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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Zanimum (talk | contribs) at 14:07, 5 March 2004. The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Archive: User talk:Patrick/September 2002 - August 2003

NY metro area (Rickk)

Hi. Wouldn't the Metroplitan area information you added to New York, New York be better spun off into a separate article? Plus, all of those cities and counties really need to have wikified links. RickK 01:51, 2 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I moved it and made a start with links. - Patrick 19:01, 2 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Gazetteer (Thoth)

Hello Patrick, Just wanted to thank you for some of the reworking you did to the World Gazetteer article I did. Looks Great! Thoth 02:21, 2 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Thanks. - Patrick 19:01, 2 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Edit summaries (Seav, Pcb21)

I hope that you could put summaries in your edits in the future, no matter how minor. --seav 13:02, Sep 3, 2003 (UTC)

I put an edit summary in the case an edit needs an explanation, and if I want to draw additional attention to it; I agree that the more edit summaries the better, but it is a trade-off, compared with spending time on making more edits. - Patrick 22:28, 3 Sep 2003 (UTC)
Actually not putting an edit summary draws attention to an article.. people watching the article have to look at the article itself to discover the change (maybe even making a diff)... this costs much more time (e.g. 20 people 20 seconds each) than just one person adding an edit summary (1 person 10 seconds). In fact overall Wikipedia 'editing time' is LOST by not putting an edit summary, at the gain of your personal edit tally heading up! Pete 23:12, 3 Sep 2003 (UTC)
The trade-off is between more improvements to the contents and more convenience in being informed about them. Both are very useful, so there is no easy answer. You sketch an odd image of someone who is usually not interested in the contents of an edit if he knows what it is about, but needs to see it otherwise, and who considers an improvement mainly as a nuisance. Also, I do not find my personal edit tally very important, this of course does not play any role.
Having said that, I am currently putting an edit summary a little more often. - Patrick 07:46, 5 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Circuit (airfield) (GRAHAMUK)

Hi Patrick. I noticed you've been tagging along on a number of my recent flight topics! No problem there, it's all to the good. However, I do wonder if the recent change to circuit (airfield) actually enhances the article - your edit has made it wordier without clarifying the topic, IMHO. Maybe the bits you've added could go in as a separate para further down - I usually like to keep my opening para as short and to the point as I possibly can while getting the basic essentials across. Further explanations can be given afterwards where the more interested reader will look for them. What do you think? GRAHAMUK 13:03, 11 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I should also have mentioned - it's also factually incorrect - a circuit isn't a required pattern, it's a "gentleman's agreement" really. Many users will not use the circuit - straight in approaches and so forth, or direct climb outs. GRAHAMUK 13:07, 11 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I thought "agreed pattern for coordinating air traffic" was rather vague: pattern is a general term, is that a path or a procedure? Is it agreed case-by-case, or fixed for a given airfield? What followed was where it is applicable and that it can be left or right hand, instead of first more clearly saying what it is. So I tried to put the essentials first, after trying to understand them from what was implicit in details that followed. Please correct what I understood wrongly, and rearrange further if you think that is better. - Patrick 13:39, 11 Sep 2003 (UTC)
Hmm, maybe it was a bit too vague. I've edited it so it includes elements from both our edits - I also added a para explaining a bit more about how it's used, and moved your clarification into that. I hope you'll find it OK. GRAHAMUK 13:52, 11 Sep 2003 (UTC)
Okay. I just added the alternatives you mentioned above of using a circuit. May be that should be expanded upon in the same or another article, to see the subject in context. - Patrick 23:03, 11 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Contacting developers in case of server failure (Tim Starling)

Hi Patrick. I've just put together a register of Wikipedia developers, including phone numbers, email addresses, etc., which Wikipedians can use to contact developers in case of server failure. You have been selected to be one of about 20 people to receive this list. The only problem is that you don't have an email address registered which I can send it to. Could you please email me at t!starling#physics!unimelb!edu!au (or something like that, I can never remember the right punctuation) -- Tim Starling 03:13, Sep 13, 2003 (UTC)

Sysop nomination (Jiang, Tannin, Angela, Heron, MyRedDice, Stevertigo, Viajero)

I've nominated you for adminship. Pending support from others, you should go to Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship#Patrick to either accept or decline this nomination. --Jiang 09:30, 13 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Hi Jiang, thank you. I have accepted the nomination. - Patrick 11:44, 13 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Copied from Wikipedia:Requests for adminship

