User talk:RossPatterson

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Contents 1 Welcome to another R Patterson 2 Please amend Core Image 3 Cat Stevens 4 New York City Islands 5 Islands 6 Daffodils 7 Cdigix 8 Stuyvesant Debate 9 stuy userbox 10 SING 11 Cousin chart mathematical definitions 12 Footnote irritations 13 Persistant User Edits 14 cite web-waybackref merger 14.1 Example 1 14.2 Example 2 14.3 Example 3 14.4 Example 4 14.5 Example 5 14.6 Example 6 15 Cleanup 16 Grey's Anatomy 17 Stuy "edit war" 18 Enya 19 Specialized High Schools Template 20 Stuy audio 21 von Neumann machine 22 bold 23 brooklyn tech 24 Stuyvesant pool 25 Herndon government sources 26 S/370 cleanup 27 "Category clutter" 28 Stuy Featured Article 29 Support for Bronx Science GA collaboration

[edit] Welcome to another R Patterson

I guess you know your way around, up to a point! But maybe not too familiar with all the uses of one's User-page? I suggest you copy some of what you wrote above to start it off if you haven't any better ideas! Then use it for your own quick-links and "to do" lists, etc; big advantage is you can get to it in one jump from anywhere.

Many years ago I spent a dollar buying an encyclopedia by "R F Patterson, BA". Never thought I'd be really helping to write one one day.

Enjoy! Robin Patterson 00:38, 28 Jun 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Please amend Core Image

You posted some inaacurate information on Mac OS X's Core Image. The imaging you're thinking of is of disk imaging. The type of Imaging being discussed on Core Image is of actual graphic imaging and has absolutely nothing to do with ferrite cores. You would know this if you went to the Apple Link on the page.

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Simfonie (talk • contribs) 23:45, 30 August 2004.

Done as requested. But anyone who doesn't know that Apple didn't coin the term "core image" hasn't done their research in the computing field. None of the information was inaccurate or had anything to do with "disk imaging". I know what Apple means by "Core Image", but I can't help it if they co-opted an existing term for their own purposes. RossPatterson 17:39, 5 Sep 2004 (UTC)

---

Oh my God, Ross you are my hero. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.109.164.140 (talk • contribs) 13:00, 27 February 2006.

Somehow I don't think that's really intended to be complimentary. But I'll act like it is and enjoy it :-) RossPatterson 22:07, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cat Stevens

Hey, I noticed you've been doing a lot of work on Cat Stevens related articles. I'm trying to get Cat Stevens up to the featured article level and submitted a peer review. If you've got any suggestions or comments they'd be really appreciated at Wikipedia:Peer review/Cat Stevens. Thanks, Mrtea (talk) 20:35, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Ross, didn't know you worked on the Cat Stevens article - I did some work there recently too, trying to get some more balance in. (If we talk about the Rushdie and no-fly stuff, as we should, we ought to talk about his response to 9/11 too - so I added a section about that, and some other stuff.) Also, see email for a note about a different subject. Tvoz 09:31, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] New York City Islands

I fixed it! Let me know if you see any other mistakes. I also see that a lot of the Pelham Islands names listed in the article are circular links. They just take me back to the Pelham article. Did I miss any of the Islands? I am creating the templates for all 5 boroughs and for the Islands, Bridges, and Rivers of New York City. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 21:55, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Islands

Are you on Staten Island now? I am in the Lounge and the hospital right now. I guess you fixed the last Pelham Island link, but had not checked all of them. So what's a good new New York City topic to start? I am still working on the river's template. Its not very big. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 22:11, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Daffodils

Have the daffodils bloomed yet? The crocus are in full bloom here. What do you do down in DC?

