Yes & no. Yes, there is way which will involve a number of additions to Template:Tlf to get it working. So, no this is not currently available ... unless you're up to the task of adding it to convert. I have, however, considered this kind of thing in the past ... so there is a blueprint of sorts waiting for me to find the time. I'll try to keep you posted. JIMptalk·cont07:21, 13 October 2008 (UTC)Reply
It's working ... partially: so far it's only working with unlinked abbreviations
Exactly "However, if the title of a page is descriptive and does not appear verbatim in the main text, then it should not be in boldface." JIMptalk·cont18:03, 13 November 2008 (UTC)Reply
But this is not the case here because it is verbatim. It is only separated by a phrase between Nazi Germany and Anti-tobacco movement, the phrases appears in the title Nazi Germany and anti-tobacco movement should be in boldface separately. Otolemur crassicaudatus (talk) 18:06, 13 November 2008 (UTC)Reply
Is it verbatim or is it not? Strictly it's not but ... we'd be getting into the pedantic discussing that. What I'd prefer to discuss is the new wording which got us here. This is not the place. JIMptalk·cont18:31, 14 November 2008 (UTC)Reply
Thanks for dropping me a line, Jimp. I assume precision used trick techniques and math to do its thing. I can see how it could benefit from a character-counting parser function. I can not see, however, how {val} could avail itself of {precision}. The real person to ask would be SkyLined, he wrote it.
I wish you would post something more helpful on WT:MOSNUM. Perhaps you could copy some of your post from my talk page about how the parser function would be helpful for other templates. Your latest post helps to undermine the imperative for any developers to work on the parser function. Greg L (talk)19:28, 29 December 2008 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 21 January 20091 comment1 person in discussion
It's not about pronunciation. The orthography of providing syllable stress is well-established, and it never, ever involves respelling, because it's not about pronunciation (other than, of course, the syllable stress). This was included in a number of botanical articles because the pronunciation of many scientific names varies regionally (Brassica is an exception), yet syllable stress is controlled by classical rules and by the etymology of the word. There is no need for the syllable stress if a genus has a consistent pronunciation, so if you don't like not being able to respell it, please just eliminate it, since the IPA suffices.--Curtis Clark (talk) 15:17, 21 January 2009 (UTC)Reply
Rogers Locomotive and Machine Works
I have nominated Rogers Locomotive and Machine Works for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here.--King Bedford ISeek his grace
Since your editing tonight, can I safely assume that you're miles away from the fires? I seen the news story about the fires and thought of you. I hope and pray that all is well down there and that it gets better. —MJCdetroit(yak)01:15, 11 February 2009 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 20 December 20096 comments3 people in discussion
Jimp, I'm considering putting together a template, Template:Tl, to convert ship endurance figures. Typically endurance is given in the form [distance] @ [speed]. Right now, using Template:Tl makes the format less than ideal:
1,250 nautical miles @ 12 knots (2,320 km @ 22 km/h)
Is there any way to use {{convert}} to provide only the converted result? So that, for example, putting in {{convert|1250|nmi|km}} would output only 2,320 km. If that were possible, it would be a pretty straightforward template to write. — Bellhalla (talk) 15:52, 18 February 2009 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 28 February 20096 comments2 people in discussion
Thanks for your date and measurement fixes. Don't know why people bother to link all the dates, but some people seem to enjoy doing it.
Concerning "facade"- because I write a great deal about architecture, I use this word all the time. Although "west front" is often used in the context of cathedrals, there is no other word in English. I believe that "facade" has become sufficiently anglicised not to require the French accent. It has passed into English to the extent that it is used both architecturally and also in a figurative sense. If we are going to continue to treat it as a non-English word, then it needs to be italicised every time it is used. Amandajm (talk) 11:46, 28 February 2009 (UTC)Reply
It'll probably be years before people quit delinking dates. I'm afraid I didn't do the whole job: half way through the article switches from month day year to day month year. I wasn't quite up for fixing that, besides, which way should it go?
As for facade, I saw one with the fancy c and thought, for consistency, the others should match. Perhaps I should have changed the fancy one. JIMptalk·cont11:56, 28 February 2009 (UTC)Reply
Oh Hello, are you there? I was just trying to edit this page Here it is-
Hummmph! Well, I just decided to look this up in the OED, just to see what they said... and what did they say? They say "façade", don't they! Oh well! Amandajm (talk) 12:00, 28 February 2009 (UTC).Reply
Latest comment: 4 March 20093 comments2 people in discussion
I see you have just changed about twenty of my edits. I have had a look at the two templates and cannot see any instruction/guidance that one is preferred over the other. Do you know which is the 'correct' one to use? If it is convert, then I will change (future) edits to that. If you are going to convert to convert there will be a few hundred of mine to change. [Having reread that it sounds bad - I have not taken offence - I just want to know which one I should be using]. I have added this to my watchlist so reply here. Twiceuponatime (talk) 09:49, 3 March 2009 (UTC)Reply
I don't believe that there is any "correct" template to use. You could argue, however, that having half a dozen templates which convert from miles to kilometres is far from optimal. Ideally we'd want one template so as to simplify editing. If we are to choose, then comparing the features of Template:Tl to those of a template like Template:Tl makes the choice easy:
Template:Tlf can not only link to units but can link to one unit and not the other;
Template:Tlf's default rounding is not simply to some arbitrary number of decimal places but takes into account the precision of the input;
etc.
