User talk:David Martland

Hi - if you don't know what's going on, and like me, when I first started, you want to play around, then just go to one of my sandboxes.

Hello and welcome! What is the purpose of DMworkArea? Generally we make user sandboxes for our personal workareas. For example I have user:maveric149/Sandbox. I hope you like the place and have fun! --mav

Nevermind, I moved it. --mav

Background: We try to place user-specific stuff in the user "namespace" and wikipedia-related stuff in the wikipedia "namespace". See Wikipedia:Namespace. Cheers! --mav

Hello David! I notice in your work area you mention that you don't know how to create pages without making links from another page. That's the idea! Generally, you find an article related to the new page you want to create, and make a link there. That keeps our database of articles connected to each other and prevents orphan articles. -- Stephen Gilbert 14:44 Nov 14, 2002 (UTC)

RE the messgae on my talk page: Maybe I can be of help to you. Let's look at your two example problems:

Where can we link a new article called Rockingham china? First, I would do as you did, and try to find a page on china as pottery. We have none, unfortunately. Next, I would look in a more general direction, and do a search for pottery. Ah, there is one (quite rough, but not too bad). I see the pottery article has a link to China (pottery), but there is not article for it yet. So, at this point I would settle on one of two options: whip up a quick stub article for China (pottery) and link to [[Rockingham pottery from there (this is a bit of work), or simply link to Rockingham pottery directly from the pottery article's "See also" section. That being said, there's really nothing wrong with simply creating a link from your work page and not going through the trouble of finding another article to link from. Eventually, as the pottery articles expand and multiply, things will get linked together. Even if your new article is not linked to other articles, the search page will still find it.
Now the second problem: how to handle the different topics labeled induction. This is covered by the fine art of Wikipedia disambiguation. In this case, induction serves as a disambiguation page, with links to articles for each use of the word: inductive reasoning, mathematical induction, and electromagnetic induction. The trick is to find a more specific name for each topic.

I hope you find something useful in all that rambling. Really, you don't have to worry much about "not getting it." Others Wikipedians will help you if you feel lost. Take your time, have fun, browse the Wikipedia:help pages and the Wikipedia:FAQs, and if you have any questions, ask at the Wikipedia:Village pump (or just ask me, if you like). Cheers! -- Stephen Gilbert 22:11 Nov 17, 2002 (UTC)

2)² _{Lir 10:57 Nov 18, 2002 (UTC)}

Hi David, I noticed you edited the Amersham page. Do you live there? It would be good to have a Wikipedian live nearby.

-- Ramin Nakisa

Hi David, whats the deal with your to do list, are you planning on creating any of these things?

-- Leon

Howdy David. In re: the note on my page, the notations on "Recent Changes" are "N" for new page (new pages often attract a bunch of copyedits); the "M" stands for "Minor Change", which you can set by checking the check box labelled "This is a minor edit" when you edit a page. If you check your "Preferences", you can suppress minor changes in the Recent Changes List. Checking this box is a courtesy to people who suppress seeing minor changes; I usually check the box if the change I'm making is a simple spelling or grammar change.

Where does one find this kind of information? The easiest thing to do is to ask on the Wikipedia:Village pump; which is a sort of bulletin board for the project. It should probably be added to one of the Wikipedia:FAQ pages if it's not already there.

Another handy little tip - when signing messages (like on people's talk pages), typing three "~" in a row will automatically insert your user name; typing four "~" in a row will insert your user name and the date and time - like this - Chas zzz brown 18:17 Nov 20, 2002 (UTC)

Chas, hope you don't mind, I've copied some of your above answer and ruthlessly transformed it into an item on the FAQ page. :-) -- Tarquin 14:45 Dec 3, 2002 (UTC)

Answer to query - copied from Wikipedia Village Pump

Wikipedia Implementation and performance

During the last few weeks I have been thrilled to discover Wikipedia. However, it is not perfect, and there appear to be very significant performance issues with the software/hardware.

Is there information about how WP is implemented, and is there any form of discussion going on about how to improve it?

What sort of loading does WP server out - 10 page requests/second, 100?, 1000?

Also, what proportion of the load is due to edits - it should be quite low - but maybe it's not. Is it possible to prioritise edits over searches? This would be useful, as quite often these days waiting for an edit to Load takes so long - it really is quite a nuisance.

Would performance be enhanced if WP were distributed over several servers? Is this feasible? If not, why not?