[edit] Cdigix

Nice work cleaning up the Cdigix. Press releases as articles kinda irk me, and take some work to get article-worthy. Again, good job. Cheers, JDoorjam Talk 01:06, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Stuyvesant Debate

The conclusion of the dispute was never reached, but the guy who was vandalizing stopped after the page kept being protected from anonymous edits and I believe his IP was banned. It's actually more useful to have some criticism in addition to the good things, but that guy went too far, and the edits had to be toned down.--Zxcvbnm 00:03, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

No, his IP wasn't banned, because it was an AOL IP. At any rate, Zxcvbnm interpretation of the situation is correct; no resolution was reached but it seems irrelevant as Bobbydoop (and various other usernames/IPs) has sort of given up. Which is probably better since nobody else seemed to agree with his edits. Niffweed17, Destroyer of Chickens 04:10, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] stuy userbox

Greetings,
Consider adding the Stuy userbox, {{User Stuy}}.
Regards, - the.crazy.russian (T) (C) (E) 19:26, 26 March 2006 (UTC) (Class of 99)

[edit] SING

Ross

Thanks for cleaning up the page. Question: Do you know for sure that the schools you have listed under "former" are no longer having SINGs? I was going to do a similar split, but didn't feel I had all the information. If not, maybe a third category, "schools unknown current or not" might be appropriate. I was very suprised I found out where SING! started. Its very hard to Google for information, since Google doesn't distinguish between sing and SING!

Also, I have Stuy SING! programs from 1976, 77 and 78. Would one be good for the Stuyvesant article? Simon12 23:48, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Ross - your comment about the theme was interesting. By the time I was involved in '76 (my Soph year), there were no themes anymore. I'll see if I can find the SING programs and if they'e usable. Simon12 02:39, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cousin chart mathematical definitions

I've restored this section, it's perfectly valid and useful and actually much more concise than the other sections. Anybody who's not mathematically inclined can simply ignore it. -- Curps 23:14, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for reverting the non-notable edits on Staten Island Technical High School. It's seriously appreciated. SKX-4022 22:18, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Footnote irritations

See #cite web-waybackref merger below for the version of {{cite web}} that resulted from this discussion.

That was a splendid piece of work on the footnote about Joan Jett gossip. Unfortunately it didn't actually work. But before cursing me and reverting my edit, please look at my comment in that article's talk page. Thanks. -- Hoary 03:43, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Very curious. I tested it quite a bit (you're right, it was painstaking :-) ). I'd love to know what doesn't work, since looking at my version right now it seems to be fine. What I see is this:

1. ^ “Interview with Maggie Downs, The Desert Sun (Palm Springs, CA), 31 March 2006.” http://joanjettbadrep.com/cgi-bin/fullStory.cgi?archive=currnews&story=20060405-01shore.htm. Archived on 28 April 2006.

with the following links:

1. "Interview with Maggie Downs, The Desert Sun (Palm Springs, CA), 31 March 2006." -> http://72.14.207.104/search?q=cache:JAxf4v-pQmgJ:joanjettbadrep.com/cgi-bin/fullStory.cgi%3Farchive%3Dcurrnews%26story%3D20060405-01shore.htm (which works. The "31 March 2006" is due to my date preference setting, and is wiki-linked to [[2006-03-31].)
2. "http://joanjettbadrep.com/cgi-bin/fullStory.cgi?archive=currnews&story=20060405-01shore.htm" -> http://joanjettbadrep.com/cgi-bin/fullStory.cgi?archive=currnews&story=20060405-01shore.htm (which of course fails because the site is refusing all requests)
3. "Archived" (wiki link to Internet Archive)
4. "28 April 2006" (wiki link to 2006-04-28, formatted per my preferences)

Care to tell me what you see and how it differs? RossPatterson 03:54, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the undeservedly genial reply. Yes, I see what you describe above. However, much of it is linked to an external page in a way that works, but it is followed by an explicit link ("http://blahblahblah") that is long and ugly and doesn't work. That the latter link didn't work could of course have been the fault of that particular server. I didn't bother to read up the syntax of the macros that you'd used: I assumed (perhaps wrongly) that following (a) a link that worked and supplied the information promised with (b) a long, ugly, and non-working link was some kind of error. I also guessed (perhaps again wrongly) that you knew what you were doing but that it clashed with some REF-related bug. Now that I look at it again, I suppose it means <a href="long URL of working archive">title</a>, date (<a href="original URL">original URL (which may not work)</a>, archived on such and such a day).

