User talk:Paul A

Archives: January-June 2003 | July-December 2003 | January-June 2004

Answer to most frequently asked question: Wikipedia:As of

Note: I believe in the importance of keeping a discussion in one place. If you leave a comment on my talk page, I will reply on my talk page. If I have left a comment on your talk page, I will have added your page to my watchlist, so you can reply there and I'll see it.

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Thanks for the edit!

That was fast! New Lawrence Miles entry only just posted and you've proof-read and corrected it for me already. Thanks Paul. Guybrush 02:15, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC)

You're welcome. I can't make any real claim to fastness, though: it's just coincidence that I happened to discover the existence of the article at the time I did. --Paul A 02:30, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Edit attribution

Hi Paul. Edits from your IPs have now been reattributed to your username. Regards — Kate Turner | Talk 11:52, 2004 Sep 4 (UTC)

The yahoos

On the yahoo page you added a rather unique paragraph about the search engines name in relation to the species. I've removed this, since I and another person thought it was strange. If you can back it up (I honestly think that it is much more likely the the name comes from the exclamation rather than the species) it could go in the Yahoo! article instead, though the part about the top searches is NPOV. --Dyss 00:03, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Replied at Talk:Yahoo. --Paul A 01:37, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Likewise :-) --Dyss 10:46, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Star Control images

Hmmm, I checked up on this, and you appear to be right. One of the developers of UQM informed me that the goal is to have them released under a Creative Commons license, but it hasn't quite happened yet. So I suppose I should go through and switch them all to {{screenshot}}, thanks for pointing this out. Andre (talk) 17:13, Oct 20, 2004 (UTC)

Question

On the Watchmen page, you changed a link from November 2004 to November As of 2004, but the latter is just a redirect to 2004. Is there some un-obvious reason for the change that I'm not picking up on? Just curious. -- कुक्कुरोवाच|Talk‽ 20:40, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)

There's an explanation at Wikipedia:As of, and at least some of the evolution of the current system can be seen at Wikipedia talk:As of. --Paul A 01:56, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Sister Fidelma

Thx, you're right; perhaps i should change it to 'literary tradition'.

It may be that the problem lies in my humble english skills

Lectonar 08:41, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks for helping on The Secret Garden Article. I've been working on that too.

Again, Thanks Lee S. Svoboda

Article Licensing

Hi, I've started the Free the Rambot Articles Project which has the goals of getting users to multi-license all of their contributions that they've made to...

1. ...all U.S. state, county, and city articles...
2. ...all articles...

using the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike (CC-by-sa) version 1.0 and 2.0 Licenses or into the public domain if they prefer. The CC-by-sa license is a true free documentation license that is similar to the GFDL (which every contribution made to Wikipedia is licensed under), but it allows other projects, such as WikiTravel, to use our articles (See the Multi-licensing Guide for more information). Since you are among the top 1000 most active Wikipedians, I was wondering if you would be willing to multi-license all of your contributions or at minimum those on the geographic articles.

To allow us to track those users who muli-license their contributions, many users copy and paste the {{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}} template (or {{MultiLicensePD}} for public domain) into their user page, but there are other templates for 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 at my talk page what you think. -- Ram-Man 20:43, Nov 29, 2004 (UTC)

Question re: image sizes

I've only just started adding images to some of the articles I've been working on, and I noted that you changed the size of the image in Modesty Blaise from 300 to 215. Is there a rule regarding the size of images? I've been going with 300 as a rule because I felt the larger images looked better on the page. But if there is a bandwidth issue, etc. I'll make note to make the images smaller in future. Thanks! (My talk page) 23skidoo 22:49, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

The Wikipedia Wikipedia:Image use policy on Displayed image size suggests a range of 200-250; it's generally felt that 300 is a bit too large. (If you're interested, I picked 215 because it divides evenly into the original size of the image; I don't know that it makes a real difference, but it feels like it ought to, and it's as good a way of picking a size as any I can think of.)

