User talk:Woodstone

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[edit] Meelar

[[User:Meelar|Meelar (talk)]] 20:58, Dec 3, 2004 (UTC)

Welcome from me as well. I noticed that you edit mainly in articles about Thailand, so I think the Thailand-related topics notice board should be of interest for you. It's the place where the Wikipedians interested in Thailand or from Thailand can meet for help each other to improve the articles about Thai topics. Hope to see you around more... andy 12:05, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Mark Alexander

Hi, and thanks for your contributions on Thai language. Mark1 04:02, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Robin Patterson

And another welcome, this time from someone born at the other end of the 1940s who has been a Wikipedian for nearly a year longer than you and scored 100% in School Certificate Mathematics. So we have a bit in common! I can't help you with language aspects of the Thai work, but I wish you the best of luck there. (Incidentally, the place IS vandalised quite a bit; one reason why some of us have "Special:Recentchanges" on our bookmark list so as to have a quick skim, looking mostly at anonymous contributions, before doing real work each day.)

Enjoy!! Robin Patterson 21:52, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Nohat

[edit] Voiced/voiceless "th" allophones?

Hi NoHat, I happened to see in the consonant article the following remark: "... the "th" sound in "this" is a different sound from the "th" sound in "thing" (in IPA they're [ð] and [θ], respectively) ...". Certainly true, but I wonder if they are considered allophones. As far as I can see there are no minimal pairs distinguishing them. Can you find any? How far do sounds have to be apart (and how is this defined) before linguists do not require at least one minimal pair to split them into different phonemes. In view of the discussion about [i] in Spanish and English a while ago, I thought about this very same example before. --Woodstone 14:25, 2005 Feb 18 (UTC)

Either/ether. Also, teeth/teethe. Cheers! Nohat 17:11, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)

On the delightful site: minimal pairs I found the list:

 thigh  thy
 loath  loathe
 mouth  mouth
 wreath wreathe
 sheath sheathe
 sooth  soothe
 teeth  teethe
 with   withe

Your version of "either" must different from their's. --Woodstone 20:35, 2005 Feb 18 (UTC)

Great site find! It is agreed that the functional load of the [ð]/[θ] distinction is marginal, but it's definitely there. Interestingly, there are no minimal pairs for [h] and engma—they're in completely complementary distribution. But no one would propose that they're allophones of a single phoneme though, just because they have so little in common. Nohat 23:07, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Missing w in IPA?

In all of the many variations of the IPA chart in Wikipedia, I cannot find the "w". It seems to fit in the bilabial approximant box, but that is empty. What's up? −Woodstone 10:02, 2005 Mar 8 (UTC)

[w] is the labial-velar approximant. It's under "other symbols" in the IPA chart. Nohat 17:14, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC). ...thx.

[edit] H vs B

Thank you for your changes to Chord symbol. The only beef I have is the inclusion of the German H. I've never seen a chord symbol like Hm7. However, Note (music) should describe this, as well as "Es" for E-flat, "Fis" for F-sharp, and so on. —Wahoofive | Talk 23:02, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Italic flat

Before you go too far with Bb notation, it might be good to start a talk thread on Wikipedia:WikiProject Music to see if you can develop a consensus for a standard. That page now says to use ♯ and ♭, with # and b as alternatives (wonder if we can find out what browsers don't display those Unicode characters properly). I'm not saying I disagree with you, but it would be nice to agree on a standard. —Wahoofive | Talk 20:20, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Greek letters used in mathematics

Thanks for your contributions to this article timestamped 15:46, 26 May 2005, between my edits of 10:04, 26 May 2005 and 16:47, 26 May 2005. For some reason I don't understand, your edits no longer appear in the page history! Bizarre. I think I've seen this happen before. Must be a bug in the WikiMedia software. --Macrakis 21:51, 26 May 2005 (UTC)

On checking just now, I see my edit appearing normally in the history list. So it has mysteriously returned. I have noticed glitches before. One time my edit even appeared under another user's id! −Woodstone 07:29, 2005 May 27 (UTC)

[edit] Greek transliteration

I'll answer you remark on reversibility on Talk:Greece. Markussep 13:59, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Seasons

Hi,
I understand your motives in restoring the content that I removed from the introduction to Season, but nonetheless I think it doesn't belong there. The intro is not the place to get into a thorough discussion of the various division and reckoning systems used around the world. (In fact, I think the article as it stands is hardly complete on that account anyway.) I think that my approach of briefly describing the system that is by far the most widespread, and making some mention of the fact that other systems exist without describing them in full, is hardly less balanced and valuably concise. We could have it both ways by moving the ==Reckoning== section to the front, but I think that the ==Causes== section goes first and that we shouldn't put the cart before the horse. I've watchlisted your talk page, so you can reply right here. --Smack (talk) 03:21, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

I doubt if the western 4-season division is the most widespread, certainly not "by far". More people live in tropical areas than temperate ones. I agree with you that the account is not complete. It would be possible the move the different systems to a separate section. But then the intro should not give any bias. −Woodstone 10:59, July 12, 2005 (UTC)
I'm not convined that the majority of the world's population lives in places where the four-season system is irrelevant, but at any rate, how do you propose to write a brief unbiased intro? --Smack (talk) 04:01, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

I thought we had agreed that the present form of the article's introduction is unsatisfactory. You reverted my change again without proposing an alternative. Why did you do this? --Smack (talk) 02:49, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

No information was lost by my edit. The intro was made culturally neutral. The various ways of dividing the year in seasons follows immediately, complementing the definition. This way the natural flow is maintained without introducing cultural bias. It looks to me like a good compromise. −Woodstone 18:49, August 4, 2005 (UTC)
Sorry, I didn't see the new heading you inserted. You have indeed made a compromise, but I almost prefer your first version. Have a look at what I've done. I think I've satisfied all of our major goals reasonably well, but I'm still uneasy about having people who follow a link to "wildfire season" read through all of the Causes. --Smack (talk) 03:57, 5 August 2005 (UTC)
Please explain the reasoning behind your last change. I can see that each of us believes his considerations significant enough that they cannot be compromised on, and it seems that you're reluctant to discuss the matter until I harass you. I think that if this goes on much longer, we should seek mediation. --Smack (talk) 02:30, 6 August 2005 (UTC)
As far as I can see you did not do anything corresponding to your statement above "Have a look at what I've done". I was waiting for that to appear. My point is that the definition part (before the first header) should not be biased to one culture. Either most of the various systems should be included or none. My previous change was to put them all in the intro. You kept only the "western" style seasons in the definition and moved the "tropical" and other ones somewhere far down the article. I compromised by have a bare definition only, immediately followed by a section detailing the different systems. I would not object to moving "wild fire" season into a less prominent place, because that is a very loose usage of the word. −Woodstone 10:36, August 6, 2005 (UTC)
That's odd. Maybe the database didn't update quickly enough. My version is in plain sight in the page history. See also Season/temp. It's based on my most recent version of the article, but the intro is probably more to your liking. --Smack (talk) 18:06, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

The last change by you I see in the history at 2005-08-03 07:09. Your comment "look at what I've done" has date 2005-08-05 03:57, reacting to mine at 2005-08-04 18:49. So I still do not see what you want me to look at. The current article has my latest change of 2005-08-05 23:59.

I'm very confused. You can disregard the history, but please take a look at the temp version. --Smack (talk) 02:36, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

Sorry, I had not noticed your reference to a "temp" page before. I was looking in the real page. I think your proposal is not better than the current version. Users will be confused by an inconsistent set of seasons in the intro. In my opinion it's better to give only a definition in the intro and follow immediately by a section with the various systems and examples. −Woodstone 18:42:45, 2005-08-10 (UTC)

I can agree to remove the sample list of seasons, but that aggravates the question of what to do with unconventional seasons. I've edited the temp page again. --Smack (talk) 01:53, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] The law of conservation of angular momentum

Woodstone wrote in the coriolis effect article

A more intuitive reasoning is the following. An air particle moving north towards the depression, also comes closer to the rotation axis. The patch of the Earth under it rotates with a radius becoming smaller, and thus a lower linear velocity. The air particle still has its original speed and seems to move ahead in the rotation direction, thus obtaining an eastward component. A similar reasoning can be followed for other directions of appoach to the depression. Every time, the deviation is a deflection to the right.

Hi Woodstone,

I'd like to know, the reasoning you present above, is that a compromise you opted for to give people at least a hint?

Here is why I think it is better not to present the physics in that way.

The formula for the angular momentum is

L = Iω

And the formula for the moment of inertia is:

I = mr2

For example, when the radial distance decreases by a factor \sqrt{2} then the moment of inertia decreases with a factor 2, so the angular velocity will become twice as high, otherwise angular momentum would not be conserved.
With the angular velocity twice as high, and the radial distance decreased by a factor of \sqrt{2} the linear velocity will have increased by a factor of \sqrt{2}.

The factor 2 in the formula for the coriolis force F = 2mvw comes from the fact that there is rotation;, and the law of angular momentum applies

Linear velocity is not conserved in this situation, the reasoning that is presented violates the Law of conservation of angular momentum.
--Cleon Teunissen | Talk 08:20, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

The intuitive explanation was not meant to be exact. It will just give the less technical reader a way to think, not using formulas. But anyway, the conservation of angular momentum applies to systems as a whole, not to individual particles. So I do not see why my explanation necessarily violates the conservation principle. −Woodstone 21:36, August 2, 2005 (UTC)
I can explain. It is rather long, sorry for that, but I'm staying on the safe side, making sure that all the i's are dotted.
I start by looking at it from a non-rotating point of view, so I'm somewhere in space, and I see the Earth rotating, taking a sidereal day to rotate. To simplify matters, I will go to a no-friction scenario: the Earth perfectly smooth, no air and an ice-hockey puck that can slide frictionless. At the start the puck is at, say, 45 degrees latitude, and it is stationary with respect to the Earth. Looking at it from space, I see the overall motion of the puck, it is co-moving with the Earth, in a big circle, around the Earth's axis. So there must be a force towards the Earth's axis, otherwise the circular motion of the puck would not remain circular. Or, if there is just a little bit to little force, the puck remains on Earht, but it swings wide, sliding off to the Equator. Where does that force come from?
Because it is rotating, the Earth is in the shape of a oblate spheroid. The cross section, looking at the equator, has the shape of an ellipse. If you are at about 45 degrees latitude, then the line perpendicular to the surface does not exactly point towards the center of gravity. So there is a bit of an angle between the two, and you can decompose the force of gravity to a component perpendicular to the surface, and a component parallel to the surface. The component perpendicular to the surface keeps the puck on the planet, and the component parallel to the surface is what keeps the puck at its latitude, it keeps the puck from swinging wide.
One might think that the rotation of the Earth is so slow that friction is enough to prevent sliding to the Equator, but to air there is very little friction, and without that parallel-to-the-surface component of the gravitational force air and water would flow towards the equator.
Because of that angle, slight as it is, the layer of air around the Earth is equally thick everywhere. The same sort of equilibrium is at at play when a parabolic mercury mirror for an astronomcical observatorium is constructed. They build a parabolic dish for a particular rotation rate, and then fill it with mercury. If the shape of the dish perfectly matches the rotation rate, the mercury distributes in an even layer. It is of course no coincidence that the shape of the Earth matches, the shape of the solid earth is the same as what the shape of a completely liquid celestial body would be if it would be rotating in space (Like Jupiter, that is for a very large part hydrogen). The final shape is one of dynamic equilibrium.
If you have a parabolic turntable, and the rotation rate matches the shape, then you can position the puck at any distance to the center, have it co-rotate with the turntable, and it will neither slide down or go wide. Further away from the center a stronger centripetal force is necessary, and this is provided for by the slope, further away from the center it gets steeper.
To get a feel for it I imagine hovercraft rides in the bowl of the Arecibo telescope dish. Then you are (roughly) in circular motion all the time, but unlike in a car taking a corner fast, you are not pushed to the side of your seat. At all times, you feel yourself pressing straight down on your seat.
Sorry I'm taking so much words, but I'm trying to convey that while the motion feels very free (you can accelerate, decelerate, you can power up sideways pushing propellors of the hovercraft), the centripetal force is always there. It is not very obvious that wherever you go there is a tug from the centripetal force, but it is there, otherwise the circular motion would not sustain.
When there are rides in hovercrafts on the dish of the Arecibo radiotelescope, you can actually use that centripetal force, you can cash in on it. You are in a hovercraft, orbiting the dish counterclockwise, and you give a burst of sideways propulsion. Then you are sliding down the incline, and so you pick up a lot of speed. You won't spiral all the way to the center. At first it looks like a spiral, approaching the center, but you pick up so much speed that at some point the hovercraft starts climbing up the slope again. Remarkably, the sideways burst has not changed the circular motion into a spiral that continues to the middle, the burst has changed a circular orbit into a elliptical orbit. All in all, there are surprising analogies with orbital dynamics (With as obvious difference that on the parabolic dish the centripetal force increases proportional to the distance, while in planetary orbits the centripetal force decreases proportional to the square of the distance. But the comparison does help.)
I hope I have been able to convey what I have in mind. It seems strange the the oblateness of the Earth should matter at all. But the air masses that move are thousands of kilometers across, and they move with very little friction, in the end it does matter.
This is what I mean by saying that the laws of linear motion do not directly apply. Air mass that is being pushed/pulled from south to north does not keep its original velocity. It is sliding down an incline, it is giving in to a centripetal force, so it is picking up speed. To keep track of what will happen to that air mass, you need to think about the angular momentum of that volume of air.
I find the dynamics of wind wonderful, there is so much more going on than meets the eye! --Cleon Teunissen | Talk 10:00, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Pro circumcision POV pushers are attempting to censor wikipedia

