text:
User talk:GUllman

Hello there, welcome to the 'pedia! I hope you like the place and decide to stay. If you need pointers on how we title pages visit Naming conventions or how to format them visit our manual of style. If you have any other questions about the project then check out Help or add a question to the Village pump. Cheers! --maveric149

Lists
Hello again. I am in the middle of a dsicussion about lists and charts of lists. Please contribute at Talk:Wikipedia policy on charts if you have any comments. user:mydogategodshat

List of books
Hello! For your list of books, you might want to check out Western canon. - Efghij 00:38, Aug 23, 2003 (UTC)

Thanks Efghij, I was already aware of it. After all, it was one of the first links I placed on List of books. I'm going through all the lists one at a time, and will get to it in turn. GUllman 05:13, 23 Aug 2003 (UTC)

El Metro de México
You're probably right about not every station deserving an article (although the Londoners seem to have managed). But putting all the links in on the list page at least allowed me to establish a uniform naming system! Thanks for helping out with first one. –Hajor 22:17, 10 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Hats
Hi, thanks for your edit on list of hats and headgear, it's very patchy at the moment. :) I was wondering why you removed Cardinal's Hat though?  Cheers, fabiform | talk 22:26, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Because a bishop/cardinal's hat is called a 'miter', which was already on the list. Although it was misspelled 'mitre', which I just corrected, and I added bishop's hat in parentheses after it. I think the uncommon words should have a short definition afterward so people don't have to click on all the links if they don't know what the hat they have in mind is called. GUllman 20:23, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC)

 * Well, this list aims to (eventually) cover hats for all periods and cultures, so a couple words after each link (and eventually more sub-divisions) will be a very good idea.

 * I'm going to put "cardinal's hat" back though as it is the name of an older style of hat a cardinal used to wear (CARDINAL'S HAT (from 13c.) Red hat with short, rounded crown and broad flat brim. Rank was designated by the number of tassels which terminated the cords.).

 * By the way, miter/mitre can be spelled either way, so we might as well include both to avoid confusion. I've just discovered that a mitre can be several different kinds of headgear, including an Egyptian headdress.  The scope of this project it quite daunting!  I'm going to copy and paste this conversation into the talk page since it probably deserves to be preserved/continued there.  :) fabiform | talk 20:43, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Number pages
Hi,

I would like you to reconsider your vote on the inclusion of articles about numbers on Wikipedia. I am not opposed to number articles per se, but I am opposed to the trivial cultural properties which have been heaped upon many of these articles.

My rationale is that numbers are such a fundamental part of human culture, an article that lists all these associations would have proportions probably larger than all of Wikipedia taken together. To give you an example, Google returns 209,000,000 hits for the number 100 alone.

Please take a look at 1 (number). This is the type of lists I am referring to. Right now the article arbitrarily lists a few things where the number one has some significance: a DVD region, a personality test, a slang term (Wikipedia is not a dictionary), American currency, a single dial code, several roads ...

If you think this information is valuable I am probably wasting my time. But I hope that after looking at several of these pages you will agree that these kind of lists make a joke of Wikipedia. They will always be arbitrary, they will always be in violation of the rules of What Wikipedia is not (list repository, dictionary), and they will seriously damage our reputation.

If you see a compromise option which is not currently included in the poll, please add it. But please do not give these triva lists your rubber stamp of approval.—Eloquence 11:14, Feb 22, 2004 (UTC)

It appears some people have the misconception that you, GUllman, cast your votes lightly without any thought. But I know better. Your user contributions page shows that you work in a methodical, thoughtful manner. Your procedures for the number pages 20 - 90 set precedents that are still followed today. It follows, reasonably, that you vote seriously and thoughtfully, in a manner that is the complete opposite of a "rubber stamp." PrimeFan 22:07, 27 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I started setting up space for the number articles last October, and the discussion has elevated this far in only four months. Wikipedia is not a task with a blueprint and an immediate deadline -- is a unique volunteer experiment in community decision-making that explores the limits and usefulness of hypertext linking. We cannot predict the path that a user's thought process will follow, so the more links we provide, the better. The number articles have not just increased in number -- the content and layout has evolved and is still evolving. Four months is too young to cut an experiment short -- let it grow and mature in the coming years, and it will prune itself as useless, forgotten parts wither and die. GUllman 04:12, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Heads of state by year
I agree that the heads of state is a neat idea. User:Jonel has made a start of it, but only with a limited number of states, in the year pages. Please feel free to go ahead and make further pages. rulers.org or worldstatesmen.org are good resources. john 18:54, 7 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Thanks, I will. But slooooowly. GUllman 19:49, 7 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Yup, that's my plan, as well. john 00:55, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)

2004 Pulitzer Prize
Why did you list 2004 Pulitzer Prize as a copyright violation? If that's a violation, then so is every awards list on Wikipedia, such as all the Grammy pages. Ambivalenthysteria 12:36, 17 Apr 2004 (UTC)

(Example of entry from 2004 Pulitzer Prize copied from www.pulitzer.org:)
 * beat reporting: Daniel Golden, Wall Street Journal, for his compelling and meticulously documented stories on admission preferences given to the children of alumni and donors at American universities.

The list of people and books that won is factual and can be copied, but the annotations are the creative expression of the writer, and are protected by copyright. Words like 'compelling' and 'meticulously documented' are clearly the opinions of the spokesperson, not the Wikipedia contributor. In case you didn't know, if a newspaper reporter receives a press release (which is what this is) or a wire from AP or UP, no matter how brief, the reporter is obliged to rewrite the story in his own words for publication in his newspaper. GUllman 17:18, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)

P.S. One way to get around this issue is to simply put quotation marks around each the annotations. GUllman 18:08, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)

ISBD article and ISBD (or other) all over the place
If you were to put up a proposal (or the start of a discussion) for using the International Standard Bibliographic Description or ISBD (in some form or other) or some other standard for getting a good handle on articles which describe books, where would you place it? I was thinking of putting it on the WikiProject Novels discussion page since the Infobox controversy for books was indrectly discussed there. I would announce it elsewhere too. But where? The appearance of a book-related Infobox in the article onComics and Sequential Art got me started on this path, along with a recent flowering of articles related to book collecting. In a sense, my putting together the ISBD article a few hours ago, with parts from the Catalog article was my first step towards this. AlainV 07:04, 2004 Apr 27 (UTC)

There really should be a WikiProject Books as a parent project of Novels, Comics and other literary Wikiprojects. And you wrote a good article on ISBD. However, I'm hesitant to require an ISBD in all book articles. Requiring too much formatting might kill WikiProject Books just as people are reluctant to contribute to Wiktionary -- it would place all the burden of researching the info for each book on the few people (you and me?) who know ISBD format well enough. If you want a standard description in the Infobox, then show them how to cite the book for a bibliography using Chicago Manual of Style which more people know how to write -- and so those who don't know can learn. GUllman 17:48, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I started Wikipedia Wikiproject books to continue this. AlainV 02:58, 2004 Apr 28 (UTC)

A crowd of two?
We have a gaggle of geese, a flock of birds, and so on. What do you call many librarians? Since I have a two year MLS diploma I suppose I am part of that crowd. The reason the crowd is thin has probably much to do with certain ressemblances between Wikipedia and some things particular kinds of librarians just can't stand.
 * Wikipedia sometimes looks a lot like a product from a Vanity press because its contents don't go through a traditional publishing process and it is given away free. Selection librarians, collection development librarians and head librarians see red just when they hear "vanity press", because it reminds them of the problems they have just in refusing "books" that come out of them.
 * Wikipedia is produced by volunteers. Librarians who are responsible for public libraries in small (or medium sized) towns often have severe staffing issues, and sooner or later persons on the town council or the Library Board suggest that volunteers could help out instead of slinging money at the problem.  In most cases the trouble begins right there, because volunteers are usually not willing or able to receive the needed training or the sole librarian does not have enough of 24 hours in a day to do that training in addition to her/his job.  Librarian then cries on shoulders of former library school colleagues and volunteers get a bad reputation in library circles.  This is repeated endlessly all over North America.
 * Wikipedia metadata looks like a chaotic information stream coming out of a madhouse, to the eyes of a cataloguing librarian. Those cataloguers go mad when they see a single semi-colon or ". blank - blank" (also known as dot space dash space) out of place in an AACR2R derived entry, so you can imagine what they feel like when they take a look at our bibliographic descriptions.  Fortunately, reference librarians are made of stronger stuff, given their position at the "trenches" of the reference desks, and I have seen so much worse in archives, records management centers, and Web site design committees that I don't think there is anything to despair about, yet.  There is still some hope for Wikipedia. AlainV 07:29, 2004 May 6 (UTC)

