User talk:Uncle G

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linking style

Why did you change Cookbook:Gado-gado? Maybe you misread my changes. To someone not editing the page, [[Cookbook:Egg|egg]]s and [[Cookbook:Egg|eggs]] look identical. (eggs and eggs) To someone editing the page, it is easier to read and change the wikitext if the "s" is inside the square brakets.

• Untrue. Putting the plural outside of the square brackets is better style. It discourages the habits of using piped links and redirects unnecessarily, and it discourages the habit of treating the square brackets as if they were parentheses, which they are not. (I've seen punctuation put inside the square brackets before now, because of such thinking.) The claim that it is easier to change the wikitext if the whole word is within the square brackets is false. (After all, linking is a basic feature of the wiki markup that every editor soon learns to be familiar with.) Indeed, doing so actually makes things harder to edit, since it encourages practices and thinking that lead to mistakes and broken links, for the reasons given. Uncle G 09:30, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • You're using Wikipedia thinking on Wikibooks, where it truly does not belong. Piped links are mandatory here. If I wish to change the word, the rules of the English language dictate that I might also need to change the ending. I should not need to hit the arrow key or delete and retype the square brackets. Having the word in one place is obviously more readable too; breaking words for no reason is very bad.
    • Wrong on both counts. The wiki markup is the same everywhere, and the same thinking applies everywhere. (You are apparently unaware that the page that I linked to above, Help:Editing, is the same everywhere. It's from Meta.) And piped links are not mandatory here. They are simply more common, which is simply because hiding the existence of sub-pages is more common. That's not the same as being mandatory. Moreover, the argument about "rules of the English language" is just silly. There are no "rules of the English language" that dictate wiki markup. There are, however, good stylistic and foolproofing reasons to take advantage of the WikiMedia blended ending feature, which I've outlined above. Uncle G 23:29, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

the Cookbook style

We don't use subpages in the cookbook. This has been generally agreed upon and accepted. Please take care next time you edit pages related to the cookbook. Following the style everyone else uses would be greatly appreciated. AlbertCahalan 01:58, 8 May 2005 (UTC)

• This has been generally agreed upon and accepted. — False. See the big pastel box at the top of Wikibooks:Naming conventions. Please take care next time you edit pages related to the cookbook. — The person that you should be addressing your comments to is the anonymous user who created the cookbook pages without adhering to any convention, not me. Uncle G 10:26, 8 May 2005 (UTC)
  • Yes indeed, see that page. In the pink box: "for all future Wikibooks". Then, if you can read down the page a bit, the Cookbook is given as an example of a book using the ":" convention. So, right on that page, it says you should use the ":" for the Cookbook. Then you can simply look around in the Cookbook, see User_talk:Gentgeen where Gentgeen agrees with me, notice that even the recipe template uses ":" notation... Note that I do have some respect for people who can admit they are wrong. In any case, you are expected to abide by the style of any book you edit, even if you don't like that style. Style changes need to be generally agreed upon by the normal cookbook editors (Gentgeen, me, Redlentil, etc.), then fully implemented with the horrendous task of converting everything. AlbertCahalan 16:37, 8 May 2005 (UTC)
    • I do have some respect for people who can admit they are wrong. — By that principle, we should only respect you for admitting that you were wrong for addressing your comments to me instead of to the anonymous user who created the cookbook pages without adhering to any convention. You still haven't. Uncle G 02:33:06, 2005-08-19 (UTC)

Wikibooks:Votes for deletion#Harry Potter plots

Moved to Wikibooks talk:Votes for deletion#Deprecation of voting - Aya ^T C 16:19, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

Organization of the Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince plot

See Talk:Muggles' Guide to Harry Potter/Books/Half-Blood Prince#Organization. — 131.230.133.185 07:27, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

Creating user page

I am my contributions history

Heh. Lemme guess. Someone complained about the "red link". But I agree with you. A user should be primarily judged on their contribs, and not what they say on their user page. - Aya ^T C 15:51, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

