User talk:Philcha/Archive 1

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Regarding your talk page edits, please just add a blank line to do a paragraph break, rather than adding HTML line break tags. Wikicode gets formatted for a variety of readers, so wikimarkup should be used when possible. --Christopher Thomas 23:59, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads-up. What's the best way to produce a line-break without full paragraph spacing? I've found at least 2 types of situation where I think this is useful: in lists (bullet or numbered) within articles, if a list item logically has more than 1 sub-section; in Talk posts which logically have more than 1 sub-section. In these cases full paragraph spacing would make it look like the sub-sections are higher-level sections in their own right, and often make the indentation go wrong.Philcha 00:15, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

As far as I know, a paragraph break is the only way to do this. Indentation is applied to each paragraph or post-break bullet point manually (via the : character). A quick check of the Wikipedia documentation doesn't indicate any other way either (though I still might have missed it). --Christopher Thomas 01:20, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Dinosaur

You might want to do something to avoid repelling new contributors. In mid-January 2007 I edited the Dinosaur article to: correct some serious mistakes in "Distinguishing characteristics"; correct the analysis of the advantages provided by dinos' erect limbs; make the "Extinction section" more balanced without making it longer (it previously mentioned only the Alvarez impact theory, and omitted to mention that a lot of other groups died out at the same time); and improve the balance and readability of some other sections. A few days later an admin reverted my edit because he / she objected to my use of bullet lists. When I pointed out that I had followed the style guide on Wikipedia:Embedded_lists, I was told that nevertheless FAC reviewers would not accept bullet lists (see [1]). So the admin who reverted my edit misunderstood the rules and / or the FAC reviewers ignore the published rules and impose their own preferences. There is no point in my contributing further to any article on paleontology until the discrepancy between the published rules and admin / FAC reviewer practice is resolved, as my contributions might be arbitrarily reverted.Philcha 14:00, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Hi Philcha,

I wanted to discuss with you the above comment which was left on the WikiProject Dinosaurs talk page, but I didn't want to clutter up that page, so I'm replying here. I hope you do not mind.

Anyone is welcome to contribute to the dinosaur articles on Wikipedia. Many of them need a serious amount of work. There are well over 1,000 dinosaur articles on Wikipedia, and many of them come under heavy vandalism. Your work on one single article was reverted, as it didn't conform to the consensus at WP:MOS#Bulleted_lists, and because articles which make frequent use of bulleted lists are frowned upon at WP:FAC. The fact that you write that an admin reverted your edits still shows you're not quite familiar with Wikipedia just yet, as it was not an admin who reverted your edits (non-admins can revert edits, too, and in this case, that is what happened).

It is unfortunate that reverting edits often causes editors to become upset that their contributions were rejected. I apologize that you felt unwelcome (or that your edits were unwelcome). I hope, though, that if you look at the big picture, you will realize that a revert on a single article is quite small in the big scheme of things, and there are over a thousand other articles which could use some improving (but not bulleted lists).

Philcha, I've contributed to just about every dinosaur article on Wikipedia. But a lot of my edits have been reverted/removed/refined, too. It happens; it's a collaborative effort, and if I spent a lot of time worrying about a single revert, I'd get a lot less accomplished. We want you to feel welcome to contribute, but at the same time the very nature of the encyclopedia is that everything we write will eventually be written out of the encyclopedia because it is always evolving.

Focusing solely on the issue of bulleted lists: WikiProject Dinosaurs has absolutely no say on this matter. The FAC reviewers have insisted on articles not using them, or using them as little as possible. There is absolutely nothing we can do about it. We've been up and down this road before, butting heads, and they are not going to budge. Featured Article candidates which use them are rejected on the grounds that they are (or feel) "listy". If we want the article promoted, we have to keep the articles as list-free as possible. Sometimes, we have been able to keep a single bulleted list in, if the FAC reviewers were feeling lenient.

Philcha, there are literally 6-8 editors trying to keep watch on well over 1,000 articles. That works out to around 142 articles per user, when every user is available. Watching all these articles for vandalism (two articles are currently on more or less permanant protection because of all the vandalism they were getting) while trying to build up the shortest ones is a difficult task. We really could use your help. Firsfron of Ronchester 19:33, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Firsfron of Ronchester, your response does not resolve the problem.

The whole of my edit of dinosaur was reverted in one piece, not just the parts that contained bullet lists. I see no justification for that and can only attribute it to laziness or carelessness on the part of the person responsible.

WP:MOS#Bulleted_lists says "Do not use bullets if the passage reads easily using plain paragraphs or indented paragraphs," i.e. there is no categorical ban on the use of lists. As I pointed out in [2], my use of bullet lists conformed to the guidance and examples given in Wikipedia:Embedded_lists. If the FAC reviewers do not follow published guidelines, Wikipedia has an internal problem which needs to be resolved either by changing the published guidelines or by instructing the FAC reviewers to follow them. If this is not done, other contributors will find their contributions being removed arbitrarily and will stop contributing.Philcha 10:34, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Hi Philcha!

I agree there are some conflicting guidelines at Wikipedia. You state "Wikipedia has an internal problem which needs to be resolved either by changing the published guidelines or by instructing the FAC reviewers to follow them." Unfortunately, each of the FAC reviewers have their own interpretations of what makes a Featured Article, partially covered at Wikipedia:Featured article advice, which includes discouraging lists. "Instructing" long-time FAC reviewers in how to review probably would cause quite a squabble! I personally don't like submitting articles to FAC at all, as I feel the process is often arbitrary, with FAC reviewers ignoring guidelines or applying their own personal interpretations to guidelines which are only meant to be guidelines. But WP:Dinosaurs has decided to submit twelve articles per year (1 per month), so I'm sort of forced to participate in a review I don't particularly care for. As these reviews quite literally take weeks of work, I know you will understand why the group members would be resistant to reintroduction of lists of material that we were already forced to remove earlier. Best wishes and happy editing, Firsfron of Ronchester 19:31, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Firsfron of Ronchester You have not addressed my first comment: "The whole of my edit of dinosaur was reverted in one piece, not just the parts that contained bullet lists."

And then you said, "I personally don't like submitting articles to FAC at all, as I feel the process is often arbitrary, with FAC reviewers ignoring guidelines or applying their own personal interpretations to guidelines which are only meant to be guidelines." Need I say more?

On second thoughts, perhaps I should mention some likely consequences of FAC reviewers' failure to follow the published guidelines: waste of editors' and FAC reviewers' time because editors don't have reliable published guidelines and have to find out the personal preferences of FAC reviewers the hard way; delay in getting good content promoted to FA status; de-motivated editors; new editors particularly put off by violations of WP:Don't bite the newbies.Philcha 12:51, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Black hole collisions

I could write something on the possibility of a black hole colliding with the Solar System at black hole. However, the problem is that the section is mostly worthless. According to Galactic Dynamics by Binney and Tremaine, significant gravitational interactions between a specific star in the Milky Way (such as the Sun) and any other star will occur approximately once every 10¹⁹ years. For reference, the age of the universe is approximately 1.4 × 10¹⁰ years. Assuming that the density of black holes in the Milky Way is much lower than the density of stars, the possibility of a black hole gravitationally interacting with the Solar System is much lower.

Given that the odds of this happening are extremely low, I suggest scrapping the section altogether. Also consider that Wikipedia cannot answer every strange science question ever devised, and keep in mind that several people thought that the article was too long anyway. Removing the section would be beneficial. Dr. Submillimeter 14:42, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

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Binary stars

Binary star systems do not form by gravitational interaction. Binary star systems generally form together. (Similarly, the Solar System did not capture its planets.)

Things that orbit each other at large radii are indeed affected by perturbations from other nearby stars. However, this is fairly common (as it probably happens in the Solar System's Oort Cloud.) In these situations, only weak gravitational interactions are needed to change the motions of orbiting bodies. Keep in mind that the distances of the orbiting objects may be ~100000 AU in this "weakly bound" situation; the objects are just barely bound gravitationally anyway. The situation is much different within 30 AU, where the Sun's gravity is fairly strong.

