User talk:Karl Wick/Archive 1

The document I wrote was designed to supplement a particular physics textbook, and moreover, was written at a high school level. I don't know how well it could be adapted to this project, but I will see what I can do. Unfortunately, I am slightly burdened by (a) a summer class from 8:30AM to 5:00PM, and (b) summer reading, and most of my free time is going to the calculus textbook.

I am glad to see that you are doing organic chemistry -- I really like chemistry, but my chemistry class never made it to the chapter on organic chemistry, so this is a good oppurtunity for me to learn more about it. -- IntMan

I've changed some of your book title capitalizations. It seems to me that these are not Wikipedia articles. If we'd expect any of these to stand alone as a publication, then we ought to capitalize titles. OK? ....LouI 11:50 26 Jul 2003 (UTC)


 * Yeah - books and chapters are capitalized a lot. --Maveric149 12:08 26 Jul 2003 (UTC)


 * OK -- Karl Wick 15:01 26 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Karl, would you please delete Textbook developement process. My inability to spell is recorded in page history (I moved the page). We don't need a redirect page as additional proof. :). ... Thanks, LouI 20:24 27 Jul 2003 (UTC)
 * Done - (I am personally one of the worlds worst spellers). Karl Wick 22:59 27 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Hi Karl, thanks for your excitement about the Spanish book. I am _very_ glad to got you as a bilingual speaker interested (I am actually just starting to learn Spanish by my own and took the recommendation by heart that encourages not just teachers but also students of any subject to write Wikibooks :). Your organic chemistry book is nicely structured, I'll certainly browse through it every once in a while to track the progress (maybe even contribute some stuff, though my organic chemistry is a little bit rusty since I had it in my German high school about six years ago...)
 * Thats great man. Just to make sure, you are not copying anything directly from a published Spanish textbook right ? We have to be careful to create new content only. I will certainly lend a hand in the Spanish book and best of luck learning the language. You must already speak German then .. any other languages ? --Karl Wick


 * Hi Karl, I really appreciate your nice comments about the Spanish book. That really keeps me motivated. About other languages: I had French in high school for a couple of years but haven't used it since... Thomas

Please delete that page, The Empires. I made it by mistake. LittleDan 14:02 7 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Hi Karl. Yes, the succinct contents page looks good. I think it will be especially convenient for frequent users of the book to quickly check on certain vocabulary/grammar. Thomas

Me again :) Your table of contents are definitely very helpful. I also really appreciate that it is now possible to edit just a part of a document (was this a general update of the wiki software running here?). Your pictures are nice, they should make the book more fun to read. Thomas P.S. You should consider yourself as well to be one of the 'founders' of the Spanish/language textbooks with all the effort you have put it. Thanks so much for that! - Answer to your comment in the talks Wintermute page.

Karl, thanks to you by the project. I like it a lot. My first language is spanish.

Wintermute 22:02, 12 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Thanks for updating Main page, it looks better. As good news and bad news, we may soon need to stop listing all the books or go to a more compressed or framed page like Wikipedia uses. ...LouI 19:17, 13 Aug 2003 (UTC)


 * If we have too many books to list easily I take that as AWESOME news. --Karl Wick

--- Hey Karl. What is the copyright status of Image:Novios.jpg? And even if the copyright status is OK, we also need permission from the people photographed that we can use their likeness here. Only celebrities don't have this right. --mav 01:12, 17 Aug 2003 (UTC)


 * Hey Mav, I took the photo myself of a couple of friends, and am sure that they will have no problem with us using it but can talk to them about it to make sure. --Karl Wick

k:"A poco hablas el espanol ... yo estuve viviendo en Mexico por unos anos, en DF .. me encanto, todavia estaria alla si huberia encontrado otro trabajo. Me encantan las chicas latinas y en general toda la cultura latina. De donde eres ? Latinoamerica o Espana o otro lugar ?"

w: Espana

k: Entonces vas a poder corregir el mal espanol que ponemos en el libro de Spanish (por favor !)

w: I will try..