Transwiki

I see you either you or your bot is moving pages from the transwiki pseudo-namespace into the Cookbook without fixing the links. For example, Cookbook:Drawn butter. Can you please avoid this, since newbies tend to click on these and fill them in with dictionary definitions. - Aya ^T E C 18:28, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

• The 'bot copies the pages exactly as they stand, as it should. If you want the internal links turned into interwiki links, then either fix them yourself or have some patience and wait until I've processed the entire queue and I'm free to go back and join everything up. (It should be obvious that I'm only partway through a long task. I haven't even linked the new cookbook recipes into the Cookbook proper, yet.) Uncle G 18:43:56, 2005-08-18 (UTC)
  • Okay. It's fine if you intend to fix all this yourself, but I'd prefer you did these transwikis one at a time, and fix them before moving onto the next. As a general rule, stuff dumped here from WP which is not fixed up to conform will get deleted. Sorry, but I don't have the time to fix-up all the unwanted shite from WP. - Aya ^T E C 19:18, 18 August 2005 (UTC)
    • There's no "unwanted shite from Wikipedia". That's simply false. I suggest less parochialism and more looking at what is actually the case. Read the transwiki log and the actual articles that have come through the system. As for how you would prefer me to work, since you state that you don't "don't have time" to do the actual work yourself, you'll have to accept the way that those of us who do do the work, choose to do it. Uncle G 02:33:06, 2005-08-19 (UTC)
      • Even if "the work" you "choose" to "do" is more of a hinderance to our goals than a help? However. Let me try to be more helpful. I don't mind people leaving stuff in the transwiki pseudo-namespace, but when moving content from there to an actual book, it ought to meet the guidelines of the book in question. If you can't be bothered to fix it up, then just leave it in the transwiki pseudo-namespace, so someone else can do it. - Aya ^T E C 17:29, 19 August 2005 (UTC)
        • Even if "the work" you "choose" to "do" is more of a hinderance to our goals than a help? — It's not a hindrance in any way. Your question is based upon a false premise and is unanswerable. It's also sneering in tone. The remainder of your comments, talking about what "I prefer" and "I don't mind", come across as exceedingly egotistical, moreover. You are not the king of Wikibooks. That's User:Jimbo Wales.

          If you can't be bothered to fix it up — Have a care! If there's anyone at whom the charge of "cannot be bothered" can be levelled at here, it is you, not anyone else. See your above response to {{sofixit}}.

          just leave it in the transwiki pseudo-namespace, so someone else can do it — That's entirely the wrong idea, and is a recipe for stagnation. If an editor knows what book or bookshelf the transwikied article belongs in, then it is perfectly all right to rename the article there and link it into the book/bookshelf, leaving further attention to the article to other editors. Wikibooks is founded upon the notion of collaborative editing, remember. It is not required that one editor do either everything or nothing. Rather, it is perfectly acceptable for one editor to do just one of the steps towards improving a book. Every little helps. User:Kellen is demonstrating collaboration in action. This is how wikis are supposed to work. Please watch and learn. Uncle G 10:03:55, 2005-08-20 (UTC)

          • Okay. Let's end this exchange of personal insults, as it's not achieving anything useful. In keeping with site policy, you ought to update your bot's code to change links of the form [[article]] to [[w:article|article]]. - Aya ^T E C 17:49, 23 August 2005 (UTC)
            • Again you demand that I do edits that you (singular) want made. I reiterate the {{sofixit}} above: If you want something edited, edit it yourself. This is a wiki. I also reiterate my suggestion that you watch and learn from Kellen. Uncle G 23:51, 28 September 2005 (UTC)
        • I think in the case of the Cookbook, the additional tagging of things with {{cookwork}} takes care of this. Kellen ^T 20:03, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