Also note that gravitational interactions between stars do occur in globular clusters, but the densities of stars in those clusters is much higher than in the disk of the Milky Way.

The "black hole collides with the Solar System" thing just is not plausible. Relax and improve something else in Wikipedia. Dr. Submillimeter 12:37, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Your edits to Interstellar travel

Are in level of accuracy and intent similar to the above. Please remember Wikipedia:No original research, Wikipedia:Notability, and Wikipedia:Undue weight. Michaelbusch 17:15, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

By 'similar to the above' I refer to the comments given above on this page on your edits to Binary stars, Black hole collisions and Dinosaur. Your edits to Interstellar travel contain original research, such as the antimatter statement, and some material that is not notable (such as the kinetic energy of a dust-grain at 0.5 c) and/or is given undue weight (such as the gene-pool calculation). Incidentally: antimatter can't get you up to highly relativistic speeds, because of mass ratio problems, and at high fractions of c, dust grains go straight through normal matter (like cosmic rays). Michaelbusch 18:04, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

You replied:

"By 'similar to the above' I refer to the comments given above on this page on your edits to Binary stars, Black hole collisions and Dinosaur. Your edits to Interstellar travel contain original research, such as the antimatter statement, and some material that is not notable (such as the kinetic energy of a dust-grain at 0.5 c) and/or is given undue weight (such as the gene-pool calculation). Incidentally: antimatter can't get you up to highly relativistic speeds, because of mass ratio problems, and at high fractions of c, dust grains go straight through normal matter (like cosmic rays)."

You have made at least 2 errors of fact: I have not edited Binary stars, and there is no article Black hole collisions. I would also be curious to discover how much you know about my edit to Dinosaur - for example do you actually know when I last edited that page?

I relocated but did not substantially change the wording of the paragraph about antimatter propulsion - it is still present in the reverted article. It would be useful if you would provide more details, preferably with citations, on the limitations of antimatter propulsion to which you refer.

I don't see what your objection is to my addition of material on the genetic and sociological difficulties of generation ships. I provided a citation, which shows that they are recognised problems; and they have also been a theme of science fiction for over 40 years (I think one of the earliest was by Heinlein), and Baxter's Mayflower II explores them more thoroughly than any other SF treatment I've read.

You said, "... at high fractions of c, dust grains go straight through normal matter (like cosmic rays)." I find that surprising, but of course many surprising things happen at high fractions of c. Can you provide references?

At present I think your grounds for reverting the whole of my edit are inadequate.Philcha 19:04, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

The dust grain matter is obvious: energy per particle is MeV or higher. See the cosmic ray article. Re. the rest: referencing the statements of other editors re. your previous actions would make my reasoning clear. I will remove the section on antimatter. I am done. Michaelbusch 19:17, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Cosmic rays are, as the article says, 99% bare nuclei and 1% bare electrons. Even a minute dust grain would contain millions of whole atoms, mostly bound to each other in chemical compounds and crystalline structures - and therefore would behave like a small impactor. I note that you provide no references to support your suggestion.

I wasn't happy with the part (pre-existing) about antimatter drives either, and will start researching references to support an improved version.

You have not answered any of the other points I raised.

I am therefore reinstating my edit of Interstellar travel. Do not revert it again unless you have first presented adequate reasons. Philcha 19:50, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Mammal evolution

The article "Evolution of Mammals" is a good and extensive summary of the current knowledge on the evolution of mammals, or at least according to more conventional knowledge. However, some of the information that is given in the "Evolution" section of the Mammal article are very recent findings that are not (yet) present in your (otherwise great) article on the Evolution of Mammals.

Much of the information given in the "Mesozoic" and "Cenozoic" sections in the Mammal article is not present in you new article - perhaps for good reason, as the new findings are changing the whole view of mammalian evolution. One example is the discovery of many mesozoic mammals that are highly specialised. The view that mesozoic mammals have alle been small, nocturnal and shrewlike appears to be incorrect.

This is also true for the long held notion that the mammals only begin to deversify after the demise of the dinosaurs. Both fossil and genetic evidence have recently provided a new view: that the mammals dit not experience one but TWO periods of rapid diversification: well before and well after the extinsion of the dinosaurs! Perhaps you could include this view in your new article? You may also include the section "convergent evolution" in your article, although this information is unsourced and, as a result, somewhat controversial.

I'm happy to help you in making an article that offers all alternative views that are currently experiencing some popularity in the scientific community. DaMatriX 13:51, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

No hair theorem of Black Holes and the cosmological constant

You made an interesting addition to the no-hair section on the Black Hole page... You noted that if the expansion of the universe is accelerating, and if the reason for this is that the cosmological constant (CC) is greater than zero, then the no-hair theorem (NHT) doesn't work.

This assertion certainly needs a reference, but further, it would be nice of you could expand on the reason for the NHT breaking down with a non-zero CC. Also, what are the consequences of the NHT not working (do we get different type of BHs)? Perhaps you might also like to add a fuller description to the No-hair theorem page itself (there's no mention of this idea there)? --Oscar Bravo 07:49, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Contributions

Needless to say, your contributions would be more than welcome! Excepting the growing number that appear to have had a concerted effort made to them, and read very well, and most articles on Dinosaurs, Wikipedia's geology articles are frequently in quite a shocking state!

The Cambrian explosion article is probably in the former camp; my interest was mainly in taking it to FA status, a process in which my interest is waning. Much of the article survives from an extensive re-write by an expert in the subject, moved by its poor review in Nature, and I'd be wary of editing it too extensively, unless you have a very thorough grasp of the subject. Whilst writing in simplistic language is to be applauded, often the dramatic restructuring of content changes the meaning in a subtle yet important way, so should be approached with caution!

The Timeline of evolution article would benefit a lot more from some attention - it's very haphazard as it stands: mainly, I think, because each editor has their own idea of what the article should be about, and contain. Either way, I'd be very grateful if you felt like having a bash at it - my main focus initially would be to weed out the approximations and outdated beliefs from the facts, and to trim any non-essential content, although I imagine your approach may be somewhat difficult!

I may or may not have a busy couple of weeks ahead of me but will do my utmost to keep an eye on how you're getting on, at the least - and hopefully will be able to contribute constructively! We'll see...

Re. Wikipedia being for non-specialists - I agree up to a point. I feel that specialists too should be able to gain something from the article; my hypothetical ideal article would leave the complete newcomer understanding the subject by about 2/3rds of the way through, with the remaining article covering more demanding aspects of the subject - though of course in such a fashion that our newly educated newcomer should be able to follow their way through! I suppose everyone has their own ideal in WP, but I'd encourage you not to remove too much content simply because it is difficult to comprehend.

Thanks again for your offer — and I'll look forwards to your input!

Verisimilus T 20:00, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Oh, as a P.S., I can probably arrange access to online articles if you should need it. Drop me an e-mail! Verisimilus T 20:04, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

And so promptly!

Replies

Re "Wikipedia's geology articles are frequently in quite a shocking state": I'm more into paleontology than geology; but some of the paleontology articles have needed a lot of improvement - while is why I pitched into the ones I listed.

Sorry - I've yet to get used to the actual definition of geology... I still think of it as meaning "anything found in rocks"! I'm mostly a palæontologist myself, too. As you say, there's ample scope for improvement across the board! You've made good work on some important articles, though (I seem to skulk around the things no-one's ever heard of!)

Re Cambrian explosion: (a) Why is your interest in FA status waning?

I've come to realise it's a lot of time for a little gold star; I spent well over a week making barely-noticable tweaks to Ediacaran biota in order to pass it; once it had passed I knocked out two perfectly respectable articles in an afternoon - it made me wonder which was more beneficial to Wikipedia! And I've come to appreciate that there can be a lot of politics and ill-feeling amongst FA reviewers, something I've been very fortunate to avoid thus far - I don't want to end up being soured by it all!