Although there may be no "official" preference, generally speaking, editors seem to prefer using Template:Tlf and when other templates are put up for deletion then tend to get deleted. In fact, a number of unit display templates have already been deleted on the grounds of their redundancy to Template:Tl, more are currently up for deletion and seem likely to be gone soon, and the rest (including Template:Tlf) will also probably be deleted in time. JIMptalk·cont10:33, 3 March 2009 (UTC)Reply
Fair enough. I will change to convert. In my case, I was quite happy with {unit mile} - it was the only one I use(d). Note that I have used it in about 300 articles - all settlements in Northumberland. Twiceuponatime (talk) 09:04, 4 March 2009 (UTC)Reply
I'm now wondering if the error could be in {{{1}}} in Template:Tl. See Subtemplates of Template Rnd. If it is undefined then the behavior would be explained. It would be interesting to trap that case in {{rnd}} and display an error message. Something like:
{{#if:{{{1}|}}}|{{formatnum:{{rnd/a|{{#expr:({{{1}}})round({{{2}}})}}|{{{2}}}}}}}|<strong class="error">UNDEFINED VALUE IN <nowiki>{{rnd}}<nowiki></strong>}}
I'm hoping this would show up as an error message or at least change the error message when one of the examples is purged. You know way more than I do about this stuff. This is just a wild idea. If this is too wild let me know so that I can learn something. --droll[chat]06:13, 17 March 2009 (UTC)Reply
Thanks. Good work. All my examples are now clean. Things are all looking good. Still a problem at Template:M to ft in but it appears to be a separate problem and I don't know of another example like it. Good work. Thanks again.
Latest comment: 12 April 20091 comment1 person in discussion
I was not aware of the Wikipedia:Logical quotation convention, but in reaction to your revert I looked in the manual of style, and sure enough found it. I thought pretty much all scholarly writing used the older convention, but I guess I'm just out of date. I'll try to keep this in mind and change my ways; odd that nobody called me on this before. Dicklyon (talk) 15:18, 12 April 2009 (UTC)Reply
Tagging templates for speedy deletion
Latest comment: 19 April 20092 comments2 people in discussion
I noticed you had tagged Template:Infobox HAR for speedy deletion. Please remember that templates are transcluded often and thus all such tags should be put within <nocinclude>-tags to avoid being transcluded with the template. Regards SoWhy14:17, 18 April 2009 (UTC)Reply
The requirements were that the template display units in m3, impgal, and cuyd. The template I created works fine, except that it says "US cu yd" instead of "cu yd." This is because I created the template by modifying the m3/impgal/usgal template to match the m3/cuyd template, but I admit that I do not know exactly what I am doing.
Should I create Template:Convert/LoffAonSoffre just so that I can change "US cu yd" to "cu yd," or would that just be a work around?
Please let me know the proper way to make the change from "US cu yd" to "cu yd," or, if you have enough time, feel free to do it yourself.
Thank-you for all of your efforts in conversion templates and elsewhere. I look forward to becoming more familiar with how these templates work.VegKilla (talk) 18:03, 22 April 2009 (UTC)Reply
Bug in "convert" template
Latest comment: 1 May 20091 comment1 person in discussion
Yes, in the article section Holy_Spirit#Non-Trinitarian_views.
The section intro and subsections show that most nontrinitarian Christians do not believe the "holy spirit" to be a person (that is, a proper noun). They believe it's a mindset or an impersonal force (like numina). Yet, even when the term is not used as a proper noun in the article, the term is forcibly capitalized by editors apparently more interested in trinitarianism than grammar.
There is actually a theologically-based contention at the article Holy Spirit about this very topic. I don't mind capitalizing Holy Spirit, but I still believe that capitalizing non-proper-noun instances of the term to be unscholarly and ungrammatical. You may be interested in sharing your thoughts there at Talk:Holy_Spirit#Capitalization_II.
--AuthorityTam (talk) 16:19, 11 May 2009 (UTC)Reply
Coca-cola formula
Latest comment: 13 May 20093 comments3 people in discussion
Hey Jimp,
I am not sure if you missed the point. We accept that fractions don't always display beautifully (it's great when they do), but this produces different results depending on its input.
Less than pretty display is the lesser of the two problems. The wrong answers is due to the fact that only the fractional part is being multiplied by the conversion factor. JIMptalk·cont16:52, 13 May 2009 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 22 June 20092 comments2 people in discussion
Hi there, you might not have come across this unit before, but it is a non-SI unit that is the most commonly-applied measure of distance in structural biology. I therefore reverted your removal of this from the ribosome page. Tim Vickers (talk) 15:26, 22 June 2009 (UTC)Reply
I have come across this before. If structural biologists will insist on using such outdated non-SI units, I'm not about to ignite a revert war by reinstating my conversion to SI. JIMptalk·cont15:33, 22 June 2009 (UTC)Reply
Kapustinskii equation
Latest comment: 24 June 20094 comments2 people in discussion
Hi, I've noticed that amongst your changes to this article, you changed a Greek letter nu in the text to a v. However, in the equation on the page, nu is used, and so for consistency I shall change it back to a nu. I feel confident doing this, since all mentions of the equation I have come across at university use nu rather than v. Brammers (talk) 18:19, 22 June 2009 (UTC)Reply
Nope, I'm pretty sure that it was a nu, ν, not a vee, v. All I did was replace the math-tag version with a plain text version (using the Greek letters in the edit box). As little pleasure as I take in calling a person wrong, a spade is still a spade. I must admit that the regular WP font makes it hard distinguish the two but I've got to also point out that the math-tags don't really help (when used in-line), giving vs . JIMptalk·cont13:49, 24 June 2009 (UTC)Reply
Ok, please accept my apologies. I wasn't aware that the characters looked so similar. Thank you for your contributions to the article. Brammers (talk) 17:35, 24 June 2009 (UTC)Reply
No worries, they do look very much alike. I do have another thing bothering me about the equation, though, regarding the coeffecients, which I'm thinking of bringing up on the talk page. JIMptalk·cont17:36, 24 June 2009 (UTC)Reply
Scientific notation
Latest comment: 28 June 20092 comments2 people in discussion
Latest comment: 19 July 20094 comments3 people in discussion
User:Nergaal has reverted your changes to the chem template because it broke stuff like {{chem|Xe||F|2}}, which is used in older articles, and which worked correctly with the original version of the template. As I've already edited several articles to use the new superscript feature you added, it would be really nice if you could somehow make the new template ignore empty arguments. Please see Template talk:chem. Thanks!—Tetracube (talk) 15:50, 17 July 2009 (UTC)Reply
These two loops are caused by trying to use invalid input. The Ōma Nuclear Power Plant one is fixed Nergaal can fix the one in his sandbox if he wants. JIMptalk·cont23:32, 18 July 2009 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 26 July 20092 comments2 people in discussion
Jimp, I just wanted to say thanks for all the hard work you do at MOS and MOSNUM and Template:Tlx. For at least one editor it is very much appreciated.