Hi, for the transwikis, would you mind adding {{cookwork}} to the top so that we can see they need help? Thanks! Kellen ^T 20:25, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

• Bear in mind that if you want to tag all of the pages with whatever tags you like yourself, you need only follow Special:Contributions/Uncle G's 'bot or (the probably more convenient) Wikibooks:Transwiki log/Articles moved to here. (I haven't logged the page moves in the latter, yet. But it is reasonably obvious even without that which are the recipe articles.) Uncle G 02:33:06, 2005-08-19 (UTC)
  • I'm not trying to be snarky, but if you have a bot going through stuff, a lot of which is Cookbook-related, it would be more useful for your bot to automatically tag them than for someone like me to go through and manually tag them. This will lessen the amount of work you do later (assuming you'd update links, etc, etc by hand) since someone unfamiliar with the fact that you are doing transwikis might pay more attention to them if they're properly demarcated. Kellen ^T 04:20, 19 August 2005 (UTC)
    • TRANSWIKI cannot do this. It's a generic transwikification utility that has no special knowledge of Wikibooks, let alone of the Cookbook. I've had to write a whole new 'bot. Uncle G 11:46:10, 2005-08-19 (UTC)
      • Thank you for doing so. I shall be doing some cleanup on the transwikis. Kellen ^T 17:03, 19 August 2005 (UTC)
        • Excellent. There are a few more Cookbook articles yet to be transferred from Wikipedia. Uncle G 10:03:55, 2005-08-20 (UTC)
        • There are no more Cookbook articles in the queue. (It's just the trickier stuff. ☺) Please cast an eye over w:Category:Soups and note any that you don't have. Uncle G 03:26:37, 2005-08-23 (UTC)

Transwiki of images

What's the proper form for the tranwiki-ing of images? I have w:Image:Arambas.jpg, which should probably go to commons (it's linked from a transwikied recipe; unlinked anywhere else on WP). I didn't see any documentation on this -- do I just save it and reupload it? Kellen ^T 06:08, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

• I don't know. I've never done it. If an image were a public domain image, then you could just download and upload it. I don't know the procedure for GFDL images. I believe that, for starters, you're supposed to upload all of the older revisions of the image in addition to the current one. The problem with that particular image is that it isn't tagged with its copyright status, so we don't even know whether it is allowable on Commons at all. I've listed it at w:Wikipedia:Possibly unfree images. Uncle G 11:11:01, 2005-08-23 (UTC)

Nomination for Adminship

I hope you don't mind, but I've nominated you for adminship here on Wikibooks. You've been a solid editor and contributor here, and seem to have a good grasp of what is going on in terms of general policies. I'm not expecting you to necessarily be active in admin duties, but you certainly have proven yourself here on Wikibooks as an avid contributor and somebody IMHO worthy to have the extra privileges that can be given to admins. If you would like this, please reply and accept the nomination. --Rob Horning 10:56, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

MoC

Hi, I'm curious what you think of Jimbo's comment with respect to the MoC (and indeed to wikibooks in general). Kellen ^T 18:29, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

Sandbox and bot

Please change the way your bot resets Sandbox. Sandbox does not need to be included in the page any more, because it's included in {{Welcome to the SandBox!}}. Now there are two shortcuts in Sandbox. --Derbeth 00:12, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

• Done. It will take effect from the next pass. Uncle G 00:14, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Transwiki

Transwikied articles aren't easy to find now. I suggest your bot adds a template categorising new articles in category like Transwikied articles. We should also provide link to this category and instructions what to do with these pages, f.e. from Projects in Community portal. --Derbeth ^talk 21:57, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

• They're easy to find, and always have been. No categories are required. All transwikifications performed by me are recorded in the Wikibooks:Transwiki log. Uncle G 01:07, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

But this page is not linked well, it's hard to reach it. BTW, why your bot does not have bot flag? I don't like bots appearing at recent changes. --Derbeth ^talk 01:13, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

