User talk:Cumin the barbarian

Hi, welcome to Recipes Wiki! Thanks for your edit to the Brown Gravy page.

Please leave a message on my talk page if I can help with anything! -- MtaÄ (Talk) 17:20, 3 June 2009

Fabulous user name
Love the name. :-) Jimbo Wales 20:58, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Categorytree parser function
Nifty function, but it would not be good to use it for the larger categories, like say Category:Chicken Recipes, but thanks for pointing it out. And the reason i edit her a lot is that it's my job :D ... i've been tasked with cleaning up this wiki and have been at that particular task for over a year now. Glad to have you aboard! — Game widow (talk) 23:44, March 1, 2011 (UTC)

Bug report
I'd be happy to make the bug report for you. But first, a question (or two), what browser do you use ? on which operating system? and finally, (and this is my personal bias, so feel free to ignore) why on earth would you use the wysiwyg editor? — Game widow (talk) 12:01, March 2, 2011 (UTC)
 * It's now in our ticket queue (case #3270). If you use Firefox and are willing to just use the plain text editor, i can provide you with a greasemonkey script that greatly speeds up formatting recipes, just let me know — Game widow (talk) 13:04, March 2, 2011 (UTC)

I just find the wysiwyg editors beyond irritating, so i always switch them off :D ... carry on! — Game widow (talk) 18:25, March 2, 2011 (UTC)

Recipe copyright and external links
I have not personally researched this, but i was told that recipes cannot be copyrighted. However, if the text is a wholesale / word-for-word copy of another, then i'd agree that it's not right, but all we have to do is change it up a bit and things are fine again. so for this mangia mangia one, i'd change the title to something more descriptive of what the recipe is actually about, add an explicit section about what cookbook it does come from and that it was found in the Tuscon Citizen and i think that would be ok.

''U.S. copyright law addresses recipes, but what holds sway can be called either ethics or etiquette. Cooking is not considered inventing; rather, it evolves. Copyright law specifies that "substantial literary expression in the form of an explanation or directions," such as a cookbook, can be copyrighted but that a mere list of ingredients cannot receive that protection.'' (from The Washington Post) and there's also this.

So i see no real reason for a notice, unless the notice also states that the recipe will be rewritten so as to not be a direct copy and that the source will be added.

As for the external links, i'm not entirely sure what you mean. Wikia (and not me personally) decided to change the basic css and make all links, internal and external, appear the same way. If that is what you mean, then it's intentional, if not, then i'm afraid i'll need a different explanation to be able to see your point and make your case to the tech team. — Game widow (talk) 11:51, March 4, 2011 (UTC)
 * Ah I see what you mean, and i have no idea right now why the little link icon would not show up in that template, but i'd be happy to look into it ... maybe it is something the techs would want to fix :D (though what they choose to address or not is often a mystery to me) — Game widow (talk) 14:12, March 5, 2011 (UTC)

Fixed layout and notices
By fixed, do you mean fixed up (as in what i've been doing) or that horrible template that some people use ? If it's the former, by all means, feel free to add it ... or just tell me here which recipe needs it, since i'm pretty much the only person who fixes layout. If it's the "template" (technically called the PLB for Page Layout Builder, a "feature" i personally despise) it might not be possible, that thing does all sorts of strange things with data that you attempt to enter. So i guess, again, just let me know here, which it is, or if you feel really ambitious, you can copy out the page contents to a clipboard, delete the one with the PLB and recreate the page using just the basic editor (or even the wysiwyg editor) — Game widow (talk) 14:38, March 5, 2011 (UTC)

Technicalities
You've hit on a very thorny issue. What the techs /can/ do and what they /do/ do are two very different things. Part of the problem is that the way wikia presents its wikis is decided not by the tech team, but by the "product" team, and that team is not technically oriented. Further, that team feels that dumbing down the interface is the way to go to "grow" the "product". For me, this is a huge problem and NOT at all the way to go, so i'm afraid neither of us will get much joy out of suggesting things that the tech team /could/ do. I can get broken stuff fixed, but that PLB is not considered broken (though i feel it's beyond broken!), it's considered a "work in progress". I have complained long and loud about how unmanageable it is, especially for editing after the page has been created, but i'm considered to be "not playing with the team" on that score. I'll keep up my protests, but so far, i've gotten exactly nowhere with them. I live in hope :D ... i'm just an optimist (joke) — Game widow (talk) 15:01, March 5, 2011 (UTC)