User talk:Tim Trent/Archive 1

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Thoughts on content

So if we don't want to just be a WP mirror here, we've got to start generating our own content. Based on the site name, it seems only logical to begin pages on specific equipment to share spotting information. For example, a page titled BNSF 5353 would contain all of the spotting details for the locomotive. The format could be a table something like:

Date/time Location Train number Direction Photo Spotter Notes
2006-06-03 (afternoon) Glen Haven, Wisconsin westbound (thumbnail image at no larger than 200px) Slambo leading a general manifest train
2006-08-02 somewhere else FOO eastbound someone else

The first entry in this table is based on my own sighting, as shown elsewhere (I just don't have an app to access the EXIF data right now). Entries should be added in date/time order with as much information is known about the sighting. It would be really cool if each row of data in such a table could be saved into a database for dynamic sorting and retrieval on pages about the equipment and on pages about spotting locations and also for inclusion on the spotters' user pages; this would minimize the number of times spotting information would have to be entered. I do database programming for a living, so this progression seems only natural to me.

Another bit of content that would be handy here are timetables. This information is discouraged on WP because it can change frequently and it runs afoul of WP:NOT policies, but would fit in with information that a railfan would want to know.

So there are a couple ideas at least. Slambo 17:04, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

We absolutely do not want to be a WP mirror. The only reason we're importing what appear to be relevant pages is to populate the site with some articles that have relevance. That exercise is very close to ending, probably tonight or tomorrow. Its purpose is twofold:
  • We are brand new and have no search engine presence currently. We do need great content in order to attract members via (eg) google
  • Good quality articles beget good quality articles. They're great examples of what has interested people elsewhere.
I like your ideas. We're particularly clear that this is not an encyclopaedia, and we see it very much as the community our members create. I do tend towards consensus views, only because that saves edit wars, but we have implemented precisely no bureaucracy. I suppose people will create their own, but that's ok, too!
While I have always had an interest in railways, even got taken onto the footplate when I was a kid, I'm not going to be hugely active in Spotting World. My role is as facilitator and provider. We will need admins and bureaucrats, too. If you are active, especially since you are an experienced admin elsewhere, we'd be very happy if you put yourself forward if you choose. That way you could mould with the other users we expect to attract the way this place works. Tim Trent 17:33, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
Cool, I've started BNSF 5353 and CP 9714 to hold spotting data for both based on info I have at hand. It also seems to me that articles about the railroad companies themselves should emphasize more the roster and good locations to railfan them, so I've started BNSF Railway and Canadian Pacific Railway with that in mind. Being an admin on WP, I'm familiar with the tools available with MediaWiki, so I'd be willing to take on some admin duties here too if you're looking for someone else to add to the admin list (if not, no big deal, I'm not clamoring for it just yet). Slambo 19:41, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
I noticed you were active :) I've just made you a sysop. I hope very much to be able to turn over all the day to day stuff to a great, self sustaining team of admins and keen users. From my perspective, as long as we are clean, honest, law abiding, especially with copyright where necks are truly on the line, and good behaviour between folks, and as long as we stay "on topic" I am certain it will become a great community.
We have not imported any WP processes. If they work then import them with pleasure, if they are unwieldy, offensive, over complex, discouraging, etc, then let's do something different
Most of the heavy policy stuff is interwikied from/to http://spottingworld.com to make sure that doesn't diverge, but local stuff is truly local
The real thing is "Bring your friends". The more the merrier. Tim Trent 19:49, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Userboxes?

Okay, here's something that has been the source of some controversy at that "other" site. Personally, I think userboxes can quickly convey relevant information about a person, as I stated on my userpage there. So, I've created a few in my userspace here that directly relate to my model railroading activities. I can easily see where a set of scale (perhaps with the most common narrow gauges integrated into them) and era boxes could be useful on user pages. They could easily be modified to be generic so we would only need to maintain one box each for scale/gauge (perhaps like {{Userbox:scale|N}}, {{Userbox:scale|HOn3}}, etc.) and era (like {{Userbox:era|1980s}}, etc.). What I'm not sure about is how far to take this concept and how to name them; I've only used the Userbox pseudonamespace as an example here. Slambo 20:26, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

It's quite hard to make the intellectual transfer from Wikipedia! I had the same problem when Bernd and I designed this service. I had to unlearn all the attitudes that make an enclyclopaedia what it is. He is ruthless at making sure I cut out the crap. We make a great team, he and I.
We are meant to be fun here. Fun is allowed, and I see userboxes as a wonderful piece of fun that also conveys information. Go for it. The really hard part is to realise that this new community will design itself. You're part of that. You're doing it Tim Trent 21:00, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
Cool, I'll template them up soon. Slambo 21:03, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Feature request

