User talk:Jimp/Archive III

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[edit] Dash it

Hi, would love your input on User:Tony1/Hyphens_and_dashes, which is approaching the point of implementation. See also Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style#Hyphens_and_dashes_in_the_MoS. Tony 01:02, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Jimp, thanks so much for your points, most of which have merit, at a glance. I'll sort them out tomorrow (hoping to implement late tomorrow or Thursday).

But at this stage, I have to say that I don't understand the opening sentence of your Point 8. And then, what is "the software"? Are you saying that en dashes don't show on WP? Or just on your computer? And minus signs? People seem to have no trouble displaying them.

8) Since we have a minus sign, why use the endash in its place? However, the software doesn't recognise the minus sign as a minus sign. The endash does no better. It seems only to recognise the hyphen.

5 hyphen 2 i.e. {{#expr:5-2}} gives 3
5 endash 2 i.e. {{#expr:5–2}} gives Expression error: Unrecognised punctuation character "�"
5 emdash 2 i.e. {{#expr:5—2}} gives Expression error: Unrecognised punctuation character "�"
5 minus 2 i.e. {{#expr:5−2}} gives Expression error: Unrecognised punctuation character "�"

Tony 12:31, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Oh, I see, you're saying that since we have a minus sign, why not insist on its use for minus signs and operators. Well, it's a rather subtle difference visually, and that would be more proscription. Most people use en dashes for minus. But I still don't get the rest of your point. Tony 12:33, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

So if you use the minus sign, there's trouble with that calculations function; if you use an en dash, it's fine? Sounds like a reason to use en dashes. There are so many en dashes for minuse signs, and people are more familiar with en dashes; isn't that a good reason to allow both (even to recommend en dashes and say you can also use minus signs)? Tony 00:15, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Spaces

Ah, what a classy way to stick it up my ass :) Point taken. I must admit that I used {{space}} without even looking at its code (assuming it produces regular spaces), and that the only reason why I even considered {{space}} was because I was too lazy to look up the HTML code for the regular space (which, as you correctly indicated, is &#32) in the first place. Thanks for taking care of that.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 12:21, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Anti-metrication

The wording's awkward. but actually the U.S. has officially adopted the metric system. All the customary U.S. units have been defined since 1893 in terms of metric units. Caerwine Caer’s whines 04:04, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Might it not be better then to use American spelling throughout that article? The article is primarily based around a U.S. viewpoint, which is understandable since the U.S. is the primary country that does not use the metric system as their primary set of ordinary units of measure. Caerwine Caer’s whines 06:56, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

sorry that you had to go round cleaning up all my capital Is. Writing Imperial with a capital I just comes naturally. Though I 'd write "imperialist" rather than "Imperialist"! --Red King 00:20, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Prehistoric Iberia

Thnaks, Jimp! I have tried and tried to find english versions of the maps, but haven't managed to find them... But regarding the map displaying the Pre-roman peoples of Iberia, I've had and interesting talk with user EspañaViva, maybe you would like to help? Thanks again! The Ogre 12:26, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Can thin spaces be non-breaking?

Hi Jimp, and sorry, I first ended up at your external page, so ignore this same message there, please, the location of which seems to have caused the very problems I was talking about there.

Given that we both know that thin spaces are optimal for all of the "spaced" items specified in the MOS, we need to deal with the non-break space issue too. I don't see how you can insert both html codes at once. That will give a normal and a thin space together, as you'll see below: the first is thin space, the second is (normal-space) non-breaking, and the third contains both (larger still). Hmmm.

25 kg
25 kg
25 kg

You're no doubt familiar with the "no wrap" template, which is supposed to perform the same function as the non-breaking space html code. I pasted in an example from Template:Nowrap, and then inserted the thin-space html code: it looks right; is this solution worth promoting as the way to go? That is, as an alternative to normal spaces, use the nowrap template with thin space html code?

