User talk:Mack2

Greetings! I've been editing and contributing to Wikipedia since 2006. I welcome comments on and constructive criticisms of entries I've made.

I was reading about Mark Jelks the track runner from Gary Indiana. It said that he qualified for 6 state chsmpionship events in 2005 but was born in 1984. That would make him 21 years old at the time of competition. I'm from indianapolis and competed at the same state track and field competition. I'm pretty sure we were the same class or maybe he was 1 year behind me so there's no way for him to have been in high school. Just wanted to make you aware of the mistake.

Comments, Exchanges

Bare URLS vs. full citations Hi Mack2 -- Thanks for fixing some of the bare URLs in the bio of Calvin C.J. Sia. For months, I've been trying to figure out how to address this notice that popped up on the page a year ago: "This article uses bare URLs for citations, which may be threatened by link rot. Please consider adding full citations so that the article remains verifiable. Several templates and the Reflinks tool are available to assist in formatting." I'm relatively inexperienced with Wikipedia editing and have been frustrated for months trying to figure out how to convert bare URLs into full citations to avoid link rot. I've gone round and round trying to navigate various help pages on this issue and have been pulling my hair out! If you have any time to spare, could you continue the fine work you started on the Sia bio citations? Or, perhaps help me (in plain English). To me, a URL is a URL and I can't figure out what to do. Thanks! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Airsick656 (talk • contribs) 19:53, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

Take a look at how you might approximate a shorter version modeled on citations that you find in other articles. I never used help pages for this. I just mimicked what others had done.

Baseball jargon

I felt my edit was justified in regards to A.A. Many MLB players are alcoholics, or recoverign alcoholics, and to remove this would be akin to ignoring the Black Sox scandal. Please, revert your edit or explain why you don't think it belongs. Hockeyalltheway25 20:17, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

AA is not a baseball term, doesn't refer to the game. The fact that MLB players may be alcoholics doesn't make alcoholism a baseball phenomenon or AA a baseball-specific term, any more than the fact that many baseball players might have various injuries or disabilities makes a list of injuries and disabilities part of the game, or the fact that many players use chewing tobacco or chew gum or spit a lot means that terms referring to tobacco or gum or spitting should be in a glossary about baseball.--Mack2 04:34, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Re Re Demography of Soviet Union

I'm too busy now, working on all pending tasks before I go on Wikibreak, hence the late reply. As I said, I don't plan to work on a section of the article Demographics of the Soviet Union in the foreseen future, I did, however, leave an extended reply on its Talk Page. But probably I'll hardly be able to do so next time. However, when I see the section to be in NPOV, I'll certainly remove the tag. I can't even understand, how it can be called neutral now, while missing inf. on, e.g., such essential for population dynamics parameters, as population growth and birth rate, overviewing almost exclusively death rate. Cmapm 07:55, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

cmapm, Thank you for your response to my comment, which was posted here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Cmapm. I will find a way to put up both birth and death series for the 1960s-1990 for USSR as a whole. As I mentioned, I am not familiar with tables functions but imagine this can be done via shipping an excel file. The reason for the focus on the mortality side was because that was the unusual feature at the time. In post-Soviet Russia, there has also been great focus on the fertility declines and the concern about "depopulation," but this is an issue in many Western European countries now also. I won't get much unto this aspect because it's an issue mainly in post-Soviet period.

This is also a very busy time for me and I may not get to this for several weeks but I will try.--Mack2 14:06, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Check out Wikipedia:Tools/Editing tools#From tables. There's a utility that converts CSV to Wiki table syntax (I haven't tried it yet, but it should help). heqs 16:32, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks very much. I will check that out in due course. Damn busy time, but I do want to put up the long data series in an efficient form

Dungan

Hey Mack2. Thanks for your edit on Dungan. However, I reverted it, since both those pages were already linked from elsewhere in the article. The See Also section is usually for articles which may be somewhat related to the topic of the article and/or interesting to the reader for further exploration, but didn't need to be linked from within the body of the article itself. Also. Links to versions of the same article in another language appear in the left sidebar when you're viewing the page; they're usually grouped together near the bottom when you're editing it. Cheers. cab 15:53, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

OK, but to be honest the English-language articles are much more confusing than they ought to be, and that's why I deliberately provided the seemingly redundant cross-links. There are separate articles on Hui and on Dungan, but these are just two names for the same ethnic group. I think these articles ought to be consolidated. It is misleading to say that Dungans are the name used in the (former) Soviet Union to describe a group of Chinese Muslims, for example, since the name "Dungan" is also used by Uighur and other Turkic peoples in both Xinjiang and in Kyrgyzstan and in Russia to refer to the "Hui."

I'm not skilled enough to do a consolidation, but I feel there needs to be a consolidation both in substance and the cross-links to avoid the wrong implication. Perhaps you can take it on? Thanks.--Mack2 16:14, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Later: I copied this exchange also to the Discussion on the Dungan article. Thanks again.--Mack2 16:23, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Allow me

I, Irpen, hereby give you this Exceptional Newcomer Award for jumping right in and making great contibutions to several article devoted to the History of the USSR. Please keep up the good work! --Irpen 22:30, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Wow, thank you! I am trying not to stray too far from things that I have done some actual research/writing on in the past. I am continually impressed by how much is here on Wikipedia. I'm trying to stay off of battle grounds, but I don't always know where they (or the land mines) are. But I enjoy being able to contribute. What a surprise to receive your award. Thanks again.--Mack2 00:12, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, an entire history, and particularly of the USSR is a huge minefield and battlegrounds are so big that they even overlap. Anyway, may I ask you to check the Ukrainization article I mostly wrote. It needs work but the article's talk page discussions are hot and, mostly, IMO over nothing. It was frivolously tagged too. Anyway, if you have time to read it and its talk and have a thing or two to say there, feel free! Your input would be welcome! Cheers, --Irpen 05:28, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Hi Irpen, I'm on vacation way down east in Maine, and have limited log-in time for the next week or so. I will look at that article when I get a chance to digest both it and the commentary.--Mack2 12:41, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Government of Ukraine

Hi Mack2, please do not take personally your disagreement with Sasha re the Government of Ukraine article. Your participation is very much appreciated. As a relatively new editor, you might not yet be used to the lack of elaboration in people's reactionw caused, mainly, by the lack of time. I am sure, you deleted the NBU from the page unintentionally and, I think, Sasha's idea to add NISS to the presidential rather than the government article is a good compromise.