Thank you for agreeing with proposal to use the term intact rather than uncircumcised in the main circumcision article. Not to sound melodramatic but its become clear that pro circumcision POV pushers are censoring wikipedia uninhibitedly, which can be seen in their attempt to remove the article Aposthia and vandalizing the disambiguation page at uncircumcised to eliminate any other interpretations of the word supported by the dictionary that they feel improves their political agenda. For the sake of intellectual freedom I emplore you to look into these matters and make choice about how you will respond. Thanks again. Sirkumsize 02:36, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

User Jakew acts as if he is the sole owner of the circumcision article. He (or sometimes Robert the Bruce) reverts any attempt to bring more balance in the points of view. This article is one of the worst in singlesided POV bias. At one time I have almost given up contributing to wikipedia because of this. Luckily many other articles are reaching much better balance and mutual cooperation. −Woodstone 21:16:12, 2005-08-17 (UTC)
I totally agree and have been fighting hard to bring balance to this site but with seemingly little support. Please note that this is the basis for a rfc I am bringing against a user at Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Jayjg. If you would like to join, please hurry. If it is not cosigned soon it will be dropped. Sirkumsize 21:34, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Thai MoS

Construed at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (Thailand-related articles)#Cast votes 217.140.193.123 10:32, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Hawaii

As you have done work with some monarchies, please take a look at this too. There's been a huge fuss lately over whether articles on Hawaii's monarchs are in the right location and there are some people who'd like to change the format used in naming the articles (e.g. one user wants to move the article Kamehameha I to Kamehameha I, King of Hawaii. We're having a discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Hawaii/Manual of Style#Names of monarchs, and your views on the conflict would be appreciated. Arrigo 13:04, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Chinese transcription

How would you romanize 申忠和 in Pinyin if this was a name of a person? --68.251.209.247 00:43, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

Sorry, I do not read Chinese. −Woodstone 07:10:44, 2005-08-29 (UTC)

[edit] Intervals

Your recent edits to Interval (music) are plain contrary to my experience as a professional musician. I have never seen a minus sign used for diminished -- it's always a circle. (In jazz notation a flat is often used, regardless of the actual accidental to be employed.) I have never seen M7 for a major seventh; do you mean a pop-chord symbol such as GMaj7? These symbols don't technically represent intervals. In figured bass they do represent intervals, but your descriptions certainly don't apply there. We should replace your addition with a reference to Figured bass and Chord symbol, where these notations are treated in greater detail. —Wahoofive (talk) 20:20, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

Indeed I am talking about usage in chord symbols. Technically speaking perhaps the notations indicate the chord quality, but at the same time they do indicate intervals that are part of the chord. On double check in some music sheets, I find plenty of +5 and -5, but indeed instead of M7 it is usually Maj7. I will change that. I agree that the small circle does not indicate an interval, but a combination of intervals. I still think it has a place in this article, but a reference to chord symbol should be added. −Woodstone 21:02:35, 2005-09-10 (UTC)

You're opening a big can of worms here. Chord symbols in sheet music vary enormously, even within the pop-music or jazz genres, let alone with classical analysis textbooks, fake books, and so on. I think it would be wiser to just state that sometimes intervals are identified as part of chord symbols and give the cross-reference to chord symbol, since any detailed exposition of the various options will distract from the subject of intervals. —Wahoofive (talk) 23:08, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] TLAs

A proposal has been made at Wikipedia:Requested moves to move TLAs from AAA to DZZ and other related pages to Wikipedia namespace. Please visit Talk:TLAs from AAA to DZZ for the related discussion. -- Francs2000 | Talk 00:40, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Names of numbers in English

uh, Yeah, but there's already an article which covers that sort of thing, as well as an article for each number, and each of those numbers only has one name – googol and googolplex, respectively. —Wiki Wikardo

Yes, but this article is a collection of all names given; there is no reason to exclude some when they occur somewhere else as well; much more detail can be given in the specialised articles. −Woodstone 11:07, 17 September 2005 (UTC)
That may be the case, but the fact remains that neither googol nor googolplex are "specialised" or alternate names. If you can find a place they belong in the article where their inclusion isn't totally jarring + out of context, by all means, go ahead. I couldn't, so I deleted it.
P.S. I noticed there's no link to Names of large numbers under "See also," although it is in the article List of numbers, which is linked there. I think it belongs there.
I'm making it easier for other folks to weigh in.

[edit] Null

Mr. Woodstone,

This comment is about your undoing(Undo absurdly fractional split by Sepand) in the Null entry.

How do you undo the disambig page I have created and still candidate the page for "split"? If you have a better suggestion for "split" just tell; Don't destroy with wood and stone!

--Sepand 03:54, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

Hi Sepand. I've been out of internet reach for a while, so therefore a late reaction. In my view the article was just fine before the split. Lots of info about many kinds of null, but deeper down all the same thing. Since it was not particularly big, no reason at all for a split. −Woodstone 07:14, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
Please take a look at my points for which I have splited Null page at Null:Talk --Sepand 09:43, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] prettytable bot request

Hi, I am going to perform the bot request you made in september in regard to prettytables, I'll do it by subst'ing the templates. Just thought you might want to know. <font color=darkgreen>'''''Martin'''''</font> 13:48, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for taking this up. I see the changes on my watchlist. You may want to note that an outstanding problem (on Firefox)with template:Prettytable-center2 was just solved. Had you done that one already? −Woodstone 22:25, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Wiki Birthday!

Image:Wikiballoon1.jpg Wiki birthday to you! Wiki birthday, dear Woodstone! Wiki birthday to you!

Congratulations on your first Wikibirthday at Wikipedia (December 3, 2005.). On behalf of the community, we'd like to thank you for your countless edits in the past year! Keep it coming!.

This Wiki Birthday Balloon was awarded to you by: SoothingR

-- SoothingR(pour) 18:57, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] massage cleanup

Hi. A while ago, I tried to clean up the massive mess that the massage article is by moving the lists of massage techniques and list of massage associations to pages of their own, but you reverted that. You left an edit summary implying that I had simply done a "massive delete", which it was not. Could you please argue for the case of keeping everything in the main article if you still believe this is the right way? Thanks. Jules.LT 10:42, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

See comments on the talk page.−Woodstone 20:48, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Greetings!

Hello! I hope you're well. Thanks for the feedback regarding editing. I know: it's a personal failing I acknowledge and need to rectify. I'm often so eager to put new stuff up (and am a perfectionist of sorts), that I often click 'Save page' instead of 'Show preview, and then re-read and edit to get it right. OCD? :) Anyhow, I will definitely be more diligent with this in the future and have made it a 'minute' new year's resolution of sorts.

I hope this is sufficient. Please let me know if you've any questions. Thanks again! E Pluribus Anthony 15:53, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Great (Case in point: you will notice that I've edited the above twice!) :) I will be more diligent. Thanks again! E Pluribus Anthony 16:17, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Dutch grammar

"(a "strong" verb is not "irregular", random numbers should not link, more consistent italics) "

You're right.I was thinking of the English defination of irregular verbs.Which is different from the Dutch one, and since this is the English version... but let's stick with your idea.

Sandertje 16:50, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Zero

Hey Woodstone, re:0... if my edit is too specialistic for the intro, where would you like to see it? I do think something on this line is needed because currently the definition given for zero is circular.... (see the talk page) Mikkerpikker 17:53, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

I do not think the added definition is any better. A definition that looks like subtracting infinity from infinity is not clarifying. But you might add a separate section "Set theoretical 0" (or something similar), before the history section. −Woodstone 18:15, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks, will do, but where?

As an editor/journalist, a typo in one's own name is tres ironic. Reminds me of a famous bit on TV's The Odd Couple ("Oscar Madisoy. Oscar Marisox.") But what page is my Tebebrae typo on? Thanks! - Tenebrae 15:35, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Oops. Never mind. Found it. My own user page. How the heck did I do that? Cheers! - Tenebrae 15:37, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Linas: additive function

Thanks for your additions to additive function. Several comments: we have a specific way of laying out math articles, they tend to begin with the phrase "In mathematics...", and then proceed from general statements to specific statements. I would very much like it if your edits proceeded in this manner. Next, as to a technical detail: Can you actually provide an example of the additive function that you are thinking of when you are writing this article? The only additive function that I can think of over the reals is f(x)=x and so trying to shoe-horn in a "general definition" which holdsonly for a trivial function just seems bizarre. That is why I attempted to qualify the definition to mention group homomorphism and polynomials on fields. Is there something that you have in mind? Otherwise, I am tempted to revert your edits, since they don't make sense to me. linas 02:10, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

All linear mappings from Rn to Rm (which can be expressed as a matrix {ai,j}) are additive. This includes for example also the function "average" over a set of reals. In another domain, for example the function "integral" or "derivative" over a real function is additive. Many non-trivial additive functions can be defined on the space of all strings of elements over a set (e.g. character strings) with the operator "concatenate" as addition. For example UPCASE or LENGTH. The "additive" property only needs addition to be defined in both domain and image. No need for a "field" or even a "group". −Woodstone 11:05, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Ah. Linear functions, as in linear operators and linear algebra. Yes... well... of course, OK. It just seems like an unusual usage of the term; honestly, I spent a large part of my life studying linear algebra and linear operators, and never once heard the term "additive function" used until I started reading about Galois fields and number theory. So, technically, yes, anything linear is additive; its just ... an unusual usage of the term. No matter, that's a crappy article anyway, and needs a re-write and expansion. linas 19:38, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

You are focussing too much on fields (where linearity can be defined). In defining measures and statistics, additivity is an important distinguishing property. When you have a population, consisting of subpopulations (world/country, country/state) the same property can be calculated for each of the pieces separately and for the whole at once. Some defined measures are additive, some are not. For example the income, the number of people, the area is additive; the average income, the population density are not additive. To be honest, before I read the WP article I had never seen the term additive used in any other way then preserving addition. −Woodstone 21:27, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Good work on Equinox

Thanks for your good work radically improving equinox. --Eddie | Talk 09:26, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

I noticed that by analyzing a few talk pages on Wikipedia, you appear to have been tidying up the equinox article and was wondering if you would like to address some of the suggestions that have been concerned at Wikipedia:Peer review/Equinox/archive1? Even though I had intended to insert information following a reading of the peer review, your contributions have made the equinox article your domain (for lack of a better word or phrase). Is there anything you want or don't want me to follow through with in order to avoid redundencies or anything of the sort? —Eternal Equinox | talk 14:24, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Eddie and Eternal Equinox, thanks for your positive words. True to the spirit of wikipedia, I do not feel owner of the equinox article. I was glad to see the additional and improved information to be added. When several authors contribute, redundancies and loss of structure are bound to appear, and occasionally someone has to take the challenge of integrating all the good additions into a more flowing article (and weed out less clearly formulated parts). Please keep adding as you see fit. Indeed the cultural aspects mentioned in the Wikipedia:Peer review/Equinox/archive1 deserve attention. −Woodstone 15:14, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] English language

Please stop reverting this article to Heron's version - he forgot to correct vandalism an anonymous user made to it, so each time you revert it back you're bringing back someone's vandalism. Nevertheless, I think the improvements he made are excellent. All the best. - The Great Gavini discussion 17:28, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

I still have no idea what you are talking about when you say vandalism. Most of the changes were real improvements in readability. Only a few were slightly misspelled (and corrected in later edits). Reverting a good edit as a whole because you do not agree with a few changes in wording (as you keep doing) is close to vandalism itself. You might do better by building one other people's improvements than reverting blindly. −Woodstone 21:10, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
Is it not better to keep a version, which is the combined work of various users and administrators and has been the standard for five years, than keeping one which has been heavily edited by an anonymous user about a week ago? I think I'd put my trust in the former version, rather than one which has reworded quotations and tries to avoid using about 56% of English vocabulary. It's not even in English - rather it seems to be in some form of Anglish. Additionally, it is an eyesore: it looks out of place and there are no other articles written like it (70.243.38.185 (talk · contribs) has edited only this one article). It uses relatively obscure words like "lofty" and "lithe", and as for the phrase the ring of the English language has a middle but no clear-cut girth, well, it sounds a tad odd. It's better just to say what was actually quoted from the OED.

I still suspect you're critical of my so-called "vandalism", but it does seem you might be in a minority in wanting the new version. Heron himself has said on his talk page that the version you want is "clumsy" and "erroneous". A few admins have reverted what you call "improvements", as well as myself. If you feel that strongly about it, discuss it on the article's talk page and see what others' responses are to the proposal. Thanks. The Great Gavini discussion 16:42, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Page name for temperature articles

To avoid flip-flopping between 'degree Fahrenheit' and 'Fahrenheit' or 'degree Celsius' and 'Celsius', I propose that we have a discussion on which we want. I see you have contributed on units of measurement, please express your opinion at Talk:Units of measurement. Thanks. bobblewik 22:07, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Chart on English Spelling

Thanks a million!Cameron Nedland 16:22, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Solstice-equinox table

Hello, Woodstone. Good work with the {{Solstice-equinox}} table. I was just thinking of making one. Good that you beat me to it. Mine won't be as nice as yours. :-) Happy editing. -- PFHLai 20:42, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Arbitration request

I would like to inform about the Arbitration request concerning the long discussion on Talk:Dutch language.