It now seems to me that the macro is badly designed. Putting aside the complication of dates, I'd suggest "Interview with Maggie Downs, <i>The Desert Sun</i> (Palm Springs, CA), 31 March 2006." <a href="long URL">Here</a> (28 April 2006 [[Internet_archive|archive]] of <a href="short URL">this page</a>, which may no longer work). -- Hoary 05:30, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Your summary of the meaning of the {{waybackref}} macro is correct. I agree, it's a little too simple-minded. I'm prototyping a merge of its features into {{cite web}}, to produce something like this:

2006-03-31 [Interview with Maggie Downs http://72.14.207.104/search?q=cache:JAxf4v-pQmgJ:joanjettbadrep.com/cgi-bin/fullStory.cgi%3Farchive%3Dcurrnews%26story%3D20060405-01shore.htm]. The Desert Sun. archived from the original on 2006-04-26

with the link on "Interview with Maggie Downs" pointing to the archived version and the link on "the original" pointing to the place where it came from. The source looks like this:

{{cite web |url=http://joanjettbadrep.com/cgi-bin/fullStory.cgi?archive=currnews&story=20060405-01shore.htm |title=Interview with Maggie Downs |date=[[2006-03-31]] |publisher=The Desert Sun |archiveurl=http://72.14.207.104/search?q=cache:JAxf4v-pQmgJ:joanjettbadrep.com/cgi-bin/fullStory.cgi%3Farchive%3Dcurrnews%26story%3D20060405-01shore.htm |archivedate=2006-04-26 }}

which makes it very easy to replace an online version with its archived version when the original gets 404'd - simply add the "archiveurl=" and "archivedate=".

Anyway, for the time being I don't have any problem with whatever way you want to mark the Joan Jett note up. I just wanted to get the actual source of the quote into the page so that the next time it comes up the citation will be checkable :-) RossPatterson 05:47, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Mm, yes, I now think that you were right (and have just now reverted accordingly). It's the macro, and not your use of it, that's the problem. Well, I'm no expert. Sorry to have wasted your time. -- Hoary 06:39, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Persistant User Edits

What can I do if someone keeps on reverting the page on Staten Island Technical High School? I'm pretty sure that the IP and SteveCarbo588 are the same person. I'm a new user (and pretty clueless). SKX-4022 19:27, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

The answer is "not much". You can start by telling both of them on their Talk pages that they shouldn't be doing this - check out Wikipedia:Vandalism (aka WP:VAND) for suggestions on what to say, including some standard templates. You can also revert their changes, but be sure not to do that more than 3 times in 24 hours or you'll be treated as a vandal yourself. The good news is that most of these folks get tired after a while and stop. If they don't, you can ask at Wikipedia:Requests for page protection (aka WP:PROT) to have the page protected (nobody is allowed to edit it) or "semi-protected" (anonymous (IP) users and new users are not allowed to edit it), but you need a history of non-cooperation before the admins will agree to do so, and even then it won't be for more than a few days to a week.

And by the way, welcome aboard! RossPatterson 22:07, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] cite web-waybackref merger

This is my attempt at merging {{waybackref}} into{{cite web}}. The test code is in User:RossPatterson/cite web, and here are some examples of its use.

[edit] Example 1

{{User:RossPatterson/cite web |url=x |date=0000-00-01 }}

[edit] Example 2

{{User:RossPatterson/cite web |title=x |date=0000-00-02 }}

[edit] Example 3

{{User:RossPatterson/cite web | url=http://url.example.com | archiveurl=http://archiveurl.example.com | archivedate=1234-01-23 | date=0000-00-03 | title=title }}

[edit] Example 4

{{User:RossPatterson/cite web |url=http://url2.example.com |title=title2 |archiveurl=http://archiveurl2.example.com |date=0000-00-04 }}

[edit] Example 5

{{User:RossPatterson/cite web |url=http://url2.example.com |title=title2 |archivedate=2006-05-06 |date=0000-00-05 }}

[edit] Example 6

{{User:RossPatterson/cite web |url=http://joanjettbadrep.com/cgi-bin/fullStory.cgi?archive=currnews&story=20060405-01shore.htm |title=Interview with Maggie Downs |date=[[2006-03-31]] |publisher=The Desert Sun |archiveurl=http://72.14.207.104/search?q=cache:JAxf4v-pQmgJ:joanjettbadrep.com/cgi-bin/fullStory.cgi%3Farchive%3Dcurrnews%26story%3D20060405-01shore.htm |archivedate=2006-04-26 }}

