User talk:Billy Catringer

Please test in your own sandbox
If you want to make test edits, please make them in your own user space, using a sandbox is typical. Files like Help:Editing‎ should be left for official wiki use. Argadi 13:47, August 4, 2010 (UTC)
 * A good way to get a sandbox in you space is just to append /sandbox to User:Billy Catringer that gives User:Billy Catringer/sandbox which will be a red link until you actually create it. This will work for any other names of subpages you may want to have in your namespace. Its a good way to play with ideas and experimental edits until they are ready to be shared. It's good to see an adventurous explorer on the site. Welcome. --Rej¿ ¤¤ ? 03:09, August 6, 2010 (UTC)

Possibly Relevant Outside Information
Read your post in the forum for Oct 1st. Nice information. It seemed more in the format for a main page than a forum. You may wish to think of starting one for the flower, once we know a little more about the authors intentions. I'm waiting to find out if we get a canonical name for it. But its possible to move pages or just their content so if you need to start in, Please do. --Rej¿ ¤¤ ? 03:44, October 3, 2010 (UTC)



Thanks, Rej. This is going to sound crazy to you, I know, but I cannot do a full article on my own. If you want to use the information I posted in an article you write, please be my guest. The process of posting a stand alone article is still quite beyond me. Thanks, Billy Catringer 14:32, October 3, 2010 (UTC)


 * This is a wiki. Wiki's are designed to make things EASY. If you are having difficulty then you have missed something easy. To start a new forum page start at Forum:Fan Theories Put the title of the forum where it says Add new topic. Then start editing. Preview what you edit to see what you've got. When satisfied save page. If you need editing help toggle the "hide editing tips" and follow the links. -Rej 21:20, October 4, 2010 (UTC)

Also when adding to the forum page its good to sign you post. --Rej 03:44, October 3, 2010 (UTC)



I usually do sign my posts, but if I failed to do so, then I apologize for the failure. Billy Catringer 14:32, October 3, 2010 (UTC)


 * Ah you did in this case but you did it on a main page article. What I was trying to convey was that it is appropriate to sign your articles in the context of a forum but in the context of a main page it is not. Basically the main pages are edited by all of us in the persona of an anonymous "Editor". Then when we have about what just happened on the discussion side of the article we sign the discussion page. -Rej 21:20, October 4, 2010 (UTC)

Source of the Dyne
The Foglio's work is copyrighted. We are on an open source wiki. This means some problems.


 * 1) Anything uploaded here must have a licence, or permission, or be noted as being used in fair use. Using significant portions of a copyrighted work is hard to justify as fair use. Your current upload of the source of the dyne is the whole finely crafted link at full resolution. I.E. the full page. This is about the borderline of fair use. Better would be to use a shrunken version of the picture. (i.e. not full resolution) The file could then point to the page or link it was taken from.
 * 2) You should also add the fair use template to the file page. You can do that after the fact by editing the Licensing section of the File upload. During the initial upload you can set the license via a drop down menu presented just before the upload button.

The other main thing to remember about a wiki is you don't have to get it right the first time. Things can always be fixed. --Rej¿ ¤¤ ? 21:20, October 4, 2010 (UTC)

I will fix the linkages if you will delete the big picture. I haven't figured out how to delete the pictures yet. Billy Catringer 12:03, October 5, 2010 (UTC)

October 25, 2010 (Monday)'s forum
I liked the picture you added. My curiosity is such that I had to go find the source to see if it was photo-shopped or not. You did a good and clever job. I also found the ancient map of the region so beautiful and large that my computer died when I mistakenly tried to down load the whole thing. (It was 3Gigs plus). After rebooting I believed them when they said (in romainian) that it would be hard to maneuver without the right tool. here is the page with the tool for navigation. I figure some monk or group of monks must have done the original map. I wonder what the other 300 odd pages must be like.

