User talk:Daniel Mietchen

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Daniel Mietchen

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About Bar and Bar (disambiguation)

Daniel, don't you think that the Bar article now needs to be moved/renamed to Bar(location) or perhaps better yet Bar (establishment) ? Milton Beychok 22:21, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes, and thanks to Chris for fixing it. --Daniel Mietchen 10:26, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

New User

Thank you for your welcome. If I can help you with anything German, please ask (nothing too scientific, as I haven't got a clue there, I'm afraid.Ralf Heinritz 16:31, 28 February 2010 (UTC). Danke für Ihre Antwort. Ich werde sicher nichts von WP eins zu eins hierher kopieren, warum auch. Probleme bei WP sind meiner Meinung nach: zuviele triviale Artikel über Blödsinn; der Tonfall vieler Mitarbeiter (mit Ausnahmen natürlich); in der de WP der übertriebene Neostalinismus; admins, die Regeln ad-hominem anwenden. Viele Artikel sind wirklich schlecht, es gibt aber auch wirklich sehr gute, die mir aber oft viel zu lang sind (während z. B. Encycl. Britannica Artikel oft viel zu kurz sind). Ohne größenwahnsinnig zu sein, stelle ich mir ideale Artikel etwa doppelt so lang wie die üblichen Britannica stubs vor. Na ja, mal sehen (Ich werde versuchen, Dich/Sie in Ruhe arbeiten zu lassen und mich einzuarbeiten - Sie können das hier natürlich gerne löschen, ich wollte es aber gesagt haben). Ich denke, ich fange hier mit Lévi-Strauss an und versuche dann vielleicht über Franz Boas zu schreiben.Ralf Heinritz 09:56, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Friedrich-Wilhelm(s) Universität again

Daniel, I'm reading a biography of Fritz Haber (and will write about him). The biographer states that Haber got his PhD at the Friedrich Wilhelm University, i.e., the biographer does not use the genitive (no ending s) for the name. Should one not use a quote in English: Friedrich Wilhelm's University as the proper translation of Friedrich Wilhelms Universität? And how about the hyphen? --Paul Wormer 18:30, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

In which language are you reading it? Anyway, I think there are too few rules to make this case a clear one. For instance, one might also go for the English variant of the king's name, ending up with Frederick William University, and University of Berlin was also commonly used in that period. I would go for Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität, with redirects from all reasonable corners. --Daniel Mietchen 19:54, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

The book is an English translation of a book in German. I will mention the German name once and then use Berlin University.--Paul Wormer 06:05, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Sounds fine. --Daniel Mietchen 07:08, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

It seems to have been: Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität, but will keep checking. Thank you, my old Meyer has Friedrich- Wilhelms Universität, so Berlin University really is the best solution. Ralf Heinritz 10:03, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for checking, and yes, butting in is encouraged here, not just on onomastics. --Daniel Mietchen 10:06, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Your write-a-thon suggestion

When you suggest "Context" for this week's write-a-thon, do you mean finding "red links" in Related Articles pages and creating new articles for them, or am I misunderstanding the context of "context"? Bruce M. Tindall 16:40, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

My understanding of it is to create or improve Related Articles subpages to topics for which some content already exists (and be this a stub or a definition), which may well include some colour changes from red to blue. --Daniel Mietchen 16:48, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Please excuse me putting words into your mouth. Please edit or remove as necessary. Chris Day 17:15, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

I am fortunate enough not to have to type with my mouth, but I think that fits well otherwise. --Daniel Mietchen 18:56, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

quote templates

Daniel I was looking at {{Quote}} and {{Cquote}}. They are both a disaster. They bring over a ton of baggage from wikipedia. The code is swollen due to their inability to compromise and it seems to have features that are never used as well as features that cannot be used. I'm wondering whether we should just recommend to go with <blockquote> for most occassion? Or, at least rewrite those templates to serve our needs before they proliferate here too much. Specifically it is silly to have a third parameter that is not used. It is also silly having the author and source as 4th and 5th parameter (should be 2nd and 3rd to be more intuitive). A second opinion would be good here, thanks. Chris Day 11:04, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

I agree with your assessment. On a different note, I thought of ways to get templates more organized, perhaps by using {{r}} (or some variant thereof, with definitions and Related Templates) may be a valid option (indeed, I am also considering this for other kinds of content, e.g. all the policy pages in CZ namespace), e.g.

Template:r [r]: Add brief definition or description

Welcome to Citizendium [r]: Add brief definition or description

CZ:Templates [r]: Add brief definition or description

What do you think?

