User talk:Davidgothberg

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If I wrote on your user page you can answer there since I do put such pages on watch for a long time.

Put new messages at the bottom of this page or under the appropriate heading if there already is one. And don't forget to sign with your user name!

    .../David Göthberg

Hash list and hash tree

Hi R.Koot. Today you removed several of the references to cryptography in the articles Hash list and Hash tree. So I feel obliged to inform you that both very much is part of cryptography. Merkle trees (as hash trees also are called) was considered a major breakthrough in handling and distribution of digital signing keys when those trees were invented by Merkle back in the 70's. And they are still considered one of the best ways to ensure data integrity (preventing from manipulation by attackers) during storing and transporting of messages. And I hope you know that ensuring data integrity very much is considered an integral part of cryptography. And since the primary goal of hash lists is to ensure data integrity in a cryptologically secure way they too are a part of cryptography. Both those methods are much older then the idea of file sharing / p2p systems as we know it today. But I agree on your adding them also to the file sharing category. If you want to discuss the matter further you are welcome to my talkpage or even better to irc.freenode.net #crypto . (Same IRC network as the #wikipedia IRC channel.) --David Göthberg 03:41, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

I tried to put those articles in a more specific category than computer science, the article doesn't make it clear to me however, that they are used in cryptography (only that they can use cryptographic techniques themselves). I removed the word cryptography in the intro for brevety. Cheers, --R.Koot 15:55, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

Ok, I added some more text on their cryptographic use and background and had some other wikipedians brush up the language. So all good! --David Göthberg 10:57, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

David -- the merge sounds good to me. Nice work on the hash list/tree images, btw! — Matt Crypto 01:04, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, I only got positive comments about the merge so far. Guess I will merge in Tiger-Tree Hash in a day or two. (Or perhaps tonight if I get impatient.) And thanks for the comment about the pictures. I enjoy making diagrams to help my explanations. I have seen there is a need for pictures on many crypto pages so I might take a crack at making and adding some pics on some other crypto pages some day. --David Göthberg 21:33, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the hash table image

I just wanted to thank you for the excellent hash table image you added to hash table. I've done some images too but yours are very professional looking and informative. The one thing I might change is to illustrate a collision, for example by having two arrows pointing to one bucket and then showing that that bucket contains two entries. In any case, good job! Deco 01:25, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

Ah thanks! Always nice to get some feedback. And yes, I would like to ad a collision to the picture too. But I have not yet figured out how to ad it in a nice way, I have to think a bit more about that. There are some problems with that, first of all it would make the picture very big and complex, and secondly there are two traditional ways such collisions are handled, either by putting the colliding item in the next free slot, or by making a linked list. I am thinking of using a linked list in the example since that shows better that it is a collision. It sounds like you have some ready made pics? I would love to see them since it might inspire me how to make "our" picture better. I will of course credit you on the picture page of the next pic. Could you upload them some where and give me an URL? Or send them to me with email: "david at pjort dot com" --David Göthberg 12:43, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

Oops, sorry, I meant that I'd done images, but not of hash tables, just other data structures. I should've thought to do a hash table. I imagine something like your image looks like now, but with one of the arrows pointing to two boxes stacked right on top of each other. Some more ideas for illustrative images:

• Bar graphs showing the number of items in each bucket of a simulated chaining implementation after various numbers of insert operations.
• Line graphs of the average lookup time for various collision resolution techniques as a function of density, on the same graph for comparison.
• Line graphs comparing the lookup time using a hash table, a binary search tree, and linear search, as a function of the number of elements.
• Something showing the effect of poor hash function vs. good hash function on clustering and collision frequency.

I could do some of these in Mathematica. There's always room for diagrams. Deco 04:44, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

Hello, I'm remaking your .pngs as vector graphics. I put links into the original files and replace them in the articles. I started it because vector files are easier to translate and I needed that. Apart from that, they're scalable. But they may not be perfect, feel free to edit them. I used Inkscape. ~~helix84 00:57, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Hi, Helix. Sorry to invade David's talk page, but I made some of my images in Illustrator, which is a vector graphics program, so I can convert them to a vector format myself. So you don't have to redo these - just so you know. Deco 01:41, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Sorry, I do not understand what images you mean. I don't know that I remade your images. These are that I've done so far:

• Image:HASHTB08.svg
• Image:HASHTB32.svg
• Image:HASHTB12.svg
• Image:Hash function long.svg
• Image:Merkle-damgard.svg
• Image:Hash function.svg

As for your diagrams concerning data structures, I'd welcome if you put their .svg versions on Commons as I want to translate their labels (if there are some) so they can be used in sk: WP. ~~helix84 04:14, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

I of course feel a slight sting in my heart to get my nice pics remade so soon. But I have to admit that having them in a standardised vector format is more in line with the idea of Wikipedia. Since it means they can more easily be edited by others in the future and as you pointed out also translated to other languages. So I guess I have to say: Good work helix84. They do look pretty good too. And Deco, I don't mind at all to get my talk page "invaded" like this. Nice to finally have some activity here! --David Göthberg 02:48, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Crypto steps / layers

I am working on a cryptographic article that covers something I think is missing both on Wikipedia and in most crypto books. An article that briefly explains which steps one does in which order when encrypting a message. That is, make/exchange IVs, perhaps compress the message, MAC the message, encrypt the message etc. Since I have not come up with a good name for the article yet and it only is a very rough draft I have put it under my user page for now: User:Davidgothberg/Crypto_steps I would love to get some help to brush it up to an acceptable level and to figure out a good name for it. --David Göthberg 15:44, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

Sorry that I've taken ages to get back to you. An article such as you suggest is a great idea. In Niels Ferguson and Bruce Schneier's Practical Cryptography, they address essentially the same question under the title of "The secure channel"; perhaps you could merge your work into that article (which could do with an overhaul in any case)? An alternative is cryptosystem, but that would seem to be a wider scope than you seem to be describing (key management, for example). I'll try and help out if I get chance. One potential pitfall is that there's lots of ways of going about encrypting a message, and we need to balance explaining the various options against giving some concrete examples of what people do in practice. — Matt Crypto 10:39, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Ah, excellent suggestion, thanks! I took a look at the secure channel article. Seems to be a good place to put a subheading called something like "Example(s) of how a secure channel works / is implemented". And yes, cryptosystem is probably a too wide scope. Although both pages need work, guess I'll put them both at the top or near the top of my todo list. Regarding the pitfall I think I can keep it simple and state something to the effect: "There are many ways to create (hopefully) secure channels, this example describes one fairly common way of doing it." --David Göthberg 18:18, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Sami

(In response to what David wrote on Habj's user page)

It's OK. My grandparents grandparents were not sami, but newsettlers in sami area - my grandfather knew how to make sami shoes, made from skin from the reindeer's legs with the hair still (on it and under the sole in two different directions, so you don't have shoes that is very slippery in one direction) similar to this kind [1]. Originally, dried grass was used inside them too keep the feet warm.

