User talk:Bronger

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 Wikipedia:Naming conventions or how to format them visit our manual of style. If you have any other questions about the project then check out Wikipedia:Help or add a question to the Village pump. Cheers! --maveric149

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I'm a h2g2 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide) veteran and I'm afraid that that will remain my primary site. (By the way, today h2g2 has published a new entry about Wikipedia (http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/classic/A918434) on its home page!)

I want to contribute to Wikipedia nevertheless: I want to draw the maps for the celestial constellations. However, in contrast to h2g2, Wikipedia contains a lot more information, and it seems to be more accurate, too. So as a reader, I look forward to using Wikipedia.

I've already looked around a bit and think that I've understood the system by and large. But thank you for your welcome message!

You are welcome! I like the images you have created. But the placement in the articles is causing trouble for people with lower resolution screens. Specifically the image and the table overlap. Would 250 or 300 pixel wide images be too small? If not then the images could even be placed in the tables (see sainfoin, lithium, United States and Pluto (planet) for examples). --mav

Actually I was playing around with Sagittarius with the current image and it really doesn't seem to be that bad at lower res. --mav

Well it wasn't the greatest image downsizing I've done but I reduced the width of the Sagittarius image to 300 px. See the Wikipedia:Image use policy for why it is a good idea not to have images too wide. --mav

Although I was aware of this problem before I began with the charts, it is indeed a serious one. I had read Wikipedia's image policy very carefully and I thought that 400px are an upper limit but okay. By and large the problem is either Wikipedia's HTML or the browser, because the two elements mustn't overlap, but a horizontal scrollbar should be used. -- Torsten Bronger 16:23 Feb 22, 2003 (UTC)

Horizontal scroll bars are evil and should be avoided like the plague. Many studies have shown that web surfers hate to horizontally scroll and textbooks on web design state that you should hardly ever force a user to use their horizontal scroll bar. So that is not a solution. Resizing the images to a width of 300px and putting them in the table will make everything work for everybody. --mav 00:30 Feb 23, 2003 (UTC)

A horizontal scollbar is surely not optimal. But I would be forced to reduce information density if I scaled them down. At least for some of them, you cannot just make them smaller. By the way, I was not responsible for the positioning of the graphics next to the table. I think it would be better to accept a less nice layout instead of less detail. -- Torsten Bronger 10:15 Feb 23, 2003 (UTC)

I agree with Bronger. Unlike the images of the flowers or animals, a map needs details. So I think resizing the maps is not the best option. A simple solution is to reposition the maps.

My opinion is based on the scaled down version of Sagittarius by mav, which doesn't look too good because the map is resized "physically". How about you upload a new generated and scaled down map of Sagittarius and see if it would be better, Bronger? --Lorenzarius 11:31 Feb 23, 2003 (UTC)

[Please call me Torsten :] I can produce a map that is smaller but with labels of the same size. But this would mean that I have to delete some nebulae, and it is already *very tight* with the grey constellation labels. This is not critical on all but some of the maps. I will make new maps smaller whenever possible. Most upcoming constellations are small anyway.

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Hi Bronger, have you one of these very nice constellation map for Crux? -- looxix 21:09 Apr 2, 2003 (UTC)

If a new constellation is finished according to the project template, please add it to the list at Wikipedia:WikiProject Constellations because we all watch this page. Then I upload a map as soon as I can. --Torsten Bronger

Thanks, looxix 19:58 Apr 8, 2003 (UTC)

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Nice Maps!

The colours you've chosen are obvious and clear. I especially like the grey constellation names and the yellow border, which are sorta transparent and hence doesn't interfere with the stars. And on a white background? I must say I was amazed at first, and it fits with the white WP background so well. Do you enter all the star coordination manually? How long does it take to make one map? Or do you make several simultaneously? (Because I see other constellations cut-off.) --Menchi 18:55 May 8, 2003 (UTC)

Thank you for the encouragement! All sky coordinates come from free Internet databases. One map takes 10--30 minutes. They are not created simultaneously, however the program lets me use a global style that I thus don't have to re-create every single time (colours etc). What does 'cut-off' mean? -- Torsten Bronger 20:28 May 8, 2003 (UTC)

"Cut-off" means that part of a picture is missing, like a knife cut it off. I'm referring that one one constellation map, there are several neighbour constellations shown only partly, like all regional maps. --Menchi 20:40 May 8, 2003 (UTC)

I think I now understand: You suggested that I had created one huge bitmap and cut it into pieces? I didn't do this for several reasons:

1. Labels may be destroyed.
2. Every map projection leads to distortions that can be reduced only by keeping the map area small.
3. I want the north--south direction be vertical always.
4. The constellation names would have to be copied to several positions.
5. I want to have the possibility to use individual scales for the constellations.
6. Some faint constellations need enlarged star circles or other special treatment.

