User talk:Willscrlt



Sig
You may have realised by now but you need to fix your sig! Cheers -- Herby talk thyme 10:23, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
 * No problem - if you stacked my mistakes up I wouldn't be able to see over  -- Herby talk thyme 12:34, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

A nice cup of tea
Thanks for the comment. Actually, the original article, which didn't read like a recipe, was mostly my work (with, of course, a lot of help from George Orwell!). Someone replaced it with what you found. It was awful, wasn't it, but I didn't want to change it back because after all this is a collaborative site and if that's what people want ... If it isn't, someone else will come along and change it back. Which you've more than done.

Your article looks OK to me but I'm less of a stickler for standardised formats than some of the people around here, and I also prefer more discursive articles to fixed recipes, giving people the basic knowledge to go out and discover things for themselves. I've never really got into green tea, for example, and on the basis of your comments, may give it another go. Redlentil (talk) 08:54, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Bartending and
Your cleanup work is looking great; thanks for the help. When you use, please keep the reason short (a few words) and don't add your sig. Thanks. – Mike.lifeguard  &#124; talk 17:17, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

First, thank you for helping me clean up all that stuff. I noticed in the logs you were the person doing all the grunt work. I was going to send you a thank you before logging off, but you beat me too it. :-) Especially think you for the Talk:Bartending/Alcohol/Wine merge help.

Secondly, sorry about going overboard on he delete comments. I don't know all the buzzwords for speedy delete here, so I figured it was better to just explain why it was an obvious SD even if it didn't exactly fit neatly into a specific SD policy (or perhaps fit into several). Since I contribute on several Foundation sites (mostly the English versions of Wikipedia, Commons, and once again here), it gets hard for me to remember every site's particular nuances when it comes to that sort of thing. I basically act boldly (but not recklessly) until someone slaps me for something, and then I try to learn. So, I will try to do better here and won't use my signature. Do you have suggested verbiage for the types of delete requests I have been making? In a big project like this, I kind of become a human bot, and just replicate my actions as much as possible to avoid burning out brain cells. Some stock request comments would make it easier than coming up with new ones each time. This will be even more important when I delve into the cruft littering the cocktail recipes area. And after all that is cleaned up, I will need some help transwikiing a lot of stuff over from Wikipedia into Bartending Guide here, and then linking the two sites together better. The second part should be easy, but the transwikiing part I'm still a little tentative on. Maybe I can ask for a little assistance from you when I get to that point? Thanks again! -- Will  scrlt ( Talk ) 17:30, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
 * The default delete reasons are listed at MediaWiki:Deletereason-dropdown - anything there would be fine. For bringing stuff over from WP, you'll want to make a request at WB:RFI listing the pages you want transwikied. And you can always ask me or another admin if you get stuck. – Mike.lifeguard  &#124; talk 17:38, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks for both pieces of info. As to Bartending/Alcohol/Vodka reading like a Wikipedia article... I'm not really into the cleanup and improvement phase yet. I'm just trying to get everything reorganized first. I noticed that Cookbook:Vodka was a double-redirect, so I pulled that one section out of the larger article. I tried massaging the info a bit to be a bit more narrative, but, yes, it still sucks. :-) I'm trying to formulate a more standard layout for the various articles, but until I see for sure what all is there, it's pretty hard. I thought there was a lot more bartending info, but mostly it looks like a Wikipedia dumping ground (which I already knew from being on the Wikipedia side where everyone else's mantra is "Wikipedia is NOT a recipe book... dump it onto Wikibooks!"). My goal is to change that. I want to get the Wikipedia articles to have good in-depth information about notable drinks, and I want a variety of classic and modern drinks that are typically ordered in bars to be listed here. Fill these articles with some fun factoids that bartenders could share with customers, a little history if it's significant, and some common variations (not every possible variation under the sun!), and tips on preparation and presentation. You know, the stuff a beginning bartender might want to know. All the rest of the cruft can be dumped on 1001cocktails.com or someplace that readily accepts every drink and variation known to man. Dunno if I will ever finish or not, but it's a goal. :-) It took me 3 months to get Wikipedia whipped into a lot better shape, and 1.5 years later, the effects are still visible (which makes me happy). I would appreciate it if you don't tag every article with a "needs improvement" badge, though. The whole dang book needs improvement, and that's what I'm trying to do. Once we get some decent articles, then we can start tagging the worst ones. Ok? :-) Also, I don't want this to remain a one-man show forever. Since the book has had basically no work done on it for months (except transwiki dumping), I figured it was time to rebuild the framework, and then once that's in place, try to drum up some help to improve and add content within that framework. That's what worked at Wikipedia, and hopefully it will work here, too. I still can't get over the radically slower pace around here, though. It's much more peaceful and comfortable here. I really like it! I'm just telling you all this so you understand my motivations and methods. I'm not a flake, though things are stirring in my offline life that may keep me away for a while (family health issues that could require a lot of back and forth distant travel). But once the real world settles down again, I'll pick right back up and keep on editing. I just want to get as much done as I can before I get called away. That's another reason I appreciate your help with the speedy deletes. Have a good weekend! -- Will  scrlt ( Talk ) 19:57, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
 * If you think cleanup tags aren't helpful, consider that the last :) I find it is helpful though when you have more than one person working as you can point and say "There!"
 * Generally we're much more laid-back here & it's a tight-knit (small) community. I just couldn't work at Wikipedia, which is how I ended up here. Sorry to hear about that news; I hope everything works out for the best. – Mike.lifeguard  &#124; talk 20:41, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Right now, in that particular book, no... not really helpful. Once we get things sorted out, then yes. Do you use article assessments here like on Wikipedia? You know, where a page is stub, start, B, A, GA, FA, etc.? I know you have featured books, and since this is a book-oriented site, page-specific stuff might not usually be helpful. However, I think that for a sprawling project like this one, it would be helpful. If there isn't such a tool here, what do you think about me starting one? It would go on the talk pages, just like at Wikipedia--keeping it out of the main content. I could certainly keep it project-only, but if anyone else would find it useful, then maybe it should be offered to all and used by those who want it, and ignored by most everyone else. Anyway, I'm signing off for the day. TTFN. -- Will  scrlt  ( Talk ) 21:26, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
 * No, we don't use assessments like that. Hopefully we will get FlaggedRevs soon (though there is a surprising lack of interest in it) which will be used for that sort of thing. However manual assessments like that are not worth doing. – Mike.lifeguard  &#124; talk 22:44, 31 May 2008 (UTC)