User talk:Pcpcpc/Archive 1

WikiProject Cricket

Since I've seen you categorising lots of cricket pages, I thought I'd let you know about and invite you to Wikipedia:WikiProject Cricket. Kind regards, jguk 10:42, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I've seen it and I'll sign up. Philip 10:44, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Locale

Hi PcPcPc, where do you live? Are you local? N12345n 22:04, 2005 Jan 4 (UTC)

Local to where? I live in Camden Town. Philip 22:05, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Close to me then, I live in Lower Holloway, near Camden Road. We should have a North London Wikimeet. Edward 22:57, 2005 Jan 4 (UTC)

Well, I live in London E14!! N12345n 23:42, 2005 Jan 4 (UTC)

Euroscepticism terminology

Hi. You added a very interesting note to Pro-European about the rhetorical differences between pro- and anti-EU terminology. I remembered seeing a similar discussion already in the introduction to Euroscepticism, and your comments seemed to fit comfortably there, so I've moved them there and expanded them into a new section called Terminology. Let me know what you think (or just make the changes). Cheers! Wombat 00:17, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC

Copyvios

When marking pages as Copyvios, you have to remove all the material rather than just adding the template. Keep it up in finding em! - Mailer Diablo 14:08, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)

UK health categories

gedday Philip!

I've been creating the the healthcare in XYZ country categories to rationalise the huge and confusing category:healthcare... I understand your concern and I've been working on it this morning... potenially both cats are useful though... strictly I'd view the the healthcare cat as belonging in the health cat... (analogous to having a cat for 'police' within the cat 'justice'). I guess you'd also put articles on mad cow disease and smoking in the UK and the like in category:health in the UK. does that make any sense? best wishes Erich 06:38, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Thanks. Yes, it makes sense to me; "Health" is a slightly broader term than "healthcare", and that is the main reason why I choose it. I also thought that "Healthcare" was marginally an Americanism, not that the word isn't used in the UK. The problem is, I don't think there is much chance that everyone or pretty much everyone will instinctively appreciate the distinction. On the other hand, "Healthcare in X" appears to be a standard Wikipedia category, and "Health in X" does not, and if there is no "Healthcare in the United Kingdom" category, some articles might miss out on being categorised in the UK menu. I'm not very keen on having a subcategory that is likely to contain the bulk of the content of its parent category, but it seems to be the best option. I'll move Healthcare into Health and write a blurb at the top of both pages. However I know lots of people probably don't read them.

It was a big surprise to me that when I discovered Wikipedia that great swathes of UK material - thousands of articles - were not linked to the UK menu, other than through the main United Kingdom article or other indirect routes. Lots of people are doing valuable work, but thinking in terms of their academic subject or personal interest and not cross categorising much. I'm trying to encourage serendipity. I hope lots of people will look at a selection of UK health issues, or UK religious issues, or whatever who would be unlikely to dive into these areas as an "academic subject". That certainly applies to me. And then in two minutes you can find yourself clicking through to articles about subjects you barely knew existed. You mentioned justice categories, and there is a worse problem on the UK menu for that area than this problem with health, but that's not your problem. Philip 07:13, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Dance categorisation

Hi. I've noticed you've gone through the reash of new articles I've created today on contemporary dance (more to come!) and changed their category from 'dance' to 'modern dance'. The thing is "contemporary dance" is not the same as "modern dance"; in brief, the latter is a term used about ballroom (pairs) dancing whereas the former is dance companies and more akin to ballet. I'll go through and adjust them, although given the paucity of dance-related articles currently I do rather feel that sub-categorisation might be a little early in this case. --Vamp:Willow 23:41, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I know. I've created lots of new categories recently, and I only picked up on the correct terminolgy part way through in this case. I created a "modern dance" category for London, but by the time I moved onto the "Performing Arts" category in the main UK menu, I realised that the correct term is contemporary dance as you say. I'm planning to mark a number of categories in the London and UK menus for name changes when I've finished on the UK menu, and this will have to be one of them.

As for subcategorisation, I am looking at it from the UK/London point of view, not from the "dance" point of view. You and the other dance enthusiasts are welcome to structure the dance menu however you see fit. On the other hand, I am trying to create comprehensive menus for London and the UK which link to every relevant article. The categorisation system allows articles to be made accessible from several different directions, and my aim in fleshing out the UK and London menus is to encourage serendipity.

In the meantime, please don't place any UK entries in categories which are only accessible through the dance menu.

Philip 00:21, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Looking at the London menu, I see you've already changed it. Thank you. Philip 00:28, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Wales Cats

You were IMO a little too apologetic for your edit: I regularly do equivalent adjustments, summarizing simply "- redundant cat", on the logic that where "x As" is a subcat of "As", the "x As" suffices to include it indirectly in "As". This is IMO important to relieve clutter that interferes with the usefulness of higher level Cats, and my impression is that future enhancements will provide those who want to see them with alpha lists not just of direct members of a Cat but also of indirect ones (presumably letting the user specify how many levels of indirect inclusion to span).

