User talk:Matthiaspaul

List of abbreviations in photography

Hello! Thanks for your useful contributions to the list of photographic abbreviations, which I started some months ago. For a long time I seemed to be the only one working on it. I'm glad to have other expertise to enlarge it and correct errors. I set up the list when returning to serious photography in the digital age, after a long absence from 35mm film photography. I found the numerous abbreviations that were bandied about on the digital discussion groups baffling, so I began to list them, partly to educate myself, and partly because newcomers like myself seemed not to have easy access to listed explanations. All help welcome! martinev (talk) 13:59, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Thank you as well. --Matthiaspaul (talk)

Old edit authorship info

Just for the records, this is to acknowledge that the following IP edits belong to myself (just in case questions would arise in regard to them and someone wanted to contact me):

• 1 edit under IP 84.63.54.118 on 2006-11-05T03:53:55 on article:

Carl Zeiss AG

• 5 edits under IP 84.63.15.78 between 2007-02-11T02:42:21‎ and 2007-02-11T02:54:00‎ on article:

Carl Zeiss AG

• 2 edits under IP 84.63.26.89 between 2007-02-11T03:10:22‎ and 2007-02-11T03:14:18‎ on article:

Carl Zeiss AG

• 3 edits under IP 80.137.104.82 between 2007-02-12T05:45:50 and 2007-02-12T05:57:16 on articles:

Carl Zeiss AG, Minolta AF

• 13 edits under IP 84.63.32.95 between 2007-02-12T19:07:21 and 2007-02-12T19:56:24 on articles:

Carl Zeiss AG

• 1 edit under IP 84.63.35.82 on 2007-02-25T13:10:07‎ on article:

Carl Zeiss AG

• 3 edits under IP 84.63.52.179 between 2007-02-28T11:07:20 and 2007-02-28T11:09:35‎ on article:

Carl Zeiss AG

• 2 edits under IP 84.63.10.5 between 2007-03-01T12:34:15 and 2007-03-01T12:37:03 on article:

Carl Zeiss AG

• 1 edit under IP 84.63.56.115 on 2007-03-03T21:21:48‎ on article:

Carl Zeiss AG

• 1 edit under IP 84.63.16.87 on 2007-03-09T03:14:29 on article:

Carl Zeiss AG

• 2 edits under IP 84.63.7.199 between 2007-07-19T00:40:04 and 2007-07-19T00:45:27 on article:

Carl Zeiss AG

• 4 edits under IP 84.63.51.146 between 2007-07-20T23:43:59 and 2007-07-21T00:20:55 on article:

Carl Zeiss AG

• 1 edit under IP 84.63.43.156 on 2007-09-08T06:09:28 on article:

Carl Zeiss AG

• 1 edit under IP 84.63.4.241 on 2007-11-10T18:35:26 on article:

Carl Zeiss AG

• 2 edits under IP 84.63.55.36 between 2007-11-11T01:42:21 and 2007-11-11T01:44:28 on article:

Carl Zeiss AG

• 33 edits under IP 84.63.52.9 between 2009-10-01T17:58:20 and 2009-10-09T19:03:37 on articles:

Video Floppy, Sony Mavica, Full-frame digital SLR, Talk:Sony Alpha, Crop factor, Talk:Crop factor, Herbert Keppler, Kodak DCS Pro 14n, Kodak DCS Pro SLR/n, Kodak DCS Pro SLR/c, Talk:Nikon D3, Template:Konica Minolta/Sony DSLR cameras

• 2 edits under IP 88.77.199.34 between 2010-07-03T20:57:11 and 2010-07-03T21:23:58 on article:

Herbert Keppler

• 5 edits under IP 88.77.213.52 between 2010-07-20T12:37:09 and 2010-07-20T12:55:57 on articles:

Sony Mavica, Sony E-mount

• 1 edit under IP 84.63.115.171 on 2010-12-18T17:16:19‎ on article:

DX encoding

• 3 edits under IP 92.72.226.118 between 2011-05-04T03:52:31 and 2011-05-04T13:21:53 on article:

iISO flash shoe

• 12 edits under IP 84.63.113.180 between 2011-07-11T01:50:44 and 2011-07-10T19:46:56 on articles:

Shutter priority, Mode dial, Aperture priority, F-number

• 5 edits under IP 88.77.195.147 between 2011-07-11T11:16:39 and 2011-07-11T20:43:36 on articles:

F-number, Talk:F-number

• 5 edits under 88.76.55.125 between 2011-07-23T02:25:55 and 2011-07-23T03:14:50 on article:

DX encoding

• 1 edit under 88.77.214.88 on 2011-07-23T13:07:53 on article:

DX encoding

• 12 edits under IP 88.77.201.19 between 2011-08-03T10:40:56 and 2011-08-03T14:20:49 on articles:

Josef Maria Eder, Film speed, William de Wiveleslie Abney, Film speed, Sensitometry, Talk:Kodachrome, Edward Weston (chemist)

• 19 edits under IP 84.63.123.118 between 2011-08-02T11:18:41 and 2011-08-03T01:12:31 on articles:

Hurter and Driffield, Film speed, Loyd A. Jones, Ferdinand Hurter, Vero Charles Driffield, Josef Maria Eder, Alfred Watkins, Leon Warnerke, Julius Scheiner

• 5 edits under IP 88.77.222.188 between 2011-08-01T11:15:00 and 2011-08-01T17:19:41 on articles:

Film speed, Canon A-1, Focal-plane shutter

• 20 edits under IP 88.77.216.217 between 2011-07-31T12:31:54 and 2011-08-01T00:44:51 on articles:

Josef Maria Eder, Film speed, Talk:Film speed, Leon Warnerke, Edward Weston (chemist)

• 38 edits under IP 88.77.221.103 between 2011-07-30T13:18:48 and 2011-07-31T05:23:27 on articles:

Film speed, Hurter and Driffield, Josef Maria Eder, Edward Weston (chemist), ISO 6, ISO 2240, ISO 5800, Ferdinand Hurter, Vero Charles Driffield, American National Standards Institute, ISO 12232, Talk:Film speed , Goodwin (surname), Talk:Howard N. Potts Medal, Goodwin, Leon Warnerke, Sensitometry

• 7 edits under IP 88.77.198.150 between 2011-07-29T10:29:39 and 2011-07-29T11:58:30 on articles:

Film speed, Hurter and Driffield, Talk:Film speed

• 26 edits under IP 88.77.212.191 between 2011-07-28T11:04:33 and 2011-07-29T01:14:22 on articles:

Film speed, Photographic film, Talk:Film speed

• 43 edits under IP 84.63.121.25 between 2011-07-27T09:31:48 and 2011-07-28T05:22:38 on articles:

Film speed, Edward Weston (disambiguation), Weston, Edward Weston (chemist), Weston (surname), Ge, HD, SCH, Deutsches Institut für Normung, Ferdinand Hurter, Vero Charles Driffield, Hurter and Driffield

• 2 edits under IP 88.77.219.92 between 2011-07-26T21:22:06 and 2011-07-26T23:31:50 on articles:

Julius Scheiner, Talk:Film speed

• 9 edits under IP 88.76.53.220 between 2011-07-26T10:43:59 and 2011-07-26T18:22:45 on articles:

Film speed, Talk:Film speed

• 35 edits under IP 88.77.217.84 between 2011-07-25T10:53:40 and 2011-07-26T05:20:14 on articles:

Film speed, Talk:Film speed, Template:ISO standards, List of DIN standards, ISO 518, List of International Organization for Standardization standards, International Organization for Standardization

• 3 edits under IP 88.77.217.152 between 2011-07-24T13:49:32 and 2011-07-24T20:50:05 on article:

Film speed

• 1 edit under IP 88.76.63.184 on 2011-07-14T19:36:23‎ on article:

Film speed

There have been more (in the English and foreign-language WPs), but it is difficult to remember them after all these years. I'll continue to document them, when I happen to stumble upon them.

I do no longer use these dynamic IPs and do not claim authorship of edits under these IPs before or after the specified date ranges above. --Matthiaspaul (talk)

MIRRORLESS INTERCHANGEABLE LENS CAMERAS (MILCS)

Hi, Matthias. I think you have not really understood the implications of fully including Pentax Q into the MILC cathegory. In fact, MILCs were originally designed "to provide SRL-like image in a small body", whereas - due to its sensor - Pentax Q is just a "compact camera with interchangeable lenses", with no image-quality advantage over remaining compact cameras. Therefore, by including it in MILCS you are actually changing the original definition of MILCs !! A very vague and poor definition, I agree, because no reference to a "large sensor" is contained in the MILC acronim. Nonetheless if you want to use MILC for what it literally means, and apply it to all mirrorless interchangeable-lenses cameras, you can not stop by editing the introduction: you have to edit all subsequent paragraphs stating that MILCs provide a better image than compact camera do !! Not all "your MILCs" do !! So either you proceed to editing the whole article, or it should be reverted to its previous state. Now it is contradictory and false. Marcus MarcusGR (talk) 17:47, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Hi Marcus. The problem with the original definition of MILC is that there is none. Please point me to an authorative source where it is defined, I'm quite sure you won't find one. The term is made up, therefore, vague. And that's why different people have different ideas of what it might stand for. As far as I am concerned, I interpret it literally and do not see any implied meaning such as "larger sensor than in compact digital cameras", "better quality than in compacts", "DSLR-like quality" in it. That's just marketing speak and therefore not relevant for the article. Therefore I suggest to keep the intro of the article free of any implied assumptions. After all, WP is an encyclopedia, and we should be very careful in our wording to not coin new terms and meanings ourselves or to let WP become an instrument of viral marketing. If there are multiple real or assumed meanings of the term, we should not brush the article in one way or the other (which would only create new bias) but discuss these different definitions further down in the article (but not in the intro, it just doesn't belong in there). And we should be careful to use neutral language. To be honest, my interest in the article is limited (for as long as it remains in the generally bad state as it is), I just saw way too much distracting jargon and rumor mill showing up in the intro, and therefore tried to suggest some more encyclopedic direction how to further develop the article. You seem to be eager to contribute to the article, so please go ahead, but perhaps try to use a bit less "enthusiastic" language given that this is not a forum or such, but an encyclopedia. All the best. --Matthiaspaul (talk) 12:18, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Dimensions of photometric units.