I wonder if on Template:Tlx i could work on historical exchange rates, I am thinking having looked at £sd (which is pisspoor and needs a lot adding to it) and other things that e.g a conversion from the Gold Standard could be useful. Obviously for floating curency past or present it is useless or at least unfeasible.
I can work on doing this, with some guidance. The first is always the most tricky. Sandboxing would be a good idea I think. I only want to be an article editor not spend too much time on admin or templates, but,
(which is what the taxman used to put when asking me for more of my money)
I've often contemplated adding exchange rates to the template or creating a new template. The problem is, of course, that conversion rates change by the minute. Decimalising £sd would be different but would it be meaningful? JIMptalk·cont01:37, 26 July 2009 (UTC)Reply
I'm baffled by the existence of templates such as Template:Tlf. They make it all the more difficult for people to figure out what's going on. They are a waste of template space. They should be deleted but first they should be removed. So I removed it from the article in question. JIMptalk·cont18:11, 6 August 2009 (UTC)Reply
Infobox Protected area
Latest comment: 8 August 20092 comments2 people in discussion
The differences seem to fall in to two categories.
Different responses to an over-supply of sig figs.
Errors caused by the recently discovered bug.
The new version doesn't have problem two. They both have problem one (no surprise since the calculation functions can't handle more than twelve sig figs). JIMptalk·cont00:55, 10 August 2009 (UTC)Reply
It's not fixable. It may be able to be somewhat alleviated ... somehow, maybe ... but I think that would mean a rewrite of the subtemplates, the main page would stay as is. JIMptalk·cont01:05, 10 August 2009 (UTC)Reply
Replace the *entire* existing Precision template code with just ...
Just to make sure, you want to replace the *entire* existing Precision template code with just "{{precision/a|{{{1}}}|{{#titleparts:{{{1}}}|1|2}}}}" plus the noinclude stuff? — Huntster (t • @ • c)00:46, 10 August 2009 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 16 August 20093 comments2 people in discussion
Hi, I have recently encountered the bug in Template:Tl that throws up an expression error message on a transluded documentation page, but not on the actual documentation itself. I've asked Template:Ul about this and he directed me to this discussion. Given your past experience with this issue, I was wondering what (if any) conclusions you reached?
I understand what you are saying, I just don't think "nutrality" is the right word for it. Need cites maybe, or perhaps you should just rewrite it so the claim about understanding numbers is clearly that of the originator of the CMO concept.
Recently I ran into a similar problem in trying to express the energy it would take to turn 100 ppm of CO2 into synthetic oil so the carbon could be stored by pumping it into empty oil fields. Current total human use is about 15 TW, it would take 300TW-years to do that. Google oil drum henson if you want to see the derivation. Keith Henson (talk) 22:48, 1 September 2009 (UTC)Reply
Hi- I see you made a recent edit to the page but left the POV tag and didn't comment on the talk page. If the article seems OK to you now, please remove the tag. Thanks. Robsavoie (talk) 17:04, 31 December 2009 (UTC)Reply
Could you perhaps mentor me a bit for a little while as I get working with templates?
I would like to thank you once again for your fantastic work at Template:Tlx. I use it all the time and it is a little tricky but worthwhile doing so, I think. If nothing else it saves me typing .
I have been doing a little work at Category:Hungary geographical name conversion templates which I am vaguely pleased on. These are simple conversions from Hungarian Wikipedia names (i.e. in Hungarian) to English ones. The basic idea is you can copy-paste the Hungarian infobox and it will magically work in the English wikipedia (see for example Acsa, not a great article, but translated and has a nice infobox that was literally a copy paste job).
Now I have about ten of these and I realise I got the naming convention wrong, really, specifically I should like to drop "name" but should perhaps do a kind "from" "to" convention. This is setting aside the issue of whether templates should be used for language conversion (they can't be I assure you, the template language is a regular experssion language and you need at least a context-free grammar to get close, but I can handle limited cases where there are only seventeen counties and six regions etc)
These are a subcategory of [[Category:Conversion templates]] as [[Category:Hungary geographical name conversion templates]].
The advice I need is basically:
Is it worth doing this at all, or am I going to be slapped for introducing Hungarian stuff into English WP (though purely to aid the translation effort and it can be subst: later)
The naming convention. I got it wrong and is clumsy and not intuitive. I think probably a from-to convention is best.
I want something like convert (not as powerful of course) called hu-convert or something that you go Template:Tlx and it puts out "Central Transdanubia". I know how to do this technically, with switches and stuff, and am collecting templates together to convert from regions and counties and so forth and a bit from Hungarian to English in limited, well-bound cases so that you can just paste the Hungarian in and it just worksTM. I will reorganise the template names to make this better to do this, but your advice on to what to rename them would be very helpful.
