User talk:Barnaby dawson

Welcome to Wikipedia! I saw you were doing some good writing on direct democracy, and wanted to tell you to keep up the good work. Here are a few tips if you need any help:

• You can ask questions at Wikipedia:Help desk
• Or read up at Wikipedia:FAQ
• Wikipedia:Tutorial will teach you how to edit
• Wikipedia:Manual of style is our writing guide
• Wikipedia:Policies--read it eventually

Best wishes, [[User:Meelar|Meelar (talk)]] 14:47, 23 Jun 2004 (UTC) P.S. You can sign your name with four tildes, like this: ~~~~

Liberal democracy

146.124.141.250 made again a lot of changes in the text on Liberal democracy, forgetting that Wikipedia should be neutral. I will try to change the text later. Your suggestion to integrate Liberal democracy into Democracy is positive but we might have to integrate more articles, like representative democracy and direct democracy. Gangulf 14:23, 2 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Help

Sorry to bother you, but you seem to know what you're doing on Wikipedia. I was viewing the article on Freedom of Speech, and I deleted the whole text and left it only with "[censored]" (sorry, but I couldn't resist). I don't want to be an ass and have you clean up after me, but I know there's an easy way to bring back the previous version and unfortunately I don't know how it's done. So if you would be so kind as to fix it, I would appreciate it very much. Sorry for the trouble!

Don't worry about it.  Someone came along 12 minutes after you made 
your change and wikipedia:revert it to the previous version.  On 
wikipedia you can click on the tab wikipedia:history to view 
previous versions of a page.  If you select a previous version and 
then save it you can restore an old version of the page that is not
vandalised.  But hey don't do it again! Barnaby dawson 21:06, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Tips:

• use a lowercase 'a' in See also
• you can use a : to indent text instead of using preformatted text by adding a space to the beginning of the line

By the way, I don't think it would be best to link to wikibooks that do not appear to be very complete yet. It's up to you, though. Dysprosia 13:42, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Hello. I notice you been adding a huge number of "See also" sections, with a capital "A" in "Also". As you see in Wikipedia:Manual of Style, lower-case is conventional here. Thus

Right:

See also

Wrong:

See Also

Michael Hardy 21:26, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Factory farming and Propaganda

Barnaby, I did leave some notes on the talk page why I had no doubt that this link was propaganda. If you will read my notes and see the article on propaganda, I think you will have to agree that this link is classic propaganda, even though you may agree with it. If you still disagree, for the sake of harmony, please by all means change it back. --H2O 10:52, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Electronic direct democracy

Hi Barnaby, I moved the EDD talk from my personal talk to the Direct democracy talk, where I responded. I think this discussion should be kept "in public" so that others may wish to engage in it. -- Stevietheman 12:16, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Re: 0/0

That was a fantastic rewrite! I've changed my vote to keep. (And people say that VfD doesn't work.) --Ardonik.talk() 17:29, Sep 19, 2004 (UTC)

I second that. Good rewrite! Antandrus 17:30, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)

From User page:

• What you've done is very good. I'm actually experiencing sibling-rivalry-like pangs because I started working on this—you can see what I've got on User:Dpbsmith/temp—but what you've got is much more straightforward and to the point. I might come back and polish it sometime. What I've written myself currently has too much in it about numbers and intuition and not enough about 0/0.

• I think you should definitely copy what you have to a temporary location somewhere in case the 0/0 page does get deleted. I'm not sure where this material should go. It could go in Division by zero or Indeterminate form or possibly on a new page, Zero divided by zero. I'm going to these comments on Michael Hardy's talk page, too, and see if he has any thoughts.

• Actually, I have a technical question for Michael Hardy. It's one of the things that has hung me up a bit. What is the most correct answer to the question "What is the value of sin(0)/0?" I guess the question is, what is the meaning of "sin(0)/0"? If it means the value of sin(0) divided by 0, then the answer is "indeterminate" or "NaN" (not a number), as I don't believe 0/0 is part of any definition of "number" that has ever been proposed. On the other hand, if it means "the limit of sin(x)/x as x approaches zero," the answer is not indeterminate at all, it is 1. It just "feels wrong" to me to say that sin(0)/0 is indeterminate, though; I feel that it "is" 1. Thoughts?

I am sorry that Michael Hardy has chosen to bite your finger instead of looking where you were pointing. Apparently he is not sympathetic to the needs of those at a lower level of mathematical sophistication than himself.... [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 22:32, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)

