User talk:Robotic Sam

Welcome!

Hello, Robotic Sam, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question and then place {{helpme}} before the question on your talk page. Again, welcome!

Good to see you're getting involved with Wikipedia, Sam. Looking forward to working with you! (It's Daniel, just so you know) Tuvok[^T@lk/_{Improve me}] 21:11, 18 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Tip: The minor edit checkbox[edit]

Yay, you edited something! Since I refuse to use the message templates for anyone I know (they're really impersonal), I'll just give you the hint myself. When you make a very small change to an article, it's generally a good thing to check the "This is a minor edit" box on the edit page. People who watch the recent changes for vandalism often filter out minor edits, because anonymous users can't use that checkbox. If your edit is completely non-controversial, and couldn't possibly be construed as vandalism, go ahead and mark it minor if it's really tiny (like, for example, this edit you made). If you're curious, head to Help:Minor edit to learn more. Enjoy contributing!

PS: Most of the edits I make are minor, because I patrol for spelling and that sort of thing... Tuvok[^T@lk/_{Improve me}] 20:54, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed WikiProject Robotics[edit]

Sam, there's a proposal at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals#Robotics that looks like something related to, um, robotics. Perhaps you'd be interested in supporting the project's creation? Tuvok[^T@lk/_{Improve me}] 21:48, 14 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Talked about it off-wiki; user expressed interest. Can't believe I'm just getting to this now... Tuvok[^T@lk/_{Improve me}] 11:58, 22 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

How's it going?[edit]

I see you haven't been editing much. What's up? Do you need help? Tuvok[^T@lk/_{Improve me}] 12:03, 22 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Nah, I've just been really busy. Robotic Sam (talk) 13:52, 23 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

So does this mean you're not as busy? :) Tuvok[^T@lk/_{Improve me}] 01:58, 24 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, it's Winter Break! I actually get an opportunity to sleep (and edit Wikipedia)! Robotic Sam (talk) 00:47, 25 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Gotta love winter break. :) I've been making thousands of requests to my local server over the past couple days, so... Yeah. Hundreds of megabytes of data transfer, both on the HTTP and MySQL servers. Lots of editing personal wiki... Tuvok[^T@lk/_{Improve me}] 00:57, 25 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Seeing lots of things that I don't understand... but that's fairly normal. Time for some random Wikipedia-ing. :) PS: I'm glad that the holidays are pretty much over - they take way too much work. :P —Preceding unsigned comment added by Robotic Sam (talk • contribs) 23:39, 26 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Er, no random wiki-editing in your contribs. You must have gotten distracted or something... ;) Tuvok[^T@lk/_{Improve me}] 13:41, 27 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hey, distracting myself is my specialty. :D —Preceding unsigned comment added by Robotic Sam (talk • contribs) 17:18, 28 December 2007

(undent) Ha. I guess you're right. :D Tuvok[^T@lk/_{Improve me}] 18:10, 28 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

PS: You might want to remind yourself of that signature button... :)

Yeah... You should be on Gtalk. We keep missing each other. I am very forgetful. :D Here: Robotic Sam (talk) 22:10, 28 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Woo-hoo, you did it! :P As long as I'm here, I might as well tip you off that I'll be adding a new page to swrobotics.com soon. Once I get a few more pieces of info from Mark, that is. Tuvok[^T@lk/_{Improve me}] 02:00, 29 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

What will the new page be about? Robotic Sam (talk) 17:42, 29 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'll be blogging it, don't worry, but it involves a list and code like this:

<?php
ksort($memberslist);
$picdir = dirname( __FILE__ ) . '/images/07-08/members';
foreach($memberslist as $curmember) {
    $filename = strtolower($curmember['name']) . '_' . strtolower($curmember['initial']) . '_' . $curmember['grade'];
    if(!file_exists("$picdir/$filename.jpg")) $filename = 'nopic';
    $initial = ($curmember['initial'] != '') ? $curmember['initial'] : '?' ;
    echo "<div class=\"memberlisting\">\n";
    echo "<img class=\"memberpic\" src=\"images/07-08/members/{$filename}.jpg\" width=\"136\" height=\"106\">\n";
    echo "<h3>{$curmember['name']} {$initial}.</h3>\n";
    echo "<p>Grade: {$curmember['grade']}</p>\n";
    echo "<p>Team Role: {$curmember['role']}</p>\n";
    echo "<p>Member since {$curmember['joined']}</p>\n";
    echo "</div>\n";
    echo "<div class=\"clearfix\"></div>\n";
}
?>

Any guesses? The variable names should be a big hint. ;) Tuvok[^T@lk/_{Improve me}] 20:51, 29 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think I sort of get it... the variable names do help. :D I'm glad that someone is blogging. Mark still hasn't, has he? Robotic Sam (talk) 04:57, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Nope, nothing. He hasn't even continued working on the post from the beginning of the month. My note's still in it.

