User talk:Droll

Archive

Robert Service revamp
Yeah, sounds great. Leave me a message when you finish of all the things you want me to delete.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 03:34, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Gadsby and copyvio tag
I have received your message. You are welcome. Next time, please add to any article that you believe to a possible copyright violation in addition to adding to Possible copyright violations for better coordination. While articles should normally be emptied when added, sometimes I don't when the article may be GFDL-incompactible, such as with non-commercial license only.--Jusjih 14:20, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Author talk:Robert W. Service
Hi, I've just responded at the talk page & on the wikipedia page W:Talk:Robert W. Service. AllanHainey 10:51, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Saki
Thanks for fixing my page. I'm a total newbie and just trying to get my bearings on here. And I LOVE Saki, so I had to make sure he's got stuff on WikiSource. Russia Moore

Wikipedia Sister Projects template
Hi Droll, Don't know if you'd seen it but W:User:Amgine was soliciting for info on the sister projects dispute to take to the Communications Committee weekly meeting. I left her some info on her talk page but she's asked "Could you direct me to the discussion on Wikisource where the decision was made regarding the Wikisource slogan and description." I think this was before I got involved in wikisource but you've referred to it in the discussions on the wikipedia sister projects talk page so I was wondering if you could let me know where/when this discussion/decision was made & I'll pass it on. You may care to let her know your thoughts too. Thanks AllanHainey 11:25, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I've just realised I've left this message for the wrong person. It was meant for User:Dovi. My silly mistake. AllanHainey 15:42, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Mass of pages
No, that's perfectly fine. All those redirects were results of good housecleaning, so it's great that there were tons of redirects to delete (it means a lot of work was put into improving all those pages). And they're really not that much of a bother to delete; it just takes a few minutes to do.

Chapter template
It's fine with me if you correct those pages. You might want to let Pathoschild know, though, so you and his bot don't conflict with each other if Pathoschild decides to work on those pages as well. Good luck!—Zhaladshar (Talk) 21:07, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
 * The thing is, I don't (and I'm sure Pathoschild doesn't either) keep track of works that people create, especially when the pages created were done months ago. And (at least I) don't go checking the history because when the amount of changes needed to make are large, checking each page's history takes a lot of time.


 * I apologize if you're unhappy about a mass load of pages being changed (especially ones you primarily contributed), but it was quite known that the changes were going to happen sometime soon, it's just a question of when. You could have initiated the changes yourself, but since these changes have been stagnant for some time, Pathoschild and myself decided to just finish this part off.


 * If there's anything I can do to help, just leave me a message.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 21:15, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Okay. I added the "section=" parameter just because it's standard to add what chapter the template's included on, even though it does appear in the work. It just makes the information contained in the template a bit more complete.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 21:43, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Little Women
Hi, Droll,

I noticed you've worked on Little Women. Tomorrow I'm going back through those pages and I'm standardizing the use of the header template. Specifically, I'm changing: Please note that this is standard usage of the header template and is used site-wide. If you disagree with the changes, it should be brought up at the Scriptorium, as any changes or deviations should be on a site-wide basis, not just on a few select works. Thanks.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 03:56, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
 * 1) I'm adding all the parameters back, even the ones that are not used on that page
 * 2) I'm changing the &larr and &rarr to the actual arrow characters
 * 3) I'm readding the section titles to the "section" parameters
 * I have no desire to act alone. That's why I messaged you first.  I also have no desire to turn you off of this project.  You've done fantastic work (like on the author pages) and it would be a shame if you left.


 * That said, I get the feeling (from many previous discussions) that you feel that somehow, because you uploaded a text, you get the final say as to how that text will be editted/formatted. That if you don't like the edit, you can revert it to a version that you do like.  Please note, though, than on a free, open wiki (such as this, or WP, or WB, etc.) that is not the case.  It is almost to be expected that if a work is uploaded here, other people will edit it to fit a higher standard of rigor.  Such editing is not to be taken personally, for it is not meant to be personal; all it means is that editors feel it can be better.  This is the case over at WP and all of our other sister projects, and it is also the case here.  The questions to ask when a person makes a change to "your works" are: "How do these changes improve the quality/presentation/ability for people to edit this page?  How do these changes bring the page into a more conforming version to all the other pages on WS?"


 * I'm willing to open a discussion on the Scriptorium if that's what you want. I do not think it's necessary, but if that's the only course, then so be it.  When I use the term "standard" I'm not referring to a policy (there is very little written in the policy regarding the use of header) but how all the other hundreds and hundreds of pages use the template.  Since the purpose of the template was to standardize pages site-wide, the purpose is defeated if small portions of pages deviate from the rest.  They should all appear one way or the other.


 * I'm willing to give on adding information to the "section" parameter, even though I see no reason why that shouldn't be the case, even if the text itself has the chapter title. Just as you think it's a courtesy to have a bottom navigation, I think it's a courtesy to add information to that parameter.