Okay, time for a feature request... StringFunctions. I'm trying to add code to {{User scale}} so that if the user types something like {{User scale|HOn3}}, it'll sort the page into Category:HO scale modelers rather than Category:HOn3 scale modelers. My test template is at User:Slambo/Scale. AdThanksVance. Slambo 15:44, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

No sooner asked then done. Tim Trent 15:58, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Greetings

Thanks for the welcome message. For my own sanity I have followed Slambo's lead and re-used my WP username. Not sure how much time I'll spend here rather than at WP, as I think my editing talents are more needed there. (Not too many editors interested in steam engines and the like.) Nevertheless, I have a few things to add here that can't be added there, and I'll tackle them in the coming weeks.

Main reason for this note is to ask about the 'Digg this story' and 'my del.icio.us' links. I have never encountered either before, and it would be helpful if the welcome message included links to appropriate help for newcomers.

Cheers EdJogg 13:37, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Good point. I'll work on that. My challenge is that I am standing too close to the thing. What would you like to see? Tim Trent 13:40, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
What would I like to see? I presume you mean about the two icons. Well, I know absolutely nothing about them, so 'What are they', 'Why use them' and 'How to use' would be good for starters...
EdJogg 14:01, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
Wary of writing an essay. Pop over to {{Welcome}} and see if I've done ok. And, of course, be bold if I have not :) Tim Trent
Have tweaked the template text a little. See what you think...
EdJogg 15:19, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
The great thing is that I can't "see" what you've done (except with a diff), so it must read well. Feel totally free to make things work when they just miss Tim Trent 15:23, 1 March 2007 (UTC)


Article wish list

Hi!
Just hopped over from WP. I have seen youre automatic most often requested article list but following the discussion on WP Thomas I would suggest a hand edited wanted articles list that could include recomended sources or simple copy wishes of Wikipedia articles. To give a start I suggest the wooden toy train article that I,ve been working on.
....btw, is there a way to get rid of this snap thing? --T.woelk 17:43, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

We're looking at Snap's options. It's a bit of an experiment at present. For now you can tune it individually, but we're taking feedback. The jury is out for the moment.
A hand tuned list is fine. All we need is a list, one per line, of article names. They do not need links or to be wikified, they just need to be accurate. We'll bring along any pictures and templates we can with them. Obviously a template that says "Wikipedia" is in urgent need of an edit when it arrives. Tim Trent 20:34, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
Category:Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends merchandise has those I have been told about. Musy add notes on Snap to the welcome template. Tim Trent 00:29, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Pages with &, + and ' in the title...

You may have noticed that pages with &, + and ' characters in the titles are not showing up correctly. The pages can be accessed if you modify the URL to http://train.spottingworld.com/wiki/index.php?title=Foo (replacing "Foo" with the full page title). I've collected a couple examples.... Slambo 13:17, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

We are on it, too Tim Trent 13:38, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
Solved it. Bernd could tell you precisely what it was, and he's probably going to blog it. Something bizarre to do with the interaction between wikimedia and the apache rewrite engine Tim Trent 08:05, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

'Thomas' merchandise pages

Hi. I noticed the heart-felt pleas on the talk pages...

It would be nice if we had some solid information about these ranges, but I don't hold out much hope... ...it is, after all, the reason they were kicked out of WP!

I'm afraid that I just leave the pages to whoever wants to edit them. That most of the contributions are 'fan fiction' is likely and unfortunate, but probably unavoidable too. In the absence of any definitive lists to work from, I just have to watch for apparent vandalism and ignore the other changes.

Pity the site doesn't generate much other traffic though.

