RPickman

Grosse Pointe Blank

Thanks for your significant additions and reformatting of Grosse Pointe Blank (1997). I made one modest change to the dialog formatting to conform not only to your apparent intent but also to current popular practice on many film and TV show pages. I've also removed the stub message, since you've made it into a useful page. Good job! — Jeff Q 16:52, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for cleaning up Grosse Pointe Blank(1997). This is the first page I've done any major work on; knew the conversation looked wrong but wasn't sure how to correct it. Also had no idea how to eliminate stub message (I have a parrot-like ability to remember movie lines, but extremely limited computer skills... as you'll have gathered from the way I went about current message). User:RPickman

No problem. Most people have the advantage of seeing other dialog samples and their Wiki markup while editing a quote article. You did rather well considering you didn't have that info available. You might check out Wikiquote:How to edit a page for many helpful tips about editing. Also, the easiest way to sign your comments on Talk pages is to end them with "-- ~~~~" (without the quotes). The hyphens are just a convenient way to mark a signature, and the four tildes cause the editor to insert your user name (with a link to your user page) and the timestamp of your comment when you save the page. (By the way, as far as I know, the habit of copying Talk page dialog between myself and others (like I've done here), with the Talk page owner's text in italics, is my own convention. Most people just carry on conversations by posting their comments on the other's page, so you have to go back and forth between the pages to follow the conversation. I just think my way is easier for each person to follow. ☺) — Jeff Q 01:36, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I've actually looked over the how-to-edit material, though I could clearly stand to go over a lot of it in more detail. "Grosse Pointe" is one of my favorite flicks; when I started work on the stub it consisted of 2 quotes (one of them a misquote). I probably should have looked over some complete pages before I set to work, but I decided to get some of the material in place first and get the formatting straight later... which you took care of... which gives me a sample to work from. Should come in handy for my next pet project, a "True Grit" page.

I appreciate the additional tips (by the way, your talk-page method is indeed clearer). I may pester you from time to time for tech tips; I hope you won't be shy about telling me to bugger off (in less, or more, blunt language, depending on your inclination & degree of irritation) when/if it gets to be a pain.

Irrelevant tangent: your stuff on "Zorro the Gay Blade" really takes me back!My brother and I can still rattle off entire scenes from memory.

  --RPickman 14:32, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)RPickman

Glad to have you onboard here. Wikiquote can really use more folks enthusiatic about adding substantial and accurate quotations for movies and TV shows.

Feel free to "pester" me. You can also post to the Village pump, the official place to ask questions, though it doesn't seem to be used very much here yet. I've found that Kalki is a very helpful administrator (in fact, the only one here I've had any contact with), although he's fairly busy, as one might expect.

By the way, I posted your most recent comment from my talk page above in the exact form you posted it to mine to show you a downside of the fixed-font system (triggered by an initial space on a line, as one might do for ordinary prose paragraphs). It creates insanely wide text lines, as you can see above. The automatic surrounding box looks neat (if you're using the default Monobook skin [Wiki page style]), but anything larger than 80 characters or so (depending on browser window size, Wiki skin, etc.) just runs right past the box. Using fixed-font requires you to be careful about line widths and doesn't handle varying browser window sizes well unless the widths are modest. I reformatted your posting on my page simply by removing the initial space from each line and adding a blank line between each "paragraph" to make paragraphs, which I inferred was your intent.

Also, you don't need to put your user ID after the ~~~~; the editor figures out who you are and sets up the signature properly.

Anyway, good luck on True Grit and other pages, and thanks for participating on Wikiquote! — Jeff Q 21:53, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Trying to move a page

I'm about finished with True Grit page; all it needs is a plot summary and director/writer acknowledgements. Page only exists in "List of Films" section. I'd like for it to be accessible in Western films but haven't been able to work out how to make this happen. Any pointers you could pass on would be greatly appreciated (if I'm just overlooking something in the how-to-edit stuff, please disregard this request). --RPickman 00:06, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Actually, it's not a question of moving the page. It's a Category designation. Anything with a category tag on the page automatically gets added into the appropriate Category listing. (I don't know if Wikiquote says much about categories. They're relatively new in Wikidom. I've basically learned what I know by looking at pages with category tags embedded in them.) All you need to do is add the following line to the page:

[[Category:Western films]]

You can put in anywhere in the page, but traditionally it's placed at the bottom. If you want to refer by link to the category on a page, you add a colon in front of the word "Category". The end result looks like this: Category:Western films. Finally, if you want to make the listing on the Category page look different from the article name (like changing The Sixth Sense to show up as "Sixth Sense, The" on Category:Films), format the tag like this:

