User talk:Gerry Ashton/Archive 4

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Archive This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Contents

Wikinews interviews

You may be interested in commenting at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#Wikinews redux. Cool Hand Luke 21:56, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

165.139.182.252

Hi. You were the last one to leave a warning for the referenced IP. They have vandalised The Bahamas. How can I get them blocked?Gary Joseph (talk) 02:12, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Since this address is almost certainly used by many different people. and since more than a month has passed since the last vandalism warning, it is probable that a different person is committing the vandalism. I generally start the cycle of 4 warnings over if a significant peroid has passed with no vandalism.
You may have already figured this out, but start a new heading on the talk page, something like this (without the nowiki tags):

== December 2007 ==

{{subst:uw-vandalism1|The Bahamas}} --~~~~

The subst: part causes the template to be expanded on the talk page, which saves computer processing time every time the page is displayed. Increase the digit after "vandalism" by 1 each time a warning is given. If it is aready at 4 and another vandalism occurs, make a report at WP:AIV.
Blocks are applied by administrators. I am not an administrator. If you think someone should be an administrator, you may nominate them at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/nominate. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 02:29, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Silanis Technology

Hi Gerry I am the Marketing Director for Silanis Technology. IP Address 66.46.217.132

It has just come to my attention that Silanis has been blacklisted from editing Wikipedia as a result of our contributions being deemed SPAM.

I want to first apologize for not addressing this earlier. I was not ignoring earlier messages from you or others, I was simply unaware that messages were being posted to my account. If you see recent repeated attempts to replace text that was deleted, it was because I was trying to figure out who was removing it (I assumed it was being done maliciously).

While I do appreciate the importance of Wikipedia NOT being used as a marketing vehicle, I have 2 concerns with being blacklisted.

Firstly, while you have applied this policy strictly to Silanis, our competitors remain on these pages. ARX, Yozons, PGP and others. If you are going to enforce this rule, it should be done uniformly.

Secondly, we ourselves have a very strict policy about not taking a commercial approach to our articles and resources. We were the first in the industry to create a resource center with the goal of educating the marketplace to increase adoption of the technology in general. As such, our articles are extremely educational. It is a shame that readers seeking useful information on this topic would not have access to white papers from experts simply because there is a presumption of bias.

I would greatly appreciate a response to this message. Please advise what can be done to resolve either of my concerns.

Thanks, Andrea Masterton

My first suggestion is to create a Wikipedia account, so that two-way communication can be facilitated, and to avoid confusion about the source of information if any of Silanis' IP addresses change.
My second suggestion is to review Wikipedia:Conflict of interest. In a nutshell, it is improper for an employee of a corporation to add a link that promotes the interests of the corporation. Even if a corporate web page mostly contains neutral information, there are likely to be links to make it easy for readers to find relevant products sold by the corporation, and the information is likely to be tailored to cast the corporation's products in a favorable light.
If you feel the information value of a Silanis web page outweighs any commercial information it contains, mention it on the talk (a.k.a. discussion) page of the article; a disinterested editor may decide to add it to the page.
As for blacklisting, there is a page that gives an overview of how it works: Wikipedia:Spam blacklist. "When requesting that a URL be delisted, you should give compelling evidence as to why it should be delisted." I do not have the authority to list or delist pages on the blacklist. I can't say for sure what those who do have the authority would consider "compelling evidence". I'll mention a few of my ideas, which might or might not have the desired effect:
  1. How is it that the links to Silanis web pages came to be posted in the first place?
  2. Mention that the warnings to the IP address talk page were not seen.
  3. What steps have been taken to educate Silanis employees about proper ways to contribute to non-commercial websites like Wikipedia? Perhaps provide a link to any bulletins to employees, or similar.
  4. What are some Silanis web pages that provide good, neutral, information, that is not available on the sites of not-for-profit organizations? --Gerry Ashton (talk) 17:46, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Silanis Technology

Thank you so much Gerry for the guidance. As you can tell, this is somewhat new to me. I have created a user account for myself, <Andi Masterton> and I went to the COIN messageboard however I was not able to edit the discussion as you recommended. I understand all the points you made. I am not contesting that Silanis added these links rather that the links provide valuable, non-commercial information and MOST IMPORTANTLY that our competitors are still listed. I will submit the request that our blacklist be removed and see what happens. In the meantime, can I ask you to you add the www.esignrecords.org link I had tried to add recently? It is an independant association and is EXTREMELY relevant and valuable for anyone looking at e-signatures. Thanks again. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Andi masterton (talk • contribs) 17:55, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

