User talk:John Broughton

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[edit] Shortcuts on WP:EIW?

I reviewed our discussion on Wikipedia Talk:Editor's index to Wikipedia#Proposed approach and I don't see progress yet on shortcuts. Almost every time I use the index to answer a Help desk question, I wish for shortcuts. Is there any way I can help speed the process? For example, where do you plan to start editing the list of shortcuts and name-anchors suitable for bot input? If that's going to take a long time, can I just start creating shortcuts the manual way as I need them? It's not hard to add {{shortcut}} to the index, click on the resulting red link, and make a shortcut. Making several hundred shortcuts that way would be a bit tedious, but there's nothing difficult about it. If you haven't recovered yet from the book project, I could start plugging away at it. Note that we can associate multiple shortcuts with a given anchor, so we can have more than one shortcut naming scheme. (I also want to add shortcuts to the FAQ, with a FAQ: pseudo-namespace prefix. Currently the FAQ is awkward as a Help desk tool, because there is no single comprehensive table of contents for it, and FAQ entries have no shortcuts. That would be straightfoward to fix, and useful. So I could play with that if you don't want me to mess with the index right now.) --Teratornis (talk) 00:59, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

I just had a massive "Oh, duh!" epiphany. Somehow, I needed until just now to realize there is no need to create dozens of individual redirect pages to implement shortcuts on the Editor's index. We only need to append the existing name anchors to the WP:EIW redirect page name in the {{Shortcut}} template. See my comments in Wikipedia talk:Editor's index to Wikipedia#Proposed approach. I'm adding {{Shortcut}} template calls throughout the index now. Later I might do the same thing for all the WP:FAQ entries. The weird thing is that you actually suggested doing it that way very early in our discussion, but I completely failed to grasp the labor-saving consequences of your suggestion, and I must have sidetracked you off into my assumption that we needed to make a kajillion redirect pages. Moral of story: try not to assume I am intelligent! --Teratornis (talk) 20:49, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia: the missing manual

John,

Thanks for your comments and suggestions. I had your book covered in the references of the Portuguese page, Logística 2008 and now also on the English version, Logistics 2008. It's going to be a tough sell. It takes a lot more time for the Portuguese students to read an English book, and, as stated here, I only have two Greek students taking the 'English version' of the course. Anyway, I'll mention you and your book to all my students.

vapmachado talk.cw 04:07, 21 March 2008 (UTC)


John,

Your book arrived yesterday and I was most impressed. Thank you so very much.

First, it is a Book. The Portuguese guide by Pinheiro is little more than a booklet. It is in color, but costs almost as much.

My second thought was that a version of your book in Portuguese was badly needed. As a matter of fact, in every language that has enough users and editors of Wikipedia in that language. Then it down on me that translating would not be enough. All Wikipedias were created equal, but they were raised and fed by very different people, in many different environments. They are not exact translations of each other and each version of the book would have to be adapted. Quite a bit more work, but not impossible.

I will definitely show and recommend your book to all my students. It is very reasonably priced and accessible to most of them.

Now comes the hard part. I'll have to dig into it, to make it worthwhile for you to have send it. With almost 500 pages to go, it might take me a while, but I hope not to let you down.

I wonder if it will be alright with you to start my review here in a new entry of your talk page or if you would rather have me do it somewhere else. Once it gets enough structured and complete it can always be moved or copied elsewhere.

Best regards,

vapmachado talk.cw 17:30, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Book binding

Thanks for the missing manual. The contents are excellent. Pity about the binding. Your publishers have not responded to my complaint. Vernon White . . . Talk 14:32, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

I thought John's name was familiar. It's a brilliant book! I bought it from Amazon.co.uk and read it on a flight to the US (and hours waiting in airports for connecting flights). A number of pages fell out when I opened it, sadly, but Amazon replaced it for free.--Doug Weller (talk) 15:09, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
The replacement copy that my very helpful Bookseller obtained had the same fault. The book is an inspirational source of skills and ideas. Vernon White . . . Talk 15:34, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
Vernon - I'll email you regarding getting this fixed. And in general, I make the offer that anyone who has a problem with the binding and can't get a problem-free replacement should feel free to let me know; I'm happy to help. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 15:50, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
Replacement copy now received. Thank you. Vernon White . . . Talk 17:55, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Comments

Indeed I was not aware of the rule regarding legal issues. Thank you for informing me. However, I do not question Wiki rules. What I challenged was your interpretation of those rules, which I do not accept. I also do not want to discuss philosophy with you. It is simply a matter of what is right and wrong. You apparently are some sort of thought policeman, and best left alone. Regards. Shunam (talk) 02:57, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks for the new link

Added it to my user page :) Serendipodous 08:50, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Thank you for fixing "Prehistoric Korea"...