0/0 and zero divided by zero

Hello Barnaby, a couple of comments in response to your message. (1) The previous content of 0/0 is still recoverable after a redirect; you can find it in the page history. If you want to restore 0/0, take it up on talk:0/0. Making a new page (zero divided by zero in this case) because of an edit conflict is frowned upon, I'm afraid. I'll probably redirect zero divided by zero to indeterminate form unless some good reason to keep it separate comes up in discussion in the next few days. (2) Yes, I know that the page was revised after being listed on vfd. However, I'm generally in agreement w/ Mike Hardy that the revised page is still weak; that's why I redirected it. One comment on the text at this point is that a basic or simple explanation is usually not a lengthy explanation; my advice, if you care, is to strive for concision at all levels of mathematics. Regards & happy editing, Wile E. Heresiarch 14:57, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The new version is a completely new text from the old version. If you read the talk page of zero divided by zero you will find that the intention is to incorporate parts of the text into indeterminate form. I didn't know there was any established ettiquiete for what to do if you rewrite an article that is up for deletion or redirection and that is lost through the decision upon that page. If the article had not been up for deletion then I would have reverted you and asked for an explanation but I just assumed you were taking action upon the voting on 0/0. Explanations maybe short (as indeed is the one given in the article) but supporting examples may take more space and exposing the errors in reasoning that cause people to think 0/0 has a numerical value is not without use either. Why not work with me to incorporate as much as possible of the text of zero divided by zero into the article on indeterminate form or other articles where it is relevent? Once this has been done I do agree the article can be redirected. Barnaby dawson 17:22, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Hello Barnaby. About 0/0, after further reflection I think it should be redirected to division by zero and any further development on the topic of 0/0 should go there. I might work on that soon. Wile E. Heresiarch 15:17, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Amy Nelson's comments

Hi Barnaby, I saw that you restored comments to my user page, as you stated this is etiquette. However I believe I am not breaking any rules by editing my own page if I wish to do so, and I had very good reason to edit it. Please do not restore things to my user page or talk page again, if people wish to look at the history that is their choice. I am not greatly concerned with etiquette, as I had good reason to edit. AmyNelson.

Barnaby, your note on my page reads like a threat, I dont beleive I would be banned for deleting something I felt necessary on my own page and I dont appreciate your suggestion. Please DO NOT post on my talk page again, I will now have to further delete your unwelcome "possibilty of banning" note! I have done nothing wrong accept offend your sense of etiquette. User:AmyNelson 23:38, Oct 2, 2004

In response to Amy's comments I would say that unlike her I will not remove her comments that are critical of myself despite disagreeing with them. For the record the comments that I made on her page that she has deleted are archived here. Others can judge for themselves whether Amy Nelson's reaction to these comments is reasonable. Barnaby dawson 10:16, 17 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Mafia (game)

Thanks for your comment on the infobox I put into the Mafia article. I know there are version in which you play with less than the 7 players I mentioned, but those would be, IIRC, variants to the normal game. That's why I didn't mention them. If you have any other comments regarding edits I have done, feel free to contact me. [[User:MacGyverMagic|Mgm|^(talk)]] 15:33, Oct 2, 2004 (UTC)

The angel problem

Is the power of an angel measured as Pythagorean or New York distance? Or some other metric? -- The Anome 10:58, 17 Oct 2004 (UTC)

New york distance Barnaby dawson 16:27, 17 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Third pair mutations

thank you so much for spending the time to clarify the third-base pair stuff on my talkpage -- what you said made a LOT of sense ... and now i can see your point. i've got some reading to do:). thanks again:). Ungtss 00:24, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Question on mutation rates

i put this on the page ... i figured i'd put it here too just in case:) -- i really appreciate your help with this stuff:). i guess the question i'm left with is this: "what's the NORM for this variation? what are we comparing it TO?" because after we differentiated from the single-celled organisms, they would have gone through MANY MILLIONS of more generations than we would have (because our lifespans got longer while theirs stayed the same) ... same thing with the chimps, who reach sexual maturity at age 8 ... so their non-coding segments would have had much more opportunity to vary than ours -- how can we COMPARE the degrees of randomness, to show relationship? what's our null? any thoughts? Ungtss 04:11, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

It's not exactly the generations in bacteria that count its the rate of mutation and yes it is higher in bacteria. However, we can take that into account in our calculations and get a better figure for when a creatures line split from the prokaryotes. In sexual species the life span is more relevent but I think comparisons are often done on mitochondrial DNA which doesn't undergo sexual recombination. In plants chloroplasts are used to.

None of this effects the structure of the relationships between species. A non-tree relationship would generally remain so even if we got mutation rates wrong. What we do get is a distorted picture of when certain evolutionary events happened. Because of this many people work on ways to gauge rates of mutation. If I know two species originate from one species and I have a third closely related to those two then I can calculate how much mutation appears to have occured in each. The third species lets me judge what the original gene looked like when the two were one species. This allows me to see how variable the mutation rates are.

One thing that is difficult to gauge like this is large scale variations in mutation rates (maybe some star went supernova). This would distort the tree we get in that every organism (in our tree) 5 million years old might look like its 5.5 million years old (because all were subject to higher mutation rates for 2 million years). We can rule out the bigger such possible effects by looking at the geological strata and comparing age estimates for species that appear in there with age estimates obtained by phylogenetic trees. There will be some residual error which is too small to register in this comparison. Also, we can assume that the mutation rate wasn't drastically higher because we know mutation rates higher than a certain value will kill creatures. Like a lot of science in this area we obtain estimates from all available sources and compare them. While each individual estimate may have a high variance the estimates combined will have a low variance. Hope this is of help, Barnaby dawson 11:11, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

thanks again:). Ungtss 13:52, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

no apology needed

no offense taken:).