Where k = Karl

and  w = Wintermute 21:38, 17 Aug 2003 (UTC) -- Karl, If you by any chance intend to do a mass import of Shakespeare plays into Wikibooks please take a look at http://metalab.unc.edu/xml/examples/shakespeare/. It is a repository of Shakespeare in XML that with a small quick script can convert all Shakespeare to Wikipedia markup. --Kpjas 06:50, 27 Aug 2003 (UTC)


 * Thanks man, I couldn't get it to run in my MS browser on Mac 9.x but will check it out when I am on another machine. --Karl Wick
 * I don't know if you are familliar with XML. This is file format of tagged text and the real benefit is that it is machine-readable data and there is plethora of scripts, libraries and programs that can extract or transform the textual information any way you wish. It is not very exciting to view in a browser but with a rather simple script you can convert all Shakespeare plays into for example Wikipedia markup in a matter of minutes. --Kpjas 22:14, 27 Aug 2003 (UTC)


 * Wow that sounds real cool .. is there a script already written or would someone have to write it ? All I know about XML is what I glean from science mags, I've not used it .. --Karl Wick

I'm glad you like my diagrams. I intend to add loads more as time goes on.I love this project and will be dividing my spare time unequally between here and wikipedia from now on. Theresa knott 15:21, 29 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Thanks for the Main Page praise, but I only made a little fix toUser::Geoffrey's table, he did all the work. --Magnus Manske

Image:Sp3.jpg made me smile. It's bloody brilliant! Theresa knott 17:41, 1 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Karl when you upload a new version of an old image, you should do so with the same file name. That way the image is updated on all the pages it's linked to without any further effort on you part, plus you don't get orphan images. You don't lose the old image either, it's there on the description page, so you can just revert if you want to. Theresa knott 21:28, 4 Sep 2003 (UTC)


 * Oh .. yeah .. thanks. -- Karl Wick

You've probably seen this before, but if not- enjoy!Theresa knott http://www.bris.ac.uk/Depts/Chemistry/MOTM/silly/sillymols.htm

Hi,

About adding the rest of Othello. I have hacked up a small Perl script to turn XML into Wiki markup and it was quite easy. I am a little hesitant to add more because I don't know if minor glitches (like some capitalisations or some text escaping wikification) are acceptable and if the problems with annotations have been resolved yet. Please give me a go-ahead and blessing and I can add all Shakespeare plays at the rate of 2-3 a day. The script is not very brilliant and surely can be still improved. Even amateurs have sometimes to have a go at coding to get things done. Kpjas 00:00, 10 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Sorry, dude, accidentally rev'd your sp3 image...I think I fixed it but y'all might want to check. I'm new to the whole 'wiki' thing. :)

BTW, sweet image, takes me back to chem class just looking at it.


 * Etothex 05:04, 10 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I can see you are having fun (re: Botany Study Guide) ;^) Changes look good INMHO. - Marshman 19:11, 10 Sep 2003 (UTC)


 * Thanks Marshman, at your humble service. --Karl Wick


 * Don't you love what can be accomplished when people collaborate? -- Marshman

Thanks for pointing out me error in wording for covalent bonding. What I actually said was not what I meant at all, I have fixed it now {Hopefully} Theresa knott 20:23, 11 Sep 2003 (UTC)

The Shakespeare plays
Sure I will put a long string of Shakespeare plays on Wikibooks. Romeo and Julliet is in the pipeline. Wikimedia servers were rather slow in the past few days. I have been thinking and wondering - what about navigation through scenes and acts. What about annotations - has anything been decided yet ? BTW did you know that Polish transliteration of the name "Shakespeare" is "Szekspir". Kpjas 21:44, 11 Sep 2003 (UTC)


 * Huh ... About navigations, that would be great if we could do that automatically, to at least have a link back to the contents page of the play and to the next and previous scenes. Magnus I think was writing up some code to allow for annotatios but I'm guessing it has to be approved before it is added to the official Wiki software update. That will be a great feature for the shakesperean plays as well as my textbooks .. --Karl Wick

Thanks for welcoming me back, Karl :) I really enjoy being part of the Wikibooks community -- Thomas