Hi Matthiaspaul. Can you answer the question at Template talk:SI light units#Dimension column incorrect?, about the Dimensions column you added to Template:SI light units?--Srleffler (talk) 03:11, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Answer given on discussion page. --Matthiaspaul (talk) 12:18, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

WP:VPT

Thank you for clearing my WP:VPT mis-edit. At least now I know where my typings went. -DePiep (talk) 21:15, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

;-) Glad I could help out. I guess this has happened to all of us at times... --Matthiaspaul (talk)

Barnstar

		The Copyright Cleanup Barnstar
		For your good work in locating and removing the copyvios on USB 3.0. Yunshui 雲水 09:15, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Thank you. --Matthiaspaul (talk) 09:15, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, Matthiaspaul. You have new messages at Wikipedia talk:India Education Program.
Message added 10:11, 31 October 2011 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

IEP clean up

Hi. If you come across many disruptive IP edits that geolocate to India, or if individual IPs have a history of persistent disruption, particularly on such articles as Five-Year plans of India, please let me know directly and I will consider sem-protecting the page and/or blocking the offenders. Thanks. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:38, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Yep. --Matthiaspaul (talk)

Your request for rollback

Hi Matthiaspaul. After reviewing your request for rollback, I have enabled rollback on your account. Keep in mind these things when going to use rollback:

• Getting rollback is no more momentous than installing Twinkle.
• Rollback should never be used to edit war.
• If abused, rollback rights can be revoked.
• Use common sense.

If you no longer want rollback, contact me and I'll remove it. Also, for some more information on how to use rollback, see Wikipedia:New admin school/Rollback (even though you're not an admin). I'm sure you'll do great with rollback, but feel free to leave me a message on my talk page if you run into troubles or have any questions about appropriate/inappropriate use of rollback. Thank you for helping to reduce vandalism. Happy editing! Swarm ^X 20:04, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

P.S. Thank you for your cleanup efforts, and keep up the good work. Swarm ^X 20:04, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Thank you. --Matthiaspaul (talk)

Two barnstars for the price of one! (How often do you see that?)

		The da Vinci Barnstar
		Incredible job keeping the Template:SI radiometry units template so technically accurate! Vaughan Pratt (talk) 06:58, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

		The Template Barnstar
		and moreover it's a template so you get the great-template barnstar too Vaughan Pratt (talk) 06:58, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

Incidentally you might like to critique the analysis at Planck's law#Crash_course_in_radiometry in case you see any opportunities for corrections, improvements, etc. This article has been under seige since Oct. 13, accounting for the abnormal level of traffic at its talk page since then. --Vaughan Pratt (talk) 06:58, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

What a nice surprise, thanks. ;-) I'm very busy right now, but I'll have a look when time allows. --Matthiaspaul (talk) 09:15, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

Multiple inheritance

Hi. Thank you for replying. I consider the community's concern over this very serious issue of copyvio. I know many of my course mates have done that which is really sad. I apolozise on their behalf. But I dont understand the need of removing my contents entirely from the page even when it was not a confirmed copyvio. I mean what will I show to my instructor? My project deadline has also elapsed. Please tell me what should I do. Also our instructor has informed has to stop all the further edits on wikipedia. I guess this answers your question. RAJATPASARI (talk) 08:07, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

Answer given on talk page. I hope this can be sorted out for you, Rajat. --Matthiaspaul (talk)

"unexplained addition of tags"

I gave an explanation, in the first parameter of {{prod}}: in my opinion, the articles I tagged did not meet the notability criteria. Maybe I should have been somewhat more verbose: I could not find significant coverage in multiple, reliable sources, and I seriously doubt one could find any (and by the way, "Doscore" most probably has been created in violation of WP:COI, but I decided not to bring this up; failing to be notable should be enough). After all, if the articles' subjects were notable, adding reliable sources to them would be easy, right? But that is precisely what you did not do, even though the burden of proof on whether content is verifiable lies with the one who claims it is. So I think removal of these tags is even less warranted, and correct me if I'm wrong, but given your edit summary, it seems to me simply as an act of spite. As for having "an agenda to have lots of articles deleted" - well, yes, I am a deletionist. And an immediatist too. And I just happened to stumble across several pages that in my opinion were not worthy of inclusion. What should I wait for before proposing each of them for deletion? Thank you for your attention. 212.87.13.73 (talk) 22:13, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

Request for Time: India Education Program Learnings

Hi. I'm writing to request a favor. The India Education Program pilot is concluding in Pune, India. It has been extraordinarily challenging and a series of learnings have emerged from the pilot that we intend to take on board to inform the way forward. I had promised an honest, open and comprehensive review. There are multiple ways that we are trying to collate and distill these learnings. One of these is that the Foundation has commissioned a study to do in depth interviews with a wide variety of folks who were directly or indirectly involved in the pilot. The include discussions with students, Ambassadors, faculty as well as members of the global community such as yourself. I thought it would be really particularly useful if we could get your views. You have been involved in the project (albeit not as part of the formal project structure.) I thank you for your involvement. You have made some interesting and insightful comments in the discussions you have participated in. Would you be willing and available for the person working on this study so that she can get your feedback and suggestions and comments? If so, would you let me know on my talk page? Do also let me know how I can have her reach out to you. Many thanks in advance. Hisham (talk) 10:01, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, Hisham. I answered on your talk page. --Matthiaspaul (talk)

Would be kind enough to explain the abbreviation?

Fälschungserschwerende Schrift is abbreviated FE-Schrift. If the "E" is not from ende, then where does it originate? SBHarris 20:49, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Hi! I tried that in the edit summary, but it was difficult due to the length limit. The German term "FE-Schrift" is short for "Fälschungserschwerende Schrift" (which directly translates to "falsification-hindering typeface" in English). FE is simply derived from the compound word "fälschungserschwerend". The "-end" in "erschwerend" has nothing to do with the German word "Ende" (English: end), it just marks this word as an adjective, and since "die Schrift" (typeface) is female in German, an "-e" is added after the adjective, hence "erschwerende Schrift". The corresponding verb would be "erschweren" (to hinder). Greetings. --Matthiaspaul (talk) 21:00, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

That makes sense. Would you be good enough to add that to the .en article? Since it's not at all obvious to English readers which E is being used for the "FE" abbreviation/acronym, and why. Thanks! SBHarris 21:08, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Very nice addition. Now it makes sense to English users. Thanks again. SBHarris 21:43, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

You're welcome. --Matthiaspaul (talk) 21:44, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Pune pilot analysis plan

Hi! As you were very active in discussions about the India Education Program's Pune pilot, I wanted to draw your attention to Wikipedia:India_Education_Program/Analysis, a page that documents our analysis plan for the next few months. I encourage you to join the discussion if you have any thoughts. -- LiAnna Davis (WMF) (talk) 23:09, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the pointer, LiAnna. I'll have a look. --Matthiaspaul (talk) 14:43, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Hi, I just sent you email regarding participating in the Pune Pilot Project Review.Toryread (talk) 00:24, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Alright, Tory, I have received your mail. Please expect my answer until the end of the week. --Matthiaspaul (talk) 14:43, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

"FAT64"

Thanks for the reminder. But the moment I've seen your changes at the exFAT page [been also reading about the confusion in terms a while ago] I took care of it. The word "FAT64" doesn't exist at my website anymore. ;-)
I've also changed the URL to point to http://www.mdgx.com/secrets.htm#XFAT [I've updated the URI at the wiki page too ;-)], and the section title now reads exFAT.
BTW... exFAT *is* for all intents and purposes Microsoft's "next gen" FAT32 [that's why was also called FAT64 when it was released] for portable drives/USB sticks/SSDs/cards/cartridges. They basically fixed most FAT32 flaws + limitations, and added some NTFS/ext4/HFS features into the punch. They could have expanded/improved upon NTFS, but they chose the old FAT32 instead. ;-/ I haven't been curious to find out why (yet).
Thanks for keeping us on our toes.
Best wishes,
MDGx^☹☺ 22:26, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Great, thanks. --Matthiaspaul (talk) 13:39, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Since you mentioned that "it was called FAT64 when it was released", can you point me to Microsoft documents actually naming it FAT64 originally? Thanks. --Matthiaspaul (talk) 14:43, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

I did not find the original wording anymore anywhere at the MS website. They must have removed it too. ;-/
I did find proof that MS considers exFAT the successor to FAT32: here.
HTH [hope this helps]
MDGx^☹☺ 21:25, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Microsoft may not have any references to FAT64 anymore, but these guys do. I have no idea how/if their FAT64 relates to MS's exFAT. They have a powerpoint slide presentation with details.
HTH
MDGx^☹☺ 21:44, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

I also found this book, which refers to FAT64 as a nickname for exFAT: searching thru the book [bottom of webpage search box], I found 2 references to FAT64, at pages 3 + 76.
HTH
MDGx^☹☺ 22:10, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Where is no such limit and FAT32 implementations in other operating systems

Don't believe if there is reference missing--211.127.229.23 (talk) 06:29, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Hi, IP! Well, it may be difficult to give a reference for something (a limit) that does not exist. ;-) I can only guess, why Microsoft documents a limit on the number of sub-directory entries for their implementation of FAT32, but they also document a size limit of 32 GB for their implementation of FAT32. The design of the FAT32 file system does not have any such limits, both the 32 GB limit and the 65534 limit are artificial.