Limestone

"Deep limestone deposits are most reasonably explained as rapidly precipitating when CO2 suddenly escapes from carbonate-saturated ground water" - Limestone can be formed in many ways, in fact anywhere CaCO₃ accumulates, you can get limestone. This quote is probably talking about some unusual formation or something, but can't be refering to the way all limestone is formed. Without knowing what the author means by "Deep limestone deposit", the quote is rather meaningless. In short, this needs further elaboration as to what the writer is trying to support by using this quote and what the original author of the article was saying.

"Uniformitarian explanations fail because gradualism predicts a great deal of mixing in the formation of limestone, which is not observed." What..? Who says "mixing" is needed? All that's needed is accumulation of calcium carbonate and a little heat and pressure. There is no "mixing" needed.

"Further, for every molecule of limestone that precipitates, a carbon ion is released, predicting an equivalent amount of carbon in the atmospheres and seas as in limestone formations, while the amount of carbon in limestone on Earth exceeds the amount of carbon in the atmosphere and seas combined by almost 2000 times." Every molecule of limestone? Why is carbon released? Released from what? Why does the carbon "released" from CaCO₃ have to equal that in the atmosphere? And you'd expect carbon levels to be higher in surface rock than in the atmosphere. Why do they have to be the same? The original article might answer these questions...but we don't know from this quote.

In short: these quotes, to be taken seriously, need more background as to what the gist of the original articles are. The quotes are really meaningless and I wouldn't accept them as supporting anything. If you are going to use them, consider giving some wider context, like stating "In an article where the author tries to prove, observe, relate...", then after giving context go to the specifics of these quotees. They are not so great as they are rather out of context and any careful reader will spot that.

Anyway, my two cents worth. Hope I wasn't too long-winded. --DanielCD 22:21, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Thank you for that explanation. I shall remove the quotes from the page and cite your critique as an explanation. I don't know the wider context btw as I didn't produce the quotes. Regards :) Barnaby dawson 22:26, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Views of creationists

Barnaby, I feel your pain. The problem with the views page, as I see it, is that the agenda is set by creationists. Scientists have a wholly separate discussion on the subjects listed, and they are obviously not seen as part of the same agenda. No matter how you format the page it's always going to be on the one side the creationist bollocks about a particular area of science and on the other the completely unconnected scientific explanation of it. But the right hand is rarely an actual refutation of the left (which is why creationists love this kind of thing -- they can make it look as though science ignores this wonderful explanation and this damning evidence they have come up with -- but let's face it, science does not investigate hypotheses such as a gushing fountain of carbon dioxide from an underground reservoir providing all the world's limestone because it's on the face of it ridiculous; it does not give a second's thought to creationist carping about radiometric dating because it simply does not share the belief that radiometric dating was invented solely to con people into believing fossils are old).

Science has its own issues and debates. It barely pays attention to creationists. When it does, it destroys creationist arguments with devastating critique, but frankly it's always going to be on a loser. When you are debating a guy like Sarfati, you are up against a guy who will selectively choose from millions of facts (which scientists do not have the liberty of doing -- their theories must try to fit all the facts if they are to be accepted) and will ignore any counterarguments, or claim that they are motivated by other considerations (scientists cannot do that either -- they can't say "you made these observations to destroy my phlogiston theory because you [insert reason]". They also continuously move the goalposts. You could call it "reformulating the hypothesis" if it weren't for the hypothesis' being completely refuted. Take Behe. He says "you can't evolve a flagellum because it looks too complicated for natural selection". He is shown how and it's pointed out to him that the parts were coopted from other uses as many, many parts of many, many lifeforms are (Behe has to ignore most of the evidence to even begin to have a case, but that is of course what he does: he picks the evidence that he thinks fits best and attacks that). A scientist would simply give up the ghost.

Most importantly, I think, only the left-hand side actually is composed of "views". It's a collection of the wild speculation that creationists indulge in. The right-hand side, if it were really to give the "views" of scientists, would simply quote a Dawkins saying that it's all bollocks made up by charlatans and leave it at that.

Good luck with your studies, Barnaby.Dr Zen 23:25, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Re: Wikipedia:News sources/Internet/Africa

The moment when I visited the page it had just one external link and no write up. I thought a page with just one External link and no introduction was not a suitable article. So I marked it for deletion. And probably I was not wrong as same was felt by the administrators. Gaurav1146 12:27, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

The point is that it isn't by itself a page. It's a subpage. It's not accessible except through wikipedia:News sources. It is also clear that it can be made into a useful subpage. As such it is not reasonable to list it for deletion especially speedy deletion. Please can you remove the tag for deletion (I can't as I created the page).

Perhaps you came across this page out of the context of wikipedia:News sources. If so could you tell me how. I do not want other subpages still in their infancy to be deleted in error.

