User talk:Sparkygravity

Funny, about Kellogg. There's no hurry on Butler. ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 05:42, 25 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Duh, I believe Charles cut-and-pasted material that I had added to AI, but no matter. I like the new page and have added to it a quote from a review of

ISBN 0-7382-0030-1; See Also; Categories; and links to other articles. Pawyilee (talk) 14:10, 4 March 2008 (UTC)[reply

]

PS. O! Boy, did I ever find a much better review of Dyson! It's an interesting-people message and concludes:

Dyson weaves together all of this and more, skillfully but sketchily. Exclusive of the front matter, notes, and index, the book is only 228 pages. There are many parts I can't summarize without trivializing them. I don't know if the book has an identifiable thesis, but a central idea is this:

"In the game of life and evolution there are three players at the table: human beings, nature, and machines. I am firmly on the side of nature. But nature, I suspect, is on the side of the machines."

This is a deep book. There is not much point to reading it unless you want to think about the issues it raises. Most of us are usually too busy to do that. If you have a little free time this summer, reading and thinking about this book might be a good way to spend it.

Pawyilee (talk) 15:02, 4 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I just realized (a month later) that I had confused you two. I orginally meant to tell Pawyilee that I had created

Darwin Among the Machines -- not you, Sparkygravity. So much for doing accurate research (ha). That's embarassing. Sorry guys. ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 21:51, 19 March 2008 (UTC)[reply

]

Please see STYROFOAM☭1994 discussion page for details.Thx--Sparkygravity (talk) 23:31, 26 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Following discussion with the blocking admin I have upped the block to 3 months. Permanent bans are not done implemented for IPs since the IP address may be reallocated but hopefully this longer period may mean he gets bored and finds another hobby.

I saw on your userpage about adoption do you want to be adoopted? - J.Naven 19:20, 28 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not that familiar with science so you might want a different user for that and I must say that your work on that article is great - J.Naven 15:44, 29 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, Sparkygravity. I noticed that you put a tag saying you wished to be adopted. Would it be all right for me to adopt you? STYROFOAM1994^talkReview me! 23:22, 17 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Short answer: short logical steps = not rambling.

Thanks for taking my suggestions re Kardashev seriously, of course they are only suggestions and rather general in some ways.

Re being concise. Here are some further reflections from me on the topic. "Concise" can be used subjectively and objectively. When I read a book that aims to explain a technical subject to a popular audience, it can feel drawn-out and long winded. That's my personal, subjective impression, explained by my expertise in the subject, not by any failing in the text I'm reading. When I read an academic journal article outside my field of study, I can sometimes feel exactly the same thing -- the article goes on and on about things that seem to be details and irrelevant to me. In this case it is my ignorance, not the text that gives me the impression of lack of conciseness (concision?).

A reader will describe text as tangential, meandering and not concise when there is substantial text that does not address the reader's questions. This can be an objective fact. Authors often include asides that are not really necessary to progressing a point they're making. Sometimes, however, assides are there to assist novices to "stay on board" with the flow, or to provide experts with additional information. I tend to put the first in parentheses in the body of text and the second in footnotes.

Examples:

• Backgammon is played with board, chequers and dice, which are normally thrown from shakers. [The last clause is rather trivial.]
• A "doubling" cube can also be used (the six faces marked 2, 4, 8, 16, 32 and 64). [The aside is for novices, and may or may not help people visualise the extra piece of equipment.]
• A player will "double" when she thinks a win is sufficiently likely. Footnote: 75% in money games, but higher or lower than this in tournament play. [Consideration of the actual percentages is complex and distracting for people learning the basics.]

I guess I've not been very concise here! ;) All I'm saying is that all readers are different, they have different knowledge and different interests. You can't please all the people, all the time! However, novices do not read footnotes, so put text they don't need out of the way in footnotes (there are other strategies). Experts will criticise oversimplified text, raising all sorts of wierd and wonderful exceptions. By footnoting such things, experts are satisfied that accuracy and precision are satisfied.

A good backgammon article will have a logical structure like: history, equipment, rules, tournaments, money games, strategy, famous players, literature. Experts will not read the equipment and rules sections. Novices need to read the rules before they read about strategy. Strategy is so complex, only the main principles can be explained, exceptions and detailed explanations really need to be consigned to links or references.

I don't know enough about literature that interacts with Kardashev to know where to draw the lines in that article. I tried to suggest broad ways of thinking about the article to help editors like yourself work towards being comfortable with a text that has a high level of logical structure, working like an index so readers can skim it for the information they want.

When I don't read the bits I'm not interested in, I am much less likely to feel things are not concise.

Guessing what readers want to know is not an exact science, and feedback, even broad feedback will only tell you what those readers want. Personally, I kind of enjoy the challenge of producing text that will not suit everyone perfectly, but accomodates the widest possible range of people with a high degree of comfort.

The vocabulary and grammar of the Kardashev article flow very well. There is a clear logic in the table of contents. However, I guess we could work out a series of questions that are answered step by step and improve it further.

For example, I don't think it would hurt to explain that "Many features considered to be distinctive of civilization require energy. For example, even as far back as the invention of writing, workers needed to spend time producing materials to be used in the production of documents, and others needed to actually do the writing. The printing press allowed less energy to be expended for higher output. The industrial revolution automated even more of the printing process, but started using energy sources other than physical human labour. Twenty first century technology allows text to be produced and distributed electronically. It is a tiny fraction of what is known as the energy budget of contemporary society."