I have to admit that I'm not 100% sure on where exactly you're at with this infobox. We probably wouldn't want to leave the Hungarian stuff there but I s'pose a bot could tidy up. I'm not sure what "HU21" & "NUTS 2" mean. A rule of thumb that I find useful is to name subroutines of a template's function as subpages of the template; it keeps everything together in one place. JIMptalk·cont14:20, 26 September 2009 (UTC)Reply
Torque
Latest comment: 7 October 20091 comment1 person in discussion
Are you going to update the torque conversions, since we have a consensus on the issue (and have had a consensus for over a week)? I would do it myself, except the code looks a little too complex for me. Thanks. 「ɠu¹ɖяy」¤ • ¢15:26, 7 October 2009 (UTC)Reply
New requests
Latest comment: 8 October 20092 comments1 person in discussion
Latest comment: 10 October 20091 comment1 person in discussion
Hello, Jimp. Wikid77 here. I didn't mean to further frustrate all your conversion problems. I'm trying to resolve the deadlock where Convert is being tasked to be both an engineer's tool and a general-public calculator. I do understand your frustrations in trying retain 100 as meaning "50-149", so I've added the following FAQs into Template_talk:Convert (repeated here for speed outside that huge talk-page):
Questions about proposed rounding
There are several common questions:
Q:Will the change fix all rounding problems?
A: No, the focus is to shift some of the common measurements, so the change will improve: heights ft/in to cm, weights kg-to-lb, and metres-to-ft, but other units might remain the same.
Q:Will the change become the mandated standard?
A: No, this is just a first step to improving the rounding for general-purpose measurements. Some adjustments, to the rounding, could be added in the future.
Q:Why has the rounding been controversial?
A: The problem stems from 2 different meanings of an ending-zero. For engineering work, an end-zero typically means "the last 2 digits are rounded", whereas for the general public, an end-zero typically means "closer to a 0 than 9 or 1". So, for the number "150", an engineer often considers the value as rounded between "145-155", while the general public sees "150" as between 149-151. An engineer could treat "10" as the range 5-15, while when a child says "age 10", that does not mean "5-15 years" old. These 2 meanings are completely, utterly incompatible; there should be 2 entirely different Convert-templates: an engineer's conversion as Template:Engconv, versus the general public's Template:Genconv for general conversions. The numeral "10" cannot mean both "exactly 10" and "5-15" in the same template. The proposed rounding is to shift common measurements, such as height or weight to display as the general public would expect, not consider height as rounded up/down 2 inches. For engineering articles, then any heights or weights would need to be checked to include a round parameter (typically "1").
Q:Why has the problem persisted?
A: As noted directly above, the meaning of "10" or "100" has been endlessly debated. The engineering measurements use 10 as 5-15, or 100 as 50-149, while the general public uses 10 between numbers 9-11, or 100 between 99-101. The 2 views are hopelessly deadlocked, and when Template:Convert has been changed, one side or the other always loses.
Q:Why aren't there 2 templates: Engconv & Genconv?
A: Clearly, at least 2 different templates are needed, for engineering versus general use. However, during the past 2 years, all attempts to create new conversion templates have been met with hostility and suppression, to the extent that WP admins felt the issue no longer warranted any discussion, so new templates were AfD-deleted without any real debate. There had not even been enough time to clarify the issue of "exactly 10" versus "10 means 5-15". So the one template has become now, "One size fails all": engineers are disgruntled about too much dropping of decimals "xx.x" and general users dislike the vague end-zeros.
That is a first attempt to help people see the no-win situation with trying to force Convert to "default" to everyone's personal preferences. Again, I'm sorry if the discussion has frustrated your other efforts. -Wikid77 (talk) 21:40, 10 October 2009 (UTC)Reply
Edit request
Latest comment: 14 October 20091 comment1 person in discussion
Latest comment: 18 January 20102 comments2 people in discussion
Hi there Jimp, a debate is currently in progress on the EU talk page concerning the use of either ‘Republic of Ireland’ or ‘Ireland’ to identify the state. As the page is clearly political and involves both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, I am arguing for ‘Republic of Ireland’ for reasons of clarity and common sense. However, all my arguments are falling on intransigently deaf ears. Perhaps you would care to take a look? The Spoorne (talk) 20:47, 16 January 2010 (UTC)Reply
Clarity and common sense could just as easily be brought in to wage a counter argument along the lines that the four instances of the mention of the country unmistakeably refer to a state not an island so using the short version is just common sense. What worries me more is that, except for the "Ireland" on the map, all are linked (and not to the island). JIMptalk·cont21:39, 18 January 2010 (UTC)Reply
andyzweb (talk) haz givn u Cheezburgr! Cheezburgrs promot WikiLovez and hoapfuly thiz one haz made yore day bettr. Spreadd teh WikiLovez by givin sumone else Cheezburgr, whethr it be sumeone youz hav had disagreementz with in teh past or a gud frend. Hapy munchins!
Spredd teh goudnesz of Cheezburgerz to all lolcat buddiez by addin Template:Tls to their talk paj with friendly messuj to all.
Convert protection
Latest comment: 5 February 20102 comments2 people in discussion
Hey Jimp, just a friendly reminder that if you ever need something changed within the Convert template (or other protected templates) you're more than welcome to leave a note on my talk page and I'll get it done as soon as I see it. — Huntster (t@c)11:13, 5 February 2010 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 6 February 20102 comments1 person in discussion
Jimp– You can probably figure out what is going wrong faster than I can, but currently there is something strange going on. It may be due to some recent changes?