In general a subpage with this little text would not be useful. However, the purpose of the news sources collection is to provide NPOV by categorizing news sources a heirarchical structure. As such there must will be subpages with little on them. Barnaby dawson 12:42, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Re: Wikipedia:News sources/Internet/Africa

I got your point and I have removed the tag. I came to this page through RC Patrol. Sorry for the inconvenience. Gaurav1146 12:57, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

About the quote

So you are a faint-hearted biologist? I honestly doubt that! Please keep in mind, Mr. Dawson, that in no way does your acceptance of evolution have anything to do with being a passionate scientist. You can be critical of neo-Darwinian views, and if they (your collegues) choose to excommunicate you, so to speak, then don't ever let that stop you from becoming a great scientist. In fact, your awareness to the flaws of evolutionary theory technically make you more suited for your practice. Scientists need to be open minded; if they ever lock themselves down on something, they may be missing critical information that could actually be helping them along. Also, why does that quote bother you? You said you weren't a neo-Darwinist, so what's the disagreement about? Regards, Salva31 06:47, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

You've misread the passage I'm afraid. You seem to have assumed I wrote things that I did not. From my original post only the last two lines were written by me. I've edited it to try to make that more clear. Barnaby dawson 08:22, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I will remove it for now, since you claim to have helped with the paper, and because he does indeed seem to speak for his collegues rather than just himself. Thanks for your patience. Salva 17:16, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

See your talk page. I haven't claimed to have helped with the paper. Where I refer to "passage" above I'm talking about my comments on your talk page. Never the less I'm glad you've removed the quote. Barnaby dawson 17:31, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Civility

Sorry about that, but the comment was not related to you in any way. I didn't even realise the proximity to your comment. It wasn't exactly a polite things to say, and I regret saying it, but the comment was made about Salva - his comment made it apparent that he had either ignored or not read the replies to his question about radiometric dating. His reply started with a comment to "Grant", which Graft changed (with an edit summary something like "argh!". This was after he had fixed his name recently on the same page, I believe (I'd have to look at the diffs). So, I was struck by Salva's failure to digest what we had said to him, and his failure to read Graft's name right...

It wasn't a nice thing to say, but it was absolutely not aimed at you. Sorry about that though.

Out of curiosity - what is your field of study (your user page has me curious). Guettarda 20:56, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Neutrality

Hi Barnaby. You seem civil. Have you looked at Creationism and evolution related pages? From what I read, you seem pretty neutral, and I was wondering if you would like to help make disputed articles dealing with these subjects better. If so, would you be interested in joining this group: Creationism and Evolution NPOV Society? Please respond when you have a chance. Mred64 00:46, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

NPOV (Comparison of views in science)

Good point. I've changed it from 'guideline' to 'proposed'. It looked like a good idea to me so I wrongly assumed that it would therefore make a good guideline; if it does not have consensual support (yet?) then it isn't a guideline (yet?). Yours, Radiant_* 07:24, May 23, 2005 (UTC)

Re: Views of Creationists and mainstream scientists compared

at http://wiki.riteme.site/w/index.php?title=Views_of_Creationists_and_mainstream_scientists_compared&action=edit Are you looking for Voluteers to start this page, or are you already working on it? The Title says: Invitation... If you are looking for Voluteer Creationists, I may be able to find some to assist with this article, or write the Creationist Portion. --Truthteller 14:37, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The page you refer to has been deleted. I've replied further on your talk page. Barnaby dawson 14:39, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Creation Science vs. Scientific Creationism

I would support an Vfd effort on Scientific Creationism. The content is largely what Phantym proposed for Creation Science back in May and it was roundly rejected see User:Phantym/Creation_science_rewrite_proposal. The page essentially exists now to confuse people. S.N. Hillbrand 28 June 2005 19:35 (UTC)

You say it was "roundly rejected" Only 5 editors gave opinions. 2 Thought it was better than the given article, 2 attacked it, and 1 gave some criticism but thought it could be worked into a good article. How is 2 against, 2 for, and 1 mixed "roundly rejecting" an article????

Furthermore, it appears absurd to label my contribution as "POV pushing" in comparison to other writers on this topic, such as FeloniusMonk, Joshuaschroeder, and Bensaccount, all of whose writing is so blatantly POV as to warrant being banned from the topic.

I give citations of both experimental work and mainstream cricism. Perhaps you are unsettled by the fact that I do not choose to allow "mainstream" science to dominate an article on scientific creationism.

Phantym 4 July 2005 16:48 (UTC)

The two who attacked it did so in strong terms. Those who supported it were die hard creationists.

And the two who attacked it are die hard anti-creationist extremist who commonly make both severly POV edits and comments in discussion pages that violate wikipedia's standards of civility.

