User talk:SkyLined/Archive

Re: -N programming categories

Actually, the templates are fine if you want to keep them on your page. It was the categories associated with them that I was concerned about. VegaDark (talk) 15:13, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I know a ton about all user categorization. It sounds like a good idea to standardize all those userboxes. The most important thing to remember for programming categories is that -0 and -N categories should not be included in the userbox, since those have been deleted. VegaDark (talk) 15:31, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

{{delimitnum}} and {{val}}

SkyLined. It appears you used span-based, non-breaking spaces. Is that right? Here is the Bugzilla 13025 report. It provides a full account of the details for making delimitnum. As for getting rapid adoption, the very first step is to do one’s very best to address everyone’s concerns regarding appearance. Note that I also had a discussion on Talk:MOS#Exponential Notation after my efforts on Talk:MOSNUM and the issue of spaces alongside the × symbol came up. It was an appearance issue that was important to certain editors over there. The fix that made everyone quite happy was to use span-based thin spaces on both sides of the times symbol rather than a full-width non-breaking space. I did a lot of work on the details of this to make sure a best compromise was made in the appearance across all OSs and browsers. The details are disclosed in my Comment #14 From Greg L 2008-03-22 01:39:29 UTC post on Bugzilla. I also have a debugging sandbox here at User:Greg L/Delimitnum sandbox. Note that I have a special demo section showing the full-tilt method that pleased everyone (span-based gaps everywhere) in a section titled “Experiment with narrow spans alongside × sign”. Copied below, is some hand-written code. If your template can look like this, and doesn’t have the mathematical rounding problems you see in my sandbox, I think you’ve got a winner. Greg L (talk) 17:59, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Experiment with narrow spans alongside × sign

With <span style="margin-left:0.3em">×<span style="margin-left:0.15em">

6.022141791(30)×10²³ kg
6.022141791×10²³ kg
6.022141792×10²³ kg
6.022141793×10²³ kg
6.022141794×10²³ kg
6.022141795×10²³ kg
6.022141796×10²³ kg
6.022141797×10²³ kg
6.022141798×10²³ kg
6.022141799×10²³ kg
6.022142796×10²³ kg

I've adopted the span based spacing throughout {{val}}. I have literally copy the {{delimitnum}} code, so {{val}} does no better at high precision or very large numbers. However, I've also added error checking, which will report errors caused by the limited precision of floating point numbers, so editors are aware of them:

• {{delimitnum|1.2345678901234567890}} = 1.234567890123456
• {{val|1.2345678901234567890}} = 1.2345678901234567890)

I noticed a conversation about {{delimitnum|0.100}} = 0.1 (zeros missing. I think this can be fixed using {{evalns}} and string comparison. Here's an example (assume {{{x}}} = 0.100):

• {{#ifeq:{{{x}}}.|{{evalns|{{{x}}}}}.|add no zero}} =
• {{#ifeq:{{{x}}}.|{{evalns|{{{x}}}}}0.|add one zero}} =
• {{#ifeq:{{{x}}}.|{{evalns|{{{x}}}}}00.|add two zeros}} = add two zeros
• {{#ifeq:{{{x}}}.|{{evalns|{{{x}}}}}000.|add three zeros}} =
• {{#ifeq:{{{x}}}.|{{evalns|{{{x}}}}}0000.|add four zeros}} =
• etc...

I've not implemented this yet
-- SkyLined (talk) 18:40, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Kilogram

[...removed resolved issues...]

• P.S. Additional feedback: This ({{val|h=≈|3|u=ppb|up=cm]]) appeared in both Safari and Firefox about half way down the first paragraph of #Watt balance. The only other “issues” I can see have nothing to do with errors in {val} and are simple preferences of style. I try to examine my numbers using a variety of browsers. For instance, look at this {val}-based value:

6.02214179×10²³

…vs. this one:

1000/27.9769271 × 6.02214179 × 10²³

…when using non-Safari browsers like Firefox. The first time I saw your fraction, I liked what I saw. But then I quickly realized, “Wait, what is this going to look like using browsers that can’t anti-alias fonts like Safari?”

You can see that readability can really suffer when text gets below a certain size. I like your scientific notation part because the gap alongside the × symbol is narrower. But fractional expression looks too poor on non-Safari browsers to overcome the advantages of the top-over-bottom style. Anyway, as I said, an issue like this is a matter of typographers’ preferences and browser-rendering issues. [...]

<SkyLined>{{frac2}} is a seperate template, which I created the other day. If it looks bad in some browsers, I will try to fix it or delete it and remove all instances. However, I do not seem to have this issue - it looks quite alright in my FireFox browser. It only becomes unreadable at the point where the normal text becomes unreadably small as well, so that is not an issue. Could you make a screengrab to show me what you mean?</SkyLined>

I also note that Thunderbird2 went in and tried to correct some of the bolded “kg” symbols but only delved into the article deep enough to catch some of them; he missed others deeper down. I note that you appeared to have gone on a small Wiki-break and, seeing that you weren’t able to attend to this quickly, I took the liberty of reverting Kilogram back to the {delimitnum} in the mean time rather than hand-edit each and every occurance of “kg”. Greg L (talk) 21:04, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

<SkyLined> Kilogram was a "test" for {{val}} to see what would work and what wouldn't. I have no problem with the revert.