Anyway thanks for chiming in. Keep up the good work. --Rej¿ ¤¤ ? 22:39, October 25, 2010 (UTC)


 * Woah, now that's a map with painstaking detail. --Undomelin 01:00, October 26, 2010 (UTC)

Your praise is greatly appreciated. The picture, obviously modified from the original, is GIMPed, not Photoshopped. This is basically the same thing it's just that I used different software that I did not have to pay for. I'm so poor I have turned into an incorrigible freetard. Billy Catringer 00:06, October 26, 2010 (UTC)

Cool pictures
You found a good way to crop the tiger-dog riders. --Rej

Thanks, Rej.Billy Catringer 18:04, November 17, 2010 (UTC)

Henn Salute?
"Carrie Henn style salute."? I googled, but I couldn't seem to find a picture of the actress saluting that way. Is it a reference to a specific movie? It looks a lot like the Scout sign/salute to me, actually. --Undomelin 08:25, November 22, 2010 (UTC)

Carrie Henn played "Newt" in Aliens. She saluted at the end of a scene in which everyone in the movie was shot at or snapped at or something. One of her more memorable lines in the movie came when Sigourney Weaver said, "These people are soldiers. They're here to help." Henn, looking sincerely unimpressed said, "It won't make any difference." Billy Catringer 19:30, November 22, 2010 (UTC)

Ah, I see. I saw Aliens a couple of times a long time ago, but not recently, so I didn't remember the salute. --Undomelin 19:37, November 23, 2010 (UTC)

Add license for pictures
When you upload a file, please set the license correctly. Take a look at other pictures to see what other editors have set. (You will find other pictures with out a license, you aren't the only person who omits it.) There is some sort of standard "fair use" license used by several pictures.

It's also useful to add a reference to where the picture came from. It's not necessary, but some people wanted to know (I wanted to know so I could a reference from the Chronology page to the Broken Construct page.) I added the source location for your sandwich image. Argadi 20:52, November 24, 2010 (UTC)

Okay, Argadi. I'll do it. Sorry I made a mess of things. Billy Catringer 22:35, November 24, 2010 (UTC)

Argadi, I am having trouble with posting a license to the pictures I have uploaded in the past. Is there a way I can choose among the available liceneses this Wiki uses? Right now, I am assigning "fair use" to each picture I have uploaded. '''ALSO, I uploaded a picture entitled "CanopicJars.png" as part of an unsuccessful test. Would you or someone else please remove it for me'''. Billy Catringer 23:45, November 24, 2010 (UTC)


 * Sorry, I don't know what license should be used, only that we should specify something. CanopicJars was removed. Argadi 02:21, November 25, 2010 (UTC)
 * I did not want a specific license, but I do want to know how to access the list of available licenses. When I upload a picture to the board, those licenses are NOT listed so I do NOT have a list from which to make a choice. I am running Firefox on Ubuntu and I am wondering if this Wiki is doing something to throw my system out of wack. Thank you for removing that problematic picture. Billy Catringer 02:34, November 25, 2010 (UTC)
 * I did not want a specific license, but I do want to know how to access the list of available licenses. When I upload a picture to the board, those licenses are NOT listed so I do NOT have a list from which to make a choice. I am running Firefox on Ubuntu and I am wondering if this Wiki is doing something to throw my system out of wack. Thank you for removing that problematic picture. Billy Catringer 02:34, November 25, 2010 (UTC)


 * When you upload a picture there is a drop down menu listing licenses. You can pick one at that time. I usually stick with fair use when using stuff from Girl Genius. Since we are educating people about the comic and hopefully adding value to the comic itself that usage generally qualifies and claiming it protects us up to the point we get their lawyers warning.
 * If I forget the license at upload time the file page can be edited and a license template added. Most of the licensing templates are listed here: Category:Licensing_Templates. We are probably lacking more than a few templates. Also IMO we could use a simpler fair-use template. Plus a specific fair use Foglio template. So far no ones been moved to come up with those. With you an User:Undomelin now lending a significant hand that might change. --Rej 08:23, November 25, 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Rej. Billy Catringer 05:12, November 26, 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Rej. Billy Catringer 05:12, November 26, 2010 (UTC)

Have you tried putting images before your text?
That way your text will flow around the picture. --Rej¿ ¤¤ ? 04:58, January 5, 2011 (UTC)