For more, please see this discussion at my talk as well as Sasha's response at talk:Gov of UA.

Thanks again for your contributions and interest in this narrow sector of WP. We all appreciate your input. --Irpen 00:43, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your helpful intervention, Irpen. I added a comment to the discussion, and accepted Sasha's friendly suggestion. --Mack2 05:04, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

External links

Thank you for your contributions to wikipedia.

Please don't add multiple links to a website into many articles. It is considered spam in wikipedia and usually reverted on sight, especially if these are links to a personal site. While you may think that this webpage is useful, please kep in mind that the goal of wikipedia is to create an encyclopedia, with its own articles, not a web directory. `'mikka (t) 17:35, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

• Thank you. Point well taken. I am still new here and learning the protocols. I was only trying to link to an academic website that happens to provide potential missing information (gaps) about government bodies in Central East Europe and Eurasia. I'll watch my step on this kind of thing in future. Thanks again.--Mack2 19:56, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
  • In most cases there is no big reason to add links for artiles on general topics: people can use google themselves. On the other hand, you may (actually have to) add links to reputable sources of information you add to wikipedia. Jus in case you didn't know, below is the syntax of making inline references. `'mikka (t) 20:41, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
    • Thanks. Very educational! I've been doing my best to add inline references when I add material to sites. I see people using different conventions, however, sometimes with "notes" and sometimes with "references" (which is what I use). And when they do bibliographic citations, the systems used are not standard. I guess Wikipedia is trying to get more citations, and I think that's very good. But as for standardized format, it may be asking a bit too much with so many thousands of contributors.--Mack2 20:51, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Good edits!

On Education in the Soviet Union, if you aren't a member already, please consider joining WPSU :) - FrancisTyers · 15:42, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks a lot. I may join the group. Right now I am spending too much of my time on this fascinating project! But there are some areas where I think I can contribute.--Mack2 16:04, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

List of baseball jargon

I see that you practically own the baseball jargon page. You're definitely contributing a ton of information there. I'm just asking you to leave out the span html tags since they're unneeded and just take up space and mess up the editing remarks. Thanks! Bigtoe 03:19, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for your thanks. I had that one still in my buffer because I had written it while you were removing all the tags. I should have removed the tag. Somebody else inserted all those tags about a week ago. I don't understand what they were supposed to do. But I do see some possible (negative) changes with the tags missing. Some of the internal links within that article that I think were working before aren't now. In a couple of cases I can't figure out why (maybe because there was some sort of redirect or reword or a compound header). Though some of those seemingly dead links are due to some of the contributors putting in phantom links -- links to nowhwere since the destination word or phrase isn't in the List, and the creator of the link didn't take the time to provide the missing material.

BIGTOE PLEASE NOTE: It took me an hour to fix links that seem to me were broken because of your changing the set-up. If somebody comes in to restore it the way it was, please don't revert it.

I've added quite a number of those missing target words recently but I don't feel obligated to provide them all. Sometimes people put in useless links. It's annoying on Wikipedia to read paragraphs in which every other word is linked to something. I could write a letter to my mother about my dirty laundry and if I put in links to every second word it might look like a secret or perhaps just an important message of some kind, when in fact it's just meaningless scrawl.

It has been fun (too much fun!) adding material to this article. But I'm rather a late-comer to it and don't claim major credit. I've tried to bring in more illustrations of usage, more cross-links within this article and to relevant details in baseball statistics section, and more entries for some of the newer lingo that doesn't show up on most other lists of baseball terms. Of course every broadcast game or Baseball Tonight show brings forward more sports cliches, some of which need to be added. Thanks again.--Mack2 03:26, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

I haven't gone through every edit, but I noticed you have put a lot of time into cleaning up this article lately. Seems to jump around on my watchlist every few hours. Just wanted to give you a shout-out for the effort. Let me know when you get to the end and I can help you go back through and review it. Happy editing. -- dakern74 (talk) 03:58, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Portal:Baseball/Baseball intro

I reverted your contribution to the intro page inasmuch as I think it to be inappropriately specific for the lead to the general baseball portal (as, similarly, it would be for the lead to baseball, in view not only of the especial nature of the jargon but also in view of its rather tangential relevance to the broader main topic), even as such a paragraph (with, I imagine, a {{main}} to List of baseball jargon, on which you appear to be doing great and copious work) would be wholly fine at History of baseball in the United States, although one would imagine a more encyclopedic tone might be there preferred. In any event, should you disagree with my reversion, I'd welcome our discussing the issue at Portal talk:Baseball/Baseball intro; feel free, also, to leave me a note at my talk should you think me to be altogether crazy... :) Joe 06:28, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

I haven't been around WP very long but what I've witnessed plenty of is simple reversion with no effort to accommodate. You were kind enough to write this note. I assume that in additon to being "encyclopedic" in tone, a good substantive article also ought to have sources cited in the text when appropriate? So many WP articles have a very scanty (or no) list of sources and often these seem tacked on and not connected to the substantive discussion when citations would seem warranted. Thank you.Mack2 06:38, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

I once more reverted your addition. Please consider that the portal intro is not unlike the lead section to baseball, and it is altogether inappropriate that one append the minutiae of a nation-specific culture to such intro; footnotes, of course, are also disfavored in portal space (toward which see, inter al., WP:PORTAL and WP:PG, the promulgation of which one might observe from a perusal of the sundry WP:P/D). The introduction serves to explain the sport generally and the rules of such sport in specific; your additions of jargon are much too specific for a general introduction and also suffer from geographic bias. To be sure, I don't mean to denigrate your contributions, but I think perhaps you might do well to entertain the idea that portal space is, in many ways, different from mainspace—in view of the presence of {{Browsebar}} supra to the body of the main page, many new users happen upon portals apropos of subjects of which they're unaware, and their joining the project often entails from their learning passim in portal space. There are, of course, no binding decisions here, and the fact of a precedent's being well-settled does not oblige one to comport his editing with such precedent (one also adduces WP:IAR); of the many, many portals here, though, none, AFAIK, employs footnotes in the intro, and so if you think such footnoting (or, for that matter, such specificity as you've added) to be preferable, you might want to raise the issue at Wikipedia talk:Portal, in order that a meta-discussion might be had. Joe 16:21, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the information about regulations for portal space. I did note that there were no footnotes for anything in that article. Is that a rule for portal space? Or do we accept what's there as gospel without the need for citations? In general my impression of WP in my nearly two months of serious participation is that throughout the space there is remarkably little documentation and citation on points of fact that in some case might be disputed or the source for which is not obvious. On the pages where I've done the most serious posting (though the list of baseball jargon may be an exception), I've sought to offer citations to literature or other sources and have found that sometimes my contributions are virtually the only ones that are documented at all. This makes the "encyclopedia" a lot less useful for readers, and also casts doubt on the credibility of many of the contributions.Mack2 04:44, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Citations certainly belong in articles, such as that–Baseball–to which the portal intro links; they are not, though, used in portal space, inasmuch as such space serves only to introduce readers to mainspace pages in which citations should appear. :) Joe 19:00, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Runs Against Average proposed deletion