I've said nothing about your contribution Phantym. I have only commented on the text of the article that was up on scientific creationism. I try not to compare editors to each other in terms of NPOV. It is much better to look at their edits and judge those. I consider that NPOV requires the mainstream scientific viewpoint to be clear in any article on a pseudoscience and for the mainstream criticisms to be expressed. I also do not support advocacy of creationism (or any other pseudoscience) on wikipedia. The way forward for you is to slowly, carefully and in an NPOV manner incorporate material from the history of scientific creationism into creation science. Barnaby dawson 5 July 2005 07:45 (UTC)

The article that are referring to did represent the mainstream criticisms clearly and gave numerous links to scientific reports on anti-creationist pages written by mainstream scientists. Phantym 8 July 2005 20:48 (UTC)

Flood Geology Talk Page

What do you think is to be discussed on that page? A copy of what had been inserted in the article was put on the talk page. I asked for a reference to the "Conclusive evidence." Please inform me what is improper about that. Dan Watts 5 July 2005 16:17 (UTC)

Apologies. I didn't see the edit by our non member friend. I interpreted what he wrote above as just being his opinion stated on the talk page. Something which does happen quite frequently. Barnaby dawson 5 July 2005 18:46 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation. I have been known to not see things myself. Dan Watts 5 July 2005 19:51 (UTC)

Tree (set theory)

I have moved Infinite tree (graph theory) here and done a little cleanup. See the talk page for rationales. I'd like to put "Infinite tree (graph theory)" on rfd, which I wouldn't want you to see as an unfriendly gesture; it's just not an accurate description of the concept, and the only substantive thing that links there is your user page. Oh, and list of graph theory topics, but that link should really be removed, because these trees aren't a graph-theory topic, to the best of my non-graph-theorist knowledge. --Trovatore 03:21, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

Roger. Thanks for letting me know. Barnaby dawson 07:01, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

creation science

Hi and 10x for your reply.

You say that «The catholic church has changed its position on this issue. The document you quote is written by the pope who was in the vatican at the time of the second world war.» - On this topic, there is no possibility of changing of such of point of view. Is is about an Encyclical letter, that affirmes deffinitive teachings.

These days, cardinal Schönborn reminded the position of the RC church on darwinism. http://wittingshire.blogspot.com/2005/07/catholic-church-rejects-neo-darwinism.html

You say: «the creation science page gets a lot of vandalism and trolling from those who support creation science». Of course. Guess why.

Waelsch

I found this article entitled Evolution: What the Pope Said. On the basis of this analysis I think that the text of the article is indeed correct and does not need to be changed. Barnaby dawson 09:48, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:News sources

If you want a very complete list of online English-language newspapers around the world (plus government websites) for Wikipedia:News sources, you should check out the Guardian's World News Guide. You might also want to take a look at my work-in-progress, The International references resource, aka The anti-Google test BlankVerse ∅ 14:36, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

Personal opinion: Unless you think that the Wikipedia can do a better job than the Guardian, why try to duplicate the Guardian list? If you are going to try to do a better job than the Guardian, you should contact each of the Regional notice boards and many of the different WikiProjects to help you fill out the list. The one big thing that Wikipedians could do better than the Guardian list is annotate the list pointing out any of the special features on a newspaper's website, such as the online usage guides and country profile pages that I've noted on my Anti-Google page, as well as making note of any inherent biases that a newspaper might have in their coverage and editorial positions. BlankVerse ∅ 08:25, 7 October 2005 (UTC) [PS: I would appreciate your opinion on my Anti-Google page.]

The purposes of the lists are different. wikipedia:News sources is intended for the purpose of NPOV and for the encyclopedic purposes of wikipedia (it is also meant to be primarily english language). I intend to subdivide each regional area again on the basis of population. I also intend to provide population statistics for each region and country. I like your idea of anotations particularly with regard to bias, although judging it may be tricky. We can also provide links to pages concerning the countries and/or regions linked to. In short I do think that wikipedia can do better.

wikipedia:News sources does not yet compare with the guardian's list in coverage, however it could quite easily with a little work. Also there are many other collations of media sources around to draw on so it could in principal get better still. It would of course be necessary to prioritise sources depending on their quality and quantity.

If you have any more constructive criticism then don't hesitate to speak up. This resource has been largely my project so far and could probably do with a little more critcical thinking. Barnaby dawson 08:54, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

Angel problem image

I made an attempt at cleaning up and restoring the original, lossless version of Image:The Angel problem.jpg. The new image is at Image:Angel problem.png and the original one, uploaded by you, has been listed for deletion. Hope this is OK. –Mysid 08:07, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Indeed it is fine. Barnaby dawson 23:25, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Spreadsheets

I've replied to you on my talk page.-gadfium 20:52, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

If you don't get a reply there in 24 hours, try posting on WP:VPA with a link to your question.-gadfium 08:20, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/CreationWiki

As a contributor to the page CreationWiki, I feel it fair to warn you that it has been nominated for deletion. Please make your opinion known. PrometheusX303 21:11, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Image Tagging Image:Scopes trial.jpg

This media may be deleted.

Thanks for uploading Image:Scopes trial.jpg. I notice the 'image' page currently doesn't specify who created the content, so the copyright status is unclear. If you have not created this media yourself then there needs to be an argument why we have the right to use the media on Wikipedia (see copyright tagging below). If you have not created the media yourself then it needs to be specified where it was found, i.e., in most cases link to the website where it was taken from, and the terms of use for content from that page.