Botany page
Karl. When you were setting up the separate pages for the Botany Guide, one of them got misspelled (Introducion instead of Introduction) I do not have status to correct this. Can you? Thanks! - Marsh 00:56, 20 Sep 2003 (UTC)


 * Oops ! Sorry about that Marshman. I kent spell reel good, even when it counts. But its correctid now. --Karl Wick

Thanks for thinking about making me an administrator. I would definitely be interested in doing that - Thomas

- What? Where was the discussion about a logo change? Staff_lounge is much better concept, IMO. For one thing it has more than one book. --mav 08:59, 24 Sep 2003 (UTC)

You've already nominated me for adminship here Requests for adminship I think that no developer has got around to doing it yet though :-(

Can you take a look at Image:Microscope diagram 1.png and Image:Microscope diagram.png for me please. I tried to copy them from wikipedia and it just won't upload properly. I can't see what I am doing wrong. Theresa knott 17:05, 24 Sep 2003 (UTC)
 * (later) actually "microscope diagram 1" is fine. I just need you to delete "microscope diagram" for me. I think I must have "saved target" rather than "save picture" when I copied it. Theresa knott 17:25, 24 Sep 2003 (UTC)

- Hey Karl, is there a reason why you are ignoring my logo question? --mav


 * I didn't realize you had a question. What is it? --Karl Wick
 * Oh, you must mean, discussion about the logo change. Well, I think hands-down the one I have up there now is better than the old one. I have no problem with getting rid of it when we have a better one... I personally my current one better than the one on the staff lounge but if "the people" have another opinion the community decides. However I hope our new logo will be nicer-looking than the one they just chose for the Wikipedia, which I think is a step down from the previous one. --Karl Wick

- To Karl Wick, Greeting.

My book on the Constitution and Government appears to be complete (for the time being.) Do you know of any related topics about which persons might be curious? Lord Emsworth


 * Lord Emsworth, Dude, you rock !! You have the notoriety of having the very first "finished" Wikibook. I'll look it over and keep my eyes open to learn a lot about it. Let me get back to you about related topics .. the government and political processes are not my strength. Are you a history buff ? Social sciences wizard ? You seem to work a lot faster than I do, or maybe know your material a lot better. I am going to send out an email announcing your accomplishment. --Karl Wick

Hi,

Concerning annotation. I think you as a respected figure behind the whole idea of Wikibooks should alert developers and other good people that we need annotation badly. Without it, it hardly makes sense to flood Wikibooks pages with streams of words fine crafted by Shakespeare. Another thing. While Wikipedia is lovable for its content and since it is our encyclopedia it can stand against other commercial encyclopedias (and win in the end) even without all the glamour of multimedia, I am not so sure as far as wiki textbooks go. I wish we had some software power that we could eventually use and we don't even have table wiki markup. To instruct with streams of printed words only would be enough. To assess progress of students even without Javascript capabilities ? Brainstorm... in wikitech-l ? Regards, Kpjas 20:11, 30 Sep 2003 (UTC)


 * Kpjas, I agree about getting some software backing us up. I would write some myself if I had any idea how. My hope is that with time and more content, we can attract more developer attention to the project. I have asked around about the annotation feature, and could use it myself. I'll be a bit more persistant now and see what I can get going. I think it will help when the contributions start flowing into the foundation, maybe we could hire somebody full time to write code. Although that seems like what Brion and some of these other guys do already ... --Karl Wick

- Good day.

I express my sincere thanks for adding navigational links to US Constitution and Government. I find your page on myself most intriguing, as well, especially the reference to a "borrowed internet browser." Lord Emsworth 21:59, 2 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Sorry, I entirely overlooked the first chapter of US History. My sincere apologies, Lord Emsworth 23:31, 4 Oct 2003 (UTC).

- Opps! The tag is not _NOTOC_. --mav


 * Got it. Thanks, Mav. --Karl Wick

-- Good day.

Your message regarding the official California Standards interests me. I will definitely look into them and see how well they can be applied to the present textbook on US History.

