User talk:Larry Sanger

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CZ:Recipe

Please have a look at: CZ:Proposals/Ad_hoc (CZ:Proposals/How_should_we_classify_and_index_recipes?) and please give your comments. Today is supposed to be the last day before it goes to the next step. However, there hasn't been any discussions on it. What do I do next? Supten Sarbadhikari 02:43, 19 February 2008 (CST)

Good question...I'll have a look. --Larry Sanger 06:42, 19 February 2008 (CST)

I have added my comments at CZ:Proposals/Recipes_Subpage_and_Accompanying_Usage_Policy#The_Driving_issue. Supten Sarbadhikari 21:03, 19 February 2008 (CST)

Boston Red Sox

Sorry Larry, i'll expand it more right now. Andrew Sylvia 08:43, 22 February 2008 (CST)

Fossilization

Hi Larry, just making sure I was interpreting the approval process appropriately. Fossilization hit a roadblock before approval as Nereo took down the ToApprove template before the approval date. Since then, he made changes and seems to be satisfied, but no-one has retuned the template. I identified this to the CZ:Anthropology Workgroup this morning and Lee asked me a good question. I responded. D. Matt Innis 12:40, 23 February 2008 (CST)

First article

Yes, the Hokusai article was posted on Textop - on about 5 October, 2006. (See Talk:Hokusai - I don't have access to the 'deleted articles' on Textop to get the exact date, but the comment on the Talk page indicates it had already been posted as of that date.) If you have any indication that the priority claim is incorrect, I will of course cheerfully remove it, but it is, AFAIK, correct! :-) J. Noel Chiappa 15:28, 25 February 2008 (CST)

No, no problem. Anyway, thanks again for returning! --Larry Sanger 15:29, 25 February 2008 (CST)

Sure. I'm really excited about the prospects here; there's so much scope to write really quality content (and so many articles unwritten where I can contribute :-). It reminds me of the early days of Wikipedia (although I didn't arrive that early - I arrived in the summer of '03, a while after you left, I guess). I'm not sure how much time I'll have to devote here (although I blew the whole day yesterday here, which is a sign of some kind :-), but I'll do what I can. I'm kind of involved in an effort to rework some of the underlying piping of the Internet, but other than that, I suspect Citizendium will be my chief intellectual interest for some years to come.

If it keeps going, of course - fingers crossed! But I know there are a lot of dissatisfied Wikipedians who got sick of the conditions over there, and so I suspect there's a really big pool of talent to recruit from. (We might want to try and start an organized effort to contact them, and turn them on to Citizendium.) I have to laugh at the columnists who say 'Why would a serious professional waste time on writing for Citizendium?' The question ought to be 'Why would a serious professional waste time on writing at Wikipedia, when they can do it at Citizendium?' Don't get me wrong, I'm sure there are things we need to improve (from my first glance, it seems like our Approval process could really be easier/smoother, although coded support might make it considerably less onerous), but the committment to reliable content (which I am going to hammer on as the selling point we need to focus on) makes it worth it. J. Noel Chiappa 10:39, 26 February 2008 (CST)

"I suspect Citizendium will be my chief intellectual interest for some years to come"--that's amazing. It really makes my day! We really need to collect a bunch of quotes like this from CZ editors and "high-ranking" authors (e.g., professional writers and assorted big wigs). I started this, a long time ago, here: http://www.citizendium.org/editortestimonials.html There are other quotes/testimonials I have collected somewhere else, in some e-mail folder...

Hammering on reliability is an excellent idea. We are due to change the top-of-the-wiki text... --Larry Sanger 13:06, 26 February 2008 (CST)

Well, don't get too amazed; the full quotation is "I'm kind of involved in an effort to rework some of the underlying piping of the Internet, but other than that, I suspect Citizendium will be my chief intellectual interest for some years to come." So y'all are second on the list (sorry, but I think I have my priorities right, there :-). J. Noel Chiappa 16:25, 27 February 2008 (CST)

