User talk:Mike.lifeguard/Archive 12



Rollbacker status
After reading the policies I am still not sure what Rollbacker status quite is. Could you explain? Thanks, Laleena (talk) 22:50, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Rollback will allow you to revert the top edit of some user and all consecutive edits prior to that by the same user. As such, it's suited only to reverting clear vandalism. This can be done in other ways (Twinkle, or simply undoing the edits manually) but this method is faster for the user. Can you suggest how Wikibooks:Rollback could be improved to be more informative? – Mike.lifeguard  &#124; talk 23:11, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
 * It has a ton of just words, but it's too complex. Over at WP they have the "policy in a nutshell" feature which would make WB policies easier to understand, I think. While I'm at it, though, could you look over the entry for a VEI 9 that I put in over at Volcanoes? I found it in a book, ask questions if you need to. I'm beginning to satisfy myself with the state of Volcanoes but not totally :). Cheers, Laleena (talk) 00:25, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Well some of it isn't relevant to how the tool actually works - just the paragraph on rollback. In essence, all you need to know is that you can only use it for vandalism, and it will undo from the top revision all consecutive edits of a single user. – Mike.lifeguard  &#124; talk 15:41, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I fixed up Wikibooks:Rollback and Dealing with vandalism. They should be much more helpful now. – Mike.lifeguard  &#124; talk 00:21, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
 * It is clearer, yes, but there is still a lot of jargon in it. For example "contribs page" – I know immediately what you mean, but the term should be defined: "For each user there is a contributions page, accessible by..." Also, the admin-only section about bot marking should have an "admin-only" header of some sort to cut down the confusion. One other thing is that you say "in this case you should probably use the delete template" without adequately defining what the case is. The Rollback tool is pretty simple, so it doesn't require a huge write-up, and though I've used it only twice, I have a decent idea what it does. Chazz (talk) 17:38, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks, I'll make a point to go back and clarify those parts. – Mike.lifeguard  &#124; talk 17:48, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks
For fixing the NC on the Movie making manual. When I had the list down to 3 last year some time, that was one one the ones I dreaded looking at. While we're talking about Naming Convention I wanted to ask your opinion on the programming books. Techinally I don't think all of these break the Naming Convention. However I think that they shouldn't have a colon in their title, becuase we use this for namespaces such as wikijunior... I was wondering about proposing a change to the naming convention which says that colons are disallowed in titles. What do you think? --AdRiley (talk) 10:23, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Yeah, the programming books are on my list. I talked about them a while back (look in my archives) and we decided that instead of being Programming:Language/Chapter they should be Language Programming/Chapter. This is mostly because there is no single book "Programming" with sections on all these different languages - they're entirely separate books. You're right though, I don't think they technically violate it. I don't think we need a new policy proposal to deal with colons in the title; we can just change the title. As well, there may be books with titles like (making one up at random) "Terrorism: A scourge upon the Earth" where the colon is legal as it denotes that the 2nd part is a subtitle, not a chapter. – Mike.lifeguard  &#124; talk 15:38, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

yes...
i saw it. But the definition + the toc is actually a lot more than a lot of Wikiversity pages unfortunately. So in that sense, it might not be bad on Wikiversity and then geared more towards Wikiversity's mission. --Remi (talk) 17:22, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Fair enough. Let us know if/when you have it transwikied please. – Mike.lifeguard  &#124; talk 19:57, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Re:Advanced Interactive Media Class
I already sent the email, so I don't think you need to send another one quite yet. Either way, I don't think we need to delete this book, and we likely should undelete the Future Media Class book as well (so we can reformat it properly).

This just goes to show that the differences between WB and WV can be vanishingly small, and sometimes the only difference is the way in which the material is titled.

I'm too busy to go into a mad day-long editing frenzy on this book (I wish I could, because my wiki muscle needs the exercise), but I will try to help out a little bit here and there when I can spare the time. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 16:08, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
 * heh. Too late; me too. I think a rename is in order for both books. I've already started a VFU for Future Media Class, as both were intended to be textbooks. It's just that the students went of the rails a bit, and the teacher wasn't watching. This is unfortunate; perhaps we should do more to encourage class projects to a) let us know they're out there, b) plan things out better and c) ask for help from the community. /me thinks about such things for a while. – Mike.lifeguard  &#124; talk 16:14, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

help with copyright
Hi Mike,

I am a new user although the class I am now teaching has been writing Wikibooks for some time (ECI 301 at Old Dominion University). I followed the information provideed on the website for getting permission to use the image I posted. It doesn't list what type of license they are operating under, but I did email the author to try and find out.

