User talk:Ruhrfisch/Archive1

Welcome!

Hello, Ruhrfisch/Archive1, 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:

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 need help, check out Wikipedia:Where to ask a question, ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. Again, welcome!

Verses

Hiya,

you recently voted to merge per Uncle G at Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Matthew 1:verses

however, that VfD concerned only the verses from Matthew 1, wheras Uncle G's proposal covered a much larger group of verses.

would you be prepared to make a similar vote at Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Individual Bible verses, which covers the full list of verses in Uncle G's suggestion?

~~~~ 9 July 2005 15:23 (UTC)

Welcome

Just wanted to drop you a note giving you a welcome, as I see you were rather rudely accused on a VFD. Even if there is some reason to believe you a sockpuppet (which I'm not convinced of), I'm definitely in favor of Wikipedia:Assume good faith and Wikipedia:Please don't bite the newcomers, and thought I'd let you know that there are plenty of us who feel that way. If you have the credentials you claim on your userpage (and I'm trusting you do), I think you'll be able to contribute in a number of important ways here. Drop me a note on my talk page if you ever want my advice, help, or just a sounding board...stepping into editing around here isn't always very easy. :-) Best regards, Jwrosenzweig 05:06, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

Regarding the images, I think you've done a fantastic job! I think the clarity of your note is important -- making the distinction between the pd source of the maps themselves and the GFDL release of your modifications. They're an excellent enhancement of the articles, and I wish you luck in completing the task. Thanks so much for keeping at it (especially when, as noted above, your welcome here was a bit iffy) -- I appreciate your work very much, Jwrosenzweig 23:23, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

Hi again. :-) It's a shame nobody else comes by to chat with you, but I guess it makes it easy for me to just keep adding to this conversation. :-) Go back to Steamtown National Historic Site and check again -- I think you'll find I fixed the problem. Look at the diff of my edit to see what I did. Basically, anything you put after the pipe in a piped category link is the title the category uses for sorting. For example, if I wanted the Geoffrey Chaucer article to be sorted under "C" instead of "G" (which the category sorting would normally choose), I'd put [[Category:Cool English poets|Chaucer, Geoffrey]]. Hope that helps -- if I'm being confusing, let me know and I'll try a different expplanation.

Re: the Commons, I'm afraid I've done absolutely nothing with the Commons, so I can't be of any help there. Sorry! I'd suggest either asking someone you've met who you've seen uploading to Commons, or else trying a note at Wikipedia:Help desk, which I've seen used by plenty of established users when they're trying something they're not used to. Best of luck! Jwrosenzweig 20:34, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

We meet again

I'm sorry to see that no one else has taken the time to chat with you or work with you--I'm consistently impressed by your work, and very much appreciate your happy demeanor. I am sure it must seem faint praise since I so rarely post here, but in my opinion you're one of the people here who keeps me coming back, and I'm happy to help with the Larrys Creek article.

Here are some thoughts. First of all, you're very thorough, but the article isn't in complete compliance with the guidelines at Wikipedia:Citing_sources. I think that, if it was, certainly it would be eligible for the list of Wikipedia:Good articles, and at least some of the watersheds you work on would be good candidates for featured article status. I'd encourage you to give a references section a shot.

I like the general flow (no pun intended) of the article: if this is the structure you'll adopt in the future, I think it works well. It does leave the lead section a little thin, but I can't think of what to do for that. Perhaps more notable historical events that will be dealt with at length later in the article can be "previewed" or alluded to in that first paragraph? I think that would be good.

I hate to criticize the map, which must have been hours of work, but I think it may be too large. So many colors are on the map that the suggestion of "lilac" didn't work for me...I initially assumed that Lycoming Creek was Larrys Creek. Is it possible to narrow the scope of the map down to a smaller number of watersheds, so that you're only making use of a small group of colors: say, the ROYGBIV of the rainbow? I'd find those colors much easier to distinguish, especially at thumbnail level. If you would really rather stick with the map essentially as is, I'd consider a more careful and lengthy caption for the map to help the color-challenged identify where Larrys Creek is.

A note more generally about location is that, if I am unfamiliar with Pennsylvania geography (and I am), the article at present doesn't orient me very well. It may be galling for a Pennsylvanian to have to place a location in terms of its distance and direction from Pittsburgh or Philadelphia, but I think it would benefit the article. Failing that, perhaps the margin of the map could indicate with an arrow and a note the direction and distance to a city recognizable to the average non-Pennsylvanian.