[The link to the Arbitration request will follow soon, as I have to inform you before posting]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration#Statement_by_Sander_on_Talk:Dutch_language

Sander 10:45, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Merging Chord symbol and Chord (music)

Hi,

I'm about to merge Chord (music) and Chord symbol and would appreciate yout thoughts (on the former's talk page). Edits to a draft version can be made here. Thanks Andeggs 07:46, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Group (mathematics)

It seems like you don't want monoid to be mentioned in the group (mathematics) entry (except briefly in the context of integers)? I think having such reference would be consistent with how other notions are defined: monoid refers to magma (algebra), ring (mathematics) refers to group and monoid, field (mathematics) refers to commutative ring, only group does not refer to anything. Group is really a monoid for which all elements have inverses. Slawekk 23:55, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Definition of multiplication and left/right neutral element alone are enough to define a unique neutral element. The associativity is not needed. I do not object to mentioning monoid, but to the coupling of the unicity of e to it. −Woodstone 11:02, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks for you help...

Whenever anyone replies to a question or comment I like to visit their user page and see if we may have anything in common. I haven’t unloaded a picture of myself but I think I could probably use yours! Except for having a little larger eyeglass rim and a slightly longer beard we could easily pass for doubles. How cool is that! I was born in 1946.

In addition to nearly identical looks we share the same enthusiasm for the Wikipedia and your other interests as well.

Currently my main interest is in looking for rule related and other databases to apply a dynamic classification algorithm. The algorithm optimizes the order of characteristics for the purpose of minimizing the number of queries required to perform identification.

The idea of a computer handling optimization is very exciting to me because the results tend to be superior to experts in a field. The results are truly amazing in terms of the advantage one can derive from knowing the order of characteristics according to their significance. The process does for thinking what the airplane does for travel.

Other than seeking databases my time is now spent mostly using the Wikipedia to fill in the gaps and expand my own knowledge base.

Hope we can find occasions to share other common interests as well.

-- PCE 01:07, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] On the order of modes

Hi! I recently added the list of modes on the scale page, and I noticed you put them by order of number of accidentals, which is interesting. I didn't explain why I put them in the order I did. I'm curious to know what you think. I had Ionian, Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Aeolian, and Locrian. The reason I did that was because this order represents the relationship of these modes to the major scale. Ionian uses the same notes as the major scale starting with the first scale degree, (example: C Major is the same as C Ionian). Dorian uses the same notes as the major scale starting with the second scale degree, (example: C Major uses the same notes as D Dorian). And so forth, (C Major uses same notes as E Phrygian, uses same notes as F Lydian, uses same notes as G Mixolydian, uses same notes as A Aeolian, or A natural minor, uses same notes as B Locrian).Hence, Ionian, Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Aeolian, Locrian. I thought I would explain why I put them in that order, and I'd be more than happy to hear your response on my talk page, if you'd like. Have a good one. EPM 19:21, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Of course I realised why you put them in that order (sort of musical alphabetic). But I think the location on the keyboard is not that important. It is the inner structure that counts. That is: the intervals present in them. In my sequence they have one decreased interval more at every step (from all major and one augmented to all minor and one diminished). See the picture in article mode (music). Of course this also brings the major modes together (and consequently the minor ones). Note also that it corresponds to rearranging your sequence not ascending, but according to the circle of fifths of the starting note. −Woodstone 19:40, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for your response. And I like the reasoning behind why you put them in that sequence. Those are certainly important concepts. What would you think of this idea: how about we put both lists of modes side-by-side, with a brief note for each as to the reasoning behind both sequences. This way, the reader can see both ways of how these modes are interrelated. EPM 20:12, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

To be honest, I think the "alphabetical" order does not have much musical meaning. Linking the modes to one particular scale (the Ionian) is not so meaningful. For me it is only a quick way to remember them. The intervals occurring in the modes are the important factor. If you wish, you could include the roman root numbers (corresponding to your sequence) and point to the way they follow the circle of fifths:
  • Lydian (IV)
  • Ionian (I)
  • Mixolydian (V)
  • Dorian (II)
  • Aeolian (VI)
  • Phrygian (III)
  • Locrian (VII)

−Woodstone 20:28, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Your proposal about IPA typefaces in Internet Explorer

Hi

I've given a possible technical solution for your Internet Explorer problem at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Insert box below edit panel should force IPA supporting font.

If the solution does what you want, please let me know, or I'd suggest mentioning it at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical). There is IE6-specific code where an amendment related to Unicode like this could be added by the developers. Thanks. --Cedderstk 09:41, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

I have tested what you proposed and it works fine. Thanks. Nevertheless, it might still be useful to find a solution that works for all (including anonymous users). −Woodstone 11:55, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Units

As you know, I have been tidying up units. But perhaps you are not aware of my handy 'Units' tab that fixes common errors. If you want to try it, simply copy the entire contents of User:Bobblewik/monobook.js to User:Woodstone/monobook.js. Then follow the instructions in your monobook to clear the cache (i.e. press Ctrl-Shift-R in Firefox, or Ctrl-F5 in IE) before it will work. This will give you a 'Units' tab and a 'Dates' tab in edit mode. You are more than welcome to copy and amend the code that makes it work. Regards. bobblewik 18:09, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

I tried, refreshed cache, restarted, but do not see any "units" or "dates" tabs. Strangely enough I never noticed the many other tabs before! Perhaps you can see what I did wrong? −Woodstone 21:35, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Your monobook looks correct. If you have refreshed the cache, it should work. The tabs only appear when a page is in edit mode. You should see the 'watch' tab as normal and then to the right of that you should see the dates tab and then the units tab. Are you sure you are looking *after* you have clicked 'edit' for an article and it is in edit mode? bobblewik 19:00, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Now I found them at the very top of the page. I was looking at the buttons (bold, italic, link, ...) immediately above the edit box. Apparently they make a proposal for substitutes. I tried it on this very page and there was a mistaken replacement of the color "#0099cc" in a style sheet by "#0099 cc". Perhaps you should not substitute if a number is not preceded by a blank. I will experiment with it some further. −Woodstone 20:53, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
I had a peek at the source. I have no experience with the particular grammar for regular expressions you are using, but I guesss I can learn. I see that you are replacing "cu in" by "in³", which is still under discussion. My view is that traditional units go well with a traditional expressions for powers. So I do not see this particular replacement as an improvement. −Woodstone 21:10, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for your feedback on "#0099 cc". I can either modify the code as you suggested, although this simple modification would mean that I would miss values in parentheses. My experience is that this is a very rare scenario. With rare errors, I simply choose to abandon the edit or do manual edits. We can discuss it more if you like.

As far as 'cu in' is concerned, I am happy to consider suggestions from people that are interested in using the code. So I welcome your thoughts. Alternatively, you could copy User:Bobblewik/monobook.js/unitformatter.js to User:Woodstone/monobook.js/unitformatter.js. Then add that to your monobook.js. You can then make it suit your own preferences.

Feel free to test the 'dates' tab too. Regards. bobblewik 17:57, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

I have removed the 'cu in' code. Please give the tabs a try. The more use they get, the better they get. bobblewik 18:45, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

We seem to have interest in many shared pages. In almost all pages I tried, the tabs had no effect, I presume because you did them already. I will keep trying. −Woodstone 19:15, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
Well I have done a *lot* of pages.
Try a google search of something that you would like to amend. For example: a search for '10kg'
And I use Firefox so that I can act on many pages easily.
Regards bobblewik 19:41, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Re: spacing with % in MOS

I have responded to you at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#Proposal for section Percentages. For the purposes of this proposal, we could have both "12%" and "12 %" as examples. —Centrx→talk • 23:55, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Golden Ratio editing

Please look more carefully at the history of Golden Ratio and be more careful before accusing my IP address of profanity. --130.215.16.195 21:17, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

I am awfully sorry, you are right. The other guy did both the deletion and profanity. You removed the profanity (but forgot to reinstate the deleted section). −Woodstone 21:24, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wai Wai editing wiki style guides

You said:

Hi Wai Wai. Editing wiki style guides is not the same as editing article pages. These guidelines have been established by often difficult consensus processes. You should not just jump in and change them to your personal preferences. If you want them changed, make your proposals first on the talk pages and have some patience to wait for comments and reach a new consensus. The way it is now happening will not bring any stability. I'm afraid, you should start from the beginning. −Woodstone 13:34, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your reminder. However please read the discussion first to understand the whole issue. Originally it is mainly for copyedit and improvements on the existing major guidelines. So far they were nice. However it mixed with some other types of updates, probably due to long hours of work. Someone popped up and reverted all the changes I made later on.

Read this:

This page is a style guide for Wikipedia. The consensus of many editors formed the conventions described here. Wikipedia articles should heed these guidelines. Feel free to update this page as needed, but please use the discussion page to propose major changes.

It is at the top of the page. Copyedit is clearly not major changes. And if every change has to be discussed first, the page would be locked up.

Later I have requested others to state the problematic areas, so I could modify my edits. People stated there were consensus problems, I fully realise, but they need to specify where and in which part. I waited for nearly a week, but no one responded. How could I improve my edit if no one cares to respond or specify the particular problems?

Please read the following rules too:

  • Reverting should be used primarily for fighting vandalism. -- Help:Reverting
  • Be respectful to others and their points of view. This means primarily: Do not simply revert changes in a dispute. When someone makes an edit you consider biased or inaccurate, improve the edit, rather than reverting it. -- Wikipedia:Resolving disputes
  • Does the editor do is something very similar to vandalism? Even the update has some big problems, it is not the excuse to revert it. In the case of NPOV, people usually do it wrong by using: "lack of neutrality as an excuse to delete" Quoted from NPOV (its philosophy applies): Many of us believe that the fact that some text is biased is not enough, in itself, to delete it outright. If it contains valid information, the text should simply be edited accordingly. -- NPOV
  • Unless what one writes is near to completely non-sense, or useless or rubbish. Revert is not something which you should be taken lightly. The bold policy does not apply. We are bold to create/improve it, not bold to destory/delete it.
  • Reverting should be used primarily for fighting vandalism or anything similar to the effects of vandalism.--Wai Wai (talk) 14:13, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
The way this process commonly works for wiki project pages (not regular articles) is that the proposals are placed in the discussion page, and only effected in the project page after consensus has been reached. If you are serious in wanting to cooperate, please follow the process. If you make substantial changes without consensus, the only fast way to restore order is to revert. You should not expect people to clean up after you every time. Discussing first is the solution. −Woodstone 14:11, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't know if it is just your opinion. One one hand, you state we should follow rules and processes. On the other, you disregard any rule I state here which prove the reverting is wrong: "Reverting should be used primarily for fighting vandalism". Wikipedia has stated: "Feel free to update this page as needed, but please use the discussion page to propose major changes." It is stated at the very top of the page.

I don't know if you have followed all the discussiones before you make your decision. "You should not force people to clean up after you. If you make substantial changes without consensus" is clearly wrong. I just ask people to point out the problematic parts (so I can fix it). Never ask them to fix the problems for me.--Wai Wai (talk) 14:24, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] IPA for English (vowels)

word RP AmEng AusEng broad
full vowels (/ː/ not realised in US)
bid /ɪ/ /ɪ/ /ɪ/ /ɪ/
bead /iː/ /i/ /iː/ /iː/
bed /ɛ/,/e/ /ɛ/ /e/ /ɛ/
bad /æ/,/a/ /æ/ /æː/ /æː/
pod /ɒ/ /ɑ/ /ɔ/ /ɑ/
father /ɑː/   /aː/ /ɑː/
bud /ʌ/ /ʌ/ /a/ /ʌ /
bought /ɔː/ /ɔ/ /oː/ /ɔː/
toe /əʊ/ /o/ /əʉ/ /oː/
good /ʊ/ /ʊ/ /ʊ/ /ʊ/
booed /uː/ /u/ /ʉː/ /uː/
diphthongs
bay /eɪ/ /e/ /æɪ/ /eɪ/
boy /ɔɪ/ /ɔɪ/ /oɪ/ /ɔɪ/
buy /aɪ/,/ʌɪ/ /aɪ/ /ɑe/ /аɪ/
cow /aʊ/ /aʊ/ /æɔ/ /aʊ/
rhotacised vowels (/ɹ/ silent in non-US)
bird /ɜː/,/əː/ /ɝ/ /ɜː/ /ɜɹ/
beer /ɪə/ /ɪɹ/ /ɪə/ /iɹ/
bear /ɛə/,/ɛː/ /ɛɹ/ /eː/ /ɛɹ/
bar   /ɑɹ/   /ɑɹ/
bore   /ɔɹ/   /ɔɹ/
boor /ʊə/,/ɔː/ /ʊɹ/ /ʊə/ /ʊɹ/
reduced vowels
roses /ɪ/ /ɨ/ /ə/ /ə/
runner   /ɚ/   /əɹ/
bottle /l̩/ /l̩/ /l̩/ /əl/
button /n̩/ /n̩/ /n̩/ /ən/
rhythm /m̩/ /m̩/ /m̩/ /əm/

