User talk:Gwern/Archive/1

;o)

I don't know what you are emoticoning (is that the right verb here?) about, but I will choose to take it as a compliment... -- Gwern (contribs) 11:25, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Networking again, eh? Well, keep your chin up! —Preceding unsigned comment added by TRCourage (talk • contribs)

Every edit in this section confuses me more and more... -- Gwern (contribs) 04:39, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Thunderball

The original cafe was featured in the movie which was filmed there on location.

Details about the making of the James Bond film, Thunderball

See also Paradise Island. —Preceding unsigned comment added by A Kiwi (talk • contribs)

Ah, I see. Thanks. -- Gwern (contribs) 14:19, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Panchatantra

Thanks for your careful help in making this a lot tighter. A recent ref for my Renaissance comment (which is not esp today!, and has not been for a very long time, an acceptable idea) was Re-Orienting the Renaissance — Cultural Exchanges with the East, Palgrave MacMilllan, London 2005 There is also considerable material regarding the strong yet heavily Vatican-censored cultural influence on Europe of Arabic Sicily and Spain, but I'd need to dig for it. --Debongu 19:11, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

I have to confess I am a little skeptical with regard to the Brethren being that important. While it is true that they did influence a fair bit of Arabic thought, I don't see the influence affecting the Renaissance, both since none of what I know about the Renaissance has a 'flavor' of the Brethren (except for the Neo-Platonism, which I'm fairly sure was derived from the original texts and not the Brethren's writings), and since the first European mention of them I can see in the article is from what, the 1700s? As for your Vatican comment... possible but something that goes so strongly against conventional wisdom as that does needs to be as heavily cited as the Brethren articles are in general. -- Gwern (contribs) 19:37, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks once again for your recent time and attention in making improvements. I agree with all of them. Buckets of cold water gratefully received whenever I spin out of orbit. Do you know any software or some other unplodding way to generate the ISBN links for recent books in the footnotes that have them, such as already exist (for example) for Nos 25 & 26? --Debongu 10:43, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Hey: I'm not really sure what you mean by that question. If you want to add ISBN information, then there really is no unplodding way besides searching for the book on Amazon or physically looking it up. If you mean the special linking which takes you to Special:Booksources, Mediawiki does that automatically when you have the string "ISBN" followed by a halfway valid ISBN number, hyphenated and all. --Gwern (contribs) 03:51, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Re: Medici bank

Yes, that would be fine. Remember to keep it well sourced. :-). Thanks for participating! Danny 14:28, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Great, thanks! -- Gwern (contribs) 14:29, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

ISBN

Turns out I had been racketing my brain about weane for nothing. Although wane is no less correct than weane.
On the other hand you message looked more like a whine. Sorry if I wasted your time; I'd have just wanted some kindness. --Spugna 15:33, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Just a standard template, man. Don't take it so personally. -- Gwern (contribs) 15:40, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry then, since it is a standard template. It sounded like a cheap attempt at irony; the kind that has a long story ok causing people to be punched back, when their jokes don't have enough punch themselves. (forgive the cheap pun :).

Again, sorry. --Spugna 16:02, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

I had no way of knowing whether your change was intended to be vandalism or not, so... -- Gwern (contribs) 16:07, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Draft

Not a big deal just trying to clear the Category:Category needed backlog and it kept coming back like a bad habit. Whispering^(talk/c) 17:10, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

FLCL

I'm going to set aside my sarcasm and your caustic misspellings and look at our problem anew. You are content with blindly reverting my changes because you think the trivia section is pretty cool - which it is. But you're holding up progress here. I'm not inherently opposed to the trivia section, but all but one of the items left in it are unverified. The following is an excerpt from a lengthy comment made by a user ever less lenient than you:

It's not Wikipedia policy to ensure that every fact is true. There's no way we can determine the truth. On the other hand, it is policy that every fact needs to be verifiable. If you want to say water is wet, you need to find a reliable source that says water is wet to back you up. If you can't find a reliable source to back you up, the presumption is that you've discovered a new and important truth. Wikipedia isn't the place for new and important truths. Take it to a trusted third party, let them determine whether your discovery is valid, and publish their determination; then you can use that to back up what you want to state: No original research is the policy.