(b) A quick look made me think the structure may need to be clarified, but I'll have to re-read it first.

Possibly - it's quite a difficult subject to explain in a linear fashion under subheadings - you keep wanting to refer to things you haven't mentioned yet!

(b) Some of the writing does need to be clarified.

Agreed

(c) The section which discusses the differing interpretations (unique explosion of diversity vs evolution as usual but at a rather fast pace) needs refs, but that's easily fixed. I think I have enough grasp of the subject for a Wikipedia article (which is not supposed to be a PhD thesis) - I can spell and define coelomate, protostome, deuterostome, ecdysozoa, lophotrochozoa, lobopoda, halkeriid, wiwaxiid and onychophora.

Yes - I got bored of referencing after the third evening... As you say, it's not thesis - just to warn you that it's worth being careful, because one time out of ten there's a good reason that a sentence has been worded in a cumbersome fashion.... And you've not only beaten by, but also my spell-checker, which has added a happy underline to every single one one of those words!

Re "writing in simplistic language": I simplify the language but don't dumb down the logic; I aim re-check my edits for logic and coherence about 2 weeks later, so I see it with fresh eyes (but I'm a bit behind on that, especially on Permian extinction, because Evolution of mammals was a lot of work).

Re Timeline of evolution: (a) I'd appreciate a list of what you regard as inaccurate, out-dated or non-essential. (b) It's such a huge subject (3.8B or 4.6B years, depending on how you scope it) that my first impulse would probably be to rough out the target structure, on which I'd appreciate your input - possibly making it an overview / portal page which links to more detailed articles.

See the article talk page. I'll expand my earlier comment anon.

Re "my hypothetical ideal article would leave the complete newcomer understanding the subject by about 2/3rds of the way through, with the remaining article covering more demanding aspects of the subject - though of course in such a fashion that our newly educated newcomer should be able to follow their way through!" - I totally agree! That means that in the intro and in the early stages of each major section I simplify the writing, introducing technical terms as needed, but gradually increase the pace of exposition.

Bosh. Some people don't go in for the latter half! There also seems to be a bit of a divide between people who like the complexity do increase in the article as a whole vs. each section - although I'm still on the fence there!

PS: congratulations on the Ediacaran Barnstar! Philcha 21:51, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Verisimilus T 22:20, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

4x

Let me know how you'd like to distinguish "common features" that are commonly found in other genres (e.g.: technology tree), and "common features" that are more distinguishing (e.g.: non-teammate diplomacy, peaceful victory). I know no feature is really distinguishing since there is always an exception, but I think it's important players get a feel for what makes a 4x game unique, besides what most 4x games include in general. See the 4x talk page. 69.158.140.52 16:26, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Butterfield 2000

Hey,

Seems a pretty good summary - Don't think there are any fundemental errors there, although I've had a bit of a blather in places. I sometimes get a bit carried away with all the Cambrian Explosion stuff...

The other Butterfield reference is also worth a look, although it mainly expands on the last three points. It's got a pretty graph in it which illustrates the concept nicely!

Verisimilus T 20:26, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

• B apparently regards the Cambrian explosion as being about animals - for example he uses "the Cambrian explosion of large animals" repeatedly - an presents his ideas as an important contributory factor.

To me, his use of language almost suggests the opposite. The opening paragraph contains such phrases as the "evolutionary

and the biogeochemical perturbations that characterize the Proterozoic-Phanerozoic transition" and "the pre-eminent shift in ecosystem structure" - both showing that there's more going on than solely an animal boom. Perhaps the language is used to avoid semantic niggles, to clarify that he's talking about the global event, and not just a diversification of the animal realm. Also, I suppose that there's irrefutable proof that the animals exploded, whereas the proof for a planktonic explosion is being presented in that paper.

• At the start of the Cambrian phytoplankton became significantly larger on average and many species developed spines.

Yes - or at least, "around" the start of the Cambrian. The rise in diversity took place during the Ediacaran.

• He appears to suggest that this was part of an "arms race" against herbivorous zooplankton, which he thinks had become significant and larger only a short time before that. But he does not suggest why herbivorous zooplankton or this "arms race" should have started at the base of the Cambrian, after the "monotony" (his word, several times) of late Proterozoic planktonic ecosystems. And the direct evidence he cites for larger herbivorous zooplankton is late-early and late Cambrian rather than earliest Cambrian (Mount Cap and Orsten sediments).

The "why" is always going to be an issue. But - see Butterfield (2007)!

• While lagerstätten are much better than most fossil beds, they are far from perfect: they probably do not preserve the majority of types of soft-bodied animal; they are restricted to a narrow range of environments (where soft-bodied organisms can be buried very quickly by e.g. mudslides) and tell us nothing about other environments; and because they are rare, one must assume that they do not show the first occurrence of of any type of organism. In particular no lagerstätten have been found from the Vendian period, so one cannot tell whether soft-bodied precursors of the "Cambrian explosion" animals existed in the Vendian.

True, but don't restrict yourself to lagerstätten. Butterfield's big on his taphonomy; the fossil record of the Lower Cambrian at all is appauling, and the mode of preservation in the Ediacaran - reponsible for the preservation of the Ediacaran biota - disappears altogether at the start of the Cambrian. Even if we did have Vendian (now referred to as Ediacaran) lagerstätte, the old maxim goes "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence!"

The lack of trace fossils is interesting, though. Anything larger than 1mm should leave a trace fossil, according to Seilacher (or Budd?) - and this record is conspicuously lacking, until it diversifies around the base of the Cambrian! And of course, SOME form of precursor must have existed, the question is how big their soft body was!

• But geochemical evidence strongly indicates that plankton biomass has been similar to modern levels since early in the Proterozoic. And a shift in the carbon isotope ratio in the very early Cambrian can plausibly be interpreted as evidence for the rise of herbivorous mesoplankton at that time and not earlier.

Yes, it can be (but shifts in carbon isotopes can be interpreted as a lot of things, depending on what the author wants to prove...)

• B also argues that the Cambrian explosion itself is evidence that the early Cambrian planktonic ecosystem was similar to to-day's, because the evolution of complex, relatively large animals required an abundant and reliable food supply. Modern studies support this by showing that benthic ecosystems respond to phytoplankton booms in a matter of days.
• Before the rise of herbivorous mesoplankton, planktonic and benthic ecosystems were probably isolated from each other, so plankton did not supply food for benthic organisms (unlike to-day).
• The increased size of phytoplankton, herbivorous zooplankton and then predatory zooplankton increased the efficiency of the food web, because in plankton the relationship between "predator" size and "prey" size is sharply non-linear (1:1 to 8:1 for microplankton; 18:1 to 50:1 for mesoplankton). In particular it provided for the first time a food supply to nektonic and benthic animals - previously all plankton had been too small to sink before their remains were consumed by micro-scavengers and / or chemical processes.
• Zooplankton became large enough to produce significant fecal pellets, which sank rapidly enough to be buried before they dissolved on the ocean. This removed a significant amount of carbon from the oceans and therefore increased the concentration of oxygen, which would have facilitated the evolution of larger nektonic and benthic animals.

These last three are probably the take-home message

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Black hole

The Black hole article received heavy editing today by unregistered users, which I noticed at WikiRage.com. The article may benefit from a good review. According to Wikipedia Page History Statistics, you are one of the top contributors to that page. If you have the time, would you please read over the article and make any necessary changes. Thanks. -- Jreferee ^(Talk) 02:07, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Regarding Black Hole

I was one of the unregistered's that made the changes, as noted above. I didn't realize it was featured and heavily vandalized. I left a summary of the changes I made at the talk page. Although they all got reverted, I hope that these points are adressed, because they are issues of accuracy. Likebox 03:02, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Hi, just a follow up to your thoughtful comments:

1. The concept of "rest mass" is unique to relativity, since the mass wasn't believed to change with velocity in other theories. I think the proper question to ask is whether people thought light responded to gravity the same as other object, not so much whether light has "rest mass", which is a relativistic question.