[[Category:Films|Sixth Sense, The]]

Hope this helps. — Jeff Q 01:40, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)

reply

Your work on the X-men looks fine. Profanity is allowed here, in quoting both works and people, when the quotes are genuine. This is just a brief response, because I have limited time tonight, but thanks for the contributions, and Welcome to Wikiquote! ~ Kalki 05:26, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)

If you edit your user page without logging in, it could be mistaken for vandalism, but the vandalism JeffQ erased from your page was someone simply pasting commercial links onto various pages, and yours was one of them. This sort of vandalism has been the most common form here, but thus far it has usually been quickly noticed and removed. ~ Kalki 18:26, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Another rookie question

At the risk of coming off as technologically retarded... how do I make a vertical line on-screen? (e.g. your Sixth Sense, The note above). I don't see it on my keyboard, and haven't been able to figure another way of doing it.

--RPickman 06:27, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)

If you're talking about the pipe character ("|", ASCII 124 or 0x7C), it's usually represented on keyboards as a broken vertical line, like a colon that uses vertical segments instead of dots. (A Unicode picture version of this is "╎", or U+254E (if your browser supports this), but don't use that code, use U+007C.) Most English keyboards have it on the backslash ("\") key, and create it using SHIFT-backslash. It's usually just above the ENTER or RETURN key on US PC and Mac keyboards, although some have it just to the left of ENTER instead. UK keyboards apparently place it to the left of the "Z" key. Some keyboards have it in other places (e.g., French keyboards have it on the "6" key, but I don't know what kind of control keys one uses to get the symbol). If your keyboard doesn't have this character, you should still be able to create it by engaging your NUM LOCK and holding the ALT key down while you press "124" (the general means to reproduce any extended ASCII (0-255) code). Hope this helps. — Jeff Q (talk) 08:53, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Same-name films and novels

I'm trying to start a page for the novel "The Princess Bride". There's already a page for the movie; pages started in "Literary Works" automatically link to the movie page. Any ideas for getting around this? All I've been able to come up with is tacking "novel" on to the title, which will look lousy. --RPickman 03:18, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)

NEVER MIND! Got a chance to look over the movie page; I'd forgotten that the author of the book also wrote the screenplay. Most of the good quotes made it into the movie, so a separate page for the book is not really necessary. Sorry. --RPickman 13:18, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Darn. I was writing a lengthy response to a number of issues I thought were raised by your question, but most are irrelevant to your immediate needs, which you happily resolved yourself. ☺ Actually, I wrote all this Monday morning (EST), but I've spent several hours waiting to find that special moment when the overburdened Wiki system would allow me to post this comment.

I do want to clarify something, if I correctly interpreted your concern about links for pages "started" in a list article. If you meant that you cannot create the title The Princess Bride on the List of literary works page without it becoming a link to the current The Princess Bride article, that is because there is nothing special about creating a link on any page anywhere in Wikiquote. The link [[The Princess Bride]] will always refer to the same page, no matter where it's created. (In fact, it's handy to take advantage of this by making links out of article references in Talk pages like this, like I'm doing here, so people reading these discussions can click on the link to see what's being discussed. Most Wikians don't seem to consider that many people not originally involved in their discussions read these pages much later. I always try to write for a general audience.) Pages like List of literary works, List of films, and Television shows are merely lists of article titles to make it easier to find subject articles. They don't confer any special characteristics on their titles. In fact, if you wanted to be whimsical, you could add Albert Finney to the Television shows article. (Of course, someone would eventually delete it again.)

The only thing that confers any special attributes to an article is the Category system, which is very new and not too well understood yet (even by the creators!). Ideally, when people create an article, they should add Category links to the bottom of the page. In the case of The Princess Bride, if you add a novel section, you should add [[Category:Fantasy books|Princess Bride, The]] to the page bottom, in addition to the Comedy films and Fantasy films categories already there. (The "Princess Bride, The" part allows this article to be sorted appropriately on the category page; otherwise, it would be placed under "T" for "The" because of the article title.) Existing categories are listed at Special:Categories, which you can also get to by clicking on the Categories link on any page that has a category. New ones are automatically created whenever someone adds a [[Category:WHATEVER]] tag to an article. You can see how silly this can get by looking over the existing Category list, which is why I usually try to find an appropriate existing one (or ones).