I looked at www.esignrecords.org. It claims it aims to be an education resource for its members and the public, and perhaps someday it will be. So far, though, it doesn't seem very important in terms of what it offers readers. Maybe its meetings are spectacular, I don't know, but in terms of being useful to Internet readers, it's nothing special. --Gerry Ashton 22:48, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

CE

Gary, there is some support ( http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/CE and likely more) for saying CE is used as an abbreviation for "Christian Era" - even though AD also "means" that (tho' I still will not agree it is clearly an abbreviation for that). There is also plenty of support in the first 3 footnotes for including "Christian Era" as one of the bold items in the first sentence. I do not see any way to avoid including this in the article without repeated confrontations. Furthermore, it offends nobody to have Xns think "Christian Era" to themselves when they see "CE" - it would, I think, even be a way to decrease animosity & have CE become better accepted --JimWae (talk) 23:34, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Merriam-Webster is a sufficently reputable dictionary publisher that I wouldn't try to contradict their claim that CE can be an abbreviation for Christian Era. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 23:38, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

NOR Request for arbitration

Because of your participation in discussions relating to the "PSTS" model in the No original research article, I am notifying you that a request for arbitration has been opened here. I invite you to provide a statement encouraging the Arbcom to review this matter, so that we can settle it once and for all. COGDEN 00:01, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Your welcoming message

Gerry, thank you very much for your welcoming message about my article on the Gregorian Calendar Notation under User 74.61.133.50. I will work through your sugestions and find out how to move the article to Anno Domini. (Any tips that I could use right away would certainly be appreciated.) I now have a regular user name which is below. As for a reference I am in a bit of a quandry. Not to parade my qualifications, but I am a chemical engineer with 27 years experience in process development, (MIT '44) and have a Masters in mathematics education from the University of Delaware in 1972. Retired now, I have an interest in numbers and language as well. The thoughts are my own, and as far as I know, not published elsewhere. I suppose I could cite Stephen Jay Gould's book, "Millenium" I think, but his idea of having a year "zero" to get the calendar to behave like a watch or an odometer is a highly unmathematical, to say the least, use of a term signifying an emptyness to apply to a finite period of time.

Tem12189 (talk) 13:08, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Just to refresh our memories, here is the section in question:

Notation

The standard notation for years was the source of the confusion surrounding when the new millennium occurred in the 2000th year of the gregorian calendar. The notation for years in progress should properly be made in ordinal, not cardinal notation. That is, any year is one of a series, having a beginning and an end, extending over a span of time. The same is true of a calendar date in a month. January 1, 2008 should more properly be written January 1st, 2008th. If this notation had been followed, it would have been apparent to anyone that the millenium, a full 1000 years, was not complete, until midnight, December 31st, 2000th. A curious phenomenonis, and further source of confusion, is that one's age, like the number on an odometer, changes only when a year of one's life (or a mile)is complete, while the calendar year and day of month change at the beginning of those time periods. Such completed numbers as ages should indeed be in cardinal notation since they refer to whole, completed periods of time. A related phenomenon is how we denote the time of day, say 9:45 a.m. This means that nine whole hours and 45 whole minutes have occurred since the beginning of the day, and thus the notation is properly in cardinal form. But calendar dates, at least when in progress, should be written in ordinal form


I notice that if we change from astronomical year numbering (with a year 0 and negative years) to standard year numbering (no year 0 and BC), we change the epoch one would infer just from looking at the notation. Just looking at the standard numbers, one would think the epoch of the system is the instant between 31 Dec. 1 BC and 1 Jan. AD 1. If one uses astronomical numbering, one would think the epoch is a year earlier, between 31 Dec -1 and 1 Jan 0.
So when is the actual epoch? Most informed people already know that most scholars think Jesus was born earlier than either of these epochs (of course, one can find scholars that don't think Jesus had any historical reality at all). I know of no major religion that makes any official statements about when Jesus was born. So obviously we are dealing with a conventional epoch, which is (more or less) set on a particular date for the sake of convenience. So who set this conventional epoch? Dionysius Exiguus. What event did he intend to commemorate? Not the birth of Jesus, as many think. He numbered from the Incarnation of Jesus. Today Roman Catholics celebrate the Incarnation 9 months earlier than the Nativity, but both dates are conventional dates and no one knows what time of year these events happened (if they happened at all).
Now the question boils down to when did Dionysius Exiguus think the Incarnation occurred? Unfortunately, his surviving documents are sparse, and it is thought that the surviving copy (copies?) contain additions by scribes. I don't read Latin, but I've read translations of the relevant documents by Dionysius, as well as some modern commentary on them. There are many complications in trying to figure out what Dionysius was thinking. For one thing, in his time, there were several beginnings of the year, for different purposes: Easter for religious purposes, or January 1 for many civil purposes. Astronomers and people who calculated Easter tables in Alexandria used August 29, when Diocletian became emperor, even though he had been dead a long time in Dionysius' time. By taking various combinations of new year dates, one can come up with arguments for 2 BC, 1 BC, or 1 AD as the year of the Incarnation.
I don't think it is wise to put statements in the Anno Domini article about whether we are using cardinal or ordinal year numbering, because I don't think we know the epoch, and thus we don't know if we are using cardinal or ordinal numbering. Deciding which we are using by looking at the characteristics of our numbering system is putting the cart before the horse. I prefer to say that we don't know, and await the unearthing of some ancient document to settle the matter. -Gerry Ashton (talk) 16:32, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

