User talk:Bryan Derksen/Archive 2

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Hi, I have wanted to clarify something about Netscape for a long time. The Gecko-based product is no longer called Navigator, simply Netscape, so I'd rather not put the info about it under the title Netscape Navigator. What do you think? Do you want to keep the Netscape article as a disambiguation page? (After all, it seems they began to use 'Navigator' here and there again.) vaganyik

Personally, I'd put information about the browser at "Netscape Navigator" and information about the company at "Netscape." But haven't been paying attention to what Netscape has been doing, and don't really have much interest either; not really sure why you picked me to ask this question of. :) Bryan Derksen

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Hey Bryan - Is it possible to place preformatted text in a table? The reason I ask is because a few years ago I created a step by step diagram of glycolysis on my Palm Pilot and several months ago I placed that diagram in talk:Glycolysis (after trying and failing to get it into a right aligned table). Any help or suggestions would be great. --mav

I just did the first diagram over on that talk page, and it seems to work on Mozilla 1.1. However, this ASCII art thing makes me twitch philosophically; wouldn't it be better to make some simple line drawings and upload them as images? I could probably whip something up, but not tonight (no time right now). Bryan Derksen

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Please have a look atTalk:Lomography

Already have, an answer is over there. By the way, I think wikipedia custom is to add new entries to talk pages at the bottom of the page, so that reading downward puts everything in chronological order. I've noticed you're putting new comments at the top of pages like this instead, and thought you might be unaware. Also, you might want to sign your talk page contributions; just put three tildes "~~~" to automatically add a link to your own user page, like is at the end of this paragraph. Bryan

Thanks I'm really new here. I find the project exciting. Ericd 18:20 Sep 5, 2002 (PDT)

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Bryan, how do I timestamp my "Talk" page entries? Cointyrocointyro

Just use four tildes instead of three. Simple as that. :) eg: ~~~~ as opposed to ~~~ Bryan 17:06 Sep 21, 2002 (UTC)

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Hey Bryan; I've started a new thread over at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Elements about a concept for nav bars and locator maps. Your views, opinions and HTML skills are requested. :) --mav

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Bryan, if you have some time, will you write something about horseshoe orbits? I don't quite understand how they work and I am curious. Thanks. PattonZarate

Sure, I'll take a crack at it. I'll have effectively zero time tomorrow, but the day after is good. But I barely understand them myself, so I'm not sure how much I'll be able to help. :) Bryan

Thanks. I will also look somewhere to see if I can find some sort of graphical representation. PattonZarate

The site http://www.astro.queensu.ca/~wiegert/3753/3753.html has a great deal of good stuff about weird orbits like this, and not just 3753 Cruithne's. I once wrote the author for permission to use some of it on Wikipedia, but never got a response.

Also, go over to www.xoverboard.com and read the entry on September 25, 2002 regarding Scrooge McDuck and his purported wealth. I think you'll get a kick out of it. PattonZarate

Heh. I can sort of believe McDuck's relatively low ranking; I mean, his idea of investing his money is just throwing it all in a giant money pit. But what's with Lex Luthor only having a measily four billion dollars? This is the guy who single-handedly financed the rebuilding of Gotham City and Metropolis! And Thurston Howell III is listed as having twice as much! Can you imagine Lex Luthor being stuck on that island? Gilligan and the rest would be dead within a week, and the island itself converted into a secret LexCorp research facility of some kind.

I'm sorry, I seem to be digressing. :) Bryan 07:11 Sep 30, 2002 (UTC)

Funny! PattonZarate

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Why did you remove the text centering from the table of line-ending characters in the ASCII entry, and replace it with cellpadding/cellspacing attributes? You should note that these table-level attributes have no effect if the user has chosen a skin/stylesheet like Cologne Blue, which specifies them via CSS properties at the td level. -- mjb

Just personal aesthetics, I guess; I find tables more readable in general when the text all starts at the same spot, whereas centered text makes my eyes go jagged when I scan down the column. The cellspacing/padding attributes are ones which I add to virtually all the tables I edit, also for aesthetic reasons (and if they're overridden, that's fine; that's what style sheets are for). Bryan

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Bryan: I'm working on developing sep11.wikipedia.org. Until it's ready, I would appreciate it if you didn't delete the Memoriam page. Your help is welcome. --The Cunctator

It hasn't been deleted, copies of the page are stored in both the page's history and on the meta site. When sep11.wikipedia.org is ready, it will be trivial to retrieve this for it. Bryan

I believe you know what I'm talking about when I said "delete".