Also, I need to request something, so I'm more capable of making independent edits. Would you please make a list of parameters used in the unit subtemplates and explain what function each field serves? I know that b= is the base conversion factor, u= is the abbreviation, n= is the written out form, t= is the wikilink, o= is the default output (?), but I'm especially stumped as to what j= does. Any help would be appreciated. — Huntster (t@c)05:15, 11 February 2010 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 8 March 20105 comments4 people in discussion
05-March-2010: Jimp, it's Wikid77 here. After requesting many edit-protected updates, I can see why the restrictions have frustrated your improvements to Template:Convert. Would you be interested in gaining admin privileges for quicker fixes, or do you think you would be burdened with too many requests as an admin? I know some admins would rather work on editing articles but get hounded to perform admin functions instead. Plus, your expert knowledge is probably better applied to writing articles than admin activities. Perhaps you could be a "technical admin" who only updated templates, or such, to leave you more time to improve articles. I had a recent 2-account puppet block, so I doubt I could get admin privileges to update Convert, but maybe you could if you didn't get trapped as an admin. Please reply here when you have time, and if you want more time to consider, then think about it a few days before responding. Obviously, many admins would support your nomination because they're tired of the dozens of edit-protect updates! -Wikid77 (talk) 21:33, 5 March 2010 (UTC)Reply
I am not around much; so when Jimp does go up for RFA, could one of you three please use the "email this user" function and let me know. He has my full support for admin rights and y'all can put me down as support vote. —MJCdetroit(yak)18:15, 8 March 2010 (UTC)Reply
Will do. Also, it appears a nomination was started back in 2008, but deleted per housekeeping. I can always start the nomination page, then you, Jimp, can decide when to transclude it. Of course, assuming this is okay with you. Plastikspork―Œ(talk)20:18, 8 March 2010 (UTC)Reply
Ready to update Rnd to bypass Rnd/a
Latest comment: 4 April 20101 comment1 person in discussion
04-April-2010: This is just an FYI that Template:Rnd is ready to update to bypass the small subtemplate {Rnd/a} and reduce Convert nesting by 1 more level, against the template-nesting limit. This change should affect nearly 307,000 pages, and drop 307,000 wikilinks to {Rnd/a}, which will become almost unused. See counts in database report:
Latest comment: 24 April 20102 comments2 people in discussion
Hi! Can You help me, please! I need to make a code (template) to turn on/off image+text, code, which will hide image and text most of time, and show only at specific date or period! Hope You can help me, i guess You have some experience in template and code making :) Vilnisr (talk) 19:40, 24 April 2010 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 15 June 20103 comments3 people in discussion
Hi, Jimp
Excuse me for my ignorance. Can you please be more specific about your note "For US spelling use the parameter sp=us" on the template SI derived units. Thanks. Nedim Ardoğa (talk) 06:40, 20 May 2010 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 17 June 20103 comments3 people in discussion
Jimp, how does one deal with editors who find conversion templates "confusing" and roll them back when one edits them into an article? At this point I shall not mention names. I was introduced to Template:Tl "way back when", at a time when I started to convert the square footage of shopping centres to square metrage, doing so "long hand" on the windows calculator. That proved to be a tedious job and I was only too happy to start to use the convert template from from sqft to m2 when another editor pointed me to the existence of the template, e.g. Template:Convert. Way faster, and much less likely to produce errors. Editors who don't like to use conversion templates because they are "confusing" are, in my opinion, "dinosauers". Peter HornUser talk 21:38, 16 June 2010 (UTC) Peter HornUser talk21:42, 16 June 2010 (UTC)Reply
Hello. Your account has been granted the "Template:Mono" userright, allowing you to review other users' edits on certain flagged pages. Pending changes, also known as flagged protection, is currently undergoing a two-month trial scheduled to end 15 August 2010.
Reviewers can review edits made by users who are not autoconfirmed to articles placed under pending changes. Pending changes is applied to only a small number of articles, similarly to how semi-protection is applied but in a more controlled way for the trial. The list of articles with pending changes awaiting review is located at Special:OldReviewedPages.
When reviewing, edits should be accepted if they are not obvious vandalism or BLP violations, and not clearly problematic in light of the reason given for protection (see Wikipedia:Reviewing process). More detailed documentation and guidelines can be found here.
Filling in the edit summary field greatly helps your fellow contributors in understanding what you changed, so please always fill in the edit summary field. If you are adding a section, please do not just keep the previous section's header in the Edit summary field – please fill in your new section's name instead. Thank you.
This page will show you how often you use edit summaries, and it also breaks it down by major and minor edits as well as month-by-month. Thanks again! cymru lass(hit me up)⁄(background check)19:34, 21 June 2010 (UTC)Reply
Template:Convert additional units
Latest comment: 23 June 20101 comment1 person in discussion
Latest comment: 27 July 20101 comment1 person in discussion
Dear Jimp,
User:mjroots asked on Template Talk:Convert for a conversion from kilometres to miles and chains. This was, I think, from his review of my now GA (yay!) Old Rouen Tramway, which has just gone FA at the French wikipedia from which I translated it, where perhaps unwisely I put the measures into chains because they are generally used on British railways. I was uneasy using that (why not miles?) but with the particular distances in that article it seemed the most appropriate; I took it to the talk page there and the consensus of two editors (i.e. not much of a consensus) was that yeah it was OK to have chains, but Roots rightly said, on my talk page or his I forget where, if we had km to miles-and-chains then this would be generally very useful on railway articles.
I attempted to make this by taking the conversion to feet-and-inches (Template:convert/ftin) and changing it, but I couldn't get it to work. I did this as a subtemplate of Template:Tlc since of course it has to be under that hierarchy to get executed properly from convert; I saw no harm in doing so and after my experiments failed I had it deleted under CSD G1 (?) Author requests deletion. It just didn't do what I was expecting, it came out with entirely the wrong measures and did not split it into two parts!