The practical size limit for FAT32 volumes is 2 TB, because this is when the 32-bit entry for the number of sectors runs out in the partitition table in the MBR and the original FAT32 bootsector (where the size of the partition is specified in sectors) and also, because most file system and disk drivers implement 32-bit arithmetics only. For non-bootable FAT32 volumes, which are not necessarily listed in the partition table or do need to have a standard FAT32 BPB, for sector sizes larger than 512 bytes, the actual FAT32 design limits are even higher. A FAT32 volume can have close to 2^28 clusters, so assuming a maximum cluster size of 32 KB, the FAT32 limit would be at 8 TB, assuming 64 KB clusters, it would be at 16 TB. (Some operating systems even implement proprietary extensions to this original FAT32 design, for example, they use logical sector sizes up to 16 KB, cluster sizes up to 256 KB or FAT widths of 32-bit instead of 28-bit, but I won't go into details of such third-party extensions here.) As you can see, a partition size limit of just 32 GB in MS operating systems is completely artifical and is not the result of *any* technical limitation.

Similarly, the Microsoft documented 65534 number of entries per sub-directory limit is artificial as well. A sub-directory is not much different from a file with a directory attribute set. Normally, the maximum size of a file on a FAT32 volume is 4 GB - 1 (this is imposed by the 32-bit file size entry in the directory table), so (putting VFAT LFNs aside for a moment), this would theoretically allow for 134217728 directory entries (each 32 bytes long). VFAT LFNs take up additional entries, the longer the VFAT name, the more. Up to 20 VFAT entries (each 32 bytes long) may be used per file entry. Since VFAT LFNs are optional, we end up with 1 to 21 directory entries (that is 32 bytes to 672 bytes) consumed per file or sub-directory on a FAT volume. So, even in a worst case scenario, we'd still have up to 6391320 directory entries.

Anyway, the design of FAT32 does not have this limitation per se. In reality, sub-directories have the size entry set to 0 for "N/A", that is, they don't have something like a size measurable in bytes. They are only limited by their length of the cluster chain in the FAT, so, for as long as there are free clusters to extend the chain, sub-directories can grow "indefinitely". As discussed above, a FAT32 volume (following the original design, not those mentioned third-party extensions) can have up to 2^28 - 12 (268435444) clusters. Of course, assuming that each directory entry corresponds with a file, the files defined by these directory entries have their own cluster chains in the FAT. Assuming, they are all very small or at least one byte in size, each of them takes up a single cluster in the FAT as well, reducing the number of available clusters for the sub-directory chain respectively.

Nevertheless, even in a worst case scenario we would still end up with several thousand times as many entries as those 65534 entries documented by Microsoft. Since a reasonably good implementation does not introduce artificial limits not found in the design of the file system, there is no reason, why such limits should exist in third-party implementations of FAT32. --Matthiaspaul (talk) 13:39, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Secure Digital

Hi! Thanks for your edits and your technical knowledge of FAT32 vs exFAT, to which I defer. I have massaged the large paragraph you edited for reasons given in the change history; notably, that it seems partly to be an editorial against SDA's decision to use exFAT. This controversy is not an inappropriate subject for the article, but you should point to citations of that opinion rather than just state it as our own.

I have other clerical problems with the edits. In the first sentence of "Compatibility with SDHC," you begin, "If the card controller has been enhanced to support this...." I would at least turn this around to define "this" first. But my understanding was that the SDXC spec required host devices to support older cards. If this is untrue--if it allows "dual compatibility" host devices--then your change to the sentence is to say "Host devices either do or they don't" and it would be better to say nothing.

And in the last sentence, "on protocol level" confuses me. The sentence already said that choice of the file system is the problem, and protocol-level support doesn't matter if the gadget won't work. Spike-from-NH (talk) 12:30, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Just a note to both of you, which we all know, don't reference something that is NOT publically available, like SD Card Spec 4.0. You will need to limit statements to what can publically be found about 4.0, like SD Card Spec web pages and press releases and 3rd-party articles. I'm not a SD Card Spec member, so I can't download 4.0, and neither can most of the world. I wish that I had access to all the SDA documents, but unfortunately I don't. • Sbmeirow • Talk • 17:44, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Though SDA chose to require SDXC card makers to ship with exFAT, it is actually a minor limitation, because the card can be reformatted to other more popular file systems. This should be made obvious and clarified in the article. • Sbmeirow • Talk • 17:44, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

SDSC

Thank you for reverting the undo of SDSC; Sbmeirow noted that SDSC is used in the specs in the article's talk page. Separately, I will revert your change that made conditional the assertion at the start of "Compatibility with SDHC". In addition to my vague citation on Sbmeirow's talk page, Simplified Physical Layer v3.01 says "Hosts that can access...SD memory cards with a capacity greater than 32 GB and up to 2 TB [that is, SDXC], shall also be able to access SD memory cards with a capacity of 32 GB or less." Sec. 3.3.2, Note 3. You have made the case that a decision to embrace exFAT would be problematic; but that would seem to be the only issue in the way of backward-compatibility of host devices. Spike-from-NH (talk) 17:56, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Hm, the term SDSC seems to be kind of an afterthought. Try a Google search for it, almost nobody is using this term so far. Nevertheless, it is good that the SDA has coined the name because naming the old type of cards and the family of cards the same has caused alot of confusion.

Regarding the compatibility issues, exFAT is by definition mandantory for all SDXC cards. While we can re-format to FAT32 when using an SDXC card to exchange data between PCs, all SDXC-enabled digital cameras and corders I have seen so far do not accept a FAT32-reformatted SDXC card. Even in the user manuals, manufacturers clearly state, that SDXC requires exFAT to be used and that this is supported only by a few (typically listed) operating systems. --Matthiaspaul (talk) 15:52, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Further edits

I understand why you changed "dominant" to "wide-spread" [sic] at the end of the article's first paragraph. But the softened result says almost nothing. As the clause's only function was to provide an official interpretation for the statistics that preceded it, I just removed it entirely--sticking in a comment that, if someone wants to point to an authoritative interpretation of SD's dominance, they should reinsert it, but with citations.

I do not like the implication you reinserted that, essentially, SDA had no good reason to go with exFAT and should have stuck with FAT32. I tend to agree with the conclusion but the language seems judgemental. If the assertion is correct that FAT32 above 32 GB would be legal but wouldn't be supported by Windows, that is a huge reason not to go with it.

Your tagging stuff with {fact} goes against what I thought I knew, but I could be wrong. There are also grammar and organizational things about your edits left to fix. Spike-from-NH (talk) 17:33, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Anchors at File Allocation Table

Hi,

I don't understand why you've reinserted numerous comments of the format <!-- NB. The header "FAT16B" is used in redirects to this page. -->: these are superfluous because that's implied by {{anchor}} anyway, or simply by the header itself for #FAT32 (though I goofed on adding an anchor there). Additionally, the one for exFAT is simply wrong: there should be no redirects to File Allocation Table#exFAT, as they should instead point directly at the separate article.

My apologies for replacing the visible space entities, by the way: I wasn't looking carefully enough at the output. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 11:27, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Hi Chris. People frequently change section headers without being aware that they might be used as anchors for redirects. Therefore, it is common practice at Wikipedia to indicate the usage of a section as an anchor in a comment immediately following the section header. I agree, the comments could be removed where we can use the anchor template, since its usage implies that there are redirects to them. I added them merely for consistency reasons. You are right about the exFAT label, which is unlikely to be used as a redirect target given that a separate exFAT article exists. I envisioned it could become a local anchor for quick navigation inside the article itself, similar to what is done in the film speed article, where links like "ISO" or "ASA" or "DIN" would not jump to external articles but just to the local section, and inside the corresponding section they would jump to the corresponding external article. Makes navigation much easier, however, it requires a certain degree of consistency within the article. We have achieved that in film speed over the course of months, but the structure of the File Allocation Table article is not quite there right now, I think, therefore, the comment is not necessary at present and I have removed it. --Matthiaspaul (talk) 12:47, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

IMO if the comments duplicate the {{anchor}}s then they should be removed: we don't habitually comment the use of templates in articles. As for the use of internal links, IMO those are Easter eggs: readers expect that a blue link will go to a page with that title, not to jump around in a page. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 15:18, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Chris, the comments have already been removed yesterday where we use the {{anchor}} template, so this is already a non-issue.

Regarding the internal links, I'm afraid, I disagree. Please have a look at film speed, which has been styled this way, and please try it out yourself. If you are on a page about film speeds and there's a link to terms link "ISO" or "ASA" or "DIN" etc. the first you want to know about them is "ISO film speed", "ASA film speed" or "DIN film speed", and this is, where the links link to locally. Before the change, it was really annoying ("easter-eggish" or so to speak), that clicks to these links did not reveal anything about film speeds but brought you to unrelated articles on the standardisation bodies, mostly irrelevant in the context of film speeds. However, once you are inside a section about, say, "DIN", it no longer makes sense to link to the section title of that very section, so instead you'd be brought to the article about the DIN organization. It is perfectly intuitive. Those, who were really looking for an explanation of the abbreviation DIN in the first place will either find that basic information in the DIN section as well, or they'll have to click another link to actually get to the external article.

Whatever, it depends on the scope, structure and length of the article if this works great or if it may cause harm. I envision the FAT article to be another article of this kind, so that you can switch between FAT12, FAT16, FAT32, VFAT, BPB, EBPB, XBPB, etc. sections in a second without any annoying scrolling and searching. But the article does not, at present, have the consistent structure and nomenclature to achieve this, and it is months of adding actual content to the article, working on nomenclature and improving phrases before anything like this could or should be tried, IMO. I was not saying that I am going to introduce this scheme now (or ever), I was just mentioning, that this is what I must have had in mind when adding the HTML comment on the exFAT section originally. Neverthess, a non-issue at present, since the comment is long gone since yesterday, anyway. --Matthiaspaul (talk) 15:59, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

I've got to disagree, I'm afraid. Navigation around the article is what the table of contents is for. I have a strong aversion to using intra-article links, especially as a matter of course as in film speed. This appears to be a relatively recent addition to said article and certainly isn't widely used, or suggested in the MoS. The FAT article's issues with navigation are mostly due to its great length: it's probably time to seriously think about splitting it up and making it a WP:SUMMARY of individual sub-articles. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 20:32, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Pat Villani

Hi! I just signed in after a long Wiki hiatus and saw your message regarding my user page for Pat Villani.

