User talk:Martha Forsyth

My sub-pages:

automatic list, in case I forget to add somthing manually!

my "Code samples"
my "Playpen" (possibly should be merged with "Code samples"?)
Glossary work (format testing, etc.)
Madison Meadow
Nedelino (sandbox for fixing format for Bg Nedelino pg)
Sandbox (catch-all sandbox for working on drafts, new articles, etc.)
Pretty Loud

Martha's useful(?) links ("bookmarks" of a sort)

Peter's talk page
Wikipedia:Consumer_Reports/guide Nice tools and instructions
User:Cacycle/wikEd This program seems to work quite nicely!
see Wiki links below in Welcome!
Wiki success stories
my "personal userscripts subpage"; and User scripts has a huge list o' interesting-looking tools!
Commons
Wikipedia:Department directory - wow! have I been needing this one! Thanks, Peter, for recommending!
Good model for "cooperative" page - http://www.aboutus.org/OregonHealthConsensus (note "calendar", "who's involved", etc.)
WP:LAYOUT
Emmy Noether is a BEAUTIFUL reference/biobliography style!

{{helpme}} Is it acceptable to quote a customer review of a book, that's posted on Amazon? If so, which citation template is appropriate? Thanks!

I am afraid not. Customer reviews don't qualify as reliable sources, so can't be used for verification. The customer comments are not licensed under GFDL, so you cannot use them in Wikipedia articles. Best, PeterSymonds (talk) 19:36, 12 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Welcome to Wikipedia!

Here's a link to my user page. -Pete

And this should be a link to my "playpen": User:Martha Forsyth/Mom's Playpen

(but how do I create a new page?? --Martha Forsyth

just make a new link, like at the end of the sentence. Actually, this is where your playpen SHOULD be - I put it in the wrong place before. You should copy your stuff over there, before somebody deletes it! User:Martha Forsyth/Mom's Playpen

What's this all about? I don't get the difference between "Edit" and "+" - they seem to go to the same place.

More or less true. The "+" is a special case of "Edit." It only appears on "User/talk" pages (the discussion pages for individual WIkipedia members.) It is basically a shortcut to creating a "new section," or new topic for discussion. The "subject" area becomes a header (being surrounded by pairs of equal-signs.) Tha's all. -Pete 07:36, 29 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Welcome!

Mom, this is some kind of boilerplate "welcome message" somebody left me on my talk page way back. It has links to editing tips, guiding principles, etc. Hope it helps!

Welcome!

Hello, Martha Forsyth, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers:

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. Again, welcome!

Also note:

Hello Martha Forsyth, and Welcome to Wikipedia!

Please remember to sign your name on talk pages by clicking or using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your username and the date. Also, please do your best to always fill in the edit summary field. Below are some useful links to facilitate your involvement.

Happy editing! Addbot (talk) 08:09, 11 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Getting started
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Finding your way around
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Editing articles
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Getting help
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How you can help
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some answers

Mom,

Yes, the best place to leave me messages is at User talk:Peteforsyth because that way I'll get a notification of New Messages when I log in. You're right, I'm paying closer attention right now, to all your pages, but in the long run that's the best place.

Sorry about the "Playpen" deletion...I should have warned you better. It was my mistake, I made a sub-page of the nonexistent Martha Forsyth page - as in, the encyclopedia entry for Martha Forsyth, rather than making a sub-page of your own home page. So I moved it to the appropriate place, the place I meant to put it the first time. Otherwise, sooner or later somebody else would have arbitrarily deleted it, without copying anything!

"Sub-pages" - that is, "blahblah/sub-page" - are a strange animal, and their use is generally discouraged. Your own "home page" aka "user page" is really the only major exception to that. Basically, Wikipedia is fundamentally non-hierarchical, in terms of how its content is presented. I guess that's pretty much like a regular encyclopedia. "Categories" are the way to link similar content, and the advantage of Categories is that you can have multiple categories for any article.

So, there should not be a page that is called "Mammals/Kangaroos" - rather, "Kangaroos" would be its own page, and it would have the categories "Mammals" and "Marsupials."

The advantage of a sub-page for your home page, though, is that you get a nice link up to your home page, up top.

That all make sense?

Yup! I left you a message on your talk-page, as suggested. Is it true, then, that the way I "make" a sub-page is, e.g., User:Martha Forsyth/Mom's Code-samples ? Guess this will be a "try it and see"! --20:17, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

little gift

Mom: I see you've been playing with wiki tables. It's good stuff huh! Nice to have a way to make tables that is intuitive, it's very handy for making simple little ones.

