User talk:Slambo

Great to have you here

We're still working on welcome messages and similar things, and trying hard to get a good base core of articles together as we open for business.

We're both similar to and wholly different from Wikipedia. We want this to be a place where people who love rail and trains can relax and enjoy both creating articles and also things like a log of their experiences one day in January in the ice watching a particular event.

Really good to have you here with your wiki involvement in trains. Please let me know if you have ideas to make the place even better. We're very open minded and just want it to be great Tim Trent 13:46, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

About to reply

Will do it in my own talk page so we can kep threads together Great to have you aboard. Tim Trent 17:20, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Gear reviews etc

I like the idea of gear reviews. I have a thought for you to ponder before too much work is done there.

Our plans are for the following starter Spotting Worlds:

• Trains
• Planes
• Trucks
• Ships
• Balloons
• ....

And all fans of these and other areas we haven't even thought of have essential gear, ranging from the smallest camera to the largest and heaviest set of monitoring equipment.

What could make excellent sense, especially since it would allow each world to feed from other people's experiences, is to have a wiki purely for gear and gear reviews that interwikies to and from the various worlds. It's easy enough for us to set one up. All we need is a name and to update the interwiki table. And, of course, to let people know what the interwiki links are.

We'd love your ideas here. Isn't it fun to be at the start of something? Tim Trent 13:28, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Extra facilities

To make life easier we are still adding to the "standard wiki". There seems to be no such thing as a standard installation of Wikimedia, though.

Categories

I wish there were a way of enforcing a hierarchy of categories, but can't find one so far. But we have installed Special:CategoryTree which shows the current status. It's better than nothing, but if you know an extension that will "enforce" a category structure, we're up for it.

New Users

It took us a while to find out where it was hidden, but now, in Special:Log the drop down list included new users. I've added {{Welcome}} for any user to put in a new user's talk page

Google Maps

When you edit a page you will see a new litle link under the row of control buttons. IT says "make a map". This links to Google Maps. We think that this may be absolutely excellent for, among other things, a spotting report.

<googlemap lat="51.41591" lon="-0.748959" zoom="16"> 51.415562, -0.749109, Bracknell. HQ of Spotting World. Example of use for a spotting report </googlemap>

I've not played with it much, but I have pinpointed the town in the UK where our HQ is, just to show you what can be done.

Forthcoming facilities

We're very close to integrating personal blogs with the site. We have a few design and implementation issues to handle before it's released. The vision is to have the ability to start a personal blog preloaded onto a new user's talk page and run from Spotting World servers and/or to integrate with a user's pre-existing blog. And, of course, unlike the wikipages, the blog will only be editable by the owner.

Tim Trent 08:27, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Way cool, especially the map extension. I'll work on integrating it into {{spot-line}} later. I've been busy this past weekend with the Mad City Model Railroad Show and Sale (there are a few photos in my Flickr photostream now, and I've got a bunch more to add to it), so I haven't had as much time to edit as I'd like this week. Slambo 16:49, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Very cool pics. The detailing is so good you have to look hard and realise there's no steam! We do need a modelling section, that I am certain of. Of course I use UK spelling!. I think models and enthusiasm for them are an integral part of railfanning.

As you can see, we have loads of ideas. The important thing was to launch the site, then to add extensions. The wikimedia software is less than amusing from the webmaster site, but the user experience is first class. We can't work out how Wikipeida manages to stay up, really!

We need evangelists. I'm not sure Bernd or I can do that without being accused of spamming, though it's hard to see the spam element since the site is free, but you know how folks get.