Because I don't really understand what all those single-letter parameters are for. Some I guessed as being the denominator of how to split it, the conversion into a base unit (metres I imagine) and so forth. The "j" parameter totally foxed me, I think it is some kind of frig factor for doing rounding or something.
In short, because I don't understand all the single-letter parameters used in the deep templates, I couldn't add the conversion successfully. Could you tell me how to do it? I won't go arbitrarily adding firkins per fortnight or whatever, but if I had a better understanding of these implementation parameters I could start to document them from a template creator's point of view rather than a template user's point of view.
Latest comment: 9 November 20101 comment1 person in discussion
Hi, this is your distant past coming to haunt you. More than five years ago you did some temporary cleanup work that, I think, stuck until today. Now I have mentioned that edit on the Talk:History of measurement. Maybe you want to join the discussion. HansAdler20:06, 9 November 2010 (UTC)Reply
editing
Latest comment: 12 November 20104 comments2 people in discussion
Hi ... I notice that you have revised an article, to change all instances of "U.S." (which were consistent) to "US". I was wondering why you did that. You can respond here, to keep all comments together. Thanks.--Epeefleche (talk) 05:01, 11 November 2010 (UTC)Reply
For consistency in an article, if the abbreviated form for the United States appears alongside other abbreviated country names, avoid periods throughout; never add full stops to the other abbreviations (Template:Xt, not Template:!xt).
This is just a reminder that {Rnd} has been modified, via the protected Template:Rnd/b1, where a change was slipped in by User:Patrick to fix a current user request. No mention was made, so I have described the change, with examples, in Template_talk:Rnd/b1. Hopefully, that change (due to a bug in the MediaWiki 1.6 software) is sufficient, and we can focus on other issues or articles needing improvement. -Wikid77 (talk) 05:24, 21 November 2010 (UTC)Reply
Person first language and autism
Latest comment: 22 November 20102 comments2 people in discussion
See for example this essay. While he doesn't speak for all autistics, it is generally standard among higher-functioning autistics, even the ones who are very much against the idea of politicizing autism, to follow this standard for mostly the same reasons as laid out in his essay. —Soap—14:13, 22 November 2010 (UTC)Reply
Thanks. I'll read the essay. JIMptalk·cont 14:16, 22 November 2010 (UTC) ... began reading & it's a very interesting perspective. If you feel it's best to revert my edit, please avoid the double link. JIMptalk·cont14:20, 22 November 2010 (UTC)Reply
Just so you know
Latest comment: 12 December 20103 comments1 person in discussion
I like your half-lives table on Gigasecond, but I've decided to start trimming these articles down so that they don't come under such frequent attacks by deletionists. So I've created a separate article, List of isotopes by half-life, to collect together all the half-life lists. It'll take a while to set up, but your info isn't gone. Serendipodous19:04, 8 December 2010 (UTC)Reply
Hi. I'm trying to convert the info in the new article to your table format, but I'm having trouble figuring out what you did. This sort of technical thing was never my strong point :-) Serendipodous14:01, 11 December 2010 (UTC)Reply
Updating Convert to avoid rewrite as parser function
Latest comment: 15 February 20116 comments3 people in discussion
I don't mean to seem too pushy, but I am planning to update Convert to use Template:Getprecision to handle rounding of negative numbers, as using 7 fewer levels of expansion depth, to make Convert "seem more efficient" (by using only 21 of the 40 tiny levels). The developer User:Happy-melon has started an extensive PHP "rival parser function" in which he imagines how using some internal lists of 100 or 200 pre-set, unchangeable unit names could "replace" Template:Convert (totally), as if all the other units are just a minor annoyance, especially, those pesky "mpg" and "L/100 km" which involve reciprocal conversions for 1/length, and which I think he wants to ignore. Of course, on the one hand, it might seem totally hillarious, but on the other hand, he seems quite hopeful that "Convert-in-a-thimble" could replace the entire set of Convert subtemplates, as more efficient. Therefore, I want to quickly reduce Convert's current nesting for rounding (but keep the same rounding precision), to show how concerns about Convert's expansion depth have been fixed, and there is no performance problem, to require squeezing all measurement units known to wiki-mankind into a static parser function where no new units could be defined. I'm not sure if you have talked with Happy-melon, before, but he spent several many hours creating PHP arrays of unit names to show his concept of listing 200 units to provide "all" functionality provided by Convert. You and I both know the major power of Convert is in defining "6 new unit conversions" in 25 minutes, which do not affect the prior 2 million uses of Convert in articles, because the current units covered by Convert were only the start of units requested by users. Hence, the parser function concept will fail, while also introducing numerous other "unfixable" incompatible, complexities which might remain for years. I suppose you are quite tired of trying to explain why a giant list of 200 units will not handle what Wikipedia needs for future conversions, and a parser function with English units names will not be "well received" in 150 other national languages. So, I will try to help get the message across to other people. Meanwhile, by reducing Convert's expansion depth by 7 levels, it would become less of a target of people who say, "WP:Don't worry about performance" but really do. If you are not too bored, you might want to look at the latest attempt to code conversions as yet-another giant list of 200 units, this time written in PHP language:
I wish people would ask about the feasibility of such efforts, before spending many hours attempting a massive rewrite, but perhaps some people need to try by using a giant-list rewrite to better understand why it is doomed to failure, as they will learn 1 month later, after 5 busy users adamantly demand another 5 new units be converted. -Wikid7712:38, 14 February 2011 (UTC)Reply
If he wants to try rewrite this thing, he should know that he's facing two alternatives. Either the new parser function will not be able to do even a tiny tiny fraction of what the template is capable of or he's going to be spending years on this. 200 units? One of the beauties of the template as it is now, as you mention, is that units can simply be added. Requests often come in for new units on the talk page and are (for the most part) accommodated usually quite quickly. As a parser function things would be different. Do you even know how to code a parser function? I don't. He might have to change his name to Frustrated‑Melon by the end of it. JIMptalk·cont20:33, 14 February 2011 (UTC)Reply
I have read some of his PHP source code, to realize he does intend to handle several hundred units without formatting (perhaps even without singular or plural!), but I just don't have time, and after the "15 man-years" of work you've already accomplished on Convert, it would be unfair to limit you to "re-inventing the square wheel" when so many articles need expert updates about the use of measurements in technical articles. Just yesterday, I had to create "milliwatt hour" (for simple household batteries labelled "2500 mWh") plus "milli-ohm" or "milliohm" as redirects to "Ohm" because few people write about these units, while they complain, "All technical subjects are finished in Wikipedia, so now we need to focus on all Cricket players from 1874" (not true, many tech subjects are missing). Meanwhile, over at WP:TECHPUMP, people are saying severe bugs in parser functions have existed for over 5 years(!), such as a #ifeq going into auto-number mode when data begins with a pound sign ("#"). So, users must hide the "#" inside the #ifeq by prefixing with bold-endtag "<b/>#1".