[edit] Inline audio link pop-ups

What it would look like to hover over an audio link
What it would look like to hover over an audio link

As you're one of the people who commented about formatting/clutter on the {{audio}} template, I'm wondering what you think of my proposal for a javascript popup instead. I fixed the "clicking on the icon goes to the image page" problem a while ago, but there is still the "overloaded interface"/"too many click targets" problem, and I'm proposing we use javascript to hide the extra links until you hover over it. You can try out the mock-up yourself by adding this to your User:Woodstone/monobook.js:

document.write('<scr' + 'ipt type="text/javascript" src="' 
             + 'http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Omegatron/monobook.js/audiopops.js'
             + '&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript&dontcountme=s"></scr' 
             + 'ipt>');

This would be a site-wide change, so everyone would see it, and it safely falls back to the current design with several links on browsers without javascript. I would be happy with any kind of support, suggestions, or criticism; right now I feel like I'm talking to a wall. — Omegatron 18:43, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

I tried. Clicking on either speaker or text loads and executes the audiofile as should be. However on screen I see no difference. The visual overload was my major complaint. If you can solve that, I will be happy to try again. −Woodstone 19:27, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

If you add the above code to your monobook.js (which you haven't done, on this account, anyway), and bypass your cache, you should see only a single link for audio files, which goes directly to the downloadable file; the help and info links will be removed. When you hover over that link, a box will pop up explaining that it's an audio file and directing you to media help and the file's description page. — Omegatron 22:46, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

I had added it (and refreshed cache) already, but something must have gone wrong. Most likely I did not enter an "edit summary" (which I made compulsory) and did not notice the warning. Anyway, I tried again and it works nicely. No clutter and still full information. Perhaps it would be better to link the pop-up only to the loudspeaker symbol and not to the string as well. −Woodstone 17:49, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm... I think it is better to use the link to signify what the audio file is about. Also, that would make the clickable area much smaller, and there is no easy way to link just the speaker and have it go to the sound file. We would need a software upgrade. Figuring out how to make the speaker clickable without going to the image description page was hard enough... — Omegatron 19:15, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Golden rectangle

 
A golden rectangle has an aspect ratio of φ:1, thought by many to be the most pleasing ratio for a rectangle. This one uses the most accurate approximation possible in square pixels for its size, a ratio of successive Fibonacci numbers.

[edit] Metrication

Your recent edit to say that the metric system is legal in all but two countries is not supported by an appropriate citation. The best reference I can find, the CIA World Fact Book says at the beginning of Appendix G

Note: At this time, only three countries - Burma, Liberia, and the US - have not adopted the International System of Units (SI, or metric system) as their official system of weights and measures.

This quote does not clearly state that the metric system is not legal in Burma or Liberia, only that it is not the official system of weights and measures. It is possible that it may be allowed as a secondary system, or allowed side-by-side with some other system. I can't find a good reference to reveal the real situation. --Gerry Ashton 19:38, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps you are right, but I just removed the USA from the statement, because it is definitely legal there, and even compulsory in government contracts and preferred in commmerce and trade. It is just not practically implemented in many cases. I did not change or endorse the situation in Myanmar and Lybia. −Woodstone 19:43, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Warning

I do not care what you think of me, but be warned that I will not tolerate anymore remarks similar this one. Rex 13:22, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bourbaki as tie-break

Hi, Woodstone!

You just reverted a minor edit of Natural_number of mine with the remark (Not important enough for first sentence.) in the history, but no comment at the talk explanation I gave. Thus, it seems like you would not like to discuss it there. I admit this is really a small matter; and I do not intend to squibble over it. However, in my opinion, the bourbakists have created a kind of standard; not universally recognised, but certainly enough to merit mention whenever mathematical terminology is disputed. (They certainly have influenced word choices in my research articles.) Do you share this opinion?

Actually, I first thought of making a second sentence with a reference to the Bourbaki usage, but decided that that would put more emphasis on it than just adding a clause to the first sentence. I didn't want to do that, since (as I wrote on the talk page) I believe the page now is fairly balanced, and I didn't want to unsettle that. I still think so; but if you think a reference in a separate second sentence is preferrable, I'll do it. If you're die-hard against mentioning Bourbaki at all, I think you're wrong, but shall not pursue this minor issue further. JoergenB 19:25, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

In my opinion, in the introduction it is enough to mention that there are two distinct usages of the term and in which fields they dominate. Which people support which view is not really of importance for definition. Mention of that level of detail might perhaps be included in the history section. However, in a mathematcis subject, there is rarely much importance in who invented something. I must confess I did not read your statement before my edit. But I surely do not agree that in general "N includes zero", as you state. That is the whole point: opinions and usages differ. −Woodstone 21:01, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

I did not notice you had answered until the Dutch language note appeared to-day; seemingly, the "watch-list" doesn't work exactly as I thought.

As I said; this is not a very important issue. The idea of referring or not referring to Bourbaki in general is slightly more interesting. However, I think you still didn't read my Talk:Natural_number note carefully. I do not say anything that should be possible to interpret as claiming that everybody considers 0 as a natural number. I am very much aware of the opposite. I have been teaching courses using several text-books, where I've had to explain to the students that the words natural number were used in different meanings in their books.

What I was writing was something entirely different. The Bourbakists decided to define the natural numbers as including zero, and that means that "0 is natural" in all their work. As you hopefully know, they e.g. did write fairly influential books on various aspects of algebra; and their terminology influences many algebraists, and is one contributing reason why many of us use this convention in books and articles. (For sure, not all do. One of my colleagues once got an ultimatum from a referee to the effect that he must not call 0 natural in his article. He solved it by introducing "the set N = \{0, 1, 2,\ldots\}" as part of the article notation, without giving any specific name for the set members.) In fact, almost all Swedish mathematics text books I've seen include 0, including books in calculus.

I did not find this worth discussing in detail; but since seemingly the Bourbakists' choice influenced much of the usage of 0 as a natural number in many fields today, I thought it worth mention.

If you never looked up Bourbaki, please do! Note, that they never got around to their planned volumes on number theory. I do not claim that to be the reason 0 is usually not considered as a natural number in articles on number theory (at least not as the only explanation :-).

With that, I think this subject is fairly exhausted. I won't try to include a reference to Bourbaki usage. However, if you want to criticise what I write, please first read it carefully.

Yours sincerely, JoergenB 17:55, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Dutch language

They've relocated Great Britain and Northern Ireland to Europe now? ::grin:: ClairSamoht - Help make Wikipedia the most authoritative source of information in the world 15:46, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

I am totally lost as to the drift of this comment. Did I write anything relating to that? Have they not always been part of Europe? −Woodstone 21:30, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] English -ize or -ise

I'm afraid I'm neither British nor Australian. Thus as a European non-native speaker, reader and writer of English, I do not feel an urge to support or oppose the American spelling convention, but clearly hate to deviate from the Oxford English Dictionary preference that I was once taught: [1]. To me, -ise feels awkward and I do not assume to be the only one in Europe. In this respect, one might consider a change from -ize to -ise as instigated by nationalist motives. Even then though, I'm quite convinced that such is unintended, and you might be correct regarding younger Europeans – though I would not take that for granted as the OED is probably still used as a standard at high school today. — SomeHuman 24 Sep 2006 02:32 (UTC)

See discussion at American and British English spelling differences. −Woodstone 10:47, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

This is consistent with the link to the OED I gave. Please note from your Wikipedia link: "Worldwide, the use of -ize in combination with British spelling is common in academic publishing (e.g. used in the science journal Nature, the WHO's ICD and ISO standards)." and we are writing an encyclopedia, not a newspaper. Especially outside Britain, one understandably teaches that upper level standard to Europeans, and according Wikipedia guidelines it follows that this spelling should then be used in articles like Dutch language. — SomeHuman 24 Sep 2006 15:18 (UTC)

It is my impression that wikipedia considers "iz" to be AmEn and "is" "BrEn". This has been discussed several times in the style guides. You may want to check for example the article United Kingdom, which follows this convention. Besides that, however enlightening it may be, I would not qualify wikipedia as an academic work. −Woodstone 18:09, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
You've been defrauded, SomeHuman. The part of the page you quoted is smack-dab wrong. The science journal Nature comes from a UK publisher, and both ISO and the WHO's ICD use -ize. I've made corrections to that article, and added citations to back up the corrections.
You point out that this is an encyclopedia, not a newspaper. Well, American and British English spelling differences isn't even newspaper. It's GeoCities crap. When you see content that isn't backed by a citation, you should
  1. find a reliable source backing it up
  2. delete it, or
  3. add a {{cn}} or {{dubious}} tag.
Otherwise, you're allowing someone else to be hoodwinked, just as you were today. ClairSamoht - Help make Wikipedia the most authoritative source of information in the world 21:12, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
I am lost at the drift of this comment as well. The quote seems to be only slightly wrong and your update does not change the overall facts. How is SomeHuman defrauded? And surely not by me. −Woodstone 21:34, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
I didn't say you were the one who defrauded SomeHuman. I have no idea who entered that misinformation into WikiPedia. But yeah, it's only partially wrong; if you say "in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland" instead of "worldwide", and delete two of the three examples, it suddenly comes fairly close to reality. ClairSamoht - Help make Wikipedia the most authoritative source of information in the world 00:38, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
I was not deceived. I'm not the one who mentioned that article on Woodstone's talk page, I simply quoted from that Wikipedia article that was brought up by him. If user A states A' by making A' changes in an article, and user B says B' on the talk page of A, and then user A references to A" and finally user B quotes from A" because it actually proves B', there is no need for B to double-check A". In fact, I had brought up an external reference earlier in that section, one from a reliable source (unlike Wikipedia as ClairSamoht pointed out): the website from the Oxford English Dictionary. That source already had shown B'. For all clarity, B' is that European authors with the possible exception of British newspaper journalists and other contemporary everyday writings and the British government that may prefer a young image these days, generally use -ize and not -ise; that such usage of -ize is not simply American English spelling (statement A') – but actually high level British English spelling.
Now ClairSamoht, you made the sentence even worse. It first stated "Worldwide, the use of -ize in combination with British spelling is common in academic publishing (e.g. used in the science journal Nature, the WHO's ICD and ISO standards)." I was not surprised of WHO or ISO, as I consider both rather mainly American than British, to use the American -ize; and Nature, British, to use the high standard, traditional, British spelling -ize. I was rather surprised that it claims the WHO and ISO to generally use the British spelling. This would then have meant with respect to other issues, e.g. 'colour' instead of American 'color', but that was irrelevant for -ize/-ise in this discussion because all three use -ize, be it possibly for different reasons.
ClairSamoht, your change at least has the advantage that everyone now recognizes it as gibberish, but still does not tackle what you called the defrauding ... GeoCities crap: "Worldwide, the use of -ize in combination with British spelling is common in journals published by British publishers (e.g. used in the science journal Nature[1]) but the ISO[2] and the the WHO's ICD[3] use "-ize"." In fact, you added external sources, such indexes are not desirable because these would belong inside the Wikipedia articles that are linked. Unless, of course, the particular external link would prove the spelling claim. This is not the case for Nature (not once -ise or -ize occurs in the linked text and nothing is said about the spelling). Also the external link index behind 'Nature' contains the http-address twice (a typo I corrected here above, though in this talk page without <references/> tag, those links cannot work) and the sentence shows -ize at start versus "-ize" at the end (uncareful style). The other added external links both show American spelling other than '-ize', and also -ize. An assumedly more correct version would still simply strenghten my point: "Worldwide, the use of -ize in combination with British spelling is common in journals published by British publishers (for instance, used in the science journal Nature), whereas publishers elsewhere and international organisations (such as the ISO[4] and the the WHO's ICD[5]) also use -ize, usually as part of their generally applied American spelling." – I have put this in the article.
ClairSamoht, you also put in an 'original research' tag with edit comment 'Appears to be mostly Original Research'. I find this quite amusing. On the -ise/-ize matter, the article has precisely the external link to the OED that I have provided in my initial comment in this section of Woodstone's talk page. Furthermore the article references several dictionaries, British-English ones and American ones, thus all the samples in the article are not some original research but can be found in the dictionaries. There is absolutely no need to put on each line, five-or-so indexes to the separate pages and line numbers in the references; unfortunately the burden of checking the given references by looking up facts one by one if you feel that need, can not be overcome that easily – because it would make every article unreadable. In case there is a particular statement that is insufficiently sourced (as possibly though I did not carefully verify: "The -ise form is used by the British government"), you should simply add {{fact}} at that place, not tag the whole article as if it were original research.
The latter is a false accusation towards its contributors. Also, your definite statement that I had been defrauded, implies either a personal attack against Woodstone (who delivered the source – after preparing this reply, I just read now that you did not mean him) or against other honest contributors who wrote that article: there is no reason to assume defrauding. Even if your interpretation of the sentence and facts would have been accurate, I might merely have been misled or misguided at most. And if I would be really shorttriggerish, I might see it is a personal attack against myself, as it implies shortsightedness or stupidity – which is amplified by your advice how I should read texts; fortunately, as explained, your assumption was incorrect and I had already earlier given a very good source that was backed up by the quote (and thus the other way around).
If one would genuinely want to improve the American and British English spelling differences article, one might look for sources that show which British spelling (OED -ize or contemporary news style -ise) is used in British and Australian recent top level literature and in British (English, Scottish) and Australian Law. That information is not explicitly in the article. Of course, most laws date from a time the OED style prevailed even in newspapers and that style is likely to be maintained in recent modifications. Thus one should not look into the laws themselves, but in recently written authoritative law papers and reference works. As non-British, non-Australian, and not being a legalist, I cannot reliably verify this myself.
In fact, the link to Wikipedia article 'Nature' again supports my B': it uses -ize which as I always keep telling, is also preferred by myself, by non-British European authors, and as shown here: in an encyclopedic article on a serious British topic (or at least topics like serious British texts as produced by Nature).
— SomeHuman 25 Sep 2006 02:16 (UTC)
Woodstone, I think the usage of -ize by British scholars is sufficiently demonstrated (the OED reference, 'Nature' itself, the Wikipedia article on 'Nature') and the Dutch language page was probably for a significant part created by Dutch and Flemish contributors, of whom I was only a most minor one. I do not think someone ran through the article to change lots of -ise towards -ize before, thus it seems reasonable to respect -ize for an encyclop(a)edic article on Dutch. I just undid your switching -ize/-ise by an -ise/-ize revert (and respected edits done since yours). Our friendly discussion however, seems to have caused havoc on American and British English spelling differences to which you had provided a link. Funny thing, this Wikipedia. Perhaps then, the ise/ize is a rather hot topic for some in Britain. It may explain the spelling in the UK article and why ClairSamoth claims the currently heavily disputed article to be POV. Anyway, until Britain rolls entirely into ise, in other European countries one will remain conservative (OED) and teach scholarly style English (so as to easily read and even to be able to contribute to Nature etc). Since there are also many scholarly American texts, the -ize is probably going to stay for another while in continental Europe, hence my Dutch language intervention. — SomeHuman 26 Sep 2006 21:40 (UTC)
I guess you had not noticed that my edit was not a global style change. Before my edit there was mix of is/iz. I made it consistent using a choice compatible with the wikipedia style guide. What you now did was a global pointless change of style. That is rather impolite and not wiki like. −Woodstone 19:51, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
That is an utterly false accusation, and you should have known this by my edit comment:"(rv to best recent version, 2006-09-22 12:22 by Picapica ['-ize' is NOT just American: also very proper British] + then 'related', more recent 'very closely related', now 'closely related' + bot's vls)". You should compare versions so as to avoid making false claims. I reverted to the version that existed immediately before your edit and just put the 2 minor contributions meanwhile done by others back in, as proven here. Thus what I did (after discussion) cannot possibly have been more or less global than what you did (without any discussion). If it were a global style change, it would according to your standards, have been pointless and rather impolite of you. That thought had crossed my mind but you will not see such in my discussion. If it were not global, since you say you had spotted a mix of is/iz, Dutch language must still contain some '-ise' which should then be '-ize'd for consistency. Indeed, I just found 'standardisation', 'derecognised' and 'recognising', and a moment ago made these 3 words consistent in style — far less work than the 23 switches you had made. I can't immediately see anything else, but please be my guest. — SomeHuman 29 Sep 2006 03:48 (UTC)

