Jump to content

User talk:Flamurai

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 69.243.41.28 (talk) at 08:27, 8 February 2005 (→[[Cannabis rescheduling]]). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Fragmented discussions are annoying, so feel free to reply to messages I post on your talk page on that page. I will watch your talk page until the discussion is resolved. If I don't reply in a timely fashion, I may have unwatched the page. In that case, drop a note here.

See my talk archive for older discussions

Classical music titles

Do you have an example of a single work which has a generic title, a true title, and a nickname? Otherwise, do you have a pair of popular classical works, one with a generic and true title, one with a nickname and true title? - Amgine 02:16, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I don't know if that exists (or at least it's highly uncommon). I doubt there's anything with a nickname and a true title. Usually, only works with generic titles are nicknamed. The generic and true title case happens any time there's something along the lines of, "Overture to La Forza del Destino". — flamuraiº 03:06, Dec 15, 2004 (UTC)
Hmm... I must be miscommunicating. What I was looking for was an example which would be readily understood by non-musical authors. For example, Eine kleine Nachtmusik. Also known as KV 525. And I think its generic name is Serenade No. 13 for strings in G major. I don't think it has a nickname.

- Amgine 03:58, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

In that case, "Eine kleine Nachtmusik" is a nickname. I probably need to reword that section. Any time something has a generic title like symphony, serenade, etc., any title given to as an alternative is really a nickname. The formal title would be: Serenade No. 13 for strings in G major, K. 525 ("Eine kleine Nachtmusik"). The easy way to think about it is any time a title is an alternative to a generic title, it's a nickname and not a true title. As a side note, if you look on Amazon's CD listings, in the "On this CD" section (not the condensed track list), they usually get the titles right... or at least close. This example... — flamuraiº 04:14, Dec 15, 2004 (UTC)

Em dashes

Thanks for the tip on em dashes in Wikipedia. This is different from other style guides I have been used to, but I will be glad to change. Ksnow 09:58, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)Ksnow

No problem. Like I said, there's not really one consistent style. The idea is just stay consistent within the article. I actually flip-flop between the different styles myself... can't settle on one. — [[User:Flamurai|flamuraiTM]] 10:54, Dec 20, 2004 (UTC)

Re: Graphs

Haha, I used a program that I wrote myself in .NET that has nice antialiasing, which is something missing from professional packages like Mathematica, and indeed, Maple. It's not very complete, but I'll let you know if I do any more work on it (I'm a little hesistant to release it publicly at this early stage). Cheers. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Enochlau 09:31, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Sigs

The new version of MediaWiki has changed the way that signatures are rendered, so you need to go to your preferences to stop spurious characters appearing. You can do this by ticking 'Raw signatures' or by removing the [[User:Flamurai| from the beginning of your sig and the ]] from the end. Cheers, Noisy | Talk 20:24, Dec 30, 2004 (UTC)

It should already be fixed. – flamuraiTM 20:26, Dec 30, 2004 (UTC)

Erp. Sorry.

Got at least carried away and overwrote your corrections to the Bernstein page. I know I hate that when it happens to me. I'll stay off when someone's doing needed editing work in future. Sorry 'bout that!! Schissel - bowl listen 05:08, Jan 8, 2005 (UTC)

No problem. The wiki software is on the fritz right now. Not everything is showing up in the page history. – flamuraiTM 05:12, Jan 8, 2005 (UTC)

Super Categories

This category/supcategory thing needs some rethinking. As I see it, the general rule that "if something is in a subcategory, it shouldn't also be in the supercategory" often does not make sense. Sometimes the subcategories mark clear distinctions between things, but sometimes the subcategories are just unimportant attributes imposed on the category. I'll give you some examples that make sense:

Category:Musical theatre has two subcategories; Category:Operettas and Category:Musicals, both of which have all the articles about individual works of Musical theatre. This makes sense because:

  • There is very little overlap between Operattas and Musicals, they are almost distinct categories
  • Most people looking for a list of works would find this distinction helpful.
  • The distinction that makes the subcategory is intrinsic to the category, not just a randomly chosen attribute. For instance, the works could be in subcategories that intead of using Operetta and Musicals could have used the year they were composed. This would not be very helpful for someone looking for a list of musicals.

Category:Musicals has the subcategory Category:Musical films. This is a trickier situation. Some of the articles in Musicals are in both categories. For some titles there are seperate articles for both the movies and the theatre productions. This makes sense because:

  • If Wikipedia were complete there would be seperate articles for both
  • The films almost always come after the theatre productions

An argument could be made for making Musical Films a subcategory of Musical Theatre instead of Musicals but it doesn't really matter.

Some categories do not work so neatly. An example which is really bothersome is Category:Film directors which has the subcategory Category:Film directors by nationality which has 28 subcategories. It does not make sense to have each director only listed in a subcategory by nationality. The nationality of the director is interesting, but not all that important. Some directors start in one country and move to another. I have no problem with there being categories for directors by nationality, but I think ALL of them should also be in the directors category. The reason for this is:

  • Having them in both categories makes it easier to find a director if you know his nationality, and MUCH easier if you don't know his nationality.

Which brings me to bridges. Whether a bridge has a toll or not is not all that important, and the attribute does not instruct the reader to notice something important about bridges. If you want to see the articles about the bridges in New York City, why should you have to look in two places?

The notion that articles should not be listed in categories and subcategories strikes me as an artifact left over from libraries. The beauty of hypertext is that things can be linked many ways, not just organized on shelves. Why can't things be in multiple categories? I'd like to see ALL the bridges in New York State listed in Category:Bridges in New York. This makes it easy to see a list of all the bridges in a geographical region, and also the subregion.

I'd like to open up this discussion to more people. If you noticed, I just made the change for bridges in New York City. I'd like to do it for bridges the rest of the world, film directors and some other categories, but I know I need the consensus of everyone else. Where do you suggest I post this? Thanks, Samuel Wantman

I would suggest Wikipedia talk:Categorization. – flamuraiTM 01:22, Jan 31, 2005 (UTC)


Honestly, I think you should propose this as a software enhancement rather than having editors add things to their supercategories. There should be a way on a category page to list everything in that category and all its subcategories. That would avoid this issue altogether. – flamuraiTM 01:26, Jan 31, 2005 (UTC)
That wouldn't work. Sometimes it makes sense to have things listed only in subcategories (The theatre example above). Sometimes it doesn't (Toll bridges in New York City) Samuel Wantman 01:43, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Conditionals in template

I answered your request on WP:VP. _R_ 12:40, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)

CSS instead of meta-templates

I like your idea. To this affect, I think you should add a section to Wikipedia:Meta-templates considered harmful#Alternatives which highlights your idea. Alphax (t) (c) (e) 07:37, Feb 7, 2005 (UTC)

Cannabis rescheduling

  • A topical comment: The sidebar is huge. I would suggest either restyling it so it's less obtrustive (I can do that if you want me to) or making it a separate article. I haven't found any other major issues with the article on my first read. – flamurai (t) 07:36, Feb 8, 2005 (UTC)
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Flamurai&oldid=10061465"