You've probably seen the Station Announcements page? We could probabaly do with an equivalent of the WP Village Pump, but I have no idea what to call it. "The Roundhouse" could work in the UK, but I am short on inspiration

Other stuff coming, alongside the countdown timer, will be a calendar. And we're very receptive to ideas. Tim Trent 18:33, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

My template skills have let me down

Of course it may not matter at all, but {{User dublo}}, which I designed to add a category and to be in a category, when added to Userboxes puts userboxes in a category, too. Apart from subst:ing and editing I can't see a way round it. Tim Trent 17:46, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Fixed. I set it to check the namespace and only add the category if it's in the User namespace. Slambo 18:14, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm beginning to learn what this template/parser language can do. Thanks. I think we could probably do with categories "like that" on all the userboxes? Tim Trent 21:26, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Attraction of Members

Sean, you seem to be a man of many contacts and many ideas. How do we attract the type of member who, like you, appreciates the huge freedom of a virtual railfanning place such as this?

We have visitors from all over the world, certainly, from Hawaii to Bangkok, but there is a difference between a visitor, a wonderful person to have and who browses the site, and someone like you who makes a difference.

I grant you I am impatient. We only went live on St Valentine's day, and we've had a goodly number of visitors since then. The challenge is recruiting (so to speak) the real railfan who will grasp the opportunity as you have done and start to make this place their own.

We're not shy about adding facilities, assuming they are within our technical grasp, and, as you know, we are very relaxed about rules (except copyright and behaviour, naturally) so the place is not oppressive in any way. We're not into bureaucracy, and we are relaxed about a sensible number of commercial links (for example to railway video vendors)

Heads are being scratched over this :) Tim Trent 16:01, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm very hesitant to send out spams, but I have been telling those that I know personally who would be interested. The trick is generating enough interest and telling enough other people to reach critical mass; at that point, the publicity will work on its own. I will probably have some extra time this weekend between shoveling (we're predicted to get 8-12 inches of snow by Sunday afternoon) that I can devote to look into other avenues for publicity. Slambo 16:10, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm wholly hesitant about emailing, too. Where I've joined railfan groups I have been explicit about my purpose for joining when I joined. It is only real word of mouth that will do it.

Here in the UK we rather like snow beca8se we hardly get any. So forgive me for total snow-envy

Ooof!!! Officially 16 inches of snow here from Saturday through Monday morning. After spending several hours on Sunday shoveling, I still wasn't done and had to take a personal day yesterday to get it done. It took me another 6 hours yesterday to finish the job. The pile next to my driveway is now an average of 5 feet tall and it extends almost the entire 20 foot length of the driveway. The east coast is now digging out from the same storm. More is predicted for Thursday, but not as severe a beating. Now to do a bit of catch up here... Slambo 12:26, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

You know, shovelling or not, I am still dead jealous. We get none. Or, if we get half an inch everythung grinds to a standstill. Tim Trent 12:43, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Calendar and Railfan Conventions

We've improved it somewhat. Probably need some template help, though. Have a look at the event you added, now at GorgeRail 2007, note the extra categories that key into the calendar (now new in left hand margin), and please enhance it if you can :) Tim Trent 19:47, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Hey, you were working on my birthday! I didn't get much of a chance to login over the weekend, but I raised a cider or two. B-)

The css for individual month pages still need a little work. For example, the page for April 2007 shows the page title as &lt;events&gt;, and there's a stray <events-header> in the page text. I'll take a closer look later to see if I can find the problem... Slambo 16:01, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Also, I don't see Special:Events listed on Specialpages. Slambo 16:09, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Happy birthday!

We've been working hard on performance. If you have a look at my blog (via my user page) you can see a little of the trials and tribulations this week has brought. We concentrated less on facilities since the server pretty much died under us while looking idle. Bernd's going to look into the calendar stuff, but he's a bit tied up with tuning at present. If you get there first that would be cool.

We also tried the kluge for multi-date events. I suspect we are in the hands of he extension developer. I've left a note at the wikimedia extension talk page. Tim Trent 01:03, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

NMRA

Seeing your interest in it I created a stub for it, mentioning and linking to the site you manage. So much to do, so little time Tim Trent 10:50, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Cool, I'll try to get over there soon to add/update info as needed. Slambo 16:24, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't suppose we could persuade the relevant orgs and divisions that an inbound link to their page would be a good idea? Tim Trent 16:19, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

templating help, please

We're about to add an interface to google video integration as well as youtube.