An index of librarians? I'm pleased to see that you like Wikipedia enough to seriously consider the need for improvement. You are not alone in understanding the need for better metadata; there is a name-value pair scheme being considered on the developers lists which should soon provide a platform for improved metadata. We can really use your help. -- The Anome 07:56, 6 May 2004 (UTC)

A collection of librarians? The rant on my User page is a result of Wikiaddiction and Wikiburnout at the same time. So many new articles are being created because wiki is so easy to edit, but it's so disorganized -- orphan articles, hidden articles with a single link to an article with a single link, and so on. Not many clear overviews of everything has been done on a subject. Metadata is the cataloger/computer scientist's solution to the problem, making searching easier for those that understand it, but not enough people understand it to do all the editing that's needed. I hope the implementation will be very easy to understand, so that people who are knowledgable in each subject can do their own markup. GUllman 18:58, 6 May 2004 (UTC)

Just a quick note to let you know that there is yet another librarian contributing to Wikipedia now. Steve Casburn 16:55, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Disneyland past attractions
I started working on List of past Disneyland attractions from memory but it's way too late and I've spent too much time and I'm going to bed. Elf | Talk 06:33, 26 May 2004 (UTC)

Your Username at 200
I'm sorry I got your username wrong at Talk:200 (number). I just got confused about the L's. PrimeFan 22:22, 29 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Categories
Where are all the librarians? Well, I'm one of them -- 30 years on the staff at Dallas Pub Lib. (I recently expanded the Library article, for that matter.) But I agree: There certainly ought to be more.

But I have a specific problem that I think maybe you could give me some guidance on, because of your posts on the categorization talk page, and because even an experienced reference librarian knows when to ask for help! I've been doing a bunch of Texas-related historical & biographical articles, and I have a bunch more coming up, and it finally occurred to me that there really ought to be a category called "Texans". At present, there's only a manual "List of Texans" under "Category:Texas".

I've been reading all through the how-to pages, and all the articles having to do with categories and categorization, and I've not found anything that tells me how to actually establish a new category. Is this an admin-only ability? Or am I just overlooking something? --Michael K. Smith 20:19, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC)

 * Michael, by the time I read your message, I saw that you already found help for your glitches in creating categories at Wikipedia talk:Categorization. As you now know, anyone can create categories, and the instructions are hidden at Categorization between when to create one and what to name it.  One of us should reword it, use a more familiar example besides felis silvestris catus, and make it more prominent on that page.  I don't think the new glitch you found (that you have to delete and re-add the category tag to articles that were created before the category) is even mentioned yet.

 * I haven't done much with categories since the bottom-up method and the many glitches discourage most people from contributing, which is what Wikipedia is all about. I'll help discuss classification theory, but I'll keep supporting the lists until they get the bugs out of the procedure, and then use them in creating categories. GUllman 19:38, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)

 * Hi I have just joined WikiProject Novels and noticed you are part of the parent Books, also see you are a librarian and interested in Categories. I trained as a Librarian and dislike seeing things in a jumble. However the categories around fiction and novels and their genres appear to be in something of a middle. Do you have any thoughts or recommendations? Would you like to get envolved? Please get back to me. :: Kevinalewis  :  (Talk Page)  15:11, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Speaking of categories, what do you think of Category:Descendants_of_Richard_Warren and it's proposed deletion? As you are into both genealogy and a librarian, I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts. -- Sholom 16:54, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

 * Sorry, but I think this would get out of hand in several ways: deciding which historical persons are prominent enough to have a category, and to receive a category tag; and an exponentiating number of category links on articles of royals, nobles and other well-connected families such as presidents (nearly all Europeans and Americans could receive a "Descendants of Charlemagne" tag). It's tempting to turn the hierarchy of categories into a genealogy tree like FamilySearch's Ancestral File, but in an encyclopedia, it is sufficient to include these lists, with the names linked, in the text of the article. GUllman 21:14, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Article Licensing
Hi, I've started a drive to get users to multi-license all of their contributions that they've made to either (1) all U.S. state, county, and city articles or (2) all articles, using the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike (CC-by-sa) v1.0 and v2.0 Licenses or into the public domain if they prefer. The CC-by-sa license is a true free documentation license that is similar to Wikipedia's license, the GFDL, but it allows other projects, such as WikiTravel, to use our articles. Since you are among the top 1000 Wikipedians by edits, I was wondering if you would be willing to multi-license all of your contributions or at minimum those on the geographic articles. Over 90% of people asked have agreed. For More Information:
 * Multi-Licensing FAQ - Lots of questions answered
 * Multi-Licensing Guide
 * Free the Rambot Articles Project

To allow us to track those users who muli-license their contributions, many users copy and paste the " " template into their user page, but there are other options at Template messages/User namespace. The following examples could also copied and pasted into your user page:

 * Option 1
 * I agree to multi-license all my contributions, with the exception of my user pages, as described below:

OR
 * Option 2
 * I agree to multi-license all my contributions to any U.S. state, county, or city article as described below:

Or if you wanted to place your work into the public domain, you could replace " " with "  ". If you only prefer using the GFDL, I would like to know that too. Please let me know what you think at my talk page. It's important to know either way so no one keeps asking. -- Ram-Man (comment| talk)

New Mathematics Wikiportal
I noticed you've done some work on Mathematics articles. I wanted to point out to you the new Mathematics Wikiportal- more specifically, to the Mathematics Collaboration of the Week page. I'm looking for any math-related stubs or non-existant articles that you would like to see on Wikipedia. Additionally, I wondered if you'd be willing to help out on some of the Collaboration of the Week pages.

I encourage you to vote on the current Collaboration of the Week, because I'm very interested in which articles you think need to be written or added to, and because I understand that I cannot do the enormous amount of work required on some of the Math stubs alone. I'm asking for your help, and also your critiques on the way the portal is set up.

Librarians
I've just set up a project page for librarians interested in contributing to Wikipedia. I hope you'll drop by! --Helperzoom 06:53, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

Please direct all comments to my user-talk page, the Math Wikiportal talk page, or the Math Collaboration of the Week talk page. Thanks a lot for your support! ral315 02:54, Feb 11, 2005 (UTC)

I heartily agree that Wikipedia needs more librarians keeping after things. Unfortunately, the nearest I come to being a librarian is that I come from a long line of them. (I'm 25 and don't even have a BA, let alone an MLS!) — Anna Kucsma 19:06, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

SoCal WikiProject
Since you are in Southern California, you might be interested in the Southern California WikiProject (and its parent California WikiProject). Please take a look at the project's page and see if there is anything that you find interesting. If you have any comments or questions, please contact me. Blank Verse  ∅ 02:13, 13 August 2005 (UTC)

Jimbo Wales to Attend San Diego Meetup on October 18 2005
Hello, Jimbo Wales will be in San Diego to attend OOPSLA and has agreed to come by and visit with the San Diego wikipedians. If you are interested, you will find more info on my talk page. Johntex\talk 00:54, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

"Unofficial" regions
Hi Gullman. A long long time ago you suggested renaming this list of "unofficial" regions on its talk page. I, too, think that sounds like a sensible initiative. But what should be the title of the article? =J //Big Adamsky 12:22, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

 * I had already suggested Lists of regions by country, and I still think this is descriptive and succinct enough. Being called a 'region' implies there isn't another official word for these plots of land like 'state' or 'province'.  You don't even have to say whether they are historical or traditional since some of them may have some other origin. GUllman 23:09, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

 * I know, but "region" is also the name of first-level subdivisions within some states, just like "state", "republic", "province", "district", "emirate" etc. And so it might be better to disambiguate with an adjective in the title. //Big Adamsky 00:40, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

 * Well, then why can't the official and unofficial regions be listed in the region article? -- it already includes the list of unofficial regions under its "Geographical" subheading, and duplicates most of the list under its "Traditional" and "Geographical subheadings. Just copy the rest of the list there and get rid of the Lists of unofficial regions. Alternatively, the first few paragraphs of Region can be a disambiguation page, and create List of regions for the rest of the article. GUllman 01:50, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Family History
I am proposing a Family History Wiki. I hope you are interested enough to add your name in support at Wikimedia. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 07:55, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

 * As much as I like genealogy, I studied your proposal and all the relevant links and decided the project just isn't appropriate for a wiki, let alone Wikimedia. Case in point: lots of relatives have seen my genealogy web site (and a few actually say thank you), but very few are coordinating research on the same persons, which is the benefit of using a wiki.  I might think this project had merit if the articles were about people who had their "15 minutes of fame" and were known outside their community; as a minimum, we could link unrelated people who were in the same club, officers in the same organization, or worked for the same company. GUllman 01:57, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

 * "Nothing is as interesting as hearing stories about your ancestors, and nothing is as boring as listening to someone else talk about their ancestors."