Just in case you find this kind of stuff interesting. // Habj 06:18, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I seen such shoes and know about the technique to have the hair in two directions on the sole so you don't slip. Nifty stuff. Didn't know about using grass for isolation though, but sounds like it would work fairly well. And yes, I am faschinated by all kinds of technology. All the way from "simple" indigenous techniques like that (which really often is hightech) all the way up to stuff like my own computer resarch in p2p algorithmics. --David Göthberg 06:30, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Hash functions based on block ciphers

Good work! Could you do me a favor and let me know when your done by leaving me a message on my talk page? I want to add some stuff later; the article should be about more than just those three constructions, and I have some familiarity. Thanks! Mangojuice 21:10, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, will do. And yes, I agree it needs more info on other methods. --David Göthberg 04:43, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Hi David, you're doing some great work on the hash function from block cipher stuff, don't really want to interrupt, but I thought I'd suggest you might like to upload your diagrams to Commons instead of the English Wikipedia. The end result is the same, but the files can be shared by all the language projects. — Matt Crypto 23:00, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks Matt. By the way, I have seen how much excellent work you put in on other crypto articles so I should say the same: You do FANTASTIC work around here! I was just learning to make svg images so I had just uploaded svg versions of those images instead of the png images to english Wikipedia as you wrote that. (Which makes them easier to edit for others in the future.) So, when I saw your comment I read up on the commons thing. Wow, I didn't know that it shared name space for images with all Wikipedias! I will definitely use commons for images from now on. So I uploaded the images to commons too. Unfortunately it seems it takes ages until any admin will delete the images here on english Wikipedia even though they are tagged for deletion due to being copied to commons. So since you are an admin feel free to speedy delete the three svg images in the article. --David Göthberg 11:51, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Great. I've deleted the copies here. Allegedly, I'm meant to be on a short WikiBreak (I'm an addict, what can I say?) but I hope to bump into you again after next Monday! — Matt Crypto 18:11, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

CTR mode

Do you have a reference for the claim that the IV and counters can be added or XORed in addition to being concatenated? Adding in particular seems problematic to me, say for a 64-bit cipher, since for large messages it'd become quite likely that overlapping would occur (and thus reuse of keystream). Lunkwill 21:02, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Well, I don't remember where I first learnt it since I studied cryptography since the late 80's and worked with crypto since the late 90's. (But note, I am no cryptanalyst.) However, in this case it is basic maths. First some general conclusions before I try to explain it better:

• To me adding and XORing actually seems more secure then concatenation. No matter if we use a 64-bit crypto or a 128-bit crypto. This is due to concatenation using the address space in a clumsy/inefficient way. (Although for a 128-bit crypto it isn't that much of a problem.)
• Adding is more or less the same thing as XORing. Adding use a range of values from the IV and up, and XORing use a range both up and down from the IV. But the size of the range used in a session is the exact same for both adding and XORing.

I am working on and thinking of a longer more detailed answer including some of the maths for you. I will add it later. Would of course be easier to explain in a chat so if you pop in to #crypto in irc.freenode.net some day we can discuss it there. (Same IRC network as the #wikipedia IRC channel.)

--David Göthberg 09:23, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Barnstar

I, JesseW, award this Barnstar to David Gothberg for his excellent work on hash tree and his interesting and new(to me) article on Filmjölk. Keep up the good work!

Mandelbrot and Julia sets

Thanks for your comment! I am new in the Wikicommunity... and it is the first time I am talking with someone else here! Take a look at the new figure and the link to the applet in my homepage (http://to-campos.planetaclix.pt/fractal/mandelgen.html (it is something I have done already some years ago... but it was a lot of fun doing it!). --Tó campos 23:29, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Wow, that was a nice applet! --David Göthberg 00:52, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

David wrote on Tó campos talkpage:

"Changed caption back, forgott I was on To campos talkpage, not the article talkpage. (To Campos, I hope you don't mind me answering his question?))"

Not at all! You had the answer! I did not... --Tó campos 0:20, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Gothenburg "ö"s

You made a post about the abundance of "ö"-pronunciations at Talk:Gothenburg a while ago. I made a reply that I would very much like you to read.

Peter ^Isotalo 18:48, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia kvalitet?

Jag vill kommenterar en rad du har på din user page, du säger att Wikipedia är den bästa eller kommer antagligen bli det, jag håller inte med för att man kan använda det för att sprida missinformation, allting som är politiskt känsligt kommer alltid att påverkas av olika viljor. Och vem som helst kan ändra på små detaljer eller ta bort små eller lägga till små stycken som ändrar hela karaktären på artiklen. Förmågan att byta små detaljer och därigenom ändra allting betyder att Wikipedia inte kan vara den bästa.

Det är mycket svårt för någon som inte är insatt i ett ämne att veta vad som är rätt eller fel eller vad som är rimligt eller inte. Och därför drar jag slutsatsen att alla artiklar som är politiskt känsliga kan mycket lätt manipuleras och ändras så att de visar en helt felaktig bild.

Jaja det är ju bara min åsikt, vad tycker du? (Deng 11:11, 8 April 2006 (UTC))

Hej Deng. Ja, jag håller med om att de politiska artiklarna kommer alltid att vara utsatta för stridigheter och kommer under del av tiden (kanske under större delen av tiden) att vara mer eller mindre värdelösa. Men andra artiklar som inte är politiskt känsliga (som t.ex. mitt huvudområde artiklar om kryptering) håller en mycket högre kvalitet och har mycket mindre problem med felaktig information och vandalisering. Men visst, även sådana tekniska artiklar innehåller ett visst mått av felaktig information. Ofta på grund av att okunniga personer skriver artiklar eller kanske ännu vanligare att okunniga personer försöker rätta eller förtydliga korrekta artiklar men istället gör dem felaktiga. (Men sådan "rättningar" brukar snart fixas av andra som vet bättre.)

Men jag har en teori om inlärning/utbildning: Det gör inget om "eleven" lär sig en del felaktiga saker om det mesta eleven lär sig är korrekt. Då har elevens totala kunskapsnivå trots allt höjts. Och med den högre kunskapsnivån blir det senare lättare för eleven att lära sig ännu mer och att senare upptäcka och lära om de saker han lärt sig fel. Till och med läroböckerna i skolan innehåller en hel del felaktigheter men det gör inte så mycket eftersom de trots allt tillför mycket mer korrekt information än felaktig information till eleverna.

Och eftersom jag varit ingenjör och forskare under många år måste jag ju tillägga: Det är samma sak inom förskning. Vi tar fram teorier och modeller som verkar passa på verkligheten. En del är riktigt användbara och används av oss ingenjörer m.fl. för att bygga alla möjliga saker. Senare upptäcker forskarna bättre modeller och de gamla modellerna betraktas som för enkla eller till och med felaktiga. Men trots allt var modellerna bra eftersom de var användbara och mycket bättre än att inte ha någon modell alls. De gamla modellerna innebar alltså en högre kunskapsnivå än tidigare och är ofta en förutsättning för att vi sedan skall kunna forska fram ännu bättre modeller. Så vi vet att många av modellerna som beskrivs i våra läroböcker i framtiden kommer att betraktas som felaktiga, men det är trots allt bättre att ha dem i böckerna än att inte ha någon bok alls.

--David Göthberg 11:24, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Claw-free permutation

I just touched up the claw-free permutation to reference Ivan Damgard as originating this term. I don't think this page explains itself very well, certainly not to the level of your M-D construction page; I'm not entirely sure this page should exist. You might wish to have a go at it since you seem to know this topic. I'll watch here for any reply. MaxEnt 02:31, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Oh, thanks for the comment about the Merkle-Damgård construction page. I did take a quick look at Claw-free permutation and must admit it is partly over my head. But there migth still be some things I might be able to add to it or fix in it. (Perhaps I'll even read the papers it links to and see if I can make the page more easy to understand.) I think the page very much belongs here on Wikipedia. But hey, I am an inclusionist, I know we got plenty of space here. But I find too short articles boring, so perhaps it can fit better as a sub section in some other crypto article with a redirect from Claw-free permutation. I'll take a deeper look at it after the summer. (Summer time for me mostly means outdoors activities and not much Wikipedia editing...)

--David Göthberg 10:56, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Cool. I'm removing this page from my watchlist. Feel free to drop a note on my own talk page if there's anything you'd like to discuss when you get back to it. MaxEnt 07:16, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Your Images

I really like the images that you made on your talk page illustrating hash trees, hash lists, etc. How do you make them? -- Bsmntbombdood 03:04, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Oh thanks! Well it's a process in several steps. First I look at any other related images in other articles to see how they done it. To so to speak "steal" any good ideas they had and perhaps to colour match my images so the same kind of boxes in my images has the same colour as in their images. I also ponder what I want to explain/teach to the viewer of the image. Then I draw a draft with pencil and paper to quickly try out some ideas. Then I make the images in some vector based image editing software. Then I often get feedback from other Wikipedia editors and thus discuss and change the images so most people understand them right.