Sometimes, you'll find that you want to make a big table, and you don't want to deal with the tedium of all those pipes and dashes. You want software that will let you create the structure of the table, and then just fill in the table's cells in a visually sensible system.

My solution is this: use either Macromedia Dreamweaver, which makes HTML tables directly; or a spreadsheet like Excel or OpenOffice.org, which will allow you to export to HTML.

Then use an HTML-to-Wiki-table converter, such as the one found here.

Have fun!

(I used this extensively in my most significant Wikipedia creation: Oregon statewide elections, 2006.) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Peteforsyth (talk • contribs) 07:57, 3 January 2007 (UTC).[reply]

Good suggestions, will need to check this out when I get to this project "for real". I was figuring on doing it in WordPerfect, and putting in the mark-up with search-and-replace.... -- Martha 19:05, 27 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Wow!

Did you see today's Featured Picture?

Image:Karandila2.jpg

check out my draft of a letter to state Senators/Legislators

Mom, take a look at this, tell me what you think:

User:Peteforsyth/leg

format question

Hi Mom, I'm guessing that was you :)

Did you make that big ol' page? Cool! Wish I knew how to read it. Basically, the "boxes" you've discovered are not "really boxes." Rather, they are an indication that the wiki software is presenting the text enclosed literally - among other things, as you discovered, it will not break lines unless told to do so.

So, you have two choices:

(not optimal): break the lines explicitly (main drawback: it will look the same even if someone has a huge or tiny monitor)
make a box by other means. If you take that approach, I'd suggest scouting around on WP for a box you like, and then look to see how they made it. You could, for instance, make a

simple table

But I doubt that's quite what you want. The user boxes people tend to use on their own pages are probably closer to what you want.

Take a look around, and let me know if you need more help.

-p. Pete 22:06, 16 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Schecter Guitar Research

You're welcome, and feel free to edit the article if anything in there is factually incorrect or could be improved. I tried to do the best I could with the small amount of sources I had, but sometimes that just doesn't cut it. --Leon Sword 20:22, 15 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think it would be more appropiate if he could read the article and verify that it is factually correct, that would be great. --Leon Sword 21:57, 16 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Test

what happens when I do this? Great! (I did it by clicking the + beside "edit this page", from within "discussion".) 18:02, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Great!

I'm not familiar with the wikitool you linked, but it looks promising. I'm pretty sure that in the long run, you'll be more comfortable just hand-coding stuff…but if this helps you get up to speed, great! And of course feel free to prove me wrong.

Glad to hear you dove into the Google stuff too, I think that's very worthwhile thing to do. You can probably do similar things on Yahoo and other search engines/directories as well, but of course Google is the "big dog."

Thanks for looking at Columbia and Barlow too -- curious what you think of them!

-Pete 22:06, 13 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Question about templates, and formatting

Hi Martha. It looks like you successfully created the map on Talk:Dospat Dam, and invoked the {{Infobox Settlement}}. In what way do you wish to combine them? Perhaps look at another article which does it?

The boxen on my user page are userboxes, which are mostly handled as a special class of templates. Regards, —EncMstr 07:18, 28 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think I understand what you're trying to do, but can't help a whole lot. Replied in a bit more detail on the talk page you linked above. -Pete (talk) 07:00, 3 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Response

Just noticed your comment on my essay. I was on Usenet back in the early 90s, and I saw how quickly civil discussions could degrade into flame wars. I see a lot of that here. I think it's just an artifact of the impersonal nature of online communication: people say things in online forums that they would never say in a face-to-face conversation. And because of that fact, I think that civility and "assume good faith" are critical policies. Unfortunately, a lot of users don't abide by those policies, and the result is needless drama. So much time is wasted on petty wars (I myself have been sucked into a few) that could be avoided by simply giving each other the benefit of the doubt. :-) Anyway, thanks for the feedback. ATren (talk) 04:49, 7 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

request

Hi Mom, thanks for the Open Lobby feedback, that was helpful. I tried to incorporate your suggestion, with some changes of my own -- let me know what you think. On a separate note, I'm thinking about nominating the Neil Goldschmidt article for Good Article status. Very detailed article about Oregon's most significant political figure over the last 35 years or so. If you have time to give it a once-over, and any feedback from a non-political/non-Oregon perspective, that would be nice. Even just the intro section, perhaps, which probably wouldn't take too long to look over. No worries if you don't have time though -- just a thought. -Pete (talk) 07:38, 12 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the feedback on that, very helpful! I know what you mean about "trying too hard to be objective." I'll see what I can do. It's tough, because people's emotions obviously run high on this guy, in both directions. Any objection if I move your feedback to Talk:Neil Goldschmidt, where others might benefit from it as well? -Pete (talk) 03:52, 17 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hi back - covered with rue - I'm obviously not very good at this wiki stuff yet! If I answer your question on YOUR talk page, it won't have background (unless I drag it all over), and if I answer it on MINE, will you see it??? I'm not clear about this yet!