Here's the info from the website:http://www.phdcomics.com/about.htm

Maybe you'd be able to advise me.

Can I use one of your comics in my thesis/defense/website or graduate student newsletter? We'll be happy to grant you permission, but you MUST e-mail us at questions(at)phdcomics.com to let us know how and which strips you are using (by sending this email, you obtain official permission to use the images). In all cases, the strips must have the following text printed next to them:

"Piled Higher and Deeper" by Jorge Cham www.phdcomics.com —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Jenniferjkidd (talk • contribs) 21:50, January 29, 2008.
 * Unfortunately licensing like "used with permission" is not permitted here. If you can get the image re-licensed under a free license, then you can use it here. Your other option is to claim fair use (see WB:MEDIA for how to do this), though this is strongly discouraged. – Mike.lifeguard  &#124; <font color="Indigo">talk 22:26, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I have posted a sample Wiki article for my students to use as a sample and from which they can borrow code for the articles they will write over the next three weeks. In my sample article, I have included this image which I am "using with permission". I have already stated in my sample article that I will remove it once the students have finished their final articles and it will not become part of the official text book. This seems to me like a decent rationale for fair use - using it temporarily for the education of students. Can I claim fair use and keep the image until my students have finished creating their articles? Jenniferjkidd (talk) 03:27, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
 * That is absolutely not a valid rationale for fair use, but I can't delete the image on those grounds for seven days after upload, which means you'll probably get away with it. If this module is an example for your students to follow, I can only envision the headache when they all start uploading images which aren't allowed on Wikibooks. Please replace the image with a freely-licensed one. Commons is a huge repository of freely-licensed images, and flikr allows you to search for images licensed under CreativeCommons licenses (no-derivatives and non-commercial are not permitted!); there is no shortage of freely-licensed images to use. Please set a good example for your students and show them how to use images properly. – <font color="Indigo">Mike.lifeguard  &#124; <font color="Indigo">talk 03:44, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks for working with me on this issue. Help me to understand why this would not be a rationale for fair use. I have been presenting information on my class related to copyright and fair use i.e. I am trying to do the right thing. I want to be sure I understand the laws/regulations in addition to abiding by them.Jenniferjkidd (talk) 18:23, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Fair use elsewhere might be permitted, but Wikibooks has rules which restrict fair use for this website. Our requirements are similar to that of Wikipedia, and are enumerated at WB:MEDIA. I think this image falls short on points 1 ("Free license or public domain alternatives aren't available") and 5 ("Deleting a non-free media file would render a book unusable"). There are plenty of other single-panel comics that you could use, and that page could survive without any image there. If you want something very similar, I suggest you search flikr; Commons is unlikely to have a suitable replacement. Alternatively, you can ask the community at Commons to create a replacement. There's no reason that some artist couldn't create a comic to replace the one you've chosen. Since that page is an example, just about any image would serve the same purpose there, and again, no image whatsoever wouldn't render the example unusable. – <font color="Indigo">Mike.lifeguard  &#124; <font color="Indigo">talk 03:44, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I see you've visited the page where my illegal picture is shown. I have two sections of a course contributing to this Wikibook. I showed one group my sample page on Friday and the other will see it tomorrow. So far, my mistake is serving as an example of what not to do and in that case may be more powerful that a correct example. So, the fact that this happened has turned into a good teachable moment for my students. I will let the image get deleted as scheduled and this will provide yet another good example of the repercussions of choosing an image which is not public domain or free license.