The interface is pretty much the same:

 <youtube>identifying stuff</youtube>

and

 <googlevideo>identifying stuff</googlevideo>

Obviously no big deal to type in, but easy to get typos in.

I was thinking of some sort of template {{video}} that takes parameters of the identifying stuff and the name (or abbreviation) of the source, such as "y", "Y", or "youtube". Should it default to Youtube, since that is the best "known" at present?

You seem to know how to make the templating language sit up and beg. I can simply make it sit and stay! Any chance of your having a go at it?

What might be cool is to embed videos so that text wraps round them? Not really though that through. Tim Trent 16:09, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, it's not much, but I think those updates simplify the usage a little. I'll play around with it a little more this week to see how much we can add to it, but after work I've got two operating sessions to attend and a doctor's appointment yet this week... Slambo 13:52, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Your "it's not much" beats my "This thing does not work" hollow :) best of luck with the doc and the rest of the stuff this week Tim Trent 16:02, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Union Pacific Rotary Plows may interest you

Two reasons, one is the (to be uploaded) pictures of these things. Impressive as you like!

The other means you may want to walk through the page history. We have a great new user, KevO who is a superb photographer. Heck anyone who chases plows in shorts has to be dedicated! He's never used a wiki before, so his first pass was a great effort. I'm guiding him re photo upload, but if nec I'll get him to email them to me and I'll upload them for him.

The thing is, he found it challenging, like any new user. I think it takes anyone a while to get into gear, so to speak. So this made me think: What do we need to do to help non wiki-experienced users here? Especially when we ask them to file spotting reports?

I can also see more clearly what a railfan instinctively wants to put into a spotting report. How can we accommodate the large volume of text inside the template? Tim Trent 14:51, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

I saw the page in the recent changes list, but hadn't looked at it yet. I went out on Sunday (and I finally saw UP 1995 on that trip), but I waited for 53F highs before heading out.

We can easily make the notes column into an optional second line like in {{roster-line}} to allow for longer notes within the spotting report, but for the amount of text on that page, it seems better to leave a large block of it as an introduction to the equipment.

On the difficulty in editing and markup syntax, it seems we need to start a series of Help pages with the basics. I'm not sure if importing help pages from WP will be the answer, but it's certainly a model we can follow. I'll try to work up something soon... Slambo 15:13, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

There's something so much more aggressive about US heavy locos than the UK ones. Here I look at one and say "So what?", but US Railroads seem to deploy much more rugged beasts with a personality

I looked at wiki help pages. If you tell me what to import I can import them easily, but they seem to be written by experts for experts.

What shall we call our new Village Pump?

Hello Slambo!

Your input would be greatly appreciated on what to call our new Village Pump! Click [[1]] to have a look!

Thanks,

Bluegoblin7 17:27, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Template help needed

We're perplexed. You seem to understand this stuff "just like that"!

Please look at T:ADOPT and compare with WP:ADOPT. There will be an obvious reason why the WP page is covered in blue and the TSW page isn't, but none of us can spot it.

We need your help, please.

Tim Trent ^{Talk to me} 22:18, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Sorry for being out for so long; as I'm back at school for a career change (switching from computer programming/support to photography), I've had to cut back on a few things for a lack of time. I've got an exam tomorrow afternoon, but I'll try to check it out later this week. Slambo 11:49, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Good luck with the exam, and most definitely with the career change. We'll see you when you can make it :) Tim Trent ^{Talk to me} 18:31, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Hey Slambo,

Hope you did well in your exam!

Have you managed to look at the templates?

Also, I've noticed youve done a lot on the WikiProject Temps. We would like to implement a similar thing here. I have so far done one for W:STS (seen at Shining Time Station), and I would also like to add assessment if possible.

Finally, can you make bots?