While i think there was some misunderstanding of this point initially, i've seen little or no reversion of such edits, so (while i have not tried to keep up to date on the documentation) it seems to me to now be well established, and i for would welcome your even bolder application of the general principle that an article may not be tagged with a direct or indirect superCat of any of its Cats. (I think the only significant exception is alphabetizing under * (with the "pipe trick") a single "title" article, a general purpose article -- i suspect the one that also offers the best clarification of the scope of the Cat.)

(I couldn't figure out at first why anyone would accumulate such a quantity of very quick edits so rapidly, but from what i now gather, it looks like you've tackled a huge project that is worth doing, and stuck with it most admirably. Thanks!)
--Jerzy(t) 01:29, 2005 Jan 9 (UTC)

Hi

Meant to drop by and leave a note yesterday but the system was so slow.... Nice to come across another editor interested in Literature topics; you've been showing up on my watchlist a lot making improvements to a number of stubs and articles I started.

Might be useful to know that any new categories you create will show up as red links until you click the link and edit the page (just like any new page, really). It's enough to simply add a higher-level category to the new one to make it show up as a live link from then on. When you thought that Category:Literature in English was non-existent yesterday, it was because it was taking me so long to get around to editing it. Good call removing Category:English literature, by the way. Hope to bump into you again. Best Filiocht 08:27, Jan 11, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks. I know about adding new categories. I must have created more than a hundred by now. But in the last few days the system just hasn't been working properly in this regard as is noted on the Openfacts page. I'm trying to create a full set of subcategories for "British writers" and the software just won't have it. "British writers by nationality" has vanished three times. Philip 17:51, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

excess links

This is a judgement call, of course, but in my ever-so-humble opinion, I think you might turning a few too many words into wiki-links - I'm thinking specifically of "read" in The Two Cultures. I can't imagine that anybody encountering it would be baffled and/or seeking more information about what it means to read. The problem is that sentences with lots of linked words can be hard to read, so I think we need to be cautious about adding them even if there is a Wikipedia article that could be linked to. - DavidWBrooks 22:53, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I'm not aware that I turned any words in that article into wikilinks. My edit was a recategorisation. Philip 22:55, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I've checked and that link has been there since 18 December 2003. Please check your facts before criticising other contributors. This sort of thing doesn't make for happy and industrious editors, which I presume you want.Philip 22:58, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

It was the editor before you on that article who did the "read" link. Noel (talk) 23:42, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Yes, it is my error - the link was added about 14 hours before your edit: I clicked on the wrong name in the Edit History list. I apologize! - DavidWBrooks 03:16, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Edit summaries

Hi, Wikipedia:Edit summary says "Always fill the summary field." (emphasis in the original). Please fill in the Edit Summary when you edit an article, so the rest of us don't have to resort to a "diff" to see what you did. Thanks! Noel (talk) 23:42, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

PS: I don't usually check other User_talk: pages (so that I don't have to monitor a whole long list of User_Talk: pages - one for each person with whom I am having a "conversation"), so please leave any messages for me on my talk page (above); if you leave a message for me here I probably will not see it. I know not everyone uses this style (they would rather keep all the text of a thread in one place), but I simply can't monitor all the User_talk: pages I leave messages on. Thanks!

I'm afraid that is not realistic in my case. I am engaged in a huge project to make the United Kingdom menu a complete set of all relevant articles, or as near as I can get it. I have made thousands of edits in a month - largely doing other people's work for them. I consider this to be a very valuable project, but I am not prepared to make it even more time consuming. I note what my edits are when they are sensitive. Philip 23:50, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

But everyone has a good excuse. Does that mean we all get to leave it blank? If not, why do you expect a special dispensation? How about keeping a suitable message pre-typed somwhere, and cut-and-paste it in every time? Noel (talk) 02:49, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I usually tick the "minor edit" box for minor edits. I may have forgotten a few times because I am fallible like anyone else. I do provide good edit summaries where appropriate; in fact I have made 23 in the last 24 hours. On numerous occasions I have had to prune them to make them fit within the 30 word or so limit. I think I am actually well above average among Wikipedians in this regards. "Minor edit" really is enough of a description for a minor edit, and the page you linked to merely says that providing further details for minor edits would be, "nice even then". Well I agree, but I don't have infinite time, and I am hardly alone in not doing it - and I am making more edits than almost anyone at the moment, so I have more time to lose.