• It's the standard place to find the transwiki log on all projects. And User:Uncle G's 'bot does not do the sort of high volume work that requires a flag. That's the remit of User:Uncle G's major work 'bot. Uncle G 16:14, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for deletion and moving

Hello. You are very kind to have moved many pages (Japanese/Vocabulary related), not just deleted the pages on VfD. Thanks a lot! - Marsian / talk 08:42, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

• I leave it to you to remove all of the now superfluous navigation links from the pages. Uncle G 18:00, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

computer systems

I am making a list of all laptop computers currently sold (new) for under $500. I think such a list should go on a wiki. (That way, other people can help me keep the list up-to-date by removing things that are no longer being manufactured, and adding new things as they come on the market).

(I've already stuck the list online at http://communitywiki.org/odd/ComputerComponent/NoteBook . However, that location is very experimental / non-permanent, and I'm looking for a better location. )

Do you think such a list would be appropriate for Wikibooks? Should I stick that list on or near modules Computers for Beginners/Buying A Computer or How To Build A Computer, or is there somewhere else more appropriate?

I ask you because I see from Special:Undelete/Computer_Magazine/Systems/Reviews that

Uncle G deleted "Computer Magazine/Systems/Reviews" (Reviews are fundamentally incompatible with the neutral point of view.)

I hope this simple "list of all laptop computers currently sold (new) for under $500" can be made NPOV without too many conflicts. What do you think?

--DavidCary 05:55, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

• Speaking for myself only and not for other editors (so double check at the Wikibooks:Staff lounge): Unlike the case for reviews, the question here is one of compatibility with the project aims, not neutrality. A simple catalogue of computer prices, even a collaboratively written one, doesn't seem to me to fall within the "instructional and educational texts" remit of Wikibooks at all. It's neither instructional nor educational. One wouldn't expect to find that sort of thing within a school textbook on computers or within a "teach yourself computers" book. I don't see it as falling squarely within the "sum of human knowledge" remit of the Wikimedia Foundation projects as a whole, even. The Wikimedia project whose remit comes closest would be Wikipedia, but it's not close enough I think. A collaboratively maintained catalogue of computers by price would almost certainly be excluded from Wikipedia, on the grounds of it being original research and Wikipedia not being a resource for conducting business. I know that customer-maintained "price watch" sites exist elsewhere on the World Wide Web. Have a look around to see whether there is one that covers laptop PCs. If not, maybe it's time for you to set up your second wiki. ☺ Uncle G 17:31, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

CheckUser

You probably have missed CheckUser discussion in Staff Lounge. I would like to become a candidate for CheckUser rights, but I need at least one more person who also wants to be CheckUser. If you agree, I will nominate yourself at RFA and start vote. --Derbeth ^talk 10:43, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

• I actually saw the discussion. If the community is happy that we actually need users with this privilege (as opposed to relying upon Stewards) in the first place, I'll accept that nomination. Do you think that we need the opinions of more editors on that? Uncle G 11:49, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
  • I think 2-3 people with CheckUser rights would be just ok, but I don't see third candidate for this function now, noone has expressed will to become one. Maybe you have any suggestions? --Derbeth ^talk 10:00, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
    • I'll think it over. Are 2 insufficient? Uncle G 16:10, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
      • Well, there can be only 2 check-users, no problem. Should we start vote? --Derbeth ^talk 19:25, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
        • Yes, if you think that the community is is happy that we actually need users with this privilege. Uncle G 13:04, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Help namespace

Following the discussions on vfd, please do not get your bot to update the help namespace anymore. Thanks, Jguk 03:01, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Improving L1 Data Cache Performance

This book has been nominated for deletion, and is currently being discussed on VfD. I see that you added a cleanup notice to this page, and that I forgot to put up a {{vfd}} notice on it. Current concensus is that this page should be deleted, and I wanted to make sure that you don't have any specific objections to such actions before we delete. --Whiteknight(talk) (projects) 00:53, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Hi...