Glad you agree with me about this. Please go to the deletion article and add your delete vote at the bottom of the discussion. Thanks! Hayford Peirce 17:19, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

One-child policy

your amendement seems to embellish the negative social impact over this policy.You r not chinese,you cann't understand the meaning.--Ksyrie 07:27, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Check the notes of 32,33,34,35,37,38,39,40 before you made the conclusion that I am just making speculation.All the matters I had stated here are verifiable.--Ksyrie 07:53, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

You are wrong. I am trying to reduce the implication that there is a negative social impact. I am not Chinese. But I do know a lot about China, have visited there numerous times (including to some remote areas), and have written/published about China's population. My goal is to correct the poor writing, and also some of the bogus issues that seem to be raised that take the reader off of the main topic.

That's what you want reducing negative social impact,there are indeed the negative social impact,it is not I want to produce some ones.You seems not very familiar with the wiki rules.Wiki is a place to cite different sources with any point of view.And for your qualification,I means,you do had right to say something about the chinese population,but you donn't have right to persuade others to believe your POV,when I can cite the reliabe sources.--Ksyrie 21:47, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

No, you don't seem to be aware that in order for an article to be balanced, it's necessary to add alternative points of view. Whether others are 'persuaded' by one position or another is up to them. My effort here has been to focus on verifiable facts, including adding several citations to demographic research on this topic.--Mack2 (talk) 15:05, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Talk: Baseball Prospectus

Just wanted to ask you to clarify your comment on the Baseball Prospectus talk page -- I wasn't exactly sure what you meant. (I left the question on the talk page, so you can respond there) Thanks! -- Amazins490 (talk) 20:16, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Demographic analysis

Per your contributions to Demography, there is a new article, Demographic analysis, that may benefit from review since speedy delete was denied. -- Jreferee T/C 19:27, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Talk:Gary King (political scientist)

Hi. Regarding your recent edit to Talk:Gary King (political scientist), I just want to note that stub tags, unlike WikiProject banners, should be placed in the article itself, not on the talk page. Cheers, Black Falcon ^(Talk) 16:31, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the tip.--Mack2 16:43, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

538

I just wanted to say, great work on the FiveThirtyEight article. I zoomed by it a week or so ago and made some little edits here and there, but it looks like you have really sunk your teeth into it. Thanks for all your work! —Politizer ^talk/_contribs 15:22, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Thank you! Your comment is much appreciated.--Mack2 (talk) 15:31, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

fertility category

You've popped several pages to the top of my watchlist by adding them to the category "fertility". I'm curious what criteria you are using to add this category.

According to Wiktionary, fertility can refer to one of two meanings:

1. the condition, or the degree of being fertile (able to become pregnant)
2. the birthrate of a population

I'm confused by some of your article choices; I don't immediately see how pregnancy test or gestational age are related to either definition. Many of the other choices seem very broad, and I'm afraid you'll add the "fertility" category to all 62 articles in Category:Fertility medicine or everything in the 24 subcategories of Category:Human reproduction. Knowing what criteria you are using would be reassuring. Lyrl^Talk _C 20:28, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

I work in the field of demography (one of my fields). Fertility broadly defined includes the process of fertility and fertilization (and infertility as well as health conditions that affect fecundity and fertility); fertility regulation (including timing, abstinence, and voluntary limitations on fertility via abortion or other methods); fertility control (societal and government regulation of birth rates); and methods of measurement of fertility rates (not just "the" birthrate, since there are numerous ways in which fertility is measured; "fertility" is one of the major subfields of demographic research).--Mack2 (talk) 20:33, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

If I can add to this: by definition, it includes sexual reproduction.--Mack2 (talk) 20:38, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Finally, regarding "gestational age," this age is sometimes a factor in defining whether the outcome of a pregnancy is to be classified formally as a live birth, (spontaneous) abortion, stillbirth, or infant death. Hence it also may affect official statistics on birth rates.--Mack2 (talk) 20:55, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Please stop adding category fertility to articles that are already in subcategories of fertility. Note that category:human reproduction is already a subcategory of category:fertility, so category:fertility medicine and category:birth control and everything in them are already categorized in fertility. Please check whether something is in a subcategory (or subsubcategory) etc. before categorizing. Thanks. Zodon (talk) 21:44, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm going to stop putting anything in fertility related categories. That way I won't be miscategorizing by not checking all the subcategories. It was apparent to me, however, that many of the articles that I categorized were either very narrowly categorized or were not categorized at all within any fertility subcategory. I also have a feeling that, from other lexicographic experience, when things are in subcategories of main categories when they perhaps should have been in the main instead, users just don't find them unless they somehow know the "code" or the sequences by which things were initially categorized. Sort of like our intelligence agencies not putting 2 and 2 together because critical information that might have allowed them to develop a coherent picture of, say, a threat, was buried within files that did not -- on their surface -- contain relevant labels, or that were based on different axes -- e.g., geographic vs. technological. I have a colleague who has shown how much the initial or overall lexicographic system matters to being able to put 2 + 2 together readily (in his case with an illustration based on comparing the LC classification with the Dewey Decimal). But that's a subject of another debate, I suppose.--Mack2 (talk) 23:00, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