The kind of text I'm proposing is obviously for novices. I think many would actually appreciate having it spelled out for them (also, children read and learn from Wiki). Experts (and adults) know how to skim and will correctly see where all this text is going, just from the first sentence. They will skip (fast-forward) to the next para. They will like the text, because its logic allows them to read (including skimming) easily.

There we go, that's my point, concise is technically a term describing density of information. It is not always a good thing. Who reads the phone book cover to cover? In practice, people complain that something is "not concise", when it includes asides they consider irrelevant to their questions. This problem can often be bypassed by using predictable logical development, or by using footnotes and parentheses. There are other strategies too. The article makes good use of bullet points and diagrams, these suggest a lot of information implicitly, without the reader expending much effort to interpret them.

Cheers, Alastair Haines (talk) 02:49, 21 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sparky, you are doing great work. I am learning to write for other people, and it is a challenging service to learn. People are so diverse and not uniformly appreciative. Your feedback on my feedback shows two qualities I value highly in people. You treat what I offer with a thoughtfulness evident from your comments. It shows a respect for other people and an inquiring mind. I also suspect I detect an enthusiastic wonder at the marvels of the world, and a passion to extend the bounds of human knowledge, both by discovery and by sharing those discoveries. I wish I could offer to work more closely with you, but I really must apply my time elsewhere just now. Do feel free to alert me if you think I can be of further service. Forgive me if I'm slow to respond. I hope to be checking back on this article from time to time, whether invited or not! ;) Bravo Sparky! Wiki's a great project to participate in, isn't it? :) Alastair Haines (talk) 11:24, 21 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'd be happy to adopt you! Let me know if your interested. - DiligentTerrier (and friends) 16:39, 8 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Have you decided if you want me to adopt you? - DiligentTerrier (and friends) 21:16, 26 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

WikiProject Objectivism Salutations, Sparkygravity. I've noticed your interest in articles relating to list of participants and joining the discussion on the talkpage. Yours in enlightened self-interest, Skomorokh 00:52, 15 June 2008 (UTC)[reply ]

Shortcuts WP:AYN WP:RAND

criteria for speedy deletion, articles that do not indicate the subject's importance or significance may be deleted at any time. Please see the guidelines for what is generally accepted as notable, as well as our subject-specific notability guideline for biographies

.

If you think that this notice was placed here in error, you may contest the deletion by adding {{hangon}} to the top of the page that has been nominated for deletion (just below the existing speedy deletion or "db" tag), coupled with adding a note on the talk page explaining your position, but be aware that once tagged for speedy deletion, if the article 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 article that would would render it more in conformance with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. Lastly, please note that if the article does get deleted, you can contact one of these admins to request that a copy be emailed to you. Jiuguang Wang (talk) 14:35, 4 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Marocco

Userfied

talk) 05:32, 11 July 2008 (UTC)[reply

]

You maybe interested in the Article Rescue Squadron

Hello, Sparkygravity. Based on the templates on your talk page, please consider joining the Article Rescue Squadron. Rescue Squadron members are focused on rescuing articles from deletion, that might otherwise be lost forever. I think you will find our project matches your vision of Wikipedia. You can join >> here <<. talk) 15:29, 24 February 2009 (UTC)[reply ]

Please don't edit Hockey scores for games that haven't happened yet

The 2010 Winter Olympics Gold Medal game doesn't start for another 8 hours, but you've already input the scores, and declared the USA as having won gold. While the USA did win a preliminary game against Canada last week with the score given, that was not the Gold medal game. As the article is semi-protected, I'm unable to fix your mistakes. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mabbo (talk • contribs) 12:06, 28 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

BACKLOG OF THE WEEK Category:Pages with broken reference names

Hello - some editors fight off the vandal hordes, as I do repairing pages with citation errors. If I didn't - there would be a large backlog in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting and in Category:Pages with missing references list as in Category:Pages with broken reference names (more than 1500 yesterday). But it is impossible to work it alone. Do you know how to do a "Blitz" (excuse the comparision) to find willing editors to work on it. It is much more easier to repair references if you do it one hour, one day or one week ago after the errors were made instead of months and years after the error was done. Very, very difficult to find these errors.

Only with WikiBlame Search it is possible to find and repair such errors.

Best wishes & thanks --Frze ^{> talk} 09:08, 10 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Backlog template made by User:TheJJJunk

Backlog status (Purge)

Category	Current status
Pages with incorrect ref formatting	Not done
Pages with missing references list	Done
Pages with broken reference names	Expression error: Unrecognized punctuation character ",".

Best wishes --Frze ^{> talk} 03:57, 22 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

New REFBot

There is a suggestion on Wikipedia:Bot requests for a new REFBot working as DPL bot and BracketBot do. I beg politely for consideration. Please leave a comment if you wish. Thanks a lot in anticipation. --Frze ^{> talk} 03:57, 22 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

ArbCom elections are now open!

Hi,
You appear to be eligible to vote in the current

review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. For the Election committee, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:41, 24 November 2015 (UTC)[reply

]

Good article reassessment for Dyson sphere

Dyson sphere has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. TompaDompa (talk) 23:29, 13 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]