User talk:Spinningspark/Archive 16

		Four Award
		Congratulations! You have been awarded the WP:WAWARD ) 15:08, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

--

WP:WAWARD

) 15:08, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

Congratulations on Waveguide filter's Main Page appearance! Curly Turkey (gobble) 05:39, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

Great job on bringing a technological article to such an in-depth state. I'm impressed. I remember the Waffle-iron filter GA a few years ago and had a good inkling who the author of this one might be! SFB 07:41, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

spinning sparks
Thank you, specialist on the "1920s electronic filter designs and designers", for quality articles such as Waveguide filter and Otto Julius Zobel, for spinning according to "unless you can explain it to your grandmother" and sparking brilliant ideas and kindness, - you are an awesome Wikipedian!

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:23, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

Er, sorry about that ridiculous edit summary (some Twinkle code must have changed while I was gone in the past year) and sorry about the message in general because I just noticed your thing about not wanting talkback templates. My bad. /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 07:51, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

Hi Spinningspark,

You are seems to be a very contribint user to wikipedia. Thank you for that.

II just now see that, you had editted the entry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubiks_Cube

It was a bit more than half a year ago:

08:10, 15 April 2013‎ Spinningspark (talk | contribs)‎ . . (53,419 bytes) (-65)‎ . . (→‎External links:  Attempts to run a program, probable malware)

You had removed the external link for solving the rubiks cube as he was there: www.rubiksplace.com

I'm am a speedcuber (I solve the cube sub 15 sec) and I spent weeks crafting this guide myself which most of the cubers community uses. This is maybe the most quality guide on solving the cube (including the speedcubing method) online. and thats why the link was there.

The "message" you get is a standard Java applet alert showing before launching a java application! I had made much effort to make this applets run on this site so new cubers could see a "live" example of the rubiks cube steps and algorithms rather than just explanation that are much harder to understand. as it is really difficult to get it on the first time. The java applets make it 10 times easier to understand. Please take a look!

Please revise it again..

Thank you! Maor.

Please read

WP:ELNO#Java SpinningSpark

10:43, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for notifying me. I had researched this issue and became aware to a lot of problems and issues arising from using java applets sometimes (browsers not responding, crashing, not supporting everyone, etc..), therefore many people had problem using the guide properly. I did modified the solution, and removed all the java applets (imaged-based solution), and added an animation solution as an option on another page (warning it includes java applets) so everyone could now use and control it. I would be grateful if you could restore the edit now, Thank you! Maor. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.133.26.13 (talk) 16:24, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

I don't want to make a personal decision on that. Please post a request on the article talk page and if it gets some support I will restore it (or someone else will). SpinningSpark 16:32, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

I understand why you merged these, but I deliberately set them up as separate AfDs because past AfDs on this topic were done as batches and came to no consensus as a result of the variety of lists included. Merging them after being a participant in them also gives me some pause. IronGargoyle (talk) 15:53, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

If these were footballers they could have varying notabilities even if they were on the same team so of course should be debated separately. However, I believe that the rationale for the existence of these articles is unconnected with the notability of the entries. Certainly, my argument for keeping them does not rely on notability. They are a strongly related set with near identical structure and near identical rationale for deleting. I see no purpose in spreading the debate across multiple pages when a clear consensus for the whole set is really needed. Higher participation is more likely in a combined debate. Also, they are all related to the list of lists for these articles and that issue can only be considered with a centralised debate.

I don't know why you think that being a participant in the debate is cause for concern. I have no investment in these articles, I have only now discovered they exist, and I have no POV issue here (other than happening to like beer). I did not see that the other debates existed until after I had commented, otherwise I would have merged them first and then commented. In fact, I only came to them at all to find out the consensus on such articles while trying to decide what to do with

Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/List of breweries in Nebraska. SpinningSpark

16:19, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

I was trying to create a full article about this topic, which included as reference Fleming's laws. However, a reviewer suggested that it should be shortened and included in Electromagnetic induction, so I shortened it. I am confused. Can I discuss all the issues with an editor? Thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by Makkabi (talk • contribs) 20:45, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

You asked me that once already and I replied on your talk page. Please keep the conversation all in one place. SpinningSpark 22:55, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

Discussion moved to Talk: Liebig's Annalen

I posted a better derivation of Ampere's force law here. The question has already been moved to the archives, so I figured you'd probably never find my post unless I mentioned it here. I will watch that archive page for a while, in case you make any follow-up posts. Red Act (talk) 04:53, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. Wikipedia appreciates your help. We noticed though that when you edited Inductor, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Reactance (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver). Such links are almost always unintended, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of "Did you mean..." article titles. Read the FAQ • Join us at the DPL WikiProject.

