User talk:EdJogg/Archive 1

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Talk archives for User:EdJogg (current talk page)
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Archive of EdJogg's talk page
01 March – 12 November 2007
For earlier/later discussions, please use the navibox above.

Welcome to Train Spotting World

If this is the first time you've used a wiki you may have a few questions. Most of the answers are obvious. To learn to edit why not just dive in. At the foot of the editing window there is a help link. This opens in a new window and gives you a good overview of wiki syntax and stuff.

There are very few rules here. The best summary is:

  • Respect other people's Copyright
  • Behave to others as you would like them to behave to you
  • Do no harm

This is not an encyclopaedia. Pages here do not need to comply with encyclopaedic notions or citations or neutrality. Just dive in and start.

It's always worth having a look at Station announcements every so often, too.

And while you browse the site, and especially when you've created something truly worthwhile, why not Digg and also tag on del.icio.us - The tools are in the left hand menu. The more Diggs we have the easier the work is found.

Any questions, please ask me on my talk page

And please tell all your friends about us Tim Trent 13:20, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Railway Societies

I just looked at your user page. We're "A322 neighbours", so to speak.

I realised that when I saw your example map...there can be few visitors who would have recognised a streetmap of central Bracknell! (BTW - I work for Sharp Telecommunications, in the Columbia Centre building, next to the bus station, so I'm not that far away).
I shall wave frequently as I pass by

The societies look interesting. One thing we want to do is to have societies here, wit their own pages, with a common look and feel and with the normal idiosyncrasies any society has. How do you feel about thinking that through and maybe either making it a specialism or asking your societies to come and play?

Hmmm. Not sure I'd want to make it a 'specialism', but I could certainly create a page that might evolve into some form of preferred format. Will certainly 'advertise' to the other members in due course.
What I meant was to create a format, maybe?

With the embedded videos, if it can be stored on youtube then we can run it here, so a video of a great society event could take wings. Or should that be roll on rails?

My current home PC is too old to show streaming video, but I'll try to remember mentioning it to the guys at SWRS.

I know you are mainly here to work with the yet to be rescued Thomas articles, but this place can be contagious!

I'm not sure about 'mainly', although it was the catalyst for me actually bothering to create an account! I find that I tend to 'live' in a single web place at any one time. For a while it was Slough Town FC's forum, then eBay (where, after 2 years, I now have a slightly more laid-back approach), and now Wikipedia, which is something of an addiciton – far too many late nights editing. (Just one more change, and then I'll go to bed...)

We have irrelevant articles that we got "by accident" to delete, relevant ones that we don;t yet have to gain, maps to produce and add to articles (See "make a map" top left of every edit window), and so much more to do. Tim Trent 13:31, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

I discovered that WP has the name 'WikiGnome' to describe the way I spend much of my editing time, so you can be sure I'll be tidying-up as I go. (It is rare for me to visit a WP page without finding something that needs doing :o( ).
EdJogg 13:55, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
I must be one as well. On WP I get involved in controversial articles, partly because of the huge disciplne it gives of attendin to the article, not to the opinion. Not everyone "gets" it, I fear. Here is far more relaxed. Tim Trent 00:26, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

talk thread template

try {{talktome}} - created a moment ago

Seems to work    :o)
Perhaps a worthwhile addition to your 'welcome' template?
EdJogg 13:44, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
Excellent idea. Tim Trent 13:49, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

The Thomas merchandise is rescued

Category:Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends merchandise has them. the do need to be checked, of course. Will you tell the guys at WP? Tim Trent 23:59, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Brookwood in the rain was not my idea of fun

No rain and I'd have been there today, too. If you went is there any chance you took piccies and can write up what you saw? Tim Trent 12:50, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

It was, indeed, wet. Very wet. But very interesting too. There must have been about 30-40 people, all clad in waterproofs and sporting golf umbrellas! You can walk almost the entire length of the track bed from Brookwood Station, but there's not much 'railway' to photograph now. I took a few shots, including one of Dugald Drummond's grave, but the weather conditions were not conducive to photography - one reason for going was to find out what was where so that I could go back on a dry day...
I could, indeed, do a write-up. I had planned to expand the almost non-existent WP coverage on the subject, and it would be an easy matter to copy the 'copy' here! Now just need to find some editing time...
EdJogg 10:06, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
the great thing is that here you can use the maps function with aerial piccies, too :) Tim Trent 11:35, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
Aerial photo - good idea (hadn't thought of that!) EdJogg 11:57, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Adminship

Would you wish to be / find it useful to be an admin here? Tim Trent 10:21, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