Non-fiction Template
Since you are part of WikiProject Books I thought you might know of a non-fiction template that I can use. Is there such a thing?

-Todd 19:03, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

 * We have not developed an official nonfiction template yet. Nonfiction books cover a much wider field than novels, so different aspects might apply for discussion (not all could be called "culturally important", for example), so they're still as freeform as most Wikipedia articles.  The infobox you added on The Guns of August appears to follow the example of the Book infobox.  It looks good! GUllman 21:34, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Hi!
Hi there! We've not interacted, as far as I know, but I've seen your edits on various LIS pages and thought I'd introduce myself... I'm also a librarian, up in Northern California. I'm involved with doing outreach to librarians and with wikimania this summer, which you might be interested in; we're trying to get a lot of librarian involvement. Anyway - just thought I'd say hi :) Brassratgirl 03:30, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

 * Thanks for saying hi, and I have noticed your contributions to LIS pages and their talk pages as well. I'm not able to travel to wikimania at this time, but I'm glad to see librarians will be represented, and I hope that any other librarians reading this will consider it.  We'll each do our part to increase our visibility and contribute our expertise to Wikipedia as we're able. GUllman 18:21, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

FamilySearch
As you have contributed to a related article, you might want to know about the AfD for FamilySearch. -- 63.224.136.62 04:43, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Electronic article RfD
An article I have contributed to relating to libraries, Electronic article, has been listed at Articles for deletion/Electronic article. DGG 02:23, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

 * On the RfD Talk page, I proposed keeping this useful article, but moving it to Electronic journal. GUllman 21:50, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
 * I'd have no objections to merging them.DGG 01:52, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
 * It having been decidedto keep them both, I have started trying to make them each distinctive. DGG 04:42, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

databases
The article, List of bibliographic databases, has just been turned into a redirect, and simultaneously the Academic databases and search engines article has had all the links changed--all of this in the last few days- at the rate of several hundred edits a day. See discussion on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Academic_databases_and_search_engines#linksDGG 04:43, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Request for help
Hi GUllman,

I saw your name on the list at the books project page and I'm hoping you could help. I made a number of contributions to the Against the Day article which I think would be extremely useful to readers of that difficult novel who come here looking for more information on it. I may be wrong or I may be right in the types of additions I've made, but I've gotten into a dispute with another editor who has some support from others and wants to delete some portions of the article. I strongly feel that the critics aren't even thinking about the points in dispute from the perspective of book readers. If you have the time and the inclination, I hope you'll visit the discussion and put your two cents in. Essentially it's about whether to retain a list of years and a list of abstruse words in the article. Whether you agree with me or disagree, I'd appreciate the opinion of someone with a clear interest in books. Thanks for taking the time to read this far. Noroton 21:08, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

America's Got Talent format changes
Hi! Could you please comment on my proposed changes to the format of America's Got Talent season articles at Talk:America's Got Talent (season 2)? Thanks. TLK'in 14:10, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

List of books by title
Hi. I'm very grateful to you for moving all the Lists of books by title to project space before they were irrevocably gone. WP:NOT is a killer (as could be seen when the List of people by name was deleted), and it can be used indiscriminately by people who never seem to have realised how valuable an index can be. Thanks again, and keep up the good work. <K F>  08:53, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I was very lucky that I saw the AfD in time, and had the time to do the work. Four years of work by countless volunteers ... deleted just two days after it was proposed! GUllman 21:32, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Redirect of Sideswipe (martial arts)
Hello, this is a message from an automated bot. A tag has been placed on Sideswipe (martial arts), by another Wikipedia user, requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. The tag claims that it should be speedily deleted because Sideswipe (martial arts) is a redirect to a non-existent page (CSD R1). To contest the tagging and request that administrators wait before possibly deleting Sideswipe (martial arts), please affix the template to the page, and put a note on its talk page. If the article has already been deleted, see the advice and instructions at WP:WMD. Feel free to contact the bot operator if you have any questions about this or any problems with this bot, bearing in mind that this bot is only informing you of the nomination for speedy deletion; it does not perform any nominations or deletions itself. CSDWarnBot 06:51, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Yoga poll
Hi! There's some discussion on whether using "asana", "yogasana" or "yoga asana" as the article title. If you are acquainted with the subject, you are invited to drop your opinion at Talk:Yogasana. Davin7 10:00, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Lists and the "contents" pages
There's a reply to your post at Wikipedia talk:Contents:

 * These lists belong in Wikipedia namespace. Many people walk into a library or bookstore and look around thinking, "Aha, so this is how all of knowledge is organized," but they are wrong.  Many equally valid systems of organizing knowledge have been devised.  The chosen scope of each Wikipedia article, the inclusion or exclusion of articles in a category or list (unless it is an indisputable fact), and the boundaries of academic disciplines are the opinions of the compilers. Categories of knowledge that were developed by an authority in the outside world such as Dewey, LC or Roget could stay in the article namespace, but the unique organization schemes that were grown inhouse by Wikipedia's editors are original research.  They are indeed useful as overviews of this encyclopedia's strengths and lacks, but they should not be candidates for featured lists.  GUllman 23:51, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Since the 3 pages I listed above are also the names of their respective sets, it isn't clear to what lists you are referring to, just the 3 pages, or the entire sets? Note that the scope of the page "Lists of topics" is all lists on Wikipedia. To move them all to the Wikipedia namespace would require a larger venue of discussion.  With respect to your last point, whether or not a list is eligible for featured list status depends upon if it can meet the requirements set by that department.  "Basic geography" returns over 37,000 hits on Google, so it appears likely that the List of basic geography topics can be sourced as per the requirements of WP:FLC.  The Transhumanist   17:01, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

There are now also other reasons posted in the discussion that you may want to take into consideration. Please respond at Wikipedia talk:Contents. The Transhumanist 23:40, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Lists of basic topics WikiProject status report
I've just created List of basic human anatomy topics. It's not complete. Please look it over to see if there is anything you can fill in.

Also, we've got a pretty long wish list of basic topics lists that don't yet exist. Please adopt a topic from the list and create a basic list for it -- the BLT template is for creating basic topic lists, and is used like this: topic (where "topic" is the name of the topic being covered). Instructions are included on the template. Once the page is created with the heading skeleton, fill it in to the best of your ability. Post a message on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Lists of basic topics to let the whole team know what you are working on.

The Transhumanist 01:35, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Question about the Westchester neighborhood
In Westchester, is it very affluent in the area, or is it middle class? If either, should I add more info on the article? Agtax 21:00, 22 December 2007 (UTC)
 * According to the 2000 Census income table for zip code 90045, about 50% of the families earn between $60,000 and $150,000 a year, so I'd say the majority might be called upper-middle class. However, like nearly all communities, each range of income has a percentage, so you might find a way to copy the table in the link I provided. GUllman (talk) 06:28, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject Circus has had assessment added
See WikiProject_Circus Paul foord (talk) 06:42, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

WikiProject Germany Invitation
--Zeitgespenst (talk) 12:11, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Library, Archives, and Web 2.0 Research Guide Template
Consider giving your opinion on the research guide template.Shannon bohle (talk) 06:52, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Collaboration
I'm pushing a collaboration to complete the list of basic space exploration topics.

Should be fun. Drop on by. ;)

Also, see my post to User talk:Quiddity if you want to delve in deeper.

The Transhumanist 09:19, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

AfD nomination of Back to the Future timeline
An editor has nominated Back to the Future timeline, an article on which you have worked or that you created, for deletion. We appreciate your contributions, but the nominator doesn't believe that the article satisfies Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion and has explained why in his/her nomination (see also "What Wikipedia is not").