I'm not certain what you are talking about, Rej. I always use the built in features for uploading pictures and it gives you a choice of putting the picture on the left hand side of the page or the right hand side. I just do whatever strikes my fancy at the time. Should I be doing something different? Mind you, I cannot remember much HTML since the stroke I had back in 2009. I'm still struggling to catch my head up to just plain English and I still sometimes fail at that. Anyway, I am wondering what you mean by putting the picture in before the text. Billy Catringer 08:28, January 5, 2011 (UTC)

Ah. I always edit in source mode. If you look a what happens after you have put a picture on a page the notation: appears. The way you are doing it now it appears after the text you write. What I meant was to do it in a way that the picture markup gets put in before you text. Then the text will flow around the picture. When the markup gets placed after you text the flow happens to whoever goes next. This will put your picture out of context sometimes. Note how this text put after the picture flows around it and gets associated with the picture while the text in the previous paragraph was put before the picture and therefore seems to have nothing to do with it.

I added the picture with the editing button, which is I think how you are doing in. So the trick is to write AFTER you upload rather than upload after you write. --Rej¿ ¤¤ ? 06:18, January 20, 2011 (UTC)

Signing the post you made while not logged in
Ummm. This is a wiki rather than a blog or forum. Errors can be corrected by re-editing them. The editor provides a button for signatures but all that does is insert the four tilda's. --~ then when you save the page the wiki substitutes you signature. --Billy Catringer or --208.54.166.44 before you login followed by the timestamp. Just replace the second with the first. The Source button at the top left of the edit box gives access to the markup.

What you did was fine also and now that I know you are using the wysiwig editor it kind of makes sense. I am hoping you also wanted to know the alternatives.

Another trick that might help is to just sign your name followed by a space and five tilda's e.g. --Rej the tilda's put the timestamp in w/o adding the signature. The signature alone if three tilda's.

Hth, I enjoy you contributions and cheer when I see you livening things up with the pictures. Keep up the good work. --Rej 06:18, January 20, 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for all that work, Rej. I will do my best to follow it. I am reading Agatha H and the Airship City when I am not online and dealing with this stuff. I'll be done with it today, 20-Jan-11. I'll leave it sit for a week and then re-read it. I think after all that I'll be ready to carry on a correspondence about the book. There are many differences between the prose version and the comic version of the story, both subtle and gross. But, there are enough differences that I wonder if the Professors Foglio did not decide to show us an alternative time line. -- Billy Catringer 20:42, January 20, 2011 (UTC)

ofbdg's
One never has to admit to more than watching reruns. --Rej 06:29, February 9, 2011 (UTC)

Oh? And just where exactly have you found Kung Fu reruns? Never mind. I don't wanna know. -- Billy Catringer 11:37, February 9, 2011 (UTC)


 * Well what I did and what I will admit to are different, I will admit. As for finding the show I've seen the dvd's for the series at my library.

Mechanics of editing 101: "The preview button is your friend."
I noticed how you edited the Delta Prose article. Lots of commits at short intervals. What you may wish to know is that the preview key allows you to see how the page will look before you commit it to the wiki.

Basically just edit as you would. When you want to see the page press preview. It will show the page and allow you to keep editing w/o having to repress the edit button. When everything is as you want it or when you've written a substantial amount then press the publish button. One of the advantages for the wiki is that it will only story history during the publish step. The preview steps are for testing your work without someone later looking over your shoulder. My general policy is to always preview before I publish. You can also set your personal preferences so the wiki always shows you the preview when you edit the page. Hth, --Rej¿ ¤¤ ? 04:04, February 23, 2011 (UTC)

Okay, Rej. I will make better use of the preview tools in future. Thanks. -- Billy Catringer 09:06, February 23, 2011 (UTC)

The curious case of the growing line feeds.
Hi Billy,

I need some sparky help to solve a mystery.