I am sure that I am being too nit-picky with much of this, but I thought I'd give you a detailed critique and let you decide what to do. Honestly, it's remarkably good as it is, and if you changed none of it I would still call it an example of good, solid Wikipedia writing. Best of luck with it, and please tell me if I can ever help on another article in the series--I don't collaborate with many folks anymore, and I miss it. All my best, Jwrosenzweig 05:03, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Tiadaghton State Forest Map

According to the data produced by the DCNR in 2004, the holdings in the NE portion of Lycoming county are part of Loyalsock/Wyoming SF. Based on my experience with the naming on PA-DOT maps, I am assuming their map is wrong or out of date. Even the DCNR map up on the web may be out of date. The date in the lower left corner looks to be 5/98, but is too fuzzy to be sure. I suspect the PA DOF may have transferred some holdings from one district to another since the date of that map. I am not sure about that though. --Ray 12:46, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Of course the GIS data the DCNR produced in 2004 could also be wrong. I will email them about the differences between that data and the PA DOT and older DCNR maps. I also want to ask about the name change between Loyalsock/Wyoming. --Ray 12:19, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

re:Steamtown National Historic Site Protected Area Info Box

I placed the message box on the dicussion page to tie all these related artilces together. Eventually I would have gotten around to adding the infox, but with over 1,000 articles in need of it, the messagebox is one way to notify folks that the article lacks an infobox...so thank you for adding it. To do the infoboxes, I have to bring up several browers pages at once. If you go to the project page for protected areas, a link to the IUCN website is available...simply link this [1] and click search for sites, then the country and then the designation of the site...once you click on the particular site, a green tab will appear on the right, clicking that opens a new window and most of the sites listed will at least have the coordinates and the land area in hectares, and usually has the IUCN designation as well. More recent parks and protected areas are not listed on the IUCN website. I use Google converter to convert hectareas into acres and square kilometers. If you open a U.S. Government website, sometimes (but not always) you can query "stats" or visitation or acreage in their search window...but this works about 50% of the time. Aside from full National Parks and more popular historical sites, visitation is simply not recored...this is especially true with Wildernesses and National Forests. In answer to your query about the locator dot, just do the best you can. I don't think the template is designed to use coordinates for the methodology to pinpoint the dot, as Alaska and Hawaii are not in the actual location as they would be on a globe, instead simply being on insets. Also, if you have trouble locating the coordinates of some areas in the U.S. figure the absolutely closest hamlet or town and bring up the topozone website....do a search of that location and apply the tabs on the left side of the topographic map to help you determine deg/min/sec...let me know if there is anything I can do to help.--MONGO 09:25, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

I queried the info about facts for Steamtown and here they are...[2]. Happy editing!--MONGO 09:29, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes, good job...some of those IUCN categories overlap. I have found that most of the areas that are not wilderness, actual parks or national forests are III or V...with those with III status being more likely to be nature oriented and those with V status being more history oriented...but since they do not list every area, we can just do our best to identify them. Most national wildlife refuges are IV, wilderness Ib, national forests are VI and so on. Also, be careful to cross reference when in doubt about areas that listed in the IUCN database, as I have found their acreage to be off, as well as the creation date (they usually have the year correct, but not the month and day). Anyway, keep up the good work.--MONGO 13:18, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Speedy deletion

I noticed that you tagged the page Image:Park locmap warriorspath.jpg for speedy deletion with the reason "Image is from the State of Pennsylvania, not the US Government. See source cited below". However, "Image is from the State of Pennsylvania, not the US Government. See source cited below" is not currently one of our criteria for speedy deletion, so I have removed the speedy deletion tag. You can use one of our other deletion processes, Wikipedia:Images and media for deletion if you still want the article to be deleted. If you think the image may be unfree, tag it with {{PUI}} and list it at Wikipedia:Possibly unfree images. Thanks! Stifle 01:07, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

F. Nelson Blount

Ruhrfisch: Thank you for your interest in F. Nelson Blount. I'm writing a trivia book on Southern New England and stumbled upon Mr. Blount's bio when researching Edaville Railroad in South Carver, Massachusetts. Two question marks for Mr. Blount's his age were found in the Wikipedia article on him, so I amended the gap. I forgot which source I used. Not many articles on Blount exist on the internet. I would suggest you contact the town of South Carver, Massachusetts for the information you want. Thank you for contacting me.

Glenn

Hi. I don't know where you live in the Northeast, but the SAILS network [3] has 5 copies of the Adair book available at Fairhaven-Millicent, Middleborough Public Library, Hurley Library - Mass Maritime Academy, Raynham Library, and Wareham Free Library. These are in Massachusetts. Good luck with the research.