Who is looking at these issues? --User:David Martland

David--

Wikipedia is open source software. See the SourceForge page (http://wikipedia.sf.net) for details. See Wikipedia:Statistics for detailed access statistics.

The performance issues are discussed on the wikitech-l mailing list. The server is reasonably huge and not suffering from the load. The main problem appear to be locking issues (we use MySQL's MyISAM tables, which only support table-level locking) and unoptimized queries (some columns do not have indexes where they should have etc.). These issues are slowly being worked on by Wikipedia developers, feel free to participate. See m:How to become a Wikipedia hacker for a growing tutorial on the code. --Eloquence 12:22 Dec 3, 2002 (UTC)

Regarding the number of page views per second: On Special:Statistics. In the past 4 1/2 months (since 20 July) there have been about 20,000,000 page views and 400,000 to 450,000 edits. This is equal to slightly under 2 page views per second. As we are still growing dayly, the number will be higher at the moment, put it will probably be well under 10 per second. Andre Engels 14:29 Dec 3, 2002 (UTC)

Thanks for the quick answers. I suppose it's possible the poor performance I get sometimes is due to network problems - besides the locking problems. Another possibility is that a mean rate of 2 queries/second still permits a much higher peak rate. It quite often takes a minute or so to have an update during editing from my locations in the UK - maybe that's the locking problem? David Martland 20:22 Dec 4, 2002 (UTC)

I suggest you move GPO. Aswell as GPO in Ireland (Easter Rising) having different connotations It's usual to allow acronyms the possibility of having different meanings with a disambiguation page. Mintguy 15:46 Dec 6, 2002 (UTC)

Nice article on Maurice Duruflé. I've been able to look up the Poulenc Organ Concerto, and he did indeed give the premiere. There is also a web source [1] (http://www.allclassical.com/cg/acg.dll?p=acg&sql=2:161342~C#DES) which says he premiered the Vierne, so I'll add that to the article (I'll check that it's correct in Grove when I get the chance). All the best --Camembert

Some comments from students....

Hello david, Gary McNamara has completed your assingment! My wikipedia name is Garymcnamara (NB wiki name begins with capital G)

"Hi David Martland" Michael Sandys here i have also completed your assignment my wikipedia name is Michael_Sandys or just Michael Sandys User:Michael Sandys

David--re your Berliner Luft query on my talk page: you're right, Berliner Luft is an entire operetta - the march in question from it appears to sometimes goes under the name "Berliner Lüftchen". As you say, it's extraordinarily difficult to track down recordings of it given that it is relatively well known - the only recording on CD I can find is on a disc released by Classic FM themselves called "Classic Discoveries". They have it at Amazon (http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000025VIA/qid=1039959719/sr=2-1/ref=sr_2_1_1/202-1341884-1535846), but as it says it will take 4-6 weeks to deliver, I don't suppose they will be much use for Christmas. You may be able to find a copy in somewhere like Virgin or HMV. Otherwise: I run a record shop - we don't normally stock this kind of thing, but I'll have a look tomorrow if we might be able to get a copy of this before Christmas if you're interested. Anyway, good luck in tracking it down. --Camembert

Hi. I just noticed that DMworkArea still exists as a redirect to User:David Martland/DMworkArea, you might want to request this to be deleted via Wikipedia:Votes for deletion. Mintguy

Hi David - we weren't really fighting over du Pré. It was just that when you moved the page the edit history got broken so that bits of it were at the old spelling (Jacqueline Du Pre) and other bits were at the new, correct, one (Jacqueline du Pré) - I was just stitching them back together again. If you use the "Move this page" link (down the side of the page) instead of cutting and pasting the contents, it will keep the edit history intact automatically (it's also a much easier way to move a page). --Camembert

Maybe I should have said "gasoline IS petrol" instead? ;) Like I indicated in the rest of the comment, I just took a look at the articles for gasoline and petrol, and put whichever one had the heftier article first, which happened to be gasoline, and petrol, with its links to gasoline and diesel and that's about it, was consigned to the parentheses. But I would never call it "gas" (well, in casual conversation, but not here, ever). All in all, I'm pretty sensitive to Americanisms/Britishisms/etc.isms; there are probably people who think I am British, I tend to spell words like "favour" and so forth enough (though I draw the line when it comes to "-ise" and "-isation", unless I'm consciously trying to, which I never do). Probably comes of re-reading The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings too much as a young adult. ;) -- John Owens 09:58 20 May 2003 (UTC)