You're welcome to merge any information there into the current Pat Villani article, although you seem to have done a great job of expanding the article already, so I don't think my little user page would be of any help anymore.

I also wanted to let you know that I am actually Pat Villani's daughter, and there are a few small errors and unverified facts in the current article that I can either correct or confirm as true -- however, using myself as a source would certainly run afoul of Wikipedia:No original research. You're a more experienced Wikipedian than I am -- any ideas about how we might want to handle this? - Aeonian (talk) 17:37, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Hi Erika, it's nice to hear from you and I hope you are fine. Actually, I left the note before I even started to expand the article myself in an (ultimately successful) attempt to keep it from being deleted. Whilst I knew your father from the FreeDOS project and had no doubt about his achievements in regard to the project, it turned out to be quite difficult to establish notability (in WP terms, that is) from available online sources, but fortunately the proposed deletion could be turned down eventually. I have meanwhile collected some more material, but have not come around to add it to the article. If you can help out with better references, including offline sources, for as long as they are citable, or can otherwise flesh out the article beyond the FreeDOS stuff or if you can correct details, I think this would be most welcome. If you think you can manage to maintain the neutral point of view, I would suggest that you just go ahead and if you have questions I'll happily assist. Cheers --Matthiaspaul (talk) 15:29, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Bap (German band)

Hi. Following the change you made to the introductory wording of the Bap (German band) article here, you don't think that people reading this article will now assume that the band's name is an acronym pronounced "B-A-P" in the same way as bands such as AKB48, AC/DC, KRS-One, UB40, and UFO (band)? I suggest you have a look at the articles for Kiss (band), Chemistry (band), Exile (Japanese band), and Glay, as these are all good examples of articles for bands that normally write their names stylistically in all-caps, but which correctly follow the Wikipedia Manual of Style guidelines laid out at WP:MOSTM. I hope you can work to bring this article up to Wikipedia standards too. Thanks. --DAJF (talk) 11:31, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Hi. Of the mentioned articles, I think, the one most closely resembling the szenario with BAP is the Glay article, because Kiss, Chemistry and Exile are all "normal" words in the English language, so it's kind of natural to apply English grammar rules. Similar to Glay, BAP is not a "normal" word. However, there are differences as well, as the Glay play-on-words is based on the English language, whereas the BAP sort-of-play-on-words is based on a foreign language, Kölsch, a strong dialect of the German language. Further, the Japanese language does not have a concept of upper and lower-case letters, as far as I know. The German language certainly has, and the rules are more strict and stringent than in the English language. So, what might be almost don't care or a matter of fashion for a Japanese band, is an aspect of identity for a German band. Also, the Glay article states "(stylized as GLAY)", whereas the BAP article stated "(often stylized as BAP)", which is simply not true (unless we omit the "often" and replace "stylized as" by "written as"). You won't find any publications (except for the English Wikipedia and its derivatives), where the band's name would be written as Bap, therefore, I don't consider it a question of style to write it BAP, it's a given. I am not familiar with Glay, therefore I don't know, if they use both forms Glay and GLAY and just prefer the GLAY form. If the GLAY form is consistently used in publications I would consider it wrong for us to present them as Glay in Wikipedia. The purpose of the Manual of Style is not to invent new forms which don't exist elsewhere, but to help make a good decision if multiple styles are available to choose from. The MOS is of no use if there is only one available variant and no alternative, as it is in the case of BAP. Inventing the new "Bap" form is what I consider unsourced interpretation or original research; it's fundamentally wrong by Wikipedia's rules. The solution seems to be to refine the Manual of Style in order to allow exceptions such as GLAY and BAP, so that we could avoid such discussions in the future.

A good counter-example to Glay may be INXS. Noone would start writing them as "Inxs" just for compliancy with Wikipedia's MOS. The difference to BAP is that INXS is widely known in the English speaking world, so people easily recognize the problem with Inxs, whereas the same people don't seem to see a similar problem with Bap.

(Is UFO actually pronounced as U-F-O?) --Matthiaspaul (talk) 13:31, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

For your interest, "bap" is a common word in the English language, just like "kiss" and "chemistry". The band "UFO" is pronounced "U-F-O" (not "yoofow"). --DAJF (talk) 13:42, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, I didn't know that. ;-) --Matthiaspaul (talk) 13:58, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks

Much appreciated. 86.144.228.49 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 13:07, 4 March 2012 (UTC).

Categorization

I thought categorizing redirects such as Wikipedia:IPA for Kölsch was not allowed by Wikipedia MoS; however I could be wrong.--Carnby (talk) 20:49, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

Hi, Carnby. Not all redirects need to have categories, but the correct categorization of redirects is explicitly wanted, either indirectly by using the large set of {{R ...}} templates predefined for this purpose or by directly specifying categories. There are lots of uses. It can be used, for example, to list articles in categories under different keywords, and it allows sub-topics of an article to be found in different (and possibly independent) sets of categories, which would not apply to the actual article, but only a carefully chosen set of redirects pointing to the article. --Matthiaspaul (talk) 22:22, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for your explanation. I will be more cautious in the future.--Carnby (talk) 16:20, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

Byte value 69h at offset 0 in boot sectors of FAT12 or FAT16 floppies

My original question raised on Asmpgmr's talk page was: "Request to help solve a little mystery: Byte value 69h at offset 0 in boot sectors of FAT12 or FAT16 floppies?

Perhaps you are like me and love to solve miracles when you stumble upon them. Out of historical interest it is sometimes enlightening to know why developers chosed certain "magic" values in their software. There is one question I could not answer myself and it occured to me that you might know the answer (or know those to ask, who do know the answer), so I'll give it a try:

When DOS logs in a disk volume, it checks for the presence of certain byte patterns at offsets +0..+2 in the boot sector before assuming that a BPB is present (there are additional sanity checks, but I will leave them out here for clarity - you certainly know about them as much as I do): Since DOS 2.0 valid x86-bootable disks must start with either a short jump followed by a NOP (opstring EBh ??h 90h with DOS 1.1 and again since DOS 3.0) or a near jump (E9h ??h ??h on DOS 2.x disks). On hard disks, DR-DOS also accepts the swapped JMPS sequence starting with a NOP (90h EBh ??h), whereas MS-DOS/PC DOS do not. On removable disks, MS-DOS/PC DOS and DR-DOS also accept a sequence of 69h ??h ??h. This is also documented in at least one book (DOS Internals by Geoff Chappell), unfortunately without mentioning what this 69h byte or sequence is for. So here's my question:

What is it? Is it an opcode sequence as well (possibly even a jump?), but then, for which type of CPU? Since this does not appear to be a valid x86 opcode (in a startup sequence of a boot sector, that is, and possibly even a startup code, which must not run into the BPB following a few bytes later), I also checked other options and directions: Could this have been some undocumented opcode in early x86 CPUs or in CPU prototypes, is it an opcode supported by the NEC V20/V30 etc. series (perhaps in emulation mode)? Is this an artefact retrofitted for 86-DOS? Microsoft at one time had MSX-DOS which ran on 8080/Z80 CPUs, and there were dual-processor variants (for 8080/8086) of Digital Research's Concurrent DOS 8-16, which supported DOS file systems as well. Actually, there even was a Concurrent DOS 68K for Motorola 68000 CPUs. And the Atari ST series supported FAT12/FAT16 as well. IBM had a PC-like machine named RT, using a ROMP processor. And early versions of Microsoft's Windows NT supported other platforms as well... I might have overlooked something, but so far I could not find an opcode in any CPU class I know to support FAT file systems at about the DOS timeframe which would make much sense in this specific location. So, is it an opcode at all or a signature for something else? Or has bit 7 been stripped off (E9h -> 69h) for some odd reason? Perhaps you know the answer or can at least track this back in time and into either Microsoft or IBM in order to narrow down the possibly interpretations for this strange 69h magic? Thanks. ;-) --Matthiaspaul (talk) 12:35, 9 July 2012 (UTC)"

I haven't thought about this in ages. I recall that was a leftover in the code from DOS 1.x. The code checks for 69h, E9h and EBh. I guess the 69h is the same as E9h on the 8086/8088. Remember the entire 6xh opcode range isn't used on the 8086/8088, most of opcodes in that range were added with the 80186/80188, a couple more on the 80286 and the prefixes (64h - 67h) on the 80386. If you have access to a 8086 or 8088 system then it would be interesting to verify whether the 6xh opcodes function like the Exh opcodes. Asmpgmr (talk) 15:28, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for your answer. So we both assume basically the same, undocumented or incomplete decoded 8088/8086 opcodes.

You wrote "leftover from DOS 1.x". But DOS 1.x did not use a BPB, and the DOS 1.0 and 1.1 boot sectors I saw so far didn't start with 69h. So, how should this be a leftover from or for DOS 1.x? And why should someone use undocumented opcodes when documented ones would do the same? Some strange kind of protection scheme, so that it only runs on certain machines? But why?