EdJogg 15:56, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

I felt it was worth a plea. After all, if one does not ask one does not get :) However, I also felt we would get what we get, rather than any extra stuff. That's ok, too. After all, we're not an encyclopaedia.
Site traffic is "ok" in terms of visitors. I'm sure the early days of WP were faltering steps for a good while. In due time a critical mass will arrive and turn it into the site the mass wants. And time is what we have. Quiet and persistent encouragement will bring results, hype will not.
The US railfan community, whijhc is likely to be our main audience, seems not to be a community, exactly, rather it appears to be many people acting in a slightly disjointed manner that appears to work towards a common goal. I've been surprised that people see us as a threat instead of a resource to be used and trusted, but that is often the case with new things. I'd love to see clubs and societies using us to promote their commercial events, for example, but, so far, no-one has taken up the invitation, and I have invited many. But we will get there. The server is funded by those who click the adverts, and Bernd and I are wholly relaxed about the site's continutation for the long haul
We're very happy to rescue all rail oriented pages from WP if they are in danger, by the way.
Tim Trent 22:02, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

'Thomas' rescue #2

Hi Tim

Thanks for contributing at WP:THOMAS. I feel rather like it is a one-man project at the moment, with the founders being inactive or, like me, busy elsewhere on WP, so it's good to know someone is taking notice.

Now, to your offer...the thought had occurred to me, but I had obviously not pursued it.

You say that images on TSW require a Fair Use Rationale (FUR), which is fair enough.

  1. What sort of information do we have to provide? (sorry, haven't looked for help pages on this!)
  2. What is the essential information for each image?
  3. Do we need a unique FUR for each image? (I mean 'unique' apart from the filename and page(s) where used)
  4. Any problems about using a template to assign the FUR?
  5. Any problems about having orphaned images here? (If we 'saved' all the images initially, the text pages (that aren't already here!) could follow in due course. There would obviously be a considerable time-lag between the two where the images would be orphaned.)
  6. I presume there is no requirement for 'critical commentary' in the text (still don't really know what's expected!), as we're all a bit more relaxed here!

Naturally I am concerned to know the 'law' that must be enforced here since, as an admin, I'll be one of those expected to enforce it!

You will have seen the chaos that's erupted at WP over fair-use images. I've read some of the arguments and it was doing my head in. Faced with a mountain of work to do in negligible time I had resigned myself to 'go with the flow', and perhaps re-add images after the dust had settled and the practical policy had been worked through.

Having seen what has happened with the 'merchandise' pages, I suspect this move would increase the number of visitors to TSW still further, especially if we start providing external links to the images! (I presume we can get away with that at WP!)

I guess the answer to 'what next?' is to prepare the images for capture. Is it as simple as for the other pages? I mean, if you are given a category name, you can pull across the image pages, with the image data too? At present the book cover images are all in one category, which makes identification easy, but the screenshots are probably uncategorised, so that would need to be the focus of WP:THOMAS attention...

Sorry, lots of questions! But it's useful to know what we're up against before we start.

Regards EdJogg 12:23, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

I've reproduced your questions in order to answer them:

1. What sort of information do we have to provide? (sorry, haven't looked for help pages on this!)
The thing I like most about the FUR on Wikipedia is that it ought to be specific to each picture and ought to specify the article(s) an image may be used in. An example is here, and is fully "qualified" with what really shoudl be there for a good and unimpeachable FUR.
2. What is the essential information for each image?
Trains:Image copyright tags/Fair use should cover it. We've slimmed things down considerably compared with WP. If other, specific templlates are needed they can be incorporated
3. Do we need a unique FUR for each image? (I mean 'unique' apart from the filename and page(s) where used)
I see no issue with creating a template or other transcluded set of standard information
4. Any problems about using a template to assign the FUR?
No problems whatsoever
5. Any problems about having orphaned images here? (If we 'saved' all the images initially, the text pages (that aren't already here!) could follow in due course. There would obviously be a considerable time-lag between the two where the images would be orphaned.)
I suggest a holding page be created to refer to the orphaned images, but there is no current objection to having thme. Remember, I provide the service but users set the policies, so consensus may alter things
6. I presume there is no requirement for 'critical commentary' in the text (still don't really know what's expected!), as we're all a bit more relaxed here!
Desirability: yes, requirement:no. What is expected is really what any normal casual surfer would hope to see when visiting. Takes a bit of getting used to, doesn't it, being in at the start of something! The objective is to have as much relevant information as is desirable since this attracts search engine driven visits by newly interested visitors.

As for the ease of doing this, we have a bot which is capable of sucking all pages and sub-pages within a category or from a page. This also brings templates and much else, and sometimes leaves something behind. Life was ever thus! Bernd is the expert on this. He's the brains behind making it all work

Tim Trent 12:58, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the advice, Tim -- very helpful.

To start with I am adding the screenshot images to this category, while the book covers were added to this other category some time ago.

They are both supposed to be within the same parent category, but I haven't created that yet. It would be simpler at this stage if I did! (Watch this space.)