Because all things fall the same way under gravity, light or something else should always have the same response. So you can calculate the escape velocity for anything, and you get the same answer--- whether it's a feather or a bowling ball. So the escape velocity calculation by dropping an object from infinity is just a way to figure out what the escape velocity is. It would apply to anything trying to escape.

This was the Newtonian calculation. But it does not explicitly mention the relativistic concept of rest mass. It only assumed that light has some mass and I guess implicity that it is a particle.

2. Newton did have a particle theory of light, which was dominant for a while. But contemporary Huygens had a wave theory of light. And I think there was not a shred of evidence for Newton's point of view, other than he wanted light to be "like" matter. So I think it's a little bit disingenuous to say that the physicists were going back and forth, when all the evidence pointed one way. But you are right that there was a debate. I just think that there was a winner--- Huygens won. So it wasn't a long debate, and it didn't go back and forth. I think.

Hope this explains better.Likebox 01:37, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Improvement of Master of Orion

Hey, it's awesome that the article got the rewrite and expansion it badly needed! I've had that on my monstrous, horrible "To do" list for a long time - and always at the bottom, with no telling how long it'd remain there. So thanks. I do still plan to work on it, but there's no telling when and I'll probably inform you of major changes. One thing, though. The article was over-illustrated as part of a plan for an eventual push to GA status, which would involve greatly increasing the amount of text to match. Your rewrite removed these three images entirely. As you know, the image usage policy around here is a pain, and the three face deletion as fair-use images not used in articles if they aren't reinserted. Can you see a way for adding them back into the article, or perhaps replacing them with better ones? --Kizor 01:34, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Hi, I'm glad you liked my update of the Master of Orion article. I tend to be conservative in the use of images because: they make pages load more slowly; one can only use fairly small images in articles and its often hard to see the relevant details in thumbnails; most images need quite a lot of explanatory text. In the case of Master of Orion the article is now quite long, and I didn't want to make it longer unless I could see clear benefits to the reader. After some thought I concluded that: the galaxy map ("main screen") with management controls for a planet and the combat screen (with stacks) would do the most to give readers a good idea of what it feels like to play the game; the images you mentioned ("new tech discovered"; ship design, which would need lot of explanatory text; plant information, which some commentators regard as superfluous) did not do enough to justify the costs to the reader. Of course YMMV :-)Philcha 19:47, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. You make good points, in fact I'd call them "salient" but I'm not entirely sure what that means. ;-) I've been thoroughly spoiled regarding bandwidth by the local campus network - suffice it to say that I don't know what kind of top speed I could get from this thing - so are the loading times a significant issue? Luckily, in this case the low resolution of the images keeps the file sizes small (15 KB at the most) and the thumbnails fully legible, migitating many of the potential problems. The explanatory text and the need for benefiting the reader, those I'll grant you.

You'll have noticed that I stuck the images back. It was an emergency measure as I'd intended to discuss them with you first, but time ran out before your reply came. Now that we have the time to reflect - yeah, the research picture is horrid. I likely aimed to illustrate the distinct features of the game, but that image only conveys the fact that MoO has technological advancements. As does every other 4X, near as makes no difference. (Yes, us non-native English speakers sometimes tend to use a mishmash of idioms and expressions that we've picked up from different places. Stylistic consistency is for fancies. Anyway.) There's likely no way to present the fact in pictures. In its place, I could put one or two fine diplomacy images that I have laying around - "your attack was unprovoked" and "continue expanding and you'll face our wrath" are novel even today! I'm ambivalent about the planet picture. It worked somewhat better when the graphics section was integrated with another, now-deleted article about how things that try to work with what they have tend to keep better than things that try to look as real as possible. This is scraping the bottom of the barrel a bit, but its elaborate graphics does have a good contrast with the other screens, which tend towards the spartan, showing that the game is built to be functional but is still decorated. (Granted, using any Terran planet than Meklon would've been a better move.) We should definitely have a picture about ship design. That's one of the biggest parts of the entire game and certainly the most memorable, plus another feature rare to this day. It's not necessary to describe the process in detail in the thumbnail, either, just add the image to where ship design is covered to demonstrate the process and its complexity. --Kizor 02:23, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree that ship design is one of the most fun parts of Master of Orion and some other space-based TBS games. What's difficult is to explain what makes it fun in Master of Orion without: (a) making the article too long; (b) offering personal opinions, which would violate WP:OR and WP:NPOV. I don't have the official strategy guide; do you have one from which we could include some comments plus references? I think that would be more informative than the image; but for now I'll simple change the caption and add more detail to the image's "full-size" page ("this is not a realistic design" would make many readers wonder why the image is there).

Re the diplomacy screen, I agree if the text of the message is readable in the thumbnail.Philcha 20:41, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't have a strategy guide, but we don't (necessarily) have to explain why it's fun, only how it's done and its significance in the game mechanics - and we can use reviewers' opinions. Good point on the caption, thanks. The text in the research image is roughly the same size as diplomacy text and completely legible. --Kizor —Preceding signed but undated comment was added at 01:32, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Good to see that they finally got SineBot reacting right to three tildes. --Kizor 02:01, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Added text about 4 hull sizes and types of ship components.

Removed "new tech discovered" image as it tells the reader nothing. The problem with tech is that we really needed 2 images: resource allocation (sliders) and menu in which player chooses which tech to research next. IMO 2 images is 1 too may for 1 subject, so I'd rather stick with the text explanation.

I'd love it if someone could provide either of 2 diplomacy images: "continue expanding and you'll face our wrath" makes the point that AI's get seriously nervous / jealous; "how could we refuse those who gave us ..." makes the point that AI players remember past dealings (better IMO than in other 4X games I've played, including MOO2).Philcha 11:05, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Cambrian explosion

The current version of the article is starting to look promising. Apologies if I've been too quick to brush aside your contributions in the past - I too easily get set in my ways! Your chronological structure to the article is certainly a good idea. If I could suggest a little honing: there is perhaps a little too much detail about the post-explosion fauna - understandably hard to avoid, as these critters are great fun! However, their importance to the article is equal to the Ediacarans', both of which could perhaps benefit from a little more context and streamlining.

I suppose the next challenge will be to integrate your work with GB's - there's a clear divide at the moment, leading to some overlap of content! Much of the "Significance of data" section, up to perhaps the "causes" heading, could probably be integrated with the chronological framework quite easily.

I look forward to seeing the article progress!

All the best,

Verisimilus T 20:38, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Mammalian evolution

Thanks for your recent inclusion of my remarks on mammalian evolution (early and late radiation, the evolution of placental main groups, etc) in your article on the Evolution of Mammals. Great work, and the final article of the Evolution of Mammals turned out to be great and completely acceptable for people like myself ;) DaMatriX 00:37, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Underconstruction on History of IBM mainframe operating systems

Hi, would you mind if I edit History of IBM mainframe operating systems? I don't like the current structure at all. On the other hand if you already have a larger plan in your head for the article, I don't want to disrupt it. Please reply here. --Kubanczyk 10:32, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Cambrian explosion timeline

Hi,

Glad to see you're back at work on the article.

I've made the timeline narrower, as you requested: this edit should be enough for you to work out how to make the remaining text small enough to fit in the bars - afraid I don't have time to tweak the whole lot. You must have a tiny screen for it to be a problem!