WP:N

Gerry, have you had a bad experience with WP:N being applied to remove an article? That's what got me involved in monitoring the guideline pages and trying to uncomplicate these. I think that we are making progress. I'm not a fan of the nutshells, but they are popular and a point which I'm willing to concede. I think that what we need more than guidelines is better training of the people who are determining the outcomes of our AfD debates. Let's talk as time permits, to see if we can make some improvements along the lines of your concerns. --Kevin Murray (talk) 19:12, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

I've seen articles introduced about crackpot ideas. One rational for removing them is they are not notable. But because the notability guideline is flawed, it does not logically apply to ideas at all, so can't be used. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 19:21, 15 December 2007 (UTC)


Format number

I hope I have a solution to formatting numbers you approve of. Please see this update, as well as the post immediately preceding that one. Greg L (my talk) 01:02, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Anno domini year zero question

Thanks. I don't know anything at all about the subject but it struck me as odd that this would diverge from what I was reading in Year zero and Common era.Trilobitealive (talk) 01:16, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

I didn't see anything as a divergence. I think all the articles agree, before and after my change, that astronomers use a year zero and just about everyone else does not. But I was happy to provide a reference. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 01:35, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

your comment in "Position of AD"

Hi there. I couldn't help but comment on your post in "Position of AD" about the purpose of the manual, and choosing between acceptable usages. I thought it was a good post—something I'd been trying to say in discussion pages for ages (before I became inactive). Never seen in cast in that light before though, I like the way you put it. (No response necessary, but if you do, I'd prefer it if you'd post at User talk:Neonumbers.) Neonumbers (talk) 11:10, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Hello

You said

"I have undone the changes you made to "Electric charge" because you failed to fill in the box near the bottom of the edit screen labled "Edit summary". Since your changes were minor, I couldn't figure out what you changed, so I couldn't decide if it was a good change or a bad change."

What I did was remove some excess spacebars for example there are 2 space bars between A and B, A B, there between C and D, C D, that is what I did and you can see it if you look closely in the edit history JerrySteal (talk) 18:25, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
Thank you for the explaination. Unfortunately, there are vandals who like to create subtle changes in the hope that the damage won't be noticed. Thus, it is important to explain changes in the edit summary so other editors can verifiy that the change is appropriate. It's a pretty good guess that the majority of unexplained changes are harmful. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 18:32, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

mile

"statute mile" is a well-understood (better understood than "international mile") term for the international mile; I don't think it's used much to refer to the survey mile specifically. The term "statute mile" is in common usage in the US to refer to the international mile, and the term "international mile" isn't likely to be understood as well by US readers. (I don't know about the UK; which is the other major jurisdiction to use miles)—Random832 21:55, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