Unfortunately, all "normal" PCs still in reach have been retrofitted with NEC V20 CPUs (including what I think is a very early IBM PC with wire-wrapped mainboard). IIRC the Sirius 1 still has a 8088, but its boot floppies have become weak... And the 200LX has a 186-core already. Time for a little swap job, it seems. --Matthiaspaul (talk) 23:47, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

I recall that section of the code referred to E9h as a "DOS 2 jump" or something like that (it has been a while, I worked on DOS in the mid-90s) so the implication was that 69h was used in DOS 1.x or by some early DOS 1.x era software. It's entirely possible that code was added to DOS later to check for specific boot disks. The code was strange since 69h is IMUL on 80186+ which of course makes no sense as the first opcode of a boot sector so presumably it must do some sort of undocumented jump on the 8086/8088 or possibly an early NEC CPU. Asmpgmr (talk) 18:07, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Template:Like

Hi. As I understand it, images at Wikimedia Commons are free to be used and re-used on Wikimedia wikis. I don't understand your change to Template:Like and I've reverted it accordingly. This has been discussed previously. I think it's reasonable to say that if the image continues to be kept at Wikimedia Commons through a number of deletion discussions, it's acceptable to use on a Wikimedia wiki such as the English Wikipedia. Please let me know if this is unreasonable. --MZMcBride (talk) 06:00, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Matthew Anthony Smith

See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Computing#User:Matthew Anthony Smith. —Ruud 21:11, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads up, Ruud. I hope he will learn to stick to the rules... --Matthiaspaul (talk) 15:54, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

About Sony Cyber-shot DSC-RX1

For the article, you said: "there are high-end 35mm film cameras, which are *much* smaller, for example the TC-1".

However, what you overlooked was that the article states: "world's smallest full-frame DIGITAL camera" and not "world's smallest full-frame FILM camera". So i removed only that erroneous section of your edit. I hope you will agree with it.MTorleeb TALK 00:50, 22 September 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by MoTorleeb (talk • contribs)

Actually, it was me who added the "digital" to the sentence in question in order to fix the problem. ;-) Before my edit, it just read "it is the world's smallest full-frame camera", which it isn't. The section you removed was not "live" contents of the article, but just my hidden HTML comment explaining my edit for other editors to read. There was nothing erroneous with it, but anyway, it's fine with me to remove it. --Matthiaspaul (talk) 07:18, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

Oh! I'm really sorry for what i previously wrote. I hope you didn't take offense. Thanks for clarifying the situation.MTorleeb TALK 02:58, 23 September 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by MoTorleeb (talk • contribs)

Don't worry, I did not take offense at all. ;-) --Matthiaspaul (talk) 17:43, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Thankyou very much indeed.MTorleeb TALK 01:40, 29 September 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by MoTorleeb (talk • contribs)

Jim Allchin

Hello, I restored the so-called "rant" that you had previously restored. I hope that's still good with you.216.86.177.36 (talk) 22:59, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

Editing the References list that is "incomplete or promote wrong German"

The original references given for the Canon Pellix‎ article are those used and needed writing this article as required for any Wikipedia contribution. The actual Minolta book used was the Minolta's Kamera Technik …, published in 1990. Any misrepresentation of this information or reference to any other edition cannot be given as the original source for the article. I have not to my knowledge given incomplete information, nor do I promote wrong German. The book title is the responsibility of the authors, not mine. By changing the references, or part thereof, the list is no longer valid. The criteria given for editing the References are irrelevant and a violation of my obligation to provide verifiable information.

To remove a book listed as used for the article and add another is messing with my evidence for verifiability. If a relevant list of books can be provided, that is where such a book may be added..

With respect,--Jan von Erpecom 19:18, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Hi Jan, I am fully aware of the fact that you used the second edition of the book for reference and there is nothing wrong with it.

For some odd reasons, the authors' names were abbreviated on the front cover of this edition, and their chosen title was "Minoltas Kamera Technik". Even though it is incorrect German, you were correct to represent the title as it was used by the authors (except for the extra apostrophe, which did not exist in the original title).

When I added the authors' full names, I did it with the third edition of the book in front of me (which reads "Minolta Kameratechnik"), and therefore I assumed, that not only the stray apostrophe, but also the space in "Kamera Technik" would have been the result of some unintended transformation error. That's why I fixed this as well while being there.

When you reverted my change, I looked this up in the older edition of the book and saw that it actually read "Kamera Technik" back then. So, had the authors not published a third edition, where they fixed their mistake (well, sort of, to be 100% correct German, it would have to read "Minolta-Kameratechnik"), we would have no choice but to use the wrong title as well. But since there is a newer edition, we can use this as well and avoid the problem altogether.

When I gave my edit summary as "No reason to give incomplete references or promote wrong German, therefore replaced by latest edition of book", I didn't meant 'you' personally, but 'us', the community of Wikipedia editors (including you and myself). This was not meant as criticism of your prior work at all but as a constructive comment as in "hey, we can avoid the faulty German title, so let's further improve on it". If somehow this came over as an offence, I apologize for that.

Regarding the other two issues you raised, it is perfectly okay to complete incomplete author info, as I did. It is also okay to replace existing references with better ones. We have no obligation to stick to the original sources if we find better ones. All that is needed is that the source supports what is written in the article. The only reason why I removed the 2nd edition is the fact that anything in there used for the article is covered in the 3rd edition as well, and there is no point to list two editions of the same book.

In closing I'd also like to point out why I framed the term Nifcalette with [sic]. Some years ago (but after the publication date of the 3rd edition), several "Minolta historians" found out that the camera was actually named Nifcarette rather than Nifcalette.

--Matthiaspaul (talk) 22:05, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Biryani

Hello Mr.Matthias, on one hand I see you point that a list of famous biryani vendors doesn't belong in an encylopedia. By the same standard, something like a famous jeweller Tiffany_&_Co. or even apple computers don't belong in a encyclopedia. IMO, as long as the list is limited to established and famous places, it is acting as a knowledge reference (as opposed to a commercial hoarding). For example, this list would be of help to someone who is researching the authentic biryani styles of different regions. If you would like to re-evaluate the reversal, I would like to thank for your time. Either way, have a nice day! Curlybraces (talk) 18:09, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

I don't want to disappoint you, but Wikipedia is neither a collection of recipies, nor a cooking or travel guide, and we certainly can't list every restaurant, eatery, or fast-food offering some form of Biryani - there are several of them in most any town on this planet. --Matthiaspaul (talk) 17:13, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

File Allocation Table

Thank you, I didn't notice that it was a reference-to-a-reference, my bad. --151.75.122.123 (talk) 12:41, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Don't worry, it's very easy for this to happen - and also easy to fix. ;-) Greetings --Matthiaspaul (talk) 17:13, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Your edits and reverts

Hi. Also your edits are mostly ok,

1. Again: Bionz article is poor, Write it better or leave it. Wikipedia is for the READERS !
2. Link to Redirect is against Wikipedia rules

Stop reverting. Tagremover (talk) 12:17, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Hi there as well. Unfortunately, your assertions above are not correct and are not backed up by our guidelines, and therefore I ask you to stop reverting my edits (which are backed up by our guidelines):

The purpose of "See Also" sections (as per our Manual of Style guidelines WP:SEEALSO) is to link to other articles (regardless of their state), which might be in the scope of interest of a reader of the first article (but for some reason was not mentioned in the body of the article already). The articles Nikon Expeed, Canon DIGIC, and Sony Bionz are clearly orthogonally related and in the scope for the same type of reader and therefore should be crosslinked to each other.

While I do agree, that the Sony Bionz article is a mere stub at present, this does not change the above said a bit - and suppressing the link is a judgement, and therefore a violation of our WP:NPV core policy. We just don't filter articles because they are still in a very developing state - it must remain in the reader's domain to decide if reading an article is/was useful for them or not.

Regarding redirects, our guidelines WP:NOTBROKEN and WP:NOPIPE make it very clear, that it is perfectly okay to link to redirects (and often even more desired than to link to the target article, if the redirect links only to a related topic) and that we should avoid piped links if we can use redirects instead.

--Matthiaspaul (talk) 13:21, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Sorry but: You are wrong:

1. "The links in the "See also" section should be relevant, should reflect the links that would be present in a comprehensive article on the topic, and should be limited to a reasonable number. " : BIONZ is not relevant and not comprehensive.
2. "Thus, many high-quality, comprehensive articles do not have a "See also" section." : Decrease the number!
3. Linking to a redirect makes no sense if it NEVER will be an independent article: Canon DIGIC will always be a redirect as there is DIGIC. Although it is allowed, in that case it makes no sense.
4. WP:NOPIPE: Good title; see where it redirects...
5. "suppressing the link is a judgement, and therefore a violation of our WP:NPV core policy": Truly???? Links to everything?
6. "We just don't filter articles because they are still in a very developing state": Joking? A BAD editor adds such links.

Result: Limiting the number of links NOT adding worthful information should be done and MUST be done in good articles. Tagremover (talk) 13:44, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

First of all, I'd like to ask you to tone down, please. There's not the slightest reason to be aggressive, and in particular we don't shout or make insults on my talk page. Second, please read the relevant guidelines I was referring to - they are, for the most part, very clear about this, and I'm afraid, they don't support your view. Regarding your items:

1. The topic BIONZ is absolutely relevant in the context of EXPEED or DIGIC - it is the direct analogon. We agree, that the article itself leaves a lot to be desired at present, but this is irrelevant in regard to the question, if or if not a connection exists between the topics (and therefore a link should be placed). Building an infrastructure is not necessarily related to improving an article itself, although often both can be done at the same time. There may be editors who can contribute to an article's content but don't see connections, and other editors, who don't know much about a specific topic but know how it relates to other topics. We should do whatever we can do first, there's no point to delay building the web until the BIONZ article has become a full blown article. We are not talking about red links or articles without possibilities, the article exists and has (quite many) possibilities.

2. Decreasing the number of See Also links is fine, but not mandantory, and it is hardly necessary with a total of two links at present. Even if much larger than the BIONZ article, the EXPEED and DIGIC articles are far from being comprehensive as well at present. If an article does not otherwise mention the related topics, which might be of interest to a reader, they should be mentioned in the See Also section. That's the very purpose of this section as per WP:SEEALSO:

"See also section: Contents: A bulleted list [...] of internal links to related Wikipedia articles. [...] Editors should provide a brief annotation when a link's relevance is not immediately apparent, when the meaning of the term may not be generally known, or when the term is ambiguous. [...] Whether a link belongs in the "See also" section is ultimately a matter of editorial judgment and common sense. The links in the "See also" section should be relevant, should reflect the links that would be present in a comprehensive article on the topic, and should be limited to a reasonable number. As a general rule the "See also" section should not repeat links which appear in the article's body or its navigation boxes. [...] The links in the "See also" section do not have to be directly related to the topic of the article, because one purpose of the "See also" links is to enable readers to explore topics that are only peripherally relevant. The "See also" section should not link to pages that do not exist (red links) nor to disambiguation pages (unless used for further disambiguation in a disambiguation page)."