Your opinions on whether the article meets inclusion criteria and what should be done with the article are welcome; please participate in the discussion by adding your comments at and please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes ( ~ ).

You may also edit the article during the discussion to improve it but should not remove the articles for deletion template from the top of the article; such removal will not end the deletion debate. Thank you. BJBot (talk) 22:00, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

One link at a time
Hi.

Since you are a member of the Lists of basic topics WikiProject, I have a couple requests for you...

As you browse/edit Wikipedia, please be on the lookout for links you can add to the lists of basic topics (and each time you find one, add it to the appropriate list). The ones that need the most work are listed at WikiProject Lists of basic topics.

You can also help build the set by adding or completing lists. Set a personal quota (build or complete one list per month, or per week, or per whatever time period you think you can handle), and keep up with your quota. These lists take from 3 hours to 8 hours each to complete, even if you know nothing about the subject to begin with. (The basic topics of a subject are pretty easy to identify). Even partial lists are useful for study and navigation, so don't be shy. Others can pick up where you've left off.

Links add up, so even if you add one link at a time, here and there, it will help. Please acquire the habit. The more people we get involved with this, the sooner the project will reach its intended scope.

The Transhumanist 06:08, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence
Hello. I'm contacting you and other members of WikiProject Books in order to find if you are interested in collaborating to expand and improve The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence article to make it worthy of becoming a featured article candidate, in light of the fact that it is the first book the U.S. government ever went to court to censor before its publication. --Loremaster (talk) 21:56, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

One of your pet projects is taking off...
Hi GUllman,

We could sure use your help over at the WikiProject Lists of basic topics...

We're in the process of more than doubling the size of the set, and have created a page for every country of the world! (They are listed on the WikiProject page). They're not complete, and most of them aren't even in the main namespace yet, but...

A team of editors has been working on them, and the pages have come a long way. Check 'em out, man.

The reason I'm contacting you is because we're about to run a competition, called "Around the World", in which participants will compete by completing specific data items across all of these country lists. For example, one task for one participant would be adding the population figure for each country. Each participant will be using advanced tools like AWB and Linky, so this should be very interesting.

The awards images for the contest are almost done, and the pages themselves need a couple sections completed before they can be moved to the article namespace and the competition can begin.

The competition will likely attract many editors to this WikiProject. We could sure use your help getting these pages ready to help make this happen...

Tracking down the administrative divisions types for each country
The first task is on the "Administrative divisions of" sections.

In each of these sections, there's an initial hierarchical list of the division types in that country, followed by subheadings for each of the types. Unfortunately, the types listed are those from the template I used to create these pages, and they aren't accurate for many countries.

The defaults that I used were:

 * Provinces of x
 * Districts of x
 * Municipalities of x

(Where "x" is the name of each country).

For each country, the links to the names of the administrative divisions for that country need to be checked and corrected, adding more links if there are more than 3 division types. Those that are subdivisions of another type are indented under the parent type. In most cases, you would leave municipalities in place, because that's a generic name for "city". We'll blue-link those later. (Blue-linking is creating a redirect so that a link turns blue - that way, the link remains standardized on all the pages in the set).

Also we need to change the subheadings in the same section to match the initial list, including the "main article" links presented just below each of those subheadings.

To find out what the administrative divisions are for a country so you can add them, try looking on the government of x or politics of x pages for that country, and on the country's main article as well.

Adding the administrative divisions to their respective subsections
For each country, we need to find the list of administrative division for each type, and add them under that type's subheading.

For example, copy and paste the provinces listed at Provinces of Angola to the "Provinces of Angola" subheading on that country's basic topics list page.

See the countries listed at Lists of basic topics for examples of how this has been done for those. If there's a map showing the administrative divisions, grab it too! Maps are great.

Generally do not add towns and cities to the municipalities section, as there are usually way too many of them (and will unnecessarily bloat the page). Instead, provide links to the various pages (Cities of x, [Towns of x, Villages of x, etc.

Completing the "Government of x" section
This section also has temporary data, and needs to be corrected/completed.

The titles of the head of state and head of government of each country need to be corrected, and the specific office holders added.

The branches of government subheadings need to be corrected/filled in.

Etc.

The above tasks are fun, because it's interesting to see how other countries operate. I've completed about 25 of the country pages so far, and I've been intrigued and even amazed at some of the approaches different countries follow. The U.S. is definitely behind in many respects.

Please help out as much as you can, and help us get Around the World started!

Sincerely,

The Transhumanist 18:11, 29 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Transhumanist, I have just discovered the rotating barnstar that can barely be seen in the upper left corner of my user page was contributed by you on Feb. 6, 2008. I thank you for the thought, but could you please either move it, remove it or change to a normal barnstar award -- or is its position deliberately symbolic in some way? GUllman (talk) 18:19, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

UCLA userbox
Hi, I have never seen a swirling barnstar Wikipedia globe logo before I came to your talk page. I updated Template:User BRUIN ALUM today. It's a little fancier than the Template:User ucla one, so I thought I'd share it! Newportm (talk) 01:12, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the userbox. Go Bruins! GUllman (talk) 17:52, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Concerning the WikiProject Lists of basic topics
(the RfDs below have already run their course)

RfD nomination of Navy of Sudan
I have nominated for discussion. Your opinions on the matter are welcome; please participate in the discussion by adding your comments at the discussion page. Thank you. Ron Ritzman (talk) 00:07, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

RfD nomination of Navy of Belarus
I have nominated for discussion. Your opinions on the matter are welcome; please participate in the discussion by adding your comments at the discussion page. Thank you. Ten Pound Hammer and his otters • (Broken clamshells • Otter chirps • HELP) 16:01, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Navy redirects
We've been "bluelinking" the Navy of x links in the basic topic country lists, by creating redirects for them, even for the countries that have no navy.

There's been a little controversy over the navy redirects for the landlocked countries (many of which have no navy), as you can see above. But it's all been worked out. Each country with no navy gets a redirect to wherever it is reported that it has no navy, or failing that, to its "military of" article.

The country lists are coming along slowing but surely. It shouldn't take too much longer before they will be complete enough to move into article space (!), but I can still use all the help I can get. (hint hint).

The Transhumanist 20:46, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

We could sure use your help in bluelinking the links in these lists (each link appears in one of the various country basic topic lists):
 * User:ChiragPatnaik/Navies
 * User:ChiragPatnaik/Armies
 * User:ChiragPatnaik/Air Forces

To bluelink them, create a redirect to wherever the information is covered. If there is no entity, redirect to where that is (or should be) covered.

If you have any questions, please contact me. The Transhumanist 20:58, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

P.S.: I hardly ever check back on messages I leave on users' talk pages - Wikipedia's message alert feature only works when messages are left on the recipient's talk page. It was sheer luck I spotted your request above. ;) The Transhumanist  21:24, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia Loves Art
First off, I apologize for the spam. You are receiving this message because you have indicated that you are in Southern California or interested in Southern California topics (either via category or WikiProject).

I would like to invite you to the Los Angeles edition of Wikipedia Loves Art, a photography scavenger hunt to be held at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) on Saturday, February 28, 2009, from 1:00 to 7:00 PM. All photos are intended for use in Wikipedia articles or on Wikimedia Commons. There will be a prize available for the person who gets the most photos on the list.

If you don't like art, why not come just to meet your fellow Wikipedians. Apparently, we haven't had a meetup in this area since June 2006!

If you are interested in attending, please add your name to Wikipedia Loves Art. Please make a note if you are traveling to the area (train or plane) and need transportation, which can probably be arranged via carpool, but we need time to coordinate. Lodging is as of right now out of scope, but we could discuss that if enough people are interested.

Thank you and I hope to see you there!  howcheng  {chat} 23:56, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Alphabetization and collation
I am inviting you to comment, in your capacity as a librarian, at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style. -- Wavelength (talk) 21:29, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Outline of Knowledge / Geography WikiProject Collaboration: Country outlines
As you probably remember, last spring we started work on the "Geography and places" branch of Wikipedia's Outline of knowledge. It is in the form of a set of outline pages including one for every present-day nation or state in the world. That's 247 pages! This has been a huge undertaking, involving dozens of editors using advanced wiki-tools.

These pages have come a long way, and it won't be long before the whole set is complete enough to be moved to article space into the encyclopedia for the benefit of all. But there's still a lot of work left, and we could use all the help we can get!