I must say I hadn't considered it previously. I have not sought to be an admin at WP as I don't really want the extra responsibility -- I have plenty to do already, and what I do I (mostly) enjoy. Over here it can be a bit quiet at times. Recently I have been just watching 'Recent Changes' and dropping a random edit occasionally to remind me when I last looked!
I guess it might be useful being an Admin here. There is a need for Wiki-experienced editors, and there aren't too many of us at present. At WP I have a couple of 'sympathetic' admins who I can call on when I need serious help, but I don't have that luxury here.
So, what would it involve, and what would I be expected to do (beyond my current low editing rate!)?
EdJogg 16:28, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
(also monitoring Recent Changes...) Well, here's one of those admins at least. B-) Right now the admin duties here are very light; I've gone through the unused images deleting those that are not appropriate here, and I've blocked one spammer's IP address. As more people come here and help out, that will likely increase, but I don't foresee too much trouble any time soon. Slambo 20:53, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
OK, so say I want to become an admin...what next? EdJogg 10:52, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
Sorry, I was away. Should have said. Well, "What next" here is a total lack of formality. Currently, and until some form of godawful bureaucracy develops, you say "OK" and I do the business. You notice a new tab or two appear so you can ~gasp~ delete pages and ~larger gasp~ block spamming bastards. Duties are as light or as arduous as you decide, frankly. I try to keep a check on a lot of things, but can't always be sure to block idiots before they wreck the joint. We certainly don't need a high edit rate, just high ethics and common sense.
I'll switch it on and let you have a wander round. You can always ask me to turn it off again if in any way unhappy with the idea. 83.216.76.45 23:08, 9 May 2007 (UTC) (oops, it's Tim. For some reason wasn't signed in!)
Ooooooooh, scary!! :o) Well, so far I've noticed the 'Protect' and 'Delete' tabs, and the 'Rollback' option (which could be very useful). It makes sense to have several admins available to do admin-required tasks, but I am not expecting to be particularly proactive in the role. (I would be more proactive in maintaining the 'Thomas merchandise' lists, but that would require me to have verifiable background information, the lack of which caused their ejection from WP!!)
The other thing I'd noticed was the appearance of '!' alongside certain entries in the Recent Changes list. I could not see any particular reason for this, although most were against watched pages (which are already indicated in Bold). Any ideas?
Thanks. -- EdJogg 08:51, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
I noticed the '!' too, and wondered what they were. I must admit I chose to ignore it. Obviously they mean something, but I've no idea what. Tim Trent 09:47, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
How about "Loads of edits within a short time period"? But mediawiki is a law unto itself Tim Trent 22:50, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
Ah now. http://www.wikihow.com/Patrol-Recent-Changes-on-wikiHow Itls to do with Recent Changes patrolling. Which I know nothing about yet! Tim Trent 22:52, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
For the benefit of anyone not following the above link, the '!' indicates that an edit has not been 'marked as patrolled' (ie properly reviewed) by a Recent Changes Patroller. Read the link for more information. EdJogg 09:32, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Thomas the Tank Engine

This article appeared this morning. I re-grabbed it from WP since the originator simply copied the text, not the edited text, but it does leave a large number of redlinks and other "stuff" to be handled. I hope "Over to you" Tim Trent 10:13, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

If 'we' copy the whole of the WP 'Thomas' content across, the majority of the redlinks will magically turn blue, and we'll get the images (presumably) and, and...
...and then I could probably tackle the remaining issues! But at least it is now on my watchlist...
(I am rather cautious about committing myself too much to caretaking 'Thomas' on this site, as it feels like I'm doing that already at WP, and there's only so much editing time!)
Incidentally, Percy the Small Engine was one of the articles that made its way across at the original grab!
EdJogg 12:20, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
We also do seem to have an IP based editor who hates wikilinks, even blue ones! Tim Trent 16:51, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

I can quite see why WP lost patience with some TTTE editors!

this history is a good example.

The challenge is that this editor is (presumably) doing good work, but is wholly uncommunicative, as you can see from User talk:71.64.136.169. Ah well. Tim Trent 22:13, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't think "WP" has lost patience, but I get a bit cheesed-off with anon editors who don't play the game. Fortunately I have found that I am more persistent than most anons, and eventually they get fed-up with replacing their edits that have been reverted...again. At least, that's been the case so far...
Not sure what can be done about an editor who doesn't communicate. I often wonder about the worth of putting user messages on anon talk pages, but still do it (for a repeat offender) as it is 'the done thing'. But in this case? I can't imagine why anyone would object to wikilinks being added, unless they have taken the view that they 'own' the page (which is very easy trap to fall in to if you're the only one editing it!)
Still, I'd rather such editors were busy on their pages here than at WP.
EdJogg 08:36, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
I have dropped quite a colossal hint, but I don;t expect any communication any time soon.  :) Tim Trent 08:48, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
I've just seen he's modified a page at WP, so I looked at his talk page and spotted that HE is the SAME so-and-so that I've been having a near edit-war with over irrelevant section title changes. I think he's taken the hint now... Grrrr
EdJogg 18:35, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
I have used the simple expedient of semi-protecting affected article pages. It seems the least intrusive method. And we have no red tape here. Any of our small pool of admins can do this unilaterally after what we feel individually to be reasonable requests and warnings to editors. If he woudl post a rationale the I could understand his needs. Tim Trent 21:48, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
At your discretion those pages could be unprotected. Probably. Tim Trent 19:36, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