(Perhaps, you are mixing this up with red links in See Also sections, or with External links, for which different rules apply?)

3. We could certainly discuss if we should better link to "Canon DIGIC", "Canon DIGIC" or just "DIGIC", but not if it "makes no sense" to link to redirects. As per the guidelines, links which might not be self-explanatory in the See Also section should be explained, therefore just linking to DIGIC is too short (a Nikon user may not know what it is), we must at least add "Canon DIGIC". Personally, I would prefer Canon DIGIC, because we could avoid extra text this way (see above, if possible, a simple bulleted list of links is preferrable) and this is also the title where the article would actually belong to, as we typically prefix company-specific stuff with the company name in order to avoid name conflicts in the future, and it is well possible, that we might be forced to move these articles to these new titles sooner or later (therefore, they do have "possibilities"). Redirects are also (per the guidelines) an instrument to "measure" what would be the preferred article title, and it would defeat the purpose, if we bypass existing redirects. So, either Canon DIGIC or "Canon DIGIC" can be used, but not piped variants like [[DIGIC|Canon DIGIC]] or [[Expeed|Nikon Expeed]], which are clearly against the guidelines. For the same reason, it is correct and preferable to link to µITRON rather than using a pipe as in [[ITRON project|µITRON]].

4. WP:NOPIPE properly redirects to the relevant section in that article, and in there to the following paragraph:

"It is generally not good practice to pipe links simply to avoid redirects. The number of links to a redirect page can be a useful gauge of when it would be helpful to spin off a subtopic of an article into its own page."

See above.

5. You wrote: ""suppressing the link is a judgement, and therefore a violation of our WP:NPV core policy": Truly???? Links to everything?"

Of course not to everything (that's not what I said), but we do link to related and relevant topics, also to maintain the neutral point of view. BIONZ is a related and relavant topic in the context of EXPEED and DIGIC, therefore suppressing the link where it should occur is a form of leaving our neutral point of view and add bias and personal judgements into an article.

6. You wrote: ""We just don't filter articles because they are still in a very developing state": Joking? A BAD editor adds such links."

Actually, we even link to non-existing articles at times (although not in See Also sections). If we won't do this, we could not build the web. If you want my personal opinion, the majority of articles in the English Wikipedia is in a very bad state, we just have to live with it for now and help and hope that they will be improved over time. Links help to make readers aware of articles and thereby also to improve them. If we wouldn't link to topics we don't like but which are relevant in a context, we would create isolated articles with both, alot of information lacking and with alot of unnecessary redundancy at the same time. Suppressing links is not how building a logical (infra)structure works. I could not find a guideline, which would disallow the links to the Sony Bionz article just because the article is still a stub. If you find one, please let me know.

--Matthiaspaul (talk) 16:53, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

It is difficult to reply, as you insist to your viewpoint: Please read again. And: To make it clear again: Your edits are mostly ok, i just reverted two (UPDATE:ONE) who are no improvement to help you getting clear.

• Manufacturer excluded from product article name: imho thats Wikipedia standard: I remember there was a discussion. I support changing: Canon EF lens mount > EF-mount or similar.
• Changing links to redirects to cause traffic on an article name you prefer is wrong. Period.
• Speedy deletion of redirects: You create a lot of redirects yourself. Please accept that others see need of redirects, too.
• Shouting: Sometimes appropriate and rarely needed, here sadly often needed.
• "We...": YOU are the most important man here, the Spokesman of Wikipedia ? Tagremover (talk) 01:20, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Reviewer

Hello, following a review of your contributions, I have enabled reviewer rights on your account. This gives you the ability to:

• Accept changes on pages undergoing pending changes,
• Have your changes automatically accepted on pending changes level 2 protected pages, and
• Administrate article feedback.

Please remember that this user right:

• Can be removed at any time for misuse, and
• Does not grant you any special status above other editors.

You should probably also read WP:PROTECT, since this user privilege deals largely with page protection. As the requirements for this privilege are still in a state of flux, I would encourage you to keep up to date on the WP:REVIEWER page. Feel free to ask me if you have any questions! Happy editing! Reaper Eternal (talk) 22:06, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

Sony BIONZ: Make it notable

Can we have a possible agreement to add it to Expeed and DIGIC if you or whoever doubles the text size (not by integrating kbytes of refs or links). It IS already linked by me at image processor. Tagremover (talk) 20:11, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

Tagremover, I have no problems working with you for as long as you stick to the rules (that is our guidelines) and do not harm the project. However, this is not the venue for any "private arrangements" not supported by our policies and guidelines, like "if you add x to article y, I will not revert you". I told you many times: You MUST NOT revert other editors' contributions, anyway, unless they are working against our guidelines and you are unable to improve on their edits yourself. Unfortunately, it is you, who is boldly, knowingly and willfully acting against our established guidelines - you even seem to be proud of it, given that you prominentely stated "Ignore all rules" as your principle of action.

I already gave you the extended bonus of the newcomer and spent many hours trying to explain/tutor you some of the concepts of working together in a community project and how some things are supposed to work, but since you deleted these explanations and continue to ignore established guidelines up to the present, I am certainly not willing to spend yet more time to help you out. For as long as you do not correct your behaviour, it would be a waste of time, and you have long overstressed my time already - and given your many documented problem cases with other participants in this project, many other editors' time and energy as well. Doesn't it occur to you that if you persistently continue to run against a wall, the core of the problem might be related to you?

After your continued personal defamations and cheap atttempts to undermine my integrity and public image over the course of months, there is certainly no room for any more bonus towards you from my side. By now you owe me at least six solid apologies for your insults towards me. Before that happens and you correct your behaviour, I have no interest in discussing matters with you beyond consensus-building on article talk pages.

It's up to you now. --Matthiaspaul (talk) 00:25, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

Next time just revert my edits

I know how to read edit summaries and have no desire to get into a revert war. Do not really enjoy the faux-friendliness and "suggestions" on my talk page. Bacchiad (talk) 04:37, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

Actually, the suggestions were genuinely meant friendly. Nobody likes being reverted and I hate to revert other people sometimes, however, I also don't like seeing other people's contributions being destroyed by careless editing. Since you were acting at a fast pace and it was unclear if you would continue to do so for much longer, raising the issue on your talk page seemed (and still seems to me) like the best way to deal with it. Had you acted this way on a single article only, I would not have raised the issue at all, or only that article's talk page. Frankly, you will have to deal with such comments if you make bold edits to articles except for in obvious cases, where one can safely assume that community consensus exists.

Anyway, after your long hiatus welcome back to Wikipedia! (I hope that wasn't too friendly ;-) ) --Matthiaspaul (talk) 06:02, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

Camera template formatting

I see you are quite involved in the discussions at Template talk:Nikon DSLR cameras. Who could I ask to format Template:Kodak DSLR cameras and Template:Fujifilm DSLR cameras in tables?--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 15:12, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

I have reworked the Fujifilm DSLR template, but the exact announcement, shipment and end of production dates need to be researched in better details and the template tweaked accordingly.

The Kodak template is a bit more complicated as the timeline spans over a much longer period, two different camera mounts are involved, and some models were available in many minor model variants and I don't remember them all after all these years. I will have think about how to organize this template. --Matthiaspaul (talk) 00:36, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

I do not understand this edit which points the template at redirects. Thus the template does not become bold on the pages that it is navigating to. That is extremely weird.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 17:04, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

That's a valid (and good!) argument and exception to the general rule not to bypass redirects, Tony. In this case, the advantage of the links being displayed in bold outweighs the statistics, maintenance and readability advantages of redirects. --Matthiaspaul (talk) 22:43, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

HX DOS Extender

As a rule, I unfortunately can't add a userfication. If it was deleted due to notability concerns I would have no problem moving it there, but because it's a copyright matter that has to stay deleted. I will, however, at least provide the infobox and links that were used:

HX DOS Extender

Developer(s)	Japheth
Stable release	2.16 / November 16, 2009 (2009-11-16)
Preview release	2.17 / June 5, 2011 (2011-06-05)
Operating system	DOS
Platform	x86
Type	DOS extender
Website	www.japheth.de/HX.html

External links:

• HX website
• HX and general DOS development and support forum
• Alternative / additional docs and list of compatible software

Hopefully that helps, that's all I can provide. Wizardman 23:53, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Okay, Wizardman, thanks, that's a start. And you are sure that the claim for G12 was a valid one? Who added that tag? --Matthiaspaul (talk) 00:04, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

It was added by User:Insidious611, who hasn't edited since. I checked the text to the three external links above and, between the three, I found the whole article to be copied verbatim, same for a couple earlier revisions I checked. Wizardman 00:58, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Fortunately, this is not the user I had in mind, so this wasn't any attempt of gaming the system.

Checking the links you gave, I now remember the similaries as well. Given that this is an open source project one of the authors might have contributed the text to WP originally, I don't know. But then the edit history should have some remark by the contributing editor declaring this. If so, there might still be COI issues to be resolved, but at least no longer a copyvio problem. I guess I will contact them and try to find out. --Matthiaspaul (talk) 01:40, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

A barnstar about Star Trek project!