Additionally, one map per constellation is approximately the same work. -- Torsten Bronger 21:19 May 8, 2003 (UTC)

One big map would be interesting to look at, but that wasn't my suggestion. I mentioned "cut-off" because I thought you created all the constellations simultaneously, hence leaving the neighbour constellations cut-off. But now you mentioned the big map, it does sound like a good idea, since astronomy guidebooks and textbooks have them, usually in a circle. But since you can't make them now, it's alright. --Menchi 21:28 May 8, 2003 (UTC)

But what is the alternative to cut-off neighbour constellations?

For a constellation-specific map, I don't it is impossible! I'm not asking you to prevent cutting off. Maybe this idiom is badly coined, but it mostly doesn't have negative connotation. --Menchi 03:30 May 9, 2003 (UTC)

The alternative would be to have a map of, say, Virgo that *only* showed the stars actually in Virgo. But I like what you're doing now. Given a rectangular map, I like to see *all* the stars in that rectangular area -- even the ones that are technically part of some other constellation.

Thank you for the maps. Thank you for making PP3 http://pp3.sourceforge.net/ open-source. --DavidCary 01:55, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Contents

1 Copyright 2 Germans 3 Constellations 4 constellation maps for fr.wikipedia 5 More constellation map translations 6 Image:Mensa constellation map.png 7 Article Licensing 8 Sagittarius constellation map 9 Image:University hospital aachen.jpg

Copyright

On your picture of the Lepus (constellation) you state a copyright claim. You fail to say that it it GFDL and as such I do not know if I can use it for nl:wikipedia. Thanks, GerardM 06:23, 3 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I must say that I am a little bit irritated by all the trouble that this innocent (and explicitly allowed by Wikipedia) "copyright Torsten Bronger" causes, since you are not the first who asks. Copyright and licence are two very different things, the first being more or less insignificant, depending on the latter.

To answer your question: Obviously I am the copyright holder and I uploaded the image. If you want to upload, you have to mark the GFDL checkbox. So the legal status of all my star maps is the GFDL. Please understand that I won't go through all 88 maps again to make it explicit.

By the way you are invited to substitute Dutch counterparts for all Latin and English names on the maps in the (equally free) souce file of the map in order to create a real Dutch counterpart. – Torsten Bronger 07:47, 4 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Well, on the upload page is written: Specify the licence of the file. Add {{msg:GFDL}} if the file is licenced under the GNU FDL, {{msg:PD}} if it is in the public domain, etc. See Image copyright tags for more of these. This information should really be placed on the Image-Page otherwise it's not clear to the reader if the uploader has really read the text on the upload page ... and with that it's also not clear if the uploader understood the problem with the licences ... And yes, of course it ok to explicitly state your copyright of the pictures - that's a thing I understand ... :-) -- Schusch 16:38, 30 Apr 2004 (UTC)

But this is very new. When I uploaded my images, I had to check explicitly the "GFDL" checkbox, so this licence applies to all images uploaded before a certain date unless specified otherwise. Wikipedia should add this note automatically for older images, I really have not the time to do it. – Torsten Bronger 18:02, 30 Apr 2004 (UTC)

ah, ok, I only know this from the german site - and there I'm used to it for months ... what I do next if I don't see the licence information ... I take a look on the user-page perhaps you post a short message there? Something like: all my images posted here are GFDL or something like this? Greetings, -- Schusch 10:50, 1 May 2004 (UTC)

I think it is sensible to consider the GFDL the default licence on Wikipedia.