While some editors prefer to work on one country at a time, most of our team members take on a particular entry and complete it across all the pages. This has come to be our standard type of task. To facilitate this process, we apply tools such as AutoWikiBrowser, Linky, and WikEd, all of which can be used to process a large number of pages in various (direct or indirect) ways.

In case you are interested in what we've been up to, here's a progress report:

Lately, development has been slow but continuous:

On our recruiting initiative, Penubag has done a fantastic job on the images for the awards we'll be using for our project's collaborations and contests. We now have 3 awards: a medal, a trophy, and a race ribbon. They all look tight. The trophy needs a small adjustment, but other than that, all 3 award images are complete and ready to use to create awards with.

Spartaz has warned us of (threatened to take) G4 (speedy delete) action if we run a competition that resembles the previously deleted Awards Center page. So whatever we do, any contests we run must differ substantially from the methods used there.

One type of competition I've been exploring is "edit racing". I'm in the process of working the bugs out of this concept - the first race didn't work as expected - you see, because we only had an award for first place, so the opponent didn't think it worthwhile to continue once it was clear who the winner would be. And since editors are in different time zones and usually need to start the race at different times, we need to base winning on personal start times - he who completes his assigned edits in the least time (rather than first), wins. And last but not least is quality control. What good is racing if the participants' edits are ripe with errors? So I'll be exploring possibilities such as using a referee (assigned to oversee a particular race), having participants watching each other for errors to knock them back, etc. I'm not sure yet.

Rich Farmbrough has been applying his bot expertise to filling in blanks in the country outlines (the population and area entries). I'm amazed at the number of edits he pumps out each day on a myriad of projects - ours makes up but a small time slice of his activity, and yet he has saved us many hours of manual work. Perhaps we should look into how he gets so much done. :)

Zlerman has chosen to work on specific outlines, and has taken on Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. He also has been keen on noticing and reporting design issues pertaining to the whole set of country outlines. Keep up the good work!

Highfields is in charge of capitals, adding them to all the outlines. He is also our first race winner. Check out the award on his user pages.

In case you didn't know, this project has expanded to include work on any and all sets of pages represented on the country outlines. Once the set of country outlines go live (in article space), traffic will likely increase for all the links included on them. The quality and usefulness of those pages will reflect heavily on the country outlines. The outlines, which are essentially lists of links, are only as good as the links they present, and therefore we've branched out to solve the biggest problems with those as well. So far, we've taken on:
 * The creation of disambiguation pages for country adjectivals ("German", "French", "Taiwanese", etc.) We're about half done with these.
 * Wikifying the CIA World Factbook statistics on the "demographics of" country pages. We've been renaming those sections to provide a key string that AWB can use for targetting (for skipping and filtering).  Once that's done, we'll be able to break the clean-up down into simple AWB search/replace tasks, because we'll be able to target just those pages that include the CIA stuff.
 * We've also been renaming the "Cuisine of" articles to their adjectival forms ("Chinese cuisine", "Italian cuisine", etc.), for consistency and because the adjective-based terms are generally the most commonly-used names for those cuisine types.

Blackadam2 and Thehelpfulone have been helping out with the "demographics of" pages mentioned above.

And we have a couple speed addicts (addicted to wiki-velocity, not drugs)...

Both Robert Skyhawk and Thehelpfulone prefer (and excel at) simple AWB search/replaces. Robert hasn't actually joined our team yet, but he has been helping out quite a bit from the sidelines (via the WP:AWB/Tasks page. Unfortunately, there has recently been a non-AWB chore that has been holding things up on the AWB front - an edit to all the headings which had to be reverted before too many new edits were made, because any new edits would make the reversion more difficult.  The headings have been restored, so now the way is clear for AWB operations, and there are many search/replace tasks in the queue.  AWB assignments have started again!

There's a similar bottleneck on the "Demographics of" pages (the "keying" mentioned above), but that's almost cleared too. :)

With my internet access somewhat crippled as of late, I've been finding it difficult to keep up with you guys. However, I expect to be accessing a Linky-capable workstation on a faster server (I'm on it right now, as you can probably tell from my contributions list for the past couple of days), and so I should really pick up speed. Feels goooooood. :)

Recruiting has been a bit slow (but steady), due in part to my crippled access, and because we've been waiting for the images for the awards to be completed. I expect the team to grow more rapidly as the bottlenecks are removed.

Well that's what's been happenin', and here's what's in the pipeline...

We've got a long list of entries that need to be completed across all the outlines and related page sets. If you would like to dive in with advanced wiki-tools to process this whole set of pages on one or more tasks, drop me a note!

As for me, I'm about to begin work on a set of lists that corresponds to all the standard links on the country outlines, and these will be presented on the Topic outline of countries which will be organized exactly like the country outlines. Aside from being an extremely useful navigation aid, it will allow editors to easily see the state of country coverage on Wikipedia - each list will be one link-set, and each list can be used with our wiki-tools to process the pages listed. I'll provide you with a link once I get up to speed on this.

In the meantime, keep in touch!

Cheers,

The Transhumanist 00:46, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Country outlines project update - 2009/03/08
Remember "Around the World"?

Well, we've been around the World, and around again (virtually speaking, on Wikipedia), on this project.

Things have been slowing down again, so it's time for a big push...

We've gone live
This project needed a shot in the arm. Also, its draft pages have been littering Wikipedia's categories for months. The time seemed right to move all the country outline drafts to article space.

WHAT???

Well, the drafts had been sitting in Wikipedia space for a year.

WHAT???

Development has been moving at a snail's pace and we could use the help of the Wikipedia community at large (who are more likely to find these if they are in article space).

WHAT???

Yes, we've gone live. :)

This puts pressure on us to get the blatantly incomplete elements of these outlines done. The only glaring problem is the government branches sections. These need to be corrected ASAP.

I've mentioned THE GOVERNMENT BRANCHES SECTIONS many times to many people over the past year, but the problem just doesn't seem to have been taken seriously. So let me put it another way:

HELP!!! I need your help on this now. Almost all the countries have a government with an executive branch, a legislative branch, and a judicial branch. The links for these branches need to be completed for each country outline:

 * Here's a convenient list you can use WP:LINKY on to access and edit these quickly. Please copy the list's link to the top of your talk page so that you can access it easily.

If you spot any standardization in links, and ways we can automate parts of this process, or for groups of countries that have links in common, please let me know!

Administrative support for outlines
There has been growing pressure on me to write up the administrative pages for outlines - their instructions, guidelines, etc. Therefore, I'm now in the process of composing these. Fortunately, it is mostly a matter of gathering material from messages I've written to you guys over the past year. Still, this is taking up most of my time, and I will be buried in these for the foreseeable future.

Traffic control
The next big task after the government branches sections are cleaned up is link support for the outlines.

There's quite a list of links and notices that need to be put in place around Wikipedia, providing access to them to readers, and alerting editors to the need to develop and maintain these pages. This will keep our bot people very busy (and happy).

But the most important thing right now is to get the government branches sections completed. So please, put your bots aside, roll up your shirt sleeves, and start typing.

Thank you.

The Transhumanist 03:35, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Geography WikiProject update - 03/15/2009
The award images are complete!

After months of toil and attention to detail, Penubag has completed the set of images for this WikiProject's awards!

There are five race ribbons:

There's an engraved medallion:

And by far the hardest to create, a golden trophy:

If you have any ideas about awards these images can be placed upon, and how to award them (to show appreciation and to attract participants), please let me know.

And be sure to pop by Penubag's talk page to let him know what you think of his graphics artistry.

The Transhumanist 21:10, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Update on the Outline of knowledge WikiProject & Geography WikiProject (Country outlines workgroup) - 04/16/2009
Momentum in the development of the outlines is continuing to build, even though we haven't added any new outlines lately. Plenty of work is being done on the outlines we already have.

Keep up the good work everyone!

Inspiration!
Kudos go to Buaidh, who has dived head first into outline development, continuing improvement of the country outlines, and doing so vigorously. Take a look at his contribs. He has taken the initiative and has been expanding those outlines' design and coverage. Be sure to let him know what you think of his work!

Coming soon: the Super Huge Expansion (it will be really really big)
Excitement (mine at least) is building as we approach the Super Huge Expansion, during which notices will be placed on thousands of subject talk pages and their corresponding WikiProjects (see below concerning which ones). Though not all on the same day! - this will take place over a period of weeks or months, because it's best not to open the flood gates all at once.

