User talk:Risker

Risker will be editing very sporadically until mid-September and will not be able to respond quickly to messages left here. She apologises to the fine editors who have requested her assistance, and encourages all of her Talk Page Watchers to pitch in where they can. With luck, real world demands will subside to their usual excessive level in the near future. Please be patient, this too shall pass.

Beware! This user's talk page is monitored by talk page watchers. Some of them even talk back.

Talk page archive #1 - January/06 to December/07
Talk page archive #2 - January 08/ to May 11/08
Talk page archive #3 - May 11/08 to July 31/08
Talk page archive #4 - August 1/08 to

Notes to self

Column-generating template families

The templates listed here are not interchangeable. For example, using {{col-float}} with {{col-end}} instead of {{col-float-end}} would leave a <div>...</div> open, potentially harming any subsequent formatting.

Column templates

Type	Family	Handles wiki table code?†	Responsive/ mobile suited	Start template	Column divider	End template
Float	"col-float"	Yes	Yes	{{col-float}}	{{col-float-break}}	{{col-float-end}}
	"columns-start"	Yes	Yes	{{columns-start}}	{{column}}	{{columns-end}}
Columns	"div col"	Yes	Yes	{{div col}}	–	{{div col end}}
	"columns-list"	No	Yes	{{columns-list}} (wraps div col)	–	–
Flexbox	"flex columns"	No	Yes	{{flex columns}}	–	–
Table	"col"	Yes	No	{{col-begin}}, {{col-begin-fixed}} or {{col-begin-small}}	{{col-break}} or {{col-2}} .. {{col-5}}	{{col-end}}

^† Can template handle the basic wiki markup {| | || |- |} used to create tables? If not, special templates that produce these elements (such as {{(!}}, {{!}}, {{!!}}, {{!-}}, {{!)}})—or HTML tags (<table>...</table>, <tr>...</tr>, etc.)—need to be used instead.

Column-generating template families

The templates listed here are not interchangeable. For example, using {{col-float}} with {{col-end}} instead of {{col-float-end}} would leave a <div>...</div> open, potentially harming any subsequent formatting.

Column templates

Type	Family	Handles wiki table code?†	Responsive/ mobile suited	Start template	Column divider	End template
Float	"col-float"	Yes	Yes	{{col-float}}	{{col-float-break}}	{{col-float-end}}
	"columns-start"	Yes	Yes	{{columns-start}}	{{column}}	{{columns-end}}
Columns	"div col"	Yes	Yes	{{div col}}	–	{{div col end}}
	"columns-list"	No	Yes	{{columns-list}} (wraps div col)	–	–
Flexbox	"flex columns"	No	Yes	{{flex columns}}	–	–
Table	"col"	Yes	No	{{col-begin}}, {{col-begin-fixed}} or {{col-begin-small}}	{{col-break}} or {{col-2}} .. {{col-5}}	{{col-end}}

^† Can template handle the basic wiki markup {| | || |- |} used to create tables? If not, special templates that produce these elements (such as {{(!}}, {{!}}, {{!!}}, {{!-}}, {{!)}})—or HTML tags (<table>...</table>, <tr>...</tr>, etc.)—need to be used instead.

Things to follow up on

My talk page is also my "to-do" list

No really, I do read all my messages in a timely manner. I also archive fairly regularly once the subject of the message has been resolved. I keep things on my talk page until they've been addressed, so stuff tends to be out of date order. Consider the top half of this page my to-do list. Some things just take time. Risker (talk)

Article sanctions

Since that page has a lot of noise at it, I wanted to point you at the bottom 2 templates at Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Special enforcement log/Templates which I made in response to our discussion on article special sanctions, are they what you were thinking I meant? MBisanz ^talk 06:51, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Since I don't own them, feel free to make whatever changes you think are appropriate, I just wanted to get something "on the ground" when the case closed. MBisanz ^talk 05:13, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Request for copyediting and/or peer review

Hi. I am trying to get the article Insane Clown Posse to FA quality. Would you be interested in taking a look at it and performing a copyedit on it or offering some advice over at the WikiProject Biography peer review? (Ibaranoff24 (talk) 22:11, 20 June 2008 (UTC))