 * With the &rarr and &larr symbols, you need to get a better python script, upgrade the script, or use your current text editor with something like Babelpad so that the actual symbols can be used. Just as no one uses &uuml to add an umlaut over a "u" or &ecirc to add a circumflex over an "e," there's no reason to use any of those symbols if the WikiMedia software will allow them to be directly added.  Plus, those symbols aren't exactly widely known as to what they will print out on the screen.  A user who edits a page and sees those (more than likely) won't have any idea what it will show.  If the actual arrow is used, they will know exactly what will be shown on the screen—a left-pointing or right-pointing arrow.  The thing is, is that this kind of mark up is becoming obsolete as software is being upgraded to allow for direct input of the characters themselves, and I think we should move in that direction ourselves.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 14:55, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry if you feel like your contributions are being singled out. I assure you that in my case (and I feel safe in saying most everyone else's) this is not the case. Like I said, I don't even pay attention to who originally contributed what. My method for converting to the header standard was just to start at Authors-A and work myself down. After a few authors, I got to Louisa May Alcott, whose works had yet to be converted. So I began moving them over to the standard, and it just happens to be the case that you uploaded Little Women. Before you left a message on my talk page, I had no idea that you contributed that work. My guess is not that you're being targeted, but that the works you uploaded you did before we had our subpages enabled and our header template, so your contributions have a lot of work to be brought in with our new standards. That's just it, though; it's not you, it's not your fault, it's just that you contributed a lot of works before WS had developed some new standards.

I'm sort of in the same boat. I've contributed thousands of poems here, almost none of which are in the header template and will need much work to be brought in with current standards. But none of this should be taken personally; we aren't trying to be malicious.

Regarding filling out the section parameter, I've done some searching on WS and many pages do not include the section information. Let's just leave it; that's fine. However, I am still going to add the missing parameters to the templates on Little Women (even if they aren't used, they shouldn't be absent). If you look on Template talk:Header there is an order to how the parameters are displayed which we've all emulated. On my monobook there is a script that automatically inserts the template into the page (on the edit screen there will be a button on the top of the editing text box that you click to insert it). You're more than welcome to copy it on your monobook.js.

Personally, I don't think HideIfEmpty is that much of a resource drain for WS. Pathoschild came from WP initially, and with the sheer amount of traffic, and the fact that Wikimedia servers can barely keep up, having templates using conditional parameters would be horrid. Here, though, I've never seen the problem, and hence CSN devised the author template using them. I personally think it would be better to use something like that on header, but I'm not going to fight for that.

And lastly, yes, the HTML code appears the same on the screen. But when you go to the text edit screen, you get some really ugly code (especially if the work contains a lot of foreign words or if the special characters displayed are from virtually unknown alphabets, so it's better to allow the editor to actually see as closely as possible on the edit screen exactly what will be displayed on the article page. It's a lot less confusing that way.  I used to use the HTML codes when I first joined, and it was always a pain to have to go look up a particular code for an "a" with a ring on it.  (Also, I believe I read somewhere—can't remember where—that directly inputting the characters was no longer a problem with the software.)

I hope you are not turned off on the project and come back after your wikivacation.—Zhaladshar (Talk) 19:52, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Proposal to reorder parameters
Hello Droll. Please note that I've begun a discussion at the Scriptorium concerning your suggestion that we reorder the parameters; see "Reorder parameters in  ". Thanks. // Pathoschild (admin / talk) 22:49, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Moving Your Files to Wikimedia Commons
Hello !

First, thank you for your contributions to Wikisource. Any contributions are always very much appreciated. While searching around, I noticed that you have some files that you uploaded to Wikisource that would probably serve the community better if it was on Wikimedia Commons, a media file repository. You can view your files to see which ones I'm referring to. See the Image Guidelines for more information.

Why should you do this?

As an example, let's pretend you extracted a hard-to-find image from a book written in 1870. If you upload it to Wikisource, only Wikisource users can use it. What if a user from Japan is writing an article about a similar topic? If your file is on Wikisource, it's unlikely he'll find it, and if he's lucky enough to find it, he still won't be able to use it easily. However, if you uploaded it to Commons, it's much more likely he'll find it and be able to use it. (Files hosted on Commons are accessible from any sister project) The same goes for any PDF or DJVU files you upload as well.


 * Upload a file to Wikimedia Commons
 * Wikimedia Commons Welcome Page
 * A guide to contributing content to Wikimedia Commons

Note: To "move" a page from Wikisource to Commons is simple, but somewhat confusing if you don't know how to. First, upload the file to Commons with the same file name as you did here. Add the same information, making sure you put in the correct license. I suggest adding the  template to its Commons page. Then edit the file's page at Wikisource and add the template Now Commons. Soon an administrator will complete the "move" by deleting the Wikisource copy (as it's no longer needed). You don't need to change any tags on Wikisource as they'll automatically point to the new file. Awesome!

If you have any questions or concerns, don't be afraid to ask.

The Haz talk 04:17, 4 February 2014 (UTC)