Hi David. Yup, flutist is a horrible ugly blight on a perfectly good language. Unfortunately, the rule is "first in, best dressed", and those of us who speak English (as opposed to that trans-Atlantic pidgin thing we hear on TV) will just have to live with it, I'm afraid. (Trans-Pacific in my case, but you know what I mean.) You can have both after a fashion. Just make your links to flautist. They will still wind up on the same page (alas) but at least the links will look OK. Any new pages you make, of course, you can chose whichever term you prefer. Not to worry. Sooner or later, if we perserve, we will teach those backward Americans to talk properly. It will be a great day for the world, because at around about the same time, I believe, we are going to teach the French to be modest, the English to spell rationally, and the Australians to be more polite. Well, that last one might be a little more difficult ... but we will try. :) Tannin 08:09 22 May 2003 (UTC)

Hi David, not seen you around for a while, good to see you again. I sort of agree with you on string quartets - my thinking was that Haydn, Beethoven, Bartok and (to a lesser degree) Shostakovich are, I think, generally seen as the most important string quartet composers, both in that they really pushed the genre into new terriotry and in that their string quartets are among the most important pieces they wrote. This probably isn't true of Mozart, for example, where I guess you'd point at his operas, piano concertos and symphonies at least before his string quartets. Of course, this is somewhat subjective and you're right that we could do with rewriting it. I was thinking we might make a bullet-pointed list of composers detailing how many string quartets they wrote, together with a brief summary of their contribution to the genre. I'll have a go at making a start on this later tonight, I think (don't have time to do anything just at the minute). --Camembert

I'm afraid I don't know very much about Mendelssohn, especially his string quartets. Some passages in them do seem to be modelled on Beethoven: the introduction to the finale of Mendelssohn's second is very like Beethoven's Op. 132, for example, and apparently Mendelssohn quotes the Cavatina from Beethoven's Op. 130 in the same piece. Also, I've seen it said that the slow introduction to Mendelssohn's first is similar to the introduction to Beethoven's Harp quartet (though I don't know Mendelssohn's first, so can't vouch for that personally). I should think that M's later quartets show the influence of Beethoven, but whether they're as close as his early ones I don't know - as I say, Mendelssohn isn't really my thing. I'm afraid I wouldn't be confident enough about any of this to add it to an article (not without listening to or looking over the scores to all the pieces, anyway). --Camembert

No problem, David. I'm actually going to have a tinker with that para in a moment, but don't I think you'll be upset by the result. Tannin

__________________________________

Are you also going to do product churning about which I know almost nothing.... ??? -- David Martland 13:57 5 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Thanks for the idea about churning. I might get to it eventually, but first I want to do all the marketing basics. If you're not familiar with churning, you're obviously not a stock broker. So far I've edited most of the existing marketing articles, about 15 of them (some of them were quite well done,but most of them were not), I've reorganized the marketing section on the root 'business' page, and I've contributed about 30 marketing articles. I think it will require about another hundred articles before the marketing section of this encyclopedia becomes really useful at the university level. I am currently doing the product management topics. Next I will do the pricing, and then marketing research areas. mydogategodshat

The lack of certain accents can be annoying, I agree, but I think it's done to try and ensure compatibility with as many machines as possible. There's some explanation of the matter at Wikipedia:Special characters (I believe the characters which work in article titles are those in the first table on that page). By the way: I did have something better to do, I was just shying away from doing it! --Camembert

___________

Your colleague is right. The strategy used by these printer manufacturers could be concidered a form of churn. Churning in general terms is just selling more product than is benificial to the customer. The classic example is a stockbroker that regularly buys and sells securities in your portfolio. You may or may not gain, but the broker sure piles up commissions. I can see how a strategy of selling the basic product at a loss, but charging outragious amounts for refills (printers), useage time (cell phones), blades (razors),or prints (photography), can be concidered a form of churning. user:mydogategodshat

Sorry for the late reply, but life yadda, yadda. See my talk page. --mav 05:16, 26 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Hi :) Short note: Comments do work - use  to delimit them :) Dysprosia 05:56, 7 Sep 2003 (UTC)