So, we can use prefix "<b/>" to overcome "#" or leading spaces. However, if the developers cannot prioritize the importance of fixing the #ifeq parser function to automatically allow a leading-pound in text data, imagine the decades before a {#convert:} function would get corrected for a wrong conversion factor. Currently, they enlist volunteer developer assistants, and I would consider joining to fix glaring bugs, but even now, one wonders just how it is possible that the supervisors of developers do not task them to fix #ifeq to work correctly for text data with leading colon, semicolon and pound sign ("#") in the middle of a line.-Wikid7703:35, 15 February 2011 (UTC)Reply
Is the parser function to replace the thousands of transclusions that the template has now? Would such a job ever get done? I could understand writing, say, a parser function to get precision, to display a number correctly (i.e. real minus signs, scientific notation (no "E" notation), trailing zeros, fractions, etc.). Many of the internal workings of the template could be rewritten as parserfunctions but the entire template ... JIMptalk·cont04:13, 15 February 2011 (UTC)Reply
I agree. I thought this was the original plan, perhaps with some more sophisticated rounding functions as well, but it appears it has expanded into something much more ambitious. Plastikspork―Œ(talk)04:24, 15 February 2011 (UTC)Reply
A hybrid would probably be better than a replacement. When I started the rewrite of convert I thought it would take a couple of weeks. Years later we're still adding units. The beauty of the template is that units can just be added. Could units be added to the PHP code? JIMptalk·cont04:39, 15 February 2011 (UTC)Reply
Metric System
Latest comment: 21 March 20112 comments2 people in discussion
Hi Jimp, Thank you for rewording the hatnote. The first edit was great, however I felt that the 2nd and 3rd edits did not convey any useful information - the neccessary links are already in place. Martinvl (talk) 08:56, 21 March 2011 (UTC)Reply
Yeah, the problem, though, I felt was one of grammar. "Information that pertains to specific versions of the system, such as the International System of Units or the cgs system of units, can be found in those articles." What exactly does the "those" refer to? The articles linked to, of course, but how, grammatically does that work? It doesn't really. We know what the "those" means because we know that a blue word links to an article. Grammatically that's cheating also what about those readers who don't know this? JIMptalk·cont12:29, 21 March 2011 (UTC)Reply
You made this former OR article into a redirect way back before time began. Do you remember? Are you the same person? In two or three weeks it'll be five years ago. Anyway, I'm just letting you know that I think it's time this redirect was abandoned and deleted: To that end, see Wikipedia:Redirects_for_discussion/Log/2011_March_29#Bred-bread split. I'm not watching your talk page, so if you think any discussion is relevant here instead of on the RfD, gimme a heads up.
Latest comment: 27 April 20111 comment1 person in discussion
I noticed this edit, in which you make fairly substantial changes to the wording of the obesity article. You did not leave an edit summary, which is mandatory for all substantive edits. You could have explained, for instance, why you replaced most uses of the word "caloric intake" with "food energy intake" etc - a change that is probably appropriate but needs justification.
I see you received a similar request in June 2010, and a quick glance over your contributions reveals that you very rarely leave edit summaries. JFW | T@lk17:08, 27 April 2011 (UTC)Reply
Your thoughts welcome
Latest comment: 30 April 20111 comment1 person in discussion
Latest comment: 17 May 20117 comments2 people in discussion
Hi. Moving Template:February29InRecentYears to Template:ThisDateInRecentYears/doc doesn't seem like a good way to preserve the history of the former page. Anyone looking for the history of Template:February29InRecentYears won't know to look at Template:ThisDateInRecentYears/doc. The doc page has a completely different purpose than the old template page and combining the history seems like a bad idea. Would you consider un-moving it and letting the TfD process determine if the old template should be deleted? I have no problem with being bold, but the corpse of the old templates is barely cold and we haven't seen any input yet as to whether they're preferable. There's no hurry to clean house on these. Thanks. -- Mufka(u)(t)(c)03:06, 12 May 2011 (UTC)Reply
Sure, let it be moved back. I can't move it back myself since I've edited the thing so we're going to have to get it deleted before we can move it back. Assuming the corpses do go cold, though, and it's decided that the new version is better, what about the February29InRecentYears history? Where should it go? Do we clutter the place with its decaying skeleton as a redirect? Do we throw it out altogether (if the tfd decides to bury the corpse)? How about merging the history with Template:Tl, which has picked up (part of) the former template's job (and if we're doing that why move it back first?)? JIMptalk·cont04:35, 12 May 2011 (UTC)Reply
I'll do it later today if I can unless someone else does it. We'll see the consensus at TfD to see what the ultimate disposition will be. -- Mufka(u)(t)(c)10:08, 12 May 2011 (UTC)Reply
Rather than doing one at a time like this I'd suggest using AWB or asking a bot operator to do it. It'd be good to have these type of changes done all at once if possible. -- Mufka(u)(t)(c)23:38, 16 May 2011 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 6 June 20116 comments2 people in discussion
Hi HiLo48 and Jimp
I have posted this to each of you personally rather than putting it on the Talk Page as I did not want to be too public about what I am saying.