If you had felt you needed to create an article with a title like The Princess Bride (novel), don't worry about it looking tacky. It's perfectly acceptable and is in common use here. Readers, of course, wouldn't think to add the parenthetical part when looking for quotes from the novel, but we get around that by one of two methods:

1. Create a disambiguation (dab) page The Princess Bride that provides links to The Princess Bride (novel) and The Princess Bride (film), usually with some perfunctory comments about each. (In this case, you could have Moved the current page to the (film) page, then created the dab page.)
2. Add an introductory line to each of The Princess Bride and The Princess Bride (novel) pages, along these lines:

These are quotes from the 1987 film The Princess Bride. For quotes from the William Goldman novel, see The Princess Bride (novel).

… and …

These are quotes from the William Goldman novel The Princess Bride. For quotes from the 1987 film, see The Princess Bride.

Both of these methods are in use in Wikiquote. — Jeff Q (talk) 17:39, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Black Hawk Down

You created this page but forgot to put any quotes on it. Rmhermen 17:30, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)

So I did. I could try to convince you the page is "incomplete", or that I've been terribly busy with other things... but the fact is, the page pretty much slipped my mind. Will try to get some quotes on it ASAP. --RPickman 03:15, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)

You have been nominated for adminship

• I have recently nominated you, and three other users who have been active at Wikiquote for adminship. The opportunity for voting and comments must last a week before any actions can be taken. Please post your response at Wikiquote:Requests for adminship. Thanks for all your help. ~ Kalki 13:47, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I'm sorry that you don't feel quite ready for the position yet. Thanks for all your effort thus far, and I hope that you will feel more capable here within a few months or so. ~ Achilles

No one demands perfection here, and I hope that you will grow more comfortable with things soon. Since you are declining for now, I will probably remove your name from the list for consideration, but whenever you feel ready anytime in the months ahead, just ask. That you are intent on helping the project grow, and have a proven will to act responsibly are definitely two of the things that matter most. Thanks again for your efforts. ~ Kalki 00:40, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Hi, RPickman. I'm sorry to hear you feel now unready to request for sysopship. Thank you for your efforts and devotion to the project and also your prudence. I would like you to know even oldbies rely on other's experiences and advices and it is one of the expecting virtues of sysops that you know what you don't know. ;-) Hoping you to enjoy Wikiquote, cheers. --Aphaia 02:22, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Thank you for your vote. I don't agree that I am "running the show" though; I've only supervised a few things here for a while. Everyone involved keeps things running. ~ Kalki 17:25, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I commend your prudence, RPickman, but don't sell yourself short. I've been Wiki-ing for nearly two years, and there are still plenty of things I don't know. Based on your hard work, your conscientiousness, and your fearlessness about asking questions, I'm sure you would absorb the necessary details quickly and rise to the challenge of adminship quite well. I suspect your main obstacle will be your own assessment of your readiness. — Jeff Q (talk) 23:53, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Broaden your suspicions

I appreciate your confidence. You might be right - but I really don't think so. Thing is, my ignorance extends beyond Wiki into the broader field of computers in general. Took a brief look at the sysop functions mentioned by Kalki, above; I have only the vaguest notion what half of them mean, and no clue how any of them would actually be done. Can't see the point in having additional abitities that I don't know how to use. (Believe it or not, at one time I was nearly cutting-edge; if FORTRAN makes a comeback, I'll be set.) Again, thanks - but I'll stick with being an ordinary contributor.

--RPickman 19:52, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps the biggest problem you'll have is distinguishing between computer stuff and Wiki stuff. FYI, the "Wi-Fi" (Wireless Fidelity) reference is the only general computer term Kalki uses, and it's irrelevant to Wiki work (unless you're on the road). I don't know how to "block vandals, edit protected pages, protect, unprotect or delete pages" yet, myself. And anyone can revert a change quickly and fairly easily; Kalki's statement merely hints at a special feature for sysops that makes it even quicker and easier — presumably, since I don't know what it looks like, either. These are all things you get information on if you become an admin. (At least, I hope, otherwise I won't be a very useful admin. ☺) I'm fully prepared to look for and then ask about any of these things, if I get the admin nod, but that's nothing more than you've been doing already. Anyway, I'm not trying to sell you on the idea; it's just a learning curve we all need to travel. — Jeff Q (talk) 02:42, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Film-adding shortcut

I see you've been busy adding films to List of films/requested, then quickly creating the articles. Might I suggest a shortcut? Since these requested films must be deleted from the "requested" subpage and added to the main List of films page, I've found a way to avoid the multiple list edits:

1. Edit List of films and add the title, but Preview the page instead of Save-ing it.
2. Use the red link created in the preview to open a second browser window to create the article. (If you want to know how to do this, let me know what Web browser you use.)
3. Save the film article and close that second browser window.
4. Go back to the first window and Save the List of films edit.