It's true articles can get "buried" in multiple subcategories and make navigation difficult. It's also true that a category with hundreds of articles is very difficult to navigate. Keeping category size at a reasonably small level while restricting subcategories to navigable numbers is a balancing act, and certainly rearranging article categorization and category trees is a part of improving Wikipedia. I could be persuaded to support a rearrangement of the fertility category and subcategories, but am opposed to having the fertility category contain hundreds of articles. Does that make sense? Lyrl^Talk _C 23:12, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Yes, that makes sense. I respect your idea of avoiding an overly large number of subcategories. I guess what I'm suggesting is that there could, in principle, be several root or master categories, each of which might be a subcategory of the other(s). By what principle would priority be given to one rather than the other as the root or master? I suppose in the instant case, thinking as a "demographer" and of "fertility" as one of the three major subfields of that discipline (alongside mortality and migration -- there are many other "subspecialties" such as nuptiality, labor force, education, formal demography, etc.), I looked at these articles in a certain way, and was marshalling articles under the category "fertility" that I thought belonged there but had not obviously been tagged that way yet. Though no doubt I was careless in not checking to see what was in the available subcategories, at least one "virtue" of putting them where I did was that they were more visible and they were at least ordered in one important sense: by alphabetical order.--Mack2 (talk) 01:20, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia does have a guideline regarding when having an article in both a parent and a child category is encouraged and discouraged: Wikipedia:Categorization and subcategories.

Alphabetical listings can be useful for browsing, and Wikipedia has them to some extent: Portal:Contents/Quick index

It would be neat if Wikipedia has a feature of "view list of all articles X subcats down" on category pages. That would allow those interested in more specific topics to keep the narrowness of subcats, but allow those interesting more in browsing (or not sure where their article is categorized) to choose to see larger lists. Would you be interested in proposing that at the village pump? Lyrl^Talk _C 01:41, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks a lot. That would be a good feature. After reading the guideline it seems to me that the conditions under which an item should be placed both in the subcategory and in the root are almost always true. That is because the subcategories are never exhaustive, and in many cases cannot even be close to exhaustive because our knowledge or the dimensions of understanding are always expanding. It's not like even baseball (to take one topic on which I post), in which a category "Baseball positions" would be broken into one subcategory for each of the 9 defensive positions on a team. In the case of less well defined categories, it might even be a service to readers/users to provide both the subcategory and main category listings, precisely to facilitate browsing.--Mack2 (talk) 02:08, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

I was browsing some more and wanted link here also, as I find the picture useful: Wikipedia:Categorization#Categories do not form a tree. That same artile (not in the section I linked to, but above and below) says "In the "vertical" dimension, Wikipedia is more frugal, placing articles only in the most specific categories they reasonably fit in" and "do not place an article directly into a category if it belongs more appropriately in one of its subcategories" with few exceptions. It's interesting that one guideline page implies duplicate categorization is rarely allowed, while the other implies its often allowed. Not much help, I suppose, but I found it interesting. Lyrl^Talk _C 02:23, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. I think the choice between the two approaches is stylistic -- a matter of taste. Some people like to look inside boxes with labels on them, others like to scan and skim. My wife falls into the first group. I fall into the second. This plays out in interesting ways. Take, for example, a trip to the library to locate a book. She would go to the catalogue (online, perhaps), look up the call number, find directions to the section of the stacks that contains that number, walk step by step from one end of that shelf down the row until she finds the book. Logical and efficient. I would go to the catalogue and look up the call number, then rush to ths middle of the row containing my target book, assess how close I am (too far to the right, too far to the left?), then move to a further approximation of where my book is located, and ultimately find it by iterating these moves. Who gets there first? I do 75% of the time, but I also spend a lot more energy in the process. I like the serendipity of my approach. That's probably why I don't think too much of the subcategory approach; in fact, those subcategories are often almost empty and it's not an efficient way to look for things when I can learn a lot more -- more quickly -- by scanning an alpha list in the root category.--Mack2 (talk) 02:37, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Also consider that it is usually easier for a tool to remove structure (e.g. show a flattened view of a category), but harder for them to add structure (e.g., put items in appropriate sub categories). Don't want categories too narrow, but better to have an item in a subcategory, rather than duplicating it in all the supercategories, since the duplication could easily be automated (e.g. as suggested above) but removing all the duplicates is much harder to automate.

The category mechanism could certainly benefit from some tools to make it easier to find what is a subcategory of what. Tools to make it easier to find articles in subcategories of a category would also help. Of course whole books/careers have been spent on that sort of problem. But making some of those tools more readily available to wikipedia browsers might help. Zodon (talk) 04:02, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Another thought - categorization is not the only navigation aid around. Lists are another way of giving a width view of a particular topic, e.g. see Wikipedia:Categories, lists, and navigation templates. Fertility may be too broad a topic for a useful list, but maybe something more focused with relation to fertility and demographics. Zodon (talk) 04:10, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. I have some experience with a couple of lists/glossaries on WP, e.g., List of baseball jargon and English language idioms derived from baseball. Both of those use alphabetical ordering, as probably the most practical method of organization -- in a very flat list. As you suggest, putting things into categories, and being able to see what's in a category, could be made easier if WP used different technology. For example, if there were a "drag and drop" capability one could take the large number of items in the root and then sort and drop them into appropriate subcategories. And if it were possible to "mouse over" a category and see a list of items inside rather than having to bring up a whole new page, then it would be easier to scan the subcategories. I don't know if that sort of technology is even being considered. In its absence I suspect the intensive use of subcategories either among writers or among users of WP will tend to be limited to the most dedicated participants (and ones with a bit more time on their hands than the average user).--Mack2 (talk) 07:51, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Re: One-child policy

No problem! When I first started editing that article I had no idea you were also watching it; I recognized you from your work at FiveThirtyEight.com, so when I first started seeing you edit One-child policy I was glad to have a trustworthy quality editor around cleaning things up. As for me, I try to clean up problems in the article when I come across them, but the article is so big, and there used to be so many people dug into it, that I have never actually gone through from start to finish and cleaned out every issue I see.