Cheers, EdJogg 16:26, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

A more controversial idea could be to migrate WP:THOMAS in its entirety to us here. That is a radical step, but you do appear to be under some sort of serendipitous pseudo-attack on WP, for reasons I cannot fathom. We're perfectly happy to become the home for "All things Thomas", but I can also see that this could devalue WP, a thing I do not want to do.
However, it is perfectly possible to make TSW an official interwiki link from WP and thus have the best of all outcomes. That requires (I presume) admin acceptance on WP, and I will stay neutral (not an admin there anyway) in any discussion about it there simply because I must be neutral as provider here. Tim Trent 07:48, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
I'm not sure that we need to transplant WP:THOMAS itself, as that is the project name. However, there is a significant appeal in copying across all of the pages cared for by the Project -- this is particularly appealing at present if this action would bring all the images with it. There is a lot of (TV series) Thomas information present on WP which is of doubtful encyclopaedic value, so this move could allow much of that to be cleared up (at the expense of it proliferating here!) This move would not devalue WP (would it devalue TSW though??) as the Project members could use the opportunity to rationalise the coverage, perhaps 'raising the bar' as to what would constitute a notable character in the series, and hence improve the quality (and survivability) of the WP articles.
As for the interwiki link...? I must plead ignorance here as I don't know what the benefits/ramifications might be. Since it would be beyond merely a 'Thomas' link, it would have a wider use for many rail articles. I would suggest Slambo would be a better bet for progressing this.
EdJogg 11:57, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
If you can gather it into sensible places then we can bring it here. There will be anomalies, but that's the luck of the draw.
Interwiki links are probably harder to organise. WP has to see a value inthe outbound link
With regard to devaluation, models are a hugely valid part of trains. he Thomas items are specialist models that happen to have stories with them. I see it as a simple matter of encouraging good editing, but with kindness, not the WP style stick.
We can make a Trains project Thomas if you like. I expect we'll have to work out how to do it, but it can;t be hard. Tim Trent 16:42, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Urgent action

Just spent an hour or two categorising all of the fair-use images that I can find. About 5 of the 99 were already marked for possible deletion due to lack of FUR. They have a 7-day grace period, which expires tomorrow!!

So, if you can please extract all the images from the two categories:

...it will give me a bit of breathing space to discuss what we do about 'everything else'. (It should be easy to find it all, as we have a page listing several hundred articles and redirects...)

Phew! -- EdJogg 20:04, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

We can do our best. Suggest most strongly that you grab the puictures in the most danger in parallel with us. The bot takes a finite time to run, WP limits it to a certain number per minute. Tim Trent 21:55, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
We have run into an obstacle. Definitely grab all the pictures in danger, please. Tim Trent 22:45, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
The five deletion-tagged images have been copied to my PC. Hopefully, now that I have edited all 140, I will be able to see if any others are tagged in the future...unless, of course, they just get deleted!
Have you fixed your problem yet??
EdJogg 13:04, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
Server physical problem is siolved. We will work on the other element tonight and tomorrow night to solve the file import issue. Wikipedia has changed its layout internally, and we now have to fight it again. Tim Trent 15:50, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
If you fancy trying to grab some files, we have a list...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Thomas/Article_List
This lists just about every single article and redirect that we can find! I've just finished adding the 'fair-use' images there. (Maps are still not listed.)
However, you may be better off trying to grab the category hierarchy of: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:The_Railway_Series, since that incorporates all of the TtTE&F pages too. Incidentally, since you have captured some of the pages already, what will happen? Will the existing pages be overwritten? (I think only the 'merchandise' page here is in any danger -- the other pages haven't been touched, to my knowledge.)
EdJogg 18:20, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
The challenge we have at present is a technical one. Broadly we think the layout of WP image pages has changed. The bot collection scrapes those pages to assemble the URL, and we have to discover a repeatable method of finding that scraping point. For the present keep watching the images. Welcome to upload each manually here in the interim period. WP often changes things and it takes Bernd a while to figure his way around the mess. This may be a few days of fighting the thing. Tim Trent 22:11, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
Any news? All of the book cover images have (quite rightly) just been tagged as "non-free orphans", and are likely to disappear soon. EdJogg 08:35, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
I have to confess that we are struggling. Weird how something that was once simple has now become complex. The joys of the wiki software are only joys for the end user. Grab the book covers while we continue to struggle Tim Trent 07:05, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
Well, someone by the name of 'Admin' has been busy syphoning Wikipedia... Discovered you can force a greater depth of Recent Changes by editing the parameter in the address bar...
Now the question that immediately springs to mind is 'now what?' Hopefully I can canvass some support from the fine people at the Sodor Island Forum to come and take over these pages! EdJogg 00:17, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
We (as Admin) trawled the category you posted above. We have to check that it ran to normal end of job, but it looks promising. One major thing is to get the Fair Use Rationale right, but we can be more relaxed about this. We are exactly as hot on copyright here as Wikipedia is, but we believe that there is somewhat more time available to get this right than they do, and thus are not so draconian.
One thing you might want to do is to create any relevant FUR template you feel the fair use items will need (though we have quite a selection already).
As far as completeness is concerned, we'll check and grab whataver we perceive to be missing from the category (we don't do this page by page, we look at progress down our list of pages), and force the rest in. We looked at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Thomas/Article_List and decided that the category was far easier. We'd rather not try to handle that link unless you think it essential. Tim Trent 06:34, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
We have normal EOJ. But we have no real idea if we grabbed everything you needed or expected. I fear that mans you will need to spend a little time checking. Tim Trent 09:08, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
Thank you. I've seen lots that I recognize, and quite a lot (mainly TUGS-related) that I don't. I'll start by taking a trundle around looking for missing content, creating categories (which will make it easier to see what's here), and copying any missing templates. I think you got an awful lot of 'goodies' (eg templates) as a result of this capture, but we'll have to check they all look OK. EdJogg 09:13, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

