User talk:Darklama

From Wikiversity

[edit] C

I received your message regarding C99. I realise that the // is now available; however, the whole C tutorial is woefully lacking in any form of rigour - the C Standard is not mentioned at all, let alone which one is used. It also uses Turbo C but does not emphasise at all which constructs are Turbo C specific (e.g. <conio.h> and use of the clrscr() function). But thanks for taking the time to contact me. --Mickraus

Indeed, even though there is an overlap between the two languages, there is no such language as C/C++, and I think it's a bad idea to try to combine the two in a tutorial. You really would not concern yourself with printf etc. in a proper C++ tutorial. --Mickraus

[edit] Template:Portal_Nav

Hi Darklama. Are you aware of the consequences of your edit for my line wrapping? You removed my two tables for the longer entries. Mind you, I agree my HTML wasn't kosher either. ;-) Ah, well. Clear up the mess tomorrow... McCormack 22:20, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Hi again. Your enthusiastic coding is very much appreciated. However now I've got a white background on my portal navigation which I can't get rid of. Oooops! ;-) McCormack 11:38, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Class clock

Hey there - I just saw User_talk:JWSchmidt#Something_to_think_about_.28.C2.A9_darklama.29 - I commented there about bringing this up more publicly. I'd be interested in hearing about and discussing this more. Cormaggio ^talk 14:35, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Template expropriation

Hi. I found Template:event which wasn't being used and repurposed it. If it's a problem, give me a shout on IRC! --McCormack 06:12, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

• On reflection, I recreated the old one at Template:Darkevent, just in case you still need it. --McCormack 12:16, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

  Well it was intended to be a useful template to be used on event type resources, and other resources where a specific date is needed. --darklama 13:15, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Robelbox

Thanks for your hard work on tracking down this bug. Current state of knowledge: IE/Windows and Firefox/Windows are OK with the old version, but Firefox/Linux not OK. I'll try forking a test version of the main page to work with the robelbox fork tomorrow, so that we have a "safe" testing page. --McCormack 18:33, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Merging history

Darklama,

Concerning this comment [1]:

Wikiversity is also about exploration. Merging the history of two pages is usually extremely messy; in the cases I have seen, it is better to keep the seperate pages as redirects. Consider also that each of the two opposite paths that lead to the final page is worth keeping; and, if they are combined, clarity would be lost.

A simpler solution would be to keep one (or both) of the pages as a (soft or hard) redirect, preserving the seperate histories, and leave some comment for people who arrive afterwards. Hillgentleman|Talk 17:43, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

[edit] ImageMap

[2] is much wicked; thankyou. I think I should have read mw:Extension talk:ImageMap, but still wouldn't have come so nicely to this. -- Jtneill - Talk - c 14:57, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Great move

Great move with the blacklisting. I was just told about the idea and saw that you beat me. :) Ottava Rima (talk) 21:53, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Recategorization

Please hold off on recategorizing things until discussion has finished at Topic talk:History of the Americas. Thanks. The Jade Knight ^(d'viser) 20:12, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

[edit] User Boxes

JW referred me to you so I'll just send you the question I asked him: I guess if I ask for assistance with fixing the disorganized appearance of my user boxes that would be a request for custodial assistance. Is that right? Okay so my question: would you please help me clean up the boxes on my user page, that are as jagged as can be? Thanks --recovery psychologist 03:46, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Its not really a custodian issue. You were probably referred to me because of my knowledge of wiki syntax. I've fixed them up, you need to keep the one template which requires three rows of text and causes the template to be a bit taller on the bottom row to avoid the jaggedness or cut out some of the text so its the same length as the rest. --darklama 15:54, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Thank you--recovery psychologist 04:34, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Your revert of JWS

I noticed you reverted JWS: link. Your revert to censor JWS probably will further provoke matters more despite how much you didn't like his edit, I suggest to discuss it with him on his talk page. Dzonatas 16:33, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

I didn't do it to censor JWS. I think that the continuation of that discussion would prove unproductive as JWS was continuing the same approach that Mike.lifeguard found unhelpful. I undid the change in an attempt to keep things on track and civil. As can be seen by this edit, I have also attempted to try to ask questions that will hopefully provide some useful answers for JWS in an effort to find some middle road that will hopefully be mutually satisfying for both parties (Mike.lifeguard and JWS). --darklama 16:53, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