 * Can you explain your other point? I should tell students to use Wiki markup instead of html? I tried searching for Wiki codes and had much less success. Html codes seem to work fine. Are there cases when it doesn't? Is there a repository of wiki markup codes and tutorials somewhere?Jenniferjkidd (talk) 05:31, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

outdent Wikimarkup is generally easier to learn, and more flexible than html; that's why we use it. Much html will work as expected, but there are some things which won't. Documentation is at Help:Editing Help:Editing FAQ and How to edit a page. – <font color="Indigo">Mike.lifeguard  &#124; <font color="Indigo">talk 23:34, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Wikijunior, Volcanoes, and Earthquakes
Think you would be interested in keeping the work going on these Wikibooks projects? Hope you will, they need to go up the scale... Laleena (talk) 00:17, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I do have one Wikijunior book on the go. I haven't edited it much, but I do plan to finish it eventually.
 * As for Volcanoes and Earthquakes, I can certainly help with organization, proofreading and the like, but I'm not in a position to be contributing much content for quite some time. – <font color="Indigo">Mike.lifeguard  &#124; <font color="Indigo">talk 00:25, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Not justified block
This is not promotional. You are in grave error. This is reminder of OBSOLETE and VINTAGE Commodore Business Machines and International Business Machines, and is allowed in other wikis. Please remove this unappropiate block, especially because in English and Simple wikis exist CBMIBM accounts such as http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:CBMIBM, http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:CBMIBM and http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:CBMIBM which are not blocked and have some edit history. These are too my accounts. CBMIBM (talk) 17:46, 30 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Indeed. Please unblock him, and try to think more carefully in the future. -- SB_Johnny | PA! 18:16, 30 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I've unblocked him now. -- SB_Johnny | PA! 20:27, 30 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks; I would have done the same when I got this message. You're indeed correct that that block was a mistake. In my defense, I was unaware that these products were obsolete. I've left an apology on this user's talk page. – <font color="Indigo">Mike.lifeguard  &#124; <font color="Indigo">talk 21:08, 30 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I use CBMIBM nick, because it both reminds obsolete hardware, and too because CBM and IBM rhymes perfectly, looking as brothers of each other. CBMIBM (talk) 10:13, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

We should chat
Mike, I know you mean well, but we need new contributors and new content more than we need law and order. -- SB_Johnny | PA! 20:27, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm not trying to be overbearing on purpose. If you're seeing a pattern of such behaviour, please point it out to me so I can avoid is proactively, instead of simply a complaint after the fact. – <font color="Indigo">Mike.lifeguard  &#124; <font color="Indigo">talk 21:12, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I tried to catch up with you a week ago about some things but I've been really busy with real life and the big recruiting efforts at Wikiversity. I know you don't mean to be "overbearing", but I do wish you would take a more gentle approach to people (especially newbies). I know for sure that your heart is in the right place, but sometime's you're a bit quick on the draw. When in doubt, it's often better to leave it alone and come back to it later. -- SB_Johnny | PA! 23:11, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I know the feeling; just coming up on exams starting tomorrow, so I'm swamped myself. I do recognize that I'm often impatient with some things, but I do try to hold myself back. I'm not aiming for the whirlwind that is enwikipedia, but I would often like to see evidence that someone other than myself cares about certain important issues (only one example). This doesn't really deal with this particular issue, but more with myself. So yes, I am quick on the draw oftentimes, and yes, it is with the best of intentions, and yes I will try to scratch my itchy trigger finger instead of firing inappropriately (to use an extended metaphor). – <font color="Indigo">Mike.lifeguard  &#124; <font color="Indigo">talk 23:37, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I do know the feeling, and during my early days as an admin here I felt the same way. The most important thing that we who believe in the project all have to do (admins or otherwise) is to assume good faith, and be humble when it comes to new ideas and crazy projects that we don't see any future for. You've been a bit short with newbies in a number of other cases too, but blocking people in a short manner realy moves you from just being another grumpy wikibookian (in good company :-)) to an administrator who is abusing their user rights. Even worse, you are a CheckUser, and that's a big responsibility that should confine you to being even more careful about blocking people. Please just remember that when you block someone, you're blocking a person, and if you block someone who isn't here with the intention of being an asshole you're going to be hurting feelings when you do that. You've done an astounding amount of work clearing backlogs and old business, but please don't forget the mission :). -- SB_Johnny | PA! 22:52, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

About uploading image (Megauniversity-Turkey)
Dear,

Thanks a lot for recoverying our site at that time. I really enjyoed my first experience to create a book with peers.

I wanna ask one question, as my format of licence notification of an image was wrong, you deleted. I uploaded again and revised the format of this notification. I wonder whether this version fill the requiement or not. The resource(white version)is provided as free licence and free for editingou, thus I created the image with editing this one.....