I'm looking at having manually entered values and {{delimitnum}} use automatically replaced by {{val}} using a bot, so I should be able to put those changes back quick and easy as well as change other pages to use {{val}} without going through the trouble of manually editting them.</SkyLined>

• That sounds like wonderful news. I was a bit worried about the “human error” part inherent in converting values from one template to another. I takes me an extraordinary amount of time doing side-by-side comparisons to make sure I haven’t screwed up a value. Is there any way to make a version, or subset of {val} that parses just like {delimitnum}? I suspect the author of {delimitnum} wouldn’t mind having it replaced with a subset version of {val} with all its error-checking and attention to detail. The principle reason for the request is because of the large number of people on Talk:MOSNUM and Talk:MOS who seemed to share my enjoyment for simplicity: {delimitnum’s} easy-to-remember parsing (template name | value | uncertainty | exponent | unit). If accomplishing that would be a major butt-itch, never mind; I’ll take a very nice looking, error-checked product like {val} any day. I’m just hoping for a “{val jr.}”. Maybe you could create a {delimitval} so a simple global text editor search/replace can use your version without screwing directly with {delimitnum}. Greg L (talk) 00:18, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

<SkyLined>It's obviously possible to create as many versions of {{val}} as you need, but personally, I'd like to keep the number of templates as low as possible; it gets harder to find the right template if there are a lot to choose from. Also, the arguments to {{delimitnum}} as less self-explanatory because they are all unnamed. {{val}} has the benefit that arguments like exponent and unit are easier to identify because they are named after the first letter in those words. This makes them easier to understand for people that are not yet familiar with them. It would be relatively easy to rewrite {{delimitnum}} to be a "wrapper" for {{val}}, where all it would do is pass the arguments on, like so:

(delimitnum | value | uncertainty | exponent | unit) → (val| value | (uncertainty) | e=exponent | u=unit)

but personally, I am against this for aforementioned reasons of clarity and uniformity across pages.</SkyLined>

• Sounds sensible and logical to me. Greg L (talk) 19:06, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Template:Su

Hi. Subscrits using this template (and or {{val}}) don't show up. Could you take a look? Also, it looks like actually a bad idea to have a template "too complex to show", as it beats the whole purpose of a wiki. - Nabla (talk) 01:29, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Hi Nabla, could you please give me more details? What browser, what OS, which page, a screen dump of what you see, etc...    — SkyLined {talkcontribs 03:34, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

IE6, Win98, Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:Su and Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:Val, I don't see superscripts (I do see subscripts, my mistake) - Nabla (talk) 16:14, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

You should get a new computer :). But I'll look into it, as soon as I can get a machine with IE6 installed. It may take some time before this can be fixed. I'm pretty busy at the moment :(.     — SkyLined {talkcontribs 01:26, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

You should make templates simple enough to be edited by others... - Nabla (talk) 17:33, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Easier said than done, it's as simple as I can make it. Feel free to prove me wrong     — SkyLined {talkcontribs 21:10, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

^x is simple, and works (at least it does for me:^x). I miss the point in having a template for such a simple thing, specially one that works for less readers (even if for only few less) - Nabla (talk) 21:49, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

{{val}} does not just produce exponents, it also produces uncertainty, which is represented by two numbers, one in supscipt and one in subscript. They are one over the other, something that cannot be done using <sup> and <sub>. That's why I created {{su}}. To keep the look and feel of those numbers similar to the exponent, I use {{su}} for the exponent as well. For now I will modify {{su}} to use <sup> and <sub> if you only need sup or subscript and not both. That should fix the exponent issue. Once I have more time, I'll see if I can't fix {{su}} to work properly with IE6 as well.     — SkyLined {talkcontribs 22:00, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Done, let me know if this is better (even though the uncertainty still won't work). I definitive fix still needs to be created     — SkyLined {talkcontribs 22:06, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

I see superscripts now, thanks. You have a point about having sub- and superscripts together. But <math>A_{sub}^{sup}</math> seems to works fine - $A_{sub}^{sup}$ - except that it may break the line spacing (but that happens with HTML anyway, doesn't it?). Maybe you could use that?... - Nabla (talk) 12:31, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

No, Math is not an option:

• Math content cannot be copy-pasted
• Math content cannot be read by accessibility features such as text-to-speach for the blind
• Math has a completely different look and feel from the rest of the text, if you use it for things such as {{val}}, the layout will sucks.