those floating adverts

I'm sure that never used to happen. Very weird. We did run a major server update and it may have allowed that to happen. We'll check. It is not meant to happen, but it may be a mediawiki issue. Annoying, because the adverts are not meant to intrude, just to pay for the server. Tim Trent 08:49, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Curious. Look at this diff No weird page layout at all. OK, that is just bizarre. We changed nothing. Of course we may have changed something by the time you read this message! Tim Trent 08:55, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
OK, I have a definitive answer. The vandal removed parts of a complex (!) table structure and mediawiki is atrocious, technically, at handling tables with mismatched pipe syntax. This is, so far as Bernd can see, a mediawiki "eccentricity" that we ordinary mortals are stuck with. "All hail mediawiki". Not. Tim Trent 15:35, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
That case was really bad, but the google-ads have ALWAYS overlapped the main section of each page, just a little bit, since day one. Doesn't seem to matter what screen resolution I am using -- on both PCs I can see right now, the top-most 'edit' on the Main Page has its 't' obscured by the Google ads box. And in the diff you reference above, you can see that the google box is overlaying the TSW main section, even if it isn't actually obscuring anything. EdJogg 09:17, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
I've just had a thought...
As a privelige of being an Admin, how about an option to disable the Google box? (I'm disciplined enough to never click on the links anyway, sorry!)
 :o) -- EdJogg 09:23, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
What browser do you use? We obviously need to give it a hard stare to see what is awry.
We know that regulars ignore adverts :) Studies have shown that they are mentally blanked out. But we can't do a differential "off for this class of user. If we could I'd switch them off for myself. But they do let the site sit in a server that is paid for :) Tim Trent 19:33, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
Ignoring the issue about turning ads off (I understand the implications!) I just noticed that the ad box is OK here at home, where I'm using IE7 on Vista. (My work PCs are IE6 on Win2K). The ad box is hugging the right-hand window margin (and beyond), and is butted-up against the main frame, and both move together as I change the window size. Let me know if you need more accurate system specs. EdJogg 23:55, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
Do you know, we hadn't noticed that right margin issue, or at least hadn't seen that it was significant. We'll solve that. We checked with Safari, Firefox and IE7 and there were no significant formatting issues when we built the layout. Hard to test in IE6 when you don't have it! no extra data needed at this point. Tim Trent 06:23, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

The pictures

the upload log gives you a good clue about what was uploaded in terms of pictures. Tim Trent 08:35, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Things Thomas

It looks like by the end of tomorrow we will have pulled in everything relevant, if we can pull it in. That's really good. It took longer than we expected for reasons we were surprised at. Ah well.

It seems to me that there are several evil tasks now:

  • Get rid of irrelevances (TUGS? - no strong feelings either way, but I think 60:40 they are not really for here despite the common root)
  • Make the templates work a but better (ie get the template to include relevant categories. I've started Category:Thomas
  • Definitely create, methodically, Fair Use Rationales for the non free media, stating which articles they may be used in. There's a template for that, somewhere
  • Edit the articles now to make use of the non encyclopaedia environment here
  • Encourage new blood to come and edit. This can't be you alone, or you will run out of steam.
  • Publicise this place as the "home for everything Thomas" without spamming. Google will pick up the new articles daily - we submit the sitemap regularly, and we have the "changes" RSS feed logged with many search engines, but there is nothing like personal recommendation from a fan to other fans
  • With care, allow WP readers to know that there is a set of articles here.
  • Either delink redlinks or create articles to fill the need. Relevant people like Rev A, they are fine. Voiceover artists are almost certainly not, BUT this is "our" environment, not "mine", so my voice is precisely and only as strong as yours. I only pull rank on legal issues.

We'll revisit the areas where you've shown a shortfall later this evening, and the changes log will show what we've been able to achieve.

By the way, Bots, if you have an expertise, can be created by anyone with aptitude, though I think one needs to be an admin to authorise them to run. The challenge is undoing them if they make a mess! It would be evil to run out of disk space by importing all WP by accident, for example! We have a bit to spare of that, but we do run this place on a shoestring! But more visitors will click more adverts, so it will be fine. Tim Trent 17:43, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

We've been working on this lot for over a year and the structure is reasonably sound. You'll see from the Recent Changes that I am finding mistakes in the WP pages that need correction, so if you are going to remove redlinks, please keep to those which will never come here (like water!) As for categories, there was a good hierarchy in place, and I've been busy restoring this. Your capture tool obviously misses the categories themselves -- probably with good reason -- but it does mean that I'll have to go round stitching things together later. Enough for now! Thanks for your help. EdJogg 17:50, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
I'm not touching redlinks here :) Too much scope for me to make a fool of myself, and it isn't my specialist area.
The categories simply do not come in. I think we had an issue of looping when we tried it in the very beginning, simply because WP has no hierarchy of cats and they can reside inside each other ad infinitum. We decided to let well alone. It was the lesser of the two evils. At least you can open two browsers side by side and copy and paste were relevant. A pain, but not insurmountable.
I've done a little fiddling, but more for technical interest and to remind myself how things work! It can become all consuming! Tim Trent 17:57, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Please check my editing

Talk:Ravenglass and Eskdale Railway details a WP editor who believes, perhaps erroneously, that his images should not be here. There were on WP with full public domain and other licenses, but I am happy to accede to his removal request, especially since the article format was somewhat bizarre with them present. It would be nice to persuade him that the images are ones he wants to leave here (though WP seems no longer to have them present in this article). I may have missed something, and hope you don#t mind checking my edit(s), and consider adding your thoughts to the talk page there. Tim Trent 17:50, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Not as simple as I hoped

I brought a raft of CSS over from WP. but this diff shows that it made no difference to that original template.