Hi Ibaranoff24 - I've started work on a peer review and will finish it up tonight and post it in the appropriate place. In the meantime, I have a suggestion for you. Print out a copy of the article, and read it out loud. Anywhere that you find yourself stumbling or the language sounds a bit unnatural, make note of that point on the printout. Those are the areas most likely to require some copy editing and rewording. I'll admit I'm not overwhelmingly familiar with hiphop (although I had at least heard of the group), so could miss some specialist terminology; if there are some terms that can be linked to other WP articles, that may help readers new to the general subject. More later. Risker (talk) 13:54, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Hi. The article is a current FAC. A lot of material has been added to the article since it was last copyedited, and it needs some more work. Could you help out? (Ibaranoff24 (talk) 02:15, 27 July 2008 (UTC))

User:Publiusohio edit warring again.

I don't know if you'd be the one to handle this, but Special:Contributions/Publiusohio has been edit warring again, and extensively, and you blocked him for that before. On American Civil Liberties Union, he hit 5RR today, having requested page protection and then getting in two reverts after he made the request, with the result that the article was protected, as a result of his edit warring, into a state he preferred. I'm neutral, I've considered the content issue too complex for me to get involved with it, I just happened to observe the edit warring, first at John Birch Society, and my comments aren't related to content, only to the obvious use of edit warring to secure results. He apparently went offline after his fourth and fifth reverts on American Civil Liberties Union, I suspect he expected to be blocked, but the admin who protected the ACLU article seems clueless about 3RR, see [1]. Thanks. --Abd (talk) 00:50, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Copyediting

Hi! I gather that you're horribly overworked, so I fully understand if you're too pressed for time. :) But I've been working on the Belldandy article for a bit, and I'd like to put it forward for FAC prior to the 20th anniversary of the series late next month. Unfortunately, I'm still to close to the article too copy edit well (I normally need at least a couple of months worth of distance to edit my own work). If you have time, is there a chance you could have a look? I don't know how seriously it is in need of help (I like to think that it is mostly ok, but I fear it isn't), but any and all advice would be greatly appreciated! Thanks heaps - Bilby (talk) 06:30, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Copyedit request

I'm looking to get a copyedit for The World Ends with You, which, yes, is a video game and I know on the PRV list, you mention you're no good with vg articles, however, based on the comments that lead to the non-promotion of this article to FA (here), I think I need someone separated from VGs to make sure that the article is understandable to someone that has no VG experience; most of the other ce's I know have worked on it before or otherwise too close to VGs that they may not be able to help here. What makes this article particularly difficult is that there's a fictional game within the game, so I was trying to keep the details clear and separate, so if there's any confusion, I need to try to clear it up. --MASEM 13:31, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Could you take a look?

I'm doing a major reworking of Royal Gorge. Could you take a look at the way it looked before I started (especially the image placement and such), and compare it with what it looks like now, and offer your thoughts on what else I can do to improve it? I know you're pretty good at refs and stuff, so any help you could offer would be appreciated. I'm thinking of trying to get it to FA status at some point, and I think you could really help me do that. Anyone else you want to bring in to help would be great as well. I'm currently scouring Flickr for appropriate images for use once the article expands as well. S. Dean Jameson 02:52, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

• I've also made some rather bold changes at John McGraw that I would appreciate your input about. It's the first real time I've invoked the flammable policy to support what I feel is in the best interest of the article and the project. I'd also like to see this one through to FA, if at all possible. S. Dean Jameson 06:56, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

  Just thought I'd let you know that John McGraw has been accepted for an attempted FA run by the Featured Articles Collaboration Committee, which is run out of User:LAAFan's userspace. If you're interested, we could certainly use your skills. S. Dean Jameson 19:11, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

  Still don't know if you're interested, but the project is now in Wikipedia space. S. Dean Jameson 18:13, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Hi S.D.J. - Yes I will definitely take a look. It seems the servers are being kinder to me today (the last 2 days, I have gotten so many error messages it was hardly worth trying to edit anything) so will finish up the CE I was doing and then pop over. A quick perusal indicates it's got lots of potential. Risker (talk) 18:58, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

There's no rush. Even with the acceptance by the FACC, I'm the only one working on it right now. Hopefully the other two sets of eyes that signed on will be more knowledgeable about what it takes for FA than I am, and I know you know more about it than I do! What I'm more interested in is seeing if you want to sign up to help with that new wikiproject FACC thing that is going to be working on John McGraw and England? We could certainly use your expertise. S. Dean Jameson 19:32, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Hey stalker

I need some input.