I, quite bluntly, have been screwed. I could either fight it out with you, or I could fight it out with ClairSamoht (who wrote that - the rest of it is at Talk:FLCL), but I can't be the rope in the tug of war. I won't make this out to be entirely the fault of the trivia section and your efforts to preserve it - the trivia section is merely one defective facet in a larger defective crystal. However, it does need to be taken care of. You obviously care about this. Would you be willing to attempt to personally substantiate the facts on this list through external sources? -Litefantastic 03:11, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Disambiguation pages with links

Good job working on the list, thanks. Could you make sure you move them from "To do" to "Done" when you finish? TimBentley (talk) 18:43, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the compliment, but I'd honestly rather let a more experienced disambiguator make the call on whether an entry is done or not, at least for now. -- Gwern (contribs) 19:54, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Please stop editing user pages like they are articles. There's really no need. Thank you. --Andeh 16:16, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Why? Links need to be disambiguated regardless of where they are coming from. -- Gwern (contribs) 16:18, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

OK. Ignore me. Sorry for bothering you. Keep up the good work.--Andeh 16:24, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Fantastique

Could you please go and fix the problems you created on that page by removing brackets / adding brackets before and after English translations of French titles? You can fix it whichever you prefer, but right now you made the page less readable. —Preceding unsigned comment added by JMLofficier (talk • contribs)

Done. -- Gwern (contribs) 15:43, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

ToDo and HACTRN

A very good redirect, and I don't mind at all. My presumed "TODO" list is not a true list of articles I ever intend to write. Rather, it is a list of articles I believe should be written; my own messy subset of Wikipedia:Requested articles, if you will. — Itai (talk) 19:35, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Glad to hear that. Another one down, another 100 million to go! (If some estimates are to be believed... :) -- Gwern (contribs) 19:49, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

"Andro" Hiroshige

Re: (Fg2's revisionism)

Hello. I have undone once again Fg2's revisionism, in line with your previous edit. Please don't let this bully revisionist deter your from adding valuable information: he has no ground for deleting this information from the encyclopedia, and could be denounced and banned for doing so. Anything that's used in print can and should be reported and qualified in the encyclopedia, no matter if that doesn't please some revisionist. People like him would erase "Peking" and "Mao Tse-Tung" from the encyclopedia if they had a chance. --62.147.86.12 20:40, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Alright. I let it go because I didn't realize it mattered to anyone but myself. -- Gwern (contribs) 20:53, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Regarding your recent robot assisted disambiguation fixes.

I noticed you followed up on my Alias disambiguation fixes and fixed all the talk pages. As stated on the 'How to help' section of the Disambiguation links page, and I quote -

“ "User:" and "Wikipedia:" administrative pages do not necessarily need to be fixed, and editing other people's comments on "Talk:" pages without their permission is characterised as unacceptable by the Talk page guidelines. ”

Please do not edit any more talk pages and if someone says something is "done" and puts it in the "done" list, then it usually is...
— B33R^{(talk • contribs)} 21:57, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

True enough. But don't the guidelines also say that the reason for this general restriction is so that we "Never edit someone's words to change their meaning." ? I'm pretty sure that I'm not changing their meaning, since the intent isn't to point to the disambiguation page itself (except in meta-discussions, which I try to respect and leave alone). -- Gwern (contribs) 22:18, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

You are also claiming dab fixes when actually fixing redirects. Arguably, redirects don't need to be fixed at all - but if you're going to, please use an appropriate comment. -- Steven Fisher 19:31, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

The redirects were left over after moves, so I felt an obligation to fix them. But I'll remember to edit the comment next time. -- Gwern (contribs) 20:29, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

+cat

I tried but they delete that one too Category:Human extinction best to vote to KEEP the list and hopefully we can get no-concensus and save it. Thanks MapleTree 23:33, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Yesyoudid reverted again

[1] WhisperToMe 03:11, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Confine your reverts to articles

Yes, I read your message and deleted it. Please refrain from reverting another editor's user page, as that is considered vandalism. --L0b0t 03:49, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Please also note that I've done nothing of the sort. It is rather rude to simply delete messages without any response, and against wikiquette to not even archive. --Gwern (contribs) 04:42, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