Incidentally, I was amused by the cover text proclaiming Modesty to be "England's answer to James Bond", as if James Bond wasn't an Englishman himself. (I blame Hollywood, of course.)

--Paul A 02:55, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

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Whoa! That was quick! I'd heard of the speed of Wikipedia editing, but not believed it. Somewhat disheartened by the close-to disappearance of 15 mins work on Azrael, I'll take it as a lesson in what to expect. You saved me a job by giving him his own page though. :o)User:Rednaxela err not quite sure how to sign off, sorry!- I'm kinda new here.

Photos

It must have been a slow day if you had nothing else to do but shift the photo of Judi Dench in Mrs. Brown from one side of the entry to the other! There's no figuring out the "standards" here - half the pictures that I placed on the right because they were facing "in" were moved to the left by people claiming all photos must be on the left. So I put a photo on the left and you move it to the right! Everbody wants to be "Mr. Fixit" - am I the only one who actually WRITES for Wikipedia??? The FinalWord 05:04, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I've never heard anybody claim that all photos must be on the left; I myself go by the Wikipedia Manual of Style, which says that "Articles with a single picture are encouraged to have that picture at the top of the article, right-aligned" and that portraits should be aligned with faces looking into the article.

I shall overlook your slights on the seriousness of my Wiki-contributions; I don't care what you say about me, so long as it isn't true. --Paul A 06:18, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Tolkien stub(s) categories

Why did you create Category:Tolkien stubs just to contain Category:Tolkien stub and Template:Tolkienstub? Anárion 14:13, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I didn't and it doesn't. All the articles containing Template:Tolkienstub are now in Category:Tolkien stubs, and will tell you so if you visit any one of them. The catch is that the Category lists are updated only when the article itself is edited, so to finish the job somebody (probably me) is going to have to nip through and make trivial edits to every article containing the template. I had planned to; I just hadn't got around to it yet. --Paul A 01:32, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Gotcha. Anárion 07:24, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Incidentally, and I know this is a tiny point, it's usual to have stub notes come before categories, the theory being that stub notes are "in" text, while categories (and interwikis) are "outside" it. If you want to make a more productive dummy edit, add a brief html comment saying what you think should be added to make it not a stub (if you can't think of anything, maybe it's short but complete). Stan 13:38, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I'll bear that in mind. My process to date (not so obvious on most of the Tolkien stubs, I admit, because they don't have enough categories) has been to put the stub note wherever it needs to be so that the categories, including the stub category, are listed in alphabetical order. --Paul A 13:49, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Hmm, I don't know if anybody else is doing that - I tend to order the most-relevant to least-relevant myself. Stan 00:35, 25 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Pictures

Can you elaborate on the history of Image:Ainley095.jpg and Image:JohnLevene.jpg? They've both been labelled as being in the public domain, but it hardly seems likely that either photo is old enough for that to be the case.

Also, what is the origin of Image:Deserter.jpg? (If it's a movie screenshot, it ought to be marked as such with the {{screenshot}} label.)

--Paul A 03:48, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I have just seen your message now. The above two Doctor who related photos were taken by me in 1984 and I am releasing them into the public domain via Wikipedia.

As far as the Deserter image it may be a screensnap but I don't really know. I think it should be under far use. Did I label these pictures wrongly? DrWho 15:14, 25 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Cinderella

Paul, The Foot binding link on the cinderella page was not intended as a stealth link. I am not even sure what a stealth link is. Since that was one of the prime motivators for the original story, I thought there should be some connection between the pages. I am open to suggestions as to how you think it would be more appropiate. Michael L. Kaufman 04:48, Dec 29, 2004 (UTC)

On reflection, I am sorry that I removed the link like that; I should have discussed my objection with you first. I apologise.