Glenn

You're welcome :-)

And I'm glad it made it to GA status -- keep up the fine work, and please let me know if ever I can again be of assistance! Incidentally, I'm pleased to see a few others have found your talk page too...you must be starting to make a name for yourself. :-) Best wishes, Jwrosenzweig 04:55, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

By the way, if administrator status is ever something you want (and while it has many headaches, it does make a few tasks easier), please let me know, as I will happily nominate you -- you're pleasant, hard-working, and intelligent, and we need to encourage editors to be more like that. :-) I'd caution that the community's standards have of late run to demanding ridiculously high numbers of edits before some will approve (2000-3000 for some people), but many of us are wise enough (I think) to evaluate on a case-by-case basis. :-) Let me know if you're ever interested. Jwrosenzweig 05:01, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Kilometers/miles

I've responded on Talk:Larrys_Creek. Happy editing! Matt Yeager ♫ (Talk?) 06:03, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Answers to questions

Vandals can be reported at a particular page whose name has changed since I last used it. :-) Go to the admin's noticeboard WP:AN and look at links etc. there, since I know it's not more than two clicks away from that page. Sorry I can't recall. WP:AN is a good page to glance at now and then, especially if you'd consider being an admin someday, just to get a sense of the kinds of issues going on around the pedia.

Edit vanity stuff (which I find fun as well) can be done with various tools designed for such things. There are always links to such tools at WP:RFA as they're often needed for admin candidates...click on one of those links, and then replace the admin candidate's username in the URL with yours and reload the page to get your stats. There may be a list at a page like Wikipedia:Tools but I haven't snooped around for one in a while.

Sorry I'm not of more help, but I hope this is a way to get started. :-) Jwrosenzweig 05:54, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

12.177.48.100 report on WP:RFI / re:questions

Because school IPs can be used by many different people, they are generally not blocked unless the vandalism is very bad and/or recent. If you spot vandalism in progress, you can warn them and then report to WP:AIV for a block. There is a guide to cleaning up vandalism at WP:CUV. I'd be interested to hear any feedback on how good (or not!) that is. Please do let me know how that can be improved (I've been doing some work on it, to make it a quick guide for people who have spotted vandalism and want to know what to do). Cheers, Petros471 14:52, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply and sorry for the ungainly headline. I understand the lack of block better and looked over WP:CUV. It seems fine - very thorough. I had already reverted all the vandalism I found from this IP address that had not already been caught, but I have not checked every edit they did. I will mention that I almost never do RC patrol, but I have a lot of pages on my watchlist that are not very often edited (so even though I am not on all the time, I catch some vandalism that way, including this IP address). One idea I have had is to make every page watched by someone - no orphans (in another sense of the word - I watch almost every PA county, for example). Not sure how practical it is - I think it would only work for articles that are not frequently edited. Anyway, thanks again, Ruhrfisch 00:47, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Don't worry about the headline- I usually use a "x report on RFI" format when replying from there, and the questions bit I added on was a reply from seeing replies to your talk page above. Thanks for taking a look at WP:CUV, glad it looks ok. No problem about not doing RC patrol- quite a lot of people do that, but it is also essential to have people watchlisting articles they know something about to check for false information and any vandalism that slipped through RC. There is a page called Special:Unwatched pages, which automatically lists all pages that have no-one watching them. It is only available to admins to prevent vandals abusing it. Petros471 15:24, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Hi Ruhrfisch. Please note that I've archived or removed your recent request for investigation. That page is only for very specific cases, as described by the page's guidelines. Your alert would be better placed on Administrator intervention against vandalism (WP:AIV), where it will usually be processed within minutes. Many alerts that are incorrectly placed on Requests for investigation are never dealt with, simply because they become old before an administrator gets to them. Thanks for your efforts. :) // [admin] Pathoschild (^talk/_map) 09:15, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Re:Congrats and followup

Aye, Pathos does tend to archive reports rather quicker than I do :)

We're continually working towards making the guidelines clearer- the thing is that they tend to mean different things to different people! Personally I don't think there was anything particularly wrong about reporting what you did there, generally RFI is for investigation of past (but recent) vandalism or watching for future vandalism. Very few blocks get used as a result of RFI reports. WP:AIV is for reporting users that need a block now, and as long as they have carried out recent vandalism after warnings they will usually get a block.

1) Flowchart idea is interesting, but it would need someone to be willing to do it... I'm working on the basic guidelines and WP:CUV for the moment. Also there is the danger of having too many instructions in too many places.