My apologies, it was that kid whisper whatever who did the revert. However, it is not rude to delete messages without a response. It might be rude to delete a question without a response but neither of you asked a question. There is no policy contravening deleting one's own talk or user page. Reverting another user's talk page is pretty rude. There is a policy conflict between the user talk page policy, which says users can blank OR archive warnings and the vandalism policy, which says that removing warnings given to you is vandalism. I don't agree with the vandalism point of view, and I haven't seen a lot of support for it lately except among people who are fighting amongst themselves for other reasons. If someone deletes a warning they've obviously seen it. All of this academic however as I have never been given a warning for anything. So, please accept my apologies for the accusation and kindly leave my user page alone. L0b0t 11:19, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Apology accepted. --Gwern (contribs) 14:27, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for refinement on Weber

Your correction was better than mine. --Arch dude 01:25, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

I just wanted to see the information stay, is all. --Gwern (contribs) 03:13, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Serial Experiments Lain

Hi Gwern! I tried all the links that you gave on the talk page, but all were down, or pointed to commercial casino-like pages. That's too bad, the subjects sounded good, and without it, lots of stuff is going to be thrown out of the article. I also wanted to ask you: why did you revert a handful of edits with the comment: "rv: why?"? I just don't get it. That includes deleting two inlines citations, which I really don't get. --SidiLemine 11:09, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

They looked like removals of content to me... I'm guessing they weren't? As for the links - that happens a lot, unfortunately. Did you try the Internet Archive? --Gwern (contribs) 11:45, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

You're right, they weren't; I actually was removing a thing or two that were redundant in the article, and some others that I'd been trying to source for the last month without success, but there was some content additions too in the bunch. Anyway, no big deal, I'll just do it again. Where can I find that Internet Archive? --SidiLemine 11:52, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Internet Archive. :) --Gwern (contribs) 15:07, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Yup, I jsut figured that one out... :) A few links were archived there, that I could manage, but unfortunately, not muhc to support the "research" part... But thaks anyway for the great link and great tip!--SidiLemine 16:13, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

WikiProject Disambiguation Talk Request

This is a form message being sent to all WikiProject Disambiguation participants. I recently left a proposed banner idea on the WikiProject Disambiguation talk page and I would appreciate any input you could provide. Before it can be approved or denied, I would prefer a lot of feedback from multiple participants in the project. So if you have the time please join in the discussion to help improve the WikiProject. Keep up the good work in link repair and thanks for your time. Nehrams2020 21:53, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Disambiguation Concerning "Genus"

Not to sound snippity, but, I don't think it's sound policy to make a disambiguation link for "Genus" in biological/organismal entries, given as how the "genus" that's being mentioned in those kinds of entries already links to the Genus that the reader is thinking of. --Mr Fink 03:59, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

? They were linking to Genera, which is an historic operating system which has nothing to do with biology. Better they point to the disambiguation page for more biologically inclined editors to disambig than to remain not even linking to the disambiguation - as it was, a reader would click through, scan the OS page, click through to the disambiguation page (hopefully), and only then actually find the article they were looking through. --Gwern (contribs) 04:06, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Genus

Gwern, I'm not very happy with your bulk changes from 'Genera' to 'Genus (disambiguation)'. Why not to 'Genus' for living things? Please change 'Genus (disambiguation)' to 'Genus' for living things, to fix this problem. --GrahamBould 08:43, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

As I've explained above, it's not a perfect solution, but it is better than before. --Gwern (contribs) 14:28, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

AfC-Closer

It's written in C# with .NET, so won't be readily accessible on linux. There is probably a way to use it on a linux system with dotgnu or mono, but I have personally had problems with gettign a forms app to work on mono. If you've got something like that installed, and you'd be willing to try it out for me, then please do! --M a rtinp23 20:20, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't mind testing it, even if all I can do is report the error. (And aren't you supposed to be out now? :) --Gwern (contribs) 20:27, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

OK - I've emailed you instructions for download (keeping link quite hidden to prevent abuse until I can get a checkpage set up) :) M a rtinp23 20:40, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Ahhh - I just realised what you meant about my being out :P - I've fixed it now, but the problem was that IE7 doens't work with the status changer buttons :( - so I have to do it manually (which I invariably don't!). (Anyway - I've doen it now :) Thanks for reminding me - even if it took me a while :S ) M a rtinp23 20:44, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Hi, how's it going? I think the version I sent you had some untested code in it (which, helpfully, made the app break after logging in). I've got a new release now, which address this problem and can accept requests and create the page (:D). Let me know if you want to try it M a rtinp23 18:26, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

