User talk:EncMstr/Archive

Hello EncMstr/Archive, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers:

Welcome!

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you have any questions, check out Wikipedia:Where to ask a question or ask me on my talk page. Again, welcome! HGB 00:23, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Wiki for Engineering

Engineering Wiki is a wiki entirely dedicated to collecting information about Engineering. The Engineering Wiki is in early development stages at the moment. We invite you to help devlope this wiki.

Johann Pachelbel

Hello! I saw your edits to Johann Pachelbel some time ago and I really liked how you fixed the language in the article. Thank you for doing that! I was wondering if you would want to look at/fix the article again now that the "Works" section is expanded? I'd really appreciate that :) Jashiin 16:26, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Aw, that happened to me too, I know how this feels. Anyhow, there's no rush of any kind. I'm looking forward to see your response and edits :) Jashiin 08:56, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, I responded. Sorry it took so long: I was pretty busy during the last few days, and those replacement texts I'm suggesting (see the response) took me forever to make. Jashiin 15:43, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Recent Changes Camp in Portland

FYI RecentChangesCamp Tedernst | talk 22:15, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia Project

Hi, my name is Federico (alias Pain) and I am creating a section for nominating th best user page, I was wondering if you were interested in joining the project.

The project has just started, and we need help to spread the word and ameliorate it.

Wikipedia:Votes_for_best_User_page

Best regards, Federico Pistono ✆ ✍ 14:28, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Hoyt Arboretum

Sorry for not adding anything to the edit summary! I had removed the sentence because it seemed redundant to me, considering that "The arborteum has twelve miles of trails (two of which are suitable for wheelchairs)" and "The Hoyt Arboretum (185 acres)" had already been stated. Nickpdx 05:14, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Exponential

Please stop reverting the page titled exponential to the irresponsible record label article. Some anonymous editor changed the page from a disambiguation page into an article about the record label with that name. I consider that vandalism. Obviously, the many many many articles that link to the page titled exponential are not attempting to link to an article about the record label. I think the person who replaced that with a blank page was improving it. Michael Hardy 00:31, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Page renaming

It was a newby who forgot to sign who asked that. I did the move already. Thanks. KimvdLinde 21:28, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Grin, it happens... KimvdLinde 22:07, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Why so few Wikipedians are engineers?

I am trying to understand why there are so few Wikipedians who are graduate engineers. Once I get a grasp on that, perhaps I may be able to formulate some ideas on how to attract more experienced engineers to become Wikipedians. It would be very helpful if you would respond to these a few questions:

Are you a university graduate engineer?
Please indicate in which of these engineering disciplines you obtained your degree:
1. Aeronautical or aerospace engineering
2. Bioengineer or biological engineering
3. Chemical engineering
4. Civil engineering
5. Electrical engineering
6. Environmental engineering
7. Mechanical engineering
8. Petroleum engineering
9. Other
In what year did you obtain your degree?
What attracted you to participate in Wikipedia?

If you would rather not answer these questions on your Talk page, then you may respond on my User talk:mbeychok page. Or you may respond to me via Wikipedia's email which I have enabled on my User:mbeychok page.

If you would rather not respond at all, that's fine also. Regards, - mbeychok 04:28, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

References on Moors

OMG! Good job! I was going crazy and was planning to return today to tidy up, learning the referencing in the process...Well, I still have to learn how to properly provide references, but the article looks great now. Thanks for not-teaching me (joking). Best, musti 21:44, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Federalist Papers

The edit summary pretty much conveys the point...in my judgment the ref/note system is substantially superior to cite.php. Certainly, it is much more convenient to edit the article with the ref/note system in place. I would request that you not convert from one to the other on this article in particular, which is a long-term project of mine, and which at the moment has no other major editors. Christopher Parham (talk) 22:22, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Giant's Series

Glad to be of help. Thanks for the encouragement. FrankWilliams 12:38, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Re your inquiry on my Talk page about a summary of my engineer survey

Thanks for your enquiry. There is a summary available at User:Mbeychok/MRB's Survey of Wikipedian Engineers. I posted a notice of that summary at the Village Pump some time ago. Regards, - mbeychok 15:08, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

KPSU

Wow, thanks! You're working on all of Portland's radio stations? That does sound like a sort of lonely job. I took out the bit about corporate sponsorship because I'm not aware of any (KPSU is funded by PSU and listener donations) but if you know something I don't I'd be glad to put it back in. Did you find the entry because of the plea I put on the radio wikiproject page? Also, how long does the entry have to be before the stub tag doesn't apply? Thanks again! Katsam 09:13, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Ah! I knew that KPSU was underwritten by community businesses, and I guess that for instance The Portland Mercury is probably incorporated, but saying in the first line that the station is "corporate-sponsored" makes my brain flower with ideas about a whole different ballpark of stuff, i.e. Archer Daniels Midland and friends.