34 kg
34 kg

Any suggestions? Tony 10:52, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

PS Yep, pasted it into the middle of a line of text, and it appears to work. Tony 10:56, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Jimp, I'm unsure whether your note on my page was in response to this or to my latest suggestion at MOSNUM talk. I hope it's the former, since I thought I'd solved the problem with nowrap. It works just fine on my puter. By "my machine", I wonder what you mean ... Tony 11:48, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Response to your comment on my page: Yeah, that last bit was easy. But I'm amazed and delighted that you've been able to come up with an easy way of doing the combined thin non-breaking space. WELL DONE! I'll test it now and change my proposed text at MOSNUM. Tony 02:12, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Oh God

whats with that picture of dead animals on a platter ? on yr user page ? 68.43.91.73

decoration J ɪ m p 14:11, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] MOSNUM US units

Ta for your edit: could we avoid "US, US" by changing the second to "imperial", or using the same word order as for the subsequent point? Tony 00:59, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] {{Counties of Iceland}}

Sorry I had to revert your edits on the template Counties of Iceland but they seem to cause all other templates within a template group to disappear as it did on the Iceland article. Maybe you can fix your edits so they don't cause this problem. --ErickAgain 22:38, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] TfD nomination of Template:Economy of Denmark table

Template:Economy of Denmark table has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. — Lilac Soul ^{(talk • contribs • count)} 09:37, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] How to do arithmetic conversions

Hi,

There was a recent discussion on wp:mosnum about the merits of templates versus manual conversions. My monobook metrication code searches articles for any digits followed by unitnames and replaces them with the convert template. I would like to do arithmetic in the monobook code itself and drop the manual conversion into the article. I do not understand all the 'if#' stuff.e Can you help me with some hints please? Regards Lightmouse 12:01, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] {{Cm to in}}

Hi, Jimp! Thanks for tweaking this template to include feet conversion. I just wanted to point out that instead of modifying this template it would be more logical to create a new one, {{cm to ft in}} (which would help to get rid of the extra ft parameter). This way, we'll eventually have a set of templates including {{ft to m}}, {{ft in to m}}, {{ft to cm}}, {{ft in to cm}}, {{m to ft}}, {{m to ft in}}, {{cm to ft}} (with decimal feet), and {{cm to ft in}}. Since all of the "x to y" templates in the Category:Conversion templates are single-purpose, this scheme will help keep it clean and consistent. Thanks!—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 17:33, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Actually, your question about {{Convert}} is the very same one I was asking when I started creating single-purpose templates and suddenly discovered someone else had already attempted to create a universal one. As it turned out, some folks dislike {{Convert}}, so I was assured single-purpose templates would find their audience. In the end, it is a matter of taste and preference—if someone likes {{Convert}}, they should by all means continue using it. Same goes for single-purpose conversion templates folks. And as long as we have these two camps of users, it makes all the sense to keep single-purpose templates what they are—as specialized as possible. How that affects the big picture, however, I don't know, I'm just a humble tool-maker :)

In addition to this, my point of view is that while both {{Convert}} and single-purpose templates (in their simplest form) basically do the same job, the latter have a vast potential for growth. Take a look at {{ft to m}}, for example. I don't doubt {{Convert}} can be enhanced to include all the same features, but in the end it will make this (at this point rather robust) template unwieldy and overbloated, which is hardly a positive outcome. Best,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 18:53, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

P.S. Speaking of Breaux Greer‎ & Asafa Powell, may I suggest {{Height}} and {{Weight}} (the latter, however, first needs to be upgraded in the image of {{Height}})?—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 19:00, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Random request from a stranger

Hello, Jimp! I realize we've never met, but I do tend to read talk pages, and I've long considered you to be one of the "template" gurus, and I was wondering if perhaps you have time to take a look at a project that my friend Mike is doing, a cubic foot to cubic meters template. He's got it in his userspace right now, and while he's an advanced programmer in "RL", some of the various Wiki-script/syntax issues are not familiar to him, as I'm sure you can understand. His starting template is located here, and I believe probably based off of the {{ft to m}} template. If you do not have the time to assist, that's fine, and if you could point to someone who perhaps would be able to help, that would be very helpful, as well! Thank you, ^Ariel♥Gold 21:32, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