I am afraid but if you think my format in this time is also not good, would you let me know??

Thank you for your initial help. From Yoko (g096016-wikiID) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by G096016 (talk • contribs) 08:36, February 1, 2008.
 * Yes, it's fine. I had trouble finding a reliable translation of the permissions page from that website, but Google's is close enough to readable that I'm satisfied the maps are in the public domain. Thanks for taking care with this. Happy editing! – <font color="Indigo">Mike.lifeguard  &#124; <font color="Indigo">talk 03:36, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

This user
I noticed you blocked this user, here's everything I know about him:
 * removed for brevity

What do you think? Laleena (talk) 01:57, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Port 80 open but filtered ; returns a 403. Unblocked. – <font color="Indigo">Mike.lifeguard  &#124; <font color="Indigo">talk 03:27, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Recentchanges
Hello. Could you please browse through Recent Changes and check? I will be on a Wikibreak, beginning tomorrow, could you expand Volcanoes and Earthquakes, also, how do I know what my IP address is, could you look it up? Thanks, Laleena (talk) 22:57, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I regularly patrol RC both on-wiki and through IRC. I am in the middle of exams, and don't have time to contribute content, hence my low editing rate. You can check your IP address by going to http://whatismyip.com/ – <font color="Indigo">Mike.lifeguard  &#124; <font color="Indigo">talk 23:00, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks :). I guess I'll just get to work on some other stuff, not excluding. Thanks again, Laleena (talk) 23:34, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Trademarks as usernames
I saw your post at Hyundai talkpage and even if I understand the rational and reasons for it I noticed that you didn't include any reference to a policy about the issue, is there one? (The question is that failing to be clear and have a common ground for making such request could become problematic. I personally don't see a problem in a use choosing to actively promote or even demote a trademark, logging as I_hate_MS or Hyundai_fan or a myriad of possible "well behaviored" alias, even extending this into the political activism field without being crass or abusive of others, corporations, or other types of non personal entities shouldn't receive the same protection status, and will not react emotionally to any statement).

The best a quick search revealed on the subject was No offensive usernames (rejected) and Username policy (that is not enforcible here). I agree that using exact trademarks should be abolished but do not agree with that the promotional side you mentioned on the post should be a problem... --Panic (talk) 03:19, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, as I said, it is my personal opinion, not policy (though I strongly believe it should be). You're correct, there's no policy or guideline I'm aware of, save common decency. As for corporations not getting hurt feelings, I'm actually delighted to hear someone other than myself make the claim that corporations are not people. That said, their trademarks should still be respected. However, my main concern with that username (and the one I blocked erroneously, as you can see a few sections up) is from a conflict of interest standpoint. – <font color="Indigo">Mike.lifeguard  &#124; <font color="Indigo">talk 03:46, 5 February 2008 (UTC)