Yeah, but I was glad it was finally gone from Wikipedia and the fact that its contents were still accessible if and when someone wanted to make it available elsewhere was good enough IMO.

sep11: doesn't work fine. It has broken links. It's not fully set up. The blue background needs to be changed. Etc. It's still, as they say, in beta. But now that there are clean redirects the primary detriment to user experience has been removed. I'd appreciate your help in improving the site. --The Cunctator

No thanks, I barely have time for Wikipedia itself these days.

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Hi Brian, Maverick149 thought you would like to knwo about this bug (I also filed a bug report)

See screendump ScrPrint.gif

Explorer renders somes pages in a weird way.

Mav says the Periodic Table should always fit on the screen (Table width = 100%)

It does not in Explorer 5.5. and 6.

What is even more horrid: when I scroll to the right the tabIe moves underneath the menu, showing both intermingled (see screen dump)

I've seen this now on three PC's: Win2000 MSIE 5.5 Win98 MSIE 5.5 (screen dump) lowres screen Win XP MSIE 6 hires screen

The effect occurred on other pages too. Even if it is an Explorer issue only, some 90% or more of the Wikipedians probably use Explorer, at least half of them 5.5 or higher.

Erik Zachte

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the text doesnt shrink for me Lir 06:45 Nov 12, 2002 (UTC)

When you make the table wider and the total width of the screen stays the same, the space available beside it gets narrower. That's only part of the problem, though. If the factsheet template changes, then I've got to go around and update all of the other planets and moons that have them as well; before I go to all that trouble, I insist on being convinced that it's a good idea. Please take this up over on Talk:Solar system/Factsheet template.

well id love to take it up on that talk page but as far as i can tell you and I are the one ones reading it. now if you want, you could have the table be above the text instead of beside it. Frankly, I never liked having the damn boxes besides the text to begin with. I think having to update the other stuff is a pretty lame excuse since thats what im trying to do...Lir 06:53 Nov 12, 2002 (UTC)

Jeronimo, Maveric, and Fonzy have all contributed significantly to the talk page and to the template, and Maveric has been active there during the past hour or so while this kerfuffle has blown up. As for what you think about the table design, why should I care if you're not willing to work to convice me in a reasonable manner? I can revert stuff just as easily as you can, regardless of whether you think my excuse is "lame", and will continue to do so until you show me why I shouldn't. Bryan

Your excuse is lame! You don't want me to update the Earth page because then Id have to update all the pages? What the hell concern is it of yours if I go through and update all the pages?

what concern is it of yours if I go through and revert all of them?

You still haven't explained what your problem is with the damn table except that you didn't make it. Lir 07:04 Nov 12, 2002 (UTC)

I have explained what my problem is, and none of the reasons I gave were "I didn't make it" (in fact, the current template has a number of sections and details which other folks added to it, so I didn't make all of the current one either). If you are interested in a more detailed discussion, there's a certain talk: page I've been suggesting where we could do that.

BTW, saying that my excuses are lame is a lame way to have a debate.