Until recently I used the simple image editing that comes with MS word. Long time ago I used more advanced vector softwares but since the MS word one was good enough if one knew the tricks and it was always available in all places I use computers I started using that one. And it was convenient since I also do my slides for my teaching in MS powerpoint which uses the same way of editing vector graphics. Then when the image looked ok in MS word I made a screen dump of it by pressing the "Print Screen" button on the keyboard and pasted the screen dump into a pixel based image editor. There I cut out the image (cropped it) and then saved it in .png format since Wikipedia takes .png format. Since MS word can not save the vector image in any decent standardised format. However using .png images for graphs is not that nice since that means they are hard for others to edit and change later on, since then they are pixel based and not vector based.

Recently I changed methodology. Now there is a standardised vector format for images on Wikipedia, the .svg format. So I downloaded and learnt to use one of the free programs that the Wikipedia page about .svg recommends. As usual it took some time to learn to use the program. So far I only tested the program Inkscape. But I am going to test some more when I get the time since that program is a bit weird. But right now I am on a vacation from Wikipedia since it is summer over here!

--David Göthberg 07:38, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your explanation. I'm going to try making some images with Inkscape and see how they turn out.

--Bsmntbombdood 15:09, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

DG, Being a visually impaired sort, my artistic gift is minimal. One of those sad congenital things, you know. So I'm pleased you're having at some visual aids for the abstract descriptions, particulalry at public key cryptography. I've only a couple of points for you to consider.

Alice and Bob are both conventional and amusing, so I'd suggest that at least the names be used (instead of 'A' and 'B').

It is helpful to the Average Reader if the connection lines have directional arrows to show information goes here, goes there. It really does help the uninitiated.

Asymmetric crypto is not necessarily public-private key crypto. There are some algorithms in which one key is deducible from the other. This is the reason public key crypto is a poor term for the field. Most of the articles used to make this point, but editors are careful to avoid the seemingly obscure and so increase obscurity. I can't suggest a way to reflect this in the existing diagrams (perhaps one specially for key generation might make this point?, and note the absolute requirement that key generation be done oneself, not by some other (perhaps, eeck! -- Mallory_in_mufti!)?) but it's an issue.

Asymmetric keys are muuuch longer than symmetric keys and perhaps this could be refelcted visually? A point not always appreciated by the Average Reader.

The two keys used in asymmetric key algorithms (w/ or w/o the publi-private property) are closely related. I think the shape of the keys could be used to indicate this connection visually. Mirror image shapes, perhaps?

Since, in a two way interaction, there are 4 keys involved, there should be some way to distinguish along this dimension as well. Perhaps an A in the head of Alice's keys and a B for Bob's?

Some browsers won't have distinguisable colors, and for that matter, some users won't be able to see them anyway. I suggest that public keys be visually distinguished from private keys by something that doesn't depend on color. Perhaps the private key could be surrounded by a dashed line, or be partially greyed out, or ...?

We the art-impaired salute you (who can draw)! Keep up the good work. ww 20:35, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

He, I did not know you that you can not "decipher" light. Your statements make it clear you can not see those images at all. Secondly, great minds think alike! Most of your suggestions are already very much in those images! So lets see: Yes, I use text next to each item in the images so next to the green key it says "Public key of Alice". I don't use the short label "Apk". And next to the red key it says "Private key of Alice". So the red and green colours are not necessary, just a visual aid for those of us that are not red-green colour blind. And all the text is black on more lightly coloured backgrounds so can be read no matter what type of colour blind a person is. (Actually had that in mind when doing the labels since red-green colour blindness is so common.)

And yes, I use very clear directional arrows everywhere showing what is done in which order and what key is fed where etc. And yes, I am aware of the other possible meaning of "asymmetric crypto" but these pictures show keypairs and the article talks about "public-key crypto". And yes, I have an image describing key generation. I do not show much about who makes the keys although that image is marked "Alice". But sorry, I do not show that the keys are longer than symmetric keys. Infact, those images include no symmetric stuff at all. They are very simplified.

And yes, I have shaped the keys so the "tooths" on Alice's public and private key is a mirror shape so the two keys fit together. And the same for Bob's keys, Bob's keys look different from Alice's but the public and private keys of Bob fit together. Actually, I thought I had made a very nifty and unique thing when I added that since I never seen that in any books, and now you suggest the same! Guess it wasn't that unique or we are both VERY smart. :))

So, since you can not see the images let me tell you what they contain:

Image 1: Whole image is marked "Alice" and shows key making: A big random number is fed (an arrow) into a box marked "Key making function" and out comes two keys marked "Public key of Alice" and "Private key of Alice".

Image 2: Shows basic public-key encryption and decryption. Upper half of image marked "Bob". Bob inserts the message "Attack at dawn" and the "Public key of Alice" into a box marked "Encrypt". Out comes a random looking encrypted message. The encrypted message is sent over to the other half of the image marked "Alice". Alice inputs the encrypted message and "Private key of Alice" into a box marked "Decrypt". Out comes the decrypted message "Attack at dawn".

Image 3: Shows basic public-key signing and verification. Upper half of image marked "Alice". Alice inserts the message "I will pay $500" and "Private key of Alice" into a box marked "Sign (encrypt)". Out comes a random looking signed message. (Encrypted really.) The signed message is sent over to the other half of the image marked "Bob". Bob inputs the signed message and "Public key of Alice" into a box marked "Verify (decrypt)". Out comes the verified message "I will pay $500".

Image 4: Shows shared secret agreement (for instance Diffie-Hellman). Half the image is marked "Alice". Alice feeds the "Public key of Bob" and the "Private key of Alice" into a box marked "Combine keys". Out comes a a random HEX string marked "Alice and Bob's shared secret". The other half of the image shows the exact same thing for Bob.

That is really all there is. The images do also have descriptive image captions that I hope you can read? So the images show the basics of how public-keys work and what operations can be done with them. The images do not show stuff like hashing a message and then signing just the hash. They don't show that we just encrypt a random session key and then use symmetric crypto on the bulk data in the message. And I don't show any certificate stuff, CA stuff or web of trust stuff. All that would need a whole lot of more diagrams and those should perhaps go into other articles.

--David Göthberg 00:33, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

<----

DG, Ummm... 'Visually impaired' was meant to imply no ability to draw, congentially art-impaired, limited to children's refrigerator art expertise, ... not blindness or something akin to it. Though bifocals have almost the same effect for about 1/2 the world. One has a choice of a whole world though fuzzy, or half a sharpish world. I dream of stem cell derived eyes... Sorry to have confused in this case.