That way, the film isn't added to the current-film list until you've created the film's quote page, and no shifting has to be done. The only potential problem is if someone adds a film between the time you edit List of films and save it (in which case you'll get an "edit conflict"), but you can avoid that by having a prepared set of quotes in a text editor that you simply paste into the new film article's edit window and save. When I do this, it rarely takes me more than a couple of minutes to go through all four steps. (It's even quicker using your approach of starting the article with a few quotes and then adding more to it later. I tend to create an entire article offline over days, then paste the whole mess into the new article, which slows me down while I review it for errors.) Anyway, it's just a suggestion. — Jeff Q (talk) 22:54, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Here are two ways to open a second window with Internet Explorer:

• Hold the SHIFT key down and click on the link.
• Right-click on the link and select "Open in a new window".

I tried this using IE 6, but at least one of these should work for older versions. Let me know if it doesn't. You can quickly switch between the windows by pressing Alt-Tab (holding the ALT key down while pressing TAB), which cycles you through your open windows. — Jeff Q (talk) 00:56, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Glad to see that my instructions were useful. And thanks for starting Dogma! I've been meaning to get that going for a while, but it was still pretty far down on my list. — Jeff Q (talk) 02:39, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Léon/The Professional

Another (semi-)technical problem: the movie Leon was released in most (all?) US markets as The Professional. It's in Foreign Films as "Leon"; I'd like to have it listed in Action Films (or just Films) under the American title. My attempts have resulted in film appearing as "Leon" listed under the letter P. Any idea what I'm doing wrong? --RPickman 02:54, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC)

It looks to me like you added a properly formatted film link for The Professional to the P section. There's nothing wrong about that. When you find out that there's a different preferred name, you can just edit List of films to remove the less-desirable title and add the preferred one, if it's not already there. It's not uncommon for people to add two different titles for the same film or TV show. When I see that that has happened, I typically remove the secondary one and put that title in parentheses on the line with the preferred title link. I've just done it for this movie, as an example. — Jeff Q (talk) 03:10, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I suspect that you are talking about the Category Action films, in which case the answer is no. You can use a "sort key" to alphabetize the article differently in the category but you cannot get it to display anything other than the title. This function has been requested since about half an hour after the category system was introduced. Rmhermen 22:41, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Oops. I see Rmhermen better understood your problem. (Apparently my brain was in snooze mode when I read your rather straightforward explanation.) To quote Emily Litella (Gilda Radner) from Saturday Night Live… "Never mind." — Jeff Q (talk) 04:46, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Redirects

I'm trying to set up a link from Wikipedia's page on the film Zulu to the Wikiquote page I made for it. Problem is, 'Pedia lists it as Zulu (film), so link goes to nonexistent page. How do I go about redirecting to the actual 'Quote page (just Zulu)? --RPickman 00:37, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I assume you're trying to use the {{wikiquote}} template that requires the articles to have the same title. If you want to use the template, you should edit the page Zulu (film) here on Wikiquote and add the line:

#REDIRECT [[Zulu]]

You can also use the direct link [[q:Zulu|]] in the Wikipedia article (which will display just "Zulu" in the link), if you don't feel the need to use the template. One hopes the MediaWiki crew will eventually make it possible to override the {{PAGENAME}} parameter in these templates so we can link to mismatched names between projects. — Jeff Q (talk) 00:53, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

By the way, RoboAction, another major film-quote contributor, passed along a tip for linking mismatched titles from Wikipedia to Wikiquote, as shown in the following example:

{{wikipediapar|Predator (movie)}} for our Predator article, and

{{wikiquotepar|Predator}} for Wikipedia's Predator

— Jeff Q (talk) 08:41, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Buffy nomenclature

For once, I don't have a technical question. Have been making occasional additions to the Buffy the Vampire Slayer page. Most recent was from episode "Who Are You?" where Faith has switched bodies with Buffy; makes things tricky when one of them talks from the other's body (doesn't seem to have come up before). I went with "Buffy-in-Faith" for character. Give me a holler if you have a better idea. By the way (sort of): 1) Outstanding job on guidelines for Buffy page 2) Thanks for passing on the "par" tip. --RPickman 04:14, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the Buffy contribution. You may have noticed I rudely tweaked your wording ☺ to match my own record of that passage. I do this regularly with Buffy because of my obsessive need to quote exactly, and that's one of the tons of quotes I've recorded in my own Buffy quote system. (I don't add everything I've got because the page would several megabytes long, but when someone adds one, I tweak it when necessary. It also prevents the list from becoming my personal "favorite Buffy quotes" page, as there are many passages that folks add that I wouldn't.)