Hey Bryan. I am discussing on the talk page. But where are you? You haven't given any reason whats wrong with my table except you are using a substandard and atypical resolution. Lir 07:18 Nov 12, 2002 (UTC)

I've been trying, but I've been getting edit conflicts every time I try to save for the past five minutes or so. Slow down a bit. :) Bryan

So why doesn't anybody add some chatrooms? That would save a lot of trouble and time. Lir 07:28 Nov 12, 2002 (UTC)

And I'd just like to point out that basically, I've never, had an issue with someone modifying or adapting my text. It's only when I add new info that nobody disputes BUT GODDAMN FUCKING EVERYTHING GETS REVERTED because somebody doesn't like one minor point. Lir 07:29 Nov 12, 2002 (UTC)

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What was with the changes to Earth? I notice Lir changed Cm to M in one place, and removed <sup> tags within a link, changing the link. I was about to check the additions when you reverted it. --KQ

Sorry, that last one was just a straight reversion-to-previous-version, assuming that Lir had only gone and replaced the table again. I'll check the diff for anything that should have been merged instead. Bryan

Just double-checked, and as I'd surmised Lir's most recent change was just a replacement of the table again. No other changes were undone in the reversion. Bryan

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Well wahts the problem with it now? I can't fix something if I don't know what you think is wrong with it Lir 07:47 Nov 12, 2002 (UTC)

I've been telling you what I think over on the template talk page. You've been ignoring it completely, as far as I can tell. Why shouldn't I ignore you right back? This is getting boring. Bryan

And ive been fixing every complaint you have, so clearly Im not ignoring you.

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ring current needs its own page. Whether to describe Earth's ring current on the van allen page or ring current is another question_I tend to see the ring current as NOT being part of the van allen belts as they are two van allen belts, inner and outer, and the outer belt is surrounded by the ring current. Lir 00:48 Nov 13, 2002 (UTC)

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Hey Bryan,

The Factsheet is really a WikiProject, no? It would be great to move the Factsheet and its talk page to a WikiProject page. What do you think is a good title? Either Wikipedia:WikiProject Astronomical Objects or Wikipedia:WikiProject Heavenly Bodies would work in a pinch but we could probably come up with a better name (and then link it on the WikiProject page and under the Astronomy heading at Wikipedia:Wikipedians by fields of interest. Ideas? --mav

Hadn't really thought about it, but I guess it is. :) If this were to be put under the heading of Heavenly Bodies I'd probably giggle every time I thought about it, so my vote's for Astronomical Objects. I'll have to look at the other WikiProject pages to get some idea of what's involved in one of these before I think of anything else to change, however. Bryan

Okay, I think I see how this works. I'm still bogged down with work right now, though, so I'm going to put off moving everything over to a WikiProject page for a day or so. Bryan

Well all I did for WP Elements was move the template - I never really bothered reformatting everything to follow the WikiProject guidelines. Yeah, "Heavenly Bodies" would make me giggle too. No hurry. :) --mav

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On a similar line, I want to do a WikiProjectette about the 88 constellations. I've already started doing it on the French wiki, and I've done Andromeda (constellation) here. I would like your view on disambiguation (Mav pointed me to you on Talk:Andromeda.) I would like to make Andromeda a disambiguation page, moving the current article to Andromeda (mythology), and so do with the other constellations that are named after mythological characters, much as has been done for other objects (see Ganymede for an example). Your input please? - Montrealais

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Thanks for importing the Tower of Hanoi algorithm. It was actually me that wrote it on Know-How, it was a pleasant surpise to see it arrive here! :-) -- Tarquin 14:05 Dec 14, 2002 (UTC)

No problem. I was uncertain how best to attribute it, though; I thought perhaps I should add something to the talk page. But I ended up deciding that the history of the article contained attribution, so no more was needed. :) Bryan

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Hi Bryan. I thought you might be interested in the editing that's currently going on in astrology, zodiac, and horoscope. If you want to see something really funny but really sad, check out the editing history of Walter Mercado. I've started a discussion on the village pump about this. It's very discouraging to see how the true believers in astrology have undone your work on zodiac and tried to turn it into a one-sided, credulous "how-to" article. Something similar has happened with Walter Mercado -- repeated attempts to change the article to a neutral point of view, followed by reversions to the biased version later. Well, I'd appreciate any help I could get, because it takes a lot of energy to argue and argue, and edit and edit.