I've recently been attempting to correct some problems with inappropriate citations in some fairly contentious articles. (Correction, make that "probably as contentious as any article is likely to be, ever.") There are some editors (and admins) involved who are far to free with the "you're pro-pedophilia" smears of other editors, which is very unfortunate. However, there's also the trend for anyone attempting to be neutral to be accused of a militant anti-homosexual bias. While I'm used to "hey poofta why did you delete my article," I'm unused to be accused of being a "fag-bashr" [sic] as per one of the lovely emails I received...

Wait, I'm rambling again, aren't I?

Back to the point: I believe that accusations of this nature are highly disruptive, and that they drive middle-of-the-road editors away from controversial topics. This is clearly sub-optimal. However, as soon as an administrator becomes "involved" with the article, then even the issuing of warnings for this behaviour is problematic. (I recently withdrew just such a warning.)

Thoughts? brenneman 04:06, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Funny you should ask. I was thinking about this just the other day. I find it rather amazing that people make assumptions about each other's sexual orientation; if someone isn't a member of the LGBT wikiproject or doesn't have a telltale userbox, that could simply be because they detest wikiprojects or don't like userboxen. (I fall into both categories.) And sometimes people forget we're here to write a general knowledge encyclopedia; that problem isn't confined to one or two particular groups of articles. I do notice, however, that the biggies tend to be articles related to sex, money, nationalism and belief systems...just like the real world.

It would be my inclination to keep working on things based strictly on policy and quality of references, insisting on scholarly references for everything that is potentially controversial, and not to take the anti-whatever labels seriously at all. Bottom line, there is very little in the field of sexual orientation that has not been studied to death and there should be a plethora of choices for reference sources. One might give consideration to suggesting article probation for one or two of the highest-profile articles to start with, with an admin (or small group of admins) who has no particular motivation other than scholarship assuming a sort of mentorship responsibility for the probation and assisting in identifying problem areas. That way, other admins can participate in their role as editors and not have to worry about the adminny stuff. (In other words...if editing, no adminning and vice versa.) The more I think about it, the better it strikes me that a small group of admins be asked to mentor such articles through, with at least one having experience working with the wikiproject but also having demonstrated a high level of scholarship, and the clear objective of improving the quality of the article (i.e., no agenda to delete the article). I see that Keeper76 and Moni3 seem to have struck up an agreement to try to develop inclusion criteria to determine when to add the LGBT wikiproject tag to an article, and that might be a good example to follow.

Finally...this all takes time and an open mind. I would strongly urge all editors and admins working on these articles to keep the big picture in mind—that being a high quality, well written, carefully referenced article that meets and exceeds our quality standards.

I would be willing to work on this from an admin angle rather than an editorial angle (I simply am not in a position to do the requisite research), but not until later next week when I have slain some real-world dragons that have largely kept me away from doing anything significant on-wiki for the last month.

Does this sound like it has any potential? It's kinda hard for me to tell, it being the wee hours of the morning here. Oh. And I suppose I probably rambled once or twice in there. Sorry. Risker (talk) 05:27, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

+_+ Thank you. - brenneman 02:18, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Belated follow-up: Can you please look at my statement here, and slap me around if I'm being a prat. - brenneman 07:51, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Thank you SO much!

