User talk:Swift/Archives/2008

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Contents

Hello!

Hello Swift, how are you doing? We haven't seen you in a little while, although the general activity level here has been down across the board, so we haven't seen a lot of people.

Anyway, welcome back! Not much has changed in the last month, although if you have the time could you take a look at Mike.lifeguards nom at WB:RFP? We want to see lots of votes before we make the promotion. Let me know if you need anything. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 13:42, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks WK,
It has indeed been a while. I've been find, but too busy to really return. Saw a while back that the chemical synthesis book finally got deleted and got a bit miffed. Searching for some Japanese resources, I found myself back and seeing the Japanese wikibook in disarray, figured I'd try to help clean it up a bit.
Any big changes since I was gone (wow, over a year, now), or have things just rolled along as normal through the slump?
I'll have a look at WB:RFP and see if I feel up to the task of commenting on it. Not sure if I'm any use since it's been a while. --Swift (talk) 13:57, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
I wont deny my part in the Chemical Synthesis book's departure, although I won't rehash that here and now. Things have been rolling along pretty normal, although "normal" for us implies occasional changes. We're working, slowly, on removing the bookshelves in favor of subject pages. Subject pages are being based on DPL and dynamically-generated category lists to keep books organized. The Engineering bookshelf has already been converted over to the new system, so that's a good example to look at if you want to know more about the project. We've also updated a lot of our templates to be better-looking and more descriptive.
We've also been trying to select a new logo for the project at meta:Wikibooks/Logo, although that discussion is becoming more and more of a disaster. One of the more popular entries was found to be a copyvio, so that's caused us some big problems.
A lot of people seem to have moved on in the past year, although a lot of familiar faces are still around too. It should be easy to get back into the groove of things, because nothing major has changed that would affect workflow. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 14:51, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Japanese Book

It appears we've both annoyed, irritated, or in some fashion deviated from a productive path. It was not my intention to be obstructive on the page. I just wanted you to go ahead and do what you want with the page. If something arises that bothers me, I'll let you know on the page. I do not want this latest 'spat' to cause a impedance on the book. The last thing we need is someone else revising the book... yet again. I did not wish for us to butt heads so much to annoy you to the point where you don't believe you can communicate with me on a subject. I apologize if it appeared that way. I can get a bit adamant about topics that I strongly against/for, and my speech can dictate this even more. I hope we can move on to produce this page, and not alienate each other. --Retropunk (talk) 07:08, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for this message. I apologise for not responding sooner. I have been away from Wikibooks for a few days. I'm glad you're interested in working to improve our cooperation on this book.
It seems we may have a different idea of how to collaborate on editing these pages. I saw that you were editing these pages quite heavily and assumed that you had a specific idea in mind. Rather than step in and change things for what the "better", I offered an alternative. That's just my way. If you'd prefer that I just change what I want, please say so. At the same time, I'd hope that you'll try to restrain yourself from changing large blocks of my edits without discussing it first — or at the very least explaning your rationale on the relevant talk pages.
I'm a big rationalist and believe that requiring ideas to be argued for is no obstacle but rather a great advantage since no idea is ever better than the best critisism it has withstood. I'm always ready to discuss issues at hand (perhaps I'm too careful and not bold enough). Again, I appreciate your comment and look forward to our continuing collaboration. --Swift (talk) 23:56, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Check out Dropimage

I saw your comment on the collapsible tables question. Until these features become availabe you might find the Dropimage template in WikiBooks (and Wikipedia) useful. Regards, Armchair (talk) 20:02, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Japanese:Romaji

Would you please try to figure out where this should redirect? It's target was deleted, but with no information about where the content is now; and it is not orphaned.  — Mike.lifeguard | talk 14:46, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Sorry. That redirect should have been deleted along with the page. I've taken care of this. Thanks for letting me know. --Swift (talk) 16:27, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
No problem; thanks for your help.  — Mike.lifeguard | talk 16:51, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Japanese

Hey swift, I just wanted to let you know that I've taken a look at this book and it's really coming along nicely. Obviously there is a long way to go, but it wouldn't surprise me to see this book on WB:FBN one day. Good work, and happy editing! --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 17:07, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Cheers, WK! I've spent a good deal of time on it, so the encouragement is really appreciated. --Swift (talk) 17:14, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

undivided main page

Hi Swift,

You requested that everything be placed on the first page to provide a single page view. This has now been done not in the Wikibooks but in the Wikiversity version. Enjoy! Typative (talk) 12:08, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks

The global log on has made it easier to contribute across projects. I'm mainly an English wiki guy, but have started editing some on the Japanese wikipedia. Stumbled across the book, and see that others are working to make it better. Not sure how much I'll be able to contribute, but can add some of my hands-on experiences from time to time. I lived in Japan for three years, starting with my senior year in high school (military brat/air base). I learned Japanese starting with the hiragana first, and now have a hard time reading any Japanese text made entirely of Romaji. It just makes my head hurt. Working on the Japanese wikipedia is also helping keep my knowledge fresh and testing my vocabulary every day. I'll help in anyway that I can.Dcmacnut (talk) 01:56, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Japanese Lessons

I've made a first cut at Lesson 1 from Junesun's list. It's very rough right now, but if you want to modify it, Feel free. I cut and pasted a bunch of lesson notes from other pages, so it's not organized well. --Retropunk (talk) 07:03, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

change from Help:Templates to Help:Templates Overview

Hi, sorry if I shouldn't have changed this, but since darklama has renamed the page and appears to want to redirect Help:Templates to Help:Template I thought that all links to Help:Templates should be changed to Help:Templates Overview otherwise they might link to a different page soon. --Martin Kraus (talk) 11:59, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Generally, don't modify comments. If you have to modify your's, consider using <del> and <ins> tags. Updating links from pages is a good idea, but doing so on talk pages can alter context. Don't modify other people's commments. Not even fixing spelling or grammar. They are signed and timestamped for a reason. --Swift (talk) 16:45, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

MagicJack edits

Hi. I appreciate your contribution to http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/MagicJack/Introduction. But, I was wondering why you deleted the link to http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Voice_over_IP which was on that page?

Thanks. --Az2008 (talk) 01:06, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Oh, sorry. I was going to move it to a "See also" section. Since it is on a related matter, I figured it deserved proper prominence on the main page. Thanks for the heads-up, I'd gotten side-tracked reviewing the book, whether it belonged there (I noticed your discussion with Panic) and reading about the software on various sites. --Swift (talk) 03:06, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
Thanks. I put it back where it was. I don't think a "see also" heading is appropriate on the main page. We'll probably change the "Benefits and Criticisms" to "Customer sentiment often found in reviews", and then put the "Benefits" topic under the Introduction. There we'll provide a comparison to other services. And perhaps links to definitions of VOIP (if they weren't seen in the footnote).
I also noticed you changed some links to relative paths. This is contrary to what I was told to do by "darklama" in the reading room. So, I'd rather stick with what I was told by the first person to offer advice.
I'm not terribly impressed by your style of collaboration. I'm going to back off from editing the book. My intentions were to help address the issues already raised with it. Unless this book is mended, it will be proposed for deletion. You're not making the case for the book any stronger.
As for the relative paths. I believe Darklama (I assume you're referring to this comment) was explaining the difference between the slash- and colon-conventions. Thought I see how you could interpret it that way, I doubt he was recommending absolute links as opposed to relative ones. You may want to have a look at the tips section of the Naming policy. The relative links both provide a useful shorthand and make book renames easier. --Swift (talk) 07:24, 31 December 2008 (UTC)