Utilities

Naming conventions, manual of Style, policies, boilerplate, writing resources, SAMPA, special characters, more special characters, wiki simplified tables, new image syntax, online conversion, redirects

Newpages, oldpages, shortpages, stubs, requests, most wanted, orphans, pages needing attention, cleanup, vandalism, speedy deletion, VfD, copyvio, bad jokes, typo team, misspellings

Village pump, announcements, polls, featured

Hello, welcome to Wikipedia. You are changing all the plus signs to daggers in the date pages. In fact wikipedia has been trying to move away from both +'s and daggers because of the Christian bias of having little crosses to mark people's deaths. Instead we now usually use "d. XXXX". SimonP 18:29, Jan 15, 2004 (UTC)

Fabiform - I've started helping out with the birth/death year infor on the date pages, starting from the end of the year and moving forwards. I hope to meet you somewhere in the summer! grins - UtherSRG 19:03, 23 Jan 2004 (UTC)

And I've been working on the year pages, starting with 2003 and going down (back). However, I've been using "born" and "died". Rather than change 1970-2003, for now I'll just continue on, but using "b." and "d.". We can go back to 1970-2003 and fix it later. -Anthropos 04:03, 28 Jan 2004 (UTC)

I'm beginning to think I was mad to decide to do this. But I do find a lot of unmarked stubs and the like, so it serves a purpose. I don't think it's crucial to change the "born" and "died" into b. and d., at least they can't be accused of being POV. But I guess you might be a bit of a perfectionist (like me) if you're setting yourself tasks like this, and you won't rest easy until all the pages look the same.  ;) Fabiform 04:08, 28 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Hi, regarding the note that you posted about Robartin on cleanup: since the text is from the U.S. government, it wouldn't be a copyvio, just unformatted. I've already left him a note. Meelar 07:37, 20 Jan 2004 (UTC)

• Oh, cheers. I'm glad he knew what he was doing. That didn't occur to me.  :) Fabiform 13:15, 20 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Hi the user making articles about computer languages! I hope you notice this message. Welcome to wikipedia. :) I was the user who put stub messages on some of articles you created. The stub message isn't a criticism of the articles, but it's a way for other interested users to find your articles and add anything they know about the subject. I have to say I know nothing whatsoever about programming languages, but I imagine there are more things that _could_ be said about some of these languages. For example, regarding Floop programming language another user might add the date of publication of the book, or an example of it in use, or further elaborate on the reason this language was created. Etc. Fabiform 21:25, 20 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Hi. I realised what the stub message was - I didn't take it as a criticism. In fact, I started including it in articles I wrote since I noticed what you'd done (e.g. Chef programming language). However, BlooP and FlooP really don't have anything more to be said about them. Details about the book should be on the book's own page, which I linked to. The languages were never properly defined and certainly not implemented - they really were just quick examples to illustrate a point in the book (the difference between a weak language and a fully powerful Turing-complete one, as I said in the articles). I've removed the stubs again from those two pages, though I'll use them in future articles which should have them. 22:50, 20 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Ok I won't fiddle with them again, although you might find that someone else sticks a stub message on them in the future because they're short (it's a reflex action!). Have you seen the easiest way to include the stub message, by the way? Just type {{msg:stub}}. Other useful tags can be found on Wikipedia:Boilerplate text -- Fabiform

What US POV in the Softball article? It was written by an Australian and revised by a Canadian. You are right, though, that the article is too cursory. I added a definition of underarm today, and may try to define some more terms, but don't have the time to write a complete article at the moment. If there are any further clarifications of what's there that could be made, please let me know on my talk page. I think I'll go back now and have another look at the article and see if I can add anyhing else. Trontonian 14:34, 21 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Hi Trontonian.... sorry, by US POV I meant that the article started by assuming a knowledge of baseball. I didn't realise that baseball was widely played outside of the USA. I still think that the introduction should be more like "softball is a team sport for x players..... the object of the game is.... as such it is similar to the american/whatever sport baseball except for these three things:"  :) I don't know enough (anything) about softball to do this. Don't worry if you don't have the time to edit the article, no doubt other people will read my comments in the future and act on them or not as they see fit. Cheers, Fabiform 15:02, 21 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Hi, Fab. So many people don't realize that baseball is played all over the world. To my mind the best player in baseball these days is Japanese – Ichiro Suzuki. Anyway, I added a brief outline of the game, which I hope helps. I also hope someone else will add to the article but the article had lain there unedited for several months till yesterday. Anyway, i think your comments did result in the article being improved (and reduced my guilt at having left the article so uninformative), so thanks from all us softball fans. Trontonian 15:12, 21 Jan 2004 (UTC)