Cheers,

Bluegoblin7 11:08, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Finally getting back over here again, hopefully for longer spells again; thanks everyone for the kind words. The midterm exam went well and I'm now in the middle of finals (boy those three weeks went super fast!), with a take home exam to turn in tomorrow and an in-class exam on Wednesday. But, these are the last two of any general education requirements for the program I'm in. Next semester (begins on Jan 14) I start into a pair of courses about digital photography and image processing.

There always seemed to be something getting in the way of getting back here, which was definitely not my intention (I like the new main page layout, BTW). I'll make more of an effort to get back here more often again. I haven't written any bots yet, but from what I see of it, it can't be that much harder than the C++ programming I do at work now. Slambo 20:22, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm... Took a quick look. Everything's getting bunched into a very narrow column for me. I tried a couple quick things, but no luck yet. Slambo 16:06, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Thats what i'm seeing too... Bluegoblin7 16:08, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

I suspect the problem is somewhere in the main box-header template because the font colors aren't getting set to black on the new portals either. This will take more in-depth investigation. Slambo 16:12, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Here too...

Just dropping you a note to let you know I'm here too.. I'm not stalking you LOL! TTYL --DP67 (^talk/_contribs) 20:57, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

I noticed your handle in the Recent changes list. Something about "great minds..."? I also noticed the note on the front page about Portals and other notes about Workforces, so I quickly created User:Slambo/W:US, and I intend to put together a portal to go with it (leveraging my experience creating and maintaining WP's P:Trains). Slambo 21:00, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Welcome back Slambo!

I will probably kick off a portal tommorrow, but you can edit it later - i'm in a Portal making mood!

Thanks

Bluegoblin7 22:53, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

The RfA process

Hi. As a regular user, I thought Id point you to the ongoing discussion at Trains talk:Requests for adminship. Thanks. Tbo 157 22:20, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Portal:US Railways

Hi Slambo,

Are you free to add the remaining content to the Portal so I can launch it?

Thanks,

Bluegoblin7 19:37, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm adding stuff to it. Don't know when all the boxes will be filled yet. Slambo 19:42, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Ok. No worries. Drop me a line when it is.

I would do it myself, but i dont know that much about the US - im a UK guy...

Bluegoblin7 19:43, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Proposed newsletter

You might be interested in the discussion at Trains:Station Cafe (Left Luggage)#Newsletter for the wiki... where there is a discussion for a proposed newsletter. Thanks. Tbo 157 20:17, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Took a quick skim, looks like a good start; I plan to comment more thoroughly later. Slambo (Speak) 21:33, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Batch upload

Is there any way to do batch pic uploads or is it locked in to the slow process of one at a time? All the pics of course would be PD. --DP67 (^talk/_contribs) 03:06, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

If there is, I don't know of it. Slambo (Speak) 21:32, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Allowing anonymous edits...

Hi Slambo,

We just wondered what your input was on the above topic. The only place we seem to succeed here is on the Thomas articles. Please contribute to the discussion on User talk:Bluegoblin7 on my talk page, with your thoughts, and then whether you support or oppose the gesture.

THanks,

BG7 18:20, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

It would mean more vandalism cleanup and more regular recent changes patrolling. While I've seen some good contributions on WP from anons, I'm a little more hesitant here until we have more people who can watch for and revert vandals. Slambo (Speak) 21:35, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Year articles...

Hi Slambo,

Ive noticed that you've done wonders with the Year articles. There are some on the Wanted Pages list - could you take a look?

Thanks,

BG7 20:39, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Yup, that's another project I'm working through. Slambo (Speak) 21:31, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

A tedious but useful task...

Hi Slambo,

I'm currently working through the Wanted Pages, and some of them are'nt relevant here. Where possible, i'm putting a relevant article in it's place, but that page is not always relevant. Take United States for example. I'm now working through the what links here to try an either remove or edit the link. If you get bored, you could help, or you could just mention to people to rm unneeded links when they bring in an article. Also, we need more "original" content to help us get interwikied. Think you can help?