--Daniel Mietchen 15:07, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

That idea might work quite well. No harm in trying it out. As to the quotes, I seem to recall a thread that discussed the style of quotes quite extensively. I'll re-read that and then try and summarise where I think we ought to be in a new thread on the messageboard. Chris Day 15:19, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Would this work for blockquotes:

I use this code in MediaWiki editor for blockquotes. Browsers use the first of the three fonts that they have. More advanced programmer probably could modify it for other purposes. (Edit this 'quote templates' section to see code). Try viewing this page at different page-zoom levels and with different browsers.

References

Anthony.Sebastian 19:27, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

SERP vs Search engine results page

Daniel you want to switch it so the main article is "Search engine results page" (where the text goes) and SERP is the redirect? Just pointing out that the "hot" keyword is SERP not the four term version, but ultimately I don't know if it matters much. The whole idea as you know is to write articles with titles according to your "list of keywords driving traffic" (which are also highly read on WP) and SERP is one of them. I'm waiting to see if there's any bump in traffic here.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 13:16, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I think SERP should redirect to Search engine results page because full titles is the way pages are named here in general — it is sensible to keep an eye on SEO but we shouldn't let this dominate the way we structure content. TO see the uptake will probably take a few weeks (CZ is not yet spidered very often). --Daniel Mietchen 15:07, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Okay, thanks, I didn't know, I'll strive for full names from now on.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 23:38, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Also, btw, by working on articles about SEO and link farms, and combining this info with my Wikipedia stuff, I'm getting some new ideas about how to possibly boost readership to CZ. (I've been using your list to target articles as you know, and bring them in, like Acai berry, SEO, etc.)--Thomas Wright Sulcer 23:38, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

One thing I tried was googling my name and your name. (I used quotes like "Tom Sulcer" and "Daniel Mietchen".) We both have somewhat unique names. What I noticed was that your CZ page comes up on the first Google SERP before mine. Why? I think it's because your name on the web has more links (plus you've been on CZ longer than me) to other websites. Plus I saw your "Google profile". I copied your example and did a Google profile, which is great because it lets people LINK to pages like the Citizendium user page. Long story short: what may help Citizendium boost readership is not only more internal links (and targeting "hot" articles that drive traffic like you listed), but, as much as possible, having well-trafficked sites (Google, Amazon, Wikipedia, Yahoo) link to as many Citizendium pages as possible, including user pages, article pages, etc. The more, the better. So, a tentative policy suggestion which I'm thinking about is: suggesting CZ contributors get a free "Google profile" page in which they list Citizendium as one of their links.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 23:38, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Wondering what you think? Plus I'm working on an article about DVDs (do you want me to name the article "Digital versatile disc"?--Thomas Wright Sulcer 23:38, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

1) I didn't find your CZ user page on Google and yes, robots.txt indeed prohibits it from being indexed. Interestingly, the policy of demanding everyone on the forums to link to their user page creates links to the user pages that search engines are allowed to index, since they are free to spider the forum. Not a coherent strategy in my view, and I said so in this forum discussion.

2) My user page appears because I have linked to it from several places.

3) Higher numbers of relevant links to CZ certainly help its page rank scores but I do not think we should make any attempt towards coordinated creation of Google profiles to link to CZ. It would be way better to legitimately link from blog posts to CZ pages providing background (I do this regularly on my blog). But I do not think many here do blog.

4) As far as I know, there is no officially recognized expansion of the three-letter name DVD, and WP just pointed me to a link that supports this vague memory with loads of details it never had.

--Daniel Mietchen 23:57, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, Daniel. I read this after loading the DVD article, and I'll switch it around so the DVD is the main article. Plus, the Usenet forum had better info than WP, and I'll try to include that. Thanks for updating me about the robots.txt issues; I agree with your ideas about fixing them, let me know how I can support you. And if I blog, I'll put links back to CZ, good idea. I don't mind if the public sees my CZ userpage.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 04:11, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Did the change I made to test wiki work?