 * The "request" to the user is a bit heavy handed. You aren't clear that it only reflects your personal view point and that you are open to be challenged on the issue. Remember that you start referring to a block and then mention that he otherwise will lose his edits attributions. It was that stance that made me question the bases for a request on those terms.  --Panic (talk) 04:08, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
 * "I was about to" implies that I considered and rejected that option. "You're more than welcome to continue contributing" and "Please ask..." are not particularly heavy-handed, I don't think. Considering that this user is editing modules concerning products manufactured by Hyundai, I think there's ample reason to be concerned about the username. – <font color="Indigo">Mike.lifeguard  &#124; <font color="Indigo">talk 04:18, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I understood the text but again state that it is not clear if the use is obliged to comply to it. the "You're more than welcome to continue contributing" isn't clear if after the change or even if he doesn't change the alias for instance.
 * I only calling your attention that it can have other interpretations and that your concerns beyond a use of a trademark in itself aren't understood and probably shared. I haven't read his edits and have only patrolled some pages about bicycles (I don't even know if Hyundai builds those) but in any case I see the name/content relation non problematic (beyond what I already stated and you agreed) as for the content any conflict of interests that could rise would fall inside the NPOV rule of the contributions. Would you consider a conflict of interest if you stated contributing to a book about lifeguards ? or is your preoccupation not on the alias he uses but on neutrality of the content ? --Panic (talk) 04:37, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
 * No, because "Lifeguard" doesn't imply partisanship. If my username was "Lifesaving Society" or "JEA" or "Red Cross" or somesuch, then yes, there'd be a problem. NPOV is a separate issue. If I had the username "Lifesaving Society" and I were writing about lifeguarding, then there would be a conflict of interest (or at least the appearance of one) independently of whether my contributions were neutral, verifiable, etc. Similarly, I could write without a neutral POV on lifeguarding with any other name which doesn't imply partisanship (such as "Mike.lifeguard"). So yes, the NPOV issue arises, but it's separate from any COI issue with respect to a username (though the username issue may indicate a NPOV problem, and usually does).
 * I hesitate to call it a "preoccupation" but my concern is both. Usernames often reveal a conflict of interest. In the case you see above, I was way off-base, and there was no COI whatsoever. In this case, there probably isn't either (so I didn't block). Nevertheless, even the appearance of a COI should be scrupulously avoided. If these concerns aren't shared, that's fine, but IMO a Bad Thing.
 * I'm off to bed; feel free to amend my message to User:Hyundai if you like. Since you're the second person to take issue with my thinking here in as many days, I won't be pressing the issue, and consider it closed. – <font color="Indigo">Mike.lifeguard  &#124; <font color="Indigo">talk 04:55, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Ok I'll post below you and state that he is free to keep the name but should at least consider an alias change or clarify his position in is user page and will attempt to make a point about NPOV.
 * We are all busy and sometimes time doesn't lend it self to be used in details and we can be misunderstood, I still have problems with the distinctions you make on invested interests but I don't see how there could be any harm to Wikibooks without violating the NPOV rule.
 * I could debate the issue more with you. Will add just this: Users here tend to be anonymous, even making assumptions about a username can be dangerous and appearances are often deceiving, by policy we should expect all to have the best intentions, it is far more probable that one with bad intentions would use guile and subterfuge for such functions. --Panic (talk) 05:51, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Subject Page Updating
Shouldn't this page Subject:Languages update automatically? Currently it contains a lot of Arabic module pages for no apparent reason. Recent Runes (talk) 12:57, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes, the lists are dynamic, however caching may cause out-of-date information to be displayed. Try purging the server cache by appending ?action=purge to the URL for the page like this: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Subject:Languages?action=purge As well many books are categorized "improperly" so that all modules appear. The solution is to re-categorize the modules, ensuring that only the top page has the category corresponding to the Subject: page. This often involves bot work. If you leave a list of books which appear on Subject: pages incorrectly, I can have a go later in the week. – <font color="Indigo">Mike.lifeguard  &#124; <font color="Indigo">talk 14:53, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

I think the purge has helped a lot, so the clean-up I did on the Arabic book is shown properly now. Recent Runes (talk) 21:23, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

And another one
After seeing your conversation with Panic above, I thought I'd look through some of your other contribs. From what I could tell without actually undeleting, the contribs of User:Freemoneybuy were not necessarily bad faith either. Bad use of naming convention? Yes. Contemptuous subject? Well, I would say so, but who am I to judge! Looks like you blocked him and mass deleted his contribs because you disapproved of the subject he was writing about.

I'm not fond of that way of making money, but (a) it's not illegal, and (b) it might be interesting to know how people do that (since I am often perplexed by keyword-laden spams and websites). -- SB_Johnny | PA! 22:59, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
 * You might want to look at the content of those pages, as there's nothing particularly objectionable there. However, they were all dumps of wikihow content, which is GFDL-incompatible. Furthermore, freemoneybuy is one of those stupid sites which is a regularly associated with spam and is basically running a fraud scheme. Interestingly, the site is down, but Google has cached versions if you care to take a look.
 * There is no shortage of content I object to on Wikibooks, but I haven't unilaterally deleted any of it because I have integrity. This wouldn't be an example of such content in any case. – <font color="Indigo">Mike.lifeguard  &#124; <font color="Indigo">talk 23:18, 5 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Ah ok :). You didn't leave any deletion comments (or much of a block comment, to be honest), so it's hard for someone to get the story when looking into things. We joked a while back about trying to get Willy on Wheels to write a wikibook on how he manages to be such a crafty pain in the ass (where he finds his OPs, how he decides what pages to hit, etc.)... same theme for me. -- SB_Johnny | PA! 00:10, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
 * lol. I'd read that book... and use it to thwart him ;) – <font color="Indigo">Mike.lifeguard  &#124; <font color="Indigo">talk 01:33, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Tremblantchat copyright problems.
Hi Mike. I thought I might let you know about something regarding your Tremblant page. Recently a website called www.tremblantchat.com was added to the links. There is a problem with this website and their teenage owners.