By all means move my feedback (which I no longer actually remember - been a busy week!) to Talk:Neil Goldschmidt - whatever will make it most useful.

OK....more rue....I've chased down the pieces of this, I guess I should have left this message on YOUR talk page, adding it to the discussion there. But it's here now - let's yak sometime about how to handle these things! -- yer fuzzy-headed Mom Martha (talk) 20:05, 2 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Madison Meadow

I like your draft, and added a lead paragraph that provides some context. (Feel free to revert if you don't like it!) I like what you're putting together, but my general impression is that it's not quite the sort of thing that'll fly on Wikipedia. It reads more like an advocacy piece than an encyclopedia entry; the Wikipedia article would need to be something that fairly dispassionately reports the facts. WP:NPOV is the policy that most directly expresses this, though WP:NOR is related too. It might be that the AboutUs page is a better outlet for this sort of writing; AboutUs is far less restrictive on the tone and style issues. I think having a Wikipedia article is a good idea, but might not be the best outlet for your creative or persuasive urges! By the way, I think Katr lives (or lived) in Eugene, and I'm sure she'd be interested in an article like this, it's right up her alley. And she knows all the WP style and policy stuff by heart. So it might be good to ask her to look it over. -Pete (talk) 23:55, 3 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Heh, that Katr's always popping up where you least (or most) expect it! See here for her comment, in case you missed it…oh, and I guess I put my comment above on the wrong page. Gonna move it now. -Pete (talk) 07:04, 4 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks bunches, Peter and Katr! I've incorporated your suggestions and removed (though not "without a trace" for the present) some of my original text. I'm taking the plunge, sending the organization a link to this page, with the caveat that it's in very preliminary stages. I took out Linda's name, though I think it does belong there - but probably if it does, then other names belong there too. Frankly I'm pretty impressed at what Linda did: actually getting this thing started, and seeing it through despite some formidable difficulties. All for tonight! -- Martha (talk) 04:42, 5 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It's looking better, for sure! I incorporated some notes into the text. More general stuff...I think it's fine to include Linda, I know she was quoted in at least one of the newspaper articles, so that's probably a good place to look for a quote or something specific about her role. Inviting the group to work on it, or using their web site as a source, are kind of touchy areas; often people associated with an organization have a hard time maintaining a neutral tone or steering clear of publishing original research. I personally have a lot of patience for such folks; if I may be so bold, Katr does not. (That comes, I think, from her deep dedication to keeping things moving in the right direction around here -- not always a popular quality among the newcomers, but one that us WP-o-philes all love her for.)

To put it another way, I think you see a whole lot of articles around WP that lack citations to neutral sources, or contain original research, etc; often those articles make a good foundation for building a better one, but that can be a pretty inefficient and tiresome way to do it. If we can build articles from scratch that are neutral and well-sourced, those who come along will be more inclined to stay within those boundaries. It's kinda like this: it's easier to get people to respect your house and not treat it badly, if it looks more or less the way you want it to when they first walk in the door.

Blah blah blah -- I gotta get offa the wiki. Good work, looking forward to seeing this published on the wiki! -Pete (talk) 06:56, 5 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

A neat bit of data

Mom, take a look here. EncMstr and I came up with a neat list of what (subjectively important) Oregon articles were most viewed in February. It's a technique I suspect we'll build on. Just thought you might appreciate it, not that I think you'd necessarily have a use for it. -Pete (talk) 02:32, 12 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Cool! Yes, this might be interesting some day.... Right now I'm wrestling with another map, and just learned something about internal-within-a-given-page linking! -- Martha (talk) 02:40, 12 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thought you might catch that :) Note, jus like regular HTML, you don't have to put the whole page name if it's the page you're in: #A neat bit of data should do nicely. -Pete (talk) 02:42, 12 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yup, that's what I figured out, I keep this stuff here! Only trouble is...since I don't use it often enough, it's "Here today and gone tomorrow" - that's what that part of my page is for! -03:06, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Something new