The existing outlines should serve as strong examples for editors who wish to develop new outlines, and so we need to complete them as much as we can before we start to take this to the next level (in about 3 months). The rewrite of the outline article (the draft, which explains outlines in detail), and the guideline on outlines and outline development, also need to be completed before the transcendence begins. These will help guide the decisions and actions of editors, and reduce confusion.

Projected outline, at the OOK WikiProject page
What's next? Where is the Outline of knowledge headed?

Well, it will grow, to encompass all of human knowledge.

But, is there a plan?

YES!!!

Currently under construction on the Outline of knowledge WikiProject page is a version of the outline that will display links to all the outline pages currently in the encyclopedia proper, links to all outline drafts, and redlinks to all planned outline drafts.

You can help. Please place links to the remaining drafts in there (with complete pagenames so we can easily tell they are drafts). Once all the draft pages are placed, please look over the overall outline for gaps in coverage, and add missing subjects. I expect there are thousands of missing subjects extensive enough to benefit from being outlined. New subjects should be included as red draft links. Thank you.

But it's not just an editing task list...

During the upcoming "Super Huge Expansion" (mentioned above), the article talk page and WikiProject for each of the subjects listed on the projected outline will receive a notice requesting the creation and development of the outline page for that subject. Each notice will also explain how a subject's outline will integrate into the Outline of knowledge and into Wikipedia's navigation system as a whole.

See WikiProject Outline of knowledge.

Topic lists
The nice thing about a reverse outline is that it turns up problems that exist in the publication being outlined, which provides opportunities to fix them. Since we get very little or no opposition to fixing problems even on sets of hundreds of pages, we've been plowing through them.

One of the biggest problems in Wikipedia that our work on the Outline of knowledge has uncovered so far is with the set of topics lists. Their titles, in the forms "List of x topics" and "List of x-related topics" are ambiguous, and they are not the most common terms for describing their content. See WP:COMMONNAME. To make matters worse, the set is divided between 2 competing types/sets of pages: alphabetical indexes, and outlines.

In an effort to sort out this mess, the indexes are being renamed, and the outlines are being reformatted and moved, or merged, into the Outline of knowledge.

So far, almost 300 topic lists have been renamed to indexes. Nobody has objected to the names chosen, but one editor has expressed reservation on the approach - he was concerned it would cause confusion by having 2 title standards in place at the same time for these. Though he himself was not confused, nor did he object to the titles. And nobody else has expressed confusion or dissatisfaction with the new titles either. It has been over 2 weeks since the renaming has begun, and since no confusion seems to have been caused, and since there is no opposition to the new names, I plan to continue with the renaming.

Also, one topic list has been merged into its corresponding outline so far: List of transport topics was merged into Outline of transport. It turned out very good. List of cell biology topics is currently being merged into Outline of cell biology (see the link dump in hidden comments at the end of the outline).

I'm not sure how many lists have "topics" in their titles, but Google turned up 788, and these appear to include the ones that have already been renamed to indexes. Subtracting those renamed so far, there are about 500 more to go.

Watching tips
I thought you might want to compare notes on the methods we use to watch over the outlines. Here's how I keep an eye on things...

My watchlist had so many thousands of articles in it that I finally just deleted them all. Now I have it set so that I have to manually add pages to be watched, and I use it only to watch trouble spots and collaborations I'm participating in.

Because I like to watch specific sets of pages at a time, I use "Related changes" on list pages. That way the results are not watered down with edits from pages I'm not immediately concerned with.

I always use WP:POP and Related changes together. With POP installed, you go to a link list, like User:Buaidh/Country outlines of the Americas, then click on "Related changes" in the toolbox menu, and then hover the mouse cursor over the diff and hist links so you can look at those without clicking on them.

It's pretty fast.

The technique turns Wikipedia's list system into a crystal ball.

Update Scanner
Penubag recommends Update Scanner, which is a Firefox add-on that periodically scans pages and pings you when a change is detected. You can even set its level of sensitivity for each scanned page (e.g., "ignore changes of 100 words or less").

I'd use it, but I don't have a computer. :(

See also WP:OTS for more power tools and techniques, and User:Penubag/optimum toolsets for some more nice addons, that do a variety of things.

I'm always looking for new power tools and power skills, so if you know of any, please share (let me know)!

The Transhumanist 04:49, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Do not read this one - The Hunt - Outline of knowledge WikiProject - 04/17/2009
Here's a trivia question for you...

While surveying libraries, their outline-related resources, and our coverage of them, I came across something funny...

What subclass is the Bible in the Library of Congress Classification?

Do you think they'd like this one at WP:DYK? (Nope. They didn't.)     :)

Libraries
For months, I've been sitting at a terminal in one of the largest libraries in the country, and I haven't even looked around at the available resources.

Until a few days ago.

I'm overwhelmed.

When compared to libraries, Wikipedia is small. (See Digest of Education Statistics 2008, Chapter 7:Libraries and Educational Technology Libraries, and turn to page 617).

But is that a fair comparison?

Yes.

Why?

Because we have growth potential. :)

And we cover everything, including libraries!

Guess what else I found?

Hunting for outlines
I began to study libraries and librarians, since they are experts in organizing knowledge. And of course I turned to Wikipedia to see what we had on the things I came across...

And while doing so I kept running into outlines on Wikipedia that are not (yet) part of the Outline of knowledge.

When I come across non-OOK outlines, generally I rename them, and reformat them to our standard outline format. But there is the occasional exception.

Here are some outlines I just added:

 * 1) List of energy topics --> Outline of energy (it converted great)
 * 2) List of Dewey Decimal classes --> Outline of Dewey Decimal classes (no conversion)
 * 3) Library of Congress Classification --> ??? (no rename, no conversion)

The last 2 are outlines by their very nature, and so our standard outline subheadings didn't seem to fit. So I left them as is.

I renamed the first 2, but the last one is the name of the outline, that is, the topic itself is an outline, and that outline is presented as the article's content, so I left the name as is. For now. This needs more thought.

Of course, that's not all. Concerning those last 2 outlines above...

Alternate outlines of knowledge
...not only are they outlines, but they are outlines of knowledge! Well, the top few levels, at least.

Uh, so?

What happens if we linkify them? :)

That is, what happens if we linkify their classifications to Wikipedia's outlines? :)  :)   :)

They become alternate top ends to the OOK
Yep.

What can you find?
I challenge you to find some "hidden" outlines.

I dare you to take a look around Wikipedia for hidden outlines (that is, outlines not yet hooked into the OOK), and add your kills to WP:WPOOK.

My trophies are already there.

May the hunt begin!
The Transhumanist 20:44, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

AfD nomination of Hill Valley (Back to the Future)
An editor has nominated one or more articles which you have created or worked on, for deletion. The nominated article is Hill Valley (Back to the Future). We appreciate your contributions, but the nominator doesn't believe that the article satisfies Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion and has explained why in his/her nomination (see also "What Wikipedia is not").

Your opinions on whether the article meets inclusion criteria and what should be done with the article are welcome; please participate in the discussion(s) by adding your comments to Articles for deletion/Hill Valley (Back to the Future). Please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes ( ~ ).

You may also edit the article during the discussion to improve it but should not remove the articles for deletion template from the top of the article; such removal will not end the deletion debate.