I've made bad experiences with image licence questions on German Wikipedia. Since then I know that all Wikipedias have not really understood the implications of their licences. They even admit this. We can add licences as we wish, but in court we woudn't get a leg to stand on. The whole system bases on trust and hope rather than written licence statements I'm afraid. – Torsten Bronger 10:15, 2 May 2004 (UTC)

Germans

I've for long (a year, actually) been itched by the way Wikipedia-links are done with often sloppy distinctions between nationality, citizenship and ethnicity (with regard to persons) and also between nations and countries. This is particularly obvious in the case of people or entities that are denoted as German. A link to the Federal Republic of Germany is often outright unhistorical and wrong, but this has until now been the most usual.

Therefore I'm considering an article on Germans, which I've started at User:Ruhrjung/Germans. I would wish to avoid lots of edit wars. In particular, I would not wish to see the current disputes over German-Polish matters automatically extend also to this article, why I kindly ask you for comments now, in advance, in order to try to find wordings acceptable to as many as possible of concerned wikipedians.

I look forward to your comments at User talk:Ruhrjung/Germans.
--Ruhrjung 23:34, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Constellations

Hi, Nachbar (in globalen Dimensionen - ich sitze an der Uni Köln:-)

Also, wenn ich mir automatisch verkleinertes Bild und die von Dir generierte Version nebeneinander angucke:

Die Farben sind beim automatisch generierten Bild etwas blasser, und die Schrift ist ein wenig ausgefranst (was die blaue Schrift IMHO aber lesbarer macht als im "_small"-Bild). Dafür ist die Bedienung für den Benutzer einheitlicher, Bild und Thumbnail müssen nicht synchron gehalten werden (falls sich am "großen" Bild mal was ändert), und -vor allem- der "larger version"-Link ist weg, der mich aus unerfindlichen Gründen wahnsinnig stört (überall in der wikipedia).

Im Fall der "constellations" stimme ich Dir zu, dass das Thumbnail-Layout ein wenig stört, aber da es sowieso keine "echte" Bildunterschrift gibt, könnte man das ja so lösen wie in obrigem Beispiel.

Ach ja, hast Du mal probiert, ob die automatischen thumbnails besser werden, wenn die "Vorlage" um Einiges größer ist? --Magnus Manske 11:06, Jun 24, 2004 (UTC)

Hallöchen! Zunächst einmal muß ein ein Feature ja nicht nutzen bloß weil es da ist – es muß immer gut begründet sein. Wir (d.h. das Constellation-Projekt) sehen hier zwei Probleme: Zum einen diesen Verwasch-Effekt, der ursprünglich auch bei den manuellen Thumbnails aufgetreten ist und mit einem Extra-Scharfzeichner herausgefiltert wurde; und zum anderen die zusätzliche Breite, die durch das automatische Thumbnail schlicht verschwendet wird. Es war ohnehin schon eine Feilscherei, die Thumbnails auf die Größe zu bekommen. Jetzt gibt es Seiten, die in meinem Browser mit Überlappungen dargestellt werden, weil die Breite nicht reicht.

Ein Thumbnail ohne Rähmchen ist unakzeptabel, weil dann der Leser nicht weiß, daß es auch eine größere Fassung gibt. Andere Bereiche der Wikipedia sehen das offenbar anders (sonst gäbe es diese Syntax ja nicht), aber i.a. wird (in meinen Augen zurecht) davon auch kein Gebrauch gemacht.

Was die Lesbarkeit angeht, wird sie durch das Scharfzeichnen definitiv erhöht. Es mag nicht so butterweich aussehen, aber ich beginne mit wachsendem Abstand eher Probleme mit dem automatischen Bild zu bekommen.

Eine Vergrößerung der Vorlage würde nichts bringen, weil der Verkleinerungs-Algorithmus sehr schnell auf immer dasselbe Thumbnail konvergiert.

In Tabellen ist das Verwenden von Thumnails in meinen Augen einfach nur Bequemlichkeit. Es sieht schlecht aus und vergeudet Platz. Ich finde es ausdrücklich gut, daß du dich des Tabellenlayouts angenommen hast, aber dennoch würde ich es mit demselben Nachdruck begrüßen, wenn du die alten Thumnails wieder restaurieren würdest.