    — SkyLined {talkcontribs 19:31, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Fair. Specially the 2nd point. The 3rd being irrelevant, IMO, as if the option is a bad look that works for all or a good look for a few... the option should be obvious (IE6 is still almost a third of 'net users). I still dislike the concept of a template so intricate that is almost impossible to edit - that is very very un-wiki... - but well... if you get it to work it does look fine, and the main point with a template is ease of use, not as much ease of coding. - Nabla (talk) 21:53, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Kilogram now uses val

SkyLined, I just wanted to let you know that I’ve now used {{val}} every place I can on Kilogram. Many thanks. One of the things editors look for in a template is getting it locked down. Are you pretty close to being done with it? Greg L (talk) 06:06, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Problems with linking in {{PhysicsParticle}}

Hi there. When you get a chance, could you pop over to Template talk:PhysicsParticle, to help resolve a technical problem in the optimal way? Thanks, Hqb (talk) 19:27, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Problems with {{PhysicsParticle}} in List of baryons

The list of baryons has been nominated for Featured List once, but failed on various account. I've fixed most of them, and the only one remaining is from Crzycheetah, who experiences weird scroll bar problems, caused by some use of {{SubatomicParticle}}/{{PhysicsParticle}} templates. The specific templates causing problems were identified to be those in references T. Aaltonen et al. (2007a) and T. Aaltonen et al. (2007b), and the {{SubatomicParticle|charmed Xi+}} in the Particle Classification section.

I can't find anything different in the use of these templates in those instances than in the rest of the page. I also tried looking in the template codes and I can't see anything there either. Could you take a look at the List of baryons and {{SubatomicParticle}}/{{PhysicsParticle}} pages to see if you can find a problem?

Many thanks. Headbomb (ταλκ · κοντριβς) 13:24, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

What<s the status of the val template?

There's a bunch of folks over that the Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers) that's eager to have it up and running. Headbomb (ταλκ · κοντριβς) 22:14, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, really busy with my new job. Also, I'm going on a holiday for a week. It'll be at least another two weeks before I can spent some more time on it... sorry :(    — SkyLined {talkcontribs 05:29, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

That's a shame since it's the tidiest × most intuitive way I know to stick those non-breaking non-just-turning-into-boxes-on-IE thin spaces around the multiplication sign in the scientific notation. Anyhow, I'm here to let you know that I've set the wheels in motion to tidy up the copy & paste move of {{ScientificValue}} to {{val}}. That done, {{ScientificValue}} can be deleted altogether (I've swapped its few remaining transclusions over to {{val}}. Sadly, though, Headbomb, I can give you a bit of a pointer on {{val}}'s status: broken. JIMp _talk·cont 07:29, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

The history merge is done. JIMp _talk·cont

Barnstar for {{val}}

		The Tireless Contributor Barnstar
		For your efforts on the {{val}}) template. Your patience in listening to the input from a variety of editors and your unselfish efforts to provide the rest of the Wikipedia community with a highly sought-after tool to make their lives easier is much appreciated. Template authors are the unsung heros of Wikipedia. Thanks. Greg L (talk) 22:36, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

WikiProject Physics participation

Hey. I noticed that you had the WP Physics userbox, so I wondered if you could put your name on the list of WikiProject Physics participants. If you still are an active participant of WikiProject Physics, of course. There's also the quick help table on WP:Phys frontpage and as you're good with templates, I wondered if you could become the template "contact" at WP Physics.

Thanks. Headbomb {ταλκ – WP Physics: PotW} 04:20, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, I think I will do that, but as you may have noticed, I have been very busy with other things lately. If I can't put in enough hours, I don't think I should be a contact, as my replies may be severely delayed. I should have more time again in a month or two, so I'll keep you posted.     — SkyLined {talkcontribs 09:46, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Cool beans. BTW, your signature takes a lot of edit space, and people might take offense to that. I used the particle template for mine a while ago and it got me into a heap of trouble.Headbomb {ταλκ – WP Physics: PotW} 00:38, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I noticed that. How about this:     — SkyLined {^talk_contribs 12:30, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

• The "talk" link ain't accessible. This was a problem in the old way of doing things too. Headbomb {ταλκ – WP Physics: PotW} 17:13, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

That's because you are already on my talk page. If you put a link to "X" on page "X", it will not be clickable. If you go to any other page where I've signed, you will be able to click on the link. :)     — SkyLined {^talk_contribs 22:19, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Template:Time

Hi , I wish to add IST on {{Time}} which is UTC+5.5 hours. How do I do that? It doesnt accept decimal vlaues as 5.5 , can you help me ? -- TinuCherian ^(Chat?) - 05:34, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

That template was a bit of a mess; I cleaned it up a bit and added IST. Have a look and see if the time is correct and let me know of it is now easy enough to add a new timezone.     — SkyLined {^talk_contribs 17:04, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Perfect... My local time is 00:53, 6 November 2024 (IST). Thanks a lot -- TinuCherian ^(Chat?) - 17:08, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Square metres

Hi SkyLined,

Thanks for the correction! --Slashme (talk) 06:21, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Haumea

Hello,I have updated the image, and done the changes you have requested.However, I am new to Wikipedia,and do not know how to update the image onto the page.Could you please guide me through this? Prahladan.prasanth (talk) 14:21, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Reply on your talk page.     — SkyLined {^talk_contribs 15:10, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Template sup broken

I have reverted template:sup because it is not working. There is also a problem with template:su and template:val. Is this not working in only my browser (IE6)? or do you really not test these widely used templates before and after making changes? Sorry if I've got this wrong. SpinningSpark 08:23, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