2) Yes, I think repeated warnings can encourage vandalism. I haven't issued any blocks yet as a new admin, but I'll do my best in future to catch them! The problem with school IPs is that the vandalism committed is probably from lots of different people, each only doing it for a short time. Unless they are blocked by User:Hall Monitor (one of our stricter admins!) Petros471 18:52, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Sullivan County railroads

Bitte schõn. Ich bin Biochemiker im Hauptstudium, obwohl ich nicht mehr in Pennsylvanien wohne. Your article on Larry's Creek is wonderful, by the way. I was going to add rail information for Loyalsock Creek as well, but I hit a snag when I reached Lopez. I have Taber's "Railroads of Pennsylvania Encyclopedia and Atlas," and the maps are, unfortunately, atrocious. His description of the route of the Jennings Bros. lumber railroad and the Stony Brook Lumber Co. (which used part of the Jennings Bros. roadbed) are rather vague and I'm having trouble establishing correspondence with the rail grades shown on topo maps, with a line running up the Loyalsock to Shumans Lake and then up Cold Run and curving round to Bellasylva, as well as a spur up Santee Run. Do you have access to the Taber-Kline-Casler series on "Logging Railroads of Pennsylvania"? That might have somewhat better maps and clear up the question. Choess 23:17, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

You *are* a blessing. After going over the scraps in "Railroads of Pennsylvania," and "Kester's History of Bellasylva" [4], I'm inclined to declare that the line out to Schmitthemmer Lake is probably the original Jennings Bros. lumber RR, and the spur running north to Crane Swamp and Briskey Mtn. was Stony Brook Lumber. I'll add the info to Loyalsock Creek in a day or so. By the way, if you ever need lookups from "Railroads of Pennsylvania" or "Muncy Valley Lifeline," let me know — I have copies on hand in my apartment. Of interest to you, perhaps, are two "paper railroads" proposed for Larry's Creek: the Larry's Creek Railroad and Coal Company, incorporated June 24, 1839 to hold 2000 acres and operate up to seven miles of railroad from the mouth of the creek to the coal mines, and the Jersey Shore, Pine Creek & State Line RR, incorporated on April 11, 1853 to run from Jersey Shore up Pine Creek to Tioga or Long Run, and thence to the state line, and charter amended April 4, 1854 to run up 3rd Fork Pine Creek and Crooked Creek to the Tioga RR, and March 26, 1856 to run up 1st Fork Pine Creek to the Larrys Creek Plank Road and up Block House Fork to Blossburg. It was still corporately alive in 1865, but the charter of the Jersey Shore, Pine Creek & Buffalo Ry. in 1870 (NYC-Reading interests) superceded it. Hope you find this interesting, Choess 00:20, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Yes, actually I suppose I would like to see a scan, if that's not too much trouble. I may actually have a hand-drawn copy of the map in question, but I'll have to sort through The Place Where Papers Go To Die next time I'm home in Pennsylvania to find it. My email address is my user name @stwing.org. The information above is from Taber, citation as follows: Taber, Thomas T., III (1987). Railroads of Pennsylvania Encyclopedia and Atlas. Thomas T. Taber III. ISBN 0-9603398-5-x.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) Auf wiedersprechen, Choess 19:08, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Danke sehr! The kindness is much appreciated, and this clears things up: it looks like at least part of the line towards Crane Swamp was Jennings Bros. first. The history of Bellasylva linked above speaks of "Carter" mortgaging his farm to build a logging line to Crane Swamp, and that it cost him $7,000/mile where Jennings Bros. had paid $1,000/mile. He eventually lost big and shot himself. Presumably he was the prime mover behind Stony Brook Lumber. I've written an article on the Elmira and Lake Ontario Railroad, which encompasses some paper schemes on Pine Creek, and I'm planning to write up the NYC line down Pine Creek, but I'm waiting to clear up some points on the connecting Beech Creek Railroad first. I'm afraid I don't know much about copyright, and can't make a definitive statement on the legality of copying Taber's pictures. Tchüβ, Choess 02:30, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Kupfergraben

I refer to your recent edit of the Neues Museum article. What is Kupfergraben? I hope you can translate that into English. The previous translation was copper ditch which doesn't make much sense as well. Who would make a drain from copper? Anyway, thanks for improving the article. Wai Hong 03:35, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for translating the Neues Museum Article. Keep up the good work! Wai Hong 06:14, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Why will SmackBot's edits not hide

First off, I must apologize for not being a robot. I don't know if humans are supposed to leave messages for bots or not. When I click "hide bot edits" while going through my watchlist, all bot edits except yours are hidden. Why is that? It wouldn't be a big deal, but I have so many geographical pages on my watchlist that it makes it really hard to read if these edits can't be excluded. Thanks, Smacky. You're the best.--Hraefen 15:47, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

- I am also greatly appreciative of all SmackBot does, but I also have a large number of geographical pages changed by it and had the same question (i.e. why are SmackBot's edits not recognized / flagged as bot edits for my watchlist)? Thanks, Ruhrfisch 18:41, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

It looks like this bot hasn't gotten the bot flag yet. That's why. – Minh Nguyễn (talk, contribs) 21:47, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

This is correct. It got the flag, then we had a crisis about the process, so I relinquished the flag, the process of re-setting it is happening. Rich Farmbrough 18:32 3 June 2006 (UTC).