I just launched the new page (meaning I added a link to it). I'm planning a few back-end updates, but it's pretty complete except for the missing photos (there is an email out). Have a look! Let me know how the effects work in Internet Explorer 7. :) Tuvok[^T@lk/_Improve] 05:25, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Happy New Year!! I just looked at the new page, I like it. I know Malcolm took pictures of me, where did they go? Hmmm... Anyway, the page looks good to me in IE 7. (blech!) Your blog entry was funny. Robotic Sam (talk) 16:33, 1 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(undent) Er... Well, I did get pictures of you and Malcolm, but they were pretty bad pictures (incredibly blurry, in Malcolm's case). So that's why I didn't put them up. Mark didn't include the reason in his email, I saw. Glad the page works in IE7 (ptuui!). Did you get it complete with circuit-board effects? Those don't work in IE6, so I can't test. Tuvok[^T@lk/_Improve] 17:01, 1 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What are circuit-board effects? The only thing I can think of is the type that you solder... I assume that's not what you're talking about. :D I'll try to find a decent-looking picture of me for the sheet. Robotic Sam (talk) 20:51, 1 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm, maybe I made them too subtle. :P Try looking at the right end of a member listing and putting the mouse cursor over it. Something should pop up. Tuvok[^T@lk/_Improve] 00:31, 2 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That's what that is! That is really cool! Robotic Sam (talk) 20:57, 2 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Glad you think so! Thanks to The GIMP for helping with that, and with preparing all the photos. (I did red-eye removal in Picasa, though.) Tuvok[^T@lk/_Improve] 00:10, 3 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

WP:ROBO[edit]

OK... so I've began to assess the robotics articles. Please review the article assessment guidelines and help this WikiProject out by helping out with the following:

Adding Robotics-related articles to the WikiProject
Assessing robotics articles listed in Category:Robotics articles by quality
Helping out with giving comments to individual articles after assessment, pointers, comments, etc. (basically, don't just give an article class and move on, let people know what led you to give such a rating when necessary.

We need to get this article assessment drive going first before peer reviews and collaborations programs can be made.

Note: advertising for this WikiProject:

Static Banner

If you want to use it for our WikiProject advertisement, simple paste [[Image:Wikiprojectrobotics.png]] to use this static banner.

Animated Banner

Our ad is now in the Wikipedia Ads circulation. Help promote WikiProject Robotics by displaying this image on your userpage, or to place Wikipedia Ads to your user page, you may add {{Wikipedia ads}}.

Display only certain ads: Here's the script to only display certain ads (so you can have people see our Robotics ad more often (or just only display this ad only). Note: WikiProject:Robotics Ad is #116.

{{Wikipedia ads|ad={{#switch:{{#expr:{{NUMBEROFEDITS:R}} mod 12}} <!-- mod 12 is the number of ads total-->
|0=24  <!--Change the the ad number of your choice here.  Remember, -->
|1=45  <!--this is an array, so the count starts with 0, and ends   -->
|2=73  <!--with one number lower than the total number of ads.  :-) -->
|3=77 |4=86 |5=94 |6=104 |7=106 |8=116 |9=116 |10=116 |11=116}}}}

Please let me know if you have any questions. - Jameson L. Tai ^{talk ♦ contribs} 10:07, 3 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Would you look at that? It got started! Tuvok[^T@lk/_Improve] 11:36, 3 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Cool. :) The code and stuff makes my brain hurt, though. But I like the animated banner - it's awesome! Robotic Sam (talk) 13:16, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

WikiProject Robotics July Newsletter[edit]

The WikiProject Robotics Newsletter
Issue I (July 2008)

Project news

Project now covers 1000 articles on Wikipedia and is continuously growing in coverage and in members
New article assessment drive! Please help by assessing articles with no class assessment or importance rating!
New {{Robotics Barnstar}}! Give it to someone who has improved significant portions of robotics articles or WikiProject Robotics!
Four new DYKs were featured this month.

Articles of note

New Featured articles:

New Good articles:

Current proposals and discussions

Discussion on whether to add subcategories into this WikiProject and whether to create separate task forces per subcategory.

Awards and honors

User:Jiuguang Wang was recently awarded the Wikipedia Barnstar for his continued efforts in the article assessment drive.

The current Robotics Collaborations of the Fortnight are:
Editor Nominated Topic	Robotics
B-Class Improvement Drive	FIRST Robotics
Start/Stub Improvement Drive	Home automation
Every fortnight three robotics-related topics, stubs, or red linked articles are chosen for you to improve. Be bold! This COTF is organized by WikiProject Robotics. (Nominate future collaborations or see past collaborations.) This WP:ROBO/COTF is effective: February 29, 2008—March 13, 2008.

Things to do

Continue upkeep of Robotics Portal
Assign a class and importance level to unassessed articles
Place {{WikiProject Robotics}} on every related talk page.

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