Verisimilus T 13:31, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Cambrian explosion

It turns out I'd accidentally removed the article from my watchlist - whoops. Do feel free to mould it into your desired shape as you wish! Verisimilus T 10:12, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Dinosaur

Hi Philcha,

Why are you repeatedly readding the ornithischian and saurischian hip images that are already in the article? It doesn't make any sense to include the same images twice in the article. The section you keep commenting out as "inaccurate" may well be inaccurate, but it is not inaccurate for the reasons you state in your summary. Dinosaur is a Featured Article; care needs to be taken with the changes that are made. Firsfron of Ronchester 13:17, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Your recent edits

Hi there. In case you didn't know, when you add content to talk pages and Wikipedia pages that have open discussion, you should sign your posts by typing four tildes ( ~~~~ ) at the end of your comment. On many keyboards, the tilde is entered by holding the Shift key, and pressing the key with the tilde pictured. You may also click on the signature button located above the edit window. This will automatically insert a signature with your name and the time you posted the comment. This information is useful because other editors will be able to tell who said what, and when. Thank you! --SineBot 14:31, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Re: Talk:Dinosaur "Another error"

Hello, Philcha;

Thank you for your offer! I'm sorry I was not around to reply right away (I'm having some technical issues). Aside from Dinosaur, I am probably going to return to ornithopod and pterosaur genera for a while, although I hope to get going on Physiology of dinosaurs, which you've already done a lot of work on. What I'm thinking of doing is adding updates, additional references, and so on. I think it could perhaps turn into two articles, one specifically on the warmblooded/coldblooded debate, the other on dinosaur physiology in general, but at this point that's idle thought. I also think that there is potential for a Dinosaur behavior article, because the section in the main dinosaur article is getting very long. I'd be happy to have your help on these larger projects, when/if I get to them.

I'm very sorry about the conflicts that you and some of the other editors have had on the main dinosaur article. I'm not going to try to force you to do anything you don't want to do, but I would like to know the error; if you want to tell me what it is, or any other concerns, my email is activated, so you can contact me there if you'd like.

Thanks, and have a great day! J. Spencer (talk) 16:59, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

The main reason I haven't gotten anything done about a potential split between "Physiology of dinosaurs" and the "warmblooded/coldblooded debate" is because every time I sit down to try, I just can't figure out the structure. I've been stuck on how to best cover the two topics.

I agree that starting behavior topics at a lover level is probably the best way to handle the whole topic, although I'd start with sections within the taxonomy articles (like a "behavior" section in Hadrosauridae), and then go from there as sections become large and need to be budded off. Then, there could be a main article with brief summaries of important areas and subdivisions by group. There is certainly a use for more organized coverage, because behavior has always been a favorite topic for dinosaur fans. Right now, the section in the main article is kind of a grab-bag of interesting finds.

On streamlining: definitely a good idea. Admittedly, I've been working towards adding material, and then going back and removing or budding the excess, which seemed to work well with Allosaurus\Species of Allosaurus (part of the reason why the evo/biogeography section is so long). J. Spencer (talk) 21:26, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

I like the idea of warmbloodedness as part of the name. I'm not sure about that particular formulation, but maybe something else will come. The article, as it stands, is definitely not about dinosaur physiology for its own sake, but dinosaur physiology as it has been debated. I can see John Conway's POV concern for the previous article title, but at the same time, it definitely appears to be too broad and disconnected from what the actual content is. At the very least, "Dinosaur Physiology Debate" would be more truthful to the content.

As for spreadsheets, there's this, but it seems like it would be a lot of work. I'm using wikKED, and I just found out I can copy and paste from Excel to a wikipage, then select the pasted text and press the [W] button to get a quick table (but not perfect; I'd have to go back and add the separators). J. Spencer (talk) 00:08, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Re: Tyrannosaurus

Sure, I'll have a look when I get some time (this evening, probably). J. Spencer (talk) 14:14, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, using the exact size quoted is probably better. J. Spencer (talk) 01:55, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I had put it into a footnote, unsuccessfully it appears. J. Spencer (talk) 01:59, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Compsognathus

The french specimen was about 125 cm long and its size is referenced in ref 4, 9 and I believe 11 in the article (I don't have them with me right now but could check this out later). You are right that the chicken-sized view is a common misconception due to the fact that the first and only known specimen for over 100 years (the Solnhofen one) was ~ 70 cm long. Please feel free to add a line about it in the leading paragraph. Cheers. ArthurWeasley (talk) 19:38, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your addition in the article. I've edited it a bit to conform with the MoS that help bring the article to FA status. The lead paragraph must be a summary of the article and should not contain any citation except perhaps for the pronunciation. Anyway, thanks again for pointing out the mistake about the chicken size. ArthurWeasley (talk) 04:23, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Image showing T rex binocular vision, please

I see what I could do with this. I hope you are not in the hurry ;) Cheers. ArthurWeasley (talk) 04:27, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

OK! ArthurWeasley (talk) 16:39, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Your edits at Cambrian explosion

Please please please, use edit summaries. You have made massive edits, and it's impossible to tell what you did. In fact, usually when I see that many edits without summaries, I usually assume it's vandalism and automatically reverted. I almost did, but I recognized your name. If you want to be a good editor on these articles, you need to be an editor that allows everyone to feel comfortable with your edits. OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 17:59, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Chess

Hi Philcha! I am very sorry, but the problem we have with articles like Chess is usually how to make them shorter, not more detailed (see WP:SUMMARY). The details belong to the appropriate articles about chess history and/or the chess masters you know so well. Best regards,--Ioannes Pragensis (talk) 19:55, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

I just wanted to thank you for your recent contributions to chess articles. Ioannes is right about chess—the struggle there is to make it shorter and just hit the very most important points (if we can agree on what they are). But there's plenty of room for detail in other articles that we can link from chess and other places. I really like your description of the history of chess notation. You added a badly needed section (including a reference!) that was missing from that article. I also appreciate your work on chess biographies. Quale (talk) 22:17, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Image Licence

Hello Philcha. First of all I wish you a happy new year. I have seen that you upload Image:PrimitiveMesotarsal01.gif and three similar pictures. I was looking for such diagrams for long to use them in the German WP (that is why me English in this thread is so lousy). You refered yourself as the copyright holder but that images are derived from a diagram from Paleos.com (as mentioned in the caption in the illustrated article). Unfortunately there is no written permission for using the files so it is awkward to upload them to Commons. Please can you send the permission to OTRS and give some Information note to me so I can upload the Images? Thank you very much in advance. Regards --80.133.204.231 (talk) 19:13, 1 January 2008 (UTC) w:de:Benutzer:TomCatX

Sorry, I can't see how to reply to this request. I tried to leave a message on w:de:Benutzer:TomCatX's Talk page, but it's on the German Wikipedia, and that demanded tat I log in and wouldn't let me log in wuth the id I use on English Wikipedia. And I saw no point in creating a new id for German Wikipedia. Philcha (talk) 09:25, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Dinosauria Common

Can you check my Dinosauria Common? --4444hhhh (talk) 01:28, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Dinosaur

Hi, Philcha;

I just haven't been doing much there lately because it's just been the two of us, and I'm hesitant to set consensus when I'm not very strong on dinosaur-bird topics. I did move the heart section to Physiology and update the medullary bone section, though. J. Spencer (talk) 14:08, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

P-T xt

Hiya,

I've put up a consideration of the fungal spike on the P/T talk page. Not quite sure what you meant by the "three pulses" - from what I recall, only 2 were postulated (the article is perhaps a little ambiguous but does say 2). Verisimilus T 18:21, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Feel free to put it in yourself when you get the chance. I've not got the energy to re-word it into article format at the moment! All the best. Verisimilus T 21:59, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Hokie cokie. There's another edit on its way in the methane section so best avoid that for the second lest we get in each other's way! Verisimilus T 11:02, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Thrinaxodon image

Hi Philcha, thanks for your critical assessment of the image. I can make a new improved version of it based on your comments. Could you point me to a more accurate reconstruction, that would help me. Cheers ArthurWeasley (talk) 15:42, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for all the info, they are very helpful. Is there a reason to think that the cynodonts did not have fur? As far as I know, most scientists think they had although there is no direct evidence of it. There is quite a detailed description of Thrinaxodon here favoring a hairy whiskery animal. Cheers. ArthurWeasley (talk) 15:56, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