  • User:Patrick has made some 8000+ edits since January 2003. I have seen him make numerous factual corrections to the various country lists and country articles, and his contribution record shows good solid edits on many other articles. --Jiang 07:23, 13 Sep 2003 (UTC)
    • Huh? You mean Patrick isn't a sysop long since? If he isn't, then I second the nomination. --Tannin
    • I support too. I think Patrick will be a very capable sysop. Angela
    • I accept my nomination. Thank you for your support and kind words. - Patrick 11:26, 13 Sep 2003 (UTC)
    • I support. He's a conscientious contributor. -- Heron 21:20, 13 Sep 2003 (UTC)
    • Strong support - every one of his edits, that I've seen, has been good and uncontroversial - one of the unsung heros of Wikipedia. -- MyRedDice 02:02, Sep 14, 2003 (UTC)
    • Sixthed.--戴&#30505sv 02:40, Sep 14, 2003 (UTC)
    • Ambivalent. I have found him rigid and dogmatic in editing disagreements. Also, he frequently forsakes adding a summary to his edits. Viajero 19:50, Sep 14, 2003 (UTC)
  • Done -- Tim Starling 07:59, Sep 17, 2003 (UTC)

(one missing signature added)

Districts of Israel (LittleDan)

Hi, Patrick. I noticed your article on the North District of Israel, and I tried to expand it. But I can't find anything on Google about it, or even about dividing israel into districts at all. Would you mind expanding an article or pointing me to some kind of online resource so I can expand it? LDan 00:06, 22 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I just used http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special:Whatlinkshere&target=North_District , we can do the same for each district, with the district names taken from the city articles http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special:Contributions&target=IsraBot . Also there are http://www.world-gazetteer.com/r/r_il.htm and http://www.world-gazetteer.com/s/s_il.htm . - Patrick 07:42, 22 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Documentation on meta (MyRedDice)

I'm confused by the new "MediaWiki" documentation on meta, and how it ties together with the documentation on wikipedia. Is there (finally!) a masterplan about what info is going to go where? I'd love to read and comment on such... Martin 15:28, 26 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Perhaps I was too bold in changing Wikipedia:Redirect to a "See meta", but I was concerned that edits were made to the Wikipedia version, which would be equally applicable to mav's meta version, but not made there. I agree with you that there are complications with links. I am inclined to consider every page separately regarding the question how to divide it between Wikipedia and meta, but preferably with little duplication to avoid duplication of edits. I don't know about a master plan, apart from mav's User's Guide on meta. - Patrick 10:21, 27 Sep 2003 (UTC)

"Ladyboy" (Next Paige)

Patrick, I just wanted to let you know I put an apology to you on the Talk:Ladyboy page. I really wasn't trying to yell at you! Just really don't like that word and wanted to express that without risking POV edits to the article. I really don't like unpleasantness with other wikis. No hard feelings, I hope? Sorry, Paige 00:13, 27 Sep 2003 (UTC)

No problem. Patrick 10:21, 27 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Contrast (Rogper)

Hello, I have a formula for contrast computation and it is:

.

Do you know more about it ? This is the special case of black and white. I also have some table values from IEEE of contrasts for paper and LCD displays. Do you think this should suite the Contrast keyword? // Rogper 12:53, 29 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I don't know much about it, may be the R is the Reflection coefficient? The table sounds interesting, if it is clear what the quantities mean, please add it to the article. - Patrick 13:59, 29 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Double redirects (Jiang)

You need fix all the double redirects immediately after moving a page. Talking about List of national capitals by country and larger cities in each country...see "what links there" --Jiang 01:26, 7 Oct 2003 (UTC)

You are right, I forgot. Done now. - Patrick 01:36, 7 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Wire-guided missiles (Cabalamat)

In Wire-guided missiles, you say the longest-range one has a range of 3750 m. I think it would be useful if you were to add text to the article saying which missile you're refering to.

Delete debates (Angela)

How is Wikipedia talk:Things to be moved to Wiktionary an archived delete debate? Delete debates are where there has been a lengthy discussion about a page that was proposed for deletion. Those pages were not debated at length. I am going to list them one a day like Schneelocke wants. I see no advantage in repeating the list of pages on the talk page as all those articles are already listed on the actual Wikipedia:Things to be moved to Wiktionary page. Angela 11:10, Oct 12, 2003 (UTC)

Watchlist (Tim Starling)

How long does it take to usually take to load your watchlist? Can you load other pages while it is going? What time setting do you usually use?