TUGS articles

The recent 'Thomas' rescue has captured many TUGS-related files.EdJogg 09:13, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm kind of ambivalent about TUGS. They are certainly not trains, and if they go I will not weep. We pulled them in because "they were there", but I think a decision needs to be made about them. Tim Trent 11:58, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
The association between TUGS and TtTE&F is that the same production company made both programmes. (Oh, and models from the short-lived TUGS later appeared as set dressing in TtTE&F!) Frankly, no they don't belong here, and I don't mind if you wish to remove them again. If you have any doubts over particular articles/pictures then let me know and I'll see if I can help (although you'll probably be able to see them at WP too!)
EdJogg 14:06, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Thomas capture - partial success

I've had a quick look and most of the images have been captured. However, only half of the 40+ files in Category:The Railway Series book covers have been caught, and 85 of the ~100 Category:Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends images have been saved. I suspect the book covers were missed because they had already been deleted from the relevant article. (Can't explain the missing screenshots though). As these are the urgent ones to save, if you could run your bot on the matching WP categories then we'll catch the missing files. (If you need the actual file names then you can cut-and-paste them from the article list.

Also missing:

EdJogg 16:24, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

We'll look tonight :) Nothing with mediawiki ever goes easily Tim Trent 16:26, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
OK, we have reloaded the pictures from those categories., A couple of oddities:
  • there are 9 pictures "in the wild" like Image:Toby.jpg with no category, but they have definitely uploaded. No idea why they have no category. Mediawiki is amusing(!) at times
  • Image:'s_New_Coaches.jpg is obviously missing the word "Emily". We can't solve that, and pictures can't be "moved". Perhaps a redirect would work? I have no idea. It's aggravating and another enjoyable foible of mediawiki.
If you can verify the lists and let me know any shortfall, we'll pick that up as soon as we can Tim Trent 22:45, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
We've got all forty book covers, which was the urgent matter, and means that I can effectively forget about them at WP (I don't think we can justify a FUR there, but I might give it a go). I'll have a look at the others at lunchtime. Is there a tool that lists uncategorised pages/images so I can identify the '9' quickly?
I think there are some more pages to grab, there's one for the videos which I have ignored at WP so far (with about 20 DVD covers on it!) plus some more merchandise pages that were created after we grabbed the first lot...
Thanks again for your help. EdJogg 08:45, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
I had no idea about the tool, but here it is: http://train.spottingworld.com/Special:Uncategorizedimages It's more at macro than micor level, but it will serve. There do seem to be "most things" available, but finding them is sometimes tricky. Tim Trent 09:38, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
Just let me know about any stray pages Tim Trent 09:38, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Infoboxes, Naviboxes and other captured templates

Hi Tim. The R&ER article is highlighting a big problem with pages copied from WP. Many have useful (and complicated!) templates, and most seem to be not working. The R&ER page has at least two, {{Heritage Railway}} at the top and {{Heritage railways in England}} at the bottom.

These seem to use various arcane techniques which rely on definitions hidden 'somewhere'. As you can tell, I really don't understand how they work, but it would be really good if the mssing definitions, style sheets, mediawiki stuff, or whatever, could be copied here to sort them all out.