Also, KBOO's entry says that they are "non-profit and listener-sponsored," but they also receive funding from neighborhood businesses: . Maybe I can stick a mention of the business funding in at the end of the KPSU entry, where the station's funding sources are described...? Katsam 23:07, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

...that don't say they are radio stations...anywhere. Heh.

OK, I put that KPSU is "noncommercial" in the first sentence, so that it'll pop up on Google and so forth when people can only see the tagline. Later in the entry, when discussing funding, I say that some of KPSU's funding comes from local businesses. Is that satisfactory?

I might go take a crack at OPB radio later this week. Before I do, I was wondering: is there a radio station entry at Wikipedia that you could point me to that's exemplary? If not, can you point me towards one that's just Good? I need role models. Katsam 00:40, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

OK. I bet I can get KPSU's entry up to KBOO standards.

To continue the corporate banter, I think that in KPSU's case (or KBOO's) it gives the wrong idea. "Corporate funding" makes a person -- at least it makes me -- think of Microsoft, AT+T, the aforementioned Archer Daniels Midland, and so forth, while the businesses that fund KPSU all small, local places like bars, newspapers, and record stores. In the case of OPB, they actually ARE funded by Archer Daniels Midland, Pabst Blue Ribbon, etc etc.

Thanks for your help. Katsam 02:53, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Seattle to Portland

Thanks for improving the readability of the Seattle to Portland article. I do have a question about one change you made. Yesterday, a link to the article on the Cascade Bicycle Club was added to the article and then removed by you. You gave no reason for the removal. Is there a reason that the article on the club should not be linked from the STP? I also asked this question in the talk page for the article. --Patleahy 16:44, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Its fixed. Thanks Patleahy 17:41, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

measurement uncertainty

The theoretical text seems content rich

No, I think the major problem with this article is that the theoretical text has next to no content. It's written like a preface to an article on the subject rather than like an article on the subject. Michael Hardy 14:58, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Practiced/practised

Thank you for being so civil about my edit, but I have just realised I was mistaken. US English uses -ce for both the noun and the verb; here it is like advise and advice. Ironically, I thought I was standing up for the US version of the language, as it clearly should be in an article about a crash in the US. It is confusing as licence/license goes the other way. I am humbled by my mistake and obviously I have rectified the article. --Guinnog 20:56, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, one lives and learns. --Guinnog 15:24, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Calling programmers

We need coders for the WikiProject Disambigation fixer. We need to make a program to make faster and easier the fixing of links. We will be happy if you could check the project. You can Help! --Neo139 08:57, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

re: Magic Mile

Nah, only about 1,800, most of them about Oregon. :) And when I'm bored at work I tend to refresh my watchlist. That article caught my eye since it was kind of an orphan, in the generic Oregon stub category, to which I was trying to assign more specific stubs. Glad to see it got expanded. Katr67 12:05, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Barlow and which/that

re: Sam Barlow and Barlow, Oregon (and Barlow Road as well)

I don't own the magic book, Oregon Geographic Names, (I had it out from the library) but my friend Twisted86 does. I'm sure he'll be happy to look it up for us when I direct his attention this way.

re:which/that

It's a restrictive clause thing. I don't have my copy of Chicago handy, but here is one source that I trust, even though I disagree with him: . I am a quibbling weirdo who prefers to make the which/that distinction, which was drummed into me during a stint in journalism school, and during my professional copyediting career. I was paid to make this distinction there, but here I am not. I do it anyway. Here are some Wikipedia articles on the subject: Restrictiveness, English relative clauses#That and which. Make what you will of them, and happy editing! Katr67 20:40, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

See comments on Katr67's talk page. — Twisted86 - Talk - at 06:30, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

You're welcome. It is a fascinating book — especially considering that neither author is a professional geographer. — Twisted86 - Talk - at 07:24, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Glad I could help. Yes, OGN is packed with info--it's about 6 inches thick! And the newest version comes with a CD-ROM. Katr67 14:14, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Articles you might like to edit, from SuggestBot

SuggestBot predicts that you will enjoy editing some of these articles. Have fun!