May I ask for your help if/when I find similar problems? Sincerely, Shir-El too 13:55, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Will follow your suggestions. Thanks again, and have a good day/night/weekend whatever! :) Shir-El too 14:25, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia: the missing manual

John,

Thank you so much for you kind message. Yes, I would appreciate very much if you cared to send me a copy of your book. It would be my pleasure to give you any feedback I might have after reading it. Please use my professional address listed on the left of my user page.

Best regards,

vapmachado talk.cw 16:32, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Warning

Please see Wikipedia's no personal attacks policy. Comment on content, not on contributors. Personal attacks damage the community and deter users. Note that continued personal attacks will lead to blocks for disruption. Please stay cool and keep this in mind while editing. Thank you.68.148.164.166 (talk) 08:06, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Rational
Location Explantion
User talk:68.148.164.166#Tabs at the top "...learn a bit about user scripts in general (take a look at the index for editors to find the relevant pages) - at least enough to ask intelligent questions..."

John Broughton (♫♫) 12:56, 20 March 2008 (UTC))


As anyone can see, that is a very inflamtory comment. I will not go into the issue any further, but the bolded item is of particular intrest.

Another, but more minor, inflamation:

Rational
Location Explantion
User talk:68.148.164.166#Your second "warning" on my user talk page "...you don't seem to be that quick a learner..."

John Broughton (♫♫) 12:45, 27 March 2008 (UTC)


When I checked my user page, I missed your section. Don't jump to seditious conclusions next time.

[edit] Osteopenia & osteoporosis

I'm just dropping a line to inform you that I've removed your addition to osteoporosis and osteopenia. I am aware that your source is the Washington Post article, but a quick scan through that article immediately reveals that the author does not cite any sources and is making these comments only as an example of the grander picture that people are overdiagnosed and overtreated.

A quick look at the facts reveals that the WHO definition of osteoporosis was formulated in 1994, well before Fosamax was approved for clinical use. I don't disagree with the premise that the choice of T-score cutoffs was arbitrary, but that was not what you were saying. If you have a more reliable (i.e. supported with numerical evidence) source for this, we can certainly consider mentioning it. JFW | T@lk 16:11, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Responded to on article talk pages. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 17:35, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Book offer

That's really nice of you. Do you have an ebook version? I'd think an ebook format would be quite useful for this subject... --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 16:18, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps you could work something out with the publisher. Ebook would be quite useful, and could actually boost sales - consider the example of the Baen Free Library/Webscriptions.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 21:35, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] New user experience

Have you done anything about a WikiProject? — Omegatron 20:23, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] MyPyramid deleting

Hi, user User_talk:Mypyramid deleted almost the entire, referenced and footnoted controversy section on the MyPyramid page. (I just restored it).

I noticed you have two warnings up on their user page not to make blanket deletions of info critical of the USDA, could you please look into this? I wrote the controversy section, so I'm hardly unbiased. Thanks, JDowning (talk) 20:28, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Editor

Came across your signature in a round about way. Like it! Was wondering if you use some kind of editor -- other than the klutzy standard wiki web editor. I'd really like something with a spell checker!! I need one! If you have a recommendation, please post it at my talk page. Thanks.--Strider12 (talk) 22:08, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Copy Edit Request

Hi. I found you listed at WP:1FAPQ#Project Resources as someone willing to do copy editing on articles? I'm getting ready to send List of Marmalade Boy chapters up for Featured List candidacy, but it could really use a copy editing first, particularly in helping tighten up the prose in the summaries. Would you have time to give it a run through? Collectonian (talk) 02:44, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Who edits Wikipedia?