It's OK to remove this message. Also, to stop receiving these messages, follow these opt-out instructions. Thanks, DPL bot (talk) 09:05, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

You're welcome. How are you getting on? SpinningSpark 19:49, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

Pretty good. I went over to Wikia for 3 years and learned some things about editing and dealing with others. I recently started reverting vandalism here again, and actual editing has perked my interest. Again, though, thanks for the help back then. Abce2 (talk) 17:00, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

Given jps' history, don't you think it would be better to get an uninvolved admin to work with you, and try to resolve the problems by email since you obviously are concerned about further outing problems? --

In what way do you think I am involved? I picked this up from a complaint at EAR and have previously had nothing to do with the dispute, the editors, the articles or the subject of the articles. Feel free to e-mail me if you wish to discuss more openly, but as far as I am concerned, jps has been warned and that is the end of the matter if he now desists. SpinningSpark 17:51, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Why didn't you explain yourself to jps as you've done here?

Granted, it's difficult to address COI problems without making them worse, but I can't imagine any justification for: "Don't play cute, you know perfectly well what I am talking about. I am willing to block you if you keep it up." --

talk

) 21:22, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

The editor is deliberately pretending not to understand what the issue is. I am just making it clear that I do not accept that and it will not hold me back from blocking if the problem persists. Granted the language is colourful, but this is not some newbie who needs the issues carefully explained. Rather it is a very experienced editor who has a lot of "combat experience". Given his history I don't think my interaction is being unreasonable. SpinningSpark 22:06, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

He can bring out the worst in others.

Given the taunting and harassment he gets, I think it would be better to avoid any appearance of piling on with similar treatment. --

talk

) 16:50, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

Hi Spinningspark! Thanks a lot for the swift reaction to my complaint. Jps still implies I have a COI, for alleged reasons he "can expound upon privately to a neutral administrator" (Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Requests for comment/QuackGuru2). I don't want you to get into trouble for stepping into this, though. Is there any way him and me could present evidence concerning my job or else COI to a confidential WP committee or so? Just to have this dealt this once and for all. --Mallexikon (talk) 04:41, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

First of all, I don't see anything actionable in the statement by jps. He said you colluded with another editor (whatever that is supposed to mean). Granted the word colluded has negative overtones and this is a weasely statement by jps, but collusion is hardly against Wikipedia policy. Rather, the whole project is "collusion" on a massive scale. There is way too much "running to teacher" on both sides of this playground dispute.

You are entitled not to reveal your profession, or any other private details. No one is allowed to reveal that information without your explicit permission however vaguely or circumspectly they do so. Even speculating on it could be viewed as outing in some circumstances. There is no need for you to prove anything. Having said that, if you really want to do this . . .

Jps has already stated that he is willing to present his evidence to a neutral administrator. If you wish, I would be willing to take this on, but I doubt that jps would now consider me neutral given my warning to him. I write mostly engineering articles from a science pov and generally have little sympathy for fringe and pseudo science including alt medicine, but I don't know if jps is going to see it that way. You should discuss with jps who would be an acceptable administrator to both of you.

To answer your question directly, Wikipedia has an Arbitration Committee and their contact details can be found in that link. I don't know if Arbcom would be willing to take this on. They can be very selective in what work they choose to take up (you can imagine that they are swamped with requests) and I am not really up on their selection criteria. SpinningSpark 13:40, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

I don't mind sharing with you what I found, SpinningSpark. I hold no enmity towards you. I just differ greatly on your interpretation of

WP:COI on the basis of a third-party evaluation. jps (talk

) 14:05, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

The outcome would be that I would assess the evidence and make a public, on-wiki statement at a suitable venue on whether or not that evidence supported a COI by Mallexikon. No details of Mallexikon's employment or any other personal details would be revealed in this statement without Mallexikon's permission. If you both agree to those terms, then go ahead and e-mail me with your evidence. SpinningSpark 14:41, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

Seems fine, but can't reasonable people disagree on what constitutes a COI? What if you disagree with me that there is a COI, what then? Am I supposed to bind myself to your determination before I understand how you interpret the situation? Just curious. jps (talk) 15:09, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

Maybe you could comment at

Of course people can disagree. My assessment would merely be the assessment of an uninvolved party - which is what I thought you were asking for. It would not bind anybody to do anything. I am not going to post at the COIN thread: I am not especially interested and doing so would mean I was no longer uninvolved. You seem to be asking for reassurance beforehand that I am going to agree with you. Any assessment I make will be with reference to Wikipedia policies and guidelines. SpinningSpark 16:14, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

Perhaps you can understand that it might be less than desirable to start sending around evidence that, if posted to this website, would be considered a violation of WP:OUTING. I'm not sure why a neutral uninvolved party would be necessary to me. I'm confident that my evaluation of the situation is correct. jps (talk) 20:04, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

Guy, the suggestion of having an uninvolved admin look at your evidence was entirely your idea to start off with. I have no need to look at it and there is no benefit to me in doing so. I think we are done here. SpinningSpark 20:33, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

I don't want to start and edit war or get bureaucrats involved given your "stong" history of some kind of ownership of this meaning! However, it should be mems(computing) NOT mem. Get it right please, or I'll reverse/undo you.Pdecalculus (talk) 15:35, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

There is no need to take that attitude, I'm not taking ownership. All you need do is politely discuss why you think it should be at that name. Given the mess you just made of formatting this post you are a fine one to complain about the markup of others. SpinningSpark 16:16, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