In colloquial speech, statute mile is often used when the international mile is meant. Unfortunately, as documented in NIST Handbook 44 page C-13, footnote 11, "U. S. statute mile is based on the survey foot (1200/3937 meter)" (emphasis added). This handbook has been adopted as law by most of the states in the U.S. (see http://ts.nist.gov/WeightsAndMeasures/upload/stlaw.pdf). All the incorrect usage in the world does not change the law.
It is possible that some non-U.S. jurisdiction has passed a law making "statute mile" a synonym for "international mile". Nevertheless, "international mile" conveys the correct meaning, and the U.S. is clearly the largest country that sill uses miles (other than the nautical mile).--Gerry Ashton (talk) 00:06, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
An obscure law doesn't dictate usage on wikipedia; the common meaning of "statute mile" is simply 5280 perfectly ordinary feet. The term "international mile" is unfamiliar to most. —Random832 16:02, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
If people are unfamiliar with "international mile" it is because they don't understand the mile. Shall Wikipedia perpetuate a usage that encourages ignorance? Shall we conceal from readers the fact that for most purposes, most of the English-speaking world have agreed on the same definition of the mile since 1959?
Also, people in English-speaking countries generally reject governmental Linguistic prescription, but do not reject linguistic prescription in particular fields that are important to health, safety, and commerce, such as medicine labels, placards on trucks carrying hazardous materials, and the measurement of goods in commerce. Of course, since Wikipedia does not sell any physical goods, it is not subject to government regulations on measurements. But our readers are, and we should not perpetuate usage that would violate the law if used to label goods sold in commerce. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 19:57, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
An additional thought: since most use of the mile will be for measurements made after 1959 in fields other than surveying, the term "statute mile" is just plain wrong (although the error is very small). If our manual of style says that Wikipedia editors should write incorrectly, the implication is that our readers are so stupid that they can't handle the correct usage, so editors should pander to the stupid readers. No such insult to our readers should be present in our manual of style. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 22:12, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Your note

Thanks, I fixed it. What happened was I had made an edit, went to save, and got an edit conflict. I therefore saved what I had written with a text editor, then made the edit again, so as not to overwrite the other editor's post. It must have been the pasting into the text editor that changed the symbols. I'm on a Mac and the text editor is Apple's TextEdit, version 1.4. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 21:41, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Style

I tend to use what I recall is MLA. So for a book, it would be: Smith, John. Writing a Book. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008, p. 15. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 02:01, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Discussion at MoS

I strongly support your take on things. Keep it up. If I had discovered WP two years ago, I would be giving you (and a few others) all the support I possibly could. I'm so involved with robotics now that I don't have the time to get into every conversation I want to, but please call on me for support at any time. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 17:01, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Gerry Ashton's edit to Conversion of units

The definition of the radian states, "Thus 2π radians is equal to 360 degrees, meaning that one radian is equal to 180/π degrees." <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radian> —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.125.192.174 (talk) 20:41, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Now that the degree symbol has been included, I can live with the entry. Certainly a radian is equal to 180°/π. Whether that should be considered the definition or the definition is the much longer statement in Radian#Definition is a matter of opinion. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 22:33, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Changing reference lists

Oops... I didn't spot the actual note in that section. It's just something that I change when I make other edits to the page; I thought that I had moved the Popular culture and trivia section above the notes section, which was the main edit to that page. SkeletorUK (talk) 22:09, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

I know there's no consensus for using either of them, but reflist just allows for more complex additions to the page, such as multiple columns. I also just prefer the look of having a smaller font for references and footnotes; It just seems natural to me to have them separated from the content, in a sense. SkeletorUK (talk) 23:19, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

RE: Anno Domini

Hmm... in that case, you're right, it is pushing the borders of disruption, though it may still be just an edit war and not blatant vandalism. There isn't enough activity to warrant protecting the page, however, and I blocking the user in question is too preemptive because they haven't edited since being warned. I'll place a warning there and keep an eye on the page. Cheers, Master of Puppets Call me MoP!☺ 03:42, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

"Christian era" redirect.

From the "common era" article:

"Common Era, also known as Christian Era and Current Era,[1][2][3] abbreviated CE,[4] is a designation for the period of time beginning with year 1 of the Gregorian calendar."

The 3 terms Common era, Christian era and Current era are given as equivalent terms. If this is not the case, this article needs to be changed. Also, since "current era" redirects to "common era", logically, so should "Christian era".--Editor2020 (talk) 23:11, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Survey feet

Gerry, in your edit to Foot (length) you noted in the comment that not all surveys are in survey feet. That makes sense to me. (In fact, as I argued in the discussion page, most if not all surveys aren't accurate enough to tell the difference.) But it occurred to me that it would be worthwhile if you could make that text more specific -- when would one vs. the other be used? What references say so? Thanks... Paul Koning (talk) 20:54, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

unexplained changes policy question

Greetings.

You said:

It's a pretty good guess that the majority of unexplained changes are harmful.

Is there an official Wikipedia policy on this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.214.112.163 (talk) 15:46, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Not that I know of. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 21:37, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Meters vs. metres

Hi !

I would like to remind you that a meter is (initially) a European measurement. And, opposed to the message you wrote me, it is NOT a Brittish measurement. Britain usually uses yards.