Brion and I have been discussing the possible cause for regular, brief loss of service events. I have a theory that big watchlists may be the cause. Yours is the biggest by a factor of 2.5. -- Tim Starling 03:22, Oct 17, 2003 (UTC)

I prefer using Enhanced Recent Changes rather than My Watchlist, even though I am usually only interested in watched articles, because it shows all their edits in the specified period, not just the last one. I use that with "from=
When the specified time is too long ago the system after a rather long waiting period returns an empty page (could you tell me more about the limits?). The limit seems to be somewhere between 3 and 12 hours.
When I want to cover a period of more than 12 hours or do not get any result from Enhanced Recent Changes I resort to My Watchlist, which works much faster: 2 s for 1 hour, 7 s for 12 hours. Since it is so fast I have not tried to load other pages at the same time (I would not do that anyway, if something takes long, I would rather do something outside Wikimedia in the meantime; if you want I try it out, I then have to specify a very long period). How brief is this loss of service? If it is a few seconds then it might me this, with the system giving this too high a priority. Patrick 09:15, 17 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I just discovered that the largest number of edits can be obtained when you do not log in (although it does not always work): 5000, currently covering ca. 17 hours. This does not seem related to the watchlist, because the limit is lower even when I log in as "Patrick test" with an empty watchlist. - Patrick 11:44, 17 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Oil-dumplings (Jerzy)

You contributed on article December 31 about "oil-dumblings". My guess is that you mis-spelled "dumpling", a piece of leavened dough cooked in a liquid. If so, these oil-dumplings may be similar to fritters or to hush puppies. --Jerzy 20:50, 2003 Dec 15 (UTC)

Yes, with a p. I have corrected it now, thanks. - Patrick 00:59, 16 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Subdivisions of Dutch municipalities (Spellbinder, Jurriaan Schulman)

(See also User talk:Jurriaan Schulman).

Hi Patrick While editing Nijmegen, I noticed it said

The municipality also comprises the following towns, villages and townships: Lent, Nijmegen-Oosterhout, Nijmegen-Ressen.

I changed "towns, villages and townships" to "settlements" and started a discussion in the Village Pump about what should be done about the phrase elsewhere. I had noticed that the lists came from http://www.sdu.nl/staatscourant/scdata/gemeentenindex.htm, and at first, I assumed that "towns, villages and townships" was trying to make distinctions that were important in Dutch but rather lost in translating to English. Further dicussions with the Dutch Jurriaan and together investigating websites of Dutch gemeenten have shown the following:

  • The lists from www.sdu.nl don't represent the official way in which the gemeente is subdivided; they're at best an idiosyncratic and at worst a misleading list of towns/villages within a gemeente.
  • Gemeenten are divided into wijken with some gemeenten using stadsdelen or subwijken too. For example:
Arnhem....Gemeente -> Wijken
Utrecht...Gemeente -> Wijken -> Subwijken
Nijmegen..Gemeente -> Stadsdelen -> Wijken

To show the idiosyncracy of the www.sdu.nl lists, Nijmegen http://www.nijmegen.nl/Wijkinformatie/index.asp has 9 stadsdelen subdivided into a total of 44 wijken. The sdu list mentions the 3 wijken above the Waal river separately (despite the "geen wijken" on sdu) and lumps all the other 8 stadsdelen comprising 41 wijken into just Nijmegen! Utrecht, which has the sdu list "De Meern, Haarzuilens, Utrecht, Vleuten", has 10 wijken (see http://www.utrecht.nl ) one of which is called Vleuten-De Meern and which contains Haarzuilens as one of its subwijken. Even if you assume that the sdu list is just a selection of towns/villages in the gemeente, they are very odd selections. Anyway, you get the picture :-)

It is not just a selection, but more or less a complete list of settlements, large or small. 41 wijken are considered to form the city of Nijmegen, the other 3 are taken as separate settlements. A difference is that one calls these wijk and the other does not, but the sdu list, from the semi-official State Almanac, does not seem odd or inaccurate. - Patrick 01:11, 18 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Since any change involves about 150 WP pages, it's important that we all agree. My preference is to remove all the lines derived from sdu from the individual articles and to update your article Municipalities in the Netherlands to include what I've found about the internal structure of gemeenten. What do you think? Pop your answer below and drop me a note on my talk-page, then we'll keep our discussion in one place. Thanks. Spellbinder 12:38, 17 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Oops, apologies, I put this on your user-page rather than your talk-page. Spellbinder 14:33, 17 Dec 2003 (UTC)