Thanks --BG7 21:41, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

One thought I had with location articles is that we could center the information around rail activity at that location. In this sense, the redirect from United States to Rail transport in the United States works well. The article on Rochelle, Illinois, would talk about Rochelle Railroad Park and describe the small locomotive production that happened there without going into the city's demographics. Slambo (Speak) 12:04, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Ok Slambo,

That's what I thought about doing, but in some places the particular article isnt relevant to the redirect. It's those links i'm removing. For ones such as the one you commented, could you do it? I know nothing about US railways - i've only been on a train once in the US - NY to Niagra Falls, Canada Side, then NF to Toronto...

Thanks,

BG7 12:48, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Bots...

As you've registered Slambot, are you actually gonna make a bot? There becoming increasingly nesecary (especially AntiVandal - see my comment on the cafe about a way around the IRC problem...)

Thanks, --BG7 21:44, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, but I don't have an always-on server on which to host them. I shut down my workstations at home, and I don't think this would be a valid task on my work machine (unless I somehow start working for the Spotting World organization full time [doesn't seem likely at this point]), so I wouldn't be able to host anything like WP's ClueBot. Slambo (Speak) 12:00, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Ok. Slambo,

If you can't host a bot, I'm on pretty much all day, so if you give me code i could always put it on Goblinbot.

THanks,

BG7 12:43, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Simplicity

Hi. Since you seem to be active, can I ask you to outline your thoughts on what I wrote at Trains:Station Cafe (Mess Room)#Simplicity. Thanks. Tbo 157 12:45, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Article writing barnstar

		The silver maple leaf
		I award you this barnstar for getting stuck into writing articles of good quality and the amount of time and effort you put into article writing. We need articles which are unique to this wiki. Tbo 157 17:08, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Woohoo! Many thanks! Oh wait, that means I need to work. Doh! B-) Slambo (Speak) 17:53, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Barnstar...

		The Missing Wheel
		Here you go Slambo, as Tim said: A barnstar for doing the Year/Month Pages! (PS the image will change when i get the article writing one online, as will the title. But for now, enjoy!!!) --BG7 18:43, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

I need your help

Mainly because you are a demigod at template and parser syntax! EdJogg has tried and come up against a brick wall. My skill is minimal compared with his.

Over at Plane Spotting World, an area where I know you have limited interest (if any), we've imported a couple of templates from WP that look fine in Firefox and safari (and work in IE at WP!). But in IE they look awful and screw the page layout up shamefully.

They are preventing PSW from taking advertising revenue, which affects TSW and the ability to fund a better server.

swplane:template:Aircontent and swplane:Template:Aircraft specifications are the culprits. I am so lost it isn't true. Because the templates are widely used any changes to them are stuck in the mediawiki job queue, so it would be best (probably) to copy the commented out portion to a sandbox rather than edit in place.

I may also need to sysop you there. That is if you are willing to take the challenge on!

Tim Trent ^{Talk to me} 18:35, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

So near yet so far. I suspedft it may be a combination of CSS and mismatched tags. The part that is solved is solved (Ah a truism) but the mess remains. I have said a rude word or more about it. Tim Trent ^{Talk to me} 12:31, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Got it! Mismatched h3 tags, masked by the CSS issue you found. I wonder why it works at WP? That is truly the odd thing. Tim Trent ^{Talk to me} 14:11, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Being a good boy I went to WP and cured the H3 tags there. Very kindly my edits were reverted as if vandalism! Sometime I wonder about WP editors. I've asked the guy for his rationale, but one gives up, does one not? For us it works. They are obviously insane :) Tim Trent ^{Talk to me} 09:44, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, sometimes the editors can be a little too quick to revert. I wonder if the tag is closed somewhere else that uses the template.... <investigating further...> Slambo (Speak) 11:52, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

I doubt they could be closed elsewhere. The line format was
<h3>load of text to get h3d<h3>
which, as you can imagine, was entirely useless. The part I don't understand is why we can't tolerate it but WP can. But I think I prefer our system of requiring good html to theirs of allowing slapdash stuff to prevail. The good news is, thanks you your efforts unmasking the problem from the CSS viewpoint, I was able to stare hard enough at the html to see that it was poor.

those templates are typical of "some clever guy bewildering the rest with his genius," though. I alwasy prefer either simplicity or good commented documentation.