[edit] Equinox and Solstice

Before you do any edits on each of these two articles, please don't forget also edit the other one. Thank you. Yao Ziyuan 14:07, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Insulting the king

You said their was no doubt as to the illegality of insulting the king in Thailand. Yet, doesn't the very fact that the question was raised disprove that statement?Lehi 22:33, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Thai linguistics

My wife is Thai and she swears "gaw gai" is voiced. She's from Issan, however, might that explain the discrepancy? KristoferM 00:49, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

According to the Royal Thai General System of Transcription, the rendering of "ko kai" is "k" (not "g"). Much confusion is caused by the distinction between voicing and aspiration. The plosives can be voiced or unvoiced and aspirated or unaspirated. In many Indian languages all four combinations exist, in English (in initial, not clustered position in a syllable) only the combinations voiced/unaspirated and unvoiced/aspirated occur. Therefore English native speakers have great trouble pronouncing an unvoiced/unaspirated consonant like ko kai (to tao, po pla). The confusion is compounded by the fact that in Thai the voiced/unaspirated combination does not exist for the gutturals (unlike do dek, bo baimai). To my knowledge, there is no difference between Isan and standard Thai in this respect. The pattern is as follows, giving IPA and some Thai spelling:
  unaspirated aspirated
  voiced unvoiced unvoiced
dental [d]
ด		 [t]
ต		 [th]
ท
labial [b]
บ		 [p]
ป		 [ph]
พ
guttural [g]
not present in Thai		 [k]
ก		 [kh]
ข
The voiced guttural does not occur in Thai. Ask your friend to exercise the relations in the table and judge again. The Thai letter ก is pronounced unvoiced and is thus systematically best represented by "k". This is consistent with both IPA and the Royal Thai Institute guideline. −Woodstone 21:51, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] ı and ɪ

Hi, I changed ı (dotless i) to ɪ (small capital I) in one of your comments. I hope you don't mind. :) --Kjoonlee 16:11, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

ok & thx (it does not look different in my font settings!) −Woodstone 17:32, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Lucas numbers irrelevant to Fibonacci numbers?

In response to "21:55, 10 January 2007 Woodstone (Talk | contribs) (remove irrelevant comparison to Lucas numbers, breaking the flow from statement to roof)" from Fibonacci number:

I believe that comparing Lucas numbers to Fibonacci numbers is very relevant. If you believed that it broke the flow of the section at that point why not move it somewhere more appropriate and not remove it?

The formulae for generating Fibonacci and Lucas numbers from phi are almost identical making a comparison very relevant in my opinion. Danielklein 00:03, 14 January 2007 (UTC).

Several references to the Lucas numbers were already present in the article. At that particular point mentioning them again did not have additional value and indeed broke the flow. −Woodstone 14:17, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
You didn't address my concerns, merely repeated your opinion. There are currently only two references to Lucas numbers, as there were when I made my edit. My edit was above the other two references meaning a first time reader of the article would not be seeing it "again". You don't think that mentioning that the two sequences can be defined by almost identical formulae has value? I certainly welcome any suggestions for including this information without it being summarily deleted. Currently the first reference is irrelevantly under the subheading of Common Factors and the other reference is under Generalizations giving it only the importance of a curiosity. Lucas numbers give added insight into Fibonacci numbers and this fact is not stressed as the article currently appears. Maybe I could add a section on points of interest between the two sequences without you deleting it as "irrelevant"? If you can't already tell this experience has soured me on contributing to Wikipedia but I am hoping to pull something positive out of it. Danielklein 13:22, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Edit Summary

This > [2] don't help much! Hiya - can you check your s/ware as inserting strings ain't so good! Pedro |  Talk  21:42, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

I have no idea how I can check that. It used to work fine. I just press the "rv" button in the popup when hovering over "diff" in the watch list. −Woodstone 09:11, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Dutch phonology

Ok, I can live with it that you claim e should be transcribed as ɛ, although this implies using the same symbol for e and ei. Well that is in some ‘local dialects’. I happen to speak such a ‘local dialect’, along with another 6 million people. In Flemish, e is more like æ then like ɛ, and ei is ɛ. It is not a diphthong. So please think about how these facts can be merged into the table.

On the same account: I suppose you pronounce wikt:natie as /natsi/, but again, along with 6 million others, I pronounce it /nasi/, so indeed t can be pronounced /s/. Hamaryns 12:02, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

In my opinion we should limit the table to the dialect described as "algemeen nederlands" (formerly ABN). If you insist, we could add a column for the main Flemish dialect, but this might open the door to including many other dialects as well. −Woodstone 03:37, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
The problem is that there is no accepted standard. The ‘standard’ in Belgium is different than the one in the Netherlands. Thus I think it is licensed to have both. I think it would be useful to have a separate page for Belgian Dutch, as there are separate pages for Received Pronunciation and General American (and for a whole lot of other English dialects, for that matter). The problem is that the chart I was editing then should be copied there and that the titles would be unfair. POV in my opinion (:-)). I guess I have to bring this to that page’s talk page. Hamaryns 09:11, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Dutch grammar

I don't like your way of edit-summaries at Dutch grammar. You claim to change je wilt into je wil(t), which is a correct change, but at the same time you state that Dutch only has two genders (which is completely incorrect)!

I wouldn't mind this if it were a minor edit, but when you change important things like that you should at least write this in the summaries, because you know people are going to be mad about this!

Govert Miereveld 16:27, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

I checked back and you are right. Somehow I unintentionally changed a segment about genders as well. I cannot reconstruct from the history log how it happened, but I suspect I reverted to an earlier version and overlooked that there were several changes involved. Anyway I apologise. Not relevant here, but many dialects of Dutch do not have three genders anymore. −Woodstone 18:00, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

OK for me

Govert Miereveld 22:36, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Golden Ratio

I think you reverted my edit of the definition of the golden ratio. I changed it because the first sentence in the article defines the golden ratio in a very ambiguous manner. "The golden ratio... expresses the relationship that the sum of two quantities is to the larger quantity as the larger is to the smaller," is not clear, and further explanation is not provided until the proof section of the article. This is not beneficial at all to someone who is trying to look this up for the first time.

In specific, I think it needs to be introduced as the constant which represents the common ratio that must occur if the defining conditions are met.

The sentences you added were already there a few lines lower. So they just introduced a duplication. If you want to be more specific in the first paragraph and and talking about a constant instead of a relationship I would not object, but I do not think a formula is appropriate in the first definition. −Woodstone 09:01, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
Good now, I hope? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.253.197.232 (talk) 02:26, 3 April 2007 (UTC).
Fine. −Woodstone 07:26, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Martin Brodeur

Thanks, I guess that's the correct way to do that. Although I can't read it. Should it also be out spelled out "Mar-tan Bro-door" in there, I mean how many people know that IPA? Quadzilla99 17:42, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

It is not possible to describe the sound using English spelling, since several of the sounds in that name never occur in English. With the given form and some peeking around on the net it should be possible to get a handle on how it is pronounced. In Wikipedia, click on the IPA lead before the name, then find the symbol you are trying to pronounce, click on the symbol and on its page you will find a link to a soundfile. Not really quick, but doable. −Woodstone 18:04, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
Alright, I guess I could record it in a playable audio file like some articles have done. Thanks again for answering so promptly! Quadzilla99 18:13, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Zero

Oops - my bad. I should read more of the context (certainly more than the diff) before RVing edits. My apologies... Stannered 20:56, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Don't worry. Occasionally it happens to me too. That's the good side of wiki's: many eyes are watching. −Woodstone 21:29, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Interchange (road)

I removed the explanation of a "roundabout interchange" as this type of junction now has its own article. I've restored the link to the new page (while this time keeping the explanation). Is this better? --GCarty 13:57, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Ok now. But the separate article hardly contains more information. So what is the added value? −Woodstone 17:49, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] js

Woodstone:monobook.js won't do nuffink - I have deleted it. What you should be editing is user:Woodstone/monobook.js. -- RHaworth 10:17, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

ok thx −Woodstone 10:27, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Bar (unit)

I have reverted your edits on that article. The bar is a unit that predates the SI system, and is traditionally defined as 1,000,000 dynes per square centimeter. While the bar is equal to 100,000 newtons per square meter, that is not its official definition, as the bar is not an SI unit. Andros 1337 15:41, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

The official brochure of the BIPM recognises that the bar is not an SI unit, but defines it as 0.1 MPa. So you are at least partially wrong. However, it is not important to me and I will leave you be. −Woodstone 20:39, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Query

You said, "It is not at all uncommon in wikipedia to gather an overview on the satus of a proposal by voting." I was wondering where you got the impression that this was the case, because WP:POL and the very template used for proposals explictly state the exact opposite. >Radiant< 11:57, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

It is not right for one person to block an ongoing discussion process if evidently many others are willing to participate. −Woodstone
I'm not blocking an ongoing discussion process. Note that I explicitly asked for discussion. I'm encouraging discussion by removing a needless polarization. I asked for comments, other people have only asked for a yes/no vote. The former is more constructive, the latter tends to ignore third options and/or compromises. >Radiant< 12:02, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
I had asked explicitly asked for comments as well as an opinion. It looked like we were coming closer to a solution than in the previous discussions. By collecting the reactions we may be able to come up with an improved proposal. −Woodstone 12:06, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Please read my comments before making a kneejerk response. I have quite elaborately explained why making a binary vote on this is a bad idea, and cited several policies and guidelines that support this view. All you've said to the contrary is a straw man about stifling discussion. >Radiant< 12:11, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
I fail to see how (logically) archiving a discussion in mid course can contribute to a good exchange of ideas. −Woodstone 12:18, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
Kindly stop repeating that straw man. Asking for discussion rather than a vote is precisely what contributes to a good exchange of ideas, as opposed to a bad polarization of ideas. >Radiant< 12:23, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
Given that the wording has changed between two "votes", this obviously cannot be designated as a vote :) Sarenne 12:45, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
Yes, that was my initial impression, but this whole debate started when a user pointed out that my comment on the subject was invalid because it didn't contain a bolded "support" or "oppose" word. >Radiant< 13:21, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed new guideline for binary prefixes

It looks like it's currently at 10 support to 2 oppose. Congrats :) Fnagaton 15:16, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fibonacci citation requested

An editor has requested a citation [3] for an edit by you [4] saying it is more common to include F0 = 0 as a Fibonacci number. Google searches indicate both forms are common but that starting a list at 1 is more common on the web: [5][6]. PrimeHunter 23:31, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] hoomank

[[User:hoomank|hoomank (talk)]]

Hello. I noticed the comment on infinity being the state of "being greater than any other number." I think there are some issues with this defintition so I wonder if you've considered the two following arguments.