No worries, I did not mean this was anything urgent, I'm sorry if I didn't clarify that. This is a project Mike is doing, and he just has some questions that I'm unable to answer, and I'm sure you'll have answers to, (the questions can be found here, the bottom portion has his questions.) He's really quick picking stuff up, so I'm sure he just needs a little clarification of a few things, which I'm clueless on lol. And even if it isn't today, again there's no real rush, but if you do ever get a moment I'm sure you'd be able to help him. Thanks for the quick answer! ^Ariel♥Gold 21:51, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] startsWith function?

Per Template talk:M3 to ft3, are you aware of some kind of "startsWith" function? It would take input of, say, "american", and return true for "am", "amer", "america", etc... Thanks! --Mike Vitale 15:33, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Re:Bolding

Much apologies. I did not read the latter part of that part of the MOS. I simply assumed that all headings should be bolded, regardless of whether they were descriptive. We are on the same page now. However - are you sure this could be considered "descriptive"? where is the description? It is very clearly the "trade and use" - that is actually something. Perhaps this constitutes a loophole? -- Anonymous Dissident^Talk 00:10, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

All the same - someone has done a rewrite to fix up the issue. I have no qualms with the new wording, personally. -- Anonymous Dissident^Talk 00:27, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

I like it better as well. -- Anonymous Dissident^Talk 00:34, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] ft2 to m2

I like way this works now - it is great. One question I would like it to match the precision of the inputed value but never go to a decimal. I tried to do this by indicating a precision of 0, but of course that makes 115,000 convert to 10,684 instead of 10,700.

In an ideal world I would like it to give at least 2 significant digits (So 100,000 would be 9,300), match the significant digits on the input, but never go to a decimal. So a 11,348 ft2 would be 1,054 not 1054.3.

Any help you could give me on getting it to do this would be appreciated.

Thx - Jim --Trödel 16:03, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

I need your help - when the {{ft2 to m2}} is used, then the List of temples of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints page breaks and the templates just show up as links for the rest of the page. Starting with Spokane Washington (#59).

After seeing if it was other things in the template and in the data, I reverted the change to verify that it was the use of the new template that is contributing to the error. Unfortunately that fixed the problem. I am wondering if there is just too many templates being used on that page and if that is causing the problem. Each of the temples is on that page by referencing a template that in turn passes all the data to another template that has the formatting information for that list. The formatting template also uses quite a few templates. And with the addition of the ft2 to m2 use - there are quite a few additional templates showing up on the edit screen. Instead of:

Template:Ft-m
Template:Num commas

We have all the following templates being used - each more than 60 times on the same page.

Template:Ft2 to m2
Template:Ft2 to m2/0
Template:Ft2 to m2/1
Template:Ft2 to m2/2
Template:Ft2 to m2/3
Template:Max/2
Template:Nowrap (protected)
Template:Ordomag
Template:Ordomag/sum
Template:Precision/x
Template:Precision/x/sum
Template:Rnd
Template:Rnd/+
Template:Rnd/-

Perhaps this could create the problem. I'm just guessing here - please help me !!! Thx --Trödel 19:33, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

The problem is indeed with the most recent upgrade. Before the upgrade, the template's pre-expand size was about 2.5K; now it is about 20K (almost ten-fold). Such large size leads to rapid depletion of the pre-expand allowance (currently at 2M) on pages using many templates. I would suggest re-writing the most recently added code with the pre-expand size in mind. I had exact same problem with {{ft to m}}; you can take a look at its code to see how it was optimized (the pre-expand size was reduced from over 100K to 7K without sacrificing any features).—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 19:53, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps there is a better way to check a template's pre-expand size, but I usually just hit "Random page" and edit whatever comes up by blanking the contents and replacing them with one instance of the template being checked. Then I hit "show preview" and look at the html code of the page; the pre-expand size is there in the comments block (just do an inline search for "pre-expand").