Deleting non-wiki policy pages

As discussed in the forums, there are some out of date help pages, such as [1] still on the webserver. This could confuse newbies since are inevitable stale links to these pages both in CZ and elsewhere. How about replacing those pages with redirects to either the wiki equivalents or CZ:Home? The fancy technique would be to use an Apache .htaccess file to do the redirect (see Apache documention on that), but a html meta refresh may be easier to implement and is good enough. Wikipedia has a nice summary of the possibilities. Warren Schudy 17:39, 29 February 2008 (CST)

Warren, I think we simply shouldn't be linking to those outdated pages at all anymore. If you see any such outdated links, I hope you will change them. Meanwhile, leave it to me to deal with the pages themselves. --Larry Sanger 18:10, 29 February 2008 (CST)

Yep, I fix links to outdated pages when I notice them. I see you recently made cfa.html a redirect - thanks! :) Warren Schudy 19:27, 29 February 2008 (CST)

We aims to please. --Larry Sanger 21:24, 29 February 2008 (CST)

Importing existing texts, and the goal of a 'reliable' Encyclopaedia

Hi, I put a comment here about the existing policy against bringing in texts unchanged, but so far no comments. Your reactions, if you have time? Thanks! J. Noel Chiappa 10:56, 2 March 2008 (CST)

Romanization

Hi, Larry. What about a page called CZ:Romanization or some-such to deal with issues of how to romanize foreign words, placenames etc. that normally appear in another script? I would suggest subpages for individual languages, e.g. CZ:Romanization/Japanese. I foresee a series of rows about this in the future because, for example, Japanese words can be rendered in the Latin alphabet in several different ways even within the same system, and there is more than one romanization system in use anyway. I have also caught myself romanizing words differently from how I've done so in the past... would be nice to have a set of proposals up (e.g. 'are we going to use diacritics?'). I suggest putting some pages under CZ:, and inviting people to thrash out an agreement on the Talk pages that lead to a balance between linguistic accuracy and ease of use for those who don't read the languages. John Stephenson 01:28, 3 March 2008 (CST)

Hi John. I agree, there is a need for guidelines like this--why not get it started via CZ:Proposals? --Larry Sanger 09:05, 3 March 2008 (CST)

naming conventions proposals and the editorial council

Larry - I've asked a question of Jitse Niesen regarding naming conventions proposals, here. Since it involves Editorial Council issues, could you please weigh in? Anthony Argyriou 12:24, 3 March 2008 (CST)

Can you create the approvals and feedback group?

There are two proposals in the Approval and feedback queue that are ready to go before the approvals and feedback group. As far as I know, that group only gained decision-making authority when the proposals system was introduced, so I don't think there's a procedure yet for that group to decide matters. Can you clarify? Should we submit proposals to the editorial council until the approvals and feedback group is prepared to make decisions? Warren Schudy 10:20, 6 March 2008 (CST)

It's being created. For now, drivers of proposals that land in that group should send them to me when they're ready. --Larry Sanger 10:30, 6 March 2008 (CST)

OK. As driver of CZ:Proposals/Enable external feedback, I hereby request permission from the approvals and feedback group to advertise for an implementor, for example by posting to the MediaWiki Extension Request Page. See the implementation details section of the proposal for the specification. Warren Schudy 21:13, 6 March 2008 (CST)

Very good! The ball is now in our court. --Larry Sanger 21:34, 6 March 2008 (CST)

Any progress? Warren Schudy 19:45, 29 March 2008 (CDT)

French

I am a new citizendium editor-author and I am French. My articles are in French and I'm not good in translation. Can I propose my articles in French ? Does it exist a french Citizendium ? Could you send me your answer by email also (I am not used to navigate in these pages)? Thank you. Jean-Philippe de Lespinay 05:37, 7 March 2008 (CST)

A French Citizendium does not exist yet, but we hope to create one when resources permit. We are discussing a proposal that would allow us to accept French language articles--and this should be decided on soon--but right now, our articles are in English. --Larry Sanger 08:14, 7 March 2008 (CST)

CZ:Editorial_Council_Resolution_0008 - worthy of a blog post?