If you mean deleting the sdu subdivisions without replacing them with anything else, I do not agree. Adding the subdivisions according to http://www.cbs.nl/nl/publicaties/publicaties/nederland-regionaal/gom/2002/gemeente-a.htm (just wijken or also buurten) and/or according to the site of the municipality would be useful, but even then I am not sure the sdu-info should be deleted. Notes on how the two or three relate in each case would be useful, but since that is time-consuming to analyze, one can first state "an alternative subdivision by ... is ...". - Patrick 01:17, 18 Dec 2003 (UTC) and 20:33, 17 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Hi Spellbinder,
It is not completely true that gemeenten are divided into wijken per se. Normally a town or city is divided into wijken. Different plaatsen that belong to a gemeente must not necessarily be wijken. The problem with amongst others Nijmegen is that at http://www.sdu.nl/ it is suggested that Lent, Oosterhout and Ressen are villages where in fact they are now considered wijken of Nijmegen. I would like to suggest to remove the link to http://www.sdu.nl/ and use a link to www.nijmegen.nl instead. The same goes for all other articles on Dutch municipalities Jurriaan 21:45, 17 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Please do not delete http://www.sdu.nl/staatscourant/scdata/gemeentenindex.htm links, see below. - Patrick 14:15, 18 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply, Patrick (and Jurriaan again!) You can probably tell from how deep I am into this, that I have a personal interest; I spend about a third of my time in Nijmegen. Anyway, I was quizzing my Dutch friend there about the Nijmegen list (being careful not to lead him) and he stated that although the list was 'correct', he said 'it serves no useful purpose'. That about sums up my feeling too. Anyway, I'll list the issues as bullet points.

  • I still think that the SDU lists are not useful. As an analogy, imagine the USA wiki article describing the US as made up of three parts: Contiguous, Alaska, and Hawaii. It's not incorrect, and there might even be some US government agencies that divide the US up this way, but no ordinary person would think it was a meaningful or useful and most would find it distinctly odd.
    • Not odd, as long as you do not misunderstand it to mean that they are equal parts. - Patrick 12:11, 18 Dec 2003 (UTC)
  • The lists on CBS and those on the municipality websites match EXACTLY, and they're both VERY different from the SDU list. I've checked Nijmegen, Arnhem, and Utrecht. For Nijmegen, there are differences in nomenclature on their site (stadsdelen->wijk, wijk->buurt) and there have been changes 2001-2003 in exactly the area that the SDU lists as separate settlements, so that those settlements are now not even wijken but simply buurten, highlighting again how odd that SDU list is.
    • http://www.gemeentealkemade.nl uses the sdu list, being the more practical one, the cbs list is more formal, trying to have more equal parts, calling a set of villages somewhat oddly a wijk. The list of "wijken" is just Roelofarendsveen and "rest of Alkemade", so not a suitable replacement for the list of villages. - Patrick 12:11, 18 Dec 2003 (UTC)
  • In response to Jurriaan's point, the CBS site lists all gemeenten as divided into wijken, even country ones. Unfortunately, I can't find a country gemeente website that lists their wijken at all, presumably because towns/villages are more important distinctions to inhabitants there, at whom the sites are aimed.
  • I noticed just last night that township can mean an administrative division in North America, a usage which is totally unknown in British English. To a Brit, a township is a town for non-whites in South Africa. I presume this was an attempt at translating stadsdelen, but I'm not sure.

Anyway, what to do.

  • I'd prefer to delete all references to the SDU lists, but I realize this is a lot of work; I suggest that no more be added and when reworking an existing or creating a new, they be replaced with a link to the CBS site - it's not practical to list all the wijken, and they change fairly frequently anyway. That will also solve the problem of the strange term to non-American ears of township, which will gradually get removed over time as the SDU lists disappear.