That is now a conundrum. Of course I may have missed a vital element.... Tim Trent 12:36, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Some new Thomas articles

We seem to be getting new articles - Great news. But I think they may duplicate others there.

Spencer the Silver Bullet Engine and Emily the Beautiful Engine are a couple from the recent changes log. A new Gordon article arrived, but it was a WP copy and identical with the existing Gordon one. I've redirected Emily and Gordon, and I'm hoping you can have a look out for others.

I use the RSS feed from recent changes to try to keep an eye on things, but I do miss stuff. Tim Trent 07:52, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

I suspect you will find that there are more 'character' articles created as time passes. What we need to do is ensure that the article names match the most common usage, hence Emily (Thomas the Tank Engine), which is the 'correct' (WP) name, would appear to be widely known unofficially as Emily the Beautiful Engine. (To the extent that I reckon the redirect should point the other way, although I don't have time to do this at present.)
I'm still keeping a distant eye on things (not using an RSS feed, have never worked out how to use them!) However, I will be on two+ weeks hol from Friday, and anyway I need to be cutting-down on my Wiki-time generally, so I cannot make too many promises.
EdJogg 08:47, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
I really don't mind which way round the redirect goes :) Whichever way works best works well for me. It's the duplicates that are a bit annoying. I'm taking some holiday myself, too. If only we could persuade some of the IP only editors to take on a mantle of responsibility... Tim Trent 18:36, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

how to use the RSS feed

  1. visit http://www.feedreader.com/?fromfr and download the free product
  2. enter http://train.spottingworld.com/wiki/index.php?title=Special:Recentchanges&feed=rss into it

That's it, you're there. It will tell you of all the edits, which is a great help in vandal patrolling. Tim Trent 16:45, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for that. My son had been using the built-in reader on our Vista PC at home, so I can make use of that. At work (where I do most of my monitoring :o) ) I am not sure whether RSS feeds are either permissible or possible, considering our restrictive firewall policies, but it would be worth an ask...
EdJogg 19:15, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
If the site gets through your firewall, which it does, then the feed does, too. The issue is whether you can deploy a reader. That depends on the locked down state of the image on your machine there. Tim Trent 08:22, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Thomas (etc) Active Editors

I don't want to poach or compete with WP, but it would be great to attract active TtTE editors here, too. Named ones, I mean, not just IP-only oddities. Any ideas? Not just Thomas, either. Active railfans, casual railfans like wot I am, etc etc Tim Trent 16:45, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

'fraid I haven't really been publicising much (except through pointed comments at WP!!) but I need to create an SWRS page and write about it in our magazine, and that would help a little bit. I keep having ideas for pages, but there's 'so much to do, so little time'...
Not sure about how to attract more users. This would be an ideal site for updating the restoration/operational states of the many preserved locos in the UK. This is often attempted at WP but results in many low quality edits (I suspect it comes in under the radar). How does this site fare at appearing in search engine results? (Several of my WP pages have done extremely well: for a while, the WP:THOMAS/FAQ page was the number one google hit for the new Awdry book 'Thomas & Victoria'!!)
Coverage in one or more of the magazines would help too, although how this can be achieved without it looking like self-promotion, I don't know...
Unfortunately, there is a fair amount of competition for the TtTE pages. Several forums exist, of which 'SIF' (Sodor Island Forum) is possibly the most frequented, and associated with these are several very good fan sites that provide as much information as you might need (indeed, one is a recognised 'reference' source for us at WP!!). As these are effectively free of the copyright restrictions we must abide by here (or, at least, just ignore them without much fear of recrimination!) I suspect that our 'Thomas' pages will never quite match them for content, although the WP pages on The Railway Series have some hope of being 'definitive' (albeit without character pictures).
EdJogg 19:28, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
We get generally good search engine results on our pages. It takes our pages a little longer to appear than WP because we are lower ranked overall so far. Magazines is an excellent idea. The challenge is that it needs an enthusiast to see the potential and write a suitable railfan article for submission to the magazine. It will happen. Thsi was always going to be a slow burn project at the start Tim Trent 08:21, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

TUGS sank

Without trace Tim Trent 20:32, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm glad I made the comment -- it never occurred to me to track down the related articles... (makes mental note) ...thanks for doing that.
EdJogg 08:07, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
It only occurred to me as I was about to click "delete". I can quite see why that series was never popular, too. The characters were not exactly memorable. Tim Trent 08:24, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Britt Allcroft

No strong feelings either way. It does "complete" TtTE, but it's also a Bio and I quite see the deletion rationale. It's in {{Thomas}}, though. That might mean just deleting it from the template, of course. Tim Trent 15:47, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Chasing templates

I looked at Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends after I tracked down a shedload of templates for Shining Time Station. It looks to me like the original WP editors enjoyed overcomplicating any templates, but we can probably work through the absent ones in the infobox. I'll probably have a go at a few of the wretched things tomorrow. Tim Trent 18:16, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

I've grabbed all the templates. That is one brute of an infobox. It seems to need a load of national flags, now. Grrrrrrrrrrr. Tim Trent 07:24, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
My, you've been busy!...
As for the flags, I'm sure we'll find other uses for them!!
EdJogg 12:47, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
We ought to be able to use them directly from Wikimedia Commons, i think. We do have an interwiki link to it, but I can't see how to do it Tim Trent 17:35, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
You probably already know this, but WP does it 'automatically'. Must be something to do with the 'Image' keyword. I have been grabbing PD photos from the Geograph project, dropping them in Commons, and they can then be referred to directly in WP. Very useful for pumping stations, steam engines, canals, ...
Would be good if we can get the same auto-link going here.
EdJogg 08:53, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
I wish I knew how to do it. There is an interwiki way, I'm sure of that, via whatever the interwiki link is for commons. I'll have a fiddle. Please don't let that stop you from co-fiddling. Tim Trent 15:55, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Great Dorset Steam Fair

I see you also went. What a huge event. I didn't expect to see a railway engine in the heavy haulage playground!