You may also want to look at User:Politizer/One-child policy by province... it's an effort that began a month or so ago when Bobby fletcher was antagonizing about the article and how it supposedly wasn't properly portraying the variation of policies from one province to another...it was an attempt to build a table/list that might end up as a separate article, and seems to be pretty much defunct now (mainly because Bobbly fletcher stopped editing it, and the main reason i created it was to get him to stop picking fights at the talk page), but if better sources come up it might be worth looking into again. —Politizer ^talk/_contribs 02:58, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Actually, I think it was tagged not by me, but by Bobby fletcher. Bobby is an editor I have serious problems working with, but in this case he may actually be right, judging by the arguments you've put forth. I left you a [pretty minimal] response at the article talk page; if you want to get rid of the section I would be in favor of it, but I think we should be careful to salvage some of the information to other parts of the article. Having a full section on affirmative action is probably undue weight, given your comments about how it's probably exaggerated...but some of the little facts (like differential policies, or what you've said about some ethnic groups choosing to have 1 child anyway) could probably find a home in other sections. —Politizer ^talk/_contribs 16:09, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

bling bling

		The Working Man's Barnstar
		For your steady and relentless edits and minor cleanup at One-child policy, and at FiveThirtyEight.com before that. —Politizer talk/contribs 23:34, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Gosh. Thanks a lot!--Mack2 (talk) 00:07, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Scrolling lists of references

Hi,

I see you've recently added markup to the references sections of a few articles which cause the section to overflow with a scrollbar. This is specifically proscribed in the Manual of Style, so I've removed these where I've seen them. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 16:58, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Ok, thanks. I did not realize that.--Mack2 (talk) 17:02, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Garrett/Honeywell

Thanks for cleaning up the Garrett AiResearch and Honeywell Turbo Technologies pages. Both pages were originally part of the Garrett Systems article, which was a confusing hodge-podge of often contradictory info. I did my best to try to separate out the correct divisions and such, but sources are quite lacking in some areas, especially from the pre-internet era. Any reliable sources you hay have on Garrett would be very helpful in straightneing out the various articles, so feel free to add them. What was "Garrett Engine Boosting Systems" is now HTT, which I was I'd left the Cliff Garrett Award section there. I have no problem with it going to the Garrett AiResearch, but it really belongs in a bio article on Garrett, if and when that is ever created. In line with WP:AIR practice of having separate articles for aircraft and aeroengine companies where possible, I intend to create a Honeywell Aerospace article in the future. The This article would also cover AlliedSignal's purchase of Garrett, and Lycoming's tubine engines, which was only 5 years before the AS/Honeywell merger. The Honeywell Aerospace website has quite a good breakdown of the current company's structure, so I won't just be covering the aeroengines, though the other parts won't be in as great a detail. - BillCJ (talk) 06:11, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. I know some of the history of Garrett AiResearch because my dad worked there for 35 years before he retired. The basic transitions are AiResearch-->Signal Cos.-->AlliedSignal-->Honeywell, and almost all of the divisions and product lines of Garrett AiResearch made that transition. I don't know the details, but the major product lines differentiated by administrative division over time, and then got renamed as the company merged. If you can get a copy of that short article from Time Mag and the longer history article by Seymour Chapin (see footnotes to the article) the early history from the founding til the late 1960's is there. I wish I could get the company's own "book" about the first 50 years or so of Garrett (also cited in that footnote), but I suspect it's only in their own archives in Phoenix.--Mack2 (talk) 07:35, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

In any case, the AiResearch Industrial Division (AID) was founded in 1955 or so (and my dad transferred from L.A. to Phoenix to work in that division a year later, for about a year and a half). That's where the turbocharger/automotive design and production was located. And the Garrett name is even on an annual rodeo in that area til this day. (Garrett had had an earlier operation in Phoenix during WW II, I believe, because the government wanted to move more defense industry away from the coast for security reasons; but that's a different operation from what was later established as AID in Phoenix. I have to add that Garrett sponsored our boy scout troop and provided truck transport when we needed to get to some camp or other for a weekend. Garrett was also generally family oriented, holding company picnics in L.A. as well as huge Christmas events at the Shrine Auditorium for all employees and their families, with the kids all going up on stage to get a present.)--Mack2 (talk) 18:09, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

But the basic aerospace/defense R&D stayed in LA (though shifted location from right next to LAX -- which was a great location in the beginning for the aviation service -- to Torrance). My dad was involved in many different product designs and developments after joining AiResearch in ca. 1950. Again, almost all of this business stayed with Garrett AiResearch as it merged and merged again and eventually became absorbed into Honeywell. A few pieces (product lines) fell out, if I recall correctly, in the most recent aborted merger of Honeywell with General Electric (a merger that was basically voided by the European Union).--Mack2 (talk) 07:35, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

One thing that fell out eventually through the different mergers was Garrett Aviation, which was the original business that Cliff Garrett founded -- servicing and repairing existing aircraft -- before he went into designing new things, including the cabin pressure control systems for the B-29 and later for many other air- and spacecraft. Garrett Aviation eventually became Landmark Aviation, which I discovered just tonight has since been merged and changed names again to StandardAero. I slightly modified the Landmark WP article after I discovered this but that article needs to be retitled, since Landmark Aviation is no more, and I don't know how to change the name of the article. If you know how to do that, please do. Both Landmark and its successor the "new" StandardAero (which combines Garrett Aviation/Landmark with the "old" StandarAero and one or two other companies) have been owned by Dubai Aerospace Enterprise (DAE). I was also surprised to see that WP has a (poorly written and incomplete) article on DAE, which doesn't even mention Garrett Aviation/Landmark/StandardAero, but I added a note to the discussion if and when somebody attempts to improve the DAE article.--Mack2 (talk) 07:35, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree that there really ought to be a bio of Cliff Garrett. The guy was not even an engineer (studied engineering but never got his college degree). But like some others in his generation, he was a visionary and an entrepreneur who got some startup money in the form of a loan. But according to my dad his early loans dogged Garrett his entire life; he didn't own nearly as large a share of the company as people supposed. A starting point toward a bio might be the articles I mentioned. But there's got to be more sources, including some information on some of the financial dealings and the strategic rivalries between Garrett and other aerospace companies. I do keep my eyes out for materials, and every now and then I find an article here or there, such as on foil bearings, something my dad had a major role in inventing and a technology that Honeywell still develops and sells but in a much more competitive environment than back in the day when Garrett invented them in the 1950s and were able to outfit every US military aircraft with them.--Mack2 (talk) 07:35, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Russification

You've reverted my request for source on january, 12, saying I don't think the note intended as cite, just interpretation of meaning of "narod". the problem however is, that currently the text questioned claims This new community [Soviet people] was labeled a people (народ – narod), not a nation (нация – natsiya), but in that context narod implied an ethnic community, not just a civic or political community. This is a very strong claim - to describe late-Soviet ethnic policy as whole as ethnic assimilation, not building a civic nation (in part, of course, there was assimilation, too; but not only Russification). Therefore it needs references - who claims that the idea of Soviet people was ethnic, not civil nation?Aleksandrs Kuzmins (talk) 00:11, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

I am not able at this time to come up with a cite for a very practical reason: I recently donated virtually all of my books from that period to my college library (!). However when I was working directly on this issue during that era, the concept of a "sovetskii narod" as opposed to "sovetskoe naseleniye" (Soviet population) or "sovetskie liudi" (Soviet people -- plural) was akin to the usage in phrases in ethnographic and linguistic books devoted to "narody i natsii SSSR" -- a term frequently used to refer generically to "nations and ethnic groups of the USSR."