1. The section is titled "mathematical infinity" yet the definition does not apply to all mathematical systems including Calculus!

The definition given "the state of being greater than any other number" is not applicable to Calculus where infinity means "to grow without bound" -- a definition which makes sense in the context of a limit -- to see why, see point 2 below.

2. The given definition seems to run into philisophical problems.

The definition given is that "infinity is the STATE of being greater any other number"

The word "state" usually refers to something static. When we say, for example, that something is in a solid state -- we mean that the atoms at that moment, have come together to form a solid.

There is no such state as "being greater than any other number." For no matter what number you are at, there are ALWAYS numbers greater than you. Thus this state does not exist.

One defensible defintion of infinity is the calculus definition which is to "grow without bound." For instance in Calculus we say that the limit as X approaches 0 of 1/X = infinity. By this we mean that the value grows without bound as X gets closer to 1 -- but we never say that it is in the state of being greater than any number -- which is the current definition.

I am going to change the mathematical infinity section to "there are a number of logically defensible definitions of infinity." Feel free to change this sentence but please do not change it back as the current definition does not seem to be defensible.

Of course there are many possible definitions, but I cannot see anything wrong with the definition as a state. Something (e.g. an integral or a limit) can really have the value "infinite". That does not imply that "infinite" is a number. Even in the case of limits, the result does not "grow" to infinity, it "is" infinity. What grows is the series of the terms (or the partial sums). The idea of growing is a way of handling infinity, not necessarily the definition. In measure and integration theory and other fields, "infinite" is just an addition to the set of numbers (not part of it) to enable the making some valuable statements and theorems. −Woodstone 11:03, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Hi. I agree with you that there are some mathematical systems where infinity can be treated as a state (for instance when the real number line is compatified). But it does not apply to all mathematical systems (for instance Calculus). I also agree with you that in systems such as Calculus appealing to growth without bound is a way to handle infinity.

[edit] Bitter insults

I'm sorry. my friend, but referring--as many historians do--to the American Revolution as the "first successful colonial war of independence" is not a "bitter insult" to our beautiful land's original inhabitants. Fact is, this seminal revolution was an inspiration to anticolonialist insurgencies around the world for the next two centuries. The tragic complexity of the U.S.A. does not come down to these niggardly arguments over semantics (already and clearly resolved among scholars); the virtual genocide of the brilliant diversity of American Indian nations goes far, far beyond this supposed "bitter insult." If you investigate the article's history, you'll note, for instance, that it happens to be me who made the Wounded Knee massacre part of the piece. Believe me, I do appreciate your point--it was not the first successful native colonial war of independence; but its significance for what it was is hardly disputed in the historigraphical record.—DCGeist 06:01, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Null space

Hi, Woodstone

Again I disagree with your revert of the introduction to null space. It seems clear that we need an outside opinion to resolve this disagreement, so I've posted a request at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics.

Cheers, Jim 01:20, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

I have great trouble understanding how you could consider limitation to the matrix case a valid definition for null space. It so obviously wrong, that I do not know what to say. −Woodstone 09:17, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
Let me try to explain. The more mathematics I learn, and the more that I teach, the better I understand that starting with the most general case isn't always the right approach to explaining something. It's true that one can define the null space of an arbitrary function, but it's not necessarily helpful, and the general definition isn't really related to the information that needs to be conveyed in the article.
Here's a similar example. If you look at the article on multiplication, you'll find that the introductory paragraph starts by explaining the definition of multiplication for whole numbers, and then goes on to the generalize to multiplication of integers, rational numbers, real numbers, complex numbers, matrices, groups, and so forth. Most of the article is about multiplication of real numbers, with a short section on groups and links at the end to articles like matrix multiplication.
I'm not sure what area of math you've studied where the term null space is commonly used for nonlinear functions, but I can assure you that this is not the predominant use of the term. Look up null space on Google or MathSciNet and you'll see what I mean. When prompted to define "null space", most mathematicians would define the null space of either a matrix or a linear mapping. In the interests of clarity and accessibility, it makes sense for the article on null space to focus primarily on the null space of a matrix, with links to articles that cover more general settings. Jim 20:38, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Gini Coefficient

Can you please explain your logic in deleting my contribution 158802816 on disadvantages of using the Gini Coefficient? Many thanks.ToddRamsey 16:46, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

If a large group of low skilled people immigrates to a country, the inequality of income goes up. That reflects in the Gini Coefficient and that is exactly what it is supposed to measure. How is that a disadvantage? −Woodstone 20:33, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
You are right in the strictest sense. But a primary common usage of the Gini is as a measure of fairness in a country. A country with a high percentage of low-skilled, low-paid immigrants is not necessarily less fair than a comparable country that does not accept immigrants. "It is sufficiently simple that it can be compared across countries and be easily interpreted. " is listed as an advantage. Since people use the Gini as a measure of fairness, it is a disadvantage of the measure that it cannot be "easily interpreted" to "compare across countries" when the immigration variable is considered. It does not make the measure worthless; but it is a disadvantage of the Gini. Perhaps instead of deleting the contribution you could suggest alternate language? Thank you.ToddRamsey 15:22, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
The Gini coefficient is not supposed to not measure "fairness", just "equality". If people use the wrong interpretation that is their problem, not the problem of the measurement. Opinions on what is a fair distribution differ widely. It hardly makes much sense to state explicitly that it is a disadvantage that wrong interpretations are possible. −Woodstone 17:17, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
From Problems in Using the Gini Coefficient: "The Gini coefficient should be interpreted as measuring effective egalitarianism; ...". A country that accepts immigrants could be equally egalitarian (as defined in Wikipedia) as another country, but have a higher Gini coefficient. Perhaps my contribution would be appropriate in the "Problems in Using" section?ToddRamsey 02:59, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Dutch alphabet

Cheers for the corrections at Dutch alphabet, I missed those. Melsaran (talk) 14:19, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] nmi or NM for nautical mile

Hi Woodstone. Just a short note of thanks for your support, and to say that I too would prefer to see nmi adopted as standard over NM. It seems a logical extension of mi for the mile and is the preferred abbreviation of the IEEE. In general, though, I find I encounter much less resistance when I change nm to NM in individual articles, compared with nm to nmi, especially where a navy or air force is involved somewhere. I am curious to see how others respond. Thunderbird2 14:08, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] IPA English vowel chart

IPA: English Vowels
IPA Examples
dialect RP GA AuE NZE
a     run, enough  
aː     father, arm father, arm
ɐ       run, enough
ɐː       father, arm
ɑ   father, not, wasp    
ɑː father, arm      
ɑɹ   arm    
ɒ not, wasp     not, wasp
æ lad, cat, ran lad, cat, ran lad, cat, ran  
e     bed bed
ɛ bed bed   lad, cat, ran
ə about, winner about about, winner  
ɚ   winner    
ɘ       sit, about, winner
ɝ   bird    
ɜː bird   bird  
ɵː       bird
i   city, see city city
iː see   see see
ɪ sit, city sit sit  
oː     law, caught law, caught
ɔ   law, caught not, wasp  
ɔː law, caught      
u   soon, through    
uː soon, through      
ʉː     soon, through soon, through
ʊ put, wood put, wood put, wood put, wood
ʌ run, enough run, enough    

Thanks for adding the links, Woodstone. We're almost ready to go live. kwami 20:56, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm afraid I undid about 10 of your last edits. I had an edit conflict while clearing up the <big></big> markers. I could not figure out how to get it back in order preserving your edits. −Woodstone 21:06, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
I checked out my damage to your edits and it seems quite minor; it looks as if you were cleaning up the mess I made with unpaired "big" tags at the same time I was doing it in a different way. We still need the links for many of the vowels. I cannot find a page containing them. They are hidden in a picture in the vowel article. I will leave it alone for a while now. −Woodstone 21:17, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] revert of Note

Hi

I'm quite surprised about your revert. It seems you didn't understand the problems and didn't see what i wrote on the talk page. I don't understand all of your edit summary "remove duplication, restore order; not all use H i.s.o B". There was no duplication. The top part explained the Anglo-Saxon system, and the bottom part the German + northern European one. The current situation is simply incorrect.

1) No one in any country uses Bes. The name for what is called B flat in English is B in the system using is/es suffixes.

2) Since the name B for B flat requires the name H, it is not possible to list the names in the is/es system in the top part of the chart where the name of the seventh is B. The is/es system can only be presented where i placed it, underneath the German (= northern European) names including H.

3) It is misleading and incorrect to make a difference between Germany and northern Europe because it is essentially the same system. (The only differences are spelling differences, Ess etc., and that Heses (B double flat) is called bb in Finland.)

4) There was no reason to remove the following:

This system is based on the letter H representing the pitch class represented by B natural in English, and the letter B replaces B-flat. In this system, there is an exception: for B♭♭, Heses is used instead of Bes, which would be what fits into the system but is not used.

5) The second sentence of the following current text is incorrect in its context since the letter H is always used when the suffixes is/es are in use:

Another style of notation, used in Germany and Scandinavia but rarely used in English, uses the suffix "is" to indicate a sharp and "es" (only "s" after A and E) for a flat, e.g. Fis for F♯, Es for E♭. Sometimes, especially in Germany, the letter H is used instead of B natural as in English, and the letter B replaces B-flat. --Espoo 19:59, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

You are wrong. Bes is in common use. There are two systems using the "is" and "(e)s" postfixes. A regular system with B and Bes and a variant using H and B instead. The northern European countries generally use either of these systems, with the "H" variant dominant mainly in Germany. The southern European countries tend to use the dor-re-mi system. English speaking countries use teh sharp/flat notation. The sentence about Heses was imcompresensibly formulated and not essential, so I removed it. −Woodstone 20:21, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
I'm a professional musician who has lived and worked in the USA, Germany, Austria, and Finland. You are completely wrong in claiming that Bes is used in any of those countries. I also know that this is true of Sweden. I have Sohlmans Musiklexikon (Stockholm) in front of me, and it has no mention whatsoever of Bes. It has hessess (Sweden), heses (Germany), bb (Finland), B double-flat (England), si double bémol (France), si doppio bemolle (Italy). Your source http://www.solfege.org/Solfege/ScaleNames is a wiki and not what is considered a reliable source according to WP policy. It is simply wrong. Where have you seen Bes in use or in a reliable source? --Espoo 05:55, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
That you personally haven't seen something doesn't mean it doesn't exist. I have many music sheets in my possession with chord symbols using Bes. I will make a photo and show you. Anyway it is certain that two systems are in use, and that should be reflected in the article. −Woodstone 07:21, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] sound links

Hi Woodstone,

I wanted to add soundfiles to the IPA chart. I got Template:Spoken to work just once, and ever since then it takes me to the icon graphic rather than playing the file. Since we'll have dozens of these, I wouldn't want 'help' and 'info' links or a great big button for each one. Any suggestions? kwami 11:20, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

The smallest one I know is template:Audio-nohelp. Perhaps we can strip it further. I was looking at the various templates for IPA display, but it is rather messy. IPAeng, pronEng, IPA2, pronounced. And IPA_hover is also still there lurking. The small pop-ups I get for IPA strings, give a rather incomplete list of symbols. It needs some straightening out. −Woodstone 11:35, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

I did some experimenting creating a suitable template and see here some result:

  • {{audio-pipe|open front unrounded vowel.ogg|open front unrounded vowel|<big>[ a ]</big>}}, showing as:  [ a ] (i)

Click the loudspeaker for the sound, click the text for the reference.

−Woodstone 18:56, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks a lot. I shortened it still further, to display only the icon for the sound file, plus the text for the article link, so we're not repeating ourselves. kwami 20:07, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

I saw only the speaker symbol and the IPA string, with a pop-up for help (containing in last version also a listen link). I don't like the popup now of the audio filename, perhaps we can replace the name with a text. In the IPA key article we can put the reference to the help file Wikipedia:Media help in the intro. −Woodstone 20:20, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
Can we remove the popup? I don't want the "listen" link. It's redundant and takes up a lot of space. kwami 20:34, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Probably best. For me, in my last version before your edit it did not show a "listen" link in the page (only in the pop-up). Did you see it statically in the page? But I'm trying to get rid of the pop-up with the audio filename. Can only test by really saving the template. −Woodstone 20:38, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Test away. And yes, using clubs for the icon, each cell in the IPA chart displayed "♣(listen)[ x ]", whereas in my version it only showed "♣ [ x ]". But one of your later edits the redundant "listen" link disappeared again. kwami 21:10, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Alignment looks a bit sloppy now with some sound files missing. Now we know (well ... guess) how to modify the template, we can also reserve a separate column for the active loudspeaker symbol. −Woodstone 21:21, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

That's how I envisioned it at first, but I went along with your trial link. It doesn't bother me enough to change it. kwami 21:49, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Barnstar

The Original Barnstar
For working hard on time convention articles, Working to get and keep them neutral and cited. Zginder 15:27, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] about massage

Hi, i later noticed that very few google results for "Persian massage", this could well be a hoax :) Thanks for removal.. Achilles.g (talk) 05:47, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Thai translation

Hi. I see you are interested in the Thai language. I have a favor to ask. Can you translate this: User:Rlevse/sandbox into Thai, in Thai font? If not, do you know someone who can?