This brings me to a question. Should we extend the scope of this site to include steam haulage of all sorts? Tim Trent 09:15, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

So you've not been before? Last year the railway loco was a West Country, can't remember what it was in earlier years. This was the first year they didn't have a short ride-on line near the road building.
This was my fifth year, and the third camping. It's too big to do properly in one day, so we go on the Wed to set up the tent, visit the fair (etc) in the evening, then spend two full days wandering around - picnicing alongside the Heavy Haulage.
First time with my digital camera, nervously seeing what battery life was like: took 230 photos (that I kept), including a few short video clips (AVI format?)!! Also discovered that current required increases substantially after nightfall: replacement alkalines coped with ONE picture before needing changing! Next year I'll (buy and) take more NiMH's and perhaps a second memory card - so difficult deciding which of the heavy haulage to video...
Now, to answer your question... I don't know! Strictly, if you were to do so then you'd need to change the site name. However, if you felt inclined to relax the rules then I would suggest that you consider allowing any steam power: there are many non-railway museums, etc, that could then be included, such as pumping stations. On the other hand, I am trying my best to expand the WP coverage of all these areas, and I wouldn't wish to be split further!
Any help? -- EdJogg 23:46, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
Yup, first year, and won't be the last. It was a spur of the moment thing called "We're going, or if you aren't coming then I'm going." So we spent 10 hours walking round. I'm sure we saw nothing properly, but we enjoyed all we saw. I was most impressed with the steam ploughing - a thing I've always wanted to see. I take heavy haulage for granted, somehow. Impressive, but also inevitable. The small market garden plough was a revelation.
I also want a Scammell Explorer! My road is full of on street parking. I coudl cure it at a stroke!
If we relax the rules somewhat then, if that side takes off, we can split the wiki later. So long as it's well categorised I am sure there are database operations we can perform to make the split automatic in say a year or so. So I am more than happy to relax the rules and add a banner on the front page "Including a new area for all steam power".
The virtue that we have is the add-ins. Embedded video and google maps make the entire thing more friendly and more useful as a resource.
Tim Trent 11:59, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Prod template

I have NO idea. I've tried it out and I surrender! Any thoughts? Tim Trent 12:45, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Ok, solved the PROD template. THAT was unpleasant Tim Trent 13:20, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
Thank you. I think we needed some kind of mechanism here.
(See {{Dated prod}} for instructions for use.)
EdJogg 15:15, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
I agree. We do. The simpler the better. the whole wp AfD thing is a nightmare. No real idea what. Tim Trent 15:48, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

f o p i k o l i j o k etc

It looks to me as though there is a "Kilroy was here" game of placing chads on all sorts of web pages. I suppose there is a "fuckwit central" site where they clock up a score. Googling these banalities gets a large list. Tim Trent 00:35, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

So, what do we do about it? EdJogg 09:11, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
Short of blocking the entire set of IPs I can think of nothing. Tim Trent 19:16, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

LU Trivia went at WP

It was inevitable. But I have linked WP's LU article to the trivia article here. Good catch. Tim Trent 22:50, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

These days, a WP article with 'Trivia' in the name stands little chance. Not sure how long the new link will survive, but it's a good move. When an Ext Link section becomes large, some editors (rightly) apply a hatchet, freely applying the WP:EL policy to the letter. TSW is not an active-enough Wiki, yet, to survive close scrutiny, especially since we are currently specialising in content which is not encyclopaedic!! That doesn't mean the link can't be re-restored in the future though...
I ought to catch the three 'Railfan Jargon' articles too, as I suspect their continued existence long-term is questionable.
EdJogg 08:36, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
I find WP less and less to my taste nowadays. Someone has criticised my user name there as being in some manner incorrect and rendering me likely to be blocked!
I wonder why they don't understand (ah yes, sheep!) that the mere fact that a volume of trivia exists is encyclopaedic
Catch anything with the greatest of pleasure, well, except mumps! That would not be a pleasure! Tim Trent 08:56, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

{{todo}}

I noticed you might find this useful. I think I've brung over all that matters. Tim Trent 11:09, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Ummm. Thank you. (But you do give me a lot of work sometimes!! :op)
The priority setting is very interesting, but I suspect that most WP editors are oblivious to it.
EdJogg 13:42, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
Oh dear. I didn't mean to give you work to do! Tim Trent 16:17, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Vandals