The correct way to move an article to a new name - e.g. from codetalkers to code talkers - is to use the "Move this page" command in the sidebar menu. Doing it this way moves the edit history of the article as well, so that people can still see who did what before it was moved. —Paul A 06:28, 7 Sep 2003 (UTC)

To revert a page, you go to the page history and call up an old version of the page. Then hit "Edit this page" and save it without changes. (When you're an sysop like me, they give you a handy auto-revert feature that expedites the process.) -- Cyan 06:16, 11 Sep 2003 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:How to revert a page to an earlier version. Angela 06:16, Sep 11, 2003 (UTC)

Actually the procedure given above does not work, in the current Wikipedia. It is only possible to edit the current version. I understand that sysops have a feature to make this easier, but "normal" users do not have access to this. -- David Martland 13:14, 11 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Nope, definitely works for non-sysops too. Check your page history - I just reverted whilst not logged in. You need to go to an out-of-date version of the page and then click edit. This won't work if you are viewing a diff (ie- you see the old and new version side by side). You have to go to the page history and then click on the date that you want to revert to (such as 13:34, 11 Sep 2003). Don't click cur or last. Try again and let me know if you still have problems. Hope that helps. Angela 13:39, Sep 11, 2003 (UTC)

I have added the importance of not clicking cur or last to Wikipedia:How to revert a page to an earlier version. Thanks for pointing out the confusion the instructions were causing. Angela 19:31, Sep 11, 2003 (UTC)

Just testing out work areas User:David Martland/WorkArea1 - how does this behave?

Suggestions for recent deaths on Main Page

Eugene Istomin, Denis Quilley.

David Martland 09:33, 17 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Hi David, I'm not sure you're asking the right person really as I rarely edit the main page. All I can do is point you in the direction of Wikipedia:Selected Articles on the Main Page. If you think the pages you want listed meet the guidelines explained there, then just say so on Talk:Main Page and a sysop should add it, or give you a reason if they won't. mav, Jiang or Viajero might be better people to ask as they regularly look after the main page. Hope that helps. Angela 12:18, Oct 17, 2003 (UTC)

I've just realised why your request for an addition to the Main Page may have been ignored- it was about half way up the page, so probably no-one saw it. Make sure you add new stuff to the bottom of the page so it doesn't get lost. I've moved it there now so maybe someone that likes dealing with the main page will sort it out. I might do it later but prefer to leave that to others more knowledgable about the main page guidelines. Angela 17:36, Oct 17, 2003 (UTC)

Does it work now? I refreshed the cache on the redirect. The village pump archive (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump/October_2003_archive_1#Google_links_to_Wikipedia_articles) explains the problem. Angela 06:54, Oct 26, 2003 (UTC)

Hi David, anyone can do that refreshing the cache thing I did yesterday. All I did was edit the redirect page. (I changed the 't' in redirect to lower-case). It's probably best to fix it if you notice any more, but the solution isn't permanent and will need doing again the next time the page that it redirects to is edited. Angela 14:07, Oct 26, 2003 (UTC)

Heh; I was writing 1922 Committee at almost the exact same time as you; I wonder why we were both thinking about it? ;-) Anyway, I've added some more info, you might want to check that it's accurate - I admittedly didn't know too much about this until I did some web research... Evercat 23:25, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Hey! I noticed one of the links (Grove's Dictionary, under the flute players section) in your user page points to a disambiguation page- you may want to fix that (or you may not (after all, it's your user page!)) -Frazzydee 19:01, 24 Jan 2004 (PST)

Hi DM

I know its been quite a while since we discussed product churning, but I finally got around to starting an article. Sorry I took so long to get back to this topic, but you know what its like: my Wikipedia things to do list is rather long. mydogategodshat 06:32, 13 Mar 2004 (UTC)

High speed trains--you're right, my phrasing was somewhat imprecise; what I meant was that demand for trains was declining, as planes and cars were substituted for them--in economic terms, declines in the price of substitute goods caused demand to fall. Feel free to edit as you see fit, of course. Meelar 21:01, 1 Apr 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:

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:

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)

Dear David,

 My mother and Eugene Istomin were first cousins, so I wanted to thank you for your additions to his article.  I may add a few facts and anecdotes when I get around to it.  Also, I wondered if you are in mathematics, which is my field.

If you have any questions I can be reached at this address (disguised to keep it from spam-harvesting): eliotpbrenner [AT SYMBOL] yahoo [followed by obvious suffix]

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