By doing anything to an article you bring it to the attention of people who watch Recent changes, often a whole load of people will jump on an article that looks interesting to them and start editing it.  :) Fabiform 15:24, 21 Jan 2004 (UTC)

It's got a little convoluted but I think your suggestions have produced a greatly improved article. If you could have a quick look at it and give me any advice you might have about making it less confusing I'd appreciate it. Trontonian

Gosh it's got quite long hasn't it? It's nighttime here, so I'll read through it tomorrow and tweak it a bit if I see anything that needs it, and ask questions on the talk page if I need to (I know nothing about softball, so I'm a good guinea-pig reader!). Cheers, Fabiform 20:31, 21 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Thanks. I'm obsessed with the topic now. Trontonian

Hi again. Finding a diagram of a softball field was more dificult than I expected. Even the International Softball Federation's public domain diagram turned out to be lopsided. So I roughed up a diagram of the infield. I also made a few other changes to answer some of your questions and will be making more. Thanks for your help. Trontonian 23:41, 29 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Ooh, I like the diagram. That helps me a lot. I've never played a game like softball or baseball (the closest I've got is rounders so I was having problems visualising how it all worked.  :) Fabiform 23:54, 29 Jan 2004 (UTC)

The reason I changed the pool link in golf to the ambiguation page is that 8-ball is too specific. 8-ball is pool, but pool is not 8-ball. The disambiguation page seemed like the best compromise. MichaelJHuman

Hello, I put a little precision here : Talk:Islam in France

Anthere

Hi there! Nice work on Les Éditions de Minuit! -- Tarquin 23:03, 26 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Hi Tarquin, thanks! I wimped out slightly after the second world war, but I hope it didn't end too abruptly. I drew mostly on the histoire section from the official site which was very useful. But it all brought back bad memories of having to read Le Silence de la mer in university.  :) Fabiform 23:20, 26 Jan 2004 (UTC)

The reference I found was from a site called "PBS Warrior Challenge", available here. It's the last item on the page. I'm a bit embarassed about the stub; glad to be of help. Yours, Meelar 06:57, 27 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Nicely done! Meelar 05:25, 28 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Cheers.  :) Fabiform 05:53, 28 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Nice! -- Cyan 22:04, 29 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Thank you! But, will I ever learn to spellcheck before I click 'save page'? ;) Fabiform 22:25, 29 Jan 2004 (UTC) opening Word...

I'm sorry. I wasn't sure if such a broad term should've been applied to a certain person, but when I realised it was simply a nickname (not a broad term for certain kinds of poisoners, er...my ignorance I guess) , I said, "oh forget about it" and restored it. I do, however have a qualm with having orphaned redirects, though. (Please respond on my talk page if you wouldn't mind). Ilyanep 02:54, 30 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Done! Fabiform 03:04, 30 Jan 2004 (UTC)

It made sense, but I personally (don't know about the community) don't like orphaned redirects, because you can make them afterwards. Whatever, you can keep them, if anybody else has a qualm, then we'll talk. (again, if you have a reply, please post on my talk page...it's easier for keeping track for me). Ilyanep 21:16, 30 Jan 2004 (UTC)

There is a reply for you at User talk:Paul A.

Hi. I find the first encyclopedias fascinating as well. It is interesting to see who the people were that contributed to them and their motivations. Also the general acceptance and repression (mostly by the church) of the early encyclopedias is an interesting topic. I do speak French, if badly. But I'd be glad to have a look over your translation (just not today - must sleep ;). Infact, I was somewhat surprised to learn that I had in fact not yet translated the title. :) - snoyes 06:51, 30 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for informing me, I'll have a closer look tomorrow. - snoyes 07:31, 30 Jan 2004 (UTC)

In order to get a link to my talk page in my signature I have set my nickname preference setting to ]] | [[User talk:Dori|Talk See also m:MediaWiki User's Guide: Setting preferences#Miscellaneous options for a small explanation. Dori | Talk 14:10, Jan 30, 2004 (UTC)

Thank you! I've been wanting to make my name lowercase for ages too fabiform | talk 20:16, 30 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Thanks so much! I had just looked at the pump and thought "argh, that needs serious cleaning, but I don't know if I have the time and definitely don't have the energy", so I chickened out. I feel the proper sense of mixed shame (on my behalf) and admiration (for your industry) now that I see you're moving stuff off the pump. Thanks again, Jwrosenzweig 21:35, 30 Jan 2004 (UTC)