I would recommend posting a blog post on this - it may prove good for recruiting. Thoughts? Tom Kelly 18:01, 9 March 2008 (CDT)

on a side note, I wish we could attract some of these writers: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rings_of_Rhea . It would be very cool to have images like that here and an extensive set of articles. I also really like the wikipedia templates that expand at the bottom of that article. Tom Kelly 18:01, 9 March 2008 (CDT)

Good idea. You're right. --Larry Sanger 19:12, 9 March 2008 (CDT)

Larry, could you please update the proposal record on CZ:Proposals/Editorial Council? Cheers, Jitse Niesen 09:25, 10 March 2008 (CDT)

Technical Help

Thanks for the tip about that one - didn't know about it. I was planning to link other pages to it as re-work some of the documentation, but that template's good too.

BTW, what do you think of the {{Contribs}} stuff? J. Noel Chiappa 17:01, 10 March 2008 (CDT)

subpage category

Larry, i figured out the problem. Dumb edit on my behalf. I'll change it tonight when there are less people editing, undoubtedly it will slow the site down too much if I make the change now. Chris Day (talk) 12:39, 11 March 2008 (CDT)

Good thinking. --Larry Sanger 13:26, 11 March 2008 (CDT)

Proposal on translations of approved articles

I think - and hope - that this proposal is ready for decision by the Executive Committee. Please advise if it's not. Jens Mildner 16:17, 18 March 2008 (CDT)

Very good--will do. --Larry Sanger 11:06, 20 March 2008 (CDT)

Sorry to bother, but is there any progress on this proposal? If so, where can I watch it? If there's anything I can do to speed up things, please let me know. Jens Mildner 14:34, 24 April 2008 (CDT)

Definitions of cooking terms

If you take a look at the bottom of CZ:Recipes you'll find what I hope is a practical suggestion. Hayford Peirce 20:10, 18 March 2008 (CDT)

Expect some changes

The new subpages works the same as the old one with some additional features. For example, error catching, so that small problems such as incorrect pagenames in the metadata list do not go unnoticed. I think this version should be more user friendly for those starting new articles. The best news is that it is ten times smaller than the old subpages template even with the new features. Hopefully this will speed things up a bit.

As with all changes like this there is almost certainly something I have overlooked. Just let me know if you see something strange. Chris Day (talk) 17:15, 19 March 2008 (CDT)

Thanks, Chris--it's great to see you back. I've liked the changes I've seen so far. --Larry Sanger 19:34, 22 March 2008 (CDT)

Spoken_articles

Idea: make are approved articles spoken. Anyone with a nice accent? Similar to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Spoken_articles

Thoughts? Tom Kelly 16:38, 22 March 2008 (CDT)

It's a fine idea: develop on CZ:Proposals. :-) --Larry Sanger 19:33, 22 March 2008 (CDT)

idea for a subpage - food web/food chain

I'm throwing around this idea on the forum. I don't know what category it should go in so I put it in chat. Is there a forum page for subpage ideas?

http://forum.citizendium.org/index.php/topic,1643.0.html

If you rub shoulders with any fish experts, try to get their input! Thanks for everything. I now love subpages. Tom Kelly 18:03, 22 March 2008 (CDT)

At some point (perhaps now) you should take this to CZ:Proposals. It's a proposal you have in mind...that's the place to make proposals. --Larry Sanger 19:32, 22 March 2008 (CDT)

Telescope

The Chief Editor might want to take a look at Telescope and related Talk: pages... J. Noel Chiappa 12:42, 23 March 2008 (CDT)

I'm watching it. --D. Matt Innis 15:54, 23 March 2008 (CDT)

If the issues can be resolved by having constables apply the requirements of CZ:Professionalism, I'll be happy to stay uninvolved. If there are more purely editorial/content questions, I should intervene only if an astronomy editor (or historian of technology/science) cannot weigh in. As usual I certainly don't like to see any unpleasantness, but I'd like to experiment with the notion that the heat can be kept lower (and my own time spent more wisely) if the "big guns" are not pulled out immediately. --Larry Sanger 22:39, 23 March 2008 (CDT)

I take your point, but what's worrying is that one of the participants is himself a Constable, and after the whole thing had been running for quite a while (when one would have thought everyone had had a chance to take a deep breath), he felt moved to post a comment that another Constable felt was worthy of removal. That's rather troubling. But I do understand your reasoning in wanting to stand back at the moment. J. Noel Chiappa 14:26, 24 March 2008 (CDT)