Vielen Dank! Viele Grüße, – Torsten Bronger 15:21, 24 Jun 2004 (UTC)

constellation maps for fr.wikipedia

Hi Torsten, I have a few correction for PP3's translations-fr.sed, how do you prefer that I send it to you? Also, have you still a copy of the version of the wiki.pp3 that you used to generated the maps in french?

All constellation but 3, have now a decent article with the maps included. Thanks again. -- Looxix 19:32, 18 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Send it to me via email, the address is on my personal page. – Torsten Bronger 09:28, 19 Jul 2004 (UTC)

More constellation map translations

Hello Torsten,
I'm sorry if this is stated somewhere obvious that I missed, but what is the quickest way for me to translate your constellation maps into another language (Hebrew in my case)? You can respond here or on my talk page. --Eitheladar 12:29, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Oops, Hebrew is a problem because I don't know how to cope with it in TeX. I know that there is a TeX variant called XeT for right-to-left scripts, but I've never used it, and in the worst case all constallations are mirrored. ;-) Well, I'll give it a try in the next days. – Torsten Bronger 14:14, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Thanks! But perhaps I can try handling it myself, if you just point me to the necessary packages and operations for 'normal' languages. I have no experience in PP3, but I have had experience in converting software to Hebrew... is this possible? --Eitheladar 14:42, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Anything new with this? I don't expect you spent time on this issue, but how about my suggestion above? Just point me in the general direction and I'll give it a try. --Eitheladar 08:45, 6 Sep 2004 (UTC)

You have to learn how to typeset Hebrew with LaTeX. I know that it's possible, but I don't know how. Then I will extend PP3 (or create a special version of it) that calls the right-to-left variant of TeX. Finally, you have to substitute Hebrew translations for all names on the maps. – Torsten Bronger 10:42, 6 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Image:Mensa constellation map.png

User:Diberri/Image tag request --Diberri | Talk 23:36, Aug 31, 2004 (UTC)

All maps that I uploaded are licenced under the terms of the GFDL, otherwise I wouldn't have uploaded them, since this is the licence on Wikipedia. Please understand that I'm not prepared to go through 200 maps for adding the GDFL note. When I uploaded them, there was a GDFL checkbox so that an explicit note was not necessary. Now apparently Wikipedia's rules have changed, but that's not my problem, sorry. Maybe someone can write a bot that adds the notices. – Torsten Bronger 17:22, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The rules haven't changed, per se, but because many users have been uploading non-GFDL-compliant images, this is the best option to help ensure the integrity of the site. I absolutely understand your point, and I share your frustration about the redundancy of adding a GFDL note to all your images. There's currently a team of folks, myself included, adding tags to untagged images. Now that I know you've explicitly released your maps under the GFDL, I'll feel free to add the GFDL tags myself (perhaps using a bot, as you suggest). Do you happen to have a list of all images you've uploaded to Wikipedia? --Diberri | Talk 17:48, Sep 1, 2004 (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 2000 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 "{{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}}" 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 [[Wikipedia:Multi-licensing|multi-license]] all my contributions, with the exception of my user pages, as described below:

{{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}}

OR

Option 2

I agree to [[Wikipedia:Multi-licensing|multi-license]] all my contributions to any [[U.S. state]], county, or city article as described below:

{{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}}

Or if you wanted to place your work into the public domain, you could replace "{{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}}" with "{{MultiLicensePD}}". 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 (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=User_talk:Ram-Man&action=edit&section=new)| talk)

Sagittarius constellation map

Hi Torsten.

I'm working on the Numbers project and have enjoyed looking over the constellation maps you've created. However, the file Image:Sagittarius constellation map.png seems to be misbehaving. I'm able to load it outside Wikipedia using Quicktime, but on a page it just comes up blank. Any ideas?

Thanks, Denni☯ 18:32, 2004 Dec 30 (UTC)

I have no problems with the bitmap. It is a well-formed PNG. – Torsten Bronger 10:24, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Image:University hospital aachen.jpg

Thanks for uploading Image:University hospital aachen.jpg, and thanks also for getting and noting permission for use. Could you put some details of the sort of permission and, perhaps, who granted it on the image description page? And please check the copyright tag that I put on it to see if it accurately reflects the sort of permission granted. Thanks! - Kbh3rd 00:38, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)