Cheers EdJogg 16:34, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

We've been peering hard at those for ages. Every so often we find one of the wretched things and that problem goes away. I tried playing with {{Heritage railways in England}} and think a rewrite might be the simplest. Wiki template writers seem to love arcane coding
If anyone (hint) comes uop with a list of what else to copy we have no issue except technically at times with copying it. Tim Trent 16:39, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
The logical place to start is here. However there is great scope for making a real mess unless very careful, selective and knowledgeable. Obviously we can import the right css classes into our own location, but we need to do it well. I'm not a css expert at all I fear. Tim Trent 15:18, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Just to set the record straight -- I know nothing about css classes! However, having looked at that page I do recognise a number of the special types that we are missing (infoboxes and the like). Getting hold of them would be a very good idea. EdJogg 17:49, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't suppose Slambo is an expert here? One solid expert is better than two well intentioned explorers. Tim Trent 21:44, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Admin categories etc

Hi Tim. You'll see I have created a whole heap of admin categories, related to templates and the like. I'm afraid it was a bit of a scatter-gun approach as I was trying do other things at the same time, and usually involved having multiple edit windows open on both Wikis.

I am sure there are many more admin categories and templates to configure, to match the WP structure, so please don't hesitate to dive in!

Incidentally, it is possible to redirect a template, so you will see that there is a WP template added which is a redirect to the TrainspottingWorld equivalent. It seems to work and means that we don't have to be so careful when importing stuff. (A quick look at the 'What links here' on the redirect page will show which pages need updating.)

Cheers. EdJogg 15:11, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

I watched as they mushroomed! More power to your elbow. I often have mini-blitzes too Tim Trent 15:42, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

'Yes check.svg Done' and other templates

Hi. You'll have noticed the arrival of {{Done}} and associated stuff.

In passing I noticed that {{Pp-semi-protected}} doesn't display the image correctly. On closer inspection it would seem that it is using '<imagemap>', which is presumably missing. Is this something that you can look at?

Also, you'll see I added Image:Template-info.svg, but it doesn't display. Any ideas? (Image:Yes check.svg is also an SVG file, but that works...)

EdJogg 11:23, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Bernd's going to look at the technical bits. I can't do those :). Will probably be the weekend.
Tim Trent 16:37, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Devon Belle Observation Coach

Don't suppose you got a pic of the Devon Belle Observation Coach while you were at Paignton? I need one for the WP article... :o)

EdJogg 11:23, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

I saw the Devon Belle, but it was high on the viaduct and unphotographable. Too far away and against the sun.
Tim Trent 16:37, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

I've visited the railway, several times, the most recent a few years back, and I probably rode in it then! I may well have some print photos (do we call them 'analogue'?) of the coach, but they'll be tucked away safely in my chest of drawers, alongside several thousand other prints...

EdJogg 19:42, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Dalek X

I'm glad I can be of service. I've been a "Thomas/Railway Series" fan for many years and hope that I can help to clean up the Train Spotting pages a bit. Thanks for letting me join Train Spotting World!

Thanks again! --Dalek X 01:09, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Flying Scotsman

Tim, I'm going to write a page for LNER No. 4472 "Flying Scotsman". Is there any way that I could put up a picture on the page I'm going to make and not be accused of copyright infringement? Thanks! --Dalek X 21:15, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

The best way is to have a public domain picture. Is there not a page for it already, btw? Ah no. Flying Scotsman says not. If there is a suitable pic on Wikipedia or on Commons you can take it from there, and attribute it. WP uses {{From Wikipedia}} on the talk page. With Commons there must be a way of inserting the pic directly, but we haven;t found it yet
You can, if you like, copy and paste all of the WP Page provided you attribute it on the talk page. Or obviously you can create your own page.
Really it's "over to you" for the route you take Tim Trent 21:23, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
Thanks, Tim!
If you grab the WP article, DO also edit it to make it your own. Add relevant maps if you can to the picture locations, all that sort of thing. the Google Maps embedding is amazing. Embed a video if you can find one, too Tim Trent 22:12, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
I'm having trouble trying to get a pic of "Flying Scotsman" on the page I made. Could you help me, please? Thanks!
There were two errors. 1 was the WP filename had typos in it, the other was "yhumb" instead of "thumb" So the first pic is fine nowTim Trent 06:59, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

{{LargeCategoryTOC}}

Hi. More maintenance work...

