User talk:Boblipton

Hey. You appear to be from the US as you use the american spelling of travelling. As DW is a UK show, we use UK spelling, so traveling is incorrect, hence why it is underlined in red when editing a page. We use travelling, so please don't change it to traveling. Thanks. The Thirteenth Doctor 13:58, October 15, 2010 (UTC)

Thanks :)
Lest you think that admin don't notice small edits, let me say thank you for knowing where to put a damned period. :) If only more editors around here could make delightfully useful edits like the one you just made at Martin Clunes. And for the record, I have no idea what The Thirteenth Doctor was on about, above. Whether you put a single or double l on travelling is correct in both strands of English. It's more common to see traveling in Britain and travelling in the US, but both spellings are valid alternatives in both localities, at least according to both the OAD and OED. Computer spellcheckers, of course, aren't smart enough to recognize alternative spellings. So use whichever spelling you want. Just use the same spelling across an entire article. And please keep contributing. Your work is clearly solid.

You're quite welcome, Czechout. I am happy to be able to offer some simple line editing for punctuation, grammar and clarity. I used to do this professionally a couple of decades ago and it is good to be able to do so again in my spare time. I intend to avoid editing for content at least for the time being. There seem to be a plethora of people around here who are happy to dedicate far more time to the pursuit of all things WHO than I.

As for the Thirteenth Doctor's issues, I am well acquainted with the trauma of people who are told that their command of their language is not perfect, that there are different ways of doing things than the ones beaten into them and so forth. I also appreciate his desire to maintain consistency of spelling when possible and will try to not change spellings from standard British English when I am aware of the distinction -- although if I find massive spelling errors in an article again, I may change a word or two that is correctly spelled to my more usual correct spelling in the general clean up. I will also tend to be old-fashioned and simple in my sentence construction.

Might I suggest that if there is some sort of function that permits it, to run a universal search of "travelling" and "travelled" and change it to be consistent?

Bob
 * Yes, there is such a thing. I've got a bot that can do precisely this sort of "search and replace gig".  But I don't intend to use it for this particular word because, as I said, both forms are correct — on both sides of the Atlantic.  I tend to use the bot only for editing actual errors or violations of site policy.  Travelling falls no further foul of our manual of style than does traveling. Anyway, Bob, glad you're here and I hope to keep seeing your name pop up in the "Recent Wiki Activity" box.  00:00:36 Fri 04 Mar 2011

20:09:11 Fri 11 Mar 2011

Mini-mitch\talk 17:24, March 15, 2011 (UTC)

15:50:27 Tue 29 Mar 2011

Mini-mitch\talk 14:49, July 6, 2011 (UTC)

Admin nomination
I have recommended that you be made an admin. If you do not wish to become an admin, please refuse the nomination quickly, so that no time is wasted on debating the merits of the case. 01:02:28 Tue 12 Jul 2011

As the nomination has vanished, I should note the two primary issues of my response to the nomination; first, I thanked Czechout for the compliment. Second, I turned down the nomination. Boblipton 11:54, July 26, 2011 (UTC)

Real World template
For some reason the "noinclude" notation on the Real World template isn't working so all the language about "Usage" etc is showing up. As you were the last person to edit it, and your edit removed the opening "noinclude" I reverted your edit to fix the formatting problem. However it appears "noinclude" still isn't working. You no doubt have noticed this by now yourself (unless it fixed itself). In any event, no reflection intended on your edit - it was just an attempt at fixing a format. Please feel free to go back and remove the text you were intending to, assuming the "noinclude" issue works itself out. Cheers. 23skidoo 03:44, August 4, 2011 (UTC)
 * Well the reason that noinclude failed to function was because you totally blanked the template code from the template page, leaving behind only the usage text. If it hadn't been made by you, I'd call it a direct act of vandalism, because your edit was, in template terms, the same as simply blanking a page.  Because it was you, I'm sure it was just a mistake.  I'm curious, though — what were you trying to accomplish?  You left behind no revision note, so it's difficult to divine what you were doing.  Because of the relatively catastrophic and wide-ranging effects your edit had, however, I've locked the page from further editing.  If you'd like to have an impact upon editing this page, please let me know what you were trying to do.