I own/run www.tremblant-insider.com The main owners of tremblantchat were banned from my website after they maliciously attacked a members sexuality. It was bad. They signed up under names like "russsuckscock" JBtakesitintheass" etc. So I had to ban them for life.  It got really really bad.

So because of this they came up with tremblantchat.com to basically trash my site. They have stolen pictures and videos of mine, and trademarks. Not a good group of kids to be listed on your site. I thought you should know this. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.122.154.174 (talk • contribs) 15:50, February 7, 2008.
 * I removed part of the Wikipedia article, but not for the reason you stated. Wikipedia is not a battleground for this conflict; the section was removed because it's unencyclopedic. In the future, please note that you can fix things like this yourself, and that you'd do better to contact a Wikipedia editor if you need help on that wiki. – <font color="Indigo">Mike.lifeguard  &#124; <font color="Indigo">talk 17:59, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

"Clock Recovery", to be ported from Wikipedia to Wikibooks.
Dear Mike,

I am doing the porting, page by page (it was me who wrote those pages in the first place!!)

I am not able to use Transwiki, therefore I am in the middle of the porting. It is time consuming, but it offers me the opportunity of revising the material, completing it and adding a few pages that were still missing in the Wikipedia version.

Please leave me the necessary time, and remove the Transwiki stuff for clock recovery in the meantime (I do not know how to do that!!!)

Thanks Andrea (BORGATO Pierandrea (talk) 14:35, 8 February 2008 (UTC))
 * If you're the only author, and you're happy with having the attribution as-is, then that's fine. If there's stuff in the Transwiki: namespace that needs to be deleted, just add to the top of the page; an admin will come along and take care of it. Thanks.  – <font color="Indigo">Mike.lifeguard  &#124; <font color="Indigo">talk 14:38, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Character names
Collecting character names has been my passion for several years. Sometimes I'll go through baby name popularity lists for a country (such as Canada, France, Sweden or Japan) and add all the names to that ehtnicity's list. I'll often scour through lists of people in a certain country or ethnic group (such as an Italian donor list, a list of students at a Lithuanian university, a list of Sierra Leonean terrorism victims or the membership list of an Iranian club) and figure out the most common names, adding them all to my lists. For surnames the U.S. census' list is helpful -- I just have to do research to figure out which name fits into which ethnic group. Baby name books are also a source. Ciao! Cilantrohead (talk) 17:57, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Cool beans. Have you read the section on child naming in Freakonomics? – <font color="Indigo">Mike.lifeguard  &#124; <font color="Indigo">talk 18:03, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I've never read the book, but I have seen a discussion of its name trend projections on the Internet. It says names like Aviva will become popular in a few years. Cilantrohead (talk) 18:04, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Copyright again
Hi Mike, I am unsure if I'm doing this correctly, so please forgive my ignorance. You asked for the information regarding Image:ChefFredSalad.jpg. I found the photo on the Wiki Commons page and from there, in a gov't site. I then emailed the owner, and asked for permission to use it - the response said it was fine, but to cite the photo and credit County Television Network. What else do I need to do to ensure all rights are being followed? Dnichols (talk) 02:58, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I've moved the image to Commons; permission emails should be forwarded to OTRS at [mailto:permissions-commons@wikimedia.org permissions-commons@wikimedia.org]. Once verified, I think it should be fine. If not, Commons has many free images (Image:Salad platter02.jpg for example). I also notice you haven't given credit to County Television Network; please do so on the image description page, along with a URL to the website you got it from. Thanks. – <font color="Indigo">Mike.lifeguard  &#124; <font color="Indigo">talk 03:50, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Ok - I tried to upload the information to the image description page, but I'm not sure where it goes, exactly. Please forgive my ineptitude. I posted the entire citation on the page, but am sure it is supposed to go somewhere else. I'll forward the email to the Commons site you stated in the previous response. Thank you! Dnichols (talk) 02:17, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I saw that. That'll be fine as long as the email gets forwarded to the address above for confirmation. Thanks! – <font color="Indigo">Mike.lifeguard  &#124; <font color="Indigo">talk 02:39, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Hi Dionne,

Thanks for taking the time to do this correctly. You are setting a good example for all the students in our course. Jenniferjkidd (talk) 15:34, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Two books we're adapting to fit community guidelines more appropriately.
Mike,

As time allows, I'm editing in Future Media and Advanced Interactive Media Books to better comply to wikibook guidelines. Thanks for changing the names for both books right away.