This editor not only reverted my edits but started a systematic campaign to spam other edits based on history. He/she should be removed as an admin for this practice. Bureaucrats take notice. I am a large contributor to wiki and will let the core team know about this practice and this admin. This person is small minded, into revenge, and using their "power" to harass other new editors rather than educate. No place here for that kind of pettiness! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pdecalculus (talk • contribs) 17:06, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

I have not used, or threatened to use, any admin power against you. Or even mentioned that I am an admin. At all stages I have tried to explain Wikipedia conventions and guidelines to you. Sorry if you are taking that the wrong way. I really don't have any need or motivation to persecute anybody. My only concern is the quality of the encyclopaedia. Sorry also, if I have not come across as friendly. I am very willing to help new editors find their feet. You only have to ask and I will do my best to help. SpinningSpark 18:49, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

Hello, I'm BracketBot. I have automatically detected that your edit to Electrical engineering may have broken the syntax by modifying 1 "[]"s. If you have, don't worry: just edit the page again to fix it. If I misunderstood what happened, or if you have any questions, you can leave a message on my operator's talk page.

List of unpaired brackets remaining on the page:

• can be used in almost any household object. The [[personal computer]] and [information technology]] are the most complex electronics yet to be used in everyday life.

It's OK to remove this message. Also, to stop receiving these messages, follow

Thanks for the vote of confidence. I'm really concerned about JesseRafe nonetheless; while I think there's a legitimate content dispute going on, we're seeing the result of a definite pattern of poor editing practices on his part. From looking at his past edits, I'm now considering drawing up an ANI thread to address civility and general policy issues (use of

(as an aside, I think it's funny how EAR has been slow as hell for what seems like months, then all of a sudden we get these monster threads... goes to show that the "teahouse", whatever it does, has yet to replace us —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 02:14, 1 March 2014 (UTC))

I don't really have a handle on why this has become so emotive. Possibly it is connected with the origin of the Goths which I believe is disputed by some. So maybe the issue is that denying that "Geats" was a historical term for a Swedish tribal group is tantamount to denying that the Goths originated in Sweden. But it is for the editors involved to spell out what the issue really is and then find sources to settle it. Unfotunately they don't seem willing to go down that path at the moment. I really don't want anything serious to happen to an editor as long-standing as JesseRafe who seems to have done a lot of good work but but s/he is not making that easy to achieve. SpinningSpark 11:27, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

I don't get it either. My gut instinct when more than one established editor has a dispute with another editor is that said third editor may be doing something—perhaps not something improper, but something that is not helping matters. That or there's a hot debate on the topic on other circles (though usually that shouldn't affect established editors, recent arbitration cases notwithstanding). As my grandmother would always say, "

It takes two". But despite taking some long, hard looks at the situation, I honestly don't see any serious fault on the part of SW. I guess the best solution at this point is to wait and see what happens. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's

/ 22:35, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

I thought I would let you know that I have initiated a request for comments at Talk:Pablo Casals, as you suggested. Since you have already looked at some of the issues, I thought I would inform you in case you might like to leave a comment there. 131.111.185.66 (talk) 21:49, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

You might want to chime in at

Hi! While participating in an RfC in which you commented, I noticed that there seemed to be a nesting error in your sig. While this may not be visible while viewing the page, users with syntax highlighters (like myself) might find this annoying. Your current sig, with the offending tag highlighted, is:

'''[[User:Spinningspark|<font style="background:#fafad2;color:#C08000">Spinning</font>]][[User talk:Spinningspark|<font style="color:#4840a0">Spark'''</font>]]'''

It would be nice if you changed it to:

'''[[User:Spinningspark|<font style="background:#fafad2;color:#C08000">Spinning</font>]][[User talk:Spinningspark|<font style="color:#4840a0">Spark</font>]]'''

Thank you very much!

Done. I seem to remember that the closing bolding was refusing to work at on time but I can't really recall and it seems to be ok now. SpinningSpark 23:03, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

Regarding the RfC, have you contacted WP:Administrators about this RfC off Wikipedia somewhere? The RfC died down with overwhelming support for "no softening." And suddenly, starting on March 10th, there's been a wave of WP:Administrators (and a couple of others) voting in the Support softening, not necessarily Spinningspark's text section.