 * In future, please do be mindful that these top-of-page templates are propagated on hundreds — in this case, thousands — of pages. Changes will have a dramatic effect upon the cache, and so should not be undertaken lightly.  Certainly, changes should not be made which materially affect the message that is being conveyed on such a widely-used templates.  Changes to anything "notincluded" on the template (that is, within statements) won't have such a dramatic effect upon the system, as they only appear on the one page.   22:23:03 Sun 07 Aug 2011

I was trying to add a "real world" tag to the article, and I got caught up in the code by accident. To say I regret the accidental blasting, once I realized what I had done, seemed to me superfluous. It seems I was mistaken. Sorry for the error. Boblipton 00:58, August 8, 2011 (UTC)

MM/ Want to talk? 20:32, August 9, 2011 (UTC)

What?
Hey, I made a little template because I thought about what you said on your profile page. As you point out, you run across sentences which are opaque to you, because you don't have a doctorate in Doctor Who. It might be useful for you to therefore use what? — or, if you want to save a keystroke, what. This flags an individual sentence, with a little tag like this one:  It also puts the page automatically into a category so that it can be found easily. Hopefully, you'll find it a useful tool. 22:07:08 Thu 18 Aug 2011

Very kind of you. Boblipton 22:09, August 18, 2011 (UTC)

17:11:27 Mon 22 Aug 2011

IP user
In response to your request on User:CzechOut's talk page, I have blocked the user who vandalised the page. Thank you for bringing this to our attention. --Revan\Talk 20:21, August 31, 2011 (UTC)

Klade
The term "super-evolved" didn't originate with me. It's a direct quote from Lance Parkin's AHistory, and if he's the author who created the Klade, don't you think we should use his description? Zerinza 12:55, September 7, 2011 (UTC)

I didn't know that. Possibly we should, even though it may be an unnecessary distinction for someone not familiar with that particular work by Parkin. My aim is to be as clear as possible to the reader, not to worship at the self-admitted clay feet of Parkin. We are not limited to the words of the original author, who may take fifty-thousand words to tell a story while we hope to get it down to five hundred. Clarity, accuracy and brevity should be our watchwords, not "Lance Parkins says". How does "super-evolved" differ substantively from "evolved" and is the distinction telling to someone whose knowledge of the Klade limited to this article? Boblipton 13:04, September 7, 2011 (UTC)

Worship has nothing to do with it, as I'm not a fangirl of Parkin or any of the other Doctor Who authors for that matter. I do believe however he used "super-evolved" to convey the sense of ultimate life forms that exist very near the end of the universe (100,000,000,000,000 A.D., apparently). If so then I believe super- was a very effective prefix, and worth keeping. If the term's bothersome for some reason, then perhaps we could place quotation marks around it? Zerinza 13:23, September 7, 2011 (UTC)

No, it's not bothersome except for my tendency to chop out words whose utility is not immediately apparent. By all means, restore it, and thanks for discussing the matter. Boblipton 13:34, September 7, 2011 (UTC)

Come to think of it, as a compromise we could replace "super-evolved descendants" with "humanoid descendants" which not only solves the issue of redundancy but also clarifies what exactly sets the Klade apart from their Dalek ancestors. At present, I don't think there's any mention in the entry of them having a humanoid form, which as you said would make the article of little help to someone who's unfamiliar with the Klade... Zerinza 13:45, September 7, 2011 (UTC)

That's a nice distinction and I don't think of it as a compromise. It does offer additional information. By all means, make it if you think it good. Boblipton 13:53, September 7, 2011 (UTC)

Lyn Peterfield edit
I noticed that you had edited the page for Lyn Peterfield, and although I can appreciate the grammar (and tense) correction there were a couple instances where I thought the translation was incomplete and another where some data was lost. Specifically, I'd like to refer to information lost in the translation: "At some point learning" to "Knowing". This is, indeed, a peeve of mine where I think it should have been tremendously important for Torchwood to find out where and when Lyn learned this information. In the TW:Rendition episode, Lyn's source of knowledge is not discussed (which I consider to be a plot-hole, and said so in that forum) - I intend to raise the question of how long in advance Lyn may have known. --Watcher4200 01:26, September 8, 2011 (UTC)