Mom, I'm thinking of redoing my user page along the lines of how Portal:Oregon works. If you want, take a look at my draft, User:Peteforsyth/Newpagedraft. I'm figuring a lot of this stuff out as I go along though, so don't pepper me with TOO many questions ;) -Pete (talk) 21:39, 24 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting, not conclusive to me, I think largely because I can't quite envision how it would look when fleshed-out. Few questions/comments:

Will it include basically all the info you have currently on your user page, plus more? (will I be missing "old favorite" things?—not that I can list good examples! but I rather like the way your existing page "looks"...)
Why (other than to learn about creating portal pages) do you want to change it?
I like having the Wikipedia tricks (and info) there—
Cosmetic point: I rather hate that harsh green color in the headings..... The extra borders and background in the Portal:Oregon relieve this somewhat, but it's still to me a very harsh color, rather puts me off.

I'll try to keep an eye on it, but maybe you could "poke" me from time to time? (Somehow I've lost track of something, I thought I was supposed to get an "alert" when I log in, if somebody's left me a comment??? but this doesn't happen. I guess I have to get this by checking my "watchlist"??? (Maybe that's something you could include in the Wiki tricks & info—as a relatively new user, I'm still having trouble figuring out basic things like this.

New and unrelated point: I've been having trouble with location maps! I put a {{helpme}} on my user page, and somebody un-marked it which I guess indicates that he thinks the problem is fixed, but it's not! I left him a comment, User talk:Mion#My map template problem (fuller description), maybe you'd cast a glance at it and see if YOU have any ideas? — Martha (talk) 05:27, 26 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Location map

|lon_deg = longitude degrees

|lon_min = longitude minutes

is not the same as

|long = longitude (decimal format). --Obersachse (talk) 19:51, 28 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Bless you and THANK YOU! I guess this should have been obvious, but as you see, it wasn't. I've added your info to my Code Samples page, and NOW....when I want to, I can do Bulgarian maps properly! -- Martha (talk) 15:20, 29 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Another resource

Looks like there's a pretty active project at Wikipedia:WikiProject Maps, devoted to resources for WP-oriented mapmaking. Note that there's an associated discussion page, too. That's probably a great resource for the sort of thing you're getting into. -Pete (talk) 05:44, 1 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Neat! Looks like a lot o' good stuff to investigate. Thanks! -- Martha (talk) 06:10, 1 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You know, I think we could really use some of this stuff in Oregon. There is an Oregon map like this set up somewhere, which could be put to good use. But even better would be another map or two, for the Portland metropolitan area and/or the Willamette Valley. Because so very many places are concentrated in the northwest part of the state. F'rinstance, we recently had a bit of confusion between Springwater, Oregon and an eponymous neighborhood about to be annexed by Gresham, Oregon. But they're close enough that on the full Oregon map, they'd probably look like they're the same place.

Anyway -- just a thought. I think lots of our cities' articles, and mountains, and other places, could really benefit from this type of map if somebody can figure out how (and maybe train us all how to do it.) EncMstr would be a great person to help make a base map, if that's necessary, and Katr made most of the little stubby articles about tiny towns.

Okay, I'm thinking about getting home and finding sleep. Thought I'd get that thought out first. No pressure, but maybe a fun project? -Pete (talk) 08:47, 1 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'll try to have a better look at it, it does look like the sort of thing I'd enjoy, if I don't get too confused! The newsletter is close to done (this one was a Bear - I fudged some page borders to use, 'coz I had way too little text for the 6 pages it HAD TO be...), now I want to drag Dad in to Cambridge to examine some (hoop) tubing.... will look later, after doing Some Beading, then I can allow myself to Have Some Fun! -- Martha (talk) 19:34, 1 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm, might be more than I can handle. I've spent awhile looking, and don't see "a place to start". But, e.g., I'd like to be able to produce a map that would show a specific area of Bg in more detail (like, ideally, I'd like to be able to include the Satellite photo from Google Maps that I put on the Dospat Dam page - or else make a map that shows these things, but am not seeing an entry point. Maybe I should go back to hooping?! Or maybe...well I keep looking. Just found:

where the \ in the lower left quadrant is actually this reservoir!

I guess, since it's on Wikipedia, I could take a section of that map and label it??? So damn much I don't know....gotta get a little WP:BOLDer I guess!!