Please note: This is an automatic notification by a bot. I have nothing to do with this article or the deletion nomination, and can't do anything about it. --Erwin85Bot (talk) 01:20, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Tirana Circus
Could you please help expanding the article of Tirana Circus? --Vinie007 13:42, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Contortion
Hi there. Where did you get the Myths Section for this article? Thanks. -Nova —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.183.170.12 (talk) 04:28, 18 September 2010 (UTC)
 * They're not from any one source, since I've never seen a comprehensive and unbiased article about contortion, let alone a "list of myths". I have seen or read each myth used as showman's hype, however, and I could cite where I have seen it, but I admit this would be original research.  Instead, let me claim that itemizing a list of popular myths is just the teaching/literary method I chose to dispell popular misinformation before giving the scientific research that can be cited.  Since the goal of an encylopedia article is to teach, I just thought this style would be more effective in helping people find the answer to their question than paragraphs of facts one after another. GUllman (talk) 20:24, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Turning Ten
On Saturday January 15, 2011, Wikipedia will turn 10 years and people all over the globe will be celebrating Wikipedia on that day. No event is currently planned for Orange County Wikipedians, so I am leaving a message with some of the currently involved editors listed in "Wikipedians in Orange County, California" & "Wikipedians in Southern California" to see if we might want to meet on that day, lunch, dinner, group photo or other ideas welcomed? I will start a "Turning Ten" discussion thread on my Talk page to see if any interest can be planned for and determined. I am located in Old Towne Orange off the circle.Tinkermen (talk) 17:17, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Saturday 25th
Do you know about this Meetup this coming Saturday in LA? Meetup/LA/4 Hope you can attend. Tinkermen (talk) 15:25, 23 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I know about it, but probably can't attend, thanks. GUllman (talk) 00:55, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia Meetup
You are invited to "Come Edit Wikipedia!" at the West Hollywood Library on Saturday, July 27th, 2013. There will be coffee, cookies, and good times! -- Olegkagan (talk) — Message delivered by Hazard-Bot at 03:40, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia Meetup
Help build the Wikipedia community in Southern California at "Come Edit Wikipedia!" presented by the West Hollywood Library on Saturday, August 31st, 2013 from 1-5pm. Drop in for some lively editing and conversation! Plus, it's a library, so there are plenty of sources. --Olegkagan (talk) — Message delivered by Hazard-Bot at 02:26, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

This Thursday: Women in Architecture edit-a-thon @ Getty Center
You are invited to join the Women in Architecture edit-a-thon @ Getty Center in LA on October 15! (drop-in any time, 10am-4pm)--Pharos (talk) 18:25, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

ArbCom elections are now open!
MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 08:51, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

7th Annual Los Angeles Wiknic
It's the 7th Annual Los Angeles Wiknic! Sunday, September 30, 11:00-4:00 PM Pan Pacific Park, 7600 Beverly Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90036 Hang out. Consume crowd-sourced BBQ! Bask in the glory of late September in Los Angeles (and the glory of our new user group, Wikimedians of Los Angeles). RSVP (and volunteer) here. We hope to see you there! JSFarman (talk) 02:50, 9 September 2018 (UTC) Join our Facebook group, or follow us on Twitter! To opt out of future mailings about LA meetups, please remove your name from this list.

Invitation to attend a Southern California Regional mini Unconference
Who: All Wikipedians & Wikimedians

What: Southern California Regional mini Unconference.

When: Sunday 3 March 2019, 2:00PM PST / 1400 until 4:10PM PST / 1610

Where: Philippe's at Chinatown, Los Angeles

Sponsor: San Diego Wikimedians User Group ( US-SAN )

Your host:

Please add your username to our attendees list so we know how many will be attending, due to the limited size of the cafe.

(Delivered: 00:38, 10 February 2019 (UTC) You can unsubscribe from future invitations to San Diego Wikimedians User Group events by removing your name from the WikiProject San Diego mass mailing list & the Los Angeles mass mailing list.)

Art + Feminism 2019
- MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 04:05, 3 March 2019 (UTC)

Southern California Wiknic & Bonfire invitation
 Meetup-San Diego-September 2K19 Who: All members of the public

What: Southern California Wiknic & Bonfire.

When: Sunday 1 September 2019, 2:00PM PDT / 1400 until 10:00PM PDT / 2200

Where: La Jolla Shores

Sponsor: San Diego Wikimedians User Group ( US-SAN )

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title: User talk:GUllman


text: User:Tcfelker

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: User:Tcfelker


text:
User talk:Tcfelker

Hello there, welcome to the 'pedia! I hope you like the place and decide to stay. If you need pointers on how we title pages visit Naming conventions or how to format them visit our manual of style. If you have any other questions about the project then check out Help or add a question to the Village pump. Cheers! --maveric149

title: User talk:Tcfelker


text:
Talk:Sailing

What's wrong with this edit
This edit fails on more than one point.

(1) The substitution of the term "in irons" for "the eye of the wind". Here are some definitions of the two terms. "In irons A sailing boat is in irons when she comes head to wind and fails to Pay off on either tack. The answer is to make a Stern board, to let the wind push her backwards and then to use the rudder to throw her stern off to one side or the other." "in irons head to wind and failing to pay off on either tack." "Irons, in. Position of sailing boat into wind and unable to pay off on either tack." The term "eye of the wind" is defined less often (perhaps because we all know what it means) but you will find: "Eye of the Wind. The direction to windward from whence it blows." "Eye of wind. Directly up wind." Also definition h (a) under "eye" in the Oxford English Dictionary: "Nautical. the wind's eye: the direction from which the wind is blowing. Frequently in in the wind's eye. Also the eye of the wind." From this we learn that the two terms are different in meaning, with "in irons" being the result of a tack going wrong. Hence this edit is inappropriate.

(2) The offered reference for this change is not an RS as it is a blog. The misuse of terminology discussed above demonstrates why a blog is often not a good reference – it is usually the work of one person and has no editorial checking or other review. See WP:USERGENERATED, which is part of WP:RS

Hence I have reverted the edit. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 13:14, 25 September 2022 (UTC)

 * I agree that it is not appropriate to say Tacking or coming about is a maneuver by which a sailing craft turns its bow into and through the wind (often referred to as "irons") so that the apparent wind changes from one side to the other, allowing progress on the opposite tack. It makes no logical sense like that. "In irons" is when a tack fails and the boat ends up "head to wind"; it is not part of the process of a normal tack, which is bringing the boat though the eye of the wind. Good call on the revert. - Ahunt (talk) 13:32, 25 September 2022 (UTC)

Commonly believed nonsense
A paragraph in the History section says: "Early square rigs generally could not sail much closer than 80° to the wind, whereas early fore-and-aft rigs could sail as close as 60–75° off the wind. Later square-rigged vessels too were able to sail to windward, and became the standard for European ships through the Age of Discovery when vessels ventured around Africa to India, to the Americas and around the world." There are a number of errors in this.

(1) The quotation says that historic fore and aft rigs sailed closer to the wind than contemporary square rigged vessels. This is not true. Once could look at, for instance, the comparison of lateen and square rig in the paper by Julian Whitewright (2011) The Potential Performance of Ancient Mediterranean Sailing Rigs, International Journal of Nautical Archaeology, 40:1, 2-17, DOI: 10.1111/ j.1095-9270.2010.00276.x. Here you will find statements like: "The evidence currently available would therefore seem to indicate that there is very little difference in the overall performance of a sailing vessel with a Mediterranean square-sail rig when compared with a similar vessel with a lateen/settee rig from the late antique, medieval or modern era." The paper discusses, among other things, the effect of hull shape and surface roughness (Biofouling and hulls less smooth than modern fibreglass). You also find the comment that Roman squared rigged vessels used bowlines – something that is not required unless you are trying to go to windward. The artemon is another clue that square rigged classical era vessels needed to be balanced when sailing other than directly downwind. It is a generally misunderstood point about square rig that it can have windward sailing ability that is the equal of any contemporaneous fore and aft rigged vessel. Consider, for instance, the Humber keel, which was noted for its windward performance.

(2) Both lateen and square rigged classical era vessels could sail at about 70° to the wind.

(3) The use of the lateen rigged caravel at the beginning of the Age of Discovery is contradicted by the quote from the article. The choice of rigs for these early voyages is much more complex than can be conveyed in a simple sentence.

(4) It is not at all clear what is meant by "Early square rigs". The source quoted (Jett) talks about classical era sailing vessels in the Mediterranean. Jett is covering an enormous breadth in the subject of his book, so I think we can forgive him for erring in a comparison that has found its way into the article.