I haven't actually tried it out. My free time that day got abruptly sucked up by some category tidying (as you might see below). Is the link for the new one any different? --Gwern (contribs) 19:45, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

OK, no problem. The link will be the same (AfCCloser.zip now if it wasn't before). Both files need to go intop the same dir, and it might work... (here's hoping...) M a rtinp23 19:53, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

End of Evangelion series

OK you did delete my discussion topic, thanks for that, now nobody will read it and explain to you what you have never seen.

I'm not making an interpretation of the opening sequence, I'm just READING THE LYRICS. Please do that for yourself. --200.45.167.6 21:12, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

In case you was asking, I'm RoRo in the spanish wikipedia.

I deleted nothing. Your comment is still quite there: Talk:Neon Genesis Evangelion#Ending in opening sequence. And the lyrics still strike me as incomprehensible as such an interpretation, aside from the repeated vague "Young boy, shine like a legend, / Holding the sky in your arms" and variants, which could just as well be seen as encouragement. --Gwern (contribs) 22:03, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Category:Linux people

Hi, I agree that Linux people fits under Unix people, however both are currently siblings in Category:Computer specialists, alongside Category:NetBSD people and Category:OpenDarwin people. If Linux people moves under Unix people, it should be removed from the grandparent Category:Computer specialists, and the same reorganisation needs to be applied to NetBSD and OpenDarwin, which are also Unix derivatives.

Alternatively, Category:Unix people could be reserved for the 1st generation of Unix people. --John Vandenberg 02:27, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Good points all. I've created an OpenBSD cat, and moved the NetBSD and OpenDarwin (along with the OpenBSD one) into Unix people. I think it makes the most sense to leave in Unix people those associated with the classic proprietary capital U Unices, and stick people associated with with BSDs in the BSD people category. --Gwern (contribs) 03:02, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Looks good. I've added a Category:Solaris people as it is still alive and kicking (esp. with OpenSolaris picking up). --John Vandenberg 04:25, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Didn't think of that. If you want to round out the minor operating systems, might as well make some sort of combined category or sorted set for the Darwin and Mac OS X operating systems. --Gwern (contribs) 04:28, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Bots in user space

Please have your dab bot leave user space alone. I don't want anything changed that I might have in my space for archival purposes. TCC (talk) (contribs) 20:50, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Your edit to User talk:WhisperToMe

So are you saying that you think the user's jokes were appropriate? I really don't think they were. --Guinnog 03:42, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm saying the issue is irrelevant (and they aren't very inappropriate anyway - only very tender minds could be bruised by those jokes). User pages are for telling others about yourself. If he thinks that they are appropriate, then that is sufficient for me. --Gwern (contribs) 03:44, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

Fair enough, we disagree then. He has taken them down now anyway so I guess he accepts my and the other users' view that they are not appropriate. --Guinnog 03:55, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

Unfortunately. But I certainly can't insist that he put them back up if I've just gotten through defending him putting them up. --Gwern (contribs) 03:58, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

re: Ballad of Reading Gaol

Thank you for your note and my apologies for my incorrect assumption. I had seen several wikipages about various works where the full text of a work was removed for this reason so I just applied this on this page. I had also moved a link to the text of the poem which had been awkwardly (in my opinion) placed on Oscar's page to this one but if it just doubles up what is already at wikisource please feel free to remove it. Thanks again for your assistance in continuing my learning process here at wikiP. --MarnetteD | Talk 22:33, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Nae problem. Copyright is hard to understand; as the saying goes, "If you think you understand it, you don't." --Gwern (contribs) 23:52, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

User talk:141.156.240.102

Uhh ... your robot-assisted edit ruined the joke on my Talk page ... I wanted staff to point to the disambiguation page because that's the punchline — having assumed the wrong definition!

Pointing readers to staff (stick) will not lead them to, "Staff is also used to refer collectively to a set of people, such as the employees or volunteers, within an organization." ... that's only in the staff article.