There was no differentiation, to the best of my recollection, between a "civic" and an "ethnic" definition of "a people". That was a distinction that grew up in the literature in the West (and still is widely acknowledged), but not in the Soviet Union. And as you no doubt know, everybody in the USSR had an internal passport and other documents in which they were identified by nationality (at least after the 1960's). But when you consider the characteristics that were being ascribed to this "new formation -- the Sovietskii narod" what you find is a slightly warmed over version of the characteristics that Stalin had ascribed to a "nation" (common territory, common language, common economy, common self-consciousness). So I think the focus on "narod" in that new formulation definitely reflected an idea of claiming for the "new Soviet people" (narod, not naselenie) the essential characteristics of a nation or nationality. It wasn't fully established but it was a nationality in becoming.

It may also be useful to bear in mind that as the article mentions, the Soviet censuses never provided for a "natsional'nost'" category called "Soviet" -- in contrast to the Yugoslav census, which provided a category for those who claimed to be "Yugoslav -- nationality not declared."

So the Soviet leaders (and census administrators) were not yet ready to allow or to classify people in terms of this new "Soviet people" -- whether civic or ethnic in essence. And thus they never pronounced that the new ethnic community, the "Soviet people" (narod), was established. But they were taking steps in that direction. If they had only been trying to promote the idea of a "civic identity" I think we would have seen such a phrase used, as opposed to the terminology that they actually used: "Soviet patriotism."

Now there was some other literature bearing on related matters, such as the work of Viktor Kozlov (maybe I still have one or two of his books around (but probably not), including his book on "Ethnic demography" and his "Dinamika chislennosti narodov" (ca. 1970), in which the central concept of interest was that of an "ethnos." This is actually parallel to some of the literature in the west, with an emphasis on the idea of an ethnic community with a shared ethnic self-consciousness (samosoznanie). I believe his ideas also would ultimately be consistent with the idea of increasingly ascribing an "ethnic" character to the newly forming "Sovetskii narod." But I don't recall what Kozlov may have written about the idea of a "Sovetskii narod."

In sum, I think the very formulation of the idea of a "Sovetskii narod" was an effort to attribute an ethnic character to this newly forming "people," which wasn't just Russians (by ethnicity or genealogy) but also included people who had their origins in other peoples and nationalities (narody i natsional'nosti) who were in process of giving up their former self-label (samonazvanie) as they adopted a new ethnic consciousness (samosoznanie) as "Soviet."--Mack2 (talk) 01:15, 27 January 2009 (UTC).

Cite4Wiki

You may find this add-on to Firefox useful: Cite4wiki (I noticed your citations in FiveThirtyEight.com were wrongly formatted)

Hope this helps. ► RATEL ◄ 01:21, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Bio editing

Hi Mack2,

I noticed your query to me in my bio here in Wikipedia, and I was wondering if there's any way that I can help you with my Wiki bio. I'm uncomfortable writing this stuff in myself (the ethics and the narcissism involved both seem tangled), but I would gladly provide reference links and information to help flesh out my bio, and work with you as needed. If you have specific questions, please just send them my way, and I'm happy to help however I can.

Christina Kahrl Christina Kahrl (talk) 21:47, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I think it's legit for you to point to sources in response to my inquiry. I don't think absolutely every detail is typically sourced, but if you provide some of the key bio info that I mentioned via links to sources, I'll use those. In there's a relevant "fact" that seems appropriate but that that you can't document by reference to an extant source, it would still be reasonable to give that info to me -- posting it here. I'll document what I can, and use other available info if it seems appropriate. If you had a link to another bio, I'd use that information.~Mack2~ (talk) 22:59, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Mack2,

A couple of tweaks: my column's now nearly daily, and I'm now the Executive Editor of Baseball Prospectus. If you could make a reference to my AL RotY vote (which was published in the clear, not a subscription feature), that would be great; the link is http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=9775

As far as bio info, I went to El Camino High School in Sacramento, and graduated in 1985. I attended the University of Chicago in 1985-87 and 1988-90, graduating in 1990; my concentration was in Modern European History (my thesis was on the disconnect between Wilhelmine Germany's fleet construction program and its foreign policy), with a minor concentration in Ancient History. I was a member of Phi Kappa Psi fraternity. I received my MA in Public History from Loyola in 2000; my thesis there was on curriculum reform at St. Mary of the Lake Seminary during and immediately after Vatican 2.

From 2000 to 2005, I was an acquisitions editor at Brassey's (US), responsible for the sports list. One of my first initiatives was to reprint an updated edition of "Weaver on Strategy," by Earl Weaver and Terry Pluto.

In 2007, I moved back to Chicago, and settled down in Rogers Park. I've become active in the LGBT community, pinch-hitting to help out with transgender programming at the Center on Halsted (http://www.centeronhalsted.org/coh/press/press.cfm?pressid=221), running the support group and adding a seminar series and an open mic night to its programming, as well as speaking about activist efforts in the area (http://news.medill.northwestern.edu/chicago/news.aspx?id=148503). I've spoken to local student groups and on college campuses about acceptance of trans folk in society and in sports, and on transgendered issues. I'm a member of the board of Illinois Gender Advocates, co-chair of IGA's action committee, and I volunteer with Equality Illinois.

Finally, if I can add a photo, please let me know. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Christina Kahrl (talk • contribs) 18:11, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

JournoList

		The Cleanup Barnstar
		Awarded for your tireless efforts in taking something near stub level and creating a solid article. QueenofBattle (talk) 01:30, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Thank you! I'm just doing some of the small stuff. Happy to help.