The three examples that I originally chose were a landmark in the United States, one in the United Kingdom and one is Asia. I later added the section about bridges. Somebody else added the bit about Central Park, but I was not too happy about that as it is rather artificial (my examples are all within 5% of a kilometre). Before posting this, I looked at both your home pages and I believe that you are both Aussies. I was brought up in South Africa (though I now live in the UK) which, like Australia, adopted the metric system fully in the 1970's. The examples that I have chosen are targeted at UK and US readers who do not have the advantage that you and I had of seeing kilometres in use in everyday life.
I notice furthermore that HiLo48 wrote "This user prefers metric units and cannot figure out why Americans have such a hard time with them" on his home page. The example that I gave is trying to help them.
None of the other units pages have this kind of thing ... perhaps they should. I was suggesting it be moved rather than just deleted, though. JIMptalk·cont22:52, 5 June 2011 (UTC)Reply
Hi Jimp. The articles gram, hectare, watt and joule do. I was responsible for the examples in hectare and some of those in watt. The article to which you suggesteed they be moved is, in my opinion, a very poor article. Martinvl (talk) 07:19, 6 June 2011 (UTC)Reply
I'm only suggesting it as an alternative to out-right deletion. That 1 kilometre is poor (and so it is) is no reason not to improve it by adding something useful. Here's a better counter argument: 1 kilometre is poorly named and actually about lengths from 1 to 10 km. JIMptalk·cont13:07, 6 June 2011 (UTC)Reply
About 30 other articles links to 1 kilometre. All but two of them are articles like picometre, hectometre and the like. I have not looked at these articles, but I suspect that there is one big incestuous set of links between these articles and hardly any links to the outside world. Martinvl (talk) 13:35, 6 June 2011 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 13 June 201110 comments2 people in discussion
While I applaud you changing the various auto conversion templates, you need to be a little more careful as you removed the optional second parameter which specifies the number of decimal places. You also removed the usage examples. --Biker Biker (talk) 07:24, 13 June 2011 (UTC)Reply
But surely you need to take account of where people have specified a precision already? Is it your plan to subst every use of these templates and thus wipe them out? I would certainly support that as in general I don't think the templates are needed. --Biker Biker (talk) 07:54, 13 June 2011 (UTC)Reply
That can be done, sure. I was just not so keen on having the input-insensitive default that there exists at present. Of course, if we keep the current default, there will be no change to articles. I'll do it that way. And yes, if I can, I'd be interested in replacing all of these templates with Template:Tlf. Most of them are already replaced. Why not finish the job off? JIMptalk·cont15:22, 13 June 2011 (UTC)Reply
Thanks for fixing. At least I now know what I did wrong. I know that precision is specified (for good reason) in some articles for the Auto cu in and Auto L, but although it exists as a parameter in the other templates I don't recall it being used. For Auto in, I can't see anyone needing precision of less than 1mm so I would be tempted to junk that one. If they need more then they should use convert. Ditto for Auto lb.ft which should take on the default used by Template:Tl. Personally I'd be happy to see the back of these templates. Perhaps we could get Script error: No such module "user". to eradicate them? I feel like a bit of wikiextermination....--Biker Biker (talk) 16:08, 13 June 2011 (UTC)Reply
We are of one mind. Yes, inches to tenths of a millimetre is a little absurd ... perhaps it was meant to be ten millimetres and they left out the minus sign. Perhaps I'll just add it in. JIMptalk·cont16:14, 13 June 2011 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 22 June 201115 comments13 people in discussion
I approve, and in fact, I believe I even offered to nominate you at one point in time. I was actually watching the page just in case it was created. Let me know if you want me to look it over before it goes live. Thanks! Plastikspork―Œ(talk)00:20, 8 June 2011 (UTC)Reply
Congratulations, your RfA was successful. While editing protected templates will hopefully be easy, the New Admin School might be useful to play around with your other admin tools, and here is the how-to guide. This and this are good words of caution—had I known of that before, I wouldn't be the reason as to why these two pages exist. :p Good luck with the new tools. Maxim(talk)00:25, 15 June 2011 (UTC)Reply
Congratulations and welcome to the club of nastiest, meanest, wikedest Wikipedians ;) Someone I'm sure will give you a ragged T-shirt so that you can walk around incognito to avoid being stoned. All the very best! --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 00:29, 15 June 2011 (UTC)Reply
Nice one! Take it slow to begin with and you'll do fine (it takes a little time to get used to some of the new buttons) CatfishJim (ex-soapdish)09:04, 15 June 2011 (UTC)Reply
Thank you to all who participated in my RfA. Thank you, those who supported my nomination, your comments were encouraging. Thank you, those who opposed, your comments were enlightening. I'll strive to use the tools well. JIMptalk·cont02:01, 15 June 2011 (UTC)Reply