If the media also doesn't have a copyright tag then one should be added. If you created/took the picture, audio, or video then the {{GFDL-self}} tag can be used to release it under the GFDL. If you believe the media qualifies as fair use, consider reading fair use, and then use a tag such as {{Non-free fair use in|article name}} or one of the other tags listed at Wikipedia:Image copyright tags#Fair_use. See Wikipedia:Image copyright tags for the full list of copyright tags that you can use.

If you have uploaded other media, consider checking that you have specified their source and copyright tagged them, too. You can find a list of 'image' pages you have edited by clicking on the "my contributions" link (it is located at the very top of any Wikipedia page when you are logged in), and then selecting "Image" from the dropdown box. Note that any unsourced and untagged images will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you. —jiy (talk) 03:43, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

I've added an out of copyright tag to the image as it appears to out of copyright according to my reading of the law (Ianal). Even if I were to be wrong on this I do think it would qualify as fair use as a non reproducible record of an historic event. Incidentally I did add a copyright tag to this page a while back but something seems to have gone wrong with the template. Barnaby dawson 08:59, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Re: Moved

I've moved the discussion back as I find no reason why you would take it upon yourself to "judge it to be very unlikely to result in any improvement of the article" let alone not a relevent discussion. The issues I raise deal solely with the state of the article and are not in any way, shape, or form a debate on evolution. I'd appreciate it if rather than censor the Talk page, you participate in answering the issues you yourself admit are frequently raised. There is no reason to move a dicussion about an article on that article's talk page to another page. —Aiden 13:29, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry you feel that way. The talk pages are meant to contain serious discussion of the relevant article. Your comment did not fit that criteria. As such it was perfectly reasonable to move the discussion to your talk page. Barnaby dawson 16:46, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

How did it not fit "the criteria"? The points I raised were directly related to the point of view of the article, not of any evidence or lack thereof for evolution. Thus, it is not reasonable to remove a relevent discussion on what many obviously consider to be a violation of WP:NPOV. —Aiden 17:09, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Well mainly your factual claims about the article's contents were false. There are sections addressing social effects of the theory and misunderstandings of the theory which you seem to have missed. Just mentioning NPOV is not enough to make a post relevant to the improvement of an article. Also I'm afraid the fact that a lot of people are annoyed at the contents of an article is not in itself sufficient to show that there is any problem with the article. We are talking about a featured article here. The objections raised by creationists to evolution are a complete joke and deserve nothing more than the passing reference they get. This is justified within wikipedia's policies by the fact that this is an article about an area of science and the "creation science" movement is not scientific.

Your post was and is very unlikely to result in any significant change to the article. The purpose of the talk pages is to improve articles. Barnaby dawson 17:34, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Hi, I am not doing anything on wiki at the moment. I would be a bit scared myself to shift stuff (though I think it is in principle, a good idea; the off-topic thing has to be enforced somehow), and I haven't looked at what you shifted.

are you saying you think it might not work? if I had been around, I probably would have backed you up. Sillygrin 01:47, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Image:CharlotteMakingFiends.gif

Hi, you uploaded the above image, stating it was "public domain" and tagging it with the PD-art tag - which is applicable to images where the creator has been dead for 100 years or more. This is clearly not the case here. Can you please provide a source and evidence that this image is public domain otherwise it is likely to be nominated for deletion. Madmedea 13:02, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Indeed. A copyrighted work may be released into the public domain by its author. This is what has happened here. See Making Fiends Extras for the authors own statements on this. I didn't actually add the PD art tag myself for the record. Barnaby dawson 07:15, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

• Thanks for having a look at this - it's important that images have the right tag. I've now added the license tag {{PD-release}} as this indicates that the creator has released it into the public domain.Madmedea 08:37, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia's conventions

I've just brought alpha recursion theory closer to standard Wikipedia style conventions. Please see Wikipedia:Manual of Style and Wikipedia:Manual of Style (mathematics). Please note: you shouldn't start an article on mathematics without telling the reader at the beginning that mathematics is what it is about. The average non-mathematician seeing the page will often not know that it's not about theology, political science, biology, etc. Michael Hardy 02:50, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

TfD nomination of Template:News sources warning

Template:News sources warning has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 17:26, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Scopes_trial.jpg

Thanks for uploading or contributing to Image:Scopes_trial.jpg. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in Wikipedia articles constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use. Suggestions on how to do so can be found here.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to ensure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If you have uploaded other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on those pages too. You can find a list of 'image' pages you have edited by clicking on the "my contributions" link (it is located at the very top of any Wikipedia page when you are logged in), and then selecting "Image" from the dropdown box. Note that any non-free media lacking such an explanation will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you. Do you want to opt out of receiving this notice? Nv8200p talk 23:48, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

Image:Scopes_trial.jpg

I have tagged Image:Scopes_trial.jpg as {{no rationale}}, because it does not provide a fair use rationale. If you believe the image to be acceptable for fair use according to Wikipedia policy, please provide a rationale explaining as much, in accordance with the fair use rationale guideline, on the image description page. Some examples can be found at Wikipedia:Use rationale examples. Please also consider using {{non-free fair use in|article name}} or one of the other tags listed at Wikipedia:Image copyright tags/Non-free. Thank you. Nv8200p talk 12:45, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