(5) Also of interest is the paper by Colin Palmer (2009) Windward Sailing Capabilities of Ancient Vessels, International Journal of Nautical Archaeology, 38:2, 314-330, DOI: 10.1111/j.1095-9270.2008.00208.x

(6) See also this book review: ""Reid also makes interesting and valuable observations that may not be widely-understood and accepted, but are nevertheless accurate. He points out that, contrary to popular modern misconceptions, schooners were not considered more weatherly, let alone faster than square-riggers by those who operated them. He gives the example of Lieut. James Cook who was given a schooner for his survey of newly-acquired territories in Canada, but requested permission to re-rig her as a brig to improve weatherliness and maneuverability in restricted waters. Few historians, if any, have had this insight, and Dr Reid is to be applauded for locating and including this information (p. 210). In parenthesis, one could observe that Captain Marryat also believed brigs to be faster and more weatherly than schooners, in his novel Percival Keene. Marryat served as midshipman under Cochrane, and is a reliable source"

The quoted article text appears to need some substantial revision. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 22:30, 4 October 2022 (UTC)

 * The quoted paragraph goes on to say "... in the 18th and 19th centuries with merchant sailing ships that were able to travel at speeds that exceeded those of the newly introduced steamships" This is highly misleading. Whilst there are records of clippers reaching the remarkable speeds such as 17 kn or more, even these fast-sailing vessels typically averaged 6 kn over a whole passage. The remarkable 82 day voyage of Sovereign of the Seas (clipper) from Honolulu to New York averages around 7 kn. By comparison, SS Agamemnon (1865) travelled at 10 kn for virtually the whole voyage (so the trip average speed is very nearly 10 knots). The earlier SS Great Britain had a similar speed. It is worth remembering that clippers were a tiny minority of commercial sailing vessels – the article text implies that all sailing vessels in the 18th and 19th centuries sailed fast. Nothing could be further from the truth.
 * The whole paragraph seems to add little to the article, so I have deleted it.
 * The whole history section could do with a substantial revision. In passing, it is worth noting that there is no mention of sailing rafts, which are an important part of the story. Nor is there anything on the presumed use of sail in the colonisation of Australia some 50,000 to 60,000 years ago.
 * I have also deleted the picture of the Austronesian boat with a crab claw sail in the history section. That picture is from the 1860s – it is not appropriate to have a picture of such a recent vessel right at the start of the history article. I would like to find something a lot earlier, but am not happy with pictures found so far. If anyone has a good representation of an old sailing vessel, that would be welcome. By "good", I suggest an original artistic representation, or an authentic replica/reconstruction; by "old", ideally BCE, or at least in the first few hundred years CE. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 19:54, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

Knock down? & Reefing
I just modified the "heeling" section and appreciate any input or edits (or reversions are ok too). I would like to add a section about knock down and reefing.... Regards Flibbertigibbets (talk) 20:10, 15 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Isn't reefing handled by the section titled "Reducing sail"? ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 20:31, 15 December 2022 (UTC)
 * I did not notice the wikipedia reference -- a whole section on reefing. Flibbertigibbets (talk) 23:54, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

Lateral resistance
The section "Lateral resistance" states (of foils, which I take to include any sort of keel that has a hydrodynamic effect) ...and they are never intentionally stalled.

I am not sure that this is correct, as if you heave to you often have the keel in a stalled position. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 22:33, 15 June 2023 (UTC)

 * I concur that a keel may be stalled, when heaved to, so I added, "while under way". Cheers, HopsonRoad (talk) 00:18, 16 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Whilst risking the criticism of being an extreme nit-picker, the legal and general definition of "underway", as given in the collision regs is (Rule 3, General definitions) "(i). The word “underway” means that a vessel is not at anchor, or made fast to the shore, or aground." So a hove-to vessel is still underway. I have changed the terminology in the article, though not sure if this could be explained or expressed better.
 * Incidentally, Underway really needs some attention. It is a typical muddled and poorly written maritime Wikipedia article with insufficient references. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 07:46, 16 June 2023 (UTC)

Only one mention of leeway
I am surprise that this article only uses the word "leeway" only once. Efficient minimisation of leeway is an important element of sailing, so surely it deserves more than just one brief mention.

The article Leeway has an undue focus on the search and rescue context – so that needs some attention too.

I am not sure that I have sufficient sources to have a go at fixing this – hence the reason for flagging this up here. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 13:11, 22 October 2023 (UTC)

 * Interesting observation, User:ThoughtIdRetired. I would have thought that minimization of leeway was primarily a nautical design issue, e.g. what kind of foils to use, not so much a navigation under sail issue. Certainly, a sailor must account for leeway in determining a course, but there's little more to do about leeway under sail than to make sure the available underwater foils are present.
 * In summary form, what would you suggest should be mentioned here? Cheers, HopsonRoad (talk) 22:49, 22 October 2023 (UTC)

 * I guess that, beyond making allowance for leeway when judging the correct course, you need to be sure that you have sufficient boat speed for the hydrodynamic shape of the hull to act to counteract this force. This is certainly apparent with some traditional boats on tacking (heavy, whole hull acts as the "foil"). You have to let boat speed develop before getting hard on the wind. This might only be momentary, but it makes a difference tacking up a narrow fairway. Of course, that is just my opinion – hence the need for an RS.
 * I vaguely remember reading somewhere that, on vessels with a number of sail options, you have to be mindful of certain combinations creating more leeway, even though they look as though they are pulling well. Someone who had the right sources might be able to either confirm or debunk this recollection.
 * Additionally, the article goes into a lot of technical stuff about Hull physics, Lift and drag on sails, etc. In that context, leeway appears to be obvious missing element in that discussion.
 * It is certainly the case that the article Leeway needs attention from a sailing perspective. Otherwise, it is a subject that this encyclopaedia does not address. That may be the main point of the original post. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 07:17, 23 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Looking at one source that I have (Cunliffe, Tom. Hand, Reef and Steer 2nd edition: Traditional Sailing Skills for Classic Boats) I see that leeway is mentioned quite a bit. There are comments like: "If you oversheet the jib in order to stuff the boat up another half point onto the wind, she will slow down and make far more leeway than she was when sailing at her optimum angle." – accompanied by diagrams and further explanations of comparative scenarios. I see that Cunliffe also discusses leeway in the context of heaving to.
 * Perhaps there would be more in this article if the concept of velocity made good was used for more than just downwind sailing. But looking at Velocity made good, that article seems to have little conceptual similarity to the term's use by academic staff at the University of Southampton (noted for its various maritime related courses) when explaining the relative performance of sailing craft. (As an additional criticism of Velocity made good, it is perfectly possible to explain the subject without going into formulae that are not accessible to all. This is another example of an editor wishing to show off their expertise without actually explaining anything.)
 * I apologise for having a bit of a rant, but there seems to be a general area here where wikipedia could do a better job. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 07:37, 23 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Thank you for those thoughts, ThoughtIdRetired. I can see the case for discussing the matter as a bigger consideration for traditional vessels with only hull form and inefficient sails. It still seems to be a niche consideration for modern sailing vessels. Cheers, HopsonRoad (talk) 23:11, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

title: Talk:Sailing


text:
Locris

Locris ( Λοκρίδα; Λοκρίς) was a region of ancient Greece, the homeland of the Locrians, made up of three distinct districts.

Locrian tribe
The city of Locri in Calabria (Italy), also known in antiquity as "Epizephyrian Locris", was a colony founded by the Locrians in Magna Graecia. There is some disagreement over whether it was those from Opuntian Locris or from Ozolian Locris who were responsible.

Ancient Locris
The territory of the Locrians was divided into three by Doris and Phocis, perhaps due to an early invasion of a contiguous Locrian state. This fact, combined with the region's infertility, meant that the Locrians tended to be dominated by their neighbours, and played little part in Greek history.

To the south-west of Phocis was Ozolian Locris, situated on the north coast of the Gulf of Corinth, between Naupactus and Crisa. The main cities of Ozolian Locris were Amphissa and Naupactus which was its seaport. To the north east of Phocis was Opuntian Locris, named after its main city, Opus. Finally, to the north of Phocis was Epicnemidian Locris, situated near the pass of Thermopylae.

The Opuntian Locris and the Epicnemidian Locris are often regarded as one people, separate in customs and integration to the Hellenic culture from the Ozolian Locris, considered as the less civilised of the two. The territories of the Opuntian Locris and the Epicnemidian Locris were not a continuous unit but were separated from one another by Phocis and Doris.

Ozolian Locris
The main towns of Ozolian Locris were Amphissa and Naupactus. Today, the area is part of Aetolia-Acarnania and Phocis.

Opuntian Locris
The main towns of Opuntia Locris were Opus and Larymna. Today, Opuntian Locris is part of modern Phthiotis.

Epicnemidian Locris
The main towns of Epicnemidian Locris were Nicaea and Thronium. Today, Epicnemidian Locris is part of modern Phthiotis.

Province
The province of Locris (Επαρχία Λοκρίδας) was one of the provinces of the Phthiotis Prefecture. Its capital was the town Atalanti. Its territory corresponded with that of the current municipalities Amfikleia-Elateia, Lokroi, and Kamena Vourla. It was abolished in 2006.

title: Locris