Glad you caught me; I was still lurking about and I was just about to log off. Can you make it a double? Oh, and I'll pass on your compliment to my decorator.  :)) --PMDrive1061 (talk) 23:40, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Reply to question

The answer to your questions is 'confirmed' and 'no' 'yes' to the query as to previous user identities of any kind. I am reassured that you plan to even-handedly enforce the rules on that talk page, not just against editors with whom you disagree, as that is not happening and I look forward to seeing that happen.--Janeyryan (talk) 18:02, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Copyedit please

I saw your name on the volunteers list, and I wanted to know if you could copyedit Avatar: The Last Airbender (season 3). It would really help me out. Thanks! — Parent5446 ☯ ^{(message email)} 23:23, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Literature in the Hoysala Empire

Hie Risker. How are you. I was away in India for a month, travelling in such exciting places as Pattadakal, Aihole and Badami. Over the last week or so, the above article of mine (Literature in...) has been going thru a peer review which is winding down to a close. Please find time to do a thorough copy edit of this article before I nominate it for FAC. We can give it one more week in the PR before I archive it.thanksDineshkannambadi (talk) 22:46, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Making first FA run

Would you mind taking a look at John McGraw for me? Your copy-editing expertise and general editing skill would be appreciated as I try to work this to FA. (Out for the night.) ^S._D.Jameson 23:56, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

SPAM: Content fork about to be spooned

I've stated at LDV's personal life talk that I'm going to redirect and merge back into the parent article as it is a clear content fork. I'll be leaving this notice for all recent editors to the article and its talk page.
brenneman 02:09, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Thank you

Thank you for your vigilance and interest in the well being of my user page. I hope you don't spend too much time on that vandal. It was drive-by stuff and not worth feeding. If it becomes a pattern, I may implore you or some other fine administrator to semi-protect my page.--Janeyryan (talk) 01:49, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Elonka

I appreciate your comments on the tag team essay. Could you go over this [2] and tell me if it makes sense or add your own more developed commnts if you see fit to do so? Slrubenstein

Attention talk page watchers

Lots of hardworking editors have dropped by my page asking for assistance in improving the quality of the encyclopedia. It doesn't look like I am going to get very far into the list below for a while, but you (yes, you!) can help, even if it is grammar correction, cleaning up typos, fixing refs, or simply giving some feedback to the editors. Here's the list of requests I've received in the last little bit that I've not yet addressed. There's not much doubt our colleagues will appreciate any support you can provide.

Crown Fountain (Torsodog)
Dredg (Ars Sycro)
McGill University (Sunsetsunrise)
Sideshow Bob (Scorpion)
Belldandy (Bilby)
The World Ends with You (MASEM)
Avatar: The Last Airbender (season 3) (Parent5446)
Literature in the Hoysala Empire (Dineshkannambadi)
Pilot (30 Rock) (User:Jamie jca)
Félix Houphouët-Boigny (Nishkid64)
Bone Wars (David Fuchs)

So...what are you waiting for? Click on a link and go for it! There's a bit of everything here, from history to literature, places, people, television shows, video games, and even a band. Give it a whirl. And thanks. Risker (talk) 05:50, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Thank god its friday..

And thanks for the backup :) SirFozzie (talk) 05:01, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Tell me about it. You should see the history of this page. On second thought, I think I might just use those shiny tools to clean it up.... Risker (talk) 05:41, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Protection

I semi'd your talk page due to some vandalism. Hope that's okay. seresin ( ¡? ) 03:10, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, Seresin. I'd hoped we'd gotten past that, but it seems I may now become a perennial target. Well, we will see. Risker (talk) 03:27, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

wholey crap. as a tps, that was a busy time in the old watchlist....--Rocksanddirt (talk) 00:38, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Deletion review for Laurence Baxter

An editor has asked for a deletion review of Laurence Baxter. Since you closed the deletion discussion for this article, speedy-deleted it, or were otherwise interested in the article, you might want to participate in the deletion review. RMHED (talk) 21:28, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

PJ Morton

Hi there, thanks for the feedback. It's nice to be noticed in a good way :) I like to keep an eye on my speedy deletes to see what happens to them. If a bunch get declined I know I'm doing something wrong! justinfr (talk/contribs) 22:59, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Your abuse of rollback

Hello, I'm [[User:{{subst:REVISIONUSER}}|{{subst:REVISIONUSER}}]]. An edit that you recently made seemed to be a test and has been reverted. If you want to practice editing, please use your sandbox. If you think I made a mistake, or if you have any questions, you can leave me a message on [[User talk:{{subst:REVISIONUSER}}|my talk page]]. Thanks! 63.46.33.196 (talk) 06:35, 10 September 2008 (UTC)