I wanted to add this template to Category:GFDL images, as that will be very large, but it is screwing the page up. You know a little more than I do about such things, so could you take a look please? Currently it is commented-out in Category:GFDL images, to avoid stuffing that page too!

EdJogg 13:33, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

It's definitely the LargeCategoryTOC that is broken. I'm a little lost with it. It seems to transclude itself. I'm on a very unreliable link so can't play easily. It may be solved with a sprinkling of <br />s here and there? Care to have a crack at it? Tim Trent 14:12, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
Actually, it was dead-easy. The middle <div> needed to be a </div>, to close the top section. Given that it is a straight copy from WP, goodness knows why it doesn't break there too...
And it works! A very useful feature.
EdJogg 14:33, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
A lot of stuff at WP is totally broken. Mediawiki software truly is rubbish. Congrats on solution! Tim Trent 14:54, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Just a question...

Hi Tim, Further to our off TSW/WP chat, could I possibly become an admin? If I'm going to concentrate on trams and all that, I just thought it might be useful, what with if it splits, and also for when we get that massive increase in members, and we need more admins. Just a suggestion. Please just say no if you don;t want to and that's fine! :D! Bluegoblin7 16:43, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't see any issue with that at all. You'll see a few more things in tabs that you can do. It's just a case of acting sensibly and accountably Tim Trent 17:57, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
Thanks! Don't worry, I won't be stupid! Also, do you have anything similar to WikiProjects here? Bluegoblin7 19:10, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
I think it is just a matter of setting the namespace up and choosing what to call it. There is nothing so far that is similar, but that is only because no-one has requested it. Probably worth keeping it short like "Project". Frankly we only add things like this when there is a demand. So, if there is a demand, then we can create it, once we work out how! Tim Trent 22:47, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
Ah, it seems that "Project" is a reserved name. So something else is required. Tim Trent 22:51, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Humour?

The article London Underground trivia is up for its fourth AfD at WP. I 'rescued' it here some weeks back, and just now I started thinking about its categories. From one direction, it is in the 'London Underground' cat, which is fine, but should it be in some 'light-hearted' cat too?

Do you think we dare create a main category for 'humour'? Is it appropriate at TSW? What should we call it?

Thoughts welcome. EdJogg 20:07, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Absolutely! Well, why not "humour" with (oh the irony) "humor" redirecting to it? Subcategories can come whenever the muse strikes Tim Trent 23:47, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

User: 90.241.49.191

Tim, As you probably already know, I've been trying to clean up the "Thomas the Tank Engine" pages here. I've noticed recently that a lot of spam edits have been made by the unregistered user: 90.241.49.191. I was wondering if you could possibly block this user from editing for a while? Thank you. --Dalek X 21:55, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

I think you have it in your power to do that too :) I suggest you warn, then rewarn, then block for a day, then 2 days then 4 days etc. Tim Trent 21:57, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
I've slammed a warning in place. Over to you. Tim Trent 22:06, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
How do you mean over to me? I though only admins had the power to slap on warnings or block people? If it is possible, how do I do it? Thanks! --Dalek X 14:35, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
My mind was elsewhere :) Something that happens at times I fear. Ok the guy is warned. Do I need to block him? Tim Trent 20:10, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
Not yet. I'll keep you posted, though. --Dalek X 22:36, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
Sorry to bother you Tim, but I'm afrad that unreg'd user 90.241.49.191 needs to have a 24-hour block placed on him. As just a regular user, I am not able to do this, so I would aprreciate it if you or one of the mods could do this, please. Thanks! --Dalek X 18:00, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
No worries. Actually we no longer need to. We had a rash of vandalism and we've blocked ALL IP anonymous users. A little historical stuff will have to be excised, but we're running on "username only" from now on. Tim Trent 18:12, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
D'you mean that NONE of the unreg'd users will be able to edit anymore?! If so, That's pretty cool since there won't be as much vandilism any more. --Dalek X 18:15, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
None. Log out and try to edit an article! We came under serious, possibly automated, attack. Bernd and I look at bots to revert vandalism, but they require facilities we are banned from using in our data centre, so we decided to lock the wiki down. A side effect is a short term drop in visitors, but the benefit is that we are now reasonably tight against vandalism. Downside is we may miss a few editors, but we are sure it's the way to go
We want a wiki that's good to use, not one where a team of people has to patrol pages for rubbish. The hobby here is rail, not wiki editing :) Tim Trent 18:45, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Page and feature request

first the page request: could the WPpage "Talent (train)" be copied here? I might start a project on the "Niederbarnimer Eisenbahn AG (NEB)" and the related "Heidekrautbahn" with the museum trains of the Berliner Eisenbahnfreunde e.V. being the initial interest. See the german WP articles for more info on the NEB and Heidekrautbahn. Actually I'd love to have the "Lübeck-Büchener Eisenbahn" (LBE) in here as I used the coaches of the "Doppelstock-Stromlinien-Wendezug der LBE" as a kid :-) Someone would have to translate the german WP pages first though and allthough my english may be good enough for normal text I do find specialized themes a lot harder to translate.