Stubs: ~~Interstate 84 (west)~~; ~~2001-02 United States network television schedule~~; CCTV-1; ~~1997-98 United States network television schedule~~; Pearl District, Portland, Oregon; KWVT-LP; 1999-2000 United States network television schedule; 2000-01 United States network television schedule; Sauvie Island; Evergreen Aviation Museum

Cleanup: Vanderford-Riley well being schedule; ~~Ski~~; Permanent hiatus
Merge: National Wild and Scenic River; List of numbered Routes in Oregon
Add Sources: Albany, Oregon
Wikify: Fisher Communications; Directory enabled networking; Network Media
Expand: Hughes Television Network; Network Solutions; Bellevue, Washington

SuggestBot picks articles in a number of ways based on other articles you've edited, including straight text similarity, following wikilinks, and matching your editing patterns against those of other Wikipedians. It tries to recommend only articles that other Wikipedians have marked as needing work. Your contributions make Wikipedia better -- thanks for helping.

If you have feedback on how to make SuggestBot better, please tell me on SuggestBot's talk page. Thanks from ForteTuba, SuggestBot's caretaker.

P.S. You received these suggestions because your name was listed on the SuggestBot request page. If this was in error, sorry about the confusion. -- SuggestBot 13:26, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Alpental Fix-THANKS

Thanks again for fixing up the Alpental page. It looked 100% better after you had re-arranged/organized the thing. Now, about the pest..... Is there a way to stop this guy from continuing to break the Wikipedia rules and messing up numerous articles with his personal attacks and mis-labeled links to his personal website? (user 67.170.33.237). The guy somehow knows my last name and is now posting it in the remarks section....not a huge deal, but I would rather he didn't do that. Can anything be done to curb his nasty ways? Thanks -- MrHyak

Review

Please review Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Appeal_of_VeryVerily. Thanks! JBKramer 18:23, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

I looked at this article, but am unclear about its relevance to deflation (economics). — EncMstr 18:39, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

AnonymousIP is almost certainly Ruy Lopez. JBKramer 18:41, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Okay, so what if he is? Isn't his sentence fulfilled? — EncMstr 18:51, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

No. "Ruy Lopez is prohibited from editing using any sockpuppet account. Suspected Ruy Lopez sockpuppets may be banned, and administrators may ban Ruy Lopez for up to 2 months for each confirmed sockpuppet he uses." This is indefinite. It is indefinite, because if it is Ruy posting from the IP address, "Any administator may ban Ruy Lopez for an article where he is engaged in edit warring, removal of sourced material, POV reorganizations of the article or any other activity which that administrator considers disruptive." JBKramer 18:53, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

That would be one avenue to stop him—if indeed it is true. But surely the effort is better spent to make Deflation (economics) into a well written article that doesn't change significantly three plus times per day. It seems like everyone is likely to be civil: so far the name calling has been minimal and tends to be focused on the proper content of the article. — EncMstr 19:05, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

The article has not seen major changes since Sterling's massive cruftremoval earlier this month, aside from Ruy's disruptive edit warring back to his crufty prefered version. I'm happy to work on the article, but before any real work can get done, we need to remove the POVpushing. JBKramer 19:07, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

The article's talk page talk:Deflation (economics) would be a good place to do that. Your favored version of the article (in its own section of course) would probably remain there unopposed. It would be helpful to omit portions not in dispute and include any reasoning, facts, etc. which support your version. — EncMstr 19:24, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

It is nearly impossible to find a cition for "No one worth noting has ever said this." How would you reccomend I do so? JBKramer 19:25, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Proving a negative is impossible. Look for an assertion of the argument you agree with. It is best left to readers to decide whether the arguments are mutually exclusive. — EncMstr 19:37, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Let's be clear - and I know that everyone that POV pushes everything says this, but I don't agree with any of the various arguments about deflation. I do, however, know that the Austrians are all dead. I also know that neo-clasicists do not believe that "In the ideal perfect market world, no deflation can happen because monetary authorities control money creation and prices are allowed to fluctuate." JBKramer 20:00, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

There are a few Austrian school thinkers left, like Mark Skousen (alas, no wikiarticle), Foundation for Economic Education, and the folks of Ludwig von Mises Institute#Faculty_and_administration. What's the point of divining the behavior of a "perfect world"? Would a perfect world have "authorities"?