I will try extra hard to make sure that I never omit to follow these practices, but I am not going to change them. Philip 03:18, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

British Library, Add. MS 5111. 7th century Gospel Book fragment

Hi, you recently commented on the VfD for British Library, Add. MS 5111. 7th century Gospel Book fragment, which, as you may recall, was listed for having an "ugly" name. That listing has prompted me to write a proposal for a naming convention for articles about manuscripts without names. The proposal can be found here. Any comments you would like to make would be appreciated. Thank you. Dsmdgold 10:47, Jan 12, 2005 (UTC)

Diarists categories

Could you please explain why you tried to get the category British diarists deleted? I created it as part of my project to create an overall menu for Literature of the United Kingdom. I've out a huge amount of effort into this, and I would have made more progress if the performance of the system wasn't so awful this week. The category was linked upwards all along (unless the software was malfunctioning) and it is obviously a legitimate category. It also has a subcategory. What harm did you think it could do to Wikipedia? Philip 10:21, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Primarily because Category:British diarists and Category:English diarists are parented to each other and very severely underpopulated, and the List of diarists page doesn't offer much hope of it growing. I also believe that sub-categorizing for it's own sake is harmful. I imagine that if I was reading an article on a British diarist, I might want to use the category to see more, but the diarist connection is a very loose one – even moreso, a grouping of them by nationality. I don't see the point in sending a reader to a subcategory two levels below Category:Diarists when that sub-category contains only 3-4 articles.

Why not add country information to List of diarists, and link to that page from Category:Diarists? -- Netoholic @ 16:00, 2005 Jan 14 (UTC)

I don't like the list system. I think it represents an early stage in the evolution of Wikipedia. The category system is a much more powerful tool for dealing with the expansion of Wikipedia. It is policy that multiple organisation methods can run in parallel. You can work on lists if you want to, I am putting massive effort into categorisation. Please get on with what you want to do and don't denigrate my efforts to improve Wikipedia in my way. There will be dozens of people in the diarists categories eventually. Philip 19:02, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I mean no denegration, only to express my opinion that your categorization scheme is flawed from many perspectives. Can you please show me where this project is being initiate from? I checked Wikipedia:Categorization, and could not find a reference to this on any related pages. -- Netoholic @ 19:13, 2005 Jan 14 (UTC)

If you don't like the category system, continue to ignore it, but please don't try to vandalise the efforts of those of us who prefer it Philip 19:18, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I absolutely like the categorization system, and work often to make it more useful. I don't find "sub-occupation by nationality" particularly helpful. If we were talking about Samuel Pepys, I would say that using Category:English writers and Category:Diarists are just about as detailed as you need to be. Both would be useful for readers, in different contexts. By using Category:English diarists, you bury the connection to other similar articles too deeply.

Please do not use the phrase "vandalism" to describe any part of this - it is inaccurate, and hurtful.

Now, I'll be happy to discuss this wherever the categorization scheme you're using was devised, if you'll point me to that page. -- Netoholic @ 20:06, 2005 Jan 14 (UTC)

I support User:Pcpcpc - this is clearly a work in progress and we should let him and others develop it. Nationality+Occupation categories are becoming standard, and we should balance considerations of how many articles will end up there with how well they describe content. As for the reader having to navigate another level, the category browsing interface can only get better - we shouldn't compromise good categorisation just because the current version is poor. Jihg 16:34, Jan 14, 2005 (UTC)

Can you please provide me a link to where this categorization scheme has been described? -- Netoholic @ 19:13, 2005 Jan 14 (UTC)

What on earth do you mean? I have created at least a hundred categories and this is the first time I've been attacked for it. You tell me what policies I am breaking Philip 19:16, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)

From Wikipedia:Categorization: "Questions to ask to know if a category is the appropriate tool: Is it possible to write a few paragraphs or more on the subject of a category, explaining it? If you go to the article from the category, will it be obvious why it's there? Is the category subject prominently discussed in the article? If the answer to either of these questions is no, then a category is probably inappropriate." Please do not take this as an attack, but I do challenge your reasons, and hope we can do it calmly. -- Netoholic @ 20:12, 2005 Jan 14 (UTC)

That is not a prohibition. In any case, an article could be written - perhaps you could do it. There are plenty of categories with no summary article. It is a silly guideline, but it is only a guideline, so it is innocuous. Could you now please quit trying to undermine my efforts? It must be obvious by now that you are not going to change my mind, and I think it is absurd that you want to. If you don't like the category system, just ignore it. However, I expect it is found useful by tens if not hundreds of thousands of readers every day. I will now remove your speedy deletion requests as the categories are populated so the criteria do not apply. All you have done is use up time which I could have spent improving Wikipedia.Philip 20:21, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Some relevant guidelines can be found here. It says "assume the newly created category is not problematic", and lists some pitfalls, none of which apply here. Jihg 22:04, Jan 14, 2005 (UTC)

Re: Dakota, Minnesota and Eastern Railroad

Looks like your hunch about the inaccuracy of the "largest new construction" was correct after all. I found a more reliable reference today (Trains Magazine, February 2002) that shortens the time frame for this claim to the completion of the Milwaukee Road's Pacific extension in 1909. I've updated the article accordingly and added the reference to the page. slambo 00:50, Jan 20, 2005 (UTC)