As for the body-switching situation, I had the same problem with my quote database, and I used the system I implemented for MST3K: when person A is speaking as if they're person B, I write A [as B]; e.g., Servo [as Dracula]. But that's much harder to figure for one person in another's body, without giving instructions to the reader. Does Buffy [as Faith] mean Buffy's soul in Faith's body, or Buffy's body with Faith's soul? Frankly, I find your method much clearer in this circumstance. — Jeff Q (talk) 09:20, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

P.S. Thanks for the note on the guidelines. I'm actually not so happy about them, because they're so long and involved. I hate tons of instructions that might discourage people from contributing. But I thought it would help people understand the style I'd defined, so they would be less likely to complain about it. (It'd be so much easier if the Wiki community came up with some decent quote markup and stopped screwing around with skin styles that make existing markup look so different for different people, but that's another long diatribe.) Of course, people often just try to imitate other quotes' format, and some won't bother even with examples and instructions, but everybody has their own way to learn, and I figured the instructions would help those who like to RTFM ☺ before doing something. — Jeff Q (talk) 09:29, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The Wizard of Oz

Nice job on cleaning up The Wizard of Oz! — Jeff Q (talk) 21:37, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Lifting Buffy instructions

...Would you mind if I lifted your Buffy instructions for the Angel page? I had everything there reformatted Buffy-style as of last week, but having directions might save some editing later on (might not, too — but it's worth a try). --RPickman 04:23, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Not at all; help yourself. They really belong to the community, anyway. It may fuel my already excessive ego, but I try to remind myself that it's an accident of circumstance that they still resemble what I originally wrote. I myself have lifted plenty of practices from other wikis and wikians. — Jeff Q (talk) 08:16, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I see you've adapted the Buffy instructions as you had planned. I have two comments about them as they currently stand. First, my signature shouldn't be on them, because it makes it look like I put them there. Could you please replace them with your signature and current timestamp? The way I usually handle acknowledgement of the original source is to mention the person (or page; again, it's just happenstance that the text is recognizably mine) when introducing the text, like "the formatting instructions below are initially based on a structure borrowed from Buffy the Vampire Slayer", and then go into the details. Ordinarily it's bad form to rework or rewrite Talk page material, but by putting formatting instructions on the Talk page, I opened up to those other pages the need to be able to replace text that I wrote, so it's reasonable to lift it wholesale as long as there's a simple nod to its origin.

Second, I notice that, as you've created them, the copy-and-paste character references require a person to edit the instruction page in order to do the copy, rather than simply select the text from an ordinary page display. I suggest that this makes it somewhat harder for editors (especially newer ones) to make use of this shortcut, which will probably result in fewer people taking advantage of it. My rationale was this: anyone who is comfortable doing an edit to get the shortcut doesn't need it, because they can do the same thing on the main article page, where those shortcuts already exist in the quotes. The nowiki-wrapped text is more for folks who are just getting started. (Personally, I don't use it, because I find it much easier to have text pages on my computer (e.g., Buffy.txt, MST3K.txt) with just the shortcuts for each show. I just write up a bunch of new quotes [or copy over existing malformatted ones and edit them] in my text editor, then cut-n-paste the lot of them back into the appropriate section. That's why my edits are frequently just one per episode, or sometimes one per season.) — Jeff Q (talk) 18:00, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

As to your second concern... I'm not sure I understand the problem, or what needs to be done differently... Also: noticed you've cleaned up my Buffy entries from Dawn's diary. They're a lot clearer now; my versions were so garbled ("malformatted", as you aptly put it) that I was considering deleting them.

Sorry about the confusion. Apparently I had been looking at a version of Talk:Angel earlier than 13:39, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC), because I see that at that time, you had converted the character links to nowiki-formatted text, which is what I was suggesting. (If you look at an earlier version, my text might make a bit more sense.) Either I had a old cached version of the page when I looked at it, or I took several hours to getting around to posting, during which you'd made my point moot. My apologies for the resulting unfathomable suggestion. And as far as Dawn's diary entries in "Real Me" go, your stuff was hardly "malformatted". (I use that more to mean stuff that isn't indented or character-bolded.) We just had a slight difference of opinion on how to present it, and since I'm obnoxious about the Buffy page, I revised it to keep with my strict opinions. Someday someone (or someones) will probably become more obnoxious than me about it, and I'll probably concede to their greater diligence. Such is the way of community editing. ☺ — Jeff Q (talk) 07:29, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

You may have noticed that I've revised some of the Talk:Angel formatting guidelines, fixing some markup and making them more Angel-specific. I've also added my signature to two sections that you had removed them from at my request. I suppose you're wondering what the hell I'm doing. ☺

Believe it or not, I'm not trying to make you crazy. I'm having problems myself figuring out how to credit postings on these odd talk pages. The problem is that talk pages are normally supposed to show a chronological dialog of users discussing the article. (The chrono order may be interrupted by side discussions, but the timestamp on signatures should always make it clear who said what.) But I've used some TV-show talk pages as an evolving description of formatting guidelines, which is somewhat unconventional and breaks the orderly chrono-ordered, signed discussions. I may have started the guidelines, but anyone can edit them (or borrow them as you've done), and there is no record (other than the page history) who contributed what. This is expected for an article, but not for a talk page. I've only gotten away with it this long because no one has edited them or had a reason to copy them until now.