Hi John, I read your blog post but didn't want to register to give a comment, so I comment here instead. I've been editing Wikipedia since 2001 and have a 3-digit user ID (445). Still, it was your book that tought me what that "+" tab is for. Last month, I coined the phrase "Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, that every third person can edit" on the wikitech-l mailing list, because I calculated that even though the English Wikipedia has 6.7 million registered user accounts, only 2.3 million have contributed any surviving edit. Some have suggested that users register in order to change the skin or adjust other personal settings for reading Wikipedia. I don't know if that is true, but it could be. In September 2007, more than six months ago, I added a single sentence to the introductory section of the heavily edited article on Russia's second city St. Petersburg and that sentence is still there, untouched til this day. If that feat gives me six points (for the six months that one full sentence was untouched), I wonder who's got the most points. The sentence has to be accurate, relevant, correctly spelled and uncontroversial. If researchers could dig out such long surviving sentences from Wikipedia, they could compile quite an amusing book of quotations. In my case, the sentence was "At latitude 59°56′N, Saint Petersburg is the world's largest city north of Moscow (55°45′N)." --LA2 (talk) 20:22, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

That link should go here instead. --LA2 (talk) 20:25, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Re: Notes About Your Edit

Response found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Arnabdas#Notes_about_your_edits Arnabdas (talk) 18:07, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

I actually did as seen here: I did here: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Political_positions_of_John_McCain&diff=206040249&oldid=206037131 as you can read by my edit summary. The user posted the same statement multiple times in the article. When I edited it again, it got caught up in the reference I was posting somehow. Also, by "our" discussion I meant those who had participated on the talk page before you had posted your comment. Arnabdas (talk) 19:48, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
You're definitely right that I could have been more clear with my edits. I was just saying I didn't intend to be sneaky with them or anything. There were just so many things that I felt were incorrect and not notable I deleted them one time with an explanation and then deleted the others subsequently with a hazy one. I understand why you were confused about it. I was just trying to explain my rationale behind it all. Again, thanks for looking out and stating your concerns and also assuming good faith. Arnabdas (talk) 15:33, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Interface

What do you mean by "Removing the icon to the left of the six tabs at the upper right"? — Omegatron (talk) 16:49, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

You mean the little person icon? I already have this removed because I turned my personal links into a sidebar, but I'm not sure what this icon has to do with usability or newcomers. — Omegatron (talk) 18:46, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Re: Your course

Well, thank you! You can send it to me at this address. --jbmurray (talk|contribs) 19:26, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Let me just say that the book arrived today, for which much thanks. I've had a flick through it, and it looks very good. I hope to respond further, later. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 05:18, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] WP:EIW

Sorry if I missed something. I was doing trying to fix syntax errors reported at CAT:SHORTFIX. See if you can figure out a way of doing what you want without having the the page turn up on the maintenance page. --DRoll (talk) 14:50, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Book

Heya, I picked up a copy and am greatly enjoying it. Thanks for putting it together!  :) --Elonka 16:08, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Yup, as an author myself, I know how important these things are. Overall I'm really enjoying it, and even picking up a tip or too, myself! I'm taking notes, page by page, and will probably send you a report either all at once, or maybe a few chapters at a time. It's a very timely book, are sales tracking well? --Elonka 21:22, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
BTW, as part of my participation with the Working group, I've been working on updates of some dispute resolution systems. Here's a new page that I've added to the New Admin School. It's not linked in yet, but if you'd like to help, be my guest!  :) Wikipedia:New admin school/Dealing with disputes --Elonka 08:25, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
Hiya, on your most recent change, in terms of number of new articles per day. I track this every so often, and last year it was about 2,000 new articles per day, but currently it's about 1,500 per day. So I figured that "several thousand per week" was the best way of phrasing this. Do you have data that shows that it's several thousand per day? --Elonka 17:30, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Expert review

Hi John, I would like to navigate you to Wikipedia:Expert review, where I have drafted up a basic review system for experts. My factual review system at Wikipedia:Factual review has received very little feedback so far and I am hoping that expert review will garner somewhat more pleasing results in this area.

