23, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Thank you!

Thank you for your support on my RfA! I shall attempt to put the shiny new buttons to good use. Incidentally, I think I've seen your edits everywhere and then some; I admire your patience and hard work (or maybe just masochism?) with the stubs. Mindspillage (spill yours?) 00:46, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Thank you

Hello, Grutness. I just wanted to thank you for supporting my RfA. I will do my best to live up to your expectations. Phils 19:33, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

My adminship: thanks!

Hi Grutness. Thanks very much for your vote for my RfA. I promise to be prudent, wise, sagacious and totally unilateral in all my admin affairs. I should say that I am very pleased at the number of people who supported me – it's very nice to know I'm making a positive impact. Cheers again, Smoddy (Rabbit and pork) 20:57, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Thank you!

Hello, Grutness. Thanks for your vote at my adminship nomination. I appreciate the support, and remain massively impressed by your work on geo-stubs and such. Cheers! — Trilobite (Talk) 13:39, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Quis custodiet?

And I will try to live up to all that entails! Thanks so much for your confidence, it means a lot to me! Yours, El_C 00:55, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

The Duibhghennains

Daibhidh O Duibhghennain

Daibhidh O Duibhghennain, if you are interested. Fergananim

New O Duibhgeannains/Dignams

Saw you added a few more contempory members of the clan; how about writing at least short stubs on them? Ferganaim

Sadly I don't know enough about them. Don't know either whether Campbell Duignan would be big enough to warrant an article. The actors (Basil and Mark Dignam) probably should have articles - Basil anyway - he was a regular in a lot of British movies in the 1960s and 1970s - I might try to write something on him if there's nothing in Wikipedia. Katherine Duignan is already redlinked elsewhere on Wikipedia (Robert_Burns_Fellowship). Wasn't there a 19th century Irish politician involved in the home rule debates called Duignan? Grutness|^hello?

How to spot a sockpuppet

There is something called a "sockpuppet check" that only developers can do. You might want to ask one for help. See the page on sockpuppets for details. --cesarb 17:20, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

User:Starky/Stubbing

I just noticed that you protected several pages geo-stub-sorted by me and reverted by Starky, obviously especially the ones concerning Czechia; is there a problem which I could help to resolve? Lectonar 14:10, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the offer, and I'll definitely keep it in mind. At the moment I'm waiting for a developer's investigation of whether User: Starky is a sockpuppet.

Basically (to cut a long story short), new user User:NoPuzzleStranger starts getting into edit wars to do with European geography articles (notably about the term Czechia) skirting and occasionally exceeding the three revert rule. Then a new user appeared in Wikipedia - User:Starky. His total time on Wikipedia was two hours. During this timey, he created Template:Czech-geo-stub and replaced every use of Template:Czechia-geo-stub with this new template. Finally, he listed Template:Czechia-geo-stub on tfd - to be supported by NoPuzzleStranger. During the following two days NoPuzzleStranger has several times edited and/or reverted the two templates and their associated categories, only to be reverted by one of several other users. In the end I did the only thing I could think of - I protected the original template and category.

Understandably, if (as I suspect) Starky and NoPuzzleStranger are the same person it'll put a different light on things, so I'm waiting to find out whether that's the case before going any further - but, as I said, I'll keep your offer in mind! Thanks! Grutness|^hello? 23:45, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I would like to suggest that the Czechia-geo-stub be unprotected, because even if the edit war continues and escalates, it will not affect the readers looking at the articles with the stub message a great deal. The current protected message box is big and unsightly and may lead readers to think that the article itself is protected. What's even worse, the talk page link in the message box points to the article's talk page, instead of the template's talk page. I think this may confuse newcomers to Wikipedia, and for the sake of making their experience smoother, it may be best to just allow the edit war to continue. Alternatively, you could just remove the protected template, while keeping the page protected. Thanks. --Aramգուտանգ 18:32, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I belive the same. I find your massive protection ineffective and counterproductive. Czech vs. Czechia arguement is still alive and will remain so for a long time (I, for one, prefer Czech over Czechia ;-)) ), it vould probably be better to start a serious discussion on this matter right on Category_talk:Czechia_geography_stubs) and not to hide it here. --Unregistered:1OP, 13.04.2005 23:40 (UTC+2)

What the reader sees is irrelevant as far as stub templates and categorisatio are concerned. Repeated changing of stub categories requires a lot of work from stub sorters. For every edit that is being made by NoPuzzleStranger to change a stub category, 101 are currenlty required by stub sorters to revert it, since every article in the category requires a null-edit to m,ove it to the correct categorisation. Grutness|^hello? 02:50, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't realise all the articles would need to be null-edited for the categorisation to update. Thanks for moving the protected notice to the template talk page, that takes care of the problem I was referring to. --Aramգուտանգ 03:02, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Francis Petre for FA

Frank Petre (again!)