Authors template

Sure, I can do it right now, should only take me a couple of minutes. J. Noel Chiappa 20:51, 27 March 2008 (CDT)

Thanks! --Larry Sanger 20:59, 27 March 2008 (CDT)

Sure, no problem, glad to help. It's done (well, not the Editors part - that's pretty straightforward to code, but I'm going to wait until we need it, i.e. the proposal is OK'd), and I've also updated CZ:Proposals/Pilot to allow Citizens to take credit for pages to reflect that. J. Noel Chiappa 21:31, 27 March 2008 (CDT)

Joyful words

Does anyone know what &#*^( means? I thinks you must have had your caps lock on. By the way, it looks like the edit took :-)--D. Matt Innis 19:15, 31 March 2008 (CDT)

Well, those are nonsense characters that are typewritten over curse words, to hide them, of course...I used my typewriter to write those. It was very hard to get my old typewriter to interface with my computer, but I am a SuperUser! --Larry Sanger 19:51, 31 March 2008 (CDT)

Core Articles Proposal

Larry - I think I'd be willing to take on driving the Core Articles proposal, but I have a couple of questions:

It appears that you'd like to radically simplify the Core Articles presentation, which will have the effect of undoing some of the work that has been done by the more active workgroups. Is this undoing a significant concern?
Would you be amenable to allowing those workgroups which have reached a high stage of completion to retain features which will no longer be required?
Are we willing to allow workgroups to have more or fewer than 99 articles in their completed list?

Anthony Argyriou 13:33, 2 April 2008 (CDT)

Hi Anthony,

Re 1: I honestly hadn't thought of that. Obviously, we should ask them.

Re 2: Sure!

Re 3: I think this is the sort of requirement that it would be good to stretch, although not too much. Maybe it can be left usefully vague. --Larry Sanger 21:56, 5 April 2008 (CDT)

Did you know

That Category:CZ_Live Page lists both articles and redirects to those articles, thereby possibly produce a false number? Look for AQMG and Air Quality Modeling Group under As on the first page. One's a redirect, the other the article, but both are technically "live articles". --Robert W King 13:13, 12 April 2008 (CDT)

That might be a MediaWiki 'bug' - although given the way Redirects are done in MediaWiki, it might be hard to fix. (You can, BTW, put Redirects in categories without having the target show up in that category - no idea why it works the other way.) J. Noel Chiappa 13:27, 12 April 2008 (CDT)

It could also be that some redirects were given that category. I have no idea how many this affects. --Robert W King 13:28, 12 April 2008 (CDT)

Good catch! AQMG did indeed have a Category: tag on it, which I just removed (I see no reason to cat Redirects). I too have no idea how many there are.. wonder if there's some way to list the members of a cat by size? J. Noel Chiappa 13:35, 12 April 2008 (CDT)

Well you can do a search on #REDIRECT but you'll be there all day. I wonder if we should have redirect category. --Robert W King 13:38, 12 April 2008 (CDT)

Well, if we decide to do that, I can probably fairly easily find the (many :-) ones I created by looking through my contributions. Let me know... J. Noel Chiappa 14:57, 12 April 2008 (CDT)

Well, be on the look out for any redirects with any categories on them; we shouldn't need to add any categories to them (including a "redirect" category--this can be generated automatically--look at Special:Specialpages). I very much doubt there are more than a handful of redirects with Category:CZ Live on them, because most people who create redirects know not to do that, and the Move utility does not leave any categories behind... --Larry Sanger 12:51, 13 April 2008 (CDT)

French (bis)

I've removed a note from this page and from the page history (something we virtually never do--except in cases like this), because it contained private e-mail addresses. I've noted the person's message and will reply privately. --Larry Sanger 12:19, 14 April 2008 (CDT)

Out of date?