Adamowski

I've started translating some of the stuff from the Polish Wiki and from this source [1] and I started wondering if that image in the source would possibly be copyright-free and so could be uploaded and used on Wikipedia. Also, since you mentioned you knew the family, I was wondering if you perhaps had access to any old images which could be used? Very interesting subject, thanks for bringing it to my attention.radek (talk) 00:38, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for what you've done and are doing. There's no indication of ownership, but seems to be from an old newspaper. Is there some sort of "board of editors" on WP that can advise on that? As for other pictures, I don't have any that I know of unless there's one from my wedding! I'm pretty sure Tad and Helenka were both there since they were long-time family friends with my in-laws. (Helenka's husband Guido was one of the founders of the law firm that my FIL joined in ca. 1938. And incidentally, one of Helenka's sons is still a member of that firm.) Now where is that old album? Not sure I can locate it in the next few days but I'll look when I return from my vacation. If I do find one, then maybe I have one of Helenka too for her wiki bio.~Mack2~ (talk) 03:07, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Basically we could ask over at Wikimedia commons [2], on their copyright page. But the copyright policy with regard to images is pretty strict so we'd have to know what newspaper it was from, maybe who the photographer was, who owned the copyright, etc.radek (talk) 21:42, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Actually looking at it, I think it's quite possible that the photo in the article is taken from this book [3], Witold Domański „Śladem hokejowego krążka”. The book probably has the info on the copyright status of the photo.radek (talk) 21:50, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

nominated Tadeusz Adamowski for DYK

I've nominated the article on Tadeusz Adamowski for DYK here: [4]. If you think we should use a different hook let me know, or just suggest it at the nomination page. It would also be nice to get an image as then maybe it could be the lead article in the DYK list.radek (talk) 21:41, 18 August 2010 (UTC)~Mack2~ (talk) 00:21, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Good. Regarding pix, I don't think we have any but I just wrote to my SIL to ask her about pics of both Tad and Helenka. They were both at her wedding too, which occurred a year before ours. Unfortunately, she may be at her summer home, which is where I am also heading tomorrow (so I may have limited internet for next week), and so might not have pics there.~Mack2~ (talk) 00:21, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

My SIL just wrote back and says she doesn't have a pic but her mother might -- though her pics are 1300 miles away. But she will check -- probably not for several weeks. In the meantime, I took a total chance to write to a hockey coach at Harvard, noting that Harvard does not list Tad as one of their hockey Olympians and asking for more information including a photo. It's a very long shot that I'll even get a response.~Mack2~ (talk) 01:02, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Well he's in the red book [5]. When I was looking stuff up on him I also came across an old program for the Hockey team and he was listed there too. There's a photo in the red book - I will inquire about the status of it on Wiki commons.radek (talk) 01:11, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Excellent. And I heard back very quickly from the Asst. Coach of Harvard hockey, who said he'd be happy to see if he can find anything. I specifically asked him for any pics, so we'll see what happens. BTW/ did you see that reference to the Jezierski article on the Adamowski family? I put it on the Project Poland site, and also was able to improve the Timothee Adamowski article, including clarifying membership on the Quartet/Trio.~Mack2~ (talk) 01:36, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

It turns out that photographs first published in the US before 1923 are copyright free. Which means that the 1922 Harvard yearbook photo can be used. I've scanned it in and put it in the article. It would still be nice to somehow identify the "action photo" found in the Daily Sport article - if it's from before 1923 we could use it as well.radek (talk) 04:44, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

I imagine, given the uniform he's wearing in that action photo, it was sometime in 1925 or later. But if it's a foreign photo from the 1920's does the same copyright restriction apply? I'm dreaming the Harvard hockey coach has an action photo. It would be a miracle.~Mack2~ (talk) 04:49, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Hmmm, yeah you're probably right. In fact, I'm willing to bet it's from the 1928 Olympics. I don't know what the copyright status from other countries is in this regard but without knowing for sure where the photo comes from it doesn't really matter anyway. Let's keep our fingers crossed for the coach.radek (talk) 05:19, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

DYK for Tadeusz Adamowski

The DYK project (nominate) 00:03, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Jose Bautista

Hello, you seem like an expert on baseball. Jose Bautista (fielder) is a fielder that plays full time baseball correct? I was wondering if you could possibly edit it back Utility Player to Fielder as the other administrator Mindmatrix that edited it had their edit vandalized by User:Dewelar. This edit would be very much appreciated. Thank you. Objective44 (talk) 07:53, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

I have already posted this to Mindmatrix, but will post it here as well.

"Fielder" is not an acceptable disambiguator. Everyone who plays baseball (with the exception of the DH) is technically a fielder, so it does not actually distinguish him from the other Jose Bautista, who was a pitcher. "Utility player" itself, while accurate, was a compromise title, because Bautista has played several positions extensively. There are baseball naming conventions that cover cases like this. The next best disambiguator would probably be "Jose Bautista (baseball, born 1980), which is pretty clunky. I'd prefer it not be moved again, but would appreciate your input if you feel it must be.

Also, I'm not clear on how this is vandalism. What I did is follow WP:BRD. I see that Objective44 is a new account, but he's awfully combative, and if his talk page is any indication he's already been banned at least once. I'm not sure he understands the process. -Dewelar (talk) 15:42, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Random Smiley Award

For your contributions to Wikipedia and humanity in general, you are hereby granted the coveted Random Smiley Award.
(Explanation and Disclaimer)

♠TomasBat 01:39, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

List of baseball nicknames

The article doesn't have nearly enough references. Every single entry needs a reference. I'm sure that lots of them are random additions by IP editors and they need verification. I didn't mean to click the vandalism revert button though. – Muboshgu (talk) 01:24, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

I didn't either.~Mack2~ (talk) 05:03, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

DOB

I'm curious about this edit you just made to Mona Golabek. If you admit there is no source, why are you adding the information in? This is a WP:BLP, so particular care should be taken (see WP:DOB). Thanks, Mark Arsten (talk) 18:56, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

See your user Talk page.Mack2 (talk) 19:44, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Replied there, thanks. Mark Arsten (talk) 19:45, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

538.com

I missed your comment until now because of another comment at the same time. Regarding 538.com, I am not saying that it needs some criticism, only that it is almost completely comprised of primary sourcing. Articles should rely on secondary sourcing for the majority of their information as the use of primary information gives undue weight to the perspective of the subject of the article. It reads, right now, like it would read if Nate Silver himself had written it, that is not a good standard. Arzel (talk) 21:55, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