Due to your previous interest in an expert review system, I'm letting you know about it. The system is still under development and probably will not be proposed to the community until it is fairly polished; you are welcome to provide any feedback you might have and/or help develop the system. Best and friendly regards, — Thomas H. Larsen 04:26, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

  • Thanks for your suggestions; I'll revise my proposal over the next week or so and then update it so you can have another look. — Thomas H. Larsen 04:52, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Re New World Encyclopedia

In response to your comments, I would point out that what you express about neutrality is entirely your opinion. Who is neutral? Who writes with complete impartiality? Who decides that a source published by the Roman Catholic Church, or by the Unification Church, or by a publisher known for its conservative or liberal editorial stance, is neutral? In Theology, almost everything is written from particular viewpoints and most publishers can be identified with a certain approach. If you want to cull all such material from Wiki, I suggest that thousands of articles would be found to contain material that could not strictly speaking be described as neutral. I do not want to offend, but I have to speak the truth in love and say that I found your comments amateurish, silly and self-opinionated. Either you claim some esoteric, magical ability to judge neutrality, or you possess an ego of monumental proportion. I do not accept that any Wiki convention was contravened. Moreover, on the discussion page you called me a liar, which is totally unacceptable and could well result in a legal suit. Either way, your comments belong to some "other place" than the real world.. Effectively, you have appointed yourself the judge of neutrality, and, abrogating this privilege to yourself you have vandalized what was a reasonable, properly sourced and academical respectable article in the name of your own egotistical claim to be a superior Wikipedian. You are actually seriously in error and do not know what you are talking about, in my humble, not so superior opinion. I am consulting an attorney regarding your comments, and will be in contact again. The book to which you refer certainly does exist, indeed there is an image of it posted in Wiki!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!(talk) 01:32, 27 April 2008 (UTC)Shunam (talk) 02:58, 27 April 2008 (UTC)


[edit] Re your Reponse

Dear John,

Indeed I was not aware of the rule regarding legal issues. Thank you for informing me. However, I do not question Wiki rules. What I challenged was your interpretation of those rules, which I do not accept. I also do not want to discuss philosophy with you. It is simply a matter of what is right and wrong. You apparently are some sort of thought policeman, and best left alone. Regards. Shunam (talk) 02:57, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks

for your edit on Talk:Ma'at -- that editor, with different IP addresses, has been posting gibberish on several pages -- that particular bit you saw I think actually referred obliquely to me as I am a director at a web site called The Hall of Ma'at (debunking cult archaeology), but maybe that was just a coincidence.Doug Weller (talk) 16:19, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] You might be interested...

Based on past comments you've made about this issue, you might want to add a comment to this arbitration request. RedSpruce (talk) 01:34, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] DC Meetup

I'm soo sorry for the delay! The a hectic university life and exams + research makes many other endeavors hard to keep up with! I did, in fact, talk to you the university about getting some space for us. Bottom line is, it would be very expensive, require expensive catering, and would provide us little benefit over other venues.--rocketrye12 talk/contribs 20:12, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Please consider joining the WMF DC working group

Please consider joining the working group for the WMF DC chapter. Since we have a very active and very community oriented DC/MD/VA area group of Wikipedians, it only makes sense to develop it as a chapter, especially given the recent changes to the Board of Trustees structure, giving chapters more of a vote. Hopefully we will be either the first or the second officially recognized US Chapter (WMF Pennsylvania is pending as well), and hopefully our efforts will benefit WMF Penn as well. Remember, it's a working group, and this is a wiki, so feel free to offer changes, make bold changes to the group, and discuss on the talk page! I hope to see you there, as well as Wikimeetup DC 4 if you're attending. ⇒SWATJester Son of the Defender 16:44, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] sorry

oops. i ment 2 put it at the help desk.sorryMooncrest (talk) 23:32, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Dusty articles

Wikipedia:WikiProject Abandoned Articles is currently working on an extremely old list. The one at Wikipedia:Dusty articles was generated from the 2008-03-12 Database XML dump and excludes disambiguation pages. I can put the disambiguation pages back into the report, or put the top 1000 of those in their own report, or just about whatever you'd like. I don't know how to identify lists automatically (disambiguation pages are all supposed to have one of the disambiguation templates, but I don't think there's any similar standard for lists.) I'm currently developing more reports for other maintenance tasks and WikiProjects, and if you're interested you can check the progress at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Database_analysis/enwiki-20080312. --Sapphic (talk) 04:53, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Richard Arthur Norton/footnote request for arbitration is now open

This RFAr that you commented on has been accepted and is now open. If you wish you can add a statement on the Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Footnoted quotes/Evidence page. Apparently it's valid just to copy your comment from the requests page (available here) and paste it to the Evidence page.