Template use

{{Swine flu reporting bias}} is not the proper use of a template. The content, of course, is perhaps notable to be added to the main article (2009 swine flu outbreak‎), but before doing so you should add appropriate references. Abecedare (talk) 20:44, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

This section is intended for use in many articles refering to swine flu including the various individual country map articles. As such I don't know any other way of adding the content and maintaining it at one location. Another couple of references will be forth coming. Of course if you know a better way then do tell me or be bold and impliment it yourself. Beware thought that I'm about to add this template to many articles which have swine flu out break maps. Barnaby dawson (talk) 20:53, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

I guessed your motivation for using a template, but I don't think this content is needed in individual country articles, unless we have country specific information about the reporting bias. Either way, this is not a proper use of templates per wikipedia policy ("Templates should not masquerade as article content in the main article namespace; instead, place the text directly into the article"). The current template content (after it is properly referenced), can be substituted into the main article, and the template safely deleted. You may also want to discuss this issue at Talk:2009 swine flu outbreak‎, before any mass-addition. Regards. Abecedare (talk) 21:02, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Hmmmm there are enough articles (7 already and likely to increase) that updating each directly would be a significant pain. As they stand these articles are seriously misleading. Without a section like this in each article people will be given the false impression that the media reporting of cases (and our collation of it) is reliable and accurate. I've read the template guideline article (thank you for linking to it). However, as I know no other way to accomplish this task I think this should be an exception to the guideline. Barnaby dawson (talk) 21:15, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Sorry for not being clear. Here is what I think:

• The proposed content should not be included in every article on the outbreak. It would be sufficient to mention it in the main article. The proper way to do so is is to add the text directly in that article.
• The current content is poorly sourced (to a collegeboard website) and needs to be copyedited too. We should look for references in epidemiological textbooks or academic articles instead.
• To show the relevance of the content to the 2009 swine flue outbreak, we need to find some sources that directly talk about the systemic bias in the current numbers for this (potential) pandemic. Else the added content would be borderline WP:SYNT and definitely undue ... by the way, I would expect such sources to exist.

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to post them here, since I have your page watchlisted for now. Cheers. Abecedare (talk) 21:29, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

The article is hosted and published by College Board but it was written by Manuel Bayona from the Department of Epidemiology who was at the University of North Texas at the time. As this is an expert in the field I am happy with the quality of this reference. I understand the desire for other references but haven't yet had time to search for them. As we are both agreed that they probably exist I think its reasonable to wait whilst they are found. I think the fact tag can be used in the meantime on any claims you are unhappy about. I have de templated the text as you suggest. But I am still concerned about the outbreak maps as violating original research or being grossly misleading. Barnaby dawson (talk) 21:42, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

In case it is not clear, I am not at all opposed to the content you are adding. I agree that the topic is important, so that the reader knows that all these numbers in the wikipedia article (and elsewhere) need to be taken witha pinch of salt. Here are some references you may find useful:

• NY times article on this exact issue
• A couple of articles on the 1918 flue, that show how widely the estimates of infected /deaths can vary even 90 years after the pandemic:
  • 1918 Influenza: the Mother of All Pandemics by Jeffery K. Taubenberger, David M. Morens
  • Johnson NPAS, Mueller J. Updating the accounts: global mortality of the 1918–1920 "Spanish" influenza pandemic. Bull Hist Med. 2002;76:105–15 (I have a copy of this article, if you want to read it.)

Hope that helps. Abecedare (talk) 21:48, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

I have made changes and additions to the 2009_swine_flu_outbreak#Reporting_bias section to make it more specific to the 2009 swine flu outbreak. Do review, expand, copyedit, reference etc. Cheers. Abecedare (talk) 22:18, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Cheers, it is better I think. I added a qualifier to the cases by country infobox too. Perhaps this should be linked to a source too. But I must call it a night now so will look into other references later. Here in the UK its getting late.

Thanks for the links. It can be fairly hard finding these references so its apreciated. Barnaby dawson (talk) 22:25, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

A quick note: I removed the following text from the earlier version:

Information bias: This is a distortion in the estimate of association between risk factor and disease that is due to systematic measurement error or misclassification of subjects on one or more variables, either risk factor or disease status.

because, (1) for the current flu outbreak (unlike some other pandemics) the risk factors and mode of spread are well-known, and (2) it is perhaps easier for the reader to understand that "genetic tests to identify the virus strain are not widely available" instead of deciphering what is meant by "measurement error or misclassification of subjects ... on disease status. :) Hope that makes sense to you too. Cheers. Abecedare (talk) 22:30, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Swine flu Bias

Could you clean this up a bit. It just is jarring to the article and it is just slapped in the middle. I am just talking asthetics (sp?) here. BFritzen (talk) 20:44, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