There are some evidence of fur in cynodonts (see Dr Baskins' course note here) and I've read somewhere that fossil paw prints suggest the presence of fur as well. ArthurWeasley (talk) 19:05, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

I see... basically the argument is that the cynodonts were large enough and it was hot enough that they did not need an insulation coating to preserve their body temperature, defeating the previous '60s idea by Brink? Only when they become small and nocturnal at the end of the triassic, fur would had have a purpose. I could understand the argument for Cynognathus, but is Thrinaxodon considered large though? Anyway I don't mind having a naked Thrinaxodon sprawling in my gallery! ;)ArthurWeasley (talk) 20:18, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Done! ArthurWeasley (talk) 06:48, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

It has replaced the old image. ArthurWeasley (talk) 15:38, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

phrasing (sentences starting with "but")

I don't know if I was traumatized on that point. However, to this day, I am very sensitive about the use of parenthetical statements in prose. :) J. Spencer (talk) 14:53, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Either way, it comes out awkward to me. If it reads "directly cause," it seems correct to me, whereas "cause directly" just reads off for some reason. Therefore, I have decided to screw around with it some more. :) J. Spencer (talk) 03:36, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Your comments on User:Orangemarlin's talkpage

Saying that you are going to "escalate a dispute", is never a good idea since it immediately guarantees that what might have been a constructive discussion, will indeed escalate into a dispute. This message appeared to me to be rather rude, and was certainly counter-productive. Tim Vickers (talk) 21:25, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Bipedalism

I've contacted two admins and hopefully they will be able to help sorting this out. I totally agree with you. ArthurWeasley (talk) 16:02, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Done! Hope that they will respond... Cheers. ArthurWeasley (talk) 16:14, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

4X

Great work on the article. I've made it a pet project to help out a lot of the video game genres articles but it's been tough. A lot of it is badly written with a lot of original research. These are supposed to be corner stone articles that dozens of other video game articles rest upon. With your help I'd like to push at least one of these articles to GA or FA status and show that it can be done. The only GA (not even FA) genre article is Platform game.

The sooner you check in, the more we can improve the article before the peer review is complete. I put in a request a few days ago. So we'd benefit more if we ironed out even more of the kinks by that time. Randomran (talk) 19:14, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

I understand. Sometimes it's good to have a fresh pair of eyes. I've tried to leave a lot of your contributions alone. Instead I've focused on filling in some references and other small gaps. As for specific idaes, I replied to you at 4X talk. These proposed edits will involve removing or changing information that's been there for a while. So naturally I wanted to check in to see what people thought before doing anything controversial. Randomran (talk) 20:11, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Philcha, the archives got left behind when 4X (game) got moved to 4X, all fixed now. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 13:08, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

I'll hold you to that....(hehehe)....Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 13:47, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

I think it's making great progress. I'm pretty busy right now so I can't be too specific. But it's still gonna come back to referencing the various parts of the article. I think we can pull it off but we also have to be willing to cut a statement here and there if it appears to be OR... even if our intuitions tell us that those statements are true.

The tech tree section is one problem area. It's a hard section to reference. I haven't been able to find a single article that even makes a passing comment about 4X tech trees in general besides "4X games have tech trees". I think tech trees vary so much that it's hard to make generalizations at all. The section is growing with the amount of useful information. But some of the info and comparisons are taking the article off-focus. I had one idea to save our butts. We improve the 4X article by cutting the tech tree section down a LOT. But we take that tech tree information and put it in the main tech tree article. It's win-win: we keep the useful info somewhere else, improve the 4X article, and maybe even improve the tech tree article (which is only start-class and is at a stage where it just needs more useful info in general). Randomran (talk) 14:33, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

What you just said was great. Remember: genre and generalization are fundamentally linked to the same root concept. I like the "usually" statements. It's the "sometimes" statements are clutter IMO. You managed to say it so succinctly right there... I would much rather the 4X article say what you just said than what we have now. If we trimmed the section down to a hand full of "usually" statements (maybe with a few short "exception" statements) the article would be better off for it. Less messy, more to the point, and easier to reference. If we're trying to get to GA status then sometimes less is more. We can put the more detailed discussion about "sometimes it's this but sometimes it's that" into the main technology tree article. Particularly about the diverse structures and different levels of complexity. That's more about trees than it is about 4X games. Randomran (talk) 17:21, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Right on! Glad you agree. When you create the new concise version be sure move the other info to technology tree rather than deleting the info entirely. It's still useful info outside of the 4X article and the technology tree article needs all the help it can get. Randomran (talk) 17:35, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Looks a lot better, IMO. The only big thing I'd want to change is the last paragraph. I feel like that's better off in the technology tree article if anywhere. Saying tree structures vary is true of all trees. It's not really something that needs to be in the 4X article. Randomran (talk) 19:10, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

BTW, I like the new tech tree picture. But two small concerns. (1) The old picture was fair use from an open source game. This new picture is copyrighted. No problem right now. But if oyu use too many copyrighted images in the same article, you can get tagged. Just something to be wary of. Maybe we could try to balance the pictures out somewhere else? (2) The picture you have isn't really the Civ 3 tree. It's from a mod. Wouldn't a picture from the official tree be more appropriate? Randomran (talk) 19:13, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Don't sweat it too much. Neither issues are major. I'd still call this an overall improvement. I switched one of the other images to an open source game instead, just to be on the safe side. Randomran (talk) 22:30, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

That's cool. I'm sure I'm just being overly cautious anyway. Still, if you could replace any of the other images in the article with an image from Freeciv, Freeorion, or C-evo, it couldn't hurt. Randomran (talk) 00:56, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

I thought Civ 4 was pretty good. Either way let's leave the images. If someone complains about copyright issues then we can figure it out later. Randomran (talk) 01:24, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Hey. I'm gonna be pretty busy this coming week. But sometime next week, I'd like to go over the peer reviews that have been posted to that point. I think we can probably extract a few broad comments and start getting to work on those. Then we can spend some time on the minor details. I think we may be closer to GA status than we initially thought. Maybe even FA. But I'm trying to hold back my optimism. Randomran (talk) 17:39, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

4X.

No offense taken; thanks for reverting my ignorant edit. · AndonicO ^Engage. 14:58, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Okay, whatever you think is better works. I think I'll just read rather than copyedit from now on (I'd give the peer review sooner, and no more screw-ups). · AndonicO ^Engage. 00:00, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Evolution of mammals

Hello Philcha; sorry for not telling you I was going to propose this article for FA status. I just assumed it had been written collaboratively by a lot of people given that it is quite an impressive article. Let me try to justify my changes in the introduction:

• little is known about the evolution of the mammary glands and the neocortex, yet they are a very important part of the process. The fact that we do not know much about how they evolved doesn't mean they are a secondary part of the process.
• as far as I know, molecular genetics have only been used to study the evolution of the extant lineages of mammals; i.e., how long ago the canid and felid lineages became distinct, whether artiodactyla is paraphyletic or not, etc. But I do not know of any instance of molecular genetic being used to study prehistoric mammals, which is what I say in the introduction.
• unfortunately, and despite the many findings which have been made in the last two decades, the paucicity of Mesozoic mammalian remains is still an obstacle for the study of mammalian evolution. We are yet to find the Mesozoic Messel pits or La Brea.

What elements do you feel should also go in the lead? On the other hand, one reviewer has also mentioned that a few references are not as good as they should be. Unfortunately, I won't be able to help with that, as I currently haven't got much time to write on Wikipedia, and even less to go around looking for references. But you can count on me to help remodeling the lead. I hope we can work together to create a good introduction. Cheers!

Leptictidium (mammal talk!) 16:38, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree with you; if the articles read exactly like an academic paper, the layman who's going to read the article won't understand half of it and therefore Wikipedia would be failing to provide information to everyone. On the other hand, I doubt any professional paleontologist would rely on Wikipedia for an in-depth commentary of some prehistoric species. Therefore, there's no need to write articles with complex language.