Hi James, thought you might like to know your great photographs and contributions are currently here [1] I think Bishonen has taken out all my English grammatical mistakes, if you find any left, I keep tweaking it after Bishonen has finished, could you remove them for me, thanks. Giano | Talk 12:23, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

And again

James, copy edits and additions great, I had been meaning to ask you why Dunedin expanded so fast and quickly. I'm not a 100% sure about the new picture layout, bit I suppose it looks tidier. Someone has commented on it needing a footnote, I will have time later today to see to that. It all looks quite hopeful at the moment, I really want this one on the front page. I think the next one should be an architectural appraisal of Dunedin. looking for Petre's stuff has unearthed some other interesting buildings. People over here tend to think NZ is all sheep, bungee jumping and Lord of the Rings. Well at least the first two sound like fun!. I'll never get my toungue around English, I thought it was on an Island now it's in. I think its done to trip the rest of us up! Giano | Talk 06:26, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

1. The gold rush was what did it - Dunedin went from 2000 people in 1860 to 20,000 in 1865. By the 1920s it was up to 75,000.
2. I just wasn't that happy with the text weaving in and out of it, and pictures breaking through the headings.
3. There are a lot of them here. I wrote the articles on the Dunedin Railway Station and 'Larnach Castle, two of the city's gems. I don't know whether it's possible to get hold of a copy of the Knight and Wales book where you are, but if you can it's well worth it if you want an overview of the city's buildings.
4. :) NZ's use of the words for the two islands is a bit unusual. A rough rule of thumb seems to be that if it's small enough to still feel like an island you'd use "on" - if it's big enough to feel like a country then it tends to be "in". Grutness|^hello?

• I see what you mean with the pictures, just my personal taste is a bit erratic I suppose, we'll leave them as you have them as that seems to be the norm. I'll see if I can find the book here, there's some quite eclectic book shops in London, plus all the Oz. shops selling boomerangs and didgerogoos or whatever they're called.

Regarding the English I think I'll first try and master the idiosyncratic and mispronounced version spoken here, then buy a NZ phrase book.; anyway their seems to a Kiwi invasion here, so it should be quite easy to pick up!Giano | Talk 07:43, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

And again!

Don't you lot ever go to bed down there? Yes, its a much improved image (better than the original) I have a software package that does it too, but I always get carried away and never know when to stop, you've obviously got the touch. Its looking good on FA isn't it, it would be great to see these buildings on the main page. We'll have to start a Kiwi campaign when it becomes Fa to get it there. I found another of his Dunedin houses today, but I suppose it would get to boring if it banged on for too long, there's only so much can be said about a house after all. I wish I could have found a picture of Dunedin's Royal Exchange for the evaluation section, there's one from a real estate company on the internet, but it would never pass the copyright test - Never mind. Giano | Talk 12:47, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

It's only 12.45am :) FA is looking good. Shame you didn't mention about the Royal Exchange building when i was taking photos earlier - i actually know someone who works in that building... Grutness|^hello?

I didn't know about the Royal Exchange then unfortunatly, but it seems to be going OK without it. 12.45, I'm dead by 11 pm! Giano | Talk 13:22, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Get's better by the minute!Giano | Talk 07:16, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Francis Petre

Kiwi back up is required here [2] can you not muster some troops? Giano | talk 21:39, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I'll see what I can do! Grutness|^hello? 04:19, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for that, and for spotting it was in the wrong place - I don't see why it should not be on the front page, it's as least as interesting as some of the other stuff that get there! Giano | talk 09:47, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Frank's moment is upon us

Well, we did it. He gets his moment on May 6. Giano | talk 19:40, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

Jules Henry

Thanks for editing my Jules Henry stub. I hope you can save it and develop it further or give me suggestions for doing so.

I take it you're User:Norawright? All I did was change the stub template to a more precise one. That should enable people editing similar articles to find it and improve it. As to what to do to improve it, do a Google search, see if you can find something about him - dates of birth and death, when he was at Washington University, where he was born, where else he worked - that sort of stuff. General biographical background. That will add quite a bit to the article. It might also give you some ideas about who he was influenced by and who he influenced. He was involved in developmental and educational psychology - who else was working in that field at the time? Plus you should be able to add some links to other articles - at the moment the article has no links on it at all. Hope that helps. Grutness|^hello? 04:26, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Draconity Stub Revert

May I ask why? That article is only 4 paragraphs, far from complete given what it's about. If you do happen to agree with me that it is in fact a stub, have I used the wrong kind? Do you have advice for what sort of stub I should use? Thanks in advance for responding kindly. -- Toksyuryel ^{talk | contrib} 15:26, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The length of an article is irrelevant as far as being a stub is concerned. An article can be quite short and still cover a subject in sufficient depth for it to be a reasonable article on the subject, as is the case here. Some subjects are successfully covered in far less text than this one has taken, in fact. If you think it's still a stub, then socio-stub is probably the best one to use. Grutness|^hello?