One alternative is to put the guidelines in the article itself, but these guidelines are far too elaborate to permit that. (There's a general wiki expectation of keeping "metadata" out of an article, anyway.)

I frankly don't know what to do about this. I'm afraid my whiplash-inducing suggestions to you are just the result of my own lack of surety. I apologize for the confusion. Perhaps we can put both our signatures on these sections, and hope that no one else bothers to edit them for a while (which seems likely). I'm open to other (any!) suggestions. — Jeff Q (talk) 09:56, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

I think I finally have a solution for these detailed formatting instructions — put them on a subpage of the appropriate article! That way, the subpage is like an article in that it only reflects the unattributed current practice, it doesn't clutter up the main article itself, and any discussion can go on the subpage's talk page, so signed commentary about the formatting practice doesn't get mixed up with the practice itself. If what I'm trying with Firefly at User:Jeffq/Experiments/Firefly format works, I think I'll go back to Buffy, MST3K, etc., and move their formatting discussions into similar subpages. Take a look at it and let me know what you think. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 10:34, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

TV Quote Guidelines

Hi, RPickman! I noticed your comment on Jeffq's page regarding TV-quote-guidelines, and wanted to make sure you were aware of the discussion in Wikiquote talk:Templates. I cleaned up the Veronica Mars page, and decided to link (rather than copy) to the Gilmore Girls instructions, just to save redundancy, and I would really like for one prime guideline (obviously I prefer the Veronica Mars/Gilmore Girls way, which is pretty similar to the Whedon-shows way...) MosheZadka 06:59, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Voiceover formatting

On the "Real Me" quotes, first entry was OK, but second one (arrival of Xander and Anya) was unclear enough to bother me (really did consider deleting it).

I remember agonizing over that passage, because it was hard to come up with a decent way to list the dialog without the context and formatting getting in the way. (My version still is rather awkward, but I think it's the best compromise between following the general guidelines and maintaining accuracy. And I really wanted to keep that quote!) Part of the problem is voiceovers. It's annoying to have to put "[voiceover]" in front of each quoted line. You can perhaps skip it when a whole passage is voiceover (as I do in my Buffy quote project during Dawn's initial recitation), but when the voicing-over character intersperses non-voiced-over dialog, it's mandatory to make the passage clear. Check out Dead Like Me, in which a major portion of every show is George's voicing-over, to see how confusing it can get. (It's one of the reasons I haven't bothered to add any more quotes to that article.) — Jeff Q (talk) 04:16, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

Wayne's World

You took off the message saying that this page needs to be merged without actually merging the pages. Perhaps it was a mistake. Since you have done a lot of work on that pagem can you tell if there is anything on Waynes World that needs to be added to the correct page before it gets redirected? Rmhermen 13:04, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

Sysopship again

Hi, RPickman. Are you interested in joining our sysop team now? I suppose you feel in a bit different way before a month and some days, as an user with five months experience and as the third most active Wikiquoter on this project. --Aphaia 08:26, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

Thank you for reply and consideration. I would like to notice you I too make mostly "minor" edits - interlang, add category (and sometimes list a new deletion candidate), welcome newcomers, etc. And in my opinion patience is one of expectable character for a good editor. I don't try now to persuade you, but only would like you know I think you as a good and respectable editor, really a good part of our community. Cheers, --Aphaia 13:41, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

See also

Are we trying to get "See also: List of Films" on every film page? Noticed it's getting added to some of my recent pages; if we're going for uniformity (or have at least a rule of thumb to judge by), I'll try to remember to take care of it myself. Here again, am not griping; just trying not to create unnecessary editing work for other people. --RPickman 20:29, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

