User talk:Quiddity

"I didn't do it, nobody saw me do it, you can't prove anything!" -- Bart Simpson

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Hello, Quiddity, 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:

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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!  -- Longhair | Talk 21:55, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

small bag of holding

Response to your message re Peter S. Beagle and THE LAST UNICORN

I am not a programmer, and I find Wikipedia's internal functions phenomenally overcomplicated for what ought to be simple things, such as, for example, reaching someone in authority (or heck, even knowing who *is* in authority). Even sending *you* a response message...am I doing it right? I have no idea. Why in the world can't I just click on your ID and drop you a simple email message, like I can do on so many other systems?

I also see rampant inconsistency across the breadth of Wikipedia -- for each of the items in THE LAST UNICORN pages that someone has tagged "verify! verify!," I can point to hundreds of similar things on other Wiki pages that have not been so tagged.

As for the whole verifiability thing, the fact remains that not everything is on-line. As just one example, someone is asking for verification of the fact that many critics have called THE LAST UNICORN a modern fantasy classic, one of the best novels in the field in the last 100 years. But those reviews and articles aren't on-line. The ones I have in notebooks were published in newspapers and literary magazines in the first 20 years of the book's existence, and since it was published in 1968 there's simply no place for me to *point* to. It is true, it is absolutely true, and it can be verified by anybody willing to go to a library and pull out the right roll of microfiche. Just not online.

My main issue is keeping things factual. Lots of people have put up false information about Peter, his book, and the movie based on it over the last two years, and every time I spot this stuff I take it out, because I am in a position to know what the facts actually are. It is annoying to have false statements *reinserted* by people who do not know the facts and don't take the time to check them out through direct verification.

Connor Cochran Business Manager for Peter S. Beagle —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.21.56.217 (talk) 14:37, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Replying at your user talkpage. -- Quiddity (talk) 19:48, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Intro Protection

In general I think that we shouldn't protect the first page, we should be careful. Normally the anti vandal bots also check that page to make sure the first two lines are always there. If the bots aren't doing that then try to get that restored first. --Trödel 03:33, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

The template's are now protected. Can you figure out who is running the anti-vandal templates now and see if they can update them to check on the introduction page - I can't do it right now. TIA --Trödel 02:45, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Spacing between list items

Following on from your answer on User talk:Dicklyon#Spacing between list items, I'm obviously missing something. (Probably a number of things!)
I interpret your code illustration as saying: "No blank lines produces one list with many items, whereas interleved blank lines produces many lists, each of one item." Is that the intention of the illustration? If so, no problem yet.

Exactly :) And that's what I mean by 'render properly' (I'm possibly using the wrong term, with "render"). See the intro at Semantic Web for possible clarification. -- Quiddity (talk) 20:30, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

But you're also saying: "They're all part of the same unordered list, and should be next to one another in order to render properly." That one I don't follow - Why should they "be next to one another in order to render properly."? (I know "appearances can be deceptive", but I can't distinguish any difference in the rendering. i.e. to me, they both seem to be rendering properly.)
So, what is it that I am missing? Thanks, Pdfpdf (talk) 11:49, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

On a different tack, my POV is that computers are here to make life easier for people. I'm uncomfortable with the idea that people need to modify their behaviour and inconvenience themselves in order to make things easier for computers. Or is it a case of, again, I'm missing something? Cheers, Pdfpdf (talk) 11:49, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

It's partially a part of developing Best Coding Practices, not really a requirement. Slightly more important than (because it has an actual effect), but sort of analogous to using <br /> instead of <br> (one is xhtml, the other html).

Similarly, putting 2 spaces after a fullstop is not a good practice, because it doesn't have any actual effect. (Aside, see an interesting (to html-geeks) last paragraph at kottke)

Or, putting 2 linebreaks between paragraphs might be clearer to some people (or using doublespacing throughout), but we can't because it effects the rendered layout.

I'm not sure about this last one, but putting linebreaks between list items might also have a drastic effect on how screen readers interpret-and-hence-read the text back to blind users.

Hope some of that helps. I'm just an amateur with regards to web accessibility, so take with a small pinch of salt ;) -- Quiddity (talk) 20:30, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. I'm not sure I entirely agree with you, but at least I now understand you! ;-) Cheers, Pdfpdf (talk) 03:13, 16 February 2008 (UTC)