I'm using this link: http://en.wikibooks.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3AContributions&contribs=user&target  to search my student's edits for each of these books. Is there a way I can enter a student's user ID and see every edit a particular student has made in ONE wikibook? I'm going module by module so far and it's tedious. Part of their class grade is based on wiki edits so I don't want to miss anything once they've logged in.

Any suggestions?

PS Will your feedback show up only in your "talk" pages or on mine as well? I want to learn how to use this wiki communication feature, but don't want to miss your feedback.

Don Eland  doneland@oru.edu —The preceding unsigned comment was added by AiClassEland (talk • contribs) 21:06, February 10, 2008.
 * You can click the watch tab on the top of this page to add it to your watchlist. Then, in the top right corner there is a my watchlist link, which will show you edits to pages on your watchlist; you can use this feature to see when I make edits to this page, such as this reply.
 * There is no way of getting that information from the software as-is, but there is at least one workaround. Again in the top right, there is a my preferences link. There, you can click the Gadgets tab, check off Logs filter and hit save at the bottom. On certain pages (including Special:Contributions) you'll get a filter tab at the top of the page. You can then filter or highlight the results on the page. So if you enter the title of a module, and filter, you'll see only their edits to that module. Unfortunately, this may not work with all browsers (it is tested to work in Firefox).
 * Another method is to use one of several tools hosted on the toolserver. Contributors can approximate the effect you want, using the group by contributor option. Specify en for language and wikibooks.org for the project along with the module name. Note that this tool uses an out-of-date copy of the wiki, which is currently about 1.5 weeks behind the current state of Wikibooks.
 * Hope one of those will work for you. If not, come on back & we'll try to figure something out.
 * Last thing: Please sign messages on talk pages using four tildes ( ~ ); the software will automatically turn that into a signature and timestamp so it's easy to see who said what and when. – <font color="Indigo">Mike.lifeguard  &#124; <font color="Indigo">talk 22:27, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Sorry, the toolserver tool doesn't do what you want - it will just list how many edits a certain user has done to a particular page. I don't think there is another tool which does what you want. But perhaps we should find someone to make one for this purpose... – <font color="Indigo">Mike.lifeguard  &#124; <font color="Indigo">talk 22:28, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Formating options for print version
Where to find the list of formating options for a print version? Simple question: how to set a page breack? --Rudolf (talk) 23:47, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
 * The template might work. Otherwise, you'll do better to ask another user. User:Whiteknight would be a good choice; he does lots of work with print versions.  – <font color="Indigo">Mike.lifeguard  &#124; <font color="Indigo">talk 00:08, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Deletions
Thanks! Νεοπτόλεμος 04:56, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
 * No problem. Always good to be rid of orphaned redirects. – <font color="Indigo">Mike.lifeguard  &#124; <font color="Indigo">talk 13:19, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Transwiki:Introduction to metrics, norms and inner products
Thanks. Proto (talk) 13:28, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

World at work
Could you please vote on this book's FB nom? Thanks, Laleena (talk) 00:22, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I did, but I'd prefer if you didn't canvass in the future. Specifically, do not canvass me as I will see all nominations on my watchlist and will voice my opinions if I want to. Thanks for your consideration. – <font color="Indigo">Mike.lifeguard  &#124; <font color="Indigo">talk 15:45, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Sorry Mike :). I didn't realize that was a problem. Thanks, Laleena (talk) 22:12, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Revert
Thanks but I leave junk like that around. It never bothers me & explains blocks (& reminds me to keep an eye on the IP :)). Cheers -- Herby  talk thyme 13:51, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
 * OK, sure. The IRC bot does that for me since I patrol from there. /me remembers for the future. – <font color="Indigo">Mike.lifeguard  &#124; <font color="Indigo">talk 13:59, 13 February 2008 (UTC)