Nothing to do with me. I was trying to quietly ignore the whole issue. SpinningSpark 23:00, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

Quietly ignore what whole issue? What can be interpreted as some obvious inappropriate

talk

) 23:08, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

And, yes, before you or anyone else mentions it, I know that two of the recent editors (one an IP; the other another non-WP:Administrator) have voted for no softening, but still...

talk

) 23:52, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

Please take your silly accusations elsewhere. They are complete nonsense and I am not interested in discussing it. SpinningSpark 01:19, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

You already know that I took the matter elsewhere. I maintain that I was not accusing you; simply asking. I won't bother you again about this.

talk

) 01:24, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

Actually, I didn't know that, at least not when I wrote it. I'm not watching the conversation like a hawk waiting to pounce on every word. SpinningSpark 01:38, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for restoring the history of David Jay Brown. Geo Swan (talk) 20:30, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

Greetings and felicitations. I noticed that you reverted my edit to the "Mole (architecture)" article, with the notation "See talk", though I can't find any comments about it on either of our talk pages. Did you have something specific in mind?—DocWatson42 (talk) 03:29, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

My comments are on the article talk page. SpinningSpark 10:53, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

Regarding your edit: if you think that "zener diode" should be capitalized, why didn't you change the other occurrence (in "Use of the E series is mostly restricted to resistors, capacitors, inductors and zener diodes.")? Also, to be consistent, you should go to Zener diode and capitalize it everywhere there. And then go to Diesel engine and capitalize "diesel" as well... :–) — Mikhail Ryazanov (talk) 00:02, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

First of all, it is not my job to go around correcting every inconsistency on Wikipedia so I likely won't be doing any of the things you suggest any time soon. I did check the Zener diode article before I made the edit and saw that the bolded term in the lede was capitalised. I did not notice that the rest of the article was inconsistent with this. It seems to have gotten into this state through being arbitrarily changed to lower case by User:Wtshymanski who nevertheless in this later edit does not challenge the lede being reverted to capitalised. Looking through gbook results, authors seem to be split roughly equally on whether to capitalise or not so I am not sure what the right answer is any more. However Science and Technical Writing: A Manual of Style says categorically that capitalisation is correct so I would go with that in the absence of anything better.

Diesel is in a different category. The word diesel has now without doubt entered the lexicon as a common noun. One can speak of filling one's vehicle with diesel without having to say Diesel fuel or Diesel's fuel. Indeed, the majority of speakers probably do not even realise that diesel is named after Rudolf Diesel. SpinningSpark 12:50, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

The problem is that while I changed it to lower case for consistency, your edit made the article less consistent. So, if you have a strong opinion about capitalization, you should apply it to the whole article instead of just reverting one edit. I mean, the question of capitalization is not clear (as you admit, "authors seem to be split roughly equally"), but consistency is important.

And regarding "different category" for "diesel" — how do you determine that? :–) People also refer to these diodes simply as "zener"/"zeners", and in such cases "zener" is surely not capitalized, since it is nor a proper name. — Mikhail Ryazanov (talk) 20:07, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

I have now changed the other occurence in Preferred number. I had not realised that there was another occurence, I was just reacting to your edit when it popped up in my watchlist and your edit summary said only "style", nothing about other occurences or consistency. And as I said, it's not my job to right all the wrongs on Wikipedia. SpinningSpark 22:56, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

OK, I'm fine with "Zener" as long as it is used consistently. Regarding "your job", reverting other's edits is not your job either, but if you do, please do so carefully. :–) — Mikhail Ryazanov (talk) 00:56, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

I have already referred you to a manual of style that capitalises Zener diode. Zener is also capitalised in the OED, perhaps the highest authority there is on the English language, along with Zener diode, Zener breakdown, Zener effect and Zener voltage. FWIW, it is also capitalised in Wiktionary. Zener may be on its way to becoming a common noun and is treated as such by some, but it is clearly not yet accepted as such by everyone. The same is not true of diesel. OED uses lc for diesel in running text (compare Oxford Dictionaries diesel and Zener). Diesel is overwhelmingly lc in any corpus you care to look at: COCA, GloWbE, gbooks, ngrams. SpinningSpark 22:56, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

Interestingly enough, OED also says "Forms: Also zener." and actually gives a couple of examples of lower-case usage. On the other hand, Merriam-Webster (which also has some authority) has lower-case "zener diode noun, often capitalized Z".

(And, although it does not count, my opinion is that capitalization of adjectives is a stupid idea in general. Other languages usually do not do that and thus do not have such "proper/common" problems.) — Mikhail Ryazanov (talk) 00:56, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

We seem to have gone way off track here. I think we can agree that both Zener and zener are in use. As I said in the beginning it is hard to choose between them based on usage. The right way to decide is to consult established manuals of style. Rubens' MoS is pretty categorical. Our own MoS says

In the names of scientific and mathematical concepts, only proper names (or words derived from them) should be capitalized: Hermitian matrix, Lorentz transformation. However some established exceptions exist, such as abelian group and Big Bang theory.

That is also fairly categorical since zener cannot possibly be argued to be an established exception given the divergent usages. SpinningSpark 01:26, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

"Only x should" does not mean "all x should". Not even "most x should". ;–) — Mikhail Ryazanov (talk) 02:54, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, that's just playing with semantics. The intention is clear. SpinningSpark 05:48, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

Hi,

Sorry to disturb. The idea came up to make an april foolsday joke about mutated woodworms that could damage electrical components, but i dont really have any wikipedia experience, so i cant link, or upload pictures. so the intention of this email is to ask for some help or support. I dont own the idea, but i just like to spread it, so if you like it and would have any ideas and time to contribute please feel free.