So, what arguments do you agree with? Who makes them? — EncMstr 20:26, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't have a position on economics except to demand factual accuracy. It is not accurate to say that neo-classicists believe the above statement, yet the IP is reverting it back in, over and over. JBKramer 20:38, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Then you've started doing the right thing by calling for citations. To finish, add to the talk page the points which need cleaning up, lack NPOV, etc. If I were you, I'd make a separate section for each section of the article you've tagged, plus one to cover common issues. — EncMstr 21:00, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

The anonymous vandal removed all of the tags. JBKramer 12:38, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I didn't. I removed your incorrect tag placement and provided sources, before you threatened to spank me and you called me a racist. 81.117.200.27 17:19, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

MetsBot

Sorry about the tagging of those Oregon locations: they were in Category:Cascade Range which is mostly not in California but some of it is in California, and the bot was tagging all the articles in that category as a mistake. I've reverted the ~30 bad edits that the bot made. —Mets501 (talk) 00:27, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

No sweat. I was hoping to learn something about the qualifications of WikiProject California. I'm disappointed I didn't learn anything, but I'm glad it was a minor accident. — EncMstr 00:53, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

List of most-watched television episodes

I didn't believe the alterations to the format of the "Series Finales" table as a "major edit" because I kept all the data you had there before. The source stated that the existing numbers came from Reuters but is there an actual article online those numbers came from. If so, you can also link to it as a citation.

I did add some show finale numbers but the format is basically the same, now with exact dates instead of just the year those finales aired. -- Dechnique23 01:30, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I had copied-then-pasted the text from my previous edit (which was offline) when I added the info for Touched by an Angel and Sex and the City. You're free to reformat the table but I suggest you to keep the finale dates. I think having those dates displayed is more informative than just the year. -Dechnique23 02:01, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Pacific Crest Trail

Ski resorts

dealing with templates

More about dealing with templates

Yet more about dealing with templates

RE:Experiencing some problems

I left some comments here. --S iva1979^{Talk to me} 02:17, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for your concern! Completely blank here means that even the Wikipedia logo is absent. In fact, there is absolutely nothing in that page! Moreover, my Firefox (version 2.0) browser tab shows http:/en....City_F.C. and the URL shows http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leicester_City_F.C. View | Page source shows up a completely blank page as well! And on a side note, I am facing similar problems with my archive talk page number 10. But the other archive pages seem to load correctly. I hope you can help me with this. I am using a Windows ME OS. --S iva1979^{Talk to me} 05:56, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

This seems strange but now, I am able to load the above mentioned article from your user talk page but not from my talk page or anywhere else. The page source is <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">. I am still unable to load my archive talk page number 10 and I am unable to load Category:Leicester City F.C. as well. --S iva1979^{Talk to me} 06:08, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, first of all, I wish to thank you for your help. I followed your instructions and the problem seem to be gone. However, the problem re-surfaced again after a few clicks and I had to clear my private data again. After re-logging again, the problem disappeared and re-appeared. At least, I can still view these pages, albeit for some inconvenience. I have scanned my system for spyware and viruses and it seems reliable. I think that the problem has got to be with my OS. I feel that version 2.0 of Firefox does not work too well with the out-dated ME OS. Anyway, thank you for your kind help in this matter. --S iva1979^{Talk to me} 07:38, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, my system shows 69% free space and my hard disk is 20GB of storage space (I know, it is embarrassing!). Is 69% too little? --S iva1979^{Talk to me} 17:48, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes, ME does have a scandisk. --S iva1979^{Talk to me} 10:36, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Pictures from the German Wikipedia

- Riggenbach system
- Strub system
- Abt system (3 bars)
- Locher system
- Rack railroad switch
- Rack railroad switch of the Wengernalpbahn in the Lauterbrunnen station

I had asked another Wiki user (Slambo (Speak)) to help me incorporate these images into the Rack railway article (from de:Zahnradbahn), but he never got around to it. What modification(s) need(s) to be made to show these images? Thanks...