You really should check Template_talk:Su, can you please redo the changes?     — SkyLined {^talk_contribs 11:06, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

TfD nomination of Template:Val

Template:Val 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. Gerry Ashton (talk) 18:46, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

TfD nomination of Template:Delimitnum

Template:Delimitnum 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. Gerry Ashton (talk) 18:46, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Val and delimitnum

I've improved delimitnum, so it supports the most numbers it can and a lot more leading 0. See [1] for details. Headbomb {ταλκ – WP Physics: PotW} 18:02, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Hey, cool! I should create a {{tl:delimitnum/test}} so I can see the changes, but I haven't the time. Would you mind?     — SkyLined {^talk_contribs 18:13, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Not quite sure what you mean by that. Headbomb {ταλκ – WP Physics: PotW} 18:17, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Help with templates

Could you please take a look at User talk:A. di M.#Margins? Essentially, I wandered if it's possible to make a template which outputs its argument unchanged, except that if its first character is a hyphen (-) it gets replaced with a minus sign (−). --A. di M. (talk) 12:04, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Your sig.

BTW, you shouldn't use a template in your sig. It produces a very ugly clump of text and exceeds the 255 character limit. Some people go postal when they see something like that (I caught hell for using a signature based on yours). See my sig for an alternative. Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 22:48, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

You're right about the ugly clump of text part, but I think that using a template is actually a lot cleaner; any idea why people would not want you to do that? have a look at my sig now:

— SkyLined (talk) 08:02, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

NM I found it here: Wikipedia:Signatures#Transclusion_of_templates. Sigh - I'll just have to comply I guess...

Oh believe me, I'd like to use them as well. Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 08:34, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Val template and Manual of Style (dates and numbers)

User:TheFeds has made a change to the WP:Manual of Style (dates and numbers), and I have made some follow-up changes. If these changes persist, you will probably want to make corresponding changes to the Vals template. --Jc3s5h (talk) 13:22, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't see anything that needs changing, could you let me know where you think {{val}} output differs from the MoS?     — SkyLined (talk) 09:30, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

The Manual of Style (dates and numbers) now states

• • In a number with many digits, digit grouping symbols (inserted at intervals from the decimal point) should be used to subdivide the number into easily readable groups. The acceptable digit grouping schemes are:
    • Commas every three digits (8,274,527) only to the left of the decimal point, with no grouping to the right of the decimal point. This is traditional usage in many English-language contexts.
    • Thin, non-breaking spaces every three digits (8274527 or 0.12345). This format is suggested in BIPM and NIST style guides for scientific works, and is in common use in interlanguage contexts. The {{gaps}} template uses CSS to produce this output (using the syntax {{gaps|8|274|527}}). The   character may cause rendering problems in some browsers, and should be avoided when practical.
    • Other traditional digit grouping schemes, when relevant to the subject matter of the article (e.g. 82,74,527 in the Indian numbering system).
  • When a number has exactly four digits on any side of the decimal separator, those digits may optionally be expressed as a group of four instead of three (e.g. both 9876 and 0.9876 are acceptable).

The format produced by Val, using a mixture of commas to the left and the appearance of thin spaces to the right, is not listed among the acceptable grouping schemes. In the past, the MOSNUM never showed a number with 5 or more digits to both the left and right of the decimal; the behavior of Val, to use a mix of commas and thin spaces, was only discussed on talk pages, never explicitly endorsed in the MOSNUM.

Also, thin spaces (or the appearance of them) to the left are now listed. Before, the lack of endorsement of thin spaces to the left was seen as disallowing the number format suggested by BIPM and NIST (8274527). --Jc3s5h (talk) 14:43, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Ah, I misread this list as "and" instead of "or", so I assumed the combination comma's and spaces that {{val}} currently uses was supported. I'll start a thread on the val talk page to suggest a change to use thin spaces on either side of the comma. Thanks for pointing this out     — SkyLined (talk) 21:38, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm thinking of bringing up the question, on MOSNUM, of whether the concept of consistency within an article applies to digit grouping. That is, suppose an article only includes numbers with < 5 digits right of the decimal, and is edited so that some of the numbers have >= 5 digits to the right of the decimal. If the editor wants to use gaps in the new numbers, does he have to go back and change all the other numbers to use gaps to the left of the decimal too.