Daniel. Two days ago you reported a problem with bot access to the test wiki. I made a change about 1 hour later and asked if it fixed the problem, but you have not replied. Did it? (see http://reid.citizendium.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=39) Dan Nessett 22:32, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the reminder, Dan — I hadn't noticed your reply and not tried again since I filed the bug. Just did a test edit, and it works for the one test I did. Thanks! I will now do bot testing mainly on the test wiki. And while we are at it, may I also ask about the current state of bug no. 30? As I see it, no problems surfaced on the test wiki with the setting of n=20000, and that is vastly better than the current n=100 at the live wiki. --Daniel Mietchen 23:06, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Let me know what your testing of the error "TypeError: unsupported operand type(s) for +: 'dict' and 'list'" turns up. This doesn't appear to be an API permissions problem, but perhaps I haven't correctly analyzed the issue. I asked Greg if he made the change on the live wiki for the random page criteria and asked him to do so if not. I'll let you know of any update on this that I receive. Dan Nessett 00:23, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

OK, thanks. --Daniel Mietchen 00:30, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Greg has changed the article random length criterion to 20,000 on the live wiki. Dan Nessett 19:32, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Cool, thanks! --Daniel Mietchen 19:59, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Delete Talk

Daniel, I think that it is neither necessary nor useful to add this to the new Category. The template is used on pages whose talk page is to be deleted, and its purpose is to catch the link from the speedydelete list which leads to the page instead of the talk page. Adding this to the list would only cause a second entry, this time for the page itself and thus only confuse the situation. (If the page is also to be deleted then a second entry will appear). --Peter Schmitt 22:06, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for keeping an eye on these matters! Some of the DeleteTalk requests have been sitting around for quite some time, so there may be some value in having one central place that Constables are expected to check on a regular basis, and I think Category:Call for Constables is the most suitable of the currently three relevant categories. Anyway, we are still in the testing phase with this new arrangement, and if it does indeed lead to confusion, then there are a number of options to react, including reverting the changes I just made. --Daniel Mietchen 22:20, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Ask Hayford! The template was created to help him. I would do whatever he prefers. --Peter Schmitt 22:27, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Added: A separate Category page for "Delete talk" templates could be useful to check for templates that have been forgotten to remove. --Peter Schmitt 22:42, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

He would prefer whatever is simplest! I don't really understand this green template that asks me to first go somewhere else and delete a talk page, then use the reverse arrow (not explained to me, I figured it out) to go back to the green box, then hit Edit and remove a line of text, then hit Save, then go somewhere else and do something. What a kludge! Have either of you heard of Rube Goldberg and Heath Robinson? One was 'Merkin, the other Brit, and both exactly the same. The two of them must have collaborated on this weird apparatus. I tell you frankly: if there were other functioning Constables here to do some of this stuff, I would simply refuse to spend my time trying to figure all of this stuff out. If it gets any more complicated, I'll just bug out.... Hayford Peirce 22:47, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, Hayford. I don't have a better idea how to solve the problem that the main page is listed instead of the talk page. A good solution needs serious changes in how CZ is organized, and this will need a lot of work ... and a working EC.

What is simpler? I do not know what is simpler for you. Whatever you say.

You need not go back to remove the template. You also can remove the line with the template first and then go to the talk page to delete it. The order does not matter. --Peter Schmitt 23:08, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

I keep saying over and over, and apparently no one believes me, I will NOT remove a page unless there is an actual Speedy Delete Template on it. If there are three layers of pages within a single cluster to delete, then I want to see a Template on each and every one of them. I got tired of deleting pages and then being told that I wasn't supposed to delete *that* one. No more. Please. I'm not a computer guru or a rocket scientist, I just want to understand what I'm doing. Hayford Peirce 23:29, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

As far as I know, labeling each page individually is what everyone does, the only problem being that talk pages are not displayed separately in the deletion category. Specifically to address this problem, the DeleteTalk template was created. For further discussion, please use the forum. --Daniel Mietchen 23:35, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Nobody wants you to delete a page without template. We are just discussing how to make it as simple for you as possible. The reason: Daniel made a slight change, as you know, and we discuss if this change is an improvement. --Peter Schmitt 23:40, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Religion and pseudoscience

I saw you revert my deletion at Creationism. I wonder if we are talking about the same thing?

If a religion, such as Hinduism, says that God has blue skin and loves cows, shall we call this idea "pseudoscience"? How about if a movie reviewer says that Avatar has an interesting plot?

In general, where do we draw the line between calling something pseudoscience and simply recognizing that it's completely unrelated to science? --Ed Poor 01:49, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Pseudoscience, to me, is when scientific evidence (be it theoretical or experimental) is challenged on non-scientific grounds. This seems to be the case with creationism, which challenges radiometric measurements of the age of the Earth with guesstimates derived from ancient scripts.

The generalization to all religious statements, or to all of theology, is yours — as long as there is no scientific evidence for the existence of God, it is probably fair to say that the scientific community will gladly leave the debate on whether God has a skin, and of what colour, to the religious community.