As for trimming down the template, one way to do it effectively is to make sure that irrelevant parts of the conditionals being tested are not expanded. I had a problem with pre-expand size when working on {{ft to m}}, and I found this piece of advice very helpful. That's how {{ft to m}}'s pre-expand problem was solved without having to sacrifice any features (great job on {{ft2 to m2}}'s feature set, by the way! It's great to see you started solving the significant figures problem—the feature has been requested on numerous occasions before). I wish I had time to offer more substantial help with this, but I've been quite short on time during the last several months. Anyway, let me know if there is anything I can help with, but otherwise I trust you'll manage just fine :) Best,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 02:58, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Oh, it's a browser feature, not Wikipedia's :) In IE/Opera, select View→Source. It's a similar arrangement in Firefox or any other browser.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 12:19, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Hi - You may want to look at the documentation for the use of the temple data here: Wikipedia:WikiProject Latter Day Saint movement/Temples - let me know if I can help --Trödel 22:55, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Thx for making the changes - I have deleted the two templates do you know of generic templates to convert ft to m and acres to hectares? --Trödel 19:11, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Thx for the links - I had been looking at ft to m a little and playing with it - but then didn't have time this weekend to do anything. I've added it to my mental to do list --Trödel 19:55, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Everything is working great. But I haven't figured out how all the sub-templates work - I see you are making the length shorter by using -site-floor, etc. but don't have time to go through it all right now. If you could give me a brief explanation of what you did - then I'll do some detailed document it on the talk page for future generations :) Thx --Trödel 00:09, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Wow - thanks for the detailed explanation. I'll included it here: Wikipedia:WikiProject Latter Day Saint movement/Temples. --Trödel 15:46, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Mad libs

D'you know what a mad lib is? It's a phrase in which you switch certain words with another word of the same part of speech, so the end result is ridiculous, and funny. Here, I decided to share this with someone to humor you (and myself), as I have nothing else to do and I am tired. Kaktibhar 08:42, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

                                A Rough Day

"It all started when I awoke with a black pain in my eyebrows. Then, my octometrist was late. We got plucked in traffic for One thousand, two hundred thirty-four years, which made me stinky for my meeting with Sean Connery. I apologized filthily to him, which seemed to make things eccentric again. But then the meeting turned into tubas, with him flying and suffering. I bled when he spilled off. On the way home we passed a hint on a pond. Suddenly the hint sliced in the road and my octometrist had to push to avoid it. In the process, I was slaughtered from the gate, landing on my eyelid. I was covered in sulfuric acid from elbow to fingernail. Could this day get any more disgraceful? My octometrist grated me back into the gate and we made our way back to the luck. I went straight to The Black Market. I was lengthy!"

[edit] Convert sub template request

Hi Jimp,

Can you make a subtemplate for dunam to square kilometers and square miles in the future? It would look like this: 4,000 dunams (4.0 km²/1.54 sq mi). It is a unit of measurement currently used in the middle east and I keep coming across it. Regards, —MJCdetroit 19:35, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Sandbox header

Thank you for your contributions to Wikipedia. You may make test edits in the sandbox, but for the convenience of others, please leave the sandbox heading alone. P51Mustang 22:05, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Convert/W

A tag has been placed on Convert/W, requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done because the page appears to have no meaningful content or history, and the text is unsalvageably incoherent.

If you think that this notice was placed here in error, you may contest the deletion. To do this, add {{hangon}} on the top of the page (just below the existing speedy deletion or "db" tag) and leave a note on the page's talk page explaining your position. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself.