Come to think of it, I'm not sure what I meant by a stealth link, either. I think what I was objecting to was the fact that you linked to a potentially-controversial topic without explaining what the relevance was; it wasn't clear from the article as it stood that Cinderella had anything to do with foot-binding (despite the continued significance of Cinderella's shoe size, the reason is somewhat opaque in the familiar Western versions, and I have to admit that I'd never made the connection myself). Your latest additions make it a lot clearer; thank you. --Paul A 05:06, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The other thing is that I didn't like the idea of it being brought up in the plot summary. I feel there ought to be a separation between the description and the discussion of the story, if you see what I mean. --Paul A 05:10, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Kolchak:The Night Stalker

Hello Paul, Just wanted to say the work you've done on Kolchak: The Night Stalker is a huge improvement. It flows a lot better now, and the way you structured it is a lot more logical than the way I'd set it out. Thanks! Rossrs 12:15, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)

You're welcome. I'm glad you approve. --Paul A 12:49, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Bond template

Hey, since both the JamesBond template and Bond movies template are identical, I changed the lesser used James Bond template to link to other articles pertaining to James Bond. Since I've seen you contribute a lot of discussion on various James Bond articles, I thought I would get your opinion on this. Do you think this is a good idea? Template:JamesBond K1Bond007 02:47, Jan 5, 2005 (UTC)

I think it's a good idea, and I like it. It looks incomplete without links to Bond novels and Bond movies, though. --Paul A 03:16, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Good call, I'll link those right away. K1Bond007 03:55, Jan 5, 2005 (UTC)

Sorry.

I'm sorry if I got a little annoyed on my user page about the photograph situation, but I was a little bewildered! I don't know all the ins and outs of the subject, I just wanted to be helpful and submit some of the photographs that I took personally regarding Doctor Who. I'm so confused. I just wanted to release them it's good that the subject is taken seriously but it is honestly beyond me. Thanks for your help. DrWho

Thank you!

Thank you for doing the summary of The Secret Garden. I was doing it, but I just wasn't summarizing well, so I quit. sorry. Lee S. Svoboda

Thank you!

Thank you for doing the summary of The Secret Garden. I was doing it, but I just wasn't summarizing well, so I quit. sorry.

Lee S. Svoboda 21:55, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Lewis Carroll

see User talk:Number 0

Graham Richardson

moved to Talk:Graham Richardson

Category name changes

Why are you changing "U.S." subcategories to "United States" variants? Was there a discussion on Wikipedia:Categories for deletion that I missed? Just curious... Postdlf 03:29, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

If there was, I didn't see it. I just did it because it seemed like a good idea at the time. --Paul A 08:30, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Horatio Hornblower

Hi,

I reverted your edits of Horatio Hornblower. I think we do need so much details in Wikipedia. Besides, if there is very detailed description of The Secret Garden why it can't be so much detailed Horatio Hornblower? Nevertheless, I'll try to trim it down somehow and move excesive details to pages about each Hornblower books. Przepla 21:20, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)

The Secret Garden is not a good counterexample: it needs trimming, too.

On reflection, though, I think you're right; the Horatio Hornblower edit wasn't really excessive detail, I just didn't feel like doing all the spelling corrections it needed. (And I was grumpy about there not being a spoiler warning.) The idea of moving the details to the relevant book descriptions is good, though. --Paul A 02:55, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

John Fletcher

I am relatively new to Wikipedia and have done some recent work on the John Fletcher pages. I was wondering a technical question...why is "John Fletcher" directed to the playwright rather than the disambiguation page? It seems to me that the disambiguation page would be a better, "more fair" target for "John Fletcher" than the playwright page OR the theologian page. Perhaps there is a technical Wikipedia thing of which I am not aware. Just wondering! KHM03 20:04, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

