User talk:4dummies

Bookmarks

I mostly talk to User:ThorstenStaerk and User:jeremy -- 4dummies 17:27, April 15, 2011 (UTC)

Query

What goes here?

This page is intended for sending you messages like the below

Great work here 4! Good you are here --ThorstenStaerk 05:11, April 15, 2011 (UTC)

Link trouble

"Link" page

you cannot change link? I can. Do you try to add external links there? Can you just add "this is a test" to the page? --ThorstenStaerk 17:55, April 15, 2011 (UTC)

"Link" page still fails

I cannot. I just tried removing the categories, and got this message

The page you wanted to save was blocked by the spam filter. This is probably caused by a link to a blacklisted external site.
The following text is what triggered our spam filter: http://akismet.com blacklist error
Return to Link.

I got the same thing from "this is a test" inserted before the categories -- 4dummies 19:07, April 15, 2011 (UTC)

I was unable to edit the "links" page for a while, and it turned out that having weblinks to Wikipedia entries for URL and URI was the culprit. I have no idea why. -- 4dummies 00:01, April 17, 2011 (UTC)

I still get these from time to time. I think the real culprit is often an overloaded server because I can often do it later if I wait. -- 4dummies 23:53, May 1, 2011 (UTC)

Project: GNU coreutils

When I started using this wiki, I was frustrated by the fact that some very common commands were not listed, or were hard to find. Accordingly, I've been spending most of this week adding in missing commands and putting them all in a more-consistent format.

Somewhere in the middle, I read the suggested styles for this wiki, so it might be good to go over the whole list again.

Among the main things I did was to include:

1. A "Provided by" section (called "Origin" in the earliest ones), giving a link to the coreutils page of the FSF, and also a link to the coreutils documentation for each command. Any pre-existing man page link was renamed "another" but not deleted. My rationale is that it is most comforting to have the docs from the authors. Then these pages can focus on hints, tips, howtos and examples.
2. A "related commands" section, pointing to all the other commands from the same section of the coreutils docs. This is different from the "See also" which may also link to commands, but mostly to concepts. I do this partly because of all the 20-or-so commands that I had not known existed at all, in spite of using Unix or Linux at home, doing development, since 1985. Perhaps this enhanced cross-linking will do the same for others.
3. A couple of disambiguation pages.
4. At least one category for every page. That way, there's yet another path that may educate others about things they did not know existed.

Note that some of the pages are the barest of stubs beyond what is listed above. I think this is valuable anyway because of

1. The link to the coreutils documentation, which is exactly the man page for the command.
2. This wealth of stubs now invites others to contribute by appearing on the stubs page.

--4dummies 03:30, April 19, 2011 (UTC)

I think expositions are really important. Thanks for this one. --ThorstenStaerk 05:14, April 19, 2011 (UTC)

If you mean the comment about bash, I agree wholeheartedly. I don't think I stated it clearly above, but one motive for my current push to add stubs is to make sure there's a good link to a man page for each and every coreutils command, with the hope that this will discourage mere repetition of what is better available elsewhere and encourage stuff that's not normally put in a man page. --4dummies 13:44, April 19, 2011 (UTC)

Project: Skipping over multiple redirects

For many pages, clicking on "What links here" gives only a partial picture because only a couple of layers of redirection are followed, but some names are redirected through LOT more than 2 alterrnate names before coming to rest on a page with actual content. I'm clearing this out -- 23:50, May 1, 2011 (UTC)

Project: Finding man pages

Over 1000 double redirects have now been reduced. None have survived. It should be easier now to figure out where any given page fits in the Wiki. There's work to be done there, because not all of the names and links should be as they are. However, I've changed only a small handful, and I'm not sure I'm the right guy to go beyond what's there.

The new project is to find man pages on the web for all the pages in Category:Command, and link to them. I'm concerned about the quality, stability and authority of the pages I find.

-- 4dummies 01:40, May 10, 2011 (UTC)