Trust me, I had to explain this one to my mother ... "publicist and a Girl Friday" ... some people (especially English as a second language readers) may need to be able to put it in the proper context ... that's what hyperlinks are for! — 141.156.240.102 (talk|contribs) 05:39, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Oh. Sorry about that; it really did look like it was supposed to point to the object's page, though. --Gwern (contribs) 15:13, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Thank You

For offering your opinion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Lori Klausutis (third nomination). The article was deleted. "The quality of mercy is not strain'd . . . It is enthroned in the hearts of kings, It is an attribute to God himself; And earthly power doth then show likest God's, When mercy seasons justice." ~ Wm. Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, Act IV Scene 1. --Morton devonshire 22:42, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

To err is human, to forgive divine.

I voted merge; I'm none too happy to see it deleted with nary a redirect, but in an infinite universe anything can happen. --Gwern (contribs) 02:09, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Art House Redirection

Heya, I just reverted your revert about the Art House Link. Those people writing the "Art Films" entry were all like "Art house" shouldn't redirect to RIT's Art House, it should redirect to "Art Films". I changed the redirection to RIT's Art House and adjusted your revision. Thanks though! :) --Dan Lev 07:00, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Whoa. We have an article on them? That can't be right... --Gwern (contribs) 15:19, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Indeed they do (I lived on the RIT campus from '68-'70), and I've changed some of the pages that were pointing to it, like Movie theater, Patrick Warburton, and Dracula (1979 film) ... but I don't have time right now to do any others. (The Warburton turned into some Major Editing.) BTW, I found that "arthouse" does the correct redirect, so I'm gonna change Just That from now on. :-) — 141.156.240.102 (talk|contribs) 23:19, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

scramjet

I reverted your edits to scramjet and talk scramjet. Your edit changed the links from a direct connect (to Shock wave) to a page which only contained a redirect (Shockwave). --AKAF 09:31, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

I would add to this that editing other people's comments on talk pages is something I cannot and will never for any reason accept. It is a clear breach of basic civility. It may even be a breach of wikipedia guidelines, but I can't say that I think that's even important. --AKAF 09:35, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

What are you talking about? What I remember doing, and what the diff looks like to me, is bypassing the redirect Shockwave to the actual page Shock wave, which incidentally makes it easier in the future to find pages which are linking to Shockwave and actually are trying to link to one of the "Shockwave" (no space) linked to from Shockwave (disambiguation). --Gwern (contribs) 14:42, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

AArgh, I'm an idiot. I'm so sorry, I read the diff the other way round. I've replaced your improvement. Clearly not my finest hour. --AKAF 08:14, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

OK. We all make mistakes. --Gwern (contribs) 16:32, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Jin-roh

Hi, what's wrong with Oshii's quote? If this English translation contains some mistakes please quote these awkward sentences so I can correct them or explain them a better way. You don't know what "a Cornellian choice" is? This is a French expression, there are some English occurences in google, you can change it with a proper English anyway. Cornelian is an adjective for Corneille. A "Cornelian choice" is a difficult one, when you do not know what is your duty. --Paris By Night 23:36, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

An expression as obscure as "Cornelian choice" should probably be linked (not that our article on Pierre Corneille mentions it).

Alright, forget about Corneille, he is French as is the expression (formal register "litterate French"), most English won't get it anyway. You'd better use an English expression instead. --Paris By Night 14:56, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

There's a better and more familiar English expression - Hobson's choice. I've added that in instead. --Gwern (contribs) 15:45, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

alright. Paris By Night 18:31, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

But my problem with the quote was the second to last sentence: "People are looking the wolf and the little girl characters in different ways according to their own time and actual way of life." That simply cannot be a correct transcription or translation - in computing terms, it won't even compile. The verb "looking" is missing any sort of preposition indicating its object, which why I changed it from "looking the wolf and little girl characters" to "looking at the wolf and little girl characters". --Gwern (contribs) 23:45, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

"voir" (looking/see) is actually used by Oshii in the meaning of "percevoir/concevoir" (perceive/understand). Oshii's Japanese speech (interview) was subtitled in French as thus:

"Les gens voient les personnages du loup et de la fillette de façon différente en fonction de l'époque et de leur mode de vie." which translates in English as: "People perceive the wolf and little girl characters in a different way according to the era and their own way of life." Babelfish robot translator gives: "People see the characters of the wolf and the young girl in a way different according to the time and their way of life." Paris By Night 14:56, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

• Here's the whole quote, please mention what's wrong so we can correct it.