How does that sound? Spellbinder 11:25, 18 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Wikipedia favors content over just external links, please do not remove content because there is a link. The word settlements is okay. The links to sdu I put for the map (though I prefer a map in the article itself, as I just put in Arnhem, copied from de:) and for checking whether population figures etc. in the article are up-to-date. They are not always as easy to find on the municipality site. - Patrick 12:56, 18 Dec 2003 (UTC) and 12:11, 18 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Hi Patrick I take your point about removing content, and I can see that in some cases the SDU list is actually very useful; for example, I particularly like the way you list the villages in your Alkemade article. I agree too that the link to the SDU should remain, as there is lots of useful stuff there for each gemeente. I see you've rephrased the Nijmegen article too, which is fine but perhaps draws too much attention to what is essentially a fairly minor point - most readers won't care about it. What's really important is that

  • a typical reader isn't misled into thinking that the list represents the official subdivisions of the gemeente, ie the wijken - which it what the original phrasing led me to assume, with obvious results :-)
  • the list doesn't give undue prominence to very minor places (e.g. my Nijmegen reservations) - these can only be dealt with adhoc; I'll recast your phrasing there to give it a historical perspective so that readers can understand why these three small villages are listed separately ... see what you think.

My views have changed quite a lot as a result of discussions with you and others and I don't think there's really much disagreement any more.

Btw, you need to be careful of those CBS links - they contain '2002' so they'll presumably get updated soon. But I can't go without taking the opportunity of saying what a good job you're doing with all these articles on Dutch towns etc While I'm worrying about nit-picking issues, you're entering some really good content. Spellbinder 19:55, 18 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Thanks. For the CBS data the new version has been announced for next spring. Hopefully only the 2 has to be changed to a 3. This can be done when an article is edited anyway, if nobody likes to do these updates separately. - Patrick 23:24, 18 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Link to Google News search for the article topic (RickK)

Hi, Patrick. I deleted the link you added to the Michael Jackson page. Wikipedia isn't a newspaper, and news articles don't stick around very long, anyway. There are several more suspect links on that page but I don't really want to have to read each of them to see if they should stay or not, but I'd be inclined to delete a lot of them. If you want to summarize the article you linked to and add the info to the article, that would make it more encyclopedic. Thanks. RickK 21:08, 1 Jan 2004 (UTC)

It looks like you misunderstand the link: it is not to a particular article, but to the Google News search, as an aid for updating the article. This is useful for Wikipedia articles with frequent new developments, like this one. - Patrick 21:39, 1 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Disambiguation page (Michael Hardy)

Your verdict page should have been written in the format of a disambiguation page if you weren't going to write any sentences. Michael Hardy 00:45, 5 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Special characters

Glad to see you put my special characters list to good use ;) →Raul654 05:10, Feb 15, 2004 (UTC)

Communism

Thank you for placing that much needed list of Communist states. Cheers, Sam Spade 13:14, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)

You are welcome, I just copied it from Communist party. --Patrick 13:19, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Zinkweg

Hi, Patrick. It seems you know quite a bit about Dutch Geography, so I'm hoping you can help me. Wikipedia is the only place I've been able to find a map that shows me where Zinkweg is and I was very excited to find it! My ancestors are from Zinkweg, and I'm trying to figure out exactly where it is -- can you tell me if I'm understanding the location correctly? I believe that Zinkweg is a settlement in the municipality called Oud-Beijerland in the Zuid-Holland province of The Netherlands, southwest of Rotterdam and the Maas River. Am I correct? I'd appreciate it if you'd let me know. And if you have any other information about the area, or know where I could find more information on my own, I'd appreciate your sharing that, too. (Such as, is there still really a "town" called Zinkweg, or is it just a "street," or a "neighborhood," or an "area" or "region"? Do you happen to know if it's likely that anyone NAMED Zinkweg might still live there, or elsewhere in Holland? etc.)

Sorry if I'm overstepping any boundaries by contacting you this way. I hope you can lend some insight into my research.

Thanks!

Johanna Zinkweg (Dutch version of my American name!)

Oops forgot to give you my e-mail address for response: [email protected].

Thanks again.

Johanna Zinkweg

Hi Johanna,
Yes, Zinkweg is a small settlement, pop. 360, at the south side of Oud-Beijerland, mainly consisting of houses along a road also called Zinkweg. See http://www.cbs.nl/nl/publicaties/publicaties/nederland-regionaal/gom/2002/pdf/o/Oud-Beijerland.pdf , 0012 on the map, and the old map http://www.rat.de/kuijsten/atlas/zh/oudbeijerland.gif.
According to the telephone directory, in Zinkweg there are no people called Zinkweg, but there is one company, while in other places there are 18 families and companies with that name. See http://www.goudengids.nl/ , for e.g. three in Dordrecht.
Regards, --Patrick 07:52, 3 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Thank You!

Thanks for the information on "Zinkweg"! So glad I found you!

JZ

Press Release

I see you contributed to the creation of the press release. Might you be willing to follow these steps, and send off the press release? -- user:zanimum

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