Peter Horn 01:05, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Hello again Peter Horn. Somehow your signature has lost its wikilinking to your user page. Are you using ~~~~ to sign? If so, check your preferences. For example, mine has — [[user:EncMstr|EncMstr]] in the signature box, with the "raw" checkbox set. Maybe you just need to uncheck the raw setting?

I think you are asking how to incorporate, for example, the German wikipedia image Bild:Zahnradbahn riggenbach.jpg in the English rack railway article, right? Unfortunately, there is no direct way to include media from another language in an article. The workaround has three steps:

Download the full resolution image from the source wikipedia. (Keep clicking on each version of the image until it is no longer a link to a bigger version. Then use your browser's save this file function.)
Upload the image to either the English wikipedia (press the upload button in the toolbox menu at the left side), or to wikimedia commons. For content such as this which has no language dependencies, commons is the preferred choice. There are three boxes to fill in on the upload page, which can be challenging to fully and properly determine the contents. 1: The easiest is the file on your computer to upload. After entry, the destination filename presumes the filename: change it if it's not descriptive enough. For images from another wikipedia, I'd keep the same name to reduce confusion. 2: Fill in the summary using the {{Information}} template. Add appropriate categories (outside the template), just like at the bottom of an article. 3: select the type of license from the dropdown. Then press upload.
Edit the article to incorporate the image, and add [[image:whatever the filename is]] to the appropriate place in the article. See WP:IMAGE for details of using this feature. Almost always you want to use the image thumb parameter in an article. For example, [[image:Zahnradbahn riggenbach.jpg | thumb | detail of cogwheels | right]]. Normally, the original caption can be used, translated, but this one is useless: Here is a high resolution version for downloading.

If you followed this, you might think I left out how to tell the English wikipedia to use the commons image. I didn't. The image namespace wikireference first tries to use the local language upload area. If not found, it tries commons. If the same named media is on both wikis, the commons version is not accessible. — EncMstr 03:03, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation, I'll have to try out the procedure(s) when I find some time. I don't understand how my signature would get lost because I use it all the time.

Peter Horn 22:13, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Re: Taps and dies

WP:IMAGE#Forced image size

Strange edit summary

Edit summaries

ORS COI

Mt. Hood

What is it that makes climbing in warm months so dangerous? Is it that the snow on top of the glaciers melts, exposing crevaces and making for unsure footing? Wahkeenah 03:40, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Hi Wahkeenah, sorry if you felt scolded over the soft glacier comment. I was quite rushed this evening, and handled this edit summary poorly. It should have said something to the effect that the causes for most accidents are otherwise. I'll put something in the article, unless someone beats me to it. Again: sorry.

By definition (see glacier formation), glaciers don't soften, only the topmost portion, rather like a minor skin abrasion: it doesn't remove "the skin", only the top layer. So it would be correct to say the surface softens—not the glacier.

The main point is that weather exposure causes most of the fatalaties, not avalanches, nor soft snow. Falls seem to be the second most frequent cause, but are they caused by soft snow, poor judgement, or something else? I'm still digging through the accident reports, but "judgement" is in the lead.

Late spring is considered prime climbing season due to the snow being stable (usually) and the weather more predictable and hospitable. Earlier, the weather is likely to be nasty; later, snow and rocks tend to fall. Late summer is a fairly dangerous time; just hang out and listen to the mountain midday in August: rockslides almost continually.

Avalanche danger is highest when there is a sudden warming of the top layers of snow, especially when they haven't had time to compact. Also, the grade of the slope naturally has an effect, but it most dangerous around 40 degrees (85%): shallower is intuitively safer, but steeper is safer by preventing dangerous buildups.