I note that we have passed in the night as it were. Most of my suggestions have been more or less incorporated. But, there is never an end to them, needless to say. Is it possible to change "Key of xyz" to "xyz's key"? The former is quite unusual, even awkward, in English? And, I have an observation with regard to the third of the diagrams, though. We should identify a protocol which combines keys for a shared secret, of course, so our Gentle Reader might go off to study the concept in another article. ww 14:55, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Ok, I changed the key captions to "Alice's public key" etc. And I agree it sounds better that way. But there are many ways to combine public keys to a shared secret. The most well known is to use Diffie-Hellman but you can also do it with RSA or ECC and many other public-key systems. I think such extra information is more for the article text than for the image and the image caption. --David Göthberg 12:51, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

FOX etc

Hi David, no problem -- I'm glad I could help. Thanks also for your nice public key crypto diagrams. I'll try and chip in with some comments, but they look pretty good. — Matt Crypto 06:00, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Userbox auto addition to participants list

I have moved this discussion to the talk page of the WikiProject_Cryptography since I think this discussion is of public interest. --David Göthberg 12:38, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Deleted data

Unless I'm mixing cases, the data you had on your page contained the personal name and location of a minor from which the Wikimedia Foundation received a complaint about privacy. I happen to be on the group processing requests on behalf of the Foundation. David.Monniaux 17:22, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Davidgothberg, I have removed the personal information from your User Page that David had earlier removed. Please be advised that both David and I provide correspondence for the Wikimedia Foundation, and this is in response to a complaint. Furthermore, you should not be displaying personal information for someone who is not you on your user page, whether or not you suspect that person of vandalism. You can list incidents at WP:AN/I. If you need to retain this information for yourself, please copy it to some location on your hard drive. Bastique▼^parler _voir 17:33, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

As per Wikipedia removal of information

Dear David Gothberg,

As you know, I have contacted Wikipedia for my personal information, this being my full name and locale next to some comments that do not relate to me on the web addresses “http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Davidgothberg”, “http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Davidgothberg” and “http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:203.14.53.15/2006#This_is_user_is_a_vandal” which date to June 2005 and came from a network most probably used by quite a number of people . If I did how ever play a part in any “vandalism”, it is still in appropriate and now appears in popular search engines, I know this because many people have searched my name and other related keywords and found this information on your pages at Wikipedia.

David Minnoux was kind enough to remove such information and restore my privacy, how ever you insist to keep it remain and hold what appears to be a grudge. This has obviously been done without my permission. Now, I'm sure there are many vandals at Wikipedia, yet somehow I seem to be the only one on you clearly label and continue to hold this grudge you have.

And I know indefinite that something as ridiculous as to become another person and "criticize" myself is beyond a joke, as so stated on your very own page at Wikpedia.

I have been patient and I have been cooperative, how ever, David Monniaux has decided not to deal with this anymore even though he seems to answer the e-mails at Wikipedia, I have approached Wikipedia politely and resulted powerless to you. David Monniaux has also showed a sign or neglect and rudeness by referring to me as ******** in an e-mail that clearly explained my reasons for why my name only said ******* and the e-mails we're clearly signed by me, ********

You have put my own safety at jeopardy. I ask kindly that you please remove the information regarding me on all pages at Wikipedia that contain my name regardless of the excuses since I do not use or edit Wikipedia as the information sources here aren't to my reliability, otherwise I will report this to my internet service provider and seek legal assistance.

Since I cannot e-mail you personally, I am contacting you via this method.

Sincerely, ********

Well, first of all most of the things you are complaining about was not added by me. It is other persons that come here and add this information to my talk page. Now you yourself (who ever you are) have added the comment above which contained several names of non-wikipedians. I took the liberty of censoring those names.

Secondly, at the time you wrote the above comment I had already removed what you are refering to from my user page and from this talk page. The third thing you pointed out was my old comment on a page I had long forgotten about, the "This user is a vandal" comment. I have now censored parts of that comment too.

However, I must point out to you that I am not a "Wikipedia admin" so it is not in my power to delete pages, thus I can not affect what is available in the history database of pages. And it certainly is not my responsibility to "remove the information regarding you on all pages at Wikipedia".

So I ask of you and the others to keep this discussion away from my talk page since it is none of my concern any more. --David Göthberg 12:13, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Re: SVG-making software?

Hello, sorry for the slow response, I've been on a wikivacation for the summer. I use the last version of Inkscape. I had very few problems with the way MediaWiki renders the svg images to png. I remember some problems when using multiple layers. And some images were not rendered correctly by Opera, which still doesn't have complete SVG support (none of the browsers does, AFAIK). Anyway, Inkscape adds a lot of unuseful stuff to the svg file which you can safely remove. I also recommend doing a cleanup (File/Vacuum defs) before publishing. Which version are you using and why doesn't the latest version work on ME? ~~helix84 11:57, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Hi, sorry for my late answer. I am kind of on a prolonged wikivacation. I lowered my activity for several reasons (among others since I got slapped by some admins). Anyway, I use Inkscape 0.42 since that is the last version that works on Win 9x. The more recent versions only run on Win XP. The Inkscape makers state so on their web pages and I also tried to run those newer versions on my Win ME anyway and they failed to run. And regarding the Wikimedia SVG rendering problems: It is mainly some problems with text in the images. And it does not help to "vacuum" the images and save them as "plain SVG". But I have found workarounds for pretty much all of the problems. Including the one that surely is not the fault of Inkscape: Old MS Internet Explorers can not handle the transparent background that Wikimedia makes for the PNG rendered SVG images. So I nowadays always put one big white square that cover the entire image as the lowest object and thus Wikipedia render the PNG as non-transparent with white colour as "background". So now the images look the same in all web browsers I have tested. --David Göthberg 06:49, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Navboxes

DG, I've taken a look and, to the extent the quadfocals let me see anything, have only the following reaction. The Templates yo've produced are all oriented toward crypto inside baseball. Since, from the Average User's perspective, crypto is concerned with such things as confidentiality, message integrity, message authenitication, and non deniability, I suggest that there should be templates for these issues as well. From an inside crypto perspective, I suppose we might have templates noting crypto protocols and partial or zero knowledge protocols, as well. Have I seen anything you were hoping for? ww 03:20, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Ah yes, I see what you mean. Note, this is just a preliminary answer since I just got out of bed, I will rework this answer after breakfast:

We already had most of those templates. I only made the small "main/generic/introductory" one which we can have in all crypto articles. And I made it so that several of our nav templates can be shown neatly together in one frame.

And yes, you are right. The main/generic/introductory template (the one titled "Cryptography") is not simple enough for beginners. We probably need more introductory articles (or perhaps we already have them some where) and then the main template should have some links to such introductory articles. Perhaps even marked in some way so it is clear those links are introductory reading for beginners. Something like links named "How to hide data" (would be about encryption + steganography etc), "How to prevent that others from tampering with your data" (about hashes, MACs etc) and so on. And yes, from an inside crypto perspective we off course can and will have more templates covering more areas.

So yes, you certainly have seen several things I didn't think of. Thanks a lot! I always enjoy your feedback. --David Göthberg 11:00, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Fubuki

DG, Confusing submission wasn't it? I'll go with your rewrite (save that I added a link to Fubuki) until I actually plow through their submission to see where I went awry. Not immediatley in any case. ww 03:29, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, it was confusing. Took me a little googling to find out what it was about. Afterwards I realised I should probably have put those links in as "External links / References". But instead I got busy making a disambiguation page for Fubuki since it can mean at least 7 different things. But I only put 6 of them on that disambig page since one of them were about the porn star named Fubuki. I am an "inclusionist/mergist" but I prefer not to link to porn star articles... --David Göthberg 11:00, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

DG, Looks like I was more confused than I thought. How does one recognize this condition in one's self? The problem applies directly to Sanger's expert-based approach for his new version of the Wikipedia. In my case, I find my own understandings tripping over thier own shoelaces far too regularly. I think we naked apes have taken this understanding thing to the limit of our performance, characteristically. I expect that there is an absence of good sense circuits in our brains which would keep us out of our hot water problems (remember the frog) rather better than we've managed so far. Anyway, thanks for cleaning up the roundabout here. ww 16:47, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, I have researched chaos as my dayjob for many years now (randomised algorithms that is) so I think I can call my self an expert in chaos and randomness by now. But I admit I to all too often discover I am confused over lots of things. I think we simply have to accept that life is chaotic. Regarding shoelaces: When I dance I always tie them with an extra knot (what we at least in Swedish call a "double knot") thus I never trip over my shoelaces. It seems to me Wikipedia also kind of comes with "multiple knots". That is, other editors that double and triple check what we edit. So no worries mate! --David Göthberg 16:58, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Nema (disambiguation)