This: "I am also currently, and temporarily, serving as Chair of the Editorial Council." is out of date, no? (Or certainly about to be so very shortly! :-) J. Noel Chiappa 09:11, 20 April 2008 (CDT)

Yes, it is! --Larry Sanger 09:58, 20 April 2008 (CDT)

Fixing broken/outdated links

If I had noticed it was broken, I would have fixed it! The link didn't show up red, I didn't happen to click on it (when I would have noticed the problem), and I didn't remember that CZ:Policy Outline had gotten chopped up and dispersed (it's not a page I'm too familiar with). Maybe it should be removed, so that links to it show up as red links? J. Noel Chiappa 22:13, 20 April 2008 (CDT)

Yes--maybe--or better, find backward links ("What links here"). I'm not issuing orders, I'm just making suggestions. :-) --Larry Sanger 12:59, 21 April 2008 (CDT)

<Smacks forehead!> Now why didn't I think of that. Sigh, too much editing documentation pages - turns the brain to mush! On the ever-lenghtening to-do list it goes.... J. Noel Chiappa 15:58, 21 April 2008 (CDT)

Calling the EiC

Any chance you could take a quick look at this thread on the forums and let us know if the various subpage tweaks we're discussing just need i) agreement on the forums, ii) approval from the EiC (and if so, are you OK with them), or iii) to go to the EC? Thanks! J. Noel Chiappa 15:18, 22 April 2008 (CDT)

OK-dokey. --Larry Sanger 15:21, 22 April 2008 (CDT)

Our earliest contributor

Check out Special:Contributions/Indra Adhikari. I guess Eastern mystics do know something about time Western science hasn't gotten to yet. :-) J. Noel Chiappa 21:45, 22 April 2008 (CDT)

Proposals

Hello. There are two proposals that you are driving which haven't seen much action lately. They are CZ:Proposals/Self-Correction Policy and CZ:Proposals/Pilot to allow Citizens to take credit for pages (in the latter case, you're probably just waiting for the new Editorial Council to be formed). Could you please update the proposal records on CZ:Proposals/Editorial Council? Thanks, Jitse Niesen 11:11, 23 April 2008 (CDT)

Yes, I'll do that right away... --Larry Sanger 18:56, 24 April 2008 (CDT)

User plan fixed

For reference see this edit. See this edit. Now only the workgroup plans that exist are included in the pre expand size (otherwise the blank template, {{x0}}, is selected), rather than every workgroup plan whether it existed or not. The page I mentioned before, that had a post expand size of over 4Mbytes, is now down to 10kbytes. Chris Day 12:52, 25 April 2008 (CDT)

Yay! I am so glad I was wrong! It did have to do with template size, but it was also a (fairly?) easy fix! --Larry Sanger 13:04, 25 April 2008 (CDT)

Once I figured out how the templates worked it was easy to fix. Same fix as I used to reduce the size for the subpages template. Thank Zach and Noel, they were the ones that brought my attention to the trick and helped me understand it. Chris Day 13:06, 25 April 2008 (CDT)

Google

Hi. Recently you pointed out to me that a criticism/controversy section that is the longest part of the page may be an inappropriate start for an article. Following on from that, would you also take a look at Google? Thanks. John Stephenson 00:51, 26 April 2008 (CDT)

Scratch that - Richard Jensen's done something about it. John Stephenson 02:28, 26 April 2008 (CDT)

Metadata links

Hi, I was on my way to Chris' talk: page to answer a question and I noticed your question about metadata. There is a direct link - and a direct edit link - to the Metadata in the header on the article's talk: page. (The "M" button goes there, and there's an edit link in the text.) My guess at the thinking as to why (since I wasn't there for the discussion, but it's a design call which I agree with) was not to burden our ordinary users with the internal CZ mechanisms. It's only one extra click away - do we need to make it more accessible? J. Noel Chiappa 20:23, 26 April 2008 (CDT)

Well...I'll have to respond on Chris' page so the discussion doesn't get fractured. --Larry Sanger 10:05, 28 April 2008 (CDT)

idea for blog post

It's been a while since the blog was updated. I have a suggestion. Make a post along the lines of :

"What frustrates you at wikipedia? We aren't trying to critisize, but we'd like an open ended poll so we can try and foresee frustrations before they arise."

Now your power of the phd, life-learned tact, and innate ability will be able to say something along those lines much clearer than I can. Maybe you can even spin it so it doesn't sound anti-wikipedia. Tom Kelly 20:28, 27 April 2008 (CDT)

The only way to make that topic not sound anti-Wikipedia would be to change it: "Here's a question for Wikipedians and Citizens alike: Wikipedians, why are you sticking with Wikipedia? Citizens, why have you left Wikipedia (if you have--most of us have)? All, what frustrates you about Wikipedia, that the Citizendium can learn from?"