Thanks! RedSpruce (talk) 19:25, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Meetup/DC 4

Please note that there is a DC Meetup planned for May 17th at 5:00 p.m., though a place has not yet been set. You're receiving this notice because you posted to the page for the prior meetup - Wikipedia:Meetup/DC 3 - but haven't indicated whether or not you're interested in attending this one. (Apologies if in fact you have.) BetacommandBot (talk) 01:07, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Expert review, version 2

I have revised Wikipedia:Expert review to incorporate most of your suggestions, and I'd like to hear any feedback you might have. Cheers! — Thomas H. Larsen 04:38, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Help wanted for Tibet during the Ming Dynasty

Hello Mr. Broughton, I'm Mr. Connor, but you can call me Pericles of Athens. I recently placed Tibet during the Ming Dynasty as a Featured Article candidate. Recently, User:Collectonian has opposed its candidacy as a Featured Article for a few reasons, one of them being a copyediting concern. I was wondering if you would be so kind as to copyedit this article of mine. For starters, there are problems with the article's organization and narrative flow. The sub-section "Inheritence, reappointments, and titles" is rather oversized and I think could be cut into at least two new sub-sections. However, I'm having trouble thinking of how to divide the material thoughtfully so that two clear and distinguishable subjects are being treated and not one giant subject haphazardly heaped into a pile of text as the sub-section stands now. That's one problem, but there are others I'm sure you can spot. Would you consider this copyediting task?--Pericles of AthensTalk 04:38, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Taking the initiative, I have just made fairly significant changes to the "inheritence, reappointments, and titles" section by adding a couple statements, adding a picture, and shifting material around so that the flow of the narrative is a bit more clear, concise, and less jumbled and disorganized, whereas beforehand it oscillated between one subject and another and then back to the first one described.--Pericles of AthensTalk 07:05, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Wolf's Rain

Hi. Thanks again for your help on List of Marmalade Boy chapters. Its currently up for FLC. :) Would you be interested in/willing to do another copy editing? Wolf's Rain is currently a GAC, and a request at LoCE has gone unanswered for months. Its now being reviewed for GA, but concerns about the prose and a need for a check have been brought up. Would you have time to give it a going over? Collectonian (talk) 02:55, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] RFA

Ever thought of it? I'd like to nom you. MBisanz talk 07:07, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] would this be considered advertising?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storm_Exchange —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.141.201.210 (talk) 20:39, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Most of the text was advertising, which I removed. But the article is (in my opinion) about a notable company, so I didn't do anything about deleting the entire article. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 22:50, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Signpost updated for May 2nd and 9th, 2008.

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[edit] New York Meetup - Booklet

I see you've been helping distribute this for a while. I'll be there and I could give them out. Enigma message 01:13, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

I've sent you an email. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 12:17, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Signpost updated for May 12th, 2008.

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[edit] Thanks

John: thanks for the wikipedia manual; good to see you at the DC meetup tonight; sorry I didn't get a chance to talk to you more.--FeanorStar7 (talk) 01:19, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Report on DC meetup at our regional blog

If you would like to put a report about the meeting at our regional US Wikimedia chapters-in-formation blog Wiki Northeast, we'd be glad to have you. If you want, you can just e-mail me and I'll make a guest post under your name. BTW, thanks for the your books, which were great prizes at Wikipedia Takes Manhattan!--Pharos (talk) 18:57, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Editor's index to Wikipedia

Hi John,

Just finished going through the A's and this is all I got: [1]. Just in case you don't know why, whenever you feel bored open a few of the English A-pages and look for the interwikis. You'll find that many pages don't have any and many others only have interwikis to one or two languages (not Portuguese). The same happens with the Wikipedia, Help and other pages of the Portuguese Wikipedia. In order to correct that situation, I posted a request for help on "our" Village pump a couple weeks ago but found no takers. Since this can be done from either side, what would you suggest:

  • I make an appeal for help in the "interwikification" of the English pages on the Village pump.
  • You make that appeal (better then I ever would).
  • You and/or I bring this to the attention of someone or some group who might be predisposed to that kind of thankless job.
  • Other ideas/suggestions?