Tim Trent ^{Talk to me} 14:30, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Issue 1 of the TJ

Hi Slambo,

Can you use you expertise to fix the layout (or any of the other problems on my talk page to help fix this?

Thanks,

BG7 19:30, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

I'll see what I can find, but it may be a little bit before I can get to it today. Slambo (Speak) 19:44, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Can you suggest some good US articles?

Hi Slambo,

I'm doing the hotpicks for January, and i want to add some US articles so i don't sound biased towards BR/Trams!

Cheers,

BG7 12:28, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Two off the top of my head (because I wrote them) are...

• Pioneer Zephyr (US Railways portal selected article for Dec)
• John Bull

Others that I can think of all are missing images or don't really fit what I think of as high quality. I'll look through to find a few more... Slambo (Speak) 12:43, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Ok. Those 2 will be alright for Jan - we only have 5 atm - and i've got 3! I need to make a page with which to add possible pages...

Thanks,

BG7 12:45, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Assessment Scheme

Hi Slambo,

I see you've been tagging lots of articles! a) can you help with the rest of the banners b) are we any nearer a scheme?

Thanks,

BG7 18:35, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, it's something to do while I'm waiting for something to compile here. I've just been hitting Random and looking at those that come up related to US railways (thus the random assortment of page titles).

We could easily go with what we've already discussed, but I was hoping to use one class template to cover all workforces. I have a couple ideas to try first. One possibility is something like WP's BannerShell template that takes a string of subtemplates as its only parameter where the subtemplates add the workforce specific categories. Slambo (Speak) 18:42, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes i suppose. Couldn't we do what you've done at WP:T and have lots of params for 1 temp (but nowehere near as many!!!).

We could then do the same for all the ones in it, and the most relevant article can go first?

ie:

Article about US trams.

Tram banner with us param, rates both, in both cats

Article about us railway that had trams(?!?!)

US banner with tram param etc

Would that work?

Thanks,

BG7 19:19, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

That may be the way to go here, using a unified workforce banner to cover all of them. Since there are only a handful so far, this wouldn't be too terrible. Hmmm.... Now I've got to go try something... Slambo (Speak) 19:39, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes ok. Shouldn't be too hard should it? Then we could leave of assessment from the rest, and use those for extra params? BG7 19:43, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

I see you've started. I'll start importing the assessment temps! What are we having? FA, A, B, Start and Stub?

BG7 20:02, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

(outdent) Let's see... For the class parameter: stub, start, b, a, fa, list, fl, image, template, dab, na, category, redirect and needed should be a good start. For importance: no, low, mid, high and top should cover everything. We can always add more as they are needed. Slambo (Speak) 20:09, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

ok. i'll put them all in my sandbox so you can find them! BG7 20:12, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Hi Slambo,

There all Here, in a nice table with what they look like and a link next door! BG7 21:14, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Still need {{FL-Class}}, but otherwise, things are looking good. Slambo (Speak) 21:33, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Rite adding it now BG7 21:35, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

(reset indent) Hi Slambo, is the scheme ready to go?