---

I've copied this ↑ to User talk:RossPatterson/cite web and added a regression test case. I also merged the newest change on template:cite web into User:RossPatterson/cite web --Ligulem 21:40, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cleanup

No problemo, sir. Just doing my part to make Wikipedia a better place! --Zpb52 01:40, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Grey's Anatomy

You're correct - the reversion was an error. Thank you for pointing this out to me. — ßottesiηi ^(talk) 20:03, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Stuy "edit war"

It isn't an edit war so much as vandalism, as he removed the newspaper from the infobox. It was only on that one paragraph in the first place and it can be settled on the talk page. Ostenwald seems to be heavily biased against the Standard and he was the one that started it.--Zxcvbnm 02:06, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Enya

I see your point but mine is that it is rendered in the English alphabet which can (as in this case) be considered phonemic but in no way phonetic. I'd lay money that anyone who pronounces <yard> or <Tanya> differently from me would also pronounce Enya differntly. In the same way there are people who pronounce my name David with the a as the same as I would the oy in boy - were they to say it the same way as I do it would sound very odd to me. Dejvid 17:18, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Specialized High Schools Template

That's from last year, read the new one for 2006-2007, if you really don't believe, then I guess I'll have to post up a scan. I Am Ri¢h! 02:19, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

If we're talking about Brooklyn Latin, I believe. If we're talking about Staten Island Tech, no, you don't need to post a scan, but you do need to add a reference to the article saying exactly where you got the info. If it's not online, that's OK, but you need to put it in the article. RossPatterson 03:51, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Link went blue - but the article is pure crap. FYI - needs lots of fixing. The shiny pretty Stuy article should not be linking to such junk. Sigh... - CrazyRussian talk/email 02:40, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Just found it by accident today, the SHSofNYC article. Waste of space, IMHO, redundant to the template, but whatever, let it be. - CrazyRussian talk/email 03:36, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, Brooklyn Latin is a poor article, but so was Stuyvesant High School [once http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Stuyvesant_High_School&oldid=2067509]. Presumably someone will adopt it and start the improvement process. Or else it will be deleted as unencyclopedic. RossPatterson 03:51, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

That's overduing how "useless" the article is, just becuase it's not as good as the other articles, doesn't mean it cant be excluded in the template. Also, RossPatterson, I already wrote my reference down, so I don't know what you're talking about. I Am Ri¢h! 11:43, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Stuy audio

Just wanted to properly say thanks for your help with noticing all of my mistakes on the recording of Stuyvesant High School. Sedola 23:00, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] von Neumann machine

The reason I didn't use the lc template in von Neumann machine is because it is a dab page, not an article. --Blainster 02:56, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] bold

what is the policy on bold? a lot of people get upset when it's used. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by NinjaNubian (talk • contribs) 22:37, 6 September 2006.

Yup, they sure do. I don't think there's a capital-P-Policy, but it usually runs up against the sniff test - if it smells bad, it probably is bad. Personally, I avoid bold text like the plague except when I'm trying to scream :-), but I believe it is common to embolden the first reference in an article to its subject. Italics are a different story - there is lots of history on Wikipedia and elsewhere encouraging their use for words from other languages and for titles of films, books etc. RossPatterson 02:45, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] brooklyn tech

individual tenebre is reverting material to his version. assistance please. NinjaNubian 02:59, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Stuyvesant pool

What do you say we let my pool comments stay in their a bit! Simon12 19:39, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Why should we permit false information in an article? RossPatterson 23:00, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Herndon government sources

Thanks for adding some sources to Herndon, Virginia#Government. However, two of your sources seem to be session-based, which return an HTTP error without your session data:

• Code of Ordinances - Town of Herndon, Virginia; Charter, Chapter 2, Powers. Town of Herndon. Retrieved on 2006-10-07.
• Code of Ordinances - Town of Herndon, Virginia; Charter, Chapter 3, Mayor and Council. Town of Herndon. Retrieved on 2006-10-07.