Ouch. I had to revert and block a shedload this morning. We seem to be the target of some juvenile game. I've started to take a draconian blocking stance here. I started out with 1 month. I have very quickly moved to Infinite. I'm looking with Bernd for a bot to revert stuff Tim Trent 07:18, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Good work. It rather takes the fun out of it though, doesn't it? EdJogg 08:00, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
Ah yes. The fun! I have spent about 90 minutes otday reverting these jerks here, and in planes and in our master uberwiki. I wish to kill them! BUT I have solved it, and also solved some of the Thomas editing issues. TSW is now REGISTER To Edit Tim Trent 22:45, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
I hope that doesn't push the 'Thomas' editors back to WP! Let's hope this does the trick. It's quite common for sites to require registration, so hopefully we shouldn't get too many complaints.
EdJogg 08:28, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
Hard to know. There's a diehard set of "I refuse to register, and just let me screw articles up" folk, it seems. Good catch on the announcements thing. Tim Trent 08:53, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Inline Category Tree Display

<categorytree>Locomotives</categorytree>

Yields

no subcategories


this may assist in categorisation or may be a red herring Tim Trent 15:48, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

There may be times when this is useful, for maintenance purposes. Thanks for pointing it out.
Speaking of maintenance, have you seen the 'Special Page' for Unused templates?
EdJogg 08:06, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Those bug filled hidden templates

Template:US class III beat me. Yesterday I simply commented out the hidden begin/end templates and it works!

I hate some WP template programmers! They seem to have a "because we can" attitude. Tim Trent 17:06, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

I had a further play, using {{hidden}} (hence the latest crop of templates!). Some success, but it was still showing '[hide]' when first loaded, rather than '[show]', so I gave up too.
Where I come unstuck with these is the interaction between the template code and the CSS stylesheets, which I know absolutely nothing about.
EdJogg 08:11, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
the CSS bit ought to be easy. All they do is say what a thing should look like. There's a special page with all the extra CSS on. Try MediaWiki:Common.css. Unless you mean "I don't know css". W3Schools is useful, because I don't either!
Um, yes, I meant "I don't know anything about CSS"!! EdJogg 14:17, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
Bernd does, but he also has a day job! Itl;s not too hard, in that the language and format is logical, but it has orders of precedence which tend to make novices like me pull our hair out. Tim Trent 15:45, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Vandal warning templates

What do you think? Do we want to drag the WP lot over here? There's a shedload of editing work inside them I expect Tim Trent 12:00, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

I've managed to start remembering shortcuts to some of the useful pages, at least as starting points. WP:UTM lists all the warning messages, etc. Each warning will have a template, and possibly a /doc page too, so there could be a lot of work, depending on how accurate the copy process is, and how many of the templates we copy over.
Copying the WP warnings rather implies that similar policies/standards will be applied here. Is that a problem?
EdJogg 14:22, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
There is no problem with imposing any policies and standards provided they are self imposed. The only challenge is that I truly don't want to impose a bureaucracy on this place. The thing I dislike about Wikipedia is the large number of barrack room lawyers there, and I don't want to import that. There is a difference if this place creates it for itself. My feeling is that we need to adopt, adapt, and improve. We could seriously consider any and all templates from Wikipedia's list of warning templates, but I don't want to "just do it" Tim Trent 15:44, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Something struck me

If Ozzie7 and people like him want to write Fan Fiction, as long as we create a space like "FanFic:" for them to do it in, would that make any sense?

I don't mean "for the creation of crap pseudo articles" I mean literally to write fan fiction stories.

Would that solve their need to edit oddly? Tim Trent 11:44, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Frankly, I have no idea. What motivates them? There's certainly a desire to contribute -- as is often seen at WP. The problem is that they tend to have a poor grasp of English, and rarely add anything that is worth retaining.
There are several established 'Thomas' forums on the web, and several 'encyclopaedic' sites whose free use of non-free images makes the WP and TSW articles look very dry. A number (like Sodor Island Forums ('SIF')) have well-established fan-fiction areas (I think SIF has its own Wiki too!), and you don't have to search hard on YouTube to find 'Thomas' stories recreated using Ertl models and the like.
So I really don't know.
We could, of course, ask him, but history has shown that this type of editor does not usually enter into the talk page communication side of things!
Sorry to be of no help!
EdJogg 12:32, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
We're about to have a go at creating a new namespace "FanFic" with an alias of "FF" so we can really group this bovine scatology without disheartening the unco-operative editors. May take more than a moment! http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Namespace may show you why this stuff is non trivial! It looks great until you come to do it! Tim Trent (earlier today)
Have a look at the message I just left for Ozzie7 (talk · contribs), and you'll see my current thoughts. If, as it seems, you have a more maintainable way of doing this, please go ahead! (I'm quite happy for you to deconstruct what I've built this morning, once you're done.)
EdJogg 09:19, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
Let's put the two together. Bernd and I have discussed at length and used WP as a model. Mediawiki software sucks. Bernd just said to me "if you press your way of thinking onto that system you can wait for it to explode like a way too small dress from a fat woman". The problem is that it is a gloriously unstructured "thing" with no concept of any hierarchy or even of any order.
We want to be sure that Fan Fiction is separated from authoritative articles, but we also want to let the dreamers play. There has never been any issue with dreamers, just with what they do to authoritatiove stuff.
WP implements "WikiProject:" as part of the article name, not as a namespace thing. That surprised us. The only extra namespace WP has is "Portal:", and if the alleged experts use almost no extra namespaces that says to us "These things are trouble"
So the upshot: Let's implement Fan Fiction as a part, a prefix, of the article name. This means we can move Fan fiction to the new name with impunity. We probably just need a header template "This is fan fiction" or something similar, and add your newly designed categories at the foot (conceivably with the template doing the work)
Tim Trent 10:00, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
Looking good! I can see this bringing in some more editors as word gets round the various fora. Let's hope we haven't unleashed a monster!
I'm not going to have time to create a template for this (already spent far too much time on TSW today!), could you do the honours please?
Would be good to have some sort of icon that helps identify the FanFic template, but I can't think what. An open book is rather too vague, but my only other ideas of 'fiction' seem to pop up dragons, princesses or castles (of the stone, rather than steam, variety)! Hope you have some better ideas...
EdJogg 11:03, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
I'm stuck for time today, too. For reasons I do not understand I am about to head for Milton Keynes! Tim Trent 11:07, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
{{FanFic}} is a start, though. Tim Trent 11:22, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