As for the introduction, I believe the version you copied onto my talk page is just perfect; it mentions both the elements which can be studied through fossils, as well as those which cannot, making the distinction perfectly clear. On the other hand, I believe the ambiguous copyright status of those images might make it difficult for the article to pass the FA candidacy... Have a good evening.

Leptictidium (mammal talk!) 19:54, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Readability Tool

	Analyzer 1.2	Juicy Studio	Microsoft Word
Words	8,401	10,033	9690
Sentences	300	1,078	474
Words per sentence	28.00	9.31	17.4
Polysyllabic words	1,327	2,306	N/A
Syllables per word	1.75	1.75	N/A
Flesch Reading Ease	30.4	49.23	32.0
Flesch-Kincaid grade level	16.42	8.71	12.0
Gunning Fog	18.29	12.92	N/A

There is disagreement about number certainly

• The editor is setup in three columns, The first is the wikitext which is parsed by my parser (being scraped in 2.0), then plain text where templates, references, images, etc.. are striped, then the prose which are effetely the paragraphs of the article, underlining of polysyllable words and pink highlighting of punctuation words.
• The big diagram is the Fry Readability Formula, as you noted it should be labeled better.
• The note is there just to make sure people don't start changing article purely on the information provided by my tools. As I do not grantee results

I hope to communicate the information more understandably in version 2.0. The 2.0 method should provide scoring. — Dispenser 21:42, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Physiology of dinosaurs

Hi, Philcha;

Sure, I'm interested, but I'm going to be away from my "library" for a while shortly. J. Spencer (talk) 03:08, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

No, I don't think it's necessary to hold up, because I'll be able to contribute, just not as much or in as much depth. J. Spencer (talk) 13:39, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Okay. I'll be kind of in and out until Saturday afternoon (not the same thing I'm referring to in my first comment, but only a couple of days), but I'll be paying attention. J. Spencer (talk) 13:56, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm playing catch-up, but I'll get through it in the next day or two. J. Spencer (talk) 02:46, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

You may want to tweak the formatting of refs 71 and 74, since apparently it doesn't work to cite multiple documents under one ref tag. J. Spencer (talk) 03:01, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for all the laughs

Saw your name on another page and got curious. Saw your list of quotes (yes, Wikipedia takes itself too seriously) and list of "Articles I've worked on". Then I read them, and they were just what I needed after a serious editing session. Many thanks! Philcha (talk) 20:26, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Thank you kindly. I only regret that there aren't more to offer you. Valid articles on deranged matters are - well, you've seen the pitch elsewhere. Allow me to plug the way I once took the wind of a flame war, visible at the bottom of this page (still can't believe that worked.) I can also drop you a note when I finish one of my projects long lost in the general chaos: an article on children and fire (completely an excuse to use an image of a girl in flames from Der Struwwelpeter) and an essay on editing articles on breaking disasters (totally an excuse to use the acronym WP:BREAKGLASS.) Oh, and work on the Master of Orion article. --Kizor 20:46, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Oh most wise Diagonal Pumpkin Half-Squirrel National Geographic Rubber Duck Yodeling Tweeet, what are your exalted intentions regarding the humble Master of Orion article? Philcha (talk) 22:16, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

It'd take a hour or two to do a full analysis, so let us say that I'll know that once I get there. (Yes, I am obsessive. Why do you ask?) There's no danger of that in the immediate future. --Kizor 22:20, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Obsessive, and never alone with schizophrenia, Sir Echo. Philcha (talk) 22:23, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Darmok and Jilad at Tenagra. --Kizor 22:49, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Permo-Triassic

I already posted a note on the talk page as soon as I had made the edits you refer to- has it been removed? If so, it wasn't by me. I will take a look and see what's going on. Badgerpatrol (talk) 17:44, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

No, it is only photosynthesisers that preferentially take up light carbon during respiration. Shelled organisms (even algae such as Coccolithophores) are assumed to fractionate carbon into their mineralised parts in equilibrium with the ambient water (in fact this is not the case and corrections have to be made, and there it gets unecessarily complex). Because of these "vital effects"- non-equilibrium fractionation - it is not common to use bulk carbonate rock for analyses - because the investigator will be mixing up carbonate from lots of different sources, each of which may have a different fractionation factor, thus introducing noise and error into the data. Lithified bulk rock may also have been more affected by diagenesis than individual shells. Thus it is preferred where possible to use isolated shells or small numbers, from the same species, with reasonably unaltered carbonate, and ideally where one has some idea of the calibration required to account for any in-vivo non-equilibrium fractionation. However, in the Permian, the organisms that are most commonly used in e.g. Cretaceous and Tertiary stable isotope studies, which are probably the most commonly performed, for various reasons (usually planktic foraminifera and coccoliths) did not yet exist, hence my other comment. Badgerpatrol (talk) 11:09, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Note to self: P-Tr image

Check for reply to complaint about deletion of image. If response not prompt and helpful, escalate. Philcha (talk) 08:34, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Indeed. I'll not comment on the deletion as I know nothing about it. However I did see your posting.

Assume good faith would be good.

Separate accounts - Single User Login is only implemented for admins as yet hence no announcement

As you were editing as an IP there would be no java tool bar with a sig button

The insistence that Commons people should have to come to Wikipedia to answer a Commons question is - in my view - a "user-unfriendliness" on the part of en wp

I assure you this posting is a friendly one & I realise you are irritated however can I ask you to be a little more considerate of a user. Have a go at the system by all means, not the users. Thanks --Herby ^{talk thyme} 08:52, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Hey - I'm not disagreeing with you & yes I did see the "if you are a human/not personally involved" bit!

SUL has been on the cards for a relatively long time. Admins have only recently been able to take advantage of it & so I can now go onto wiki where I do not even recognise the "alphabet" and make a nuisance of myself without "creating" an account! However I do know there have been some real issues just with admins as a group. I had to get three or four vandal accounts cleared to implement mine & for others there have been different users with the same names on different wikis - I think it will be quite hard to implement. Bear in mind for each peeved en wp user there will be a peeved Commons user - as a Commons admin it annoys me when folk "redirect" their talk or user pages (indeed I have voted against more than one RfA because of that) - it's a Foundation project, if you work on it - work on it. BUT I am an en wp user (& one or two other places) too & SUL will make life easier but don't hold your breath. For SUL stuff Meta is the place to look.

As to licensing I am not one of the Commons experts by any means. I do know that en wp accepts "fair use" & Commons does not. As they are both Foundation projects I find it strange. Those who enjoy debating how many angels can dance on a pin head will get delight from the discussion - I just get on with the work. There are Commons pages on licensing (as there are here) if you feel that way inclined.

I hope that some of this helps to some degree - cheers --Herby ^{talk thyme} 11:22, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

OK & with apologies - Meta - you need to start here and look around (& obviously the talk too).

Certainly not a "tick box" issue as far as the deletion is concerned (if I understand ABF's posting) but a licensing issue. He states "no permission by the author" & that it can be uploaded as "fair use" here. Unless there is valid GDFL licensing Commons can't keep any media (per policy). The looser licensing here means "fair use" is fine (but of course it cannot then be used across projects.

Looking at the tag (& btw you do have a login to Commons which you used to upload the file in the first place) it states

This image is missing permission. It has an author and source, but there is no proof that the author agreed to license the file under the given license. Please provide a link to a webpage with an explicit permission. If you obtained such a permission via email, please forward it to permissions-commons@wikimedia.org and reference it at upload.

and a message drawing your attention to the issue was placed on your Commons talk page to that effect.

Whatever other views we may hold licensing is not an optional extra.

As to the friendliness or otherwise of en wp I think I will stay out of that one - suffice it to say I tend to find Commons an easier place to work collaboratively.