The thing is that the "fair" approach assumes that people are as likely to be thinking of the theologian as they are of the playwright, but this does not appear to be the case. As an indication, internal links to the playwright outnumber internal links to the theologian by around 10 to 1. In cases where one meaning of a topic is by far the most common, Wikipedia policy allows for that to have the plain article title, with a separate disambiguation page. (Another example is Rome, which is an article about the city in Italy instead of a disambiguation page.) The most obvious advantage is that if someone links to [[Topic]] without thinking to check whether it needs disambiguating, the link is more likely to go where they meant it to. See also Wikipedia:Disambiguation#Types of disambiguation. --Paul A 01:56, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for clearing that up. I was wondering then if it would be appropriate at the top of the John Fletcher page, rather than having a link to the disambiguation page, to have a link to the theologian's page, since they seem to be the only two out there? I'm looking at the page for "Cream", which Wikipedia cites as an example of this. Thanks for your help in clarifying. KHM03 12:31, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)

image:Krypto_Resolved.JPG

see User talk:Michael Reiter

re:Krypto_Resolved.JPG

Seeing as it isn't Public Domain, How about Fair Use?

User_Talk:Michael_Reiter

Television Series

Paul,

For {{tvseries-stub}} there is a scope note, as there should be for all categories, stubby or not. The scope note, associated with the category @ Category:Television series stubs says:

This stub template and category are for television series, individual episodes of series and people, places, and things associated with particular television series.

If you do not find this a reasonable scope, then please say so at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Stub_sorting/Criteria; just add a new topic to the page (not the Discussion page, but the project page. Personally, I think it is a reasonable scope.

Courtland 23:35, 2005 Mar 9 (UTC)

Oh, and one more thing, I won't sort any more stubs into the category until you've had a chance to air your grievance, as it sounds from your tone like you do have a grievance. Courtland 23:40, 2005 Mar 9 (UTC)

I didn't answer your question? Then you'll need to rephrase it I think .. for instance, what articles are you talking about that I mis-categorized. I could have always made mistakes, but I can't answer to something I don't know about ... as far as I know I've only added stubs that match the category description (which I wrote when I made the template and category). Thanks for clarifying. Courtland 02:23, 2005 Mar 10 (UTC)

Yes; Dr. Julius Strangepork comes under the "...and people, places, and things associated..." part of the scope. If you would prefer restricting the scope, though, it can be brought up for discussion as I suggested a couple of replies back. Courtland 02:32, 2005 Mar 10 (UTC)

OK, now I understand. I'll not get into a discussion of the definition of "about" but rather suggest that the wording be changed to This is a television series-related stub article. Maybe a more explicit statement would be better, like This stub article is about a television series, a series character or episode, or some other aspect of a specific television series. Courtland 02:56, 2005 Mar 10 (UTC)

Disney animated features

There is an anon who's been placing those articles in Category:Disney animated features canon in Category:Disney animated films, for no reason other than to cause trouble it seems. Thanks for helping remove those redundant categories. --FuriousFreddy 15:33, 10 May 2005 (UTC)

You're welcome. (My first assumption, seeing as it's an anon, would be that he/she just doesn't understand yet about how subcategories work.) --Paul A 07:09, 11 May 2005 (UTC)

American radio show about wikipedia

Hi

My name is Robin Amer and I’m a producer for an American public radio show called Open Source, which you can check out at www.radioopensource.org.

I’m writing you because this week we’re doing a show on Wikipedia including an interview with Jim Wales. We’re also looking for some particularly passionate and interesting Wikipedia users to talk to, especially users outside the US. I would love to talk to you about your involvement with the site. If you are interested, please give me a call at 617-497-8096, or email me at robinamer@riseup.net and send me your phone number.

Thanks so much.

Best, Robin Amer www.radioopensource.org

Edgar Allan Poe

Hi! I noticed you have previously been involved in editing this article, and it is currently being worked on to try to raise it to FA standard. If you are interested in helping improve this article once more, see here. Harro5 00:14, May 26, 2005 (UTC)

Hugh Lunn

Hullo again, Since you were kind enough to sort out Graeme-Graham Richardson for me, perhaps you can help with this one too. There is an article on Hugh Lunn, an Australian author and journalist, but someone has just started an article on Hugh Lun with a Rugby League connection. It is the same person and the articles should be merged under Hugh Lunn, double N.

Regards

Ruszewski