I responded in words on your talk page and substantively by making some additions to the article to reflect a recent controvrsy. There's more along that line regarding forecasting models but this was perhaps the most publicized of the discussions because it was in major media and not mainly in blogs and involving mainly academics.~Mack2~ 17:18, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

You should spend some time puffing up the RCP article like you have done with the 538 article. Arzel (talk) 14:51, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

Oh please, you must be a joker. You run around deleting posts with citations to secondary sources, as you did on the Nate Silver article, and then complain there there are no secondary sources on the article when there are at least 75 (which is way above the average for WP). You are acting like a stalker.~Mack2~ 15:05, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

Stalker! Give me a fucking break. I have been working on those articles for years. Now why don't you go clear up all of the OR you inserted into the 538 article. Arzel (talk) 15:42, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

You think quoting from the original source is OR. It's not. When the article is about an evolving blog, it's appropriate to summarize what the blog is doing, based on its own writings. That's not original research. Then you overlook (and even delete) direct secondary references because you're too lazy to actually check the citation. As you know, links to sources do sometimes change or even disappear. But a minute's care would show how to fix them. Instead you delete them.~Mack2~ 18:10, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

Riots vs Ethnic Violence

Can you take a look at this article and say whether it should be renamed? Even though it's a very important subject currently there's little interest in it. Thank you. Nataev (talk) 08:41, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

I prefer the current title of the article. I did follow initial events as reported in various sources but have not followed closely the aftermath or later interpretations. To my mind some questions were obscure at the time, including the underlying motivations and the roles of various actors. In my opinion, the question whether this was a progom should be discussed in the content of the article, without using the title to prejudge the matter.~Mack2~ 12:44, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

Nate Silver

Hey, I just wanted to let you know that I hid your additions about Silver correctly calling the 2012 election. While it looks like that very well may be the case, reaching the conclusion prematurely is a form of original research and crystal ball. Wait 'til he addresses it directly or someone else does, and then you can put it back. --Jprg1966 ^(talk) 06:52, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

OK. It will probably be mentioned or summarized elsewhere in print in a day or two. It has already been "tweeted" as fact by hundreds of people tonight, which is what led me to post this here. When I find a citation in a reputable source, I'll add the information back. By then we will probably know the results for the Senate races as well. Silver appears to have one wrong Senate prediction so far, but that may be the only one. I'll add that information when I can source it.~Mack2~ 07:33, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

As I thought would happen, it didn't take long for an article to appear somewhere, in this case in CNET. I added this citation, and will look for more in coming days. I unhid the information.~Mack2~ 08:13, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

Regarding East Lansing High School

Hi. I just viewed the above page and the blank edit you made to shout at your fellow editor. Although your userpage says you are fairly new, your contribution history says otherwise, so I am not gonna bother "instructing" you on the internet implication of all-cap writing. We write the encyclopedia for the users, not each other. There is absolutely nothing on the referenced page to support the information being referenced. When I have the time, I will work on putting in the specific references so the people who read the page can verify the information if they choose (remember the Five Pillars?). Instead of shouting at me, you might find it useful to the encyclopedia to help, which is why I put the tag there in the first place. If you hover over it, you will see that I added a reason...each individual entry needs a specific reference. That is not found on the MHSAA's homepage. Please try in the future to WP:AGF. Thanks. Gtwfan52 (talk) 02:00, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, didn't intend to shout. Caps key is just a caps key. I am not a fairly new Wikipedian (but I was when I set up my page) -- been at this for 6-7 years and have made > 15,000 edits. So please don't take such easy offense. I didn't check the MHSAA's page. I'm the one who first put the general link in there after looking up each and every championship on that page (that's the only way I knew about those championship teams). I put the citation there a few years ago, and it's possible that the reference webpage has changed since then. But it did then include every sports championship since the 1930's, as I recall. I will check the URL now. Peace.~Mack2~ 02:11, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Original Barnstar
	hae, it was thankful that you edited Dang. Me sangam (talk) 05:32, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

Austin-Healey

I was taught that the link to Commons was an external link. And you've wiped out the heading. Is that now correct? Eddaido (talk) 12:52, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

Stubs

Please note that stub tags go at the end of an article, not the top - see WP:ORDER - and take care not to add a stub tag to an article which already has a specific stub tag. Thanks. PamD 07:29, 5 June 2015 (UTC). --Yes, I understand. My mistake.~Mack2~ 22:24, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

Reflist column parameter

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Asian 10,000 Challenge invite

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Reflist|4

Hi. Just letting you know that reflist|2/3/4 are all deprecated per Template:Reflist#Columns. If you don't know the best ways to format these are:

• {{reflist|35em}} for 2 columns (equivalent to reflist|2)
• {{reflist|30em}} for 3 columns (equivalent to reflist|3)
• {{reflist|40em}} for 4 columns (equivalent to reflist|4)

Thanks --Jennica✿ / ^talk 02:08, 23 June 2017 (UTC) --Thank you. I've begun to do this using your method. Thanks for explaining the "conversion" in notation. I'll do my best to adhere to it.

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Setting column width for reflist

This edit hard codes a column width of 33em for references, a change you have made to many other articles. See Template:Reflist, which with no column-width parameter set will use a single column for fewer than 10 references and 30em when there are 10 or more references. There is no longer any need to edit articles to set a column width for references. Alansohn (talk) 12:58, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

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Quick FYI

Hello M. I wanted to let you know that in this edit you changed the <references /> template which gathers the references used in the article in the ref section to a {{references}} which (as you can see) leaves the message that the article is unreferenced. I've never seen you do that before (and it could happen to anyone) so I know it was a slip up. One other thing I know the old guideline was to but the "bare url" tag at the top of the ref section but those of us who fix these have found it works more smoothly if you put them at the top of the article. The guideline was changed to reflect that. Now I now it has been a long time editing habit to follow the old way but if you can help us out it would be most appreciated. Best regards and have a nice Sunday. MarnetteD|Talk 01:00, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

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Stubs

Thank you for your recent edit to Aemilius, but please take care not to add {{stub}} to an article which already has a specific stub tag, and remember that all stub tags go at the foot of the article, not the top - see WP:ORDER. Thanks. PamD 07:44, 23 April 2021 (UTC)

Please remember

Hello M. Please help those of us who format bare urls by putting the template at the top of the article. It has been four or five years since the guidelines change and it really assits us by not having to scroll through the article to find the tag. Best regards and have a great week. MarnetteD|Talk 17:35, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

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