User talk:Smjg

Check out Talk:Episode 4358 if you haven't seen it already :) Soo 02:49, 9 September 2007 (BST)

Thanks for your work so far, we're making much faster progress than I expected. Don't forget to change the shuffled version of the TTT, which for some reason the parser has got wrong almost everywhere. Soo 14:21, 18 September 2007 (BST)

Just to save you some time, I'm going to have all the easy arithmetic symbols (x, /, *) replaced with the proper ones (&times, ÷) automatically at some point, so don't worry about fixing them. For conundrums, do you think we should put wrong answers in lower case? Again that can be fixed automatically. Soo 16:31, 18 September 2007 (BST)

Yes, formatting the solutions is a tricky one. I tend to suppress brackets as far as precedence will allow, although I also rewrite e.g. "4-1+3" to "4+3-1" just in case. I also tend to write "4x3 + 6x7" to reinforce the tighter binding of x. It's difficult to formalise these aesthetic tweaks, although by all means have a go if you can think of a way to systematise it. About conundrum solutions, you're right - I meant to put a cross after MAJORITY, but I've deliberately been putting all solutions in caps. No big deal to change that. Soo 17:01, 18 September 2007 (BST)

I notice you invented some notation for misdeclarations. We definitely need some but maybe something a bit more streamlined. Maybe "focal⁴ ☓" or something? I don't know, I'm open to better ideas. Perhaps we could integrate a "what is this?" link to answer the obvious question such disallowed words are likely to raise! Soo 01:16, 19 September 2007 (BST)

Regarding the "what is this?" question, are you meaning a different link to indicate (a) using a letter not in the selection (b) giving a word not in the dictionary (c) declaring the wrong length (d) etc. It would also be nice to have an easier way of typing ☓, rather than copying and pasting from another example. Is there a way that I haven't found?

Yes. MediaWiki markup supports HTML character entities, so you can use ☓. -- Smjg 22:21, 19 September 2007 (BST)

Regarding suppressing of brackets, I agree. I've already been changing such things as (3×2)+1 to 3×2+1, but so far haven't changed something like 6×100−(8−3) to 6×100+3−8. I think I'll adapt to that. Drawoh 11:25, 19 September 2007 (BST)

Dumper eating talk pages

Good point, I totally didn't think of this. I'll generate a list of all affected pages, it probably won't be that many. Soo 14:08, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Tool

I don't know anything about D, but if I can run it on the server then that might well be useful. Charlie 22:34, 14 July 2009 (BST)

BTW another cleanup you might want to do is changing all the various forms of crosses to the uniform x template. I will do these en masse at some point but it doesn't hurt to do a few on the fly. Charlie 22:38, 14 July 2009 (BST)

Recap writer

Am I right in thinking that you're writing all these wiki recaps without the Recap Writer? Entirely your choice of course, but it really makes things vastly easier, and eliminates a lot of the tedious arithmetic and bookkeeping from the process. Charlie 03:06, 15 July 2009 (BST)

There's currently no way to mark misdeclarations, you have to enter it as a standard disallowed word (lower case) and then stick in the template afterwards. I might work on that. Charlie 21:14, 15 July 2009 (BST)

Vicky Smith (Series 61)

Sorry, I just set her page up ready for Howard to work on. It was most important to separate her from the other Vicky Smith in the meantime while he is away. Rich Priest would probably be the best person to talk to to confirm the mother's name. Vande 09:36, 18 July 2009 (BST)

Recap tweaks

Hey, I was just wondering whether you could give me a little insight as to what your program thingy does so you don't have to waste time editing my recaps. :-) Countdown Kid 14:57, 25 July 2009 (BST)

What my program basically does is:

• in the intro section, replaces the hyphen between the scores with an ndash, with nbsp's either side
• replaces directly entered crosses with the {{x}} template per Charlie's suggestion
• changes arithmetic operators in numbers solutions to the proper Unicode ones, and makes sure there's a space either side of each
• checks whether the TTTs are present and complete, and adds to Category:Recaps with missing or incomplete Teatime Teasers if not
• puts in the arithmetician category if it's missing (currently assumes the host category is already present in doing so)
• normalises a few entity-referenced characters to directly entered ones (but you don't really need to worry about this)

-- Smjg 16:25, 25 July 2009 (BST)

Partial recaps

Hi Stewart,

Thanks for your message. I am a little confused as to where I have gone wrong - could you clarify which recaps I have removed from Category:Partial recaps in error? As far I am aware, I have only ever removed the rounds to check template from those recaps which I have personally gone through and compared to the original textual recap on the Countdown Database, round by round, with every single detail in place. With almost no exceptions, I've always highlighted recaps combed through in this way with the edit summary "Checked against the original recap."