This is not a big deal one way or the other, but I thought I'd let you know that the reason I removed "U.S." is not because I think that it is a given, but rather because dab entries are supposed to be short (just long enough for the reader to find the right one) and that seemed like the least necessary word. --Strait 18:02, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Ah, I see what you mean. Yeah that entry is a bit long. But all the other entries state the country and for those of us that are not from the US it feels kind of weird to not state in which country that "National" organisation belongs. Anyway, nice to hear that the primary reason was not "US centric" editing. --David Göthberg 20:37, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Discussion on Navigation bar template

Hi - I've moved the discussion about the navigation bar template from WP:VPT to template talk:Navigation bar. I'd like to understand specifically what you think is ugly about it. Please comment there. Thanks. -- Rick Block (talk) 13:46, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

I am still interested in your comments about this. Please comment at template talk:Navigation bar. Thanks. -- Rick Block (talk) 15:12, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Oh, sorry for not responding earlier. I have been busy with other stuff (most of it out in the real world). And yes, I will take a look and comment. --David Göthberg 16:00, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments. There seems to be fairly strong sentiment that scrolling is inherently evil and should not be allowed (at least from some camps). It's a little hard to tell if there's only a few editors who violently object or if this is a widespread objection. If we end up with "scrolling shall not be used in any circumstance" this template will be deleted. I'm thinking about a way to generalize the previous "virtual scroll" idea (one template that looks different on each page), but without requiring a script to generate it. If the actual scrolling version goes away, we'll have to do something else. I'm not thrilled with your version (6 templates), but it's certainly far better than a huge monstrosity. -- Rick Block (talk) 19:17, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, some people seem to react too strongly against the scrolling. I just think it is slightly ugly but in most other ways it is a good suggestion. And both your scrolling method and my "splitting up on several templates" method sure is nicer than one big monstrosity.

By the way, I think I have an idea what "something else" could be. I think I know how one could make a generic template that can take several parameters and automatically split it up into several different "views" like if it where several different templates. I just have to think a bit more about how to code it up. But I think it is doable. And only using the template logic (no javascript) that Wikimedia offers. --David Göthberg 20:15, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

I could see how to do this on a template by template basis, but a generic version seems like it might be difficult. I've put together a parameterized version of the 4x100 relay template. You give it the year and see only the details for that year, like this:

Template by template, I suspect there's almost always "something else", although I do like the horizontal scroll approach because it's so simple to use. -- Rick Block (talk) 00:15, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Haha, that was a quick respons AND you coded a new template too. You work to hard. I think that preferably the range list (the list of years) should be smaller than the actual list of links (the names of athletes). So I think in this kind of aproach one should list about 3-4 lines of links (3-4 years) at once. As I did paint it at Template talk:Navigation bar#Looks somewhat ugly. That is, it needs more data and less meta data.

To make it so in the template you used here is simple. But as you pointed out that template was handcoded. Making a generic template for it is slightly more tricky, but I think still doable. --David Göthberg 00:35, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Just FYI, I've revised the 4x100 relay template and its references so it shows details for multiple years in cases where a single athlete has won it multiple times (like Carl Lewis and Frank Wykoff). The least ugly way I could think of to do this involved extracting the details by year into a separate template. It would be possible to include the details from the previous Olympics (prior to the first win) and following (subsequent to the last win), but I kind of like the very compact version. And, perhaps at the risk of belaboring this one, what do you think about Template:Places in Bedfordshire/a-z (yet another version)? This could definitely be a generic template. -- Rick Block (talk) 17:49, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Crypto templates

I'm pretty sure you don't have the best set-up - if you would like to link to the various cases that broke, and explain the ways in which the template is used, then I can fix it. The first screenshot you posted just a problem with extra line breaks. The second problem looks like someone has included the template directly, which is wrong. I didn't change any pre tags or remove any nbsps, so I don't see how I can have broken any wrapping issues either. ed g2s • talk 17:09, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

I have restored my edits, with the line-break fix mentioned, and checked the first 100 transclusions on FF and IE. As you can see on NESSIE, this is working fine. The second example you gave is a case of bad implementation, and not an error on my part. If there are any pages which are rendering incorrectly please inform me, and I can correct the code, but there is no need to revert all my edits. Thanks, ed g2s • talk 17:19, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

I've also done an AWB search through the transclusions of {{crypto block}}, and it seems none of them include the template directly. The only page it found that did was one of your sandbox pages, so I don't know if this is a real problem... ed g2s • talk 17:28, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Salt (cryptography)

Hello, today I was searching for info on salt and I found this forum post explaining the concept in a very clear way. I think you could use some of its structure in the article, e.g. private/public salt and their pros/cons. I didn't feel competent to do it so I just added the extlink.

BTW, you probably missed my response to User_talk:Helix84#SVG-making software? in #Re: SVG-making software?. ~~helix84 01:28, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Ok, I have read the salt forum post. And yeah, that post has a much better explanation. But I don't like that one either. I usually explain salts in a very different way. And I usually explain salts and IVs at the same time, since I see them as just different variants of the same thing. But it wasn't me who wrote the salt article here on Wikipedia and I must admit I am in no mood to rework the salt article, sorry. --David Göthberg 07:11, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject user template

That's awesome, thanks.--Mike Selinker 23:23, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

RC4 test vectors

In the Wikipedia article about RC4, you added some test vectors. Unless I'm wrong, I would say the last test vector result is wrong:

RC4( "Secret", "Attack at dawn" ) == 45A01F645FC35B383552544B9BF5

I think the second last 'B' must be a 5.

Can you check this and correct it if necessary?

--83.134.151.12 15:02, 14 January 2007

I checked my own code again an reran it. It gave the same result as before. I also tried the web based RC4 demo that the article links to and it also gave the same result. Of course, both those implementations might have the same bug. (Different programmers tend to make the same misstakes.) But I seem to remember that several other crypto geeks in a crypto chat where I hang out tested those test vectors in their implementations. So I think that the test vectors are right. You have to double check with other implementations than your own and see what happens. --David Göthberg 04:31, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Ah, it's always someone else's fault! I typed "Attack at down" instead of "dawn". --83.134.139.54 09:28, 15 January 2007

Hehe, the human factor is always a big factor in cryptography. Thanks for coming back and reporting so that we now know that the test vectors seem to be correct. --David Göthberg 17:46, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Re: MessedRobot and the "WikiProject Computing" template.

Hello! In the second run, the articles that are being added are doing so because they belong to a specific category related to computing. I added a clause in AWB to ignore pages with the cryptography template, but I don't know if it will work or not. Let me know if more cryptography pages are tagged. —Signed, your friendly neighborhood MessedRocker. 05:54, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

It doesn't work. You are tagging both talkpages that already have the "CryptographyProject" template and those that don't have it. And even if you get your "fix" to work it means you will mass tag crypto talkpages that not yet have the "CryptographyProject" template which will be even more confusing since then people will think those pages are part of the WikiProject Computing and not the WikiProject Cryptography.

I thought it was against Wikipedia policies to run a bot totally automatically without a manual visual check of each page update before saving the page?