This probably wouldn't change how you would develop the template, but maybe there is an influence I haven't thought of. --Jc3s5h (talk) 22:00, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

I am hoping that people will agree that using {{val}} everywhere all the time gets around this problem of having to manually change things later. At that point, maybe I can look at creating some tools that aid in replacing numbers in existing page with {{val}}. It's pretty easy to find all numbers in a page and suggest changes that use {{val}}, the editor would just have to say which page s/he wants to edit, the script would suggest the changes and the editor only needs to check them and fix any errors, make adjustments before submitting them. This should make the task you describe pretty easy. But first, {{val}} needs to prove its worth, I think this change in the MoS and the fact that one change in the script changes all the numbers on all the pages proves that there is a huge benefit in using such a script.     — SkyLined (talk) 22:14, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

I see that you are not only a programmer, but a mind reader as well. --Jc3s5h (talk) 22:16, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

An RfC is in progress: WT:MOSNUM#RfC: Is 4,046.8564224 an acceptable number format?. --Jc3s5h (talk) 02:14, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Requested CSS space tweak alongside the x in {val}

SkyLined,

I assume you’ve seen this thread on MOSNUM regarding tweaking the CSS span width of the two gaps that sandwich the × symbol in the {{val}} template. The width combination that achieved a clear consensus was for the hard-coded CSS <span>‑based gaps to be tweaked so they are 0.25 em on the left of × symbol and 0.15 em right. The universal impression is that this look is a little more compact and balanced. Would you make the change?

Shown below is a fixed screen shot of what {{val}} currently looks like and this tweak’s relative effect. Different uses have looked at this change using Safari, Firefox, Safari on an OS 3 iPhone, IE7, Chrome 2.0.172.43 and Firefox 3.0.13 under Ubuntu 9.04.

This is Safari 4.0.3 on Mac OS X 10.5.8.

• 6.0221412579×10⁻²³ kg (live-text version of {{val}} )

Greg L (talk) 02:40, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

Done     — SkyLined (talk)

• Thank you, sir. Greg L (talk) 14:50, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

Getting your own user sub-page deleted

...doesn't need MfD - you can just put {{db-u1}} or {{db-userreq}} at the top. Regards, JohnCD (talk) 08:49, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Will do, thanks for the tip.     — SkyLined (talk)

Carbon burning process

I've added some content to this page. I have refs for my content, but couldn't find one for the values of temp and density originally on the page. From the history it looks like maybe you put these values in. They certainly look to be in the right range; I'm just wondering if, assuming you did put this content in, you could locate a suitable reference that could be added to the page. If you can't provide a reference, or don't want to be involved, don't sweat it, I put in a link to a database that an intrepid reader could follow up, at least for the carbon burning temp and density, if not for the other fusion processes. Thanks.Puzl bustr (talk) 15:08, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, I can't help you - I only modified the formatting of physics pages. I am no physicist, just a very interested amateur. I may have copied some data from a wikipedia page in another language, I'm not sure if that was for this page though...     — SkyLined (talk) 19:05, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Templates with errors

Did you notice that your efforts to remove templates and template documantation pages from Category:Pages with incorrect formatting templates use are unsuccessfull? Debresser (talk) 11:02, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I am aware that no all my efforts are immediately working: some templates use other templates which actually generate the errors and add the pages to the category. Some of these templates are view-source only, so I cannot edit them now. I have created requests to have them updated on their talk pages. Once they are updated and support nocategory, all will be good.     — SkyLined (talk) 11:05, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Ok, good luck. Debresser (talk) 11:08, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Template:Element2

Hi- The code in the above template is causing the template to be included in Category:Wikipedia template categories, which is a category that is for sub-categories only. Would you fix this? Thanks, because I'm not sure what to do. --Funandtrvl (talk) 05:28, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Fixed. This was caused by the inclusion of {{Category:Nuclide templates}}, which had {{Template category}}. Other templates of this family had the same problem. I edited {{Category:Nuclide templates}} to remove that for now. It would be best if {{Category:Nuclide templates}} got a /doc page that gets included by the Nuclide templates, rather than the Category page itself. That way we can put the {{Template category}} back.     — SkyLined (talk) 10:38, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks again for fixing it! --Funandtrvl (talk) 16:59, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Alphas

nuclei. I always thought the two were interchangeable; do you have a source for this information?     — SkyLined (talk) 08:42, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

They're interchanagble once they've stopped, but not before. You get various answers from encyclopedias of science, but a typical one is this: http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/A/alphapart.html. It's essentially idential to WP now, mentioning alpha decay and the odd other usage in stars, but the term is usually NOT used for randomly accelerated He nuclei. The reason being that all the generalizations about alpha penetration of the body and danger as ionizing radiation, are completely wrong if alphas are allowed to be generated at any arbitrary energy (which they are not, in normal radioactive decay). 1 Gev helium nuclei from a synchrotron will go all the way through a human body, just as fast protons will. They usually are not refered to as alphas, any more than high energy photons from linacs are refered to as "gammas", because they don't have the other characteristics of alphas, and they aren't produced by the same process.

Perhaps the intro needs to be worked on some more; cosmic ray workers are sloppy and sometimes refer to fast He nuclei (10-12% of cosmic rays) as "alphas." But these cosmics will go through your body also, so it's really not the best idea to conflate them with the radioactive-decay particles that are stopped by your skin. I'll add some more about the confusion issue and the cosmic ray connection if you like, or you can. Suffice to say that using the term "alpha" carries a connotation that "helium nucleus" doesn't. SBHarris 12:54, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't know if it is legitimate to make comment here about the possible differences between Helium ions and Alpha particles....I am an elderly chemist who has some ideas about physical structure of atoms such that I suspect that the "nuclei" of atoms should perhaps be better considered as the volumes occupied by associated protons,and the anti-particle sets of positrons and "anti-protons." I consider the "neutrons in nuclei" as a bookkeeping device, period...