Mangateparu

Mangateparu is on vfd, if you have time could you use your infinite knowledge of New Zealand geography to stubbify it, it's pretty horrible as is. Thanks --nixie 10:35, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I've done what I can - which isn't much. It is a very small place! Grutness|^hello?

New Zealand rural/valley communities

ThanX for the tags, BTW Your portrait is terrible. Is that your desired effect?

Yes :)

Re: Wades Landing

Wades landing is on the junctions of two rivers. Indeed it belong more to the Whanganui River then to Retaruke River. I will see if I can dig out the names of all the landings, and create a page to match.

Put them on the pages relating to the rivers! They aren't really big enough for their own articles, but will add useful information about the rivers they are on. And if you do make separate articles for them, someone will only come along and put them up for deletion at the Wikipedia:Votes for deletion page.

Re: the Valleys, I think my mistake was no highlighting that "Upper and Lower Retaruke Valleys" are communities.

New Zealand traditionally (before urban "drift") was broken into communities, it was not always "town" centric. In the country these were called "Ridings", a riding was the distance that a community heads could travel on a horse in 1 day to meet at a common place to make community decisions. These Riding were then confererated into Councils. In this case the "Kaitieke Council". About 1950 the NZ Central Government basically started emasculating these small community by closing schools and merging the councils. First into the "Taumarunui Council", and then in 1990s the "Ruapehu Council".

Yes, I know all that. The communities are still too small for their own articles, though, and the information is far better listed alongside the river articles.

Re: The Mangapurua Signpost.

I suspect that the original posting was a correct quotation, directly from the actual sign. Changing the sign text is probably a mistake.

Probably right. The problem was you were risking linking to two different potential articles on the same subject as "Mangapurua Valley" and "Mangapurua valley".

Re: Mangapurua Valley or Mangapurua Valley Riding/Community?

This Valley has almost a mythical status, I suggest that you do a google, esp Bridge to Nowhere. Basically returning soldiers were given land which they tried to settle. Mean time the Central Government sent inspector "spies?" to quietly "check on progress". The Soldiers had not right of reply, no access to the Governement documents written about them. I will add some content to this page and put the xrefs back in (later).

All good information that should go on the article about the Bridge to Nowhere, which covers the community. Again, no separate article is needed.

xref convention

BTW: What is the convention if a "xref" apears many time is a page. Are all xref with Square braces, or only the first occurence of the xref?

Only the first reference, unless one of the references occurs in a list or table, in which case it may also be linked. Grutness|^hello? 02:44, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Sub-stubs

Hey there. I've noticed that just about every one-line stub I dump into sub-stub, you move back. I'm not looking to start an argument or anything, because I'm fairly new to this, but I was under the impression that extremely short stubs by definition are sub-stubs, and should be labelled as such. Care to explain this to me? --Jemiller226 05:26, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

Quite simple really - Category:Substubs is slowly being emptied. I'm checking through about 150 of them per day. The vast majority are being categorised where they can be found by editors more easily (in one of the stub subcategories), or being merged, or vfd'd, or moved to wiktionary. There are bound to be a handful which don't quite fit into any of the currently existing categories, and about five or six per day are going back into the main Stub category for now. Grutness|^hello? 05:32, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation, James. So, I guess my next question is one of practicality: is it better for me to toss a really short stub into sub-stub, or is it better for me to just leave it uncategorized in stub? --Jemiller226 05:45, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

If they look like they could grow into reasonable articles and you can find a suitable specialist stub category for them, I'd do that. Others, feel free to move them to substub (as long as they're not ones that have just been moved from there!). some are probably candidates for deletion or moving to wiktionary, and it's still easier to find them via substub. Don't be surprised if one or two turn up in category: Stub again, though! Grutness|^hello? 06:06, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

Drawings

I went to your website, you did some pretty good drawings. I was wondering how much do they usually go for.

Also, about the drawings. There was one that caught me and my mothers eye, it was Nude Study II (Jessica). It was odd, since my cousin is also named Jessia. My mom smirked and said that she did know you :)

Also, I will try to mail your items this week, along with Bruce Berry's and a few others. I needed the money to pull it off and the time, since class and moving meetings are really filling up my time this week. Zscout370 (talk) 01:35, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

No hurry - you have got my address, haven't you? As to the drawings, sadly Nude Study II's been sold, but I do have a very similar one based on the same set of drawings (Jessica, BTW, is local actresss Jessica Sutherland, who was a model for the local art society's life drawing classes). As to how much they sell for, mounted they go for about $70-80NZ (that's around $50-57US). Unmounted they sell for about $60NZ (about $42US). If you're thinking of getting one, it would be much easier and cheaper to send it to the US unmounted and get it mounted there. Grutness...wha?