--David Göthberg 06:05, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

My bot is authorized to run by itself, so no, it is not against policy. Apparently my quick modification to exclude talk pages mentioning the cryptography project hasn't been working (according to you) so I will take the time to manually strip such pages from the worklist. Hold on. —Signed, your friendly neighborhood MessedRocker. 06:14, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

It is, and I'm running some list intersections to see how I can fix this problem. —Signed, your friendly neighborhood MessedRocker. 06:24, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

The bot should now not tag cryptography-related articles (though a few may slip through the cracks, I don't know), and in fact I have a list of pages lined up to have the Wikiproject Computing tag removed rom them. —Signed, your friendly neighborhood MessedRocker. 06:35, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Cryptograhy article naming

This discussion was moved to the talk page of WikiProject Cryptography. --David Göthberg 01:54, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Template:·

Hi David,

Unfortunately, due to concerns raised on the talk page, I had to partially revert your change to {{·}} in that the non-breaking space seems to be required in order to avoid breaking before the dot, which seemed to be expected behavior. Unfortunately, none of the browsers that I tested (IE7, Firefox, and Safari) interpret the nowrap style to include leading spaces. The partial revert that I made was not optimally coded, but my goal was to reduce the risk of screwing things up in a different way until we can work things out a bit more. I'd have discussed on the talk page before re-introducing the non-breaking space, but I wanted to quickly extinguish the appearence that the template "worked" with a leading space, when in reality the browsers interpret things differently. Thanks. — TKD::Talk 07:05, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Ouch, bitten by the browser bugs again. Yes, you are right and I agree that it needed to be reverted immediately. --David Göthberg 13:39, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Nowraplinks

I requested your nowraplinks addition at Mediawiki talk:Common.css#nowraplinks. ←Ben^B4 00:55, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Ah, thanks! I see it has now been added to common.css. Now I'll just test it a bit more and then I can "market" it to the navbox editors etc. --David Göthberg 13:39, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for nowraplinks

Your code has made it much easier for me to develop a nice-looking Template:BalzacBox. Thank you kindly for making our lives easier. -- Scartol 21:40, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Oh! Thanks for telling me. Your BalzacBox is almost scary, I sure do see that you have good use of {{nowraplinks}}. I am now working to add the nowraplinks feature to the generic navboxes themselves so editors (like you) don't even need to think about it. (I have already added it to some of them.) --David Göthberg 21:58, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, the built-in feature is very nice indeed. I know the Balzac box is jam-packed; we'll probably tweak it as we go. I just wanted to make something concrete to get it off my to-do list. Thanks again. -- Scartol 02:12, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks.

Thanks about that. I'm kind of new at editing, so I couldn't edit like that. —Preceding unsigned comment added by TidMiste (talk • contribs) 21:03, August 26, 2007 (UTC)

Well, you are on to a good start! You made a decent start with the Chaocipher article. Next thing you might want to do is to "wikify" the article. That is, to make some of the words clickable links to other Wikipedia articles explaining those words. --David Göthberg 21:15, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Neural cryptography stuff

Hi David ! Thanks for your comments. In the Neural cryptography article I completed with a few more references about the field ! Thanks a lot ! --Faturita 06:13, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

No problem, I'm just doing my "job". Now the article looks really good. I like that you added some comments to each external reference. Now all we have to do is to wait for some native English speaking editors to fix the language too. Some sentences are slightly weird but I don't know how to fix them since my English is not good enough. But that's the "wikiprocess", every one helps out doing the part they are good at, and in the end the articles get really good. Oh, we should probably add links to the article from other articles too, I will perhaps do that. --David Göthberg 14:24, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Template standardisation implementation

This discussion moved to Wikipedia talk:Template standardisation#Template standardisation implementation.

--David Göthberg 00:04, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

A user claiming some legal authority

There are several IPs who are posting claims on the Administrators' noticeboard that they reperesent some sort of organization which has the right to hear matters concerning Internet disputes. See this post. Do you have any way of calling that telephone number or checking the address to see just what is located there? Corvus cornix 22:27, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Ok, since it is a Swedish organisation and I happen to be a semi-expert in investigating people and companies in Sweden I'll take a look at it. How come you asked me?

I just done a first read through of what that Peter Lundgren wrote. I say it "smells bad" in several ways:

1. He uses the organisation number of his organisation repeatedly like it means some special status, but anyone can get such an organisation number in Sweden.

2. He seems to be complaining about that people removed links in articles to their web site. Apparently he has never heard that Wikipedia is not a link repository.

3. The article about UNNET was deleted months ago. (He didn't say that, I saw that in the logs.)

4. He comes with a "legal threat" based on some US law but he doesn't really state what he want to achieve. Seems his main demand is that we link to his web site since he writes: "censuring access to UNNET websites".

5. I don't know if his organisation is the real deal or a "charitable hoax". But I know we got plenty of "charitable hoaxes" here in Sweden so based on how he writes I wouldn't be surprised if his organisation is exactly that.

But I'll check into it.

--David Göthberg 23:03, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

I went to Category:Swedish Wikipedians and you were one of the first who seems to actually still be in Sweden who is recently active.  :) Corvus cornix 23:30, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

For further information, this all comes from this post, where the User claims to have sent an email to this organization which supposedly has authority to resolve Internet complaints. Peter Lundgren's organization is apparently the parent company of e-pol.org. Thanks for any help you can provide. Corvus cornix 23:32, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

I just read part of the discussions on that here on Wikipedia. (I Googled and almost all hits for un-net.org etc was here at Google.) I did the little checking I could at this time of night of the organisation here in Sweden. As others already noted the web site seems very fishy and the domain is registered to an address in Brussels, Belgium. There is no UNNET or UNombud in the Swedish phone registry and the fax number that Peter Lundgren claims to the organisation is unlisted but it is a phone number to southern Sweden. In what he wrote he claims an office address in Ystad, a small city in south Sweden. So I did a phone registry search, in spite Peter Lundgren being a VERY common name in Sweden there are only one in Ystad. So I now have his home address and mobile phone number.

So I guess I will call him tomorrow or so. :))

And if I have the time tomorrow during office hours I will see what the government databases have about him and his organisation.

--David Göthberg 00:08, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Hooray, you are Wikipedia's own Sherlock Holmes.  :) Corvus cornix 01:41, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Oh, he, that was nothing. By tomorrow afternoon I can have some data about his organisation and what car make, model and plate number he has, and the names, addresses, personal numbers and more of his family members. And in 1-2 weeks I can have his school grades, hair colour and photo of his sister (if he has a sister, let's hope she is cute) and know if he ever been to court or prison and so on. All that without me doing any travelling and all legal too. Problem is I don't have the time the next few days. And I don't think he is worth the effort. I think I will simply phone him and talk with him.

--David Göthberg 02:03, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Whatever you have time for. Thanks. Corvus cornix 15:25, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

I didn't have time to phone him today and now it is already night. But I'll call him tomorrow or so. So keep this page on your watchlist. --David Göthberg 23:19, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Today I asked the Swedish tax authority. The "UNOMBUD Stiftelse", with organisation number 848001-2619, is registered. But just barely. The address Peter stated is the same as the officially registered one. UNOMBUD have existed for a number of years and are registered as a "foundation". But they have never paid any taxes, no salaries and have no employees. So either they have never done any work or everyone working for them works for free or get their salaries illegally.

I also tried to call that "Peter Lundgren" on his cellphone but got no response. He might actually be in Germany right now as he wrote, since the IP number he wrote from is a south German IP number. So he might not be reachable until he comes home.

The fax number he stated indeed has a fax machine answering. I did not send any fax there, I just phoned it and listened to the fax sound.

--David Göthberg 09:21, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

I have phoned him repeatedly without any response. He only have one listed phone number. And his parents have unlisted phone numbers so I can not reach them either. So the only easy options left is to fax him or write him a letter, but I will not bother about that. So I will not do anything more.

--David Göthberg 14:19, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Thank you very much

I appreciate your help in this matter. It sounds like the gentleman isn't as authoritative as he claims to be. Corvus cornix 15:35, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Template:Norwich City F.C.