Thanks for the Mount Hood edits: the article is shaping up nicely. — EncMstr 08:39, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

No hay problema. I appreciate the clarification, and I think we were pretty much saying the same thing. Obviously, only the top layer of the glacier is likely to "soften" very much, barring a St. Helen's type eruption which melted the glaciers in one fell swoop. Aside from that, it's mostly just the recent snowpack that melts, yes? Although global warming (or whatever) has made some of Hood's glaciers recede over the years. And in looking through Grauer's list of accidents, most of them are due to misfortune or carelessness of some kind. It's also fairly clear why May is considered the optimal time to climb, at Everest for example: The worst of winter is over, and hopefully the surface is still firm, though it can be chancy. But climbing Hood's north slope in December, apparently without having watched The Weather Channel first, is practically suicidal. It will be a miracle if they find those guys alive. As I told one of the other editors, Mt. Hood, like many mountains, is both beautiful and sinister, which is part of the reason mountains were thought of as being like the mythological gods, with human-like moods and whimsies. Wahkeenah 14:12, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

In the Mount St. Helens eruption news coverage, I think I remember seeing large chunks of glacier floating down the rivers, like so many icebergs. Certainly lava and ash flowing into a glacier will vaporize and melt it on contact, but the always-present running water under a glacier will increase dramatically and "lubricate" glacial movement. Perhaps the acceleration or impacts with terrain will break it up and give it a fluid appearance.

Jon Krakauer, the author of Into Thin Air, clearly explained how would-be Everest climbers wait for the weather window in May: the jet stream shifts from too far south to too far north which transforms Everest's weather from artic to monsoon. During the transition, there's calm air and good climbing. Logically, there should be another one in the fall, but no one appears to climb then.

Both my near-death experiences have been due to "impressive" mountain weather, once near Mirror Lake, the other near Mount Jefferson. Besides a weather forecast (which always has some error), it would be good to always be thinking about what to do in case of an instant whiteout. At least have a direct compass heading and GPS programmed to the parking lot and the nearest chairlift. Judging by their equipment list revealed today, I'm guessing they will be found tomorrow, alive, when the weather breaks. Hope so anyway. — EncMstr 02:49, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Interesting info. Seems like you know about these matters first-hand. Yes, after that news today, indicating they are well-equipped, their chances of survival appear to be much better than previously supposed. However, the entire Northwest has been pounded by this storm, and these three guys will have to move down the priority list. But what a story they'll be able to tell, if they survive... and they'll need to write a best-seller, to make restitution for all the rescue attempts. Wahkeenah 04:09, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

ISBN formatting use

ISBNs should be thirteen characters long (until the end of 2006) - according to the standard: nine digits, three dashes or spaces and one check digit than can be a digit or X. However wiki magic that makes ISBNs linkable will not work with spaces so we have to use the dash or close the characters up. Therefore I remove ":"s between the "ISBN" and the "number", and hyphenate the ISBN according to the rules published by the International ISBN Agency. This means:

Wikimagic will now work
The ISBN is correctly formatted
Language area and publisher can be told from the ISBN together with other hints.

At the same time I flag any invalid ISBNs, there are currently over 1600 articles in this category. Rich Farmbrough, 20:31 16 December 2006 (GMT).

Ah, I see: SmackBot's formatting can be interpreted to mean that the ISBN was validated to some degree. I enter ISBNs as an unpunctuated string of digits mostly because my primary source of them—Amazon.com—shows them that way. That's a lot of erroneous ISBNs—and that's just those easy to identify! Maybe I'll look for some interesting articles to fix.... Thanks. — EncMstr 23:10, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Hello, EncMstr and Rich! I just came in the middle of this conversation, but I assume it's clear that going through articles just to add hyphenation is not really worth it. SmackBot does it for free, and lately, it seems to come around every ten minutes :-). The real excitement (in my opinion) comes from fixing the *invalid* ISBNs, which are in the articles listed in Category:Articles with invalid ISBNs. Amazon's ISBNs aren't really erroneous without the hyphens, and it's not a big problem if people just enter them that way. EdJohnston 16:49, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

I figured it wasn't a big deal, but whenever my edits are immediately changed, I feel as though I should learn something from it. But since wikimedia's ISBN keyword appears to strip punctuation, I was curious what purpose they served. I guess it's like most country's phone numbers: they're universally written with punctuation, but the phone systems have no use for hyphens, dots, parenthesis, etc., yet humans insist on them. — EncMstr 17:46, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I think that's a good analogy. Some people in the book industry may actually recognize the publisher codes, the way we recognize US telephone area codes. Without the hyphens it would be very hard to see or recognize the publisher codes. EdJohnston 04:15, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

HTML Classes

Related Articles