Are you aware that we have Special:Import enabled from Wikipedia? Please turn off the bot :). --SB_Johnny | ^talk 02:57, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

• Special:Import is only available to administrators. User:Uncle G's 'bot does not have administrator privileges, and so cannot use it. Uncle G 10:25, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Aren't you an admin here? In general, we wanted the import tool because we didn't want to use that kind of transwiki when avoidable. --SB_Johnny | ^talk 14:03, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
    • That's wrong. You are confused about what Wikibooks doesn't want. What Wikibooks doesn't want is people just copying and pasting articles from other projects here. That's very different to the proper transwikifications that User:Uncle G's 'bot does. The 'bot does all of the several things that are necessary for GFDL compliance. Part of the reason that we don't want people just copying and pasting articles here is that plain copies and pastes aren't GFDL-compliant, and unless someone like me comes and fixes them to be GFDL compliant (which I've actually done several times in the past few years — using the 'bot) we have to delete them for copyright reasons. Uncle G 18:35, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
      • Well, that's part of it, but the advantage of imported pages is that the contrib list is all in one place (rather than partially on the history page and partly on the talk page). There are still some cases where we could use the bot though, since Import won't work on pages with much over 1k revisions (surprisingly, there are a lot of those). You don't need a bot for importing... it's very fast and easy, automatically added to the import log, etc. --SB_Johnny | ^talk 14:02, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Deletes?

Hi - thanks for the work - appreciated. I see you marked a couple of autobio type pages for deletion. I think they are supposed to be subpages of Instructional Technology (a class project type one I think with a few other misnamed pages). Would you be happy with them being moved to there? Thanks & regards --Herby ^{talk thyme} 12:55, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

• It appears that they are. That book needs quite a lot of work with respect to our Wikibooks:Naming policy. Uncle G 13:19, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Agreed - I have placed messages on a couple of the contributors pages (& been ignored!) - I may start moving some things just to tidy a bit - regards --Herby ^{talk thyme} 13:58, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

new books and such

So, I ask around where to put a new book about FIT2D. People tell me that that is a 'good question' and suggest the Physics bookshelf. The latter proves to be a protected page, but there is a Modern Physics book that has a page titled X-ray diffraction but only contained references to XANES which is X-ray spectroscopy not diffraction. So I clean it up a bit and start my FIT2D page there and now it gets tagged as not being linked ot anything, but XANES does not. Is this part of a general policy to discourage any new additions?

Iarlagab 13:50, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

• Please read our Wikibooks:Naming policy, Wikibooks:What is Wikibooks, and Wikibooks:Bookshelves. Our policy is to encourage textbooks, and we attempt to ensure that orphaned single pages aren't left lying around forgotten. If your FIT2D page is intended to be part of the existing Modern Physics book, then it should be a sub-page, which you can arrange by simply hitting the "move" button. If it is intended to be a standalone book in its own right, then it should be listed on a bookshelf. Wikibooks:Physics bookshelf is not protected, only semi-protected. Uncle G 15:07, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

My intention henceforth is to forget about it. It is a mess here.

Thanks

For picking up the copy and paste - I only spotted it as badly named pages - regards --Herby ^{talk thyme} 11:03, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Catullus

Hello, I've been making steady progress on The Poetry of Gaius Valerius Catullus, and I've got quite a few poems comprehensively annotated. I was wondering, where I could find a template that warns the user of obscene content? Similar to the template right at the top of the contents page. As you may know, Catullus was infamous for his downright disgusting remarks to his enemies. Thanks in advance. Alakazam38 17:13, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Actually, looking at the code, I think I can do just as well by editing yours? Would something like this be appropriate? Catullus 113 Alakazam38 17:19, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