Hi David. Just spotted your edit - thanks. Subtle, but correct. :-) --Dweller 10:00, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Hehe, yeah it was just a small change in colours. But since you asked for help with your colours at another talk page I checked everything carefully and then I saw you already solved the problem but I noticed it wasn't the correct club colours. And since it was so easy to fix I just boldly did it. But I didn't bother to fix the image/logo in the article since that is more work. Guess you guys should consider fixing the logo. Some fans tend to be very sensitive about such things. (I know from experience, in the 90's I was the web master for some clubs here in Sweden.) --David Göthberg 23:17, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

WT:TS archiving

Yeah, sorry about that, I thought someone had just copied a few threads to the archive and forgot to remove them. Sorry for any confusion caused. If we archive just the inactive threads, will it be a problem if the threads aren't listed in chronological order? Sebi _[talk] 07:17, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

No problem, you couldn't have known. And was easy for me to fix so no confusion caused. And yes, I think the same. I took a look and most threads have been to recently active to be archived, yet the page is getting way to big. So yeah, I think we have to archive in "non chronological order" and just archive those threads who is not needed any more. Although they are not many... Should you or I do it? Or should we make up a list of thread headers on the archive page together to see that we agree and then cut and paste the content to them afterwards? --David Göthberg 07:28, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Just simply go through some of the threads on the page and filter through, spotting threads that are unlikely to receive any replies to them in the near future (i.e. "Support" section), or threads that are outdated (i.e. "Credit" section). Sebi _[talk] 08:17, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Need a free alternative to Image:Current sport.svg

Like you did with Image:Gnome globe current event.svg, could you create a similar free version to replace Image:Current sport.svg because that image still contains some parts of the Wikinews logo. I would do it myself – combining Image:Current event clock.svg and Image:Soccerball.svg – but I cannot match the clock shadows that you added to Gnome globe current event.svg. Thanks. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 04:17, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

I had noticed the non-free background on that image too, but at least according to Swedish law that is too little reuse to be copyright infringement. (Unless the entire globe is still hidden behind that ball, then even the hidden data can be copyright infringement.) But no problem, I'll fix that.

--David Göthberg 04:25, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Ehm, I just checked. There is no globe behind the ball, and the blue "parenteses" are not the same as in Image:Current event marker.svg so I say that is not copyright infringement. But the clock is very similar (but clearly not the same file). So probably a trademark infringement. Anyway, let's see if we can design something better looking? --David Göthberg 04:44, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Ok, how about this one? Image:Soccerball current event.svg

I made a misstake and uploaded it to en.wikipedia instead of commons, but I'll fix that. --David Göthberg 05:35, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Looks good. Even though it actually might not be copyright infringement, we at least have something else that is similar and a little more consistent. Thanks. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 05:45, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Default template image

I saw you checked my template (Thanks!) here, but since the image isn't showing up at all, that's why I added it, because I tried it without it, and it wasn't showing up for me, but it did if I added it specifically. The same goes for the default style image in {{Ambox}}, so I can't figure out what I did wrong, lol. (I've cleared my history/cache, so that's not it, using Firefox 2.0.0.6/XPSP2). Anyway thanks for checking the obit thing, if that's the only mistake I made, I'm happy, lol. I just wish I could see these default images. Thanks David! ^Ariel♥Gold 07:39, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Actually, all of us have problems seeing those images right now. Sometimes Wikipedia simply fail to show some images, and probably especially during extreme load situations like during this update. So just wait and those images will show up normally again soon. The yellow brush and the merge arrows have come and gone sometimes already the last few hours.

--David Göthberg 07:45, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Thank goodness it isn't just me, the odd thing is, in IE, the image shows as an invalid image (like, red X type box) but clicking on it takes me to the image page, and I see it fine there, Silly, lol. Yeah I'm not seeing the merge arrows either, hee hee. Well thank you dear David, for easing my fears that I royally messed something up! And I appreciate that you took a look at the Obit thing, I removed that table, because frankly it was god awful ugly, and when I tried to just make it a plain one, it showed up right one time, and then weird the next refresh, so I gave up, lol. Thanks for fixing it! ^Ariel♥Gold 07:49, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Actually hoo boy did I mess up that obit template, or what? I wasn't paying attention and copied all the closing <div tags, sheesh. What a mess, sorry you had to clean that up! I tried to just copy/paste the template message, but guess I watch where it ended, and the old box did, lol. I think I'll stop trying to do these, I'm probably screwing them all up. ^Ariel♥Gold 07:52, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, no shame in that. I have been programming since 1982 and editing/coding at Wikipedia for several years now. And for me that template actually was tricky to handle. So it was a hard one.

And yeah, some years ago when I first experienced the "lost images" I almost thought I had lost my mind or something. I think it is as simple as when the servers get overloaded they are set to prioritise text and stop rendering images. Since we still get the page text rendered quickly even during extreme loads like now.

--David Göthberg 08:01, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Okay, well, do you think I should list the ones I converted for you to review? I mean, I think the others weren't as hard as that obit one, but perhaps it would be a good idea to just check? I did test them after I changed them, and they seemed to work correctly but now I'm worried lol. ^Ariel♥Gold 08:12, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Take it easy

Calm down my friend

Teşekkürler, iyi çalışmalar. XD kızılsungur 08:22, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Eh? Why are you saying that? --David Göthberg 09:00, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Template:Ambox

Regarding this edit, would it be possible to instead edit {{ambox}} to match the original examples? The tags look much better with the horizontal grey border extending the full width (including the colored strip). —David Levy 08:30, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

I just noticed that the grey border remains in Internet Explorer 6. I don't know about Internet Explorer 7 (which I don't have installed), but it's gone in Firefox. Can this be fixed? —David Levy 08:45, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, if you look in the archives you will see why we decided on using a CSS controlled thick left border instead of using a left table cell with background colour. Also the experts over at MediaWiki talk:Common.css#Template standardisation asked for it. There are several reasons:

• It causes simpler smaller code.
• It makes the message boxes fully CSS skinnable. That is, in other Wikipedia skins or later in time these boxes can have a very different border, like for instance a thick right border.
• Users themselves (for instance seeing impaired or colour blind) can fully configure how they want the message boxes to look by editing their own monobook.css.
• Some or perhaps most of us actually like the current border better.

And yes, my Explorer 5.5 also adds (keeps) such borders. As usual different browsers renders things slightly differently. And sure, I know ways to fix it, but that would be REALLY ugly coding. We are actually going to use such nasty coding on the new navboxes to get all margins etc look exactly the same in all browsers. But we are worried no one will be able to maintain that code if we are not around then.

Oh, by the way. I left a message for you at Template talk:Notice some days ago.

--David Göthberg 09:00, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't notice that message. I just posted a reply.

Are you saying that there is no non-ugly way to restore the original appearance in Firefox? —David Levy 09:34, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Right, forcing that border to look the way you want it would cause more/worse code. Although it wouldn't be that bad code really. But would take away the freedom to skin the boxes. But note that we don't want to "restore" those extra borders. Or to be honest, they have not been discussed much so I don't know what most think about it. But among the few comments I have seen it seems most like the "new" way that we have now.

--David Göthberg 09:41, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Certainly, the new method is superior to the old one (given that it provides all of the benefits described above).

As for the border, the only comment that I've seen was someone complaining about its absence and opining that the original examples looked nicer. But if changing it back would break the ability to skin the boxes, I agree that we're better off this way.

Thanks for the explanation! —David Levy 09:51, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia Weekly interview

Hi there, Yes you sound like a perfectly good interviewee. I certainly have no problem with a swedish accent - I lived in Lund all last year! We could discuss your opinions on the meta-templates on article pages too. We record via Skype, so you would need that programme and a microphone headset. Could you be available on Sunday (tomorrow)? I'm available most of the day, when is good for you? I'm in Australia so I'm 10 hours ahead of Swedish time. Leave me a message either here or on Skype, my username is "Wittylama". Hope to hear from you soon. Witty Lama 13:55, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

I responded on your talk page. --David Göthberg 15:07, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Um sorry but I don't have skype out, and I have no plans to get it. Could you recommend someone else in that case? Cheers, Witty Lama 12:39, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, the choice is easy. Violetriga IS the Wikipedia:Article message boxes project. --David Göthberg 16:10, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Tack för din hjalp. I've sent him a message. Lycka till med Ambox och I'll see you 'round wiki. Witty Lama 10:50, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Ambox

Hi, just a note, please see my comments at Wikipedia_talk:Template_standardisation#Maintenance_Templates. Rgds, Rich Farmbrough, 15:22 15 September 2007 (GMT).