I've been adding it as I notice its absence on various film pages, but there's no policy for this, one way or the other. It's just one of the many things (like External links, {{lynx}}, Wikipedia links, IMDb and other templates, categories, and so on) that seem to be a useful but cumbersome part of the infrastructure of film articles. I like uniformity where it's practical and useful, but I'm also reluctant to keep adding to the burden of article infrastructure. If I didn't have 30-40 other issues with Wikiquote practices that I find troubling, I might bring up another round of efforts to standardize at least some of the infrastructure and ensure that they're well-documented. But I've felt overwhelmed just by doing ordinary maintenance work lately. I really look forward to the day when we have 20 or 30 frequent contributors not only to regular articles, but to Wikiquote maintenance as well. [sigh] ☺ Meanwhile, I'd say add it if you think about it, but don't feel that it's a requirement. — Jeff Q (talk) 20:39, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

I realize you weren't referring specifically to me, but I'll see what I can do to get more involved in "ordinary maintenance work." (you're on your own as far as the other 19 to 29 contributors, though.)... --RPickman 02:06, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

Sorry 'bout that. I was worried after I posted this that you could take this as a not-so-subtle request for maintenance work. I really appreciate your substantial work on cleaning up film articles (which is already an important maintenance effort), and wouldn't want to detract from that. I think I'm getting a bit sloppy (and even a bit snippy) in my comments to people. I'd take a Wikibreak, but I feel like I've already been slacking off lately. Oh, well. ☺ Jeff Q (talk) 07:21, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

No apology is necessary here. Your comments didn't come off as a request for work, per se. You mentioned something that needs doing, and for once it seems like something I can actually do without hitting you up for detailed instructions first. Let a fella feel useful, okay? Here's hoping the stress level dies down for you in the not-too-distant future. --RPickman 08:16, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

Reduced activity

This isn't an earth-shattering announcement unless you happen to be me or my spouse... but my activity level will be tapering off for a while. I've rejoined the ranks of the gainfully employed, which will take up an annoyingly large chunk of my free time. --RPickman 08:33, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

Cleanup suggestions

I've seen a lot of your cleanup work on the film articles on my Recent Changes (RC) patrols (which is how we watch for vandalism, in case you didn't know that), which is why it may seem like I'm following you around. It's not intentional. ☺ I hope you don't mind my making a few observations, though:

• When you make changes, you should always preview them and test the links before saving. The most experienced editor will make mistakes (as I discover in my own work all the time). I fixed some typos in your recent edits to Galaxy Quest (a missing "%" in the HR line, which turns the HR into a tiny 50-pixel line) and Mystery Men (misspelled "width", which turns the HR into a full line; and a [[1999]] link that I think you meant to be [[w:1999 in film|1999]]). Two handy tricks:
  1. To test a link, do a new-window click on the link so that it opens a new window with the resulting page. Then you can close the window without losing your original edit window. (The new-window or new-tab click mechanism varies wildly with browser type; if you don't know how to do this, let me know what browser/version you use and I'll let you know the easiest way to do this.)
  2. You can avoid typos in commonly-added text (like <hr width="50%"/>) by having a text-editor window open that has the text ready for copying and pasting. (For Windows, I use a tiny Notepad window, which you can bring up with Start->Run, entering "Notepad", and grabbing the lower-right corner of the application window to shrink its size so it's only as large as you need it.)
• This is strictly advisory, but I recommend adding a blank line around those half-width HRs so future editors can more easily see where dialog segments start and end. I'm sure you noticed I originally put blank lines both above and below the HR line, but I've come around to the idea that simply adding one above (leaving the HR "attached" to the next dialog segment) is enough of a visual cue.
• I'm on my own minor crusade on this one, but I like to italicize book, film, and TV show titles even in link sections like "See also". (I get twinges looking at the long list of unitalicized titles in List of films and Television shows, but then I take my medication and calm down. ☺) I honestly can't say whether doing this is a good thing; it's just my compulsion.

Please take these suggestions with a grain of salt, and continue your excellent work! — Jeff Q (talk) 09:05, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

... is there not a potentially-amusing degree of irony in my hope that you'd have less stress to deal with while piling up editorial issues for you? Sorry about that... --RPickman 21:54, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

Hey, don't worry about my stress — it's completely self-inflicted. Besides, I merely passed along suggestions and know you'll do what you think is appropriate and have time for (which is all any of us can hope to do). My stress on this ended when I posted the suggestions; they're completely yours to take or leave as desired. And congratulations on becoming a cog in the auto industry machinery once again! (I think.) One must be able to feed oneself before one can take time out to edit Wikiquote articles, eh? ☺ — Jeff Q (talk) 23:17, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

Off-line for a while

I'm going to be out of commission for a while. The computer I've been using is the property of my wife's union, and has to be returned now that her term in office is over. We've bought a new computer of our very own, but given my frequent bouts of technological retardation, it may take considerable time to get it up and running. --RPickman 21:23, 25 May 2005 (UTC)