--Daniel Mietchen 19:55, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Okay, thanks for the clarification. --Ed Poor 23:57, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Idea for experiment

I'm wondering about whether the "subpages system" (related articles, definitions, bibliography on separate pages as you know) hurts CZ's web presence. But I'm wondering if there's a way to test this somehow. Like, if we use current articles there would be too much history and other random variables in there (length of time, last Google crawl, etc). But suppose we create two entirely fictitious articles -- like with nonsense names -- with the exact same number of letters; and say on the page that it's just a test (in case anybody else sees it). And we google the made-up article title names to make sure they're indeed obscure. Next, with one article we create a thicket based on subpages. With the second article, we create a thicket of feeder articles (perhaps with just a number after the title name; so if the article title is Xrjslfffs, then the feeder articles may be Xrjslfffs1 Xrjslfffs2 Xrjslfffs3 etc. We'd try as best we could to make both thickets equal, by creating at the same time. Then after a month, we do a PageRank analysis and see which one had a higher score. Wondering what you think? I'm curious as to what would result. If you think it's a good experiment do I have to get permission from anybody first b4 doing it? Or put some kind of message on the articles so they don't get fussed with (and no redirects or wikilinks to them allowed etc). --Thomas Wright Sulcer 12:14, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

I do not think a Xrjslfffs series would be tolerated in the main namespace, and the experiment wouldn't make sense elsewhere. So you have to rethink if you wish to go that way. Good candidates, in my eyes, would be drugs or other things that come in different name variants. Definitely needs more thought before you start. --Daniel Mietchen 12:47, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

I have started Jelly bear research and Jelly-bear research on April 1 and set myself the date of May 5 to review the matter. So I suggest you do your experiment on them or related articles (Gummi bear and Gummy bear would be a suitable pair too, and certainly a legitimate topic) if you are still inclined to do so, and I am available for further comment. --Daniel Mietchen 02:54, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

Great idea. I have no idea how the hyphen character (-) influences google crawlers, or whether they ignore it, so I'm wondering whether differences between Jelly bear research versus Jelly-bear research would be a result of the hyphen or would some crawls thinking they're identical (?). Or would it be better to compare: Jelly bear research versus Gummi bear research or are the terms too different? Wondering what your thinking is about this.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 12:06, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

Finding out about how the crawlers handle hyphens and composites is part of the preparation of the experiment. "Waste water treatment", "Waste-water treatment" and "Wastewater treatment" give an idea. Probably nothing wrong with including Gummi bear research or similar synonyms (the "research" part may easily be dropped if it's too difficult to write about, but "gummy+bear" there are some scholarly references, and I am trying to track down another one. --Daniel Mietchen 19:31, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm wondering if the whole hyphen issue can be avoided, because it might be one more variable which influences the results; and rather than exploring how it affects crawlers, maybe it can be avoided entirely? (Or will it affect results anyway somehow?) But a bigger question I have is regarding articles wikilinking to the main articles -- for example, if Gummi bear research is the main article, and I need to come up with, say, 20 articles pointing to it, then what names can I give them -- Gummi bear research in India, Gummi bear research in the United States, Gummi bear research in Austria etc with 17 more countries? Or will this skew the results. The idea is to have a matching second thicket that only is different in that the wikilinks happen on the "related articles" pages, not on the front page (or main article page like Wikipedia does). So the second thicket would be exactly the same, but instead of Gummi bear research, it would be Jelly bear research (main article) plus 20 "thicket" articles. They'd be launched roughly the same day (so time-of-launch wouldn't be a distorting factor hopefully). And then waiting a month and checking PageRank. Would this work? And would it be conclusive and persuasive?--Thomas Wright Sulcer 20:20, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

The need to have something pointing to the test articles was what caused me to suggest that the jelly bear level may be more suited - shouldn't be too hard to find 20 useful topics to point there. One such pair certainly wouldn't be conclusive, but once we have one in place, it shouldn't be too hard to come up with others, and after about ten or 20 or so, a pattern will emerge. This is another reason why the topics should all be legitimate. --Daniel Mietchen 19:09, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

If you can specify a test approach which will establish whether subpages confuse the crawlers, then let's do it. I don't think it has to be "conclusive" but rather "suggestive", but that as much as possible, we remove any extraneous variables, and focus the experiment on the effect of the subpage system on the PageRank of CZ articles. My continuing concern is that the requirement "all test articles must be legitimate" will distort the experiment. For example, I don't know whether "Jelly bear research" ranks higher than "Gummi bear research", or whether there might be some kind of interaction between 10 or 20 feeder articles (which also have to be "legitimate") and either of these two topics. I'm concerned that differing legitimate topic titles on the 20 may have some other impact, or introduce other noise into the experiment. My sense is few, if any, people read Citizendium, and an obscure test topic (which is labeled as a "test" in case anybody bumps into it) won't hurt CZ's reputation, since even fewer people, if any, will bump into the test articles compared to "real" CZ articles, and if they do wander on to a test page, there will be a notice on the page that it's only a test. Further, the test articles would be removed in a month or so anyway after the experiment.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 13:17, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