	The Tireless Contributor Barnstar
	I have recently co-adopted Star Trek project. I painstakingly searched the history to find the person who added all those intense details. I have begun to do likewise on readability and citations. I look forward to working with you! Smuckola (talk) 02:47, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks alot. :-) --Matthiaspaul (talk) 02:23, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

	The Teamwork Barnstar
	We'll get this silly old article into citation rehab someday, but in the meantime, it's pure golden Internet techno-lore! Smuckola (Email) (Talk) 17:31, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

Ohlsdorf Jewish Cemetery

Hello, sorry for the late reply, i think you better do it since you are a native speaker of German language (if i am not wrong) and due to this reason, it's much easier for you to find information. The Wikipedia makes it hard to enter some info without citing any source, so how am i supposed to do that without knowing German? It is not my intention to cause copyright violations but then Wikipedia should stop asking for citing sources and references. Cheers Evangelidis (talk) 23:28, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

I gave my answer on your talk page. Greetings. --Matthiaspaul (talk) 02:23, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

Redirect creation

This is a rare instance when adding an own edit summary is a bad idea. Left it blank, please – everyone knows why you create them, but the target is not always obvious. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 14:46, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

Since I always give edit summaries, I wasn't aware that there's also a default summary inserted when I don't specify one. Thanks for point me to it. I may now sometimes, but only in those rare cases where I see fit, skip adding my own summaries, as I still consider adding edit summaries as good policy to be followed.

--Matthiaspaul (talk) 18:58, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

Typography

Please, do not use your own non-standard terminology in articles. You can ever consult {{Punctuation marks}} sidebar or corresponding articles. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 14:46, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

Your assertion could be read as if I would use or enforce my own non-standard terminologies all over the place. I certainly don't do that at all. This single edit was down to a genuine mistake, and as much as I am grateful to be corrected I wonder if just fixing it wouldn't have done the job already. In German language a colon is called Doppelpunkt, perhaps that's how I came to believe it would be called double-colon in English as well... ;-)

--Matthiaspaul (talk) 18:58, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

Reflinks changes to Master boot record

Hello, Matthias

I hope I am not bothering you but I feel it is high time we convened about the edits in master boot record article because apparently we have trouble understanding the purpose of one another. (I certainly have; one of your edit summaries says you are not sure.)

In my 12:17, 19 April 2013 edit, I:

• Used Dispenser/Reflinks to improve the citation style of eight of the references
• Converted all instances of <tt> to <code> (because Reflinks warned me that <tt> is deprecated in HTML5)
• Removed the misplaced TOC marker (that caused too much space between the TOC box and the first header)
• Added {{Reflist}} in place of nested <reference> tags
• Forgot to include all of these in the edit summary field

Reflinks itself removed underscore (_) from anchors.

Then I saw your 22:01, 19 April 2013 edit. There was things in it that I was not sure you intended to be there, only I could not tell which. (I was sure that TOC marker, for instance, is not intended.) But your edit summary told me that you prefer <tt> tag back. So, I made 09:30, 20 April 2013 and 09:36, 20 April 2013 edits: I reverted to Yobot version, where I thought to be the least disputed instance, and repeated my edit list except item #2.

I thought that should take care of our little dispute but wasn't I wrong? I am not sure what this part of edit summary means: "I am reformatting templates again so they don't have dangling SPACEs (which is technically bad)". What I see are line breaks before each parameter (which I neither support nor oppose) and |author= parameters being broken into |first= and |last= (which I appreciate). Is there anything else that I missed?

Best regards,
Codename Lisa (talk) 17:53, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

Hi Lisa.

Yes, TOC can go for sure. Well spotted! It was put in when the article was still not fully structured, so that the TOC showed up in the right place. Somehow I missed that in my edit.

Regarding <code> and <tt>, to some extent they are interchangeable, at least for as long as only one of them is used in a single article. However, in articles featuring both, I have almost consistently seen <tt> being used for numbers, and <code> for, well, pieces of code, commands etc. I don't know if <tt> is deprecated (I could look it up), but then we'd have to devise a macro template to emulate its teletype appearance (without changing the background color), as using <code> can really look distracting, when numbers have a different background color than normal text. It also looks very strange in tables, since the background shading does not match the default background shade of tables as well.

Regarding the underscores ('_'), fortunately, it works both ways. I tend to use spaces (' ') in normal (flow) text and underscores in identifiers like symbols. Since I consider invisible anchors and reference names as symbols, I use underscores for them. Experience has shown that allowing whitespaces in symbols makes parsing more complex and error prone, as whitespaces are also used as delimiter and additional rules are needed to distinguish between whitespaces, which are actually delimiting something, and whitespaces which do not. Wiki-syntax allows both ways in almost all cases (for as long as the parser isn't broken), so there is no clear right or wrong here, I just think, we should use the same style in a link as used in the corresponding link target. So, if we link to an anchor named #abc_123, it seems odd to use #abc 123 in a link just because "we can". Sooner or later doing so will cause trouble.

Regarding the references, I wasn't sure why you first reverted my edit just to reapply most of that stuff in the next edit again. ;-) After all, I had already taken care of the <tt> thing, so your revert seemed to have targeted the references mostly - only that I hadn't done much to the references other than reformatting them to one parameter per line (where possible), thereby fixing two dangling work= and pages= parameters, and streamlining the dates to use the international date format as defined in ISO 8601 (and previously used in the article). Like you, I don't have a personal preference to put it all into one line or use one line per parameter (perhaps a very slight preference to the former as it does not introduce line-feeds as another wild-card into the parameter parsing), however, I just try to use whatever is used on an existing page (if a preference can be determined - perhaps not in this particular article ;-) ). However, for the same reasons as stated above (potential parsing difficulties), I try do avoid spaces in front or after an argument as part of the argument. If I mean "test string", why should I write " test string", "test string ", or even " test string "? I would do so only if the space is a vital part of the argument itself. Therefore, knowing that the pipe character '|' is the delimiter here, I recommend

argument1=test string|argument2=test string|argument3=test string

instead of forms like

argument1= test string|argument2=test string |argument3=test string

Otherwise a (revision of the) parser may consider the space to be part of the argument, causing ambiguity. Of course, a parser can strip off whitespaces on both ends of an argument (it does so at present for named parameters, but not for unnamed parameters), but what if there were valid arguments which actually need to contain whitespaces in these places? This would require more work-arounds or exceptions or out-of-order executions to be implemented, making it more complex and therefore more error prone and difficult to maintain. (We already have an assortment of special cases for trailing dots, including a need for extra parameters to override these defaults. ;->) In the case of multi-line templates, we can (safely?) assume that a deliberate line-break is taken as delimiter as well, at least it is much less likely part of the argument than a pending space.

Again, for as long as the parser isn't broken, this does not create any immediate problems either way, but I have seen parsing reaching its limits in more complicated cases already.

Greetings. --Matthiaspaul (talk) 22:09, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

Hi.

I asked around about the parser. Assuming we have |name=value:

• Leading and trailing white space around pipe (|) is okay
• Leading and trailing white space around parameter name is okay
• Trailing white space after value is okay
• Leading space before the value (after equal sign) is not always okay. It is parsed but may be ignored by the second-tier parser that interprets template code. So, it varies from template to template.

White space is defined as space character and line break. I did not research about tab character.

As for conversion between <tt>...</tt> and <code>...</code>, I am told to stop worrying and make no deliberate attempt to perform or dispute the conversion insofar it concerns a syntactic change only.

Best regards,

Codename Lisa (talk) 09:08, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

Binary number and Hexadecimal

Hi Matthiaspaul,

I wanted to let you know that I recently reversed two of your edits, one to binary number and the other to hexadecimal. In both cases, you added a remark about the words "Intel convention" and "Motorola convention". I don't know whether these usages are common (I'm a mathematician), but I couldn't find any reference using the quoted phrases. In the hexadecimal article, I thought the comment was redundant, since the paragraph already mentions in both cases where the convention is used; in the binary number article, an explanation like the one at hexadecimal would be valuable, especially with citations. Unfortunately (as I noted) I don't really know anything about this topic and so don't know what sort of reliable source would have this kind of information.

All the best, JBL (talk) 17:57, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

Hi Joel, thanks for making me aware of your reversion. Well, I am so accustomed to these terms, that it didn't came to me, that someone might question them. I hope you do not question the existance of these notations, just their names, or do you? I should be able to come up with many old books on programming (1980s era) citing these notations as being used (and apparently originally introduced) by Intel and Motorola, but it might be difficult finding a source formally defining them as "Motorola convention" or "Intel convention", that's just how I have seen these notations being referred to in verbal communication over the decades.

However, the main point I was trying to make by adding this information was that Intel uses a postfix notation, and Motorola used a prefix notation to describe numbers in other numeral systems systematically. I found this information helpful to understand why so many different conventions exists and also to make it easier to remember them. Therefore I don't think I was adding redundant info to the article, even though Intel and Motorola were already mentioned.

Greetings --Matthiaspaul (talk) 18:58, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

Hi Matthiaspaul,

Well, as I say this is not something I know much about, but I have no reason to doubt that the notations are correct as presented; nor do I doubt your expertise on this question (and if you re-inserted your text I would bear no ill will nor revert again, although it does seem to me that this is covered in hexadecimal). It seems to me that if you have ready access to this sort of information it would be great (for the reasons you note) to add to the binary number article information analogous to that in hexadecimal, i.e., a brief list of contexts (Intel, Motorola, but also others if you know them) where the various listed notations are used.

All the best, JBL (talk) 23:20, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Contested assertions need a source

Hello, Matthias

I must hurry, so I apologize for the curt and crude message in advance. About this: [1]. Perhaps you already know that unreferenced contributions in Wikipedia may be contested or removed. I have already registered an objection to 82.236.210.11's crude edit summaries in his talk page but per Wikipedia policies, no one should reinstate his removals without providing a source that affirms the disputed statement.

In fact, I myself really want to see an evidence for the assertion that Windows 9x was DOS-based.