{indent reset)Am I missing something with your subcat template? You know a template can take a parameter, I'm sure you do? That was going to be my next thought after creating fanfic. Tired out now, though. The M1 was full. Tim Trent 15:42, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Memo to self - never ask a question when too tired to see wood from trees. Tim Trent 16:01, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Education time

We are definitely winning with the FanFic thing. Ozzie seems to be onside, though needing some more education. But it looks as though TtTE articles will not suffer now (I hope) since there si a home for speculative and fun edits. Tim Trent 22:22, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Please look at the (draft) policy

Trains:Fan Fiction Policy and make any edits that you feel are sensible. I have incorporated it into {{FanFic}}.

One area that you are very hot on is categorisation. I have not even touched that.

Tim Trent 22:18, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

As requested, I have overhauled your text and included a ref to cats. I have not 'enforced' the sub-cat issue, since it is early days yet (we can adjust the text in the future). Is wording still OK? EdJogg 00:03, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
Looks good to me. Of course, getting rogue editors to use it is a different matter, but at least we "have it" Tim Trent 07:02, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Admin Cats/Userboxes

Hi EdJogg,

Tim has made me an Admin, and I read in his archive that you have made several cats for admins.

Also, can you import userboxes/signatures from WP?

Thanks,

Bluegoblin7 11:29, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

You'll see I responded to some of your questions on Tim's talk page.
99% of the cats I have created here are duplicates of the WP cats. When pages are auto-copied here, cats are not created, leaving the pages orphaned (un-catted). Fortunately the category names still exist as redlinks on each page, so it seemed simplest to recreate the WP cat hierarchy and hence link-in many articles at once. When a missing cat is created, it is important to follow it 'up the tree', creating any parent cats as required, until an existing cat is encountered. So you'll usually see these things appearing in bursts as I find holes in the existing structure. This especially applies to template categories.
Does that answer your question?
Yes. Sort of! Oh well, if I need more help, I can come back... I did understand THAT much! Bluegoblin7 16:30, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
EdJogg 07:28, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

those non free images

Category:All non-free media has "only" 92 members currently. Even if you can manage only one per day that will get us onto the correct footing. I imagine the serious Thomas editors will also help, but I suspect the FanFic crew can be avoided :)

I've pulled some templates in from WP to help identify the errant pics, probably confused myself near the top of various categories, etc etc

Tim Trent 09:17, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Haven't been watching over the weekend, but I see there's a fair few changes been made. Will try and check your new imports soon...
As for the Fair-use images, I must admit I've been avoiding adding the FUR's, in favour of 'more useful' (or interesting!) housekeeping work...
EdJogg 00:19, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
I suspect the FURs will be a copy and paste issue :) Tim Trent 06:59, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Imagemap extension

We deployed it. See Special:Version

But also see Template:Documentation subpage

Any ideas?

This time we need to solve it, not work round it :) We're back to {{Pp-template}}, but dammit.......

Tim Trent 16:44, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

I know it's not very helpful, but it just doesn't seem to be working. I tried CTRL-F5 to clear the cache, but that didn't help. 'Fraid I can't help any further...
Incidentally, some of your new templates (etc) are missing cats.
EdJogg 16:58, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
I've asked at WP why the imagemap stuff is used. It truly looks like some arcane "elegant" programmer had fun and other halfwits copied it.
I hope to get to the missing cats soon enough (sigh)
Tim Trent 17:53, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
It's a thankless task, isn't it? EdJogg 01:08, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Pity: I have had to block my first user

And I'm afraid it's a TtTE editor, Ozzie7 (talk · contribs · page moves · block user · block log) Tim Trent 22:10, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

deletions?