Cheers,

BG7 13:52, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Almost. I have User:Slambo/Wbanner to where the class, unref, imageneeded, imagedetails, mapneeded and mapdetails all display correctly, but there are no categories for them and there are still a couple of issues to work out with the workforce parameters. The categories should be easy to create (a task I intend to do when the template is ready to roll). On the workforce parameters, I want to have it where the user can put something like "US=yes|US-params={importance=foo|portaldykdate=whenever|etc.}" so we don't have to add all of the workforce-specific parameters to the main template. I also need to get the show/hide block working right. A sample of how it could look is on User:Slambo/Template usage test. Slambo (Speak) 14:13, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Ok. Well if you let me know when it's ready then that's cool. I'm going to start a draft of the assessment page here, so please comment on it! It will be nowhere near as formal as WPs, and it will be easier (for now) to acheive FA/FL/FI etc.

Cheers,

BG7 15:37, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Collapsing works, now on to the parameter question... Slambo (Speak) 19:57, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

There's something just like BannerShell that will allow an arbitrary number of workforce banners, but the user needs to add the class, mapneeded, imageneeded and unref parameters as appropriate to each of the workforce banners. In the short term, this method could be used until we come up with a better way to pass those parameters down into the workforce banners automatically. Slambo (Speak) 20:30, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Ok then. So were good to go when I do the page? Can you write a "how to assess" thing or similar, as you set it up! Thanks BG7 13:13, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

I guess. I did a bit more thinking on this last night and came to the conclusion that this is the easy way, at least for now. We don't have to make sweeping changes to the workforce banners we already have, but we can suppress some of their display when this superbanner is used (which can be flagged off the nested parameter in the workforce banners). Time to build some categories... Slambo (Speak) 13:40, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Ok. So far we've got USR (but you know that!), STS, and Thomas. I'll do Trams, UKR and EUR in a bit, and i'll also work on the page ----> here at the moment.

Let me know when your ready to fully launch it, and i'll move the pages over.

BG7 13:43, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Implementation

I've created the quality and importance supercategories, I'll have the USR quality and importance categories soon as an example. Slambo (Speak) 14:38, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Ok Slambo. Would you mind checking the page in my sandbox?

BG7 14:41, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

The categories for USR are created and {{USR}} is updated to use them with User:Slambo/Wbanner in mind for a supertemplate. I've also added a table describing the quality classes to your SB page. I'm wondering what we should call the supertemplate... {{work}} or {{assessment}} come to mind as possibilities. Slambo (Speak) 20:10, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

I think assessment is probably the best for now. Shall I do a seperate page for importance?

Plus, when we launch it, we don't want the boundaries to be as high as the other wiki. At least not for now. We want lots of good, unique content, not a little!

BG7 20:17, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Still awake over there, huh? I usually try to get to bed earlier than that. B-)

The importance levels will be different for each workforce, so each should have its own importance table within the workforce's project space. For example, Stourbridge Lion would be listed as High-importance for US railways but probably mid-importance for UK railways. I'll put together a sample importance chart for US railways.

Another item that needs to be included in the assessment page discussion is that of the Needed-Class category. This is an idea that I tried on WP but it was removed because it involved creating orphan talk pages. Basically, since the talk page is where we are supposed to discuss the content of the article, my thought was why not put notes onto the talk page before the article is created so the notes are there when it's ready to be written? Using the banners, these talk pages are automatically sorted into the appropriate needed-class categories so they can be easily found and expanded. I'll try to put together a sample tonight or tomorrow. Slambo (Speak) 20:28, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Ok i get you. Perhaps if you could do the US assessment page, I could use ideas for the main one from that?

As for needed, i think here it will definitely be useful. I tried it with WP:UK Trams but the talk pages got deleted as orphaned?!?!. I doubt that will be the case here. (In fact I know, as it's a nicer community, and all the admins would find that useful!)

BG7 20:34, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Hi Slambo i've done {{UKR}}, for W:UKR, can you either show me how to use it all assessed up or add the params as USR?

Thanks,

BG7 21:15, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Wiki-wide implementation?

Hi Slambo, can we roll it out wiki wide? And can you do UKR for me? (And {{Trams}} when i've done it).