As to the pertinence of this to the Alpha, I suspect that the Alpha particle is not actually a Helium 4 "nucleus," but a trigonally hybridized unit which by the addition of two electrons can form a Helium 4 atom.  The He4 atom would be expected to be tetrahedral in form and the mono-cation could easily have two forms, a tetrahedral form and a trigonal. I have no information as to what the Helium nuclei that occur in Cosmic Rays are, I would guess that  many or all  may be He4+ cations rather than the "Alpha Di-cation..." Whether any of this is acceptable comment or not I have no idea. As I do not spend a lot of time on Wikipedia, I suppose that this will have to be simply deleted. Deanlsinclair (talk) 15:16, 26 August 2010 (UTC)Dean L. Sinclair

You can make all the comments you want here :). I'm just not sure it's useful, as I am neither a physicist nor a chemist, so I cannot comment on the actually information in the page. I mostly edit the wording and layout of pages, not the actual content. In cases where I do, I only copy from other sources.

It may be helpful to consider as a general rule, you should never express you opinions in Wikipedia pages or put original research on Wikipedia: Wikipedia is a reference and should only contain information obtained from other sources with a reference to those sources for the information. Not sure if that applies to what you are suggesting, as I really don't know much about the subject, other than what I read on Wikipedia and the sources it references to. :)     — SkyLined (talk) 15:50, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Templates {{SubatomicParticle}} and co.

I was trying to format particules on fr:Méson B in a consistent way so I came over here, found these wonderful templates, but I was wondering if the accessibility of the particules templates was considered/assessed? --Anneyh (talk) 22:56, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

(I modified the topic and replied on your talk page).

Nomination for deletion of Template:PhysicsParticle/symbol

Template:PhysicsParticle/symbol has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Thank you.     — SkyLined (talk) 14:54, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

Unused page... no

Dear Sky, the page is used whether it's edited or not. In this sense I think your list is not very useful. Please ask a different question, for example, "kindly edit your page so it doesn't influence this or that official project" and how to. Thanks. Eddi (Talk) 03:51, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

New for substrings with accented letters

07-May-2010: I have created Template:Str_index/getchar (and Template:Substr_any) to also handle any of those dozens of accented letters and ligatures. Since the character comparison is done in a MediaWiki switch-expression, there would be almost no performance impact in adding switch-cases (for accented letters) to be added onto the end of the list. A switch-expression (since January 2008) exits upon the first match, and does not compare the remaining letters in the list.

{{substr_any|XYZÈèĖėÇç |5|10}}  returns 4 letters "ĖėÇç" as too short for 10.

Template:Str_index/getchar can be updated to match more accented letters or other special characters, as needed for future use. -Wikid77 (talk) 06:07, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

You are now a Reviewer

Hello. Your account has been granted the "reviewer" userright, allowing you to review other users' edits on certain flagged pages. Pending changes, also known as flagged protection, is currently undergoing a two-month trial scheduled to end 15 August 2010.

Reviewers can review edits made by users who are not autoconfirmed to articles placed under pending changes. Pending changes is applied to only a small number of articles, similarly to how semi-protection is applied but in a more controlled way for the trial. The list of articles with pending changes awaiting review is located at Special:OldReviewedPages.

When reviewing, edits should be accepted if they are not obvious vandalism or BLP violations, and not clearly problematic in light of the reason given for protection (see Wikipedia:Reviewing process). More detailed documentation and guidelines can be found here.

If you do not want this userright, you may ask any administrator to remove it for you at any time. Courcelles (talk) 18:01, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

Please don't convert Foo<sub>bar<sub> to Foo{{su|b=bar}}

The {{su}} template should only be used to display things like Foo^bar
_baz, or when called through another template (like {{PhysicsParticle}}. I know you like this template, and it is a good one, but the html tags are standard, less expensive computerwise, much clearer in the edit window, and less intimidating to newbies, so they should be left alone. I'll be fixing the changes to [2], which might include reverting to math tags. Not all TeX is evil. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 04:20, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I find reading
_bla much easier than _bla, but that's just a personal opinion. Your argument makes sense and I will stop converting HTML to
where not needed.

On the other hand, there are quite a few reason not to use TeX:

• TeX looks crappy most of the time because the font differs from normal HTML and it can switch between .gif and .png output mode, seemingly at random, which look different from each other as well. Also, HTML/TeX text alignment is non-existent.
• TeX cannot be handled by accessibility tools, such as text-to-speech.
• TeX takes a more server time to process, uses more bandwidth and has a higher latency when loading. The first is not an immediate problem, but the second is definitely noticeable on handheld devices such as smartphones.

I probably should try to make it a Wikipedia policy to keep the use of TeX to a minimum for the above reasons, that way we won't be working at cross purposes.