Well, as I was saying - if you give me a specific task to tackle, I'll probably do it. But I can't swallow this Wikipedia:WikiProject Maps whole, I'm afraid. --Martha (talk) 21:24, 1 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Small caution: pretty sure anything from Google Maps is copyright, therefore not eligible for upload here. But, NASA and other federal gov't sources probably have satellite maps if you can find 'em, and those would be public domain. -Pete (talk) 21:29, 1 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah I know - spent a little while researching that the other day, that's why I didn't upload to it, just linked. I'm playing around with NASA satellite photos (copyright free w few xceptions) right now. Oregon may have some stuff we can use? As I said, I guess that if it's OK to upload it, as in public domain, then it'd also be ok to use just a section, add labels, etc??? -- Martha (talk) 21:50, 1 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes -- public domain means that you can legally and ethically scribble on it, distort it, add to it, subtract from it, say that you created it, etc. Pretty much the same with the "free licenses" CC-BY-SA and GFDL, too. -Pete (talk) 21:53, 1 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Here I come! (not right this sec, but...this is exactly what I was looking for! Then, I guess, I'll have to figure out how to put a little inset map to show where in Bg the section I'm showing is....more MORE to learn! — Martha (talk) 22:06, 1 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

{{helpme|Mapmakers: Does this look "good enough"? If so I'll move it to Commons.}} 17:25, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't see any reason not to. I don't think it needed a helpme tag, tho. Ten Pound Hammer and his otters • ^{(Broken clamshells•Otter chirps)} 17:41, 13 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

editing lossage

You mentioned that you wrote the Paisley Caves article twice on WT:ORE. I take it you're using a primitive browser, probably Internet Explorer. If you switch to FireFox, after a mistake you can press the "Back" button and all your text will reappear. Use IE one last time: http://www.firefox.com Firefox has integrated spell checking, prints pages correctly, and many other enhancements, like a wicked good ad blocker. —EncMstr 04:21, 4 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, well, Firefox is exactly what I used, and the "back" button didn't seem to help at all! I was pretty startled ("back" and CtrlZ are good friends of mine) - but in the long run I think I put it together a little better the second time. Weeelll....I just ran a bunch o' tests. It turns out that "Back" DOES do what you say! (No, I'm not surprised - just thought that's what I'd done!) I guess maybe I'd tried to get "back" by hitting the Edit tab again. Well, live 'n' learn! Thanks very much for pointing this out, I hadn't realized I was being sloppy with it. — Martha (talk) 21:54, 4 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, this trick has saved me many times…works pretty reliably in my experience! -Pete (talk) 07:58, 9 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Rdrg93

Your welcome. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rdrg93 (talk • contribs) 05:02, 8 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Rila

Hi Mom, sorry for the delay -- I read your discussion about the Rila Monastery inscription, looks like you got into some fun stuff! Very impressive. Not sure what advice you need, it looks like you're off in the right direction. I wouldn't worry about deleting these things; they are each interesting/useful in their own right, it's conceivable someone in the future might want to squint at the inscription too, and may benefit from your work. I'd say leave 'em all up. You might want to look for categories to add each to, if you haven't already...I didn't think to look for that. Good work!! -Pete (talk) 08:02, 9 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

My general understanding is that for the most part, free-use images (that is, creative commons, GFDL, public domain etc.) images should be put on Commons, not Wikipedia. This is because they may come in handy for other Wikimedia projects such as WikiNews, Wiktionary, etc. Images that are copyright, but permissible for a specific Wikipedia article under fair use, are the ones that should be put on WP. (These are pretty unusual; typically, photos of people who are deceased -- and therefore unavailable for new photos -- for the article on that person, company logos for the article on that company -- that sort of thing.)

I'm not entirely sure about the licensing thing. There is a process for moving CC images from Flickr, which may also apply to the site you found; essentially, you upload, and flag the article for review by a "trusted user" who has been vetted by the community as understanding the relevant copyright issues.

What you did, I think, is essentially assert that you own the copyright, and are releasing it under a CC license. Which of course isn't correct, and obviously wasn't your intent. So I think some adjusting of the tag is in order. I think the best place to inquire about this would be here, though I suspect it might take people a little while to get back to you. I suppose you might ask EncMstr, who is an admin, but I'm not sure whether image licensing is an area he deals with much, or whether his admin "powers" extend to commons. Hope this helps! -Pete (talk) 20:41, 9 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Biographiq

Thanks for the heads-up, Martha. I knew they had a bunch of others out, I didn't know they were churning them out that quickly. I'll get a hold of Amazon about it. Harry Yelreh (talk) 09:12, 13 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sure!