It probably has to do with which browser is reading a page. It definitely has to do with a change I made to the Page-by-Page preload. I put the Top comix vote request in a boxy table. Now when most people edit the current discussion page a line or two or three get added. So sometimes when I edit I go back and remove all the extra lines. I did that once and you were the next one to edit. So you may possess valuable information for solving this conundrum. Here is the diff between my edit any yours.

My browser showed me (after my edit and before yours) the
 * forum header
 * one blank line
 * The Vote box/table centered on the next line
 * another blank line (because of the br thingy)
 * Picture link for lj with the Discussion for (link to gg comic page) with the full horizontal line under that (but not under the picture)

So
 * What browser/version are you using? Firefox 3.6.16
 * What did you see? I cannot remember for certain.
 * Why did you change it? Well, that happens quite often to tell you the truth. I think I changed this one maybe three times. The first time was to upload and insert the picture. Then I made a comment and preveiwed it and the told Wikia to publish the comment. Later I had occasion to re-read my comment and decided to re-word it. The version you linked to is NOT the final version.
 * What might the browser/editor changed behind your back? I don't have a clue, but now I am curious and will try to help you document any odd behavior. BTW, I am running Firefox on Ubuntu 10.04 with the standard Gnome interface.

Other people have done this too. In particular the space between the Vote box and the picture seems to increase once per edit (with exceptions) regardless of how many lines are already there. I am beginning to wonder if some browser editors are doing something automatically. This sounds logical to me, but we will need to test it first.

I could use a quick response. '''That would allow me to correct the preload this weekend. Why don't you create a new page and post me a link so that we can play around with it while coordinating our efforts on this page?'''

Thanks for your help. --Rej¿ ¤¤ ? 21:20, April 7, 2011 (UTC)

You are welcome, Rej. I am glad to help out in any way I can. -- Billy Catringer 04:43, April 8, 2011 (UTC)

The Curious Case of the Growing Line Feeds Part Deux
I added a picture and comment to tonight's update of the comic. Nothing odd happened when I added the picture. Nothing odd happened when I entered the comment I wanted to add. I went back and modified the comment, added a GG link, and then it added a line between the date and the go vote box. Curious, I made no change and published the unmodified page and it added yet another line below the go vote box. I figured out how to fix this, almost, there is still something wrong with it, but when I try to think about what it is I come up with a blank. A problem with my aphasia, I suppose. -- Billy Catringer 05:33, April 8, 2011 (UTC)

Okay. I seemed to have removed the extra lines from Wednesday's page. Check it out. -- Billy Catringer 06:43, April 8, 2011 (UTC)

Billy, you have been most helpful. I've been running firefox as well, usually on ubuntu8.04 but I have some systems running 10.04 so I can check it out. I think what I will do for now is just punt the vote box. It won't make a lot of difference until the Foglios decide they want to rise in those standings. Their are easy ways for them to encourage it. Hard to get much traction from here.

I have made Forum:2011-04-08_(Friday)_Test_page so we can play. Thanks for taking the time. You helped eliminate a lot of speculation. --Rej 06:53, April 8, 2011 (UTC)

You are quite welcome, Rej. -- Billy Catringer 06:59, April 8, 2011 (UTC)

Working with Friday Test Page
I just discovered that I cannot delete the lines inserted by someone esle on the regular Friday page. At least I think that the lines were inserted by someone else's browser. The blank lines my browser can be removed by me with MY browser. I am going to go add a picture to the page you just put up and see what happens to the lines. Two sets of eyes are better than one with a job like this. -- Billy Catringer 20:47, April 8, 2011 (UTC)

Okay, Rej. I have added a picture to the TEST page. Go look at it and tell me what you want me to do next. BTW, you should get someone else with Windows/Explorer to look at it and probably someone with an iPad and Safari. Windows/Explorer is still the single most commonly used OS/Browser combo out there and iOS/Safari is fast becoming the combo of choice. Ubuntu/Firefox is still in the future. -- Billy Catringer 20:56, April 8, 2011 (UTC)

Hi Billy,

Look at the [difference]. I assume you did not manually put the -div- or -br- on separate lines at the top? That was something done behind your back as it were? --Rej¿ ¤¤ ? 22:57, April 8, 2011 (UTC)