Writing Metre instead of meter is typically a signal of French influense. Since the article was NOT written in French, I saw nothing wrong in correcting the article.

Metre is a very old, outdated spelling that is probably not used anywhere in the world today, except perhaps in french speaking countries. And, since I don't speak french, I wouldn't consider editing french pages. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.251.240.75 (talk) 18:23, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

You are a troll. Go away. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 21:15, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Total Station

Gerry,

Only top of the line model total station EDM's have an error less than 2mm. 3mm is probably more "typical". 0.1mm is unheard of. Also, .1mm ≠ 1/1000-foot likewise 1mm ≠ 1/100-foot.

Tom —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.84.102.144 (talk) 13:31, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

If you have a published source that says that, please revise the article accordingly and include a citation to the source. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 16:41, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Ira, VT

Just wanted to let you know that I renamed the headers in line with the guidelines. Please be more careful of accusing people of messing up things when they're seeking to conform articles to standards. Nyttend (talk) 16:44, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

I'd say we both missed something; I missed that there were endnotes in the infobox (in a way that is impossible to see in the editor), and you missed that there were Harvard references to the Virtual Vermont website, so those were references, not further reading. I never meant to imply that you were not trying to improve the article. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 17:07, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Talk:MOSNUM: {{delimitnum}} template

I just wanted to make you aware that I made a post here on Talk:MOSNUM regarding the new {{delimitnum}} template. See you there. Greg L (my talk) 22:15, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Re: Conversion of units

All units I added to the article conversion of units were all made-up, so I can't add references for these. BlueEarth (talk) 19:47, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

I have reverted the addition of the made-up units. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 20:01, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Oops, my fault

Gerry, please see my answer on Talk:MOSNUM. Sorry. Greg L (my talk) 03:29, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

  • Gerry, voting is now available regarding the “GiB” policy here. We’ll see now where everyone sits on this one. See you there… Greg L (my talk) 06:02, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Drift of Easter

You're right--the Western system for calculating Easter is not as accurate as 1 day per 10000 years. This is because of the slowing of the earth's rotation. I thought of that later and was going to change it, but you deleted the whole paragraph before I got to it. By the way, it's not totally random, as I have now written. There is a gradual lengthening of the day which causes an error quadratic in elapsed time, and then there is a random error on top of this, which when integrated over time must grow as time to the 3/2 power or to the 1/2 power. In any case, the quadratic term dominates. I haven't bothered to source my figure of about an hour per millennium squared for the coefficient. I learned that from an article in Nature many years ago concerning the so-called crucifixion eclipse. In fact, now that I look there, I see the reference: Humphreys, C. J., & W. G. Waddington, W. G. (1983, December 22). Dating the crucifixion. Nature, 306(5945), 743-746.

As for the Julian system, I have changed my number from 4 to 3 days per millennium. Yesterday I used an incorrect method to calculate it. I do think it's an important point, that this Metonic method is inaccurate and results in the Easterners celebrating Easter long after the full moon!

Eric Kvaalen (talk) 09:29, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Pressure conversion

Proof supplied as requested. Mjroots (talk) 19:12, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Drift of Easter

You're right--the Western system for calculating Easter is not as accurate as 1 day per 10000 years. This is because of the slowing of the earth's rotation. I thought of that later and was going to change it, but you deleted the whole paragraph before I got to it. By the way, it's not totally random, as I have now written. There is a gradual lengthening of the day which causes an error quadratic in elapsed time, and then there is a random error on top of this, which when integrated over time must grow as time to the 3/2 power or to the 1/2 power. In any case, the quadratic term dominates. I haven't bothered to source my figure of about an hour per millennium squared for the coefficient. I learned that from an article in Nature many years ago concerning the so-called crucifixion eclipse. In fact, now that I look there, I see the reference: Humphreys, C. J., & W. G. Waddington, W. G. (1983, December 22). Dating the crucifixion. Nature, 306(5945), 743-746.

As for the Julian system, I have changed my number from 4 to 3 days per millennium. Yesterday I used an incorrect method to calculate it. I do think it's an important point, that this Metonic method is inaccurate and results in the Easterners celebrating Easter long after the full moon!

Eric Kvaalen (talk) 09:29, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Pressure conversion

Proof supplied as requested. Mjroots (talk) 19:12, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Notability discussion

I responded to your answer with a request for further info in this discussion. - Arcayne (cast a spell) 18:04, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for Watts edits

Thanks for your edits on the watt article! Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 19:37, 17 April 2008 (UTC)