If you're still up feel free to call...thanks for the birthday message yesterday, sorry I didn't get back sooner! -Pete (talk) 07:01, 21 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Cool

I thought it might have been you, but anons shouldn't be editing other people's User pages. :) Corvus cornix_talk 03:30, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Blog post

Hey mom, I just got a column published on a big blog here, BlueOregon. Take a look! [1] -Pete (talk) 20:43, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

PDF map

A PDF map is a geographical map (like a map of Europe, for example) that is saved in Adobe PDF format. If someone uploads a PDF file onto Wikipedia or Commons, a preview image isn't generated (probably because PDF is a proprietary format) so the file can't be used in an article as an illustration. In order to use it in an article, it has to be converted to a format Wikipedia can display, such as PNG, JPG, or SVG. SVG (vector format) is preferable because it can be made any size without losing quality and becoming pixelated, and it can easily be edited to have labels in another language, for example. If the original PDF file is just, say, a scan of a map from an atlas, then it can't be directly saved as an SVG; someone would need to manually trace it (or use some sort of automatic tracing option in whatever software they use). But sometimes, government agencies and the like will make available maps that were originally drawn as vectors; those we can just save as an SVG and have a versatile, usable map available to put in an article. Hope this explains it! =) MissMJ (talk) 00:21, 27 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Response here.

You're guessing correctly! Optimally, the image should be a vector image (points connected by Bezier curves) because it's the most versatile. A .jpg, .gif, .tif, or .png saved as a .pdf cannot be saved as an .svg because it's just a flat, raster image. You couldn't easily delete or edit parts of it (like city names, for example) to be in another language, or another color. The only way to turn an image like that into a vector image that can be saved as an .svg is to use vector software and trace over it, using a tool that creates Bezier curves (manually or automatically). However, a vector image that is saved as a .pdf can be directly made into an .svg because all of its points and paths are already there in the file, which makes it easy to change a certain part without affecting others. MissMJ (talk) 05:32, 28 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Response here.

Well, yes, but the point of that section, I think, was to talk about converting maps that happened to be in PDF format into vector image files (SVG). Hence, "PDF map." *shrug* MissMJ (talk) 04:00, 29 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

request for addition to Image:Panel door.jpg

Hello. As for your request to update Image:Panel door.jpg, this is something I threw together over two years ago, and I no longer have the source. The comment about missing parts was added by someone else after I had posted it. When I get some more free time perhaps I can re-do the image with the header and threshold labeled. For you information though, the header is the wooden part of the frame directly above the top rail when the door is closed and below the Lintel (which is actually part of the stonework), likewise the threshold is the wooden part of the frame directly below the bottom rail(it's probably metal on many doors, or absent in interior doors), above the sill. - Nakamura2828 (talk) 02:38, 8 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Help needed - copyright on an image???

{{helpme}} I am preparing a page on a person who died in 1970. There is only one photo of her that I've been able to find: it's on the dust jacket of a biographical book she published in 1957. Her grandson assures me that "the picture on the cover of the book is not under copyright, since the book is now public domain, and the copyright has elapsed." I need to know a) how to make sure this is LEGALLY true, and b) what copyright tag to use, if/when I am free to upload it. Thanks! (I've already tried to figure this out myself, but got lost in the details and failed...)

Please send a mail to our OTRS system with the details. WP:OTRS will have the information you need. Basically you include the full details in a mail to permissions@wikimedia.org. —— nix eagle 17:53, 29 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Pete

You must be mighty proud of him. I have boundless respect for him. --David Shankbone 14:09, 12 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Resource

Hey Mom, have you seen this Wikipedia:Department directory? Pretty comprehensive collection of internal resources of WP…just saw this for the first time. -Pete (talk) 22:37, 24 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Ilse

Too late, I beat you to it! I believe it will go on the front page sometime tomorrow, thought I'd surprise you. And no, no worries about speedy deletion -- you've done far too good a job citing it to worry about that. Great work! -Pete (talk) 02:21, 29 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

DYK for Ilse Stanley

On 29 November, 2008, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Ilse Stanley, which you created or substantially expanded. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

BorgQueen (talk) 12:21, 29 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No problem -- I meant to take a screen shot for you while it was on the front page, but it looks like I missed the window! Glad the increased attention was helpful, it's always nice to see when people appreciate your work enough to improve upon it. By the way, I believe the DYK note will be archived here at some point, for future reference: Wikipedia:Recent additions 235 (right now it's at Wikipedia:Recent additions). -Pete (talk)

Dospat

You are most welcome :):) Indeed in Bulgarian we have one word and I feel i very strange that in English you have two words which is confusing to my mind ;-) But... Wikipedia should be factually correct so I decided to change dam with reservoir. Regards, --Gligan (talk) 10:23, 25 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Re: Broken link on Anatolian Bulgarians?