"The movie's universe is based on my vision of Post-WWII Japan. I remember a time when Japan, and even the entire world, was still able to change. This is the story of a man who perishes because he can live only as a dog. I am really interested with warriors who disappear because they are unable to live with their own time. It is about a man and a women, or actually about a human being and an animal, more precisely a wolf. These two dimensions also exist in Akazukin (Little Red Riding Hood). An universe apparently pure and innocent always hides a cruel destiny, this story looks the same as the destiny of mankind. Each meeting inevitably implies a severance, Akazukin tale is an archetype of this theme. People are looking at the wolf and the little girl characters in different ways according to their own time and actual way of life. The story is simple but great attention is paid to details". --Paris By Night 15:05, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

So the quote is a translation of a French subtitle translation? Well, that explains the offness of the prose. Did you translate it or was the translation done by someone else (hopefully an official someone else; that way we can reference it better)? But your rewrite does work better. The second to last sentence could use a little tweaking; I'd rewrite it as "Each meeting inevitably implies a separation; the tale of Little Red Riding Hood is an archetype of this theme." --Gwern (contribs) 15:52, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes the quote is the English translation of French subtitles. Oshii was interviewed and answered in Japanese, this interview is official as are the French subtitles since this video is available in the Jin-Roh DVD released in France by CTV Int'l (there's a note about this in the article of course). The current English quote is a close translation of the French sub by me (I can post the French sub when I get time if you understand French). Except "Akazukin" which was pronounced by Oshii in Japanese but adapted in the sub as "Le Petit Chaperon Rouge" the French version of "Little Red Riding Hood". The French version by Charles Perrault is anterior to Little Red Riding Hood (an English translation of Rotkappchen) by the Grimm Brothers. Actually the version used in Jin-Roh is not "Rotkappchen" nor "Le Petit Chaperon Rouge" but a mix of the French version with other oral versions anterior to Rotkappchen. It must be something like 3/4 Perrault and 1/4 of misc elements from various other versions (except the "armor" thing everything - I think- is in Perrault's version incl. the end). That's why I've used the original word "Akazukin" which is more neutral. --Paris By Night 18:31, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

I understand a little French, but there's no need to post it; you seem trustworthy enough. I personally suspect that the mixing by Oshii is so all the elements he wants will be in it. The armor is a good example: that was obviously included to provide a linkage to the Protect-Gear, even if that breaks the isomorphism between the fairy tale and the plot proper. --Gwern (contribs) 19:23, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

got the French DTS Edition today, guess what? the armor thing was actually in the french oral version transcripted in 1870 by Jean-Baptiste Victor Smith. A 10-years old girl (from Vorey en Velay, Haute-Loire, France) recited this version to Victor Smith who wrote it. This version is probably older than Perrault's own version. I was taught the Perrault one when I was a kid, it was about a "grand-mother", while this oral version is about a "mother". The French 1870 version i have beneath my eyes (collector booklet) is exactly the same spoken in Jin-Roh! I'll post a cap for ya when i get time. i need to do searches about this new info. Paris By Night 07:20, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

About "Each meeting inevitably implies a severance, Akazukin tale is an archetype of this theme" and your version "Each meeting inevitably implies a separation; the tale of Little Red Riding Hood is an archetype of this theme." I'm ok with your version since the French word used in the subtitles for "severance" was actually "séparation"... that you have translated by "separation" in English :) i was not sure if this French origin term was still used in English so I've translated it by "severance" instead (I was accused of using "pretentious" terms when using French/English terms before). --Paris By Night 18:31, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

got the French DTS edition today, guess what the armor

So what do you think about: "Each meeting inevitably implies a separation; the tale of Little Red Riding Hood (Akazukin) is an archetype of this theme?" --Paris By Night 18:31, 31 October 2006

IMO, that's fine. But is it necessary to link "Akazukin"? So far as I know, that's simply the Japanese name - nothing special about it. --Gwern (contribs) 19:23, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