It will end up in a Thai version of this page: [7] Thanks. — Rlevse • Talk • 12:50, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, but although I speak some colloquial Thai, and can read the essentials, I cannot write formal text. −Woodstone (talk) 13:25, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
Do you know a wiki user that could? — Rlevse • Talk • 13:28, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
Have a look at "Category:User th-N" (I don't understand why this cannot be linked as [[Category:User th-N]]). You might try User:Manop. −Woodstone (talk) 13:41, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
Thanks. I'll try it. You link to a cat without making your page a part of it by doing this: Category:User th-N — Rlevse • Talk • 13:45, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Hard spaces

Woodstone, I just wanted to add to today's discussion over at Noetica's page, that your request that our proposal be accompanied by "hard-space-reversing" markup is not a killer for me, if you can get support for that. I'm just saying that I'm making a judgment call that the simplest possible, most bulletproof, obvious, omg-why-would-you-not-want-to-do-this kind of proposal would be the kind I'd prefer to make at bugzilla. But it's just a judgment call, and not a very important point to me. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 14:42, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

It's just that I have little confidence in "perfect" rules. Just an example: try to type in an excel cell "2 p", meaning two persons (or pieces). Microsoft will in its infinite wisdom convert this to "2:00 p.m.". This even happens if all your time settings are 24-hour style. Extremely annoying. So first of all I have doubts if automatic hard space insertion can be made robust enough and secondly I insist on stable overrride facilities (once overridden, it stays overridden). −Woodstone (talk) 15:33, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
Quite reasonable, and I'm delighted that the nowiki code will make it happen. I'm sorry, I don't understand your objection about a link like PZL P.6...where are you saying Mediawiki would auto-insert the hard space? - Dan Dank55 (talk) 00:06, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Time Measurement and Standards Topics Template

Sorry if I stepped on any toes, but I was only removing "See Also" listings from where they duplicate links on the template. Many articles have excessively long See Also lists, that append without adequate explanation, and templates seek to address that.

Specifically regarding 12-hour clock and 24-hour clock articles, references to each are in the body of either article, making the See Alsos redundant, even without the Time Measurement Template. Also, in the 12-hour clock article, Comparison of the 12-hour and 24-hour clocks is linked twice in the article above, in appropriate places, and should probably not be in the See Also list a third time.

In any case, no page has been left unlinked where it was linked before. I'm very careful about that. Cheers. -- Yamara 16:04, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree that a link in the body of an article does not need to be repeated in the "see also" section. But a link in the template does not count. It is not visible on the page. The template buries it under an additional click that most people will not make. −Woodstone (talk) 21:40, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Joining Wikiproject Time

You seem to be very active on article that regard Time. Why don't you join WikiProject Time? You are formally invited, by me. Zginder (talk) (Contrib) 02:48, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Revert

Undiscussed change?[8] Have you read the talk page, which is running 100% in agreement? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:11, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

That exchange took a whole of two hours. That does not come anywhere near being long enough to have any reach under interested editors. In order to make content changes (not copyedit) to the MOS a few days woeuld be the very least. Furthermore the discussion is on the talk page of another page. −Woodstone (talk) 20:17, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
Incorrect. You need to take some time to get better informed here. IN the meantime, please review WP:TALK and do not revert talk page entries of other editors.[9] No, a few days isn't needed, the change was only added in the last month while I was away, and it never enjoyed consensus. Please get up to speed before reverting. Thanks, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:26, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
Sorry for accidentally reverting a talk page. Still, more discussion and time is needed before making content changes. How is it important if you were away? The world does not revolve around you. −Woodstone (talk) 20:30, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
No problem on the mistaken talk page revert. When MOS overkill is affecting FACs, I'll make a bold change. If you want to slow it down, fine, but that proposal didn't have consensus and I doubt it will survive. It's patently absurd and is what turns editors against MOS and discourages them from submitting articles to FAC. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:32, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Affricates in Help:IPA

Sorry, I didn't notice your revert before I added more tie-bars. What do you suggest we do about these affricates then? The whole point of them is that they are linked in some way (so there's a difference between tch and t+ch). With some of them we can use ligatures, but what about those where no ligature exists? --Kotniski (talk) 16:36, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

That particular page is meant for people without any knowledge of IPA and linguistics. It tries to avoid any linguistic terminology (such as ligature). It is not intended to be theoretically correct. The primary purpose is to give support for those who want to look up the meaning of IPA symbols in transcriptions given in articles. Therefore it is not positioned as a WP article, but as a help page. Aside from that, it is not at all unusual to leave out tie bars over composite symbols. Also, the tie bars display incorrecty in MS-IE (shifted left by one character). All of this taken together made us leave out the ties on purpose. −Woodstone (talk) 18:35, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
Right, but it's because the page is intended for people "looking up the meaning of IPA symbols" that we should include all the symbols they might be looking up the meaning of. Even (particularly?) if those symbols display incorrectly. Suppose someone finds a [ts] with a tie-bar (even if displayed in a strange way), or a ts ligature, in an article. They come to Help:IPA to find out what it means - they need to be told. Maybe this could be done with notes** at the top of the "T" and "D" sections of the table, to avoid messing up the display too much. The present way of doing it is simply misleading, since it implies that e.g. [t] followed by [S] always represents an affricate. --Kotniski (talk) 09:15, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
 **I've now added such notes, so I think everything's OK now.--Kotniski (talk) 10:58, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
It still breaks the table flow. Woud you mind if I make it like a footnote, with a reference from every occurrence? −Woodstone (talk) 11:12, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
I'm not sure; I think it's an important enough point to have it right there in the table (remembering that a reader might be coming there looking for a particular symbol, possibly mis-displayed, and won't necessarily be drawn to the relevant footnotes). But try it as footnotes if you like and we can see how it looks. Another way of keeping the table flow would be to put the notes directly under the "D" and "T" cells instead of just before the affricate rows. --Kotniski (talk) 11:49, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Affricates again: general issues

Still on the same topic, but in general this time. I'm planning to add phonetic transcriptions to large numbers of articles on Polish towns. For the most part this shouldn't create too many problems, but I'm not sure what style to use for the affricates - tie-bars, ligatures, or nothing. Are there any guidelines on this anywhere? To achieve overall consistency for Polish tie-bars seem to be the only solution, since not all the combinations in question have ligatures available, and Polish distinguishes affricates from stop-fricative combinations (czy is not like trzy). So, how bad are the problems you report with the IE display? So bad as to be prohibitive on the use of tie-bars? If so, what do you suggest instead? In particular I'd like to develop some vaguely authoritative guideline on this, otherwise I foresee lots of edit disputes as others stick their oar in over transcriptions in individual articles. --Kotniski (talk) 17:11, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

In IE the tie bars are shifted to the left by one position, so in the examples here they are over a space and the d or t. In a longer word it would tie the wrong symbols.
  • officially correct: "ax&#865;yb" gives ax͡yb; in IE the "ax" are tied
  • work around for IE: "axy&#865;b" gives axy͡b; in IE the "xy" are tied
I just tried in Firefox 2 and it shows the same as IE. I remember trying it in an earlier version where it is different. Officially the tie bar should be entered between the two symbols to be tied. In my opinion we should not use wrong encoding because IE (even if still by far the most used browser) has it wrong. However encoding it right would cause incorrect display to the majority of readers. It is not worth the disturbance to enter tie bars. Using ligatures is self explanatory and can be done if available. Otherwise I would be for ignoring the difference between tied and untied pairs. There may be a phonetic difference in some cases, but not a very big one. People would almost surely still understand if they are exchanged. −Woodstone (talk) 19:20, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
How about when there's a no-width space before the tie character (x​͡y)? That works for me, using IE6 with the DejaVu Sans font installed. How does it come out in other browsers or without DejaVu?--Kotniski (talk) 12:31, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Image copyright problem with Image:Logchart.jpg

Image Copyright problem

Thank you for uploading Image:Logchart.jpg. However, it currently is missing information on its copyright status. Wikipedia takes copyright very seriously. It may be deleted soon, unless we can determine the license and the source of the image. If you know this information, then you can add a copyright tag to the image description page.

If you have any questions, please feel free to ask them at the media copyright questions page. Thanks again for your cooperation. NOTE: once you correct this, please remove the tag from the image's page. STBotI (talk) 21:29, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] earth

Hi Woodstone,

The problem I have with separate US & UK pronunciations is, why stop at that article? We'll start getting people adding alt. pronunciations to all of them, and what is a reader to make of it when they're incompatible, which they often will be (say due to s.o. who adds a alt. pronunciation but doesn't know the difference between ʊ and ʌ)? Or when there are three common pronunciations of a word -- are we now to make it six, three each for the US and UK? Better to nip it in the bud, in my not-very-humble opinion. kwami (talk) 21:52, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Excuse my butting in here, but is there any particular reason why "earth" needs to have its pronunciation shown? I'd have thought transcriptions were necessary only for words whose pronunciation is likely to cause problems (like foreign or strangely-spelt words).--Kotniski (talk) 12:31, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
Some people might think it's pronounced IPA: /iərθ/ (similar to ear or beard). The spelling of English is very inconsistent, so I would advocate adding pronunciation to every word with the slightest chance of a wrong guess at pronunciation. −Woodstone (talk) 12:42, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] thank you so much

thank you for your recently contributed article of thailand about sex tourism and child sex in economy section, but i worry that your article is not related to the topic at all. Could you please contribute your article in the right place? There are many sex articles that you can be part of them in wiki. I hope you will enjoy to contribute and learn in that sections rather than post in the wrong section. Feel free to understand this situation with the right to protect a quality article to the public. Nat (talk) 03:03, 16 February 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Atichart (talk • contribs) 00:31, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

You are mistaken. I was the one that removed the part on child sex, on grounds that is is not an economic issue. The sex tourism as such is a non-negligeable contribution to the economy, not found in all countries, and deserves a sentence in the economy section. −Woodstone (talk) 12:04, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] misunderstand

so sorry for my misunderstand and thank you very much for your help. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Atichart (talk • contribs) 15:21, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] DMK

Sawasdee krap. Hope you are ok. Can you please comment on my question here? I am not trying to troll or cause commotion, but would just want to be fair on the encyclopedia. That is the reason why am not reverting your change into a dab page. Cheers :) Wiki San Roze †αLҝ 11:12, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] IPA consistency

Hi Woodstone. I've tried formatting the IPA in List of albedo features on Mercury and Classical albedo features on Mars, but the author (RandomCritic) rejects this as 'incorrect'. (Several were straight from the OED or Random House, but in the past he's refused to accept those as sources.) He believes that the IPA should indicate a specific dialect, and that the Help:Pronunciation chart is spurious. He even refuses to use the {{IPA}} template, and seems to believe that he has ownership of these articles. I'd appreciate your comments. kwami (talk) 21:44, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

I have put the pages on my watchlist, to see how it evolves. They look ok as they are right now. −Woodstone (talk) 23:03, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

He's responded by nominating the key for deletion. kwami (talk) 19:06, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

I saw. It will survive. We will need to assemble some references. Should not be too difficult. −Woodstone (talk) 20:07, 1 March 2008 (UTC)
He's now changed to international IPA (with template IPA2). The ones I checked are ok in my view. Good compromise? −Woodstone (talk) 16:33, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
That's no change at all. (Cf. the net change over the last 5 months: [10].) He's always used the IPA, but as it is it corresponds to a specific dialect. That's why I added the {{globalize}} tag, which he rejected as "template abuse". Also, with Classical albedo features on Mars, he's deleted the pronunciations altogether. — kwami (talk) 19:06, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Alphabet links removed

G'day,

I noticed you removed some links from the Alphabet, and was wondering if you could explain your rationale. It seems to me that that both a pen and the vocabulary are intimately linked to the alphabet. The last particularly so since I'm in the process of refuting that the English alphabet is dissimilar to Latin alphabet, and has 26 letters. Cheers--mrg3105 (comms) ♠♥♦♣ 23:00, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

See talk:alphabet. −Woodstone (talk) 10:40, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] European union is not the same as the european community