I'm not disputing that I might have made an error - I've checked so many recaps I probably have done one or two on autopilot - but perhaps you might just show me the specific edit(s) which you dispute.

Thanks in advance, Chris 'Crispy' Philpot 22:04, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

You're quite right, what a cock-up. Sorry mate! It won't happen again. -- Chris 'Crispy' Philpot 11:06, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Dash fixes

I'm currently writing a parser for the wikicaps, and weird characters like en-dashes make life a lot more difficult, so I just wanted a quick fix. If they're hidden away in templates then that's no problem, so in future feel free to use {{score}} or whatever. Charlie 17:59, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

The parser is for generating the 1000 new classics games I've just added to apterous. It worked quite nicely, there are a lot of weird bits of ad hoc syntax that people have introduced but mostly it's not bad. In future I might consider using it to spit out a nice clean version of every recap, and unify the various different formats for e.g. disallowed words we've got. Charlie 10:42, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

You tell me. Can your program cope with every quirk of recap template syntax and process all the recaps at once? Charlie 21:47, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

Discussion consolidated and continued at User talk:Reams. -- smjg 01:04, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

COC13

Series 54 people didn't take part. The Doctor

My Username

It's all fine now. It's User:the Doctor

Puns in TTT clues

I am writing, as I write, a TTT for one of Richard's final semi's. The clue is "Add to Seven/SeveRn to make a mess. (POLELUST - POLLUTES). So what do you think The Doctor 13:59, 12 July 2010 (BST)

Discussion taken to Countdown talk:Recap checking style guide. Better to keep it in one place. -- smjg 22:31, 12 July 2010 (BST)

Template:R-TTT

See here, for example. Looks better, huh? --The Doctor 11:44, 28 August 2010 (BST)

To be honest, I can't make up my mind which looks better. Nor whether it would be nicer if we added letter-spacing like on the letters round selections. -- smjg 12:26, 28 August 2010 (BST)

Date templates

Well done, Stuart. Looking at the timings of your recent edits, it appears that you've now got an automated system for changing the scores on the date templates to the revise form. I'm so glad I stopped doing it for a while. You've saved me a whole lot of effort.  :) --Drawoh 16:29, 7 September 2010 (BST)

Well, it's semi-automated I suppose. I've made a little program similar to the one I use to polish the recaps. It doesn't do much at the moment, though it does also check for missing episodes. -- smjg 16:48, 7 September 2010 (BST)

It seems to do just what's necessary, and that's the main thing. --Drawoh 16:54, 7 September 2010 (BST)

It's always nice to see the Date templates being tidied after I've made a small update to them. However, there are some which I'm not needing to update, and because of that, you're not picking them up for tidying. If I name them here, can you run your tidy routine over them? For November, the ones which still need your care and attention are 13th, 14th, 19th, 20th, 21st, 26th, 28th, 29th. --Drawoh 09:22, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

I do get round to them all eventually. I've lately been doing a few each day, working through the calendar, though I have slipped behind in the last few days with so many recaps to polish appearing in the RSS. But thanks for the list. -- smjg 11:17, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Limiting Other words

For Round 2 here, there are a lot of 6-lettered words here. I was thinking to include the first 3 others so it neatens the recap. --The Doctor 20:14, 1 October 2010 (BST)

I'm a little confused. Are you suggesting that we include three 6s as well as the loads of 7s that are there? I personally think that we ought to cut the number of words listed here, but I'm not sure either what would be a good limit or how to decide which ones to keep. Maybe we could have a standard whereby all words are shown if there are n or fewer, otherwise list m (< n) of them followed by an "etc.". Hmm.... -- smjg 23:18, 1 October 2010 (BST)

I think The Doctor meant a lot of 7-letter words, and was proposing to restrict the number displayed. My opinion is that we should keep them all. That's the standard that has been set, and it's what is done in other recaps.--Drawoh 23:58, 1 October 2010 (BST)

Piped links in templates

Thanks for the info, Stuart.--Drawoh 09:25, 12 October 2010 (BST)

{{finals progress}}

Hi. Is there a way of making it say "Jack Hurst (1) vs ?" The Doctor 10:50, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Discussion taken to Template talk:Finals progress. -- smjg 12:35, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Episode 5062

I have reverted your tidying because the whole article has been made worse. The Doctor 19:32, 15 December 2010 (UTC)