I didn't understand what you were talking about over at that section. But I'll sleep on it and look again tomorrow. Perhaps I will understand then when I am not so tired. --David Göthberg 22:42, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Ambox and Wikinews

Hello, David Gothberg. I intend on porting the lovely Ambox to Wikinews. Tell me everything I need to know about it on my talk page. MessedRocker (talk) 22:10, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Ok, CU on IRC perhaps tomorrow if we are lucky. --David Göthberg 22:29, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

You are a winrar!

The "Holy Crap That's Awesome" Barnstar This is for making Template:Ambox ViperSnake151 00:13, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Oh, thank you. But just so no one thinks anything else: I just built on the work the rest of the people in the Wikipedia:Article templates project had done. They had already come up with the new design of the article message boxes and most of the CSS code we needed. I just added some small details and coded it up.

--David Göthberg 09:19, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Re: Current sport-related template

Thanks for fixing the mini function on this template. It looks much better this way. Resolute 19:50, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Current Sports Template

What happened to the template? For a second, all was perfect. Right now, the mini version automatically and irreversably aligns right. It also does not take up any lines, and instead the text wraps around it. This causes a great problem with the baseball team articles. If we put this template to the left of the infobox, we end up with the beginning of the lead being squished between the tiny space between the left side of the template and the margin. This can be rectified, but only by placing a large number of lines so that the text begins below the template. Although the template only seems to take up two or three lines, it takes five or six in the editing field to make the text begin below. The current solution has been to put the template above the infobox, but the infobox should be the most prominant part of the article, and it belongs in the top left, over some little box.

Then, suddenly the template changed. It aligned left and took of space, making everything fall into place perfectly. Now, I've returned to find that the template has returned to acting in its stubborn manner. While I've edited frequently, and changed many templates, this one completely escapes me. I have no clue how to edit it. Could you please, perhaps, allow for the template to take up space? You seem to have a good handle on how it works.--Silent Wind of Doom 00:24, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Could you link to some of the problem articles? I was just asked to restore the old functionality since the new message box standardisation people had edited into the new standard. So I just restored the old code exactly but keeping the new standard look on it. I have a guess what yor problem is but you have to show me those pages so I know for sure.

--David Göthberg 01:02, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

I changed a few when the new template came about. New York Yankees has disambiguation information on it, which, as you can see, is squished. Boston Red Sox has no such information, meaning that the lead, which should have great weight, is shifted in an odd manner. This squishing is pretty awkward at my 1024X768 pixel resolution. I'm sure the standard 800X600 is much much worse. This is an issue with every team page, given the large infobox.--Silent Wind of Doom 01:19, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Ok, from the old code it is clear the mini version is supposed to be small and align right. But now I tested it below the infobox and it didn't work right then. I have now modified it so it really does align right, even if after an image or infobox. That is, it will end up below the image or infobox. Which seems pretty nice. If you do not want it to align right as you mention, then I wonder where you want it? On its own line taking up the full width but looking small? Thus leaving a lot of space on both sides? Is that what you want? Why would you want that?

--David Göthberg 02:03, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Your comment at User talk:Melesse

Hi, I happen to watch Melesse's talk page and noticed your comments there. You should know that Melesse is working image conversions and Commons moves per WP:IUP. The images you created were better suited to SVG format, and, since they are under a free license, belong on the Wikimedia Commons. I also remind you that, once you uploaded these images under a PD license, they were no longer "yours", they now belong to all of us. Melesse did the conversions and the Commons uploads, and, as a courtesy to you, changed the links on your user page to the SVG version so that your links would not simply turn to redlinks once the old image versions were deleted (which they will be). She did not need to do this, but was simply being nice - you should probably give her an apology. Videmus Omnia ^Talk 01:22, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

For future reference, this is about the PNG images Image:HASHTB08.png, Image:HASHTB12.png and Image:HASHTB32.png. And the SVG images Image:HASHTB08.svg, Image:HASHTB12.svg and Image:HASHTB32.svg.

Oh, you got this wrong in so many ways. You really should check your facts before you drop in here claiming so many things. So let me try and straighten this out for you:

1. No, User:Melesse did NOT make those "image conversions". It was commons:User:Helix84 who made all three of those SVGs, based on my PNGs. And he did that in December 2005. And he uploaded them to Commons.

2. I made those PNG images back in 2005, just before this SVG craze took off, so don't blame me for making them as PNGs. PNG was the preferred format back then.

3. Back then I was a beginner at Wikipedia and back then there were almost no information about Commons on the image how-to pages and no information about Commons during image upload. Thus I uploaded the images here at en.wikipedia.org just like most others did back then. Even many admins back then didn't know that an image uploaded to commons was automatically usable in Wikipedia articles.

4. You put the speedy delete tag {{NowCommons}} on my PNG images. If you even bothered to read the pages that the tag links to then you would know that the tag should only be used for identical images of the same file format. SVG remakes of PNGs have so far NOT been considered to be identical images. The policy so far have been not to delete PNGs just because SVG remakes have been made. So go read up on the policies and ask around and you might learn something.

5. There are a number of good reasons to use PNG formats still. Among them that SVGs do have standards problems and rendering problems. For instance SVGs made with one program can not always be opened by another program and text in the SVGs often do not render correctly on Wikipedia. But that is not the issue here right now.

6. What you can do is to move the PNGs to commons since they are public domain. But then you should update the links/attributions in the new SVGs since they do state that they are based on those PNGs. And you should keep the exact same name on the images since they are referenced in the talk page archives of the article they were made for. But since the article now are using the SVG version all that probably would seem like a waste of work for you.

So, I am going to remove the erroneous speedy delete tag {{NowCommons}} you put on my PNG images. And no, I am not going to apologise to anyone since it is you two who done wrong, not me. Although I will assume this was an innocent mistake from your side. And yes, I will keep calling them "my". I am entitled to call them that according to law both in the US and here in Sweden where I live since it was me who did them, even though I released them for free usage.

--David Göthberg 02:43, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Ugh, you're right, I did make a bunch of mistakes in my post. However, I still think you were wrong to jump on a user for apparent good-faith edits - a polite note would have been more appropriate. Anyway, I still feel the PNG versions are now obsolete and have nominated them for deletion here. You were correct to remove the speedy tags. Videmus Omnia ^Talk 03:20, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Re: id=colorcode

To hide it on my screen. I still have a sour taste in my mouth since green was nixed from that code. --  Denelson83  19:16, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Article message boxes

Thanks for your suggestion and apologies for the delay in responding - RL is pressured at the moment. I don't have the time or energy now to go further with the debate. I have made my points. The old design (i.e. tinted boxes) is superior to the new one for job in hand. A tinted box is a standard graphic device for juxtposing but separating text which has a different function from the main text. Side bars are more effective for drawing attention to a section of main text, whilst not divorcing it from the rest of the main text. The lack of tinting in message boxes gives them the same fundamental presentation as the article text, which is not what should be communicated visually. The new designs are smarter than the old when seen in isolation, but deficient for the purpose when seen in context of articles. The individual messages are harder to assess: they tend to form a continuous block of text, not helped by the lack of a gap between them. The confusion with main article text is even more pronounced when the message boxes are in sections within the article. Twee pictures, such as a mop, undermine the intended seriousness of the project. Tyrenius 16:40, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Porting Ambox to wikiHow

David,

First let me say that Ambox rocks. It is amazing...so amazing that several editors on wikiHow want to bring it over to wikiHow to improve our comparatively messy templates. Is is OK if we use your code on wikiHow? Thanks again for this great contribution to wiki templates. Feel free to reply to me here or on my wikiHow talk page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by JackHerrick (talk • contribs) 20:23, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Well

just putting a note here, to let you figure out who I am. (I shouldn't take you that long, should it? You don't seem to spend very much time here since a couple of months, though. Oh well.) // habj (talk) 14:58, 8 December 2007 (UTC)