Hello. I noticed that you edited the introduction to European Union. I'm sorry, but I don't really understand the sentence Currently in vigour is the treaty of maastricht, concluded in 1993. I know what you intended, because I am familiar with the article. But I think an outsider just happening upon the article would be completely confused by that statement. The question of whether the EU was founded in 1993 or 1957 has come up on the talk page. Strictly, the European union did not exist before 1993. Something else did exist and still exists, but the event in 1993 was not simply a name change. There is a separate article, talking about the European Community, which is what existed pre 1993, and which you dropped from mention in the introduction. Sandpiper (talk) 10:55, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Are you going to change the inception date when the next now approved and still to be ratified treaty comes into vigour? That an organisation progresses through different stages of integration and size, does not mean that it is totally reborn every time. It is common to see the treaty of Rome as the start of the EU (then under a different name). −Woodstone (talk) 11:02, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
Ah, well, that was not the view of editors debating it at the time. There is hardly a sentence in the introduction which has not been heatedly argued over. What exactly would happen after Lisbon has yet to be decided. It is considered that Maastricht made a fundamental change apart from the name change. Whether lisbon makes a fundamental change or not is hotly contested, though so far generally only outside wiki as it hasn't happened yet. The argument made for mentioning maastricht in the second sentence was that it was more important and more correct to say the EU as such (and as distinct from the EC) started at that point, rather than mentioning the treaty of Rome and claiming it started 1957. This article describes the EU and how it works, not the EC and how it used to work pre-maastricht.
It has also been argued that the EU started in 1951 with the coal and steel union, which preceded the EC. The operation of the EC from the Rome treaty happens to have been carried forward more or less the same into the current EU, which is why it is still relevant to discuss what it said, rather than what the 1951 paris treaty provided for. However, the EC was built upon the 1951 foundation. So would you say it started then? (see [11]) Sandpiper (talk) 12:22, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
I would not object to saying it started in 1951, but only coal and steel is a rather limited subject. A real generic multinational organisation definitely started in 1957 (which has been in the first few sentences till very recently). For me, a name change, some rule changes and accession of more countries do not make a new entity. −Woodstone (talk) 13:57, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
Can't say as I've checked it, but the note I read said the EC subsumed the coal and steel union. So rome was to paris, as maastricht was to rome. If you are making that argument about a rule and name change being negligible, then you would have to say the whole began at Paris. Of course this ignores all the other treaties in between, which while their effects may have been smaller, collectively might have had as big an effect. You would have to say that a real generic multinational organisation definitely started in 1957 (between the same countries as later expanded it to the EC).
According to the EC article, the treaty of Rome created the EEC. At the same time a separate treaty created euratom. Then in 1967 the three were merged to create the EC. So in fact, the EC only dates from 1967 and its oldest component part is ECSC from 1951. The EEC shared some of the same institutions created for the ECSC. When the paris treaty expired, its responsibilities were formally transferred as amendments to the treaty of Rome, but only after the fact, not having been part of it when it was originally written. Sandpiper (talk) 19:16, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

I think they used the same institutions, if wikipedia is to be believed, In 1967 the Merger Treaty was signed, which combined the institutions of the ECSC and Euratom into that of the EEC, they already shared a Parliamentary Assembly and Courts. Sandpiper (talk) 19:16, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

On their own website the EU shows as its history beginning in 1951. That might be the best source. −Woodstone (talk) 20:25, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Delimitnum

Thanks for proofchecking the delimitnum template Woodstone. Does your being the first to try it out indicate that you like what it has to offer (if the darn thing would work right)? Greg L (my talk) 02:55, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Absolutely; it is (would be) a great tool. Very clever how you keep it copy/pasteble. The resulting HTML is clear, but the template source is rather hard to reverse engineer. −Woodstone (talk) 13:15, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Check of a Thai word

Hello Woodstone,

I noticed that you know the Thai language. Someone has edited the Interlingua article, changing the Thai translation of Interlingua from ภาษาอินเตอร์ลิงกวา to ภาษาอินเทอร์ลิงกวา. He made the same change to the Thai article on Interlingua. Could you tell me if this is correct? Thank you for your help. Valerius (talk) 03:10, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

There is a small book, issued by the Thai government, describing preferred methods of transcription into Thai script for several languages. For English, it states that an initial "t" before a vowel is transcribed by "ท". The letter "ต" is only used for "t" in the "st". So if you consider the word "Interlingua" as an Enlish word, the newer version above is indeed correct. However for French or Italian words, the intial "t" is transcribed as "ต". The word Interlingua has a definite Italian ring, so if you consider it an Italian word, the former transcription is better. I do not know if Interlingua is ever used in Thailand, and if so, what the standard transcription is. The breakdown is as follows: ภ(ph)า(a)ษ(s)า(a) (=language) อิ(i)น(n)[เ]ท(t)อ (เ-อ=e)ร์(r)ลิ(li)ง(ng)ก(k)ว(w)า(a) −Woodstone (talk) 20:07, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
After reading your response, I realized that my question was a bit incorrect. The goal isn't to translate or transcribe a word into Thai, but to simply type the Thai word for Interlingua, which should be found already in Thai dictionaries. You can see here that the word for Interlingua is very similar in a variety of languages.
Thank you for your knowledgeable remarks. If you'd like to comment further, it would be most helpful, but if not, I can check a Thai dictionary at some point. For the time being, it looks like the change made is at least reasonable. Valerius (talk) 02:26, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
The problem is that this is essentially a foreign word, so there is no natural Thai spelling for it. Every dictionary will just transcribe it following their preferred method (or even just intuitively without method). Chances are that several variants will be found. Tonight I will check a few dictionaries. A better approach would be to check if there is something like an interlingua society in Thailand and use their spelling, but even that would be just how the founder chose to do it. −Woodstone (talk) 08:43, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
The page on ISO 639 in the Thai WP shows under "ina" the spelling ภาษาอินเตอร์ลิงกวา. −Woodstone (talk) 09:14, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
None of my dictionaries has the word "Interlingua". One of them shows transcribed versions of the words "intersection" and "international", both using a "ต" and no "ร์" and integral using "ท". Since the word is not really an English word, but more internationally oriented, I think the most correct transcription is with "ต": ภาษา อินเตอร์ลิงกวา. −Woodstone (talk) 22:50, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] About the "balanced formulation"

Regarding this edit here. The debate that we are currently engaged in on MOSNUM is about binary prefixes in articles that relate to the computing industry. Do you agree?

I would say articles relating to IT in general, including hardware, software, storage media, communications. Why this question? −Woodstone (talk) 22:38, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Bangkok Metro and Bangkok Skytrain

Why did you remove the links that I inserted into those articles? It is not my website (obviously) and was relevant to the articles. Might as well remove all non-official links from such articles if that is the case. Somebody in the WWW (talk) 15:13, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

A link should directly point to relevant public and stable information that has a certain credibility. Generally a personal website does not qualify. −Woodstone (talk) 18:43, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
Can you provide me a link to the Wikipedia policy which prevents such links? I presume you will be very busy if you go around removing the thousands of such links in Wikipedia!! Somebody in the WWW (talk) 08:05, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
Have a look at WP:SPS. −Woodstone (talk) 09:32, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] IPA templates

Hi,

Templates such as "pronounced-en" are rather long to type multiple times. Any way of making them shorter? kwami (talk) 09:03, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

No objection. But it would be nice to keep consistency. Like xxx-nn, where:
  • xxx = either IPA or (a short form of) prounounced (could be pron if you like)
  • nn = language (possibly compound like en-au)
Go ahead (and move IPAEng as well, since you are admin)
P.S. Do you have any suggestions for a better name for the irritating IPA2?
−Woodstone (talk) 09:16, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
"IPA-link", maybe? That's not very good either, though, and it's longer. kwami (talk) 09:34, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
How about IPA-all? (all symbols and languages), or IPA-full? (still manageable lengths) −Woodstone (talk)
"IPA-all" is good. I wouldn't know what "full" was supposed to mean. kwami (talk) 17:35, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Linguistic issues concerning the euro

I responded to you on the talk page and received no reply. There, I asked you several days ago to revert your changes on the basis that there did not appear to be consensus for them. Are you now claiming that there is consensus for the changes? If so, please tell me where. Joeldl (talk) 07:51, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

There is no need for consensus if only one person objects. Be bold is the guiding principle. I gave my answer already on the talk page. A word that is daily used in common speech is bound to behave differently than one describing some abstraction far away and hardly ever used by the common people. So the linguistic development is bound to be different. −Woodstone (talk) 08:02, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
If there is one person in favour of the changes and one person opposed, then there is no consensus for the changes. You were bold, and that was fine. But I disagreed with your changes and reverted them. Being bold does not mean you are exempt from seeking consensus when someone has raised objections, particularly in a situation where it is one editor's opinion against another's.
Your answer on the talk page addresses the substance of why you think you are right (I also explained there why I thought I was right), but did not address the issue of consensus. The standard you are suggesting, that a single "bold" editor can make changes and a single editor in disagreement cannot revert them, does not make sense to me. Joeldl (talk) 08:23, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
You did not bring up a linguistically relevant objection. I see no way of reaching consensus when only two editors participate. −Woodstone (talk) 13:57, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
Your opinion of the correctness of my arguments is beside the point when it comes to the question of how to handle disagreement. When there is no consensus, the status quo is maintained. Joeldl (talk) 00:51, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Template:Audio-pipe

Hello, I am writing here because it seems you are the author of Template:Audio-pipe, concerning which I recently raised a question at Village Pump that elicted no response at all, probably because few editors see a page that contains this template.

In a recent discussion with User talk: Kwamikagami, it was seen that Mr. Kwamikagami (and others) see the rendering of this template as containing a "speaker icon," whereas I only see a superscript (i) -- and no icon. The wikitext of the template contains: <sup>(i)</sup>.

Note that the Help:IPA article specifically refers to this icon. Since you worked on this Template, I thought that you could clarify the matter. What must I do to see this icon in my browser (IE7)? Is this being caused by Cascading Style Sheets (something I have never understood)? Please let me know if you can resolve the matter. Morris K. (talk) 22:30, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Earth

Hey-

I'd be careful; you're bordering on a WP:3RR violation on Earth. There's no rush to implement any change, and leaving the page to reflect the clear previous consensus while waiting for any discussion to play out would be a good demonstration of good faith.

ASHill (talk | contribs) 14:03, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

You must be joking. You call a 4 to 3 vote a clear consensus? −Woodstone (talk) 20:32, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] revert on EU

Thanks for reverting my edit on EU. As you can see from my edit summary my intend, too, was to delete this nonsensical paragraph. unfortunately, due to some confusion, I had done just the opposite. Good you corrected that. Tomeasy (talk) 08:09, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

I had understood your intention. Probably somebody beat you to reversal and you invertently reverted his revert. It sometimes happens. −Woodstone (talk) 08:15, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Purplebox

IEC prefixes aren't anymore banned than they were in your previous vote. I've unstrucked the text that says bytes and bits should be used for disambiguation since they are not prone to revert-warring and I put a section who was there at the time of your previous vote in bullet form.Headbomb (ταλκ · κοντριβς) 05:44, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

The current version has a statement IEC prefixes are not to be used on Wikipedia except under the following circumstances (which are very limiting). This is a highly unusual form of censorship in a style guide. I think we could come to an agreement by only explicitly stating that disambiguation of KB, MB, GB should be done by showing powers of 10 or 2 (or 1000 and 1024 if you like). There is no need to add statements on when IEC prefixes can be used. −Woodstone (talk) 15:28, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

I am unable to edit any more on the MOSNUM talk page because I cannot load it in my browser (I think the page is just too big), so I will comment here instead, as you 2 are already discussing a related point. I am concerned about the text

  • For sake of non-controversy—the IEC prefixes debate did span over many years—disambiguation should be done in bytes or bits, showing clearly the base that is meant, for example:
  • with binary meaning: 3 MB (3×10242 bytes), 13 Gbit (13×10243 bits).
  • with decimal meaning: 3 MB (3×10002 bytes), 13 Gbit (13×10003 bits).

I reworded it to remove the reference to IEC, which (seemed to) serve no useful purpose. Headbomb reverted my edit, claiming that the words do have a purpose. My point is that if those words serve a purpose, I cannot see what it could be, other than to imply exact numbers of bytes are preferred to IEC units. A couple of questions follow from that:

  • To Headbomb: What is the purpose of the padding? Can the phrase be reworded to avoid the implied deprecation?
  • To Woodstone: Do you share the concern?
  • To both: which wording is more neutral?

Thunderbird2 (talk) 12:15, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

  • I would prefer the most neutral wording, not mentioning IEC. I share your interpretation and concern. However, in order to achieve consensus, I am willing to accept mentioning the IEC as above, as long as there is no explicit deprecation. −Woodstone (talk) 20:14, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
  • First, that section only says that you should disambiguate in bytes and bits, not that you can't ever use IEC units. As for the reason why you should disambiguate in bytes and bits it is because doing so in IEC prefixes will most probably cause revert wars. It's simply the wisest course of action. We all agree that disambiguation is perfectly acceptable in bytes and bits, but we don't all agree that doing so in IEC units is acceptable. Thus this avoid edit wars, and reflects consensus. Headbomb (ταλκ · κοντριβς) 13:55, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
    I know you want to build a guideline on consensus. You have been through the archives, so you will know that there is a broad consensus view is that it is acceptable to disambiguate in exact numbers of bytes. If that is the consensus, then that is what the guideline should say (and not should). Thunderbird2 (talk) 14:15, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Could you please update your vote on the greenbox now that FCL has been split into the redbox (and also vote on the redbox)? Headbomb (ταλκ · κοντριβς) 14:59, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Maxwell's equations

FYI, I'm discussing your recent edit at Talk:Maxwell's equations. :-) --Steve (talk) 19:36, 8 June 2008 (UTC)