Cheers --Herby ^{talk thyme} 12:11, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Well just to prove you have an account :) & SUL (to my disappointment) still requires you to login on any wiki & such items as global messaging/watchlisting are even further off! Confirmation of licensing just is not optional I'm afraid. I would agree that many aspects of "tag" type messaging leave quite a bit to be desired in terms of communication on many Foundation projects. "We" the creators understand it, "we" fail to realise others may not (& bear in mind Commons is truly multi lingual!).

I'll take some issue with the "client/server" aspect of your comments! (& yes I have been playing with computers for a while now) Commons was set up to "serve" en wp, however Commons is a standalone project in its own right acting (& being used as) a global repository for media used by many people in a variety of ways (probably why the licensing is "tougher" there). A bone of contention in both directions there!

I would probably consider myself a fairly experienced wikimedian now (if you are curious you will easily find I had a previous user name on en wp so have been around here for a while). I've worked across projects for quite sometime now - mainly dealing with cross project vandalism & excessive link placement (the core of my work here & on meta though I do work on some local - to me - pages). Commons is where I go to get away from the madness that appears the norm on en wp at times. By & large people are helpful, there is a reasonable community and there really is no end to the work required - a Commons admin who has not deleted 100 items in one session is probably highly inactive. However I like the constructive aspects of the work there. I upload a few pictures which in turn get used here & elsewhere & I try and make it easier for folk to find media but going through and categorising medai that I have some understanding of. It works for me --Herby ^{talk thyme} 12:54, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Commons

The Image has been deleted because no permission by the author was given. You could upload it directly here as 'fair use'. Regards, abf /talk to me/ 08:49, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

First-move advantage in chess

Thanks for the detailed and insightful write up of First-move advantage in chess. One thing I am trying to work out. What to you mean by 'ref spamming'. When I look at say the references for Adorjan's "Black is OK" that you give as an example, it shows each reference if referring to a different page in the book. SunCreator (talk) 13:01, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

The Working Man's Barnstar

		The Working Man's Barnstar
		For excellent work on Chess topics:Staunton, Blackburn, Zukertort‎ , Steinitz and Anderssen. I am very happy to award you this barnstar. SunCreator (talk) 18:15, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Cambrian explosion

I realised that something had gone on; the problem lay with the commenting-out of sections, because comments left within references closed the one you'd started to "block out" a chunk of text. It is probably better to either move text that is commented out to a sub-page, or to removed it entirely and link to a stable version containing it from the talk page. As it is, it is (1) prone to being broken; (2) confusing for less experienced editors; (3) contributing to the large file size, and slower page-load times (I think). Smith609 Talk 09:38, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your refreshingly entertaining critique of "Do(d)gibot"! I've removed comments from its edits now; with a little luck it will be a little better behaved in future. Smith609 Talk 16:52, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Now fixed. The {{cite doi}} template is an experiment whereby any given source cited by use of its DOI from any Wikipedia page, without having to enter all the details each time. It's proving a little trickier to implement than I'd expected, but I'm still optimistic that it will prove useful when I iron out all the problems! Smith609 Talk 11:48, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Cite doi template

Thanks a lot for your offer of help - it's greatly appreciated! Ideally I'd test the template in userspace, but I find the only way to really iron out all the bugs is to use the thing, so I've employed it in a couple of articles I've started recently; I think I've now got past the glitchy stage. If you've any suggestions about how I can minimise disruption while testing DOI bot, they would be more than welcome, though!

The way {{cite doi}} works is by creating a sub-page with a standard "cite journal" template, which is used as a template in the true sense of the word, and transcluded wherever the the cite doi template requests it. Each reference it creates has an "edit" link at its end - follow one of those and you'll see what I mean. Also, when a reference is created for the first time, the user is taken to a pre-filled page with the citation details, which they can then amend as they see fit. Essentially, it is as flexible as {{cite journal}}.

I'm currently thinking about a way to make the bot work out whether a URL is a full text or not. It can work out if a page has free access using header codes (401 and 403 mean a subscription is required, 200 should always means it's free), but working out the content of the page is harder - a problem I intend to address when I get the opportunity. If I can get this sorted out, it will be able to add free URLs to references and flag them as such, and perhaps even search Yahoo for them. Ideas on how to resolve this are welcome!

All the best,

Smith609 Talk 12:25, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your suggestions. I'd be very interested to know more about a new version of Google Scholar; I couldn't find anything in the usual places at Google, and a search of Wikipedia only uncovered a post by yourself. Since Google's advertising Scholar as a beta service at the moment, I wonder if whoever suggested a new beta of Scholar was available was confusing it with my adapted version.

I share your concerns about server load, but am always aware of the guideline "Don't worry about performance". I'll ask around and see if I can find someone aware of the consequences. Smith609 Talk 14:03, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

I quite agree that the citation process it too complicated; as I see it, it's probably among the most important parts of turning Wikipedia into a useful resource, and removing its reputation as inaccurate. While the new template is another thing for editors to remember, I've found it so much quicker and easier than filling in forms by hand, and once it's fully automated it will make referencing a breeze. As I understand Wikipedia, templates are only read when they change, and since the templates should be stable once created, this shouldn't induce too much server load. That said, I have heard concerns before about creating lots of pages. I'll pester a few more people for an objective decision - I think it's very difficult to correctly guess what does and doesn't tire out the servers - but I always rank tiring out editors as a more important concern! Smith609 Talk 15:12, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Recent contributions

Not at all - thanks a lot for your criticism! It's useful to have someone to keep me in check, and as you are probably the only person to maintain an active interest in the same articles as me, it's no surprise our paths will keep crossing! I've responded to your points at the relevant talk pages. Smith609 Talk 07:15, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

"Everyone else"? I wish there were people around to be scared away in the first place!

I've replied at CX; I'm discussing the Stanley paper at "journal club" this evening so will wait until then before deciding my opinion on PT. Smith609 Talk 10:27, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Further MOO changes

Hi,

I've made more changes to Master of Orion, I tried to address everything I found in your comments on the page while keeping with my interpretation of policies and guidelines. I also quickly scanned the manual to see what could be expanded or refined and adjusted the planets, Orion info and victory conditions according to what I found. It's getting close to reading like a summary of the manual itself so I'm reluctant to add any more details, but I think it reads better now. Please opine on the talk page if you've more concerns or feel free to edit yourself if you think that'd be quicker. WLU (talk) 15:43, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Alexander Alekhine and NKVD (later KGB)

Hi! There are rumours of Alexei Alekhine's and Alexander Alekhine's death, and different interpretations. Please see, for example works of Pablo Moran, Tomasz Lissowski, etc., and such a person as Alexander Kotov who had been a KGB agent. I hope you are not a defender of Soviet propaganda. -- Best regards, Mibelz 14:44, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

8th Chess Olympiad

Hello! You are right, it means "A meeting of team captains, including Alexander Alekhine (FRA), Savielly Tartakower (POL) and Albert Becker (GER), decided to go on with the Olympiad". Alekhine, Tartakower and Becker were the most important persons in that assembly. After long negotiations and all team captains' discussions, Argentine organizers' hot requests and diplomatic skills of president Augusto de Muro of the Argentine Chess Federation, they finished with success.

I have found the following information: "Supported by Latin-American financial pledges, José R. Capablanca of Cuba, challenged Dr. Alexander Alekhine of France to a world title match in November 1939. Tentative plans not, however, actually backed by a deposit of the required purse ($10,000 in gold), led to a virtual agreement to play at Buenos Aires, Argentina beginning April 14, 1940." in http://encarta.msn.com/sidebar_461501114/1939_chess.html

PS. Of course, you may put full countries' names.

All the best, Mibelz 19:05, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Side issues...

I don't have an email address linked to wikipedia, because I don't want any spam and want to maintain my privacy. Is there another way I can get these files to you? Worse comes to absolute worst, I can just create a junk email address and send them that way.

Also, after boldly adding Tea Leaves to the list of reliable sources, it was removed. You might want to see the discussion here and participate: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Video_games/Sources. (I'll take another look at 4X later today or tomorrow.) Randomran (talk) 16:32, 2 June 2008 (UTC)