The reason I kept Oshii's "Akazukin" is I was not sure if Akazukin is based on Perrault's version, Grimm version or a totally different version. now that i know there is this Victor Smith version I'm not sure. Need searches to be sure. --Paris By Night 07:20, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Sounds like a complex subject! You'd better go do more research. :) --Gwern (contribs) 16:16, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia Persondata

Hi, I just wanted to let you know that a lot of your added templates are cutting of the least significant digits of the years. See Mao Zedong, Martin Heidegger, and James Joyce for examples. Please be careful about that, thanks! --Rajah 05:17, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Oops. Dratted copy and paste! --Gwern (contribs) 05:21, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Wrong edit

This bot has mistaken conic eccentricity with orbital eccentricity in Ellipse perimeters. --Michael Retriever 13:43, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

'Snot the bot's fault. It is mine: but it really did look like an article on orbital mechanics, I swear! --Gwern (contribs) 15:14, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

{{PAGENAME}}

It's not a template, but a MediaWiki variable, and it's useful for sortkeys outside the Main namespace, in that it guarantees that the sortkey is still sensible even if the page is moved (e.g. after {{fact}} is moved to {{citation needed}}, the template doesn't apear under "F" in categories). Of course, it's not perfect, but it does a good job. Circeus 18:21, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

If that's true, why isn't it done automatically for pages outside of the Main, or for pages inside Main, for that matter - I don't see why the sortkey issue doesn't apply to Main articles as well. --Gwern (contribs) 18:24, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

A categorized wikipedia page wihout a sortkey will go under "W", a Template,under "T" and so on, because the namespace is part of the page's title. However, {{PAGENAME}} ignores the namespace, allowing a proper sorting. You don't technically have to use it, but for the reasons I outline above (and because it's quite often shorter to type), it is more practical (e.g. for Wikipedia:Manual of Style (poker-related articles) or Wikipedia:Only make links that are relevant to the context).

{{PAGENAME}} is not needed as a sortkey (although it is often used in templates) within the main namespace because they do not have a namespace prefix.

Finally, the reasons why it's not always done are multiple: Users might simply not know about variables, they don't realize the categorization problem at all ("people from" are a good example of categories that require sortkeys when categorized, but most users don't realize that.), or type out the whole sortkey out of habit (e.g. because they are used to make biographical articles). Circeus 07:22, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Bots in user space revisited

I'd like to echo TCC's comment of October 13th: please don't change pages in the User: namespace. - dcljr (talk) 03:28, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks, Gwern, for spotting the erroneous diff and fixing it. It was a prank played by a guy I formerly worked with. --madduck 23:33, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Doesn't seem like a very funny prank. --Gwern (contribs) 00:03, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Speedster (comics)

Hi. Sorry to bother you, but it looks we might have an edit conflict at speedster (comics) between myself and Ace Class Shadow. If you could chime in with your opinion on that article’s talk page, so that we can achieve some sort of consensus, it would be appreciated. Thanks. Nightscream 10:53, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

I'll look at it. --Gwern (contribs) 16:48, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Licensing template

Hello Gwern, perhaps I misuderstood your comments left on my talk page. I could not find out where did I use [[CC]], if you found out then please you are welcomed to replace it by Creative Commons. Regards, --Shyam ^(T/C) 18:12, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

I came on them as I was disambiguating and noticed that all the User talk ones were because of you: [2], [3], [4], [5], & [6]. Obviously I fixed them; this was for future reference. --Gwern (contribs) 18:15, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Ohh, Gwern, really sorry about that. It would not be happened again. Thanks for repairing disamiguation link. Shyam ^(T/C) 18:19, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

It's not a big problem; but I'd rather solve problems at their source once and for all - if you often use your own handrolled templates or messages, it can be a good idea to check and make sure you aren't proliferating ambiguous links. Normally you can count on other people to disambiguate templates, but they have to be publicly accessible first... --Gwern (contribs) 19:13, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes, it is a very nice idea. But I was not using any template for this. I presumed CC as Creative Commons and I did not think necesaary to check where it links. I should have been first. If possible, I would always try to check out that it does not have any disambiguation link. Shyam ^(T/C) 19:20, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Canon