Thanks for the feedback :)     — SkyLined (talk) 11:19, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

When it's inline, I'll agree that TeX is often superflous/ugly(like the individual quark numbers). But when it's on it's own line, there's nothing really wrong with it. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 13:28, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Not sure what you're saying here: do you consider the other issues I mentioned (accessibility, server/network/client load) not relevant, not important or nonexistent? You only seem to address the layout issues.     — SkyLined (talk) 15:36, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

It's more of a style issue. Formulas on their own lines are usually (although not always) displayed in TeX. Other than force of habit, good reasons for using TeX in these case is that if you need to write the formula, it's a good thing to have it "zoomed in" for readability and emphasis. What's more readable

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.

Q = +2⁄3[(n_u − n_u) + (n_c − n_c) + (n_t − n_t)] − 1⁄3[(n_d − n_d) + (n_s − n_s) + (n_b − n_b)]

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.

or

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.

$Q=+{\frac {2}{3}}\left[\left(n_{\mathrm {u} }-n_{\mathrm {\overline {u}} }\right)+\left(n_{\mathrm {c} }-n_{\mathrm {\overline {c}} }\right)+\left(n_{\mathrm {t} }-n_{\mathrm {\overline {t}} }\right)\right]-{\frac {1}{3}}\left[\left(n_{\mathrm {d} }-n_{\mathrm {\overline {d}} }\right)+\left(n_{\mathrm {s} }-n_{\mathrm {\overline {s}} }\right)+\left(n_{\mathrm {b} }-n_{\mathrm {\overline {b}} }\right)\right]$

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.

Ultimately this would come down to a matter of preference, and usually the consensus is when it comes down to preference, people should retain the original style. If we wanted to make things more uniform across Wikipedia, then it would naturally evolve to a state where inline stuff is in text, while things in their own line are in TeX. (The current version of the hypercharge article reflects this.) Feel free to convert TeX to text whenever (well, almost whenever, there are probably some exceptions) you see it inline however. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 17:02, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Luckily, if zoom level is the issue, that can be solved:

Q = +2⁄3[(n_u − n_u) + (n_c − n_c) + (n_t − n_t)] − 1⁄3[(n_d − n_d) + (n_s − n_s) + (n_b − n_b)]

I think we mostly agree on when to use TeX and when not to, style wise. However, the other issues I have mentioned concern the ability for users of Wikipedia to access the information on a page. I'm sure you will agree that we should try to avoid providing a selection of Wikipedia users with nice looking output if this means Wikipedia will be harder or impossible to access for others, such as those with disabilities or limited bandwidth.

I thank you for the feedback. I'll limit converting to inline <math> only and I'll think about raising my concerns regarding TeX in general, so we get consensus across Wikipedia before I start making more mayor modifications again!     — SkyLined (talk) 19:57, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Val template

SkyLined. People have been messing with the Val template. Can you fix it? Val now leaves a hanging single digit like this: 6.6260693×10⁻³⁴ J·s. That is completely contrary to the way it is supposed to be done and that issue was widely vetted by the community with a overwhelming consensus. It is supposed to be a four-digit group to avoid that, like this: “6.626 0693”.

Also, someone made this edit for this purpose: “Balanced (left-right) thin-space margins on operators.” It did the opposite. That editor didn’t understand the effort that went into having numerous volunteers e-mail screen shots from different operating systems and different browsers so the overall appearance struck the best compromise. Remember, you can thoroughly review how {val} works here at User:Greg_L/Val_sandbox.

Greg L (talk) 17:02, 15 November 2010 (UTC) .

Thanks for pointing this out. I am unfortunately very busy with other things and may not have time to find out exactly what is wrong with the current code. Is it not possible to revert the edits?     — SkyLined (talk) 17:37, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Heck no! That template is locked and I am a mere-mortal. You can revert though. (Please?) Greg L (talk) 17:52, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

See my notice here to Verdy p, who made that last edit. Greg L (talk) 19:18, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

The {val} template no longer works correctly

Please see the Template talk:Val#Val is now screwed up. There have been one or more recent edits that totally fouled up the function of the {{val}} template. Greg L (talk) 17:00, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

Update User:Martin fixed the spacing issue but left the issue of having a single hanging digit to between me and User:Verdy p. At User talk:Verdy p#Val template, you will see my response to him. But in a nutshell, he is way-wrong on this and I hope you keep an eye on how things progress on the Template talk:Val#Val is now screwed up-page. In a nutshell, my response to Verdy p was as follows:

Please see Template talk:Val is now screwed up. In a nutshell, the BIPM and the NIST and every other standards organization uses a last group of four digits so as to never leave a single hanging digit. By wide consensus, Wikipedia follows that practice and does not want a house style that flouts international conventions. Links are provided on the page.

Greg L (talk) 18:43, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

License tagging for File:Upsilon.png

Thanks for uploading File:Upsilon.png. You don't seem to have indicated the license status of the image. Wikipedia uses a set of image copyright tags to indicate this information; to add a tag to the image, select the appropriate tag from this list, click on this link, then click "Edit this page" and add the tag to the image's description. If there doesn't seem to be a suitable tag, the image is probably not appropriate for use on Wikipedia.