Greetings, — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cpugeek82 (talk • contribs) 12:09, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

Is the endlosung for "April fools" wikipedia policy or personal judgement? Just asking because maybe they would accept it in other language pages? If it is policy just to write "facts" i could write it in hypotetical a way like it is recent work in progress (as if discovered today), there are more examples of such articles: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_on_Mars , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiverse , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Crunch . In fact it would be quite easy to have more "supporting evidence" for plastic eating beatle larvae then for many of the examples, that some people take seriously because they are written here, but are in the end no more crazy speculation then this joke that would remain here for a day. But those jokes remain. So if there is a policy about factual information, it would be interesting to test a lot of such articles with the same criteria. The only thing missing, seems that the people who came up with those idea didnt provide the april foolsday disclaimer. "Some people are fools, the others are ignorant" (Cpugeek82 (talk) 13:11, 1 April 2014 (UTC))

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Cpugeek82 (talk • contribs) 12:55, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

For en wiki see Wikipedia:Rules for Fools. I don't know about other languages but I suspect that a lot of them, especially the smaller ones, will block you on sight. I don't know what you think is wrong with articles like Life on Mars. It is well referenced. You can take any problem you have with it to the article talk page. SpinningSpark 13:26, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

Ok you are right, on the april foolsday link its ordered not to make any jokes in places where people could find them. So i surrender! (butn that rule is really made by people who take them selves to seriously) Take care. (Cpugeek82 (talk) 14:00, 1 April 2014 (UTC))

Hi! Just a quick update that while

SURVEY

Cheers, Ocaasi via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:47, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

Hi, can you please userify the Michael B Glenn page? I will trim it up to make it worthwhile after fully studying the Wikipedia requirements.

Thanks!

Tommy — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dogtimecat (talk • contribs) 00:16, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

I have restored the page to

WP:POLITICIAN. SpinningSpark

08:29, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

Hi there, I am wondering why my page got deleted? I am willing to make the necessary updates to the references, but need more guidance as to how to keep the page up in accordance with Wikipedia guidelines since there seems to be issues. — Preceding unsigned comment added by MileyBean025 (talk • contribs) 21:58, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

Did you read the comments at the deletion discussion? SpinningSpark 22:10, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

Are you auditing all 40,000+ edits since 2004 or is there some special concern you have? --Wtshymanski (talk) 15:40, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

Nooo, I wanted to wikilink to the subject in a discussion and found the link did not go anywhere useful...so I looked into why not.

By the way, I seem to remember you going crazy person pissy when I posted to your page on an article related subject. Personally, I don't really care much that you posted here rather than the article talk page but obviously there is one rule for hard-working, civil editors and another rule for Wtshymanski.

For the benefit of talk page stalkers wondering what on earth he is talking about, it is signal trace. SpinningSpark 16:00, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

Spinningspark, please have a look, here, thanks.

Are you going to reply? :)

Prokaryotes (talk

) 19:09, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

I am composing a very long reply as you write. SpinningSpark 19:22, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

Saw this, just thought I'd point out that we're supposed to subst the {{unsigned}} family of templates. I did it myself, but just thought I'd point it out. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 21:23, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the reminder. Wouldn't need to bother if sinebot would wake up and do its job. SpinningSpark 21:47, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

You're right that the source is useless. Monthly prices can't be verified. The claim should be removed from the article or changed to calendar-year average prices. Also, for the claim of price volatility to be relevant, copper's price variance would have to be compared to price variances of other commodities. Copper's price variance might in fact be relatively normal, and therefore not notable enough to be mentioned in an encyclopedia. Many Minerals (talk) 16:45, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

I don't really want to remove it altogether. Archive pages in the Wayback Machine [1] broadly support the claim (although even the oldest graph does not go back as far as 1999). That doesn't change the fact that the currently linked source is useless. And yes, you are right, we need sources discussing the significance of these trends rather than the raw data. SpinningSpark 17:04, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

Hello, Spinningspark. This message is being sent to inform you that a discussion is taking place at

Dr bab (talk) 13:58, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

The example is from 19th century America. US operators of the period would have used American Morse code. SpinningSpark 11:12, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

I think it was better as Latex. Latex is used elsewhere in the article. Up near the top there is an example with subscripts that are not Italic. I have no idea what MOS:ACCESS is, but I see no difference between using Latex at that point in the document versus anywhere else. It seems to me that if Latex is unacceptable where you reverted it, it must be unacceptable everywhere.Constant314 (talk) 18:02, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

I now know what MOS:ACCESS is.Constant314 (talk) 20:51, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

There are people on Wikipedia who go around changing latex to html wherever possible, but I'm not one of them. If the editor had not messed up the italics I would not have reverted and will leave it alone if someone does it in latex properly. The issue people have with latex is not latex itself, but that the Wikipedia engine renders it as a png image so text readers will not read it. That issue can be addressed by adding suitable

alt text to the math tag, but that facility is very rarely used (or even known about) in my experience. SpinningSpark

11:09, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

Is this acceptable:

${\displaystyle Z_{\mathsf {load}}=Z_{\mathsf {source}}^{*}\,}$

Constant314 (talk) 12:15, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

That looks fine to me. You could even put the html formula as alt text, but I don't think you would be able to do the subscripts as subscripts. That would need nested tags which I don't think html allows. SpinningSpark 12:26, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

AT Alt Text it says "The alt text should consist of plain text (no HTML or wiki markup such as wikilinks) and be all on one line"

Yes, exactly, you can have Zload, but not Z_load. But if you are putting alt text in for a text reader markup is useless anyway, even if it did work. The guiding principle should be this: what would you want to hear if the article was being read to you? SpinningSpark 13:58, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

Could you explain this edit? Who has which problem with what, and who didn't read what? (And what are your 'Math' settings under Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-rendering?) Thanks. — HHHIPPO 22:42, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

I think I figured it out: it seems that the PNG renderer can't handle a unicode µ within <math>...</math>. Does this display ok for you?

${\displaystyle K_{\mathrm {J-90} }={\frac {2e}{h}}=0.4835979{\frac {\mathrm {GHz} }{\mathrm {\mu V} }},}$

— HHHIPPO 23:19, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

I am seeing this in the diff of your edit;

SpinningSpark 23:20, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

None of the Greek characters can be inserted directly into TeX, that has always been the case. SpinningSpark 23:23, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

Well, I wouldn't usually use unicode in TeX anyway, just because the TeX code is quicker to type. In this case the unicode character was there aleady when I converted the formula from html to TeX, and I didn't notice the problem since it rendered fine for me (that is, with MathJax enabled). If you don't see any other issues, I'll re-do the edit with μ replaced by \mu, as above. — HHHIPPO 09:18, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

Fine with me, but you might want to take note of the thread above this one. SpinningSpark 09:41, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the pointer. I have now added alt-text to all three formulae in that section, together with some more rephrasing. Is there any documentation about what we can expect from screen readers? Apparently they can't parse TeX, but to what extent can they handle html or unicode? And what's the consensus for balancing visual display quality vs. compatibility with screen readers? I guess on the long run it would be less work to teach a screen reader how to parse TeX than to add verbal paraphrases to all formulae. (But I don't volunteer for either ;-) — HHHIPPO 19:41, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

I don't really know any more about it than you can find on the

WP:ACCESS page, other than the occassional user who uses a screenreader bending my ear over something inconsiderate I have done to an article. Someone like User:RexxS might be able to answer you better. There is also Wikipedia:WikiProject Accessibility, Wikipedia:Accessibility dos and don'ts, and a page explaining the use of the popular screenreader JAWS on Wikipedia. SpinningSpark

20:48, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

@Hhhippo: I can't tell you any more than Spinningspark has already done. There are many different screen readers available, so it's difficult to generalise what to expect, other than they can read html, but often not much unicode. When we use <math>...</math>, the reader will usually end up with an image and screen readers just can't read images. You've taken the trouble to add alt text to those images and you've really done more than 99.9% of editors in those circumstances. Those using screen readers (as well as folks in countries who have such small bandwidth that they have images switched off) will thank you for your efforts.

Cheers, --RexxS (talk) 21:03, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

@RexxS and Spinningspark: Thanks for the input. It's nice to be aware of some issues, even though I'm somehow still missing a more comprehensive description of the various technical aspects, and agreed upon best practices in the many cases where there's no single solution that's optimal for all user groups. But I can see that would be a huge project, and difficult to even start now while the technical implementations are changing rapidly. I guess for now I'll just gnome on as good as I can with what I know. — HHHIPPO 14:07, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

Hello! You recently reverted an illustration I changed on the https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:E12_series_tolerance.svg page. I have now made an improved version while taking your comments in to account, but I feel the need to comment on two of your remarks so that you will not revert the new one again!

1) "lost the colour".

The use of colours in the original plot is one of the reasons that made me make the new version. Graphs and plots should be designed to be as clear as possible, and colours that does not add any information is generally a bad thing. It makes it difficult to render the graphs in other formats than web (for example black and white printers, e-ink readers and such), and it distracts from the actual information. Another reason for not using colours is that it could affect the clarity for the not-so-insignificant part of the population that is colour blind in one way or another. Another reason is that it's visually distracting when reading the body text of the page. There are numerous reasons for not using colours in plots, but few reasons for using them.

2) " Going to svg is pointless if does not actually improve."

Going to SVG would then arguably always be pointless, because a pixel-based image is always optimal for web display, considering it is rendered specifically to the target resolution. The major reasons for moving to SVG are that it is much easier to make adjustments to the images, like translating labels to different languages, but most importantly that it's resolution independent. Wikipedia articles are written in a way that makes it easy to print out information or present it in other ways than on a computer screen. Because of this, an "uglier" SVG version of an illustration may be better than a fixed-resolution illustration, because it opens up the article for a wider use.