Thanks for Disambiguating "Canon". What a clever 'bot. --Vernon White (talk) 07:30, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Clever? :( There was nothing clever about it - just little old me punching keys for a few hours. If I really had a bot that smart, it'd be on its own account and doing that full time! --Gwern (contribs) 19:14 15 November 2006 (GMT) 19:14, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Signature

Hoi: I saw over on Transhumanist's page you had modified your signature to work with only three tildes. I tried playing around with some {{date}} and {{time}} changes to my sig, but I couldn't get them to work without leaving weird templates and stuff in the signature. I also tried adding in ~~~~~ which struck me as fairly clever, but I guess the developers disabled recursive signatures... So how did you do it? --Gwern (contribs) 00:45, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Preferences raw ''[[User:Rich Farmbrough|Rich]] [[User talk:Rich Farmbrough|Farmbrough]]'', {{subst:CURRENTTIME}} [[{{subst:CURRENTDAY}} {{subst:CURRENTMONTHNAME}}]] [[{{subst:CURRENTYEAR}}]] (GMT). And it took me some time to figure out... Rich Farmbrough, 09:33 15 November 2006 (GMT).

Neat! I'm adding it over on Transhumanist in case anyone else was wondering. --Gwern (contribs) 19:19 15 November 2006 (GMT)

MastersClayPot

Please tell me how I "screwed up" the formatting in the article, Mercy seat. I simply thought that to put information about a secular song prior to the Biblical teachings about the Mercy seat would be a disservice to the Word of God. God's Word is worthy of the most prominent place. Plus, who cares whether or not a song is entitled Mercy Seat? Most likely, whoever is searching for information about the Mercy Seat is not looking for a song. I understand that credit and applause is due to the songwriter/singer; but, how much more credit and applause should there be given to Christ? My edit simply put the song information at the bottom, in its own heading, where it could still be found (if someone so seeks) and not take away from the richness of the Word of God. —Preceding unsigned comment added by MastersClayPot (talk • contribs)

1. First, please don't bring in God. We're trying to write a good & Free encyclopedia to help people; divisive things like religion and spreading "the richness of the Word of God" have no place here. There's a quote from another editor I like to use to express my view on these matters:

Wikipedia's articles are no place for strong views. Or rather, we feel about them the way that a natural history museum feels about tigers. We admire them and want our visitors to see how fierce and clever they are, so we stuff them and mount them for close inspection, with all sorts of carefully worded signs to get people to appreciate them as much as we do. But however much we adore tigers, a live tiger loose in the museum is seen as an urgent problem. --User:William Pietri

2. Secondly, my comment about the formatting was in fact a reference to the References and trivia sections. Didn't it bother you how ugly it was, how non-standard and puffed up with whitespace it was? It sure did me.

3. Thirdly, placing that link at top has nothing to do with religion (your "disservice to the Word of God"; hence #1) but with following the Manuals of style for Wikipedia article (see Wikipedia:Disambiguation#Top links for an example of what I mean); these style issues are important for consistency and clarity: you yourself have confused the song with the Biblical object (note your inconsistent capitalization in your message in which you refer to the Biblical subject both by "Mercy seat" and "Mercy Seat"): "Most likely, whoever is searching for information about the Mercy Seat is not looking for a song." If an editor like yourself who knows all about this stuff could make a slip, how much more so would a random visitor or searcher? --Gwern (contribs) 23:55 16 November 2006 (GMT)

MastersClayPot

First of all, the mispelling of superfluous was an oversight on my part. Thank you for correcting it. Second, Mercy seat/Mercy Seat was not an oversight. I typed seat with a lowercase "s" the first time because the title of the actual article is Mercy seat. I typed Seat with an uppercase "S" the second time because I was referring to the actual, physical Mercy Seat. Thanks for responding. Read the note on my user page; I want to follow Wikipedia's guidelines. But I also want to maintain Biblical integrity; and since the Mercy Seat is in the Bible, I am pretty serious about this article. Further, if I were to write an article about Ancient Egyptian pottery, I would still be serious about representing that subject with the utmost respect. It is the same with Biblical matters. And as it stands, I am even more passionate about representing Biblical matters than any secular thing/idea. Thanks again. I look forward to more correspondence.

ARE YOU Marudubshinki ?

Canderous Ordo 22:44, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Who? No. --Gwern (contribs) 01:41 18 November 2006 (GMT)