Best regards,

vapmachado talk.cw 04:28, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Search box position

Hi! Since you participated in the last discussion about where the "search" box should be located, I wanted to let you know that I've started another thread on the topic at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Move the search box directly beneath the puzzle globe. —Remember the dot (talk) 03:34, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Article growth

Sorry for reverting your edit to the latest dispatch: it is just too late in the day to add new material. Article growth is a complex matter: see WP:Modelling Wikipedia's growth. The article creation rate is actually falling now, but this is an issue for a separate dispatch or discussion. Geometry guy 22:21, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Missing Manual

Hi, just a heads-up that someone has created Wikipedia - The Missing Manual. Thought you might like to know ;) -- Quiddity (talk) 18:23, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, I wasn't aware of that, and I appreciate your letting me know. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 21:44, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Low Resolution Book Covers

John-- Thanks for responding to my query about why my book covers were removed. However, I was impelled to check back on them, and I discovered that of a dozen that I downloaded, only 4 are currently missing. The others all have resolution of about 1200 by 2000 pixels. So the mystery remains. I will try repeat downloading the 4 missing covers now and see what happens. Norm mit (talk) 17:22, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia - The Missing Manual

You probably watch this article, but incase you don't I thought I would point out that it needs some more indicators of notability at present. I presume that you as the author should be able to point to suitable reviews, if they exist. Do you know of any more besides the New York Review of Books one? I'm not saying I don't think it's notable, but it's certainly walking the line in its present state. Richard001 (talk) 02:16, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Interwikis

John,

I think the problem is not how you envisioned it. Portuguese (and mostly Brazilians, I believe) wikipedians organized categories quite differently from the English Wikipedia.

English Wikipedia

  • Category “Contents” has 12 subcategories and 2 pages.
    • Subcategory “Wikipedia administration” has 56 subcategories and 21 pages.
    • Subcategory “Wikipedia help” has 21 subcategories and 62 pages.

Portuguese Wikipedia

  • Category “Main Page” has 3 subcategories and 4 pages.
    • Subcategory “!Wikipedia” has 62 subcategories and 64 pages.
      • Subcategory “!Help” has 8 subcategories and 46 pages.

So the pages in the en:wiki are all over the place in the pt:wiki (and/or vice versa) and nobody has bothered with the interwikis. The result is that for a given page in en:wiki without a interwiki to its pt:wiki counterpart one has to look all over the place for it (I’m exaggerating of course). Anyway its not a straightforward job.

My reasoning was that if you are going to look for the corresponding pages you might as well add the interwikis, so the next guy is not going to have to go through the same trouble. All this, of course, adds up to a lot of work.

I have already asked for help on the pt:Village pump. No takers. Form the answers I got I think they thought I didn’t know how to add interwikis and was asking for help doing that.

According to your advice, I’ll try the en:Village pump. Wish me luck.

Best regards,

vapmachado talk.cw 03:21, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Comments on the Reader's Guide

Useful, although I knew most of the stuff in there, having learned with hands-on experience. Two of the things I wasn't familiar with was the option to be able to edit the lead section, and the portal stuff.

Two minor things I noticed:

  • Not your fault, naturally, because it was a recent change, but the + at the top of the pages is now new section. That's what's so hard about writing paper books about something that's constantly in flux, like Wikipedia.
  • Wikipedia was misspelled on page 25. It said "wikpedia.org" Enigma message 03:43, 25 May 2008 (UTC)


Thanks for catching that the URL misspelling; that was new text (most of what is in the booklet was from Appendix B and Chapter 1 of the book), and I'm surprised it wasn't picked up in the copyedit. As for the "+" sign, I very much knew about that change, since I was a big proponent of it; I'm not sure if that happened before or after the booklet when to print, but I've noted it for any future edition. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 22:06, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

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