Thanks for the input! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pipatron (talk • contribs) 11:13, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

Your latest diagram is fine. I fully understand the advantages of svg, and sorry if I have come across as difficult, but it this a bit of a bugbear of mine. I see all too frequently perfectly good raster diagrams replaced with very poor quality svg alternatives. As I said in my edit summary, the replacement svg must be at least as good quality as the original. To put in something worse quality just because it is a preferred file format is actually damaging the encyclopaedia. So no, I won't desist from reverting such attempts if the svg is not either identical to the original or, preferably, has some definite improvement.

I accept your comments about colour, but I am dubious about some of your claims about svg. The format is not easier to adjust. The vast majority of users do not have an svg editor and editing svg files by hand requires a deal of competence and understanding of the language. I know Inkscape is a free program (I have it and have used it to create hundreds of diagrams for Wikipedia) but in most cases casual editors are not going to download it and learn how to use it to make one small change. On the other hand all Windows users have Microsoft Paint which can edit png and jpg format files. Contrary to your claim, labels are very easy to change in these formats simply by pasting over them with the new label. I have even added additional components to circuit diagrams someone else posted as a jpg. I have also noted that labels on svg diagrams are not wysiwyg. Labels that look fine as drawn frequently do not look fine on Wikipedia because they can get rendered in a different font. This can cause labels to overlap or even get truncated when the text is pushed outside the drawing boundary.

There is a place for svg, but I really don't understand this drive to annihilate all other formats. Do you have any real examples of articles where a jpg diagram does not come out right in print whereas an svg equivalent does? Or is that entirely a theoretical consideration? SpinningSpark 12:13, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

Hi there. I see that you are an experienced user. Could you please help me out with the

Maybe {{disaster-stub}}? Not really my area. The experts on stubs hang out at Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting and they maintain a list of stub types at Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Stub types. SpinningSpark 10:15, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

You are systematically targeting my edits and articles and reverting. I need a venue to have your privileges curtailed, monitored or suspended for this practice. I want to start a discussion on your practices in a bureaucrat forum here so YOU are watched for bad faith and vandalism! I don't need to waste my time on this venue if your MO is to play the cop! I have a PhD in a few of the areas you reverted with "wiki speak" references and no knowledge of the topic yourself. You are NOT an encouraging force for professional contributors, hence a non asset or at best a mixed asset to the site. Pdecalculus (talk) 02:18, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

@Pdecalculus: You really need to be less paranoid. I am not following you. I expect you are talking about this reversion. I saw it because it is a page I am watching, not because I was looking at your edits specifically. If you follow the link in the edit summary, you will understand the reason for the revert; you have misunderstood the purpose of disambiguation pages. I believe I have explained the priniples to you before on your talk page so I won't do it again here. You really would be better off discussing the issues in a civil manner rather than trying to make a personal fight of it.

I would welcome scrutiny of my actions. Feel free to initiate that if you feel it is necessary. By the way you are incorrect that I know nothing of the topic. I have more than forty years experience as an EE, including a good deal of filter design. SpinningSpark 09:27, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

Why did you delete the page John Dennis (California Politician)? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.11.107.134 (talk) 18:21, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

Because that was the decision of

WP:POLITICIAN for our guideline on the notability of politicians. SpinningSpark

20:30, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

Jason Gannon — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jasonmgannon (talk • contribs) 00:36, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

Hi there - you said that the definition of ton in Dutch was relevant to the article on ton in English - I am not sure why this is relevant, as the article is about ton (the _concept_) rather than what the word ton means in a variety of languages -e.g. it means tone in French - is this also relevant? Sorry if this is not the best way to reply to your comment Skihatboatbike (talk) 15:02, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

I agree that translations of an article title into random languages would not be appropriate. But this was in a section of the article discussing informal uses of the term to mean a hundred of something. It is not a translation into Dutch, but an example of an informal use that just happened to be in the Netherlands. SpinningSpark 15:39, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

		The Helping Hand Barnstar
		Reckon you deserve one of these for some excellent responses at the Help desk today. Thanks for taking the time to give new users (and old ones!) some much-needed assistance. Yunshui 雲水 19:09, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

here, and adding your comments on the discussion page. Thank you. RockMagnetist (talk

) 23:04, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

No legal threat intended

I have absolutely no intention to raise any legal action with regard to Wiki editors having "pseudoscience" splashed all over my bio page. It will be settled in the court of public opinion, or even within Wikipedia. I see that the lead on the bio page has been toned down for the moment, to only one "pseudoscience." Thanks, Torgownik (talk) 15:23, 12 May 2014 (UTC)Russell Targ

@Torgownik: I would advise you to also make that statement on your own talk page where it will be seen by all interested administrators. Doubtless, you are aware that Brian Josephson was recently blocked over a similar issue. SpinningSpark 16:34, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

The two situations are completely different, as anyone perusing the details of the two can see. I can see no good cause for this tendentious request. --Brian Josephson (talk) 19:53, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

Suit yourself, I'm not being tendentious, just offering you some friendly advice which may save you some trouble. SpinningSpark 21:58, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