If the page you created was a test, please use the sandbox for any other experiments you would like to do. Feel free to leave a message on my talk page if you have any questions about this. VivioFa teFan ^{(Talk, Sandbox)} 07:03, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Category for the subtemplates of Convert

Hi Jimp,

I had a bot go through and place of all of your subtemplates in the Category:Subtemplates of Template Convert

Please use the text:

<noinclude> [[Category:Subtemplates of Template Convert]] </noinclude>

when creating new subtemplates. Now we'll just have to get a bot to protect everything in that category. —MJCdetroit 15:20, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

User:Bryan Derksen ("Hello Bryan", if you're reading) has been going around and adding <noinclude> {{Uncategorized template}} </noinclude> to these subtemplates. I got me thinking—some kind of categorisation of these might be useful. Of course, a catgeory such as Subtemplates of Template Convert would be the over-all category but this would be subdivided according to the function of the subtemplate and some of those subcategories would be further subdivided (e.g. unit subtemplates sorted according to what they measure). Everything would be nicely listed ... alphabetically, which isn't terribly useful (as opposed to something like this) ... though these category pages would be the obvious place to put more useful listings. However, I then got to wondering what the cost would be in terms of pre-expand size. To my dismay whilst playing around with this in the sandbox (the main one) I found that these categories do seem to count to pre-expand size. I abandoned the idea. Now here's another use for categorisation: to guide a protection bot.

I'd have to agree that these should be protected—with the current version all is in the one place and vandalism can easily be found and reverted, but the thing is protected nonetheless; with my version with its hundreds (thousands? I'm not counting) of subtemplates (all on my watchlist, of course, but ay) vandalism could easily go unnoticed. Yeah, I s'pose full protection is a must. That would put everything out of my reach, though, not being an admin. This might not be a great problem ... if it's any problem at all since, yep, we are ready to go live and I don't forsee having to alter what's already in place ... but I said that before (and made a few major changes since). Actually if I do get round to extending the split linking function to multiple conversions, alterations will have to be made to existing subtemplates (this wouldn't affect the performance of existing transclusions though so we are ready to go live either way).

So, <noinclude> [[Category:Subtemplates of Template Convert]] </noinclude>, that's seventy bytes per subtemplate. Any one transclusion of the new Convert relies on at least five subtemplates (mulitple conversions can more than double this). A rough guestimation puts the cost of this categorisation at something like a ten to twenty percent increase in pre-expand size. Would Category:Subtemplates of Template Convert have any further use after the protection bot had been through?

Categorisation of templates makes good sense—editors can find the template that they need. Subtemplates are generally subroutines of their main template, right, not generally to be transcluded directly (except maybe by the cluey but they can generally find their way, I'd assume). I don't really see the sense in categorising subtemplates ... we can list them like this. I wonder whether I should bring this up with the Wikipedians in general and Bryan Derksen in particular. J ɪ m p 03:42, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflicted) I didn't know about the pre-expand size increasing by 10 to 20 percent. However, my thoughts were to get a protection bot to sweap through the cat and protect everything. Problem is...I don't know of any protection bots. Do you? I can easily remove the category after pages are protected with my bot. —MJCdetroit 04:27, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Well, it's a guestimation as I say. I've only checked a few transclusions and it seems we're looking at about 2.5 kilobytes (it varies). If categorisation adds to this (it seems to, I'm no template expert though), then 70 bytes per subtemplate by five subtemplates per transclusion gives 350 bytes, i.e about 15% of 2.5 kB, per transclusion. Since reducing pre-expand size was one of my prime aims when designing this mousetrap I wouldn't be too keen on having it increased without some significant benifit. Unless we find that I'm wrong about the addition to pre-expand size (I don't think I am), yes, please have the protection bot remove the category as it goes ... or however the removal is to be done. Yeah, no, sorry, I don't know of any protection bot (being neither an admin nor a bot runner). J ɪ m p 04:45, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

That's the problem, I don't know of one either.—MJCdetroit 04:56, 12 November 2007 (UTC)