I'm saving up a whole bunch of links for a blog post...I'll have to do that soon... --Larry Sanger 10:05, 28 April 2008 (CDT)

French words in English -- catalog created

Hi Larry, I fiddled around with things (with help from Chris), and it looks as if I have moved that really long list of words out of the main article http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/French_words_in_English into a catalog, http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/French_words_in_English/Catalogs, just as you suggested (ordered, hehe). Hope this is what you meant.... Hayford Peirce 12:11, 2 May 2008 (CDT)

I suggested it exactly as a French bureaucrat would.

Merci! --Larry Sanger 12:22, 2 May 2008 (CDT)

Headmasters

Yes, I agree. Somewhere, maybe in a Forum discussion of not too long ago, I mentioned that I was doing this article -- probably in the context of our Subpages discussion. At the time I said that probably it should be titled The Headmaster (short story) with appropriate redirects. And, eventually, I said, a disambig. page. I'll move the article right now, and create a redirect or two. But for the moment I don't see the need for a disamb. page. Best, Hayford Peirce 11:41, 5 May 2008 (CDT)

Subpage for def?

Hi Larry, please take a look here and comment. Thanks! -- Daniel Mietchen 12:27, 6 May 2008 (CDT)

Check out that discussion again Larry. Definitions can live on a subpage. Not sure why I didn't notice this problem earlier. Chris Day 12:38, 7 May 2008 (CDT)

Check out the subpages tab that is at the top of each page right now; just playing around at the moment. I compromised with Def for the tab name but the full name for the subpage. Look at Biology/Definition.

I have hacked the {{rpl}} template so it works whether definition is at Template:Def Article name or Article name/Definition. I can do the same for the {{r}} template. Try starting a def from an article that does not already have one (click on red link in tab). I have used a pre-load template that has the subpages template included between <noinclude></noinclude> tags that seems to work. Chris Day 15:30, 7 May 2008 (CDT)

Update: R template now works fine whether definition is on a Name/Definition page or a Template:Def Name page. The tab in the subpages header will direct users to the Template:Def Name if it exists. Otherwise it will link to the Name/Definition subpage or be a red link. I will try and clean up a few things as well as the documentation. Chris Day 15:53, 7 May 2008 (CDT)

Excellent--thanks, Chris! --Larry Sanger 18:21, 7 May 2008 (CDT)

Prose so chaste....

Hi, Larry, I *thought* I had a reference in mind for this usage. In an essay that Gore Vidal wrote about Evelyn Waugh around 1960, he calls him "our time's first satirist... all set down in prose so chaste that at times one longs for a violation of syntax to suggest that its creator is fallible, or at least part American." So he, and I, by extension, are using it to say "very pure prose". I suppose that by using "chaste", however, "spare" is redundant. In any case, neither Michael Gilbert, nor Waugh (except in "Brideshead Revisited"), are writing baroque or even very ornamented prose. Hayford Peirce 18:45, 7 May 2008 (CDT)

Oh, I see--prose is chaste if it has not been violated by bad syntax. --Larry Sanger 18:59, 7 May 2008 (CDT)

Well, that's Gore Vidal's take on it but he has, of course, established a reputation for occasional perversity, shall we say. I'll get rid of the word so that we won't sully any of our own prose any longer.... Hayford Peirce 19:03, 7 May 2008 (CDT)

disambig strategy

Larry, I noticed you created a disambig start page for reel. I've recently been converted to Noel Chiappa's policy on how to disambig, the core of which I captured at User:Pat_Palmer/redirects. Basically, if you were to move reel to reel (disambiguation, that would leave a redirect behind at reel itself, which will then show up as incorrect if people point directly to reel itself. By the way, do you play an instrument (fiddle perhaps)? It seems we love the same music, though I play mando and not fiddle.Pat Palmer 21:09, 7 May 2008 (CDT)

I guess I have to agree. This should be made into an Editorial Council proposal. I would support it.

Yep, I play Irish traditional fiddle, Donegal style. It's great music! Do you play in sessions? --Larry Sanger 21:15, 7 May 2008 (CDT)