• We generally, on any Wikimedia Foundation project, don't do individual content disclaimers for individual pages. In part this is because there is no neutral standard for deciding what pages such disclaimers should not apply to, and in part because they are wholly redundant. At the bottom of every page here you will find a link to the project's disclaimers, amongst which is our Wikibooks:Content disclaimer, which applies globally to all content. Uncle G 08:54, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Special Relativity

Thanks for tackling the issue of deleting that page. The page in question is no longer linked from the main TOC to the advanced section of the book and it is good that you have raised the issue of whether it should exist at all. SR is in a conceptual vice with the ill informed skeptics on the one hand trying to undermine it using Euclidean ideas and working theoretical physicists on the other hand saying (correctly) that the geometrical interpretation of SR is inconsistent with GR! It is difficult to know what to do in this situation and I have just reflexly taken the approach of adding another section where an objection would undermine the text (probably incorrectly in the case that you raised). RobinH (talk) 11:22, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Topology Wikibook

Dear Uncle G,

I have read your notice but I just want you to have a look at the topology wikibook. I have somewhat improved it and hope to do more work. I am new to Wikibooks (but I am a Wikipedian user), so could you please give me your opinion on this? I have written mainly on local connectedness, the comb space and linear continua.

Topology Expert (talk) 10:21, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Inactivity

So you're aware, you're up for removal of your adminship due to inactivity. The request will be placed at Meta in one month's time. Thanks for your service; you're welcome to request adminship again if you return to Wikibooks.  — Mike.lifeguard | ^talk 21:48, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Copyright violations

Did you notice that the UN has released this content through OTRS? I noted that on Talk:Asia and Pacific UNISDR Informs Issue 1 and the other talk pages.  — Mike.lifeguard | ^talk 18:24, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

• Has it actually done so? Did the OTRS volunteer, whoever that was, check that the person from the U.N. contacting xem was in fact authorized to re-licence the copyright? Did xe check that the U.N. even had the rights to re-licence those of its books that have long lists of authors (such as Living with Risk whose list of contributors extends to 4 pages)? Did xe check that the U.N. was actually licencing this as free content? It might have been merely confirming what it says in the copyright licence of (for example) Indicators of Progress, which is that "Any part of this text may be reproduced without permission provided that it is reproduced accurately and not in a misleading context and the source of the material is clearly acknowledged by means of the above title, publisher and date.", which is non-free because it prevents the creation of modified versions that differ from the original. Was due diligence actually employed? Uncle G (talk) 11:49, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
  • I was the person who handled that, and the answer is "yes" on all counts. If you had doubts, the correct course of action would have been to ask first.  — Mike.lifeguard | ^talk 17:28, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
    • I just did ask. See above? Those questions are me asking. So what copyright licence is the U.N. re-releasing Indicators of Progress under? Uncle G (talk) 13:12, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
      • No you didn't, you nominated them for speedy deletion. I'm guessing you would have deleted immediately yourself them if you had the tools. The only reasons these questions got asked is because you couldn't delete them yourself, and I happened to notice that you had tagged them.

        I shouldn't have to point out that as an OTRS agent it's basically my job to handle permissions issues like this adequately - I do have some idea what I'm doing, otherwise I wouldn't have access.  — Mike.lifeguard | ^talk 17:55, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

        • Your assumptions reflect how you would handle this, not how I would. Stop painting me with your own colours. You clearly don't handle things well. That doesn't mean that I would do as you do.

          How I would handle it is, self-evidently, how I did handle it, by nominating the articles for deletion as copyright violations. I notice that you once again failed to answer the question, which I have clearly asked twice, and which I clearly did ask. (Again, it's right there in front of you, above.) This avoidance on your part leads me to doubt your claims that you handled this properly. You are an OTRS volunteer, not an OTRS agent. You don't automatically assume a mantle of infallibility by volunteering for something. Are you going to answer the questions? Uncle G (talk) 04:57, 31 January 2009 (UTC)