Hey, the link is broken indeed. It seems that the entire Demokratsia archive formerly hosted on that website has been wiped out, unfortunately. The newspaper itself has been defunct for several years, and they don't have an official archive anywhere online. I tried retrieving the article through the Wayback Machine, but to little avail, they only had a copy of the page after the article was wiped out. There's a nice collection of links in the Bulgarian Wikipedia article if you're interested in that topic, or are you looking for anything specific on the Anatolian Bulgarians?

I'm curious about the YouTube discussion you mentioned and the video itself, I'd really like to hear more about it. Best, Todor →Bozhinov 20:28, 19 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sarnitsa

Just wanted to post my appreciation for your edit here. I noticed how the image looked too good to be true while sifting through my uploads, and when I scrolled down I saw the different versions. Thank you for doing this. --Paffka (talk) 19:58, 26 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Много е отдавна, Paffka, но чак сега видях ваш коментар. Благодаря! Martha (talk) 02:23, 3 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Mandala folk dance ensemble

Heya; thanks for the great article at Mandala folk dance ensemble :). The opening paragraph needs referencing, but other than that, it's all good; if you need any help with the referencing, do drop me a note and I'm happy to help out. Cheers, Ironholds (talk) 03:50, 10 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

ru:Большой Русский Альбом (интернет-сайт)

Hi Martha, pls feel free to put your questions here, I can translate them for Gennady. Sealle (talk) 18:24, 19 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Copy editing

Hi Martha! Here is the link for copyediting: Wikipedia:Guild_of_copyeditors (or shortcut in search box WP:GOCE or WP:Guild). Also see Wikipedia:MOS. I'm still exploring.... EricaG (talk) 19:27, 5 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, Erica! I played a very little bit with an article on Galyna Zubchenko - enough to realize the depth of my ignorance! but I did tweak a few things at the beginning. Oh for more time... —Martha (talk) 01:11, 6 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Galyna Zubchenko's page

Martha, thanks a lot about taking part in Galyna Zubchenko's page. In talk page I reply you about work for this article.

Olexchest (talk) 15:33, 8 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I did some things you asking me for, so you can see, if it good enough.

Olexchest (talk) 19:33, 8 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, Martha

The Galyna Zubchenko article was posted on the GOCE's Request page last December([2]) – all too prematurely, in my opinion. Anyway, I've just accepted to copy-edit it. As many sources are in Russian or Ukrainian, I'll be probably leaving lots of questions on the article's talk page and inlines – hope you won't mind. Please feel free to correct or revert any changes you disagree with or to contact me. Best, --CocoLacoste talk 06:04, 11 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

PS, I'm going to leave an identical message on Olexchest's talk.

Thank you VERY MUCH, Cocolacoste, for taking this on. I was actually "just dabbling" in it (and I have interest in Things Slavic)—but I did not feel competent to really do the job properly. I too will leave the same message on Olexchest's talk page, and I look forward to seeing how the article shapes up. — Martha (talk) 20:17, 11 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Teahouse talkback: you've got messages!

I added a suggestion that you join WP:GOCE and navigate from there to the Teahouse answer. DocTree (ʞlɐʇ·cont) Join WER 14:06, 30 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Teahouse talkback: you've got messages!

Hello, Martha Forsyth. Your question has been answered at the Teahouse Q&A board. Feel free to reply there!
Please note that all old questions are archived after 2-3 days of inactivity. Message added by Jayron32 14:46, 30 April 2013 (UTC). (You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{teahouse talkback}} template.[reply]

Рако(в)ите свадба чинет

Dear Dr. Forsyth,

First, I wanted to thank you for the Bulgarian Dialect Glossary you have compiled. I just found it yesterday, and it seems a wonderful resource for looking up obscure words both in folk poetry (such as the Miladinov brother's 1861 "Zbornik") and in works such as Krste Misirkov's Za Makedonskite Raboti (1903). (Misirkov wrote in Macedonian some 40+ years before Koneski's team started working on codifying a standard language and deciding which words belong in the standard and which don't... and quite a few Misirkov's words did not make the cut).

I reckon you may be one of the very few people on English Wikipedia who may have an informed opinion on the following subject, so I would like to ask you about it. I am trying to read Song no. 27 from the Miladinovs' collection, "Свадба от ракоите". On the face of it, I reckon, the title can be translated as "Lobsters' [or Crayfish's, etc.] Wedding", and the song's first line, "Ракоите свадба чинет", as "Lobsters [or Crayfish/Crabs/etc] are celebrating a wedding". But in the rest of the song, it is a жељурокот (the He-Tortoise) who is marrying a кутра жељка ("poor [She-]Tortoise"; incidentally, why is she "poor"?), and no crustaceans appear at all. Why would you think, then, the song is called "Свадба от ракоите" and not e.g. "Свадба от желките"? One my guess is that perhaps the folk poet is simply regarding Lobsters/Crayfish (ракови) as suitable hosts or marriage celebrants for a chelonian couple, just like the various birds are suitable for the roles of сватови and побратими... -- would that make sense to you? Thanks in advance for any insight you may have!