Remote viewing is not “pseudoscience.” Please immediately drop that inaccurate and insulting term that you have scattered throughout my Wikipedia bio-page. Wikipedia’s definition: “Pseudoscience is a claim, belief or practice which is presented as scientific, but does not adhere to a valid scientific method, lacks supporting evidence or plausibility, cannot be reliably tested, or otherwise lacks scientific status. The term pseudoscience is often considered inherently pejorative, because it suggests something is being inaccurately or even deceptively portrayed as science.” There are a number of reasons that editors at Wikipedia should not characterize remote viewing as pseudoscience, when it is not characterized that way by the informed scientific community. 1--In order to publish our findings in the 1976 Proceedings of the IEEE, we had to meet with the Robert W. Lucky, managing editor, and his board. The editor proposed to us that we show him how to conduct a remote viewing experiment. If it was successful, he would publish our paper. The editor was also head of electro-optics at Bell Telephone Laboratory. We gave a talk at his lab. He then chose some engineers to be the “psychics” for each of five days. Each day he hid himself at a randomly chosen location in the nearby town. After the agreed-upon five trials, the editor read the five transcripts and successfully matched each of the five correctly to his hiding places. This was significant at 0.008 (one in 5!, 5-factorial). As a result, he published our paper on “Information Transmission Over Kilometer Distances”. 2—In our 23 year program for the government at SRI, we had to carry out “demonstration of ability” tasks for the Director of CIA, Defense Intelligence Agency, NASA, and Commanding General of the Army Intelligence Command. (The names are available upon request.) For the CIA we were able to accurately describe and draw a giant gantry crane rolling on eight wheels over a large building, and draw the 60 foot gores, “slices” of a sphere, under construction in northern Russia. The sphere was entirely accurate, although its existence was unknown at the time. The description was so accurate that it became the subject of a Congressional hearing of the House Committee on Intelligence. They were afraid of a security leak. No leak was found, and we were told to “press on.” 3—Remote viewing is easily replicated and has been demonstrated all over the world. It has been the subject of several Ph.D. dissertations in the US and abroad. Princeton University had a 25 year program investigating remote viewing with more than 450 trials. Prof. Robert Jahn also published a lengthy and highly significant (p = 10-10 or 1 in ten billion) experimental investigation of remote viewing in the 1982 Proc. IEEE. 4—The kind of tasks that kept us in business for twenty-three years include: SRI psychics found a downed Russian bomber in Africa; reported on the health of American hostages in Iran; described Soviet weapons factories in Siberia; located a kidnapped US general in Italy; and accurately forecasted the failure of a Chinese atomic-bomb test three days before it occurred, etc. When San Francisco heiress Patricia Hearst was abducted from her home in Berkeley, a psychic with the SRI team was the first to identify the kidnapper by name and then accurately describe and locate the kidnap car. I was at the Berkeley police station and witnessed this event. 5—Jessica Utts is a statistics Professor at the University of California, Irvine, and is president of the American Statistical Association. In writing for her part of a 1995 evaluation of our work for the CIA, she wrote: “Using the standards applied to any other area of science, it is concluded that psychic functioning has been well established. The statistical results of the studies examined are far beyond what is expected by chance. Arguments that these results could be due to methodological flaws in the experiments are soundly refuted.… Remote viewing has been conceptually replicated across a number of laboratories, by various experimenters, and in different cultures. This is a robust effect that, were it not such an unusual domain, would no longer be questioned by science as a real phenomenon. It is unlikely that methodological flaws could account for its remarkable consistency.” 6--Whether you believe some, all, or none of the above, it should be clear that hundreds of people were involved in a 23 year, multi-million dollar operational program at SRI, the CIA, DIA and two dozen intelligence officers at the army base at Ft. Meade. Regardless of the personal opinion of a Wikipedia editor, it is not logically coherent to trivialize this whole remote viewing undertaking as some kind of “pseudoscience.” Besides me, there is a parade of Ph.D. physicists, psychologists, and heads of government agencies who think our work was valuable, though puzzling. Torgownik (talk) 00:06, 13 May 2014 (UTC)Russell Targ, May 12, 2014

I'm not reading this, I don't care. I have never edited that article. You might also look at

WP:TLDR. SpinningSpark

00:18, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

He's posted exactly the same thing on WP:BLP board . So far, he's just posted to your page and WP:BLP so I don't think it could be called canvassing, but it looks to be bordering on it. KoshVorlon   Angeli i demoni kruzhili nado mnoj 18:45, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

Since I told him quite forcefully that I don't care, I think he is quite entitled to assume this thread is dead and post on a noticeboard. Probably would have been free to do that anyway without consequence. SpinningSpark 18:53, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

Reflinks tool

You kindly responded to my query about the Reflinks tool on the HD yesterday, and I have answered the questions you asked beneath your comment. Hope you can help!

Regards, Pcat --

talk

) 00:58, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

AFD

Hiya,
Just wanted to apologize there, I just assumed you disagreed with what I said, Bloody glitches lol!,
Anyway happy editing :)
Regards, →Davey2010→→Talk to me!→ 02:06, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

No problem. I've seen that before, it happens when there is a very close edit conflict (with sinebot in this case). SpinningSpark 02:21, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

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