I think what you saw was a temporary glitch as I got the template right. Its been de templated now anyway. Barnaby dawson (talk) 21:58, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Swine flu bias, v. 2

Your opinion on the map is partly right. As far as I see, the map is being constantly updated by various editors who read File talk:H1N1 map.svg and commons:File talk:H1N1 map.svg, where update request are being reported by people from around the globe. It indeed is a collection of news reports, but: as far as my edits are concerned, I always look up the Disease Outbreak News of the WHO. You may be sure that no country will be marked red before it is laboratory confirmed and published on the said website. Problems arouse when it comes to 'unconfirmed cases.' These are mostly based on regional news reports, but, again, the situation is not so simple. As far as I see, the habit is to check if the country is mentioned in this template, and if so, to mark it on the map (not the other way round). The map is easily editable so if any error pops out, it can be fixed in a couple of minutes (seconds). Tomasz W. Kozłowski (talk) 10:45, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Disclaimers in articles

Hi, I noticed that you added a disclaimer to {{2009 swine flu outbreak table}}. While I can appreciate (and in fact agree with) the concern that probably made you put the disclaimer in there, Wikipedia guidelines specifically state that we should have no disclaimers in articles. I've since removed the disclaimer. Just thought I'd let you know. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 02:54, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Table

You're still confused as to why this information should be included, so let me explain. The data is there simply so that one can draw a comparison with this and other outbreaks. We would love to have the information you're calling for, but we don't and by your logic we should remove any figures on the page at all because they're not reliable. It's simple: if the data on the page as a whole is good enough for inclusion on WP, it's good enough for inclusion in the table so that people can draw a comparison. The table was edited to reflect that the info isn't great, but good enough. RaseaC (talk) 11:35, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Other figures in this article are indeed misleading as well as violating wikipedia:Original research. In particular the table at the top of the article. I am hesitant to remove this however, as it is the only up to date online source I know of covering this information. The map I am also similarly ambivalent about but I cannot edit this anyway due to its protection status. Including swine flu in the historical context table on the other hand has no such uniqueness value and its misleading nature and violation of wikipedia:Original research are not justified. Barnaby dawson (talk) 11:55, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Hello, Barnaby dawson. You have new messages at Avenue's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Thanks for the feedback. I see the comparison to season flu in the table now (right in front of my face!). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.234.18.163 (talk) 14:23, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Notes to self re swine fu

It would be a huge mistake to underestimate this flu It is likely that the number of confirmed cases underestimates the number of cases that have occurred The number of confirmed cases reflects the availability of testing as much as the spread of the virus, says Richard Besser, head of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Superb nature article AFP report on Swine flu conference 30,000 UK figure Uncertainty H1N1 studies 2nd estimate Uncertainty 2 Comparisons (WHO)

A(H1N1) flu tables

This is to let you know that I reversed your good faith edit deleting two of the tables. Would you be so kind to go to the talk page and proposed and justified properly such a deletion. I share some of the OR concerns you raised, but there are many editors collaborating on that article, so I believe it justifies a proper discussion before proceeding to deletion.--Mariordo (talk) 21:25, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

Flu pandemic data

I added a caveat as a prefix. Is it along the line, that you were imagining? FHessel (talk) 10:49, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes I think this prefix is a reasonable compromise. Thank you for making this modification. Barnaby dawson (talk) 19:44, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Take Back Parliament

Thank you. I am now doing so.

My concern is that it is essentially unreferenced almost in its entirety. To prevent giving aspects undue weight, which is a key task in preventing non-neutral articles, references are required from reliable, third-party sources. As such, sourcing the statement about OpenDemocracy with an OpenDemocracy post or CiF with a CiF article does not agree with Wikipedia policy, as it does not assert the notability of the events (essentially, if it's not reported in any newspapers, etc, why should Wikipedia report it?) or guarantee that they're being reported neutrally. Bastin 09:54, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:Swine flu reporting bias

Template:Swine flu reporting bias has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Bulwersator (talk) 07:48, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

File:CharlotteMakingFiends.gif listed for deletion

A file that you uploaded or altered, File:CharlotteMakingFiends.gif, has been listed at Wikipedia:Files for deletion. Please see the discussion to see why it has been listed (you may have to search for the title of the image to find its entry). Feel free to add your opinion on the matter below the nomination. Thank you. Kelly ^hi! 17:53, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

ArbCom elections are now open!

Hi,
You appear to be eligible to vote in the current Arbitration Committee election. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to enact binding solutions for disputes between editors, primarily related to serious behavioural issues that the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the ability to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate, you are welcome to review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. For the Election committee, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:16, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

Orphaned non-free image File:Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan during the Scopes Trial.jpg

⚠

Thanks for uploading File:Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan during the Scopes Trial.jpg. The image description page currently specifies that the image is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, the image is currently not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).

Note that any non-free images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described in section F5 of the criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 19:32, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

Nomination for merger of Template:Off topic warning

Template:Off topic warning has been nominated for merging with Template:Not a forum. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Thank you. Bsherr (talk) 18:37, 23 June 2021 (UTC)