THanks,

BG7 18:57, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I'll move the main template shortly (when I finish with the update I'm on right now) and update {{UKR}} soon after I finish updating {{USR}} with the work params too. Slambo (Speak) 19:15, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Ok thanks BG7 19:19, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

{{Assessment}} is in place, and I've updated both {{USR}} and {{UKR}} and created the categories for UK railway page assessments. Slambo (Speak) 22:55, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Featured Image/Article assessment tags...

Hi Slambo,

Do the FA/FIs of the main page have a tag for the assessment temps? You just assessed 101692 at Arley - it was last month's featured image which made me think...

Thanks,

BG7 20:34, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

That would be akin to the portalSAmonth and portalSImonth parameters in {{USR}}. There aren't equivalent parameters in {{assessment}} yet, but they could be added without too much trouble. Since reading accident reports can get a bit depressing after a while, I took a quick look at Special:Wantedpages; I've been looking through the list of pages that include {{en}} and updating them to remove the language templates, fix links to local versions and add the image year category as appropriate, so I'm not doing much of a comparison with other pages right now. Slambo (Speak) 20:40, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Assessment (again!)

Hi Slambo,

Sorry to keep bugging you with this! (We need to get the page online, and i'll also add a note in the welcome message!).

Did you get around to adding featured image/article of the main page?

Also, when we're assessing using a Workforce temp, is it possible for it to end up in the main cat for the rank aswell, so we can see all the rated articles without having to look into the individual cats? We also need to get a bot online to produce those very useful tables on WP (unless they can be done without?)

Thanks,

BG7 14:30, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Let's see... in order...

• I thought you were going to take the text from your workspace and start the main assessment page from that.

• So I was - i'll get working on it soon!

• No, I haven't added params to {{assessment}} for that yet. I keep wondering if something like WP's article history template would be a better option here.

• Yes that's a fair point. I'm just happy for whatever works best!

• Yes; there are two ways to achieve this: by using the current templates or by adding the parent categories to the workforce templates. If {{assessment}} is used in conjunction with the workforce banners, such as on Talk:Stourbridge Lion, the page will appear in both the main assessment categories and the workforce-specific categories. This method is cleaner as we don't have to copy the parent categories into the subtemplates, and therefore simplifies template code maintenance and also simplifies creating other workforce banners in the future. The second method would include pages in the parent categories whether {{assessment}} is used or not, which would reduce the number of boxes on the talk pages where they are used.

• The former is probably the best way! On a seperate but relevant note, are we going to say that the main page article/image has to be A or above?

That seems a good minimum level for such a high-profile feature. Slambo (Speak) 16:13, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps until it's more widespread we should start with B class? Seeing as theres only two A Class articles at the moment! BG7 17:32, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

• I haven't had as much time as I anticipated to work on a bot that would do this. We might be able to get a copy of the bot that does this task on WP; I haven't had a chance to look into this yet. The statistics it generates are much more valuable when a higher percentage of pages are assessed or at least tagged. Hmmm... I wonder if we can add something into page creation that will start the associated talk page with just {{assessment}} if the talk page isn't already there

• Yes i'm sure it's possible - if we can do it with user pages, why not article talk pages? (Although it would have to go for ALL talk pages EXCEPT user and MediaWiki ones - hmm...

Slambo (Speak) 15:33, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Looking at Mediawiki:Manual:Hooks:ArticleInsertComplete, automatically adding {{assessment}} to the talk page on new articles should be possible. Slambo (Speak) 15:40, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict)I've replied within as you bulleted so nicely! BG7 15:48, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Template help?

^{Also asked at WP - ignore if you see there first!}

Hi Slambo,

Could I possibly ask for your help in debugging some templates at my Wikia Wiki?

I need help in fixing Template:Infobox, Template:Infobox Public transit, Template:Infobox Bus transit and Template:Ambox. Luckily i remembered that TSW have a "nice" version of Infobox Rail for the articles that call that!

Thanks in anticipation of your help, but only pop over if you have time! (I can also give you sysop rights if you want them...)

BG7 15:17, 31 March 2008 (UTC)