Now the feature request: or maybe just a question of were do I find things. Is there a central portal page? A place were all portals or projects are listed and maybe sorted? I had a look at the category list and find it difficult to navigate. Could there be a link page with just numbers and letters to refine the category search? A page with the categories sorted by themes or a basic category tree might also be of interest. If these things exist maybe they should be linked more prominent. --T.woelk 08:20, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Great ideas. When we copy thinsg we tend to run into technical challenges, but everything allows oyu to copy the WP pages that you want to have here yourself. Just place {{From Wikipedia}} with the WP page name as the parameter onto the new article's talk page. I don't think we have any translators here yet. I wonder what would happen is we used twin columns with English in one and German in the other? Would you like to experiment? You see our rules here are what you early users make them.
We have not yet created anything except a master category list and a template {{maincats}} for master categories to be inserted on the homepage and master category pages. EdJogg has started sorting these out, as did Slambo before hsi other commitments overtook him. Special:CategoryTree may be of some help here. Wikimedia software is not very good at hierarchical categorisations I fear.
Now, '"we" have not done something' is great news. It means that you have a free hand to try ideas out without getting shot down in flames by people who think they know best. Have a go, please, and see what you come up with. Tim Trent 15:47, 19 September 2007 (UTC) (was not logged in previously)
Talent (train) exists now. But I am leavng you to copy the pictures you want. Tim Trent 23:00, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Re: Deploying Cluebot in another wiki

Well, there are a few things that ClueBot requires in order to function:

  1. An RC feed like the one here.
  2. api.php, it looks like you already have this one.
  3. query.php, it looks like you don't have this one.
  4. A server, I can provide this.

-- Cobi(t|c|b|cn) 07:49, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Cobi.
  • I imagine we can use our own server? Or does it need to be separate?
  • The IRC channel. I guess we can create one. We don't (yet) use IRC. Is that a gating factor?
Ah, I start to see what IRC is used for. Isn't that rather archaic? Surely one can use RSS of recent changes coupled with database queries?
  • query.php I am sure we can deploy
Sorry to keep having more questions. Tim Trent 15:30, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
IRC is real time. It lets the bot see what is happening *when* it is happening. RSS means the bot will have to *ask* the server for new changes every x minutes. Api.php's RC function is the same as an RSS feed. But, IRC is a broadcast medium. The server sends a message each time there is a change instead of ClueBot having to ask for the changes. -- Cobi(t|c|b|cn) 19:15, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
That makes perfect sense. The challenge is that most commercial datacenters have client contracts which prohibit IRC specifically, though woudl not object to a frequent RSS file pull. Tim Trent 20:14, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

'Hidden' templates

Hi. You'll have seen I've had a play around with these.

{{Hidden}} appears to work now. Looking at the edit history for the WP original, a very similar bug was occurring at the beginning of 2007 (page opened with content hidden but saying 'hide'). I have imported ('nicked'!) the latest verion and this seems to work OK.

As far as I can see, {{hidden begin}} and {{hidden end}} have exactly the same content as their WP counterparts (apart from WP->TSW cat changes, etc). You'll see I had to tweak them slightly to make them display properly here, but they still do not seem to work.

There appears to be a real issue with the basic page layout if the page content is off-kilter. For example, the {{hidden end}} had various (previously seen) issues, including tiny font size. I recognised this as a 'hanging <div>' issue, and changing the include status fixed this. I also tweaked the syntax on one of the doc screens to fix the display. It is as though there is something 'missing' (or 'extra') on the basic screen layout which is interacting with these other minor problems to cause a major display change.

Perhaps you can use the newer form for your application? Otherwise you'll need to do a little deeper debug yourself.

EdJogg 10:38, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

I wished I hadn't imported them. Those WP editors get carried away with arcane templating instead of good article edits.  :) Tim Trent 11:30, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
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