(The next song in the same collection, no. 28, has the same title and the same first line, but there it is not explicitly said who the bride and the groom are, so I guess one can interpret it as if it's implied that it is crustaceans who are marrying, and turtles and hedgehogs are merely wedding guests. In that song, at least, a crustacean character appears beyond the first line, too: an eight-legged lobster (раче асмокраче) and the He-Tortoise (жељурокот) are both berating a naughty hedgehog.) -- Vmenkov (talk) 15:28, 9 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, Vmenkov, for your appreciation of the Bulgarian Dialect Glossary and for your very interesting post! Sorry I didn't see it until today.

Now, as for your questions about songs No.27 and 28 from the Miladovs' collecttion, I don't really have much to offer you. My first thought is that they remind me of a song I know well from International folk dancing: Zajko kokorajko—another song about a wedding between animals, and also (to a lesser degree) of the Trio Bulgarka song, "Позаспа ли, Ягодо?" Looking at the Miladinov collection, I see that songs 22-28 (in my facsimile copy 28 is mis-numbered as a second 27) are ALL about animal weddings. So I have to conclude that there is a tradition of the same - more in Macedonian, probably, than in Bulgarian (with which I am more familiar). Now, why the singer in 27 starts with lobsters and ends with tortoises...all I can say, really, is that in my copious experience recording "old songs from old ladies in the villages" this happens not infrequently. You know...people DO make mistakes! and when some collector crystallizes it by publishing it in a collection....then the rest of us spend the rest of time trying to understand the deeper meaning! so-to-speak.

However, I don't mean to discount your questions. It's not at all unlikely that ALL of this genre of songs are a relic of something—magical?—that spoke in elliptical language. This could be a very interesting thing to investigate, but unfortunately I can't guide you. My own personal go-to authority for songs Macedonian is Dragi Spasovski (look him up on Google, you will find a way to contact him—I don't put people's contact info in public places like Wikipedia). I would write to him (he speaks English very well), tell him I sent you to him, and see what he has to offer.

As for кутра желька—that almost seems to be some sort of "standard epithet" (in the way it's repeated) and I wonder if кутра REALLY carries much meaning there?? Though I find it pretty well documented, e.g., in Najden Gerov and in the Bulgarian dictionary of archaic etc. words.

Finally, I don't think I realized there is a section of "Slova" (5 pp.) at the end of the Miladinovi book! but it's all in transliteration. Well—another interesting collection of words! Since the Glossary is Bulgarian, it shouldn't necessarily go there, but maybe a cross-ref.

I hope this is of some help to you. If we want to write further, we should find a way to do it in email. —Martha (talk) 22:39, 30 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Your draft article, Draft:Centerville Daily Iowegian

Hello, Martha Forsyth. It has been over six months since you last edited the Articles for Creation submission or Draft page you started, "Centerville Daily Iowegian".

In accordance with our policy that Wikipedia is not for the indefinite hosting of material deemed unsuitable for the encyclopedia mainspace, the draft has been nominated for deletion. If you plan on working on it further, or editing it to address the issues raised if it was declined, simply edit the submission and remove the {{db-afc}}, {{db-draft}}, or {{db-g13}} code.

If your submission has already been deleted by the time you get there, and you wish to retrieve it, you can request its undeletion by following the instructions at this link. An administrator will, in most cases, restore the submission so you can continue to work on it.

Thanks for your submission to Wikipedia, and happy editing. JMHamo (talk) 09:43, 28 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Nomination of Pretty Loud for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Pretty Loud is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Pretty Loud until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article.

Tulkijasi (talk) 10:14, 3 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

DYK for Pretty Loud

On 26 July 2021, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Pretty Loud, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that the name of Serbian Roma female rap group Pretty Loud was inspired by the popular notion that Roma women are not typically very loud? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Pretty Loud. You are welcome to check how many pageviews the nominated article or articles got while on the front page (here's how, Pretty Loud), and if they received a combined total of at least 416.7 views per hour (i.e., 5,000 views in 12 hours or 10,000 in 24), the hook may be added to the statistics page. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.