I understand that you are trying to help with the reverts; but JWS would probably also say that he is trying to help by asking the questions! My feeling here is that custodianship discussions should be left as transparent as possible. So, I don't seem any particular problem with leaving JWS' questions. Whether and how ML responds is up to him. And people can vote accordingly. Just letting you know my view from here. Sincerely, James. -- Jtneill - Talk - c 22:14, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

Hope it's ok to jump in here, but I think the revert was probably a good idea. JWSchmidt got into trouble earlier because he was essentially hijacking pages to re-make them into critiques of deletionists and people who didn't welcome students (I'm fairly sure there were no deletionists or people hostile to students). After we took steps to limit his ability to cause damage, he has begun to focus on what he calls "The Ruling Party" (and since I'm supposed to be the leader of the party, I can say with reasonable certainty that there is no Ruling Party, unless there is one that I'm not aware of). We lost one of our most prolific contributors (McCormack) last time because we allowed this sort of thing to go unanswered for far too long, and I think we have to hold a firmer line about this from here on out (with JWSchmidt especially, but also in general). At least one fairly new contributor (Jolie) has expressed displeasure, and others might not stick around long enough to bother expressing.

John has "blogged" about this already, and I think that's fine... he certainly has earned the right to express his opinion, so long as it isn't done in such a way that it interferes with the business and health of the wiki as a whole. --SB_Johnny ^talk 22:58, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

• Darklama, A basic qualification for a custodial candidate should be some ability to answer (or ignore, if she so chooses) awkward questions. Cormaggio has been a good example and had the patience to consider all the questions about his activities in his request for checkuser tools. You can choose to write your own questions inspired by John's questions, or you are free to paraphrase. The questions are not directed to you and, as I can see, Mike had chosen to reply it in his own way and even if you do not want to count it as censorship it is still not a polite thing to remove somebody else's comments without asking. And that, as I see it, leads to your edits being (rightly or wrongly) perceived as censorship, and from here you won't get anywhere. Let me just point out that it is very reasonable to ask a custodial candidate whether he has ever used a robot without community approval. Best, Hillgentleman | //\\ |Talk 23:57, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

I somewhat understand how people could think I'm trying to censor JWS, or even disapprove of his questions. However this isn't about him, what questions were asked, who asked the questions, or who the questions were directed at. I think someone should have stepped in sooner when he contributed in a similar way to Cormaggio's checkuser nomination.

I'm not sure how exactly to explain what I do see as a problem. I guess you could say the writing style lately has often made understanding and even attempting to read what was said or is trying to say difficult when he is more capable and does a better job of conveying himself elsewhere most of the time. Writing should strive to be clear, understandable and easy to read, not only by the person or people who the message is for, but also for anyone else who might come across the message. If people cannot understand or make sense out of what was written, how can they respond as the writer would like, understand the context of follow up responses, make an informed decision if a decision is needed, learn from what was written, or even ask for clarification?

While I cannot honestly say that JWS' intention is to hijack discussions (since I do not understand his intentions), I think its fair to say that lately when he has contributed to some discussions in this way, the result seems to be that of discouraging reading and contributing to discussion. I think this is what leads to the impression that discussions have been hijacked, and that engaging in conversations with JWS is currently impossible or that he is being unreasonable.

I'm concerned with the impression that I'm engaging in censorship only because I want to be clear and sure that people understand that the reason has nothing to do with trying to make Mike.lifeguard out to look good or make JWS out to look bad, or that I somehow disagree with any attempts by anyone to ask questions. I saw a problem that I felt needed to be dealt with which unfortunately I think has no better alternatives. I think there would of been no need to remove anyone's input or questions if what was written would of been easy to read and understand in order to understand the context of any response. Without being able to understand what was written and the context of any response, how can people make an informed decision or learn from the discussion? Like SB_Johnny said, this sort of contributing seems to interfere with the well being of Wikiversity.--darklama 16:57, 14 November 2008 (UTC)