re: Northumberland County, Pennsylvania edit

I assure you that any changes were purely accidental and I apologize. I didn't realize that changes had been saved, so thanks for catching it. I was mucking around using "Show preview" and I/my computer/something freaked out and chose to save the entry. With minor edit checked, no less. I have started and entry in Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. counties to find out the reasoning for what seems to me to be a redundant presentation of information. Dddstone 03:16, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Janx Jrotum

Thanks for the mnessage. I've indef the sock also. Blnguyen | rant-line 03:17, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Logan County map

Great job on the map for Logan County, Ohio! I've removed the map I created for the article in favor of yours, as yours frankly is much nicer than mine. -- SwissCelt 03:42, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Ohio County Maps

I'd be glad to work with you on any of the county maps. I do intend to produce these maps for all 88 counties and keep them up-tp-date based on official county and municipal maps and census information. However, I anticipate this project taking through at least Septemeber since I am taking summer courses. Let me know what you think and perhaps we can collaborate.

The Northumberland Navbox is more organized

I think I'll try a Few of Those and see what it looks like. Once these are created doesn't it make the City and Township sections Redundant?

Re: Juniata Valley Railroad

I'm working through Category:Unassessed rail transport articles this week, assigning ratings based on the scale described on Wikipedia:WikiProject Trains/Assessment. Some areas for improvement that I spotted include:

Cite your sources in a References section
Add photos of JVRR trains and equipment
Expand the history to include significant dates (date of charter or incorporation, etc.)
Add a map showing the railroad's route in relation to major population centers
List the company's top executives (if there's only been one president or CEO, a short [1 paragraph] bio may be appropriate as can be seen, for example, in Dakota, Minnesota and Eastern Railroad)
List the railroad's interchanges with other railroads
Describe typical operations over the line

I've copied these suggestions to the talk page. Slambo (Speak) 11:04, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Ohio Maps

Greetings!
Thanks very much for creating those Ohio county maps. I'll have to add them to some of my articles. PedanticallySpeaking 16:30, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Redundancy exercises

Hi there—Thanks for the message, and that's a good suggestion about including a whole-paragraph exercise. Could do that for redundancies alone; or could focus on redundancy and another problem (perhaps the use of commas) in a paragraph exercise, on a subsequent page. I'll think it through.

Cheers

Tony 02:30, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

peer review

Thanks for your comments on the peer review page. I'll take them into account :) - CheNuevara 15:07, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

State Forests & Parks

I don't have a template, or even a good example to work with. The article on Forbes was really an experiment on my part. I found it using Special:Random article when it was a tiny stub and I wanted to see if I could write on a topic that I knew absolutely nothing about. I'm sure you noticed that all my material was paraphrased from the DCNR website, and I really understand your frustration with those sites. I dislike redlinks in an article, but I think the best way to handle them is to write an appropriate article and make the redlink turn blue; I definitely plan to devote more time to this. BTW - you're doing great work...keep it up :) --Doc Tropics ^{Message in a bottle} 16:56, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Hi again, sorry it took a while to get back to you. I think that a PA locator map is a really good idea; bound to be more useful than a general U.S. map! It does sound like we have similar attitudes about redlinks which means we could probably stay busy for a while :) --Doc Tropics ^{Message in a bottle} 15:29, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

OK...Wow! The PA State locator map is great! I think it could be used in all PA articles that might benefit from a map, but especially the Parks and Forests. I won't be available much this weekend, but I'll definitely be looking forward to some productive editing when I have time :) --Doc Tropics ^{Message in a bottle} 20:17, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Cookie break

An award to acknowledge your extensive and detailed grasp of the utterly irrelevant :) --Doc Tropics ^{Message in a bottle} 05:13, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for adding to my userpage. Feel free to add a quote of your own. --Doc Tropics ^{Message in a bottle} 05:13, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Larrys Creek

I'm unfamiliar with the area, but your research is impressive. Pepso 16:01, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Ottawa-Glandorf Local School District Information

You said that Titan Tikes Preschool is not part of the school district, but it is part of the school district. To confirm this, check the official webpage: http://og.noacsc.org/ View user