These don't look like they have a place here: Category:Amusement rides based on rail transport (yes I know it's redlinked, click anyway!). What think you? Tim Trent 10:28, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

It is stretching a point, rather. I would suggest you start by removing those linked from Omnimover and see what's left. The ones that I looked at were variations on fairground rides or rollercoasters, and I don't think we're likely to attract enthusiasts of that type of railway. Certainly, keep Ridable miniature railway, as each of these potentially has a page at TSW, but the others -- probably not (otherwise we could end up with hundreds of roller-coaster-based rides!)
EdJogg 12:43, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
(Afterthought) Just looked at Carolwood Pacific Railroad. This one does belong here, but needs a new category made up (Category:Ridable miniature railways, maybe?).
EdJogg 12:46, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
Happy with new cat if you want to do it. I have deleted all except the two relevant and all the detritus that came with them. Recatted RMRs as MRs to start with. Tim Trent 20:22, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Googlemap Templates

{{GMR}} and {{GML}} an {{GM}} for a start. But now I am having brain failure catting Cat:Pages with Google Maps. Any ideas? Tim Trent 19:26, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm. See what you mean. I've moved it down a level, but using {{TrainspottingWorld category}} is not very helpful -- read the contents of the title box and consider the cat content! Although including these pages in a cat is an easy and obvious thing to do, I'm not sure how much use the resulting cat actually is. What specific benefit is gained by listing all the 'mapped' pages? (I guess it will allow global changes to be applied to maps...) EdJogg 23:44, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
I'm thinking at present that it works as an example of best practice - "how do I get my page in here? Ah yes...."
Catting the cat is an interesting challenge. Tim Trent 23:57, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Re: TtTE&F Videos ++

D'oh! Oh well. Perhaps I should be more careful when I edit pages. TobytheTramEngine 05:07, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

FUR images

Ok no probs,

did u restore the 1 i deleted?

ill put it back if not! like i sed, i jst thought that with it not being FURd it might need 2 go.

Cheers,

Bluegoblin7 09:54, 11 November 2007 (UTC)


Feel free to put it back. I must get onto the FURs when i can.EdJogg 23:47, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
Image returned... Bluegoblin7 11:26, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Sorry...

Just thought i'd say sorry about what i said on a page over at WP. I suppose it wasnt really thought through!!! And yes, you are right about them being deleted... you've seen what I do!!! I'd probably delete them myself....

Bluegoblin7 10:09, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Erm, I'm not relly sure what you're talking about... EdJogg 23:49, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
I told some1 2 come here... but then u sed mebbe not... o well... neva mind...Bluegoblin7 11:28, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
Ok, now I know where you're coming from. The user in question uploaded some photos to WP, and then got rather unpleasant when I tried to tell him what he needed to do to stop the photos being deleted. He just didn't want to accept that there were rules to play by, and seemed to think that I was out to get him, or something. There was nothing particularly wrong in you suggesting he joined us here, if anything I was being more 'inappropriate' in implying he would not be welcome here (which is untrue). I was just not looking forward to the prospect!
Incidentally, Tim and I have tended to avoid directly canvassing for TSW users at WP. I think we're wary about drawing the wrong sort of attention. However, both of us have posted a number of links to this site (some in AfD discussions!) when relevant, and I have not yet had a complaint from anyone at WP that what I was doing was inappropriate. Also, before you try it, TSW is not 'big enough' to pass the WP:EL tests yet -- need to get a lot more going on here first.
EdJogg 13:44, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
Ok. Don't worry! We all learn every day! Bluegoblin7 15:19, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Projects/Userboxes

Hi Paul, Just a quick note: I've started the Projects page up a bit more now. But, how do we want to structure it? I've put some basic ideas down, but please change them in ness! Are we going to have a structure similar to a WikiProject for them? (in which case the thomas portal needs something to go with it), or if not what else? Also, is there a main page for FanFic so to speak? Finally, Userboxes: can i create them here, and if so, shall I do one for Project Thomas (or similar!) Cheers, Bluegoblin7 10:36, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

"Paul"??
For Projects, you really need muliple contributors to make them meaningful. I suggest waiting until the influx arrives! As for the Thomas Portal, it was never intended to be a Project, merely a fast way into the 'Thomas' pages.
There isn't a front page for FanFic, yet, but as it is all (?) related to 'Thomas", this hasn't really been necessary.
User boxes -- don't see any real reason why not.
Also, as I mentioned elsewhere, I'm already a participant in six Wikiprojects (some much more than others) and do not have an appetite for joining any here.
EdJogg 00:12, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
Not sure where that came from: i seem to have called the real paul pete - a bit of a mistake there!
No problems about the projects. We can wait! I just thought with Thomas and FanFic though, that seeing as the majority of editors are from there, maybe that was the place to start: i'll put a message on the Thomas Talk Page.
Cheers for voting about the Village Pump thing: just makes life a bit easier!
I will start to make some userboxes up!
Don't worry about if you join or not: but a handy hint maybe:? when we are the BEST place for Thomas (even better than WP), thats the time to join up!
And my sugestion about PSW: More sort of to help with the actual maintenance etc: i'm not 1 bit interested in planes, except when im on one, but i though i mayaswell make myself useful!
Cheers,
Bluegoblin7 13:41, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
If you have a particularly problematic template at PSW, I may be able to help with debugging, for example, but I won't reckon to visit there otherwise. (My skills are better used at WP!!)
As for a Thomas project... I'm not one of the founders of the WikiProject, but I am the longest-standing still-active participant (most of the others having gone quiet in the past 8 months or so), and as Tim will tell you, the very fact that all those 'Thomas' pages are here at all is largely because of me. If the various 'Thomas' editors feel the need to organise themselves as a project, then I may well join in, if only to stand up for the original Railway Series books, but I won't be starting one myself.
EdJogg 17:11, 12 November 2007 (UTC)


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