Could you provide some permanent, non-session links to this information? If you're not sure how to do this, I'd be happy to try it if you can tell me how you originally queried for this info. Thanks. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 18:52, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Rats. I've replaced the direct links with links to the code website itself. Man, I hate websites that do that to you! RossPatterson 19:26, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] S/370 cleanup

Thanks for tidying up after me. I began what was intended to be a minor, corrective edit to this article, but it wound up taking more time than expected. Eventually, I had to save it when it had reached what I thought was an acceptable (if not ideal) state. (I'm still uncertain about the contents of the table; I corrected it as well as I could in the available time, but there seems to be some variation in how IBM has referred to its product series. I don't think the -XA architecture designation was an official part of the series name, but just a feature; and that may or may not have been true of the /ESA desgination as well.)

Do you think the compu-hardware-stub template still belongs here? The article isn't very complete, but it is comparable with entries for other computer systems.

Anyway, thanks again. The most important thing I have learned here is that I need to start using cite templates, which I have thus far managed to ignore. Trevor Hanson 20:12, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

1. As I recall it, XA-capable machines were still System/370, and it wasn't until ESA that they broke with the S/370 moniker. Which reminds me - I don't believe I ever heard "ESA" called "System/370-ESA". I was attending the Endicott/Poughkeepsie non-disclosure briefings in those days and it was always described "System/390" or just "ESA". And on a related point, "System/370 compatible" was always a term applied to Amdahl/Fujitsu and National Semiconductor/Hitachi clones, never to IBM machines. The 303x, 4331, and 4341 were genuine S/370. The 308x series almost got called "System/380" (but didn't) because they were the start of XA, which was briefly known inside IBM by that name.
2. No, I'd say it isn't a stub any more, go ahead and delete the tag.

RossPatterson 20:28, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

This is some of the contradictory stuff that made my edits drag on and on. To answer your specific comments:

• One of the papers I cited talks about ESA/370 in those initial machines. (I pretty much followed the table that somebody else had put here though, which broke the line down this way.) I removed the term 370-ESA because now I can't find it; I thought I saw that in an early R&D paper late last night but...?.
• I too was surprised to see the term S/370 compatible on an official IBM historical site (I too always thought of 'compatible' as referring to Amdahl/Hitachi/etc., though we usually called them 'PCMs'): http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/mainframe/mainframe_basinfo.html. I figure if that's the party line then we better use it. I put a citation in for it in the article though, because I agree this is not how I remember normal terminology at the time. And I can't think of what else to call the 3033.
• I now remember hearing about S/380 also. It's funny how many old factoids start to emerge as you rake over the embers.

Thanks again. This is relevant stuff so I am going to copy the gist of the above to the S/370 discussion page. Trevor Hanson 21:41, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Category clutter"

Hi Ross, Hoping you'll fix the following Category entries on your User:RossPatterson/cite web page:

Categories: Esoteric templates | Citation templates | Templates using ParserFunctions

so that your page only links to, and is not part of the category

you just need to insert ":" between "[[" and "Category" in each ref.

e.g. "[[:Category" -- Thanks, (class '68) BTW -- RCEberwein | Talk 21:20, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Better than that, I blanked it. That was just a prototype for some new features in the cite web template. RossPatterson 00:06, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Stuy Featured Article

Good to see. Thanks for the heads up, I wouldn't have noticed it immediately. Niffweed17, Destroyer of Chickens 23:14, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Congratulations, Ross - hope we can get the Science page up there one of these days!Tvoz 03:31, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Support for Bronx Science GA collaboration

The Bronx Science article had been nominated for Good Article Collaboration of the Week by another editor. This should a significant step toward its collaborative development as you asserted. Please add your suppport.Bxsstudent 00:39, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Done. You should approach the Schools Portal and Wikiproject Schools crowds as well - their criticism helped push Stuyvesant High School into the form it needed, even though some of it hurt to hear at the time. And look at some of the other top-rated school articles on the Schools Portal page, like Hopkins School, for examples of what you should be striving for. RossPatterson 04:43, 8 November 2006 (UTC)