Best regards,
Codename Lisa (talk) 08:25, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Formerly, linguistics vs. technical accuracy; now source

Hello, Matthias

I hope I am not bothering you but I thought I give you a note about my BRDing your edit in Windows 95. You have written "On startup, the MS-DOS component in Windows 95". For the time being, I assume it is completely true from technical standpoint. However, from the linguistic standpoint, it is not. In other words, this is not how people speak (or write). "MS-DOS component in Windows 95" can refer to a lot of things, including COMMAND.COM and Command Prompt. So, your sentence is at best vague, if not strange. Just for testing it, I showed your sentence to my brother and indeed he thought he should press F8 after Windows 95 welcome screen appeared and that he has a huge window of opportunity for doing so before desktop appears. (What reinforced his interpretation was that the paragraph later talked about "exiting to DOS" which only happens when Windows 95 is running.) However, boot loader is often associated with the menu that allows them to choose an operating system. It proved more successful because it implied that F8 must be pressed before operating system start.

I remember Richard Stallman trying to convince people to start saying "photoshoping it" and instead say "GIMPing it" when they talk about doctoring an image. He was unsuccessful because he failed to comprehend that language is not a matter of ultimate technical accuracy: Words are coined in the language, but then their meaning evolves while their form eludes change. So, yes, maybe the Windows 95 boot loader code is MS-DOS code as you say (technical correct), but article writing is a matter of proper combination of accuracy, naturalness and emotional response. It is a matter of writing what people understand, not what one editor deems technically most correct.

Best regards,
Codename Lisa (talk) 10:00, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

P.S. I see that you counter-reverted while I was writing this. Hmmm... I guess the whole point of discussion is now lost. Codename Lisa (talk) 10:02, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

Matt, you appear to be engaged in edit warring. Please stick to WP:BRD: When someone reverts you and leaves you a message, please discuss with him. When someone reverts and does not leave a message, you go ahead and do it. Whatever, you do, don't edit-war. And by the way, I think what you wrote is patent nonsense, feel free to add a source; I wanted to add "if you can" but you can't because it is not true.

And Codename Lisa, for God sake stop acting all chivalrous and negative. Report edit warriors to WP:ANI. Fleet Command (talk) 10:26, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

Hello, guys. I don't think there is any instance of chivalry or negativity here or in the article and I think it is premature to call anyone "edit warrior" or even think of WP:ANI or WP:AN/EW. Yet, it is also premature to levy allegations like "downplay MS-DOS's role". First, we need to prove MS-DOS's role, then go down that path. An I make a point of not wanting to be either one of those who shout "it was MS-DOS–based" nor those that shout-back "that's nonsense". However, the point I'd like to defend that calling it "boot loader" does not conflict with calling it "MS-DOS code". Boot loaders are also code; thus, they can be MS-DOS code. (But we need a source for that.) I offer these two sources:

• http://support.microsoft.com/kb/217210
• http://support.microsoft.com/kb/155034

Best regards,

Codename Lisa (talk) 11:10, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

Hello again, Matthias. Once again, I assumed good faith in people who do not supply a source and am disappointed: According to [2], [3] and [4], the option to exit to MS-DOS is only available in systems that multi-boot DOS and Windows 95. Even though I do not dismiss the possibility that these sources may be subject to different interpretations, I also do not dismiss the possibility that the unreferenced OR written in the article may have stemmed from a similar error.

To conclude, I quote from WP:V: "Any material challenged or likely to be challenged must be attributed to a reliable, published source using an inline citation." Best regards, Codename Lisa (talk) 11:32, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

@Fleet: I'm really astonished where you see edit-warring between Lisa and me, I certainly don't. I'm completely relaxed and I think (hope so) Lisa is as well. Also, we are discussing when things need to be discussed, but I don't think every edit in the flow needs to be reflected on talk pages. That's what edit summaries are for.

Lisa, cleaning up the article in good faith, put in a technical incorrect statement, which I improved upon. Lisa then reverted for linguistical reasons, and I restored because as much as I love good prose, I feel that truth (technical accurateness) is more important, if both cannot be had at the same time. I explained in the summary why using the term boot loader in this context is not appropriate here but encouraged her to find better words. Actually, I see a form of constructive collaboration here, not edit-warring. In either case, the whole thing was triggered because some days ago an angry IP removed larger portions of the article which I restored because I found them vital to understand certain aspects of this operating system. I was not the author of these portions. --Matthiaspaul (talk) 13:22, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) Hi Lisa, nothing is lost. I would have contacted you as well, but you were faster. The point, however, is, that is important to be technically accurate here, because this is one of the keys to understand the hybrid architecture of this product named Windows 9x, which was a bundle of MS-DOS 7.xx + Windows 4.xx. As you might know, the operating system was originally advertised by Microsoft as being all new, rewritten and without any traces of MS-DOS, while in reality, the basic architecture has not changed from DOS + Windows 3.xx with the Windows portion running in 386 Enhanced mode. One of the differences is that the MS-DOS startup process is obfuscated as MS-DOS displays a graphical logo so that users cannot see the (still occuring) normal text output and that it starts up WIN.COM automatically (as you probably know, it is trivial to disable this, but mere users still got the impression that there was no DOS around any more). Another difference is that Windows 4 has, of course, better driver support so that it can handle more stuff in 32-bit protected mode, without a need to pass this "down" to MS-DOS and/or the BIOS. There are many other refinements and additions but nothing what would change the basic hybrid architecture - even not in Windows ME (MS-DOS 8.0 + Windows 4.9). I put "down" in quotes above, because what actually happens is more complicated and difficult to describe unless you are familiar with the 386 protected mode and virtual x86 mode. This is where "in", "on" and "under" have more than the obvious meanings (as per the MOS), and ultimatively this is were all this discussion, if Windows 9x is an operating system of its own or not, and if MS-DOS is a vital part of it, is still hanging around for compatibility, is only used at boot time, or does not exist at all, comes from. This once was a multi-million dollar question heavily discussed in the industry, therefore it is important to be technically accurate and we should try hard not to use vocabulary misused in that "war of OSes" for some purposes. After all, we want to tell the truth, not one party's "new-speak"? Microsoft, of course, tried to convince people, that DOS was no longer needed and only optionally used to run legacy DOS application and as a "boot loader", whereas independent industry experts have demonstrated in magazine articles, in books, and also successfully in court, that this was clearly not the case. If you are really interested in this subject, I recommend that you study Andrew Schulman's books Undocumented DOS (2nd edition) and Unauthorized Windows 95. These books do by far not cover all aspects involved, but they are technically accurate and a good read and very good introduction. After studying them you also know why Microsoft's response to one of these books (the reference given by that IP) is macroscopically correct as well (of course), but mostly (intentionally) beside the point. Even our recent IP stated that Andrew's "theory" (as the IP put it - actually it isn't a theory, but technical facts) were completely dismissed, while in reality they were not at all.

But back to your original question, perhaps, if we would detail the whole startup process from when the Volume Boot Record passes execution to the DOS BIOS (one of the components in IO.SYS) up to when the graphical shell gets loaded (WIN.INI SHELL=EXPLORER.EXE), we would also find a natural and linguistically more pleasing place to describe the boot menus alongside this process. However, the Windows 9x articles are not in my immediate scope of interest at present, therefore the time I'm willing to spend on them is certainly limited (at least at present). I just don't like seeing falsehoods being spread there, that's why I removed some incorrect statements, which raise wrong impressions and thereby are not helpful to understand how this system actually worked.

--Matthiaspaul (talk) 12:42, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

I would like to second Matthias here. Technical accuracy is what is important here, both from an encyclopedic perspective, as well as to maintain a neutral point of view. While the whole "operating system vs. graphical shell" discussion was once highly contentious, there is absolutely no dispute on how W95 operates from a purely technical perspective (whether you ask Shulman or a Windows kernel developer.) The contentiousness of the issue only start to arrive once you try to distil all this technical complexity down to a binary statement "operating system" or "graphical shell", and by extension when you start to apply labels like "operating system" or "boot loader" the the MS-DOS component of W95. —Ruud 14:03, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

Hello, Matthias. Hello, Ruud.

At this point I refrain to comment these statements. However, in the light of contradictory statements by our guest editor and the sources that I found, this issue is no longer a matter of technical vs. natural wording. (I have modified the heading to reflect this issue but this is your talk page, Matthias; you can revert it.) Per WP:V, "any material challenged or likely to be challenged must be attributed to a reliable, published source using an inline citation."

Best regards, Codename Lisa (talk) 16:36, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

You have failed to comprehend what these sources are saying. In fact, the sources you mentioned in the edit summary are in complete agreement with the statement you removed and claimed to have been original research. You must have somehow managed to misinterpret the statement "The option to boot to a Previous version of MS-DOS will be present only if MS-DOS was installed before installation of Windows 9x.", from one of the sources, as meaning the whole boot menu disappears, instead of merely the 7th option. —Ruud 17:11, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

Hello. That is what I said: You present an interpretation of your own. And as I said, I neither oppose nor support. But the sentence that you just returned to the article: Does it have source? No, it does not. So, I am adding a {{citation needed}} to it to reflect this problem but won't mind if you removed. And please don't take me wrong: I do not mean to say what I do is absolutely correct; in fact, any feedback is welcome. Best regards, Codename Lisa (talk) 18:52, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

Hello, guys. Just grabbed a copy of Windows 95. I was both right and wrong. The part I was right was about interpreting [5]: Only option #7 disappeared, not the whole menu (as Ruud suggested). The part I was wrong, however, is that by now I assume it is possible to boot into DOS via option #5, "Command Prompt only". I could not do it in my system because the system stops responding, but I definitely saw an attempt to load COMMAND.COM. Still... there is a lot there... Best regards, Codename Lisa (talk) 07:30, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

Reversion of my edits to SuperDrive article

Would you care to explain why you reverted my recent edit(s) to that article? Bumm13 (talk) 00:27, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

It might help for you to realize that Wikipedia:Piped link is not actual policy and that I do take issue with you reverted my good faith edits to SuperDrive, especially given your relative inexperience as a Wikipedia editor. Also, it would be nice if you respond to messages on your talk page in a timely manner given that you are currently editing WP at this moment in time. Thanks Bumm13 (talk) 01:03, 22 May 2013 (UTC)