It appears that the standards can be best approached as follows: Writing the book according to present structure for the time being, but then conducting a complete revision of the book based on California's standards. The standards are very exhaustive while the book as present does not go into as much detail. Lord Emsworth 22:39, 10 Oct 2003 (UTC)


 * Lord Emsworth: if you can write a book that meets the standards, you will singlehandedly put Wikibooks on the map. Well, its always a team thing I guess .. but you know what I mean. --Karl Wick

I'm sorry, I can't find your username on the main wikipedia. I just got your email, and I'd like to know, exactly what unconstructive email are you refering to? I try to consider whether or not my emails are constructive, and often, I don't send an email because I realise that it's not constructive. LittleDan 22:11, 11 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Karl Wick,

I have no particular expertise in history. I am just intersted in the topic. I know bits and pieces of information, and what I don't know, I merely look up. --Lord Emsworth 22:52, 11 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Smart quotes
Hi :) Just a little thing, do you think using smartquotes is the best thing to use? They won't show up with non-unicode-supporting browsers/fonts. Would it be best to stick to the Wikip' smartquote policy? Dysprosia 08:07, 12 Oct 2003 (UTC)


 * Hi Dysprosia, I'm probably not the best person to know the answer to this question. I didn't know that there were browsers that did not support them, or that WP had a policy about it. You mean quotes like the one on my organic chemistry splash page? M$IE, Netscape family, and Konquerer all support them right ? &quot; --Karl Wick


 * Yep, on the splash page is where I saw it - as far as I know IE, Moz, Firebird all show it, not sure about Konq. The real issue is people trying to view the pages on something old like a pre-OS X Macintosh, or on many older browsers that don't support Unicode/all the little HTML doodads :)
 * Maybe it would be best to switch to straight-quotes, a whole less trouble all round. Some educational institutions may be using older software.
 * As to WP's stance, you can see on en:Wikipedia:Special characters. Dysprosia 22:29, 14 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Annotation feature
Hi Karl, the annotation feature (well, parts of it) were deleted by accident. I'll try to get it back and working soon. --Magnus Manske 17:07, 21 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Hi Karl. I'm glad you missed me. I've been off work for a couple of weeks for the half term holiday. I stayed at my sister's [doesn't own a computer :-( ], but not to worry I'm back now. (refreshed after my break and ready to go).

Thanks for the quiz maker link, but it uses javascript :-( [which isn't parsed by the wiki software) I'll keep it in mind for the future though. Theresa knott

Hi Karl. I (sort of) finished my draft of the first biochemistry chapter and noticed that (unsurprisingly) it shares quite a few items with Organic Chemistry, e.g. Gibb's free enrgy, pKa values etc. I think these are more OC than BC, so if you like anything in my text, feel free to loot :-) --Magnus Manske 21:18, 16 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Karl, Thanks for the personalised welcome!! --Noldoaran 03:17, 21 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Hello, Karl. I was merely taking a temporary break from the site, concentrating on the main Wikipedia for a while. I shall soon return. Lord Emsworth 20:17, 22 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Thanks for the welcome; I'm afraid I might not have a lot of time to devote, but hopefully slow and steady will get the job done. :) - Hephaestos 06:01, 2 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Picture floating
making the text of an article float around the text is fairly easy. Instead of just typing in the image's address, use the following table.

 Caption

Obviously, change the float to where you want it on the page, left right or center, the Width:XXXpx to the image's width in pixels (I usually add 5-10 pixels to keep a border between the image and the text).

Hope this helps. :) Gentgeen 00:41, 9 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Don't worry too much about the languages thing - I always go to the Recent Changes page straight off. So it's no extra clickyclicky for me! r3m0t 08:40, 18 Jan 2004 (UTC)

You can cry on my sholder anytime. IMO the language thing will get sorted out in time. Meanwhile your work has not been lost. Theresa knott 08:22, 19 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Spirituality?
What's this new page you've made?
 * Just a little note to myself and for a couple of non-wiki-initiated friends .. but feel free to use it if you think it can serve you. --Karl Wick P.S. Thanks for the note, just when I started to wonder if anyone would write me ever again ..