For help in choosing the correct tag, or for any other questions, leave a message on Wikipedia:Media copyright questions. Thank you for your cooperation. --ImageTaggingBot (talk) 10:05, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Change in notation

You recently edited the article MOX fuel to use a technical notation for isotopes rather than the notations more familiar in the popular literature. I commented that I think this notation is inappropriate for Wikipedia. I invite your response. NPguy (talk) 15:48, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

I made a similar comment to the article on the thorium fuel cycle. NPguy (talk) 16:35, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

nuclide templates

I am writing a series of articles on astrophysics on http://da.wikipedia.org e.g. http://da.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stjerners_energikilder

When I describe atoms I use e.g. ⁸₅B → ⁸₄Be ...

Now I have found the excellent nuclide templates you have created and as you know they are much better than the above.

How do I steal your templates :) and import them to our site? Cheers, John.St (talk) 23:53, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

Good question :). I'm probably not the only one who can help, and surely not the fastest to respond either, so I've moved this discussion to Category talk:Nuclide templates and provided an initial answer there. Good luck!!     — SkyLined (talk) 21:22, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks a lot - found it, gotta work on it John.St (talk) 00:44, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Time template

Hi SkyLined,

If you're still around, could you take a look at Template talk:Time#Change use? Regards,
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 15:31, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

Font size in su template

I did search for a history of discussion on the su template, but missed it. Pointers? — Leandro GFC Dutra (talk) 20:20, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

Let's keep this discussion in one location. I've copied this question and provided an answer on your talk page.     — SkyLined (talk) 12:06, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Speedy deletion nomination of File:Chaon.png

A tag has been placed on File:Chaon.png requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section F10 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because it is a file that is not an image, sound file or video clip (e.g. a Word document or PDF file) that has no encyclopedic use.

If you think that this notice was placed here in error, contest the deletion by clicking on the button labelled "Click here to contest this speedy deletion," which appears inside of the speedy deletion ({{db-...}}) tag (if no such tag exists, the page is no longer a speedy delete candidate). Doing so will take you to the talk page where you will find a pre-formatted place for you to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. You can also visit the the page's talk page directly to give your reasons, but be aware that once tagged for speedy deletion, if the page meets the criterion, it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself, but don't hesitate to add information to the page that would render it more in conformance with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines.     — SkyLined (talk) 08:26, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

help with physics template

I see that you had the template of SubatomicParticles, and I want to translate to catalan to use in ca.wikipedia. I have a problem with if don't put the BR or BL variable the TR or TL is in bottom place and I don't know why. Is possible that I don't copy all the templates of english wiki and maybe forget some special function. ca:Plantilla:SimbolParticula. Message from:Anskar — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.39.243.41 (talk) 21:10, 8 September 2011 (UTC) Solved. Anskar — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.39.243.41 (talk) 22:07, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

Glad you were able to work it out!     — SkyLined (talk) 22:43, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

Use of SimpleNuclide2 template

I see you added the use of the SimpleNuclide2 template on the Thorium fuel cycle page but it has really screwed up the layout of that page, putting a new paragraph between the mass number and element symbol. Can you have a look at this please?

I'm using a fairly old (2.0) version of Firefox on Linpus to view it, but I doubt that's the problem. Chris55 (talk) 22:54, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your explanation. Yes I realise FF2 is way out of date. I was going to install Ubuntu on my 0.5GB netbook that I'm using here, but the current version has other problems and I'm left with a version of Linpus in which FF is bolted down tight! Chris55 (talk) 23:03, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Technical Barnstar
	Great work on your templates! InverseHypercube 00:28, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Template link

Thanks. Sorry for the mistake  :-P . I am having to move a lot of templates from enwiki to aswiki.

''''Prabhakar Sarma Neog'''' (talk) 07:43, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

No problem, good luck with that!     — SkyLined (talk) 08:31, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Thank you

	Thank you
	Thank you very much for correction in the link. I've been copying and translating lots of templates these days, :-) ''Prabhakar Sarma Neog'' (talk) 04:31, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Invitation to events: bot, template, and Gadget makers wanted

I thought you might want to know about some upcoming events where you can learn more about MediaWiki customization and development, extending functionality with JavaScript, the future of ResourceLoader and Gadgets, the new Lua templating system, how to best use the web API for bots, and various upcoming features and changes. We'd love to have power users, bot maintainers and writers, and template makers at these events so we can all learn from each other and chat about what needs doing.

Check out the Chennai event in March, the Berlin hackathon in June, the developers' days preceding Wikimania in July in Washington, DC, or any other of our events.

Best wishes! - Sumana Harihareswara, Wikimedia Foundation's Volunteer Development Coordinator. Please reply on my talk page, here or at mediawiki.org. Sumanah (talk) 15:19, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, but unfortunately I do not have time to attend any conference in the foreseeable future.     — SkyLined (talk) 09:57, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Redirect blanking

Hi, if you have an issue with a redirect, please take it to Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion rather than blank the page as you did with Jupiter family comet. Thanks! -- KTC (talk) 00:00, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the correction; I've done just that!     — SkyLined (talk) 08:19, 3 July 2012 (UTC)