Up and running. Getting the new unit working proved easier than I imagined. --RPickman 21:53, 28 May 2005 (UTC)

RPickman, might I recommend using the "Create a new topic" link at the top of Village pump instead of editing the previous section and manually adding a new header? When you do it the latter way, your edit shows up in Recent changes and the page history as being part of the previous topic, which is confusing. Using the "new topic" link adds your new header (from the "Subject/headline" field above the text") automatically to these edit histories (which is exactly how the "+" tab works for discussion pages). It's just one of the small things we're trying to encourage to reduce potential problems and hopefully make Wikiquote easier to use. ☺ — Jeff Q (talk) 05:43, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

P.S. Nice to see your computer setup wasn't the hassle you'd feared. We don't want to be without your considerable contributions for long! — Jeff Q (talk) 05:43, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Hi

Welcome back! We missed you really. --Aphaia 6 July 2005 01:13 (UTC)

Dark Willow

Customarily, as I've heard the usage, "Dark Willow" refers to Willow going black-haired in the last episode of Season 6. The Vampire Willow in season 3 is usually called just that. ~ MosheZadka (Talk) 19:12, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

Point taken; character name has been edited in accordance with your suggestion. As originally posted, she was "Evil Willow", so I think my version, while erronneous, was still anm improvement. Thanks for your input. --RPickman 00:26, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

It was -- but your edit drew my attention to the quote :) Thanks! ~ MosheZadka (Talk) 00:29, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

TV template

Hi. I wanted to draw your attention to Wikiquote talk:Templates/TVdraft. Any comments you might have on the template will be appreciated. Thanks ~ MosheZadka (Talk) 17:19, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

guidelines

• Try not to add more than 2-4 quotes yourself, as MosheZadka mentioned.
• Try to avoid adding dialog whose humor or pithiness won't be clear to someone who has not watched the show. Such material is better suited for fan sites.

Any time you find yourself transcribing an entire scene, consider trimming it down to the best few lines.

• A context longer than a single line suggests that too much non-quote material is needed to make the quote interesting.
• It's better to remove a single non-pithy quote line that add a paragraph to demonstrate why it's interesting.
• Always remember that others may have different opinions on what should or shouldn't be included, so leave "room" for their ideas.

Buffy queries

Please look at my question in Talk:Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Thanks ~ MosheZadka (Talk) 17:43, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

Buffy season 6 evil trio

… I also wanted to ask if there's a preferred name for the group of "supervillains" (Warren, Jonathan, Andrew) featured in Season Six; I've seen them referred to as the Trio, the Evil Trio, the nerds, the geeks, etc. and am not quite sure what to call them. --RPickman 05:12, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

I'm not aware of an "official" name. (I prefer Xander's "Legion of Dim" myself.) I suggest using whatever term suits you when you write the context lines, as long as it's clear who you're referring to. I think we can be a bit creative in the context lines, as long as we don't get too fannish about it (and keep it brief, of course). I recommend not using it to indicate speakers — i.e., if they say something in unison — but rather to show each in a comma-separated list. I've always felt that as long as the exact speakers are listed in the actual dialog, one can take some liberties in how one describes a group in the context lines (e.g., "Scoobies", "gang", "Slayerettes" for Buffy's group). So far, no one seems to have a problem with that. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 18:16, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

Dawn of the Dead

Sorry I didn't get back to you regarding your request for me to review the Dawn of the Dead (2004) stuff. I still haven't had a chance to look, but I had done some work before the merge had to occur (I inadvertently created a new page before I really understood how things work here). But, I used primarily IMDB to add quotes and tried to adhere to the format shown in the Film template. I've just returned to work from a vacation, but I'll try to take a look as soon as I can and offer any comments I have. UDScott 19:33, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

28 Days Later

I notice you've added a cleanup tag to this article. What exactly needs to be corrected or cleaned up? - RPickman 02:29, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

• I added the cleanup tag because it doesn't quite fit into the film template -- the changes needed are really pretty minor: individual quotes are not separated from dialogue, there are numerous extra lines between dialogues, and the stars shouldn't be listed at the top (since they are already in the Cast section). Otherwise, a good page (for a good movie) UDScott 21:11, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Hi from Wikipedia (re: Patton (film))

Hi from Wikipedia!

I wanted to make sure someone saw what I left... and you RPickman seemed to have written the article

re: Talk:Patton_(film) My sigs not working over here, but DirectLinktomyTalk that will!

You use different templates here I gather, so wanted to make sure someone saw this. 24.61.229.179 05:59, 21 March 2006 (UTC) aka User:fabartus at Wikipedia

Hi

Nice to see you here around :) --Aphaia 07:50, 24 July 2007 (UTC)