How about this as an experiment: two main articles for comparison would be these: Jelly bear research test1 and Jelly bear research test2. For each main article, there would be 20 feeder articles which point to the main one. The 20 feeder articles would be something like this: Jelly bear research testONEa, Jelly bear research testONEb ... (18 more). On each of these test articles there would be a wikilink on the main article page pointing to the article Jelly bear research test1. And these 20 feeder articles would have NO subpages, no definition pages, no metadata page. The second set's feeder articles would be: Jelly bear research testTWOa Jelly bear research testTWOb etc (18 more). And these 20 articles would have subpages with the "related articles" page having a wikilink to the main article Jelly bear research test2. But there would be no wikilinks on the main article-space parts of the two articles pointing to the article Jelly bear research test2. The idea would be to compare two different approaches to inter-linking between articles -- direct wikilinks on the article-space (the Wikipedia way) with indirect wikilinks using the "R" template on subpages (the Citizendium way), and to try to remove any extraneous variables. Additional precautions include: monitoring all 42 articles for the "what links here" page -- to make sure that CZ contributors don't put links on other articles to any of the test pages, including the main ones as well as the feeder ones, and to encourage people (via the forums) not to talk about the test but rather ignore it.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 13:17, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

And I'm wondering whether 20 feeder articles would be sufficient. It may take 50 or perhaps 100 articles to magnify any differences, but I realize this will take work (and add to deleting fuss after the experiment is over). What is your thinking about this? If you feel the requirement that "all articles must be legitimate" is too important, then I'm wondering what alternative experiment you might suggest that would still give us good results; it's hard for me to imagine what the 20 other article topics would be that wouldn't introduce more noise into the experiment.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 13:17, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

As long as all these test articles are legitimate, I see the experiment covered by CZ:Being Bold. If any of them is not, any Citizen can label it for deletion, which Constables will do. If you are uncomfortable with jelly bear research (which still smells of its April 1 origin), then we can think of another thicket. British and American English#Vocabulary gives a list of other possibilities, and anything that can be written with or without hyphen would qualify as well. Many chemical substances (especially drugs) have multiple names, and so do biological species. The choice is your's — jelly bear research was just one suggestion, and certainly not the best possible one. --Daniel Mietchen 20:05, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

(outdent) Thanks for your thinking. I may keep thinking about this, but at the time I think I'll put it on the back burner, and work on other stuff. If the editorial committee begins to function and there is an urge to explore the issue of whether the subpage system confuses the crawlers, I'll be glad to help. Right now I'm working on articles related to Aeneid and seeing whether I can get web exposure.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 21:07, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

Sure, do whatever fits your interests better. But please keep in mind that using CZ:Subpages is the current standard. Also, please remember filling in the credit line for images you upload. --Daniel Mietchen 23:13, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

OK, thanks. I tried out the CZ:Start Article thing, but then I realized this makes the task of doing the metadata & related pages to others. So, I guess what I'll do is create the article and metadata page with the categories, and begin the talk page. When I get into the routine, it goes quickly. But the other pages I may or may not do depending on how much time I have. About the "credit line of the images" -- I have no idea how to do this. I thought I was filling in all the required fields. Are you talking about when I upload the image? Or, is it immediately after the image is uploaded, there's another step? Sorry if I've been doing it incorrectly.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 01:15, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes, if you follow CZ:Start Article, you can leave the metadata setup to others, and they will be able to find these pages. If you are comfortable with setting the metadata up, please do. The credit line can be filled in by clicking on the "Please click here to add the credit line" link on the page of any image for which it has not been filled in yet. --Daniel Mietchen 01:35, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

large delete

Hi Daniel, you made a pretty big delete here. Don't forget to discuss it on the talk page. Thanks, D. Matt Innis 12:02, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm fine with the changes. I thought it might help the article Panton Principles get more Google Juice but the higher principle is excellence in content.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 12:08, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

You were both faster than I could rework that passage, and I have commented, as usual, on the talk page. Google juice, by the way, is a common term that might well deserve its own page here. --Daniel Mietchen 12:19, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Wrote Google Juice will put in redirects soon.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 12:25, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Ah, sorry for jumping in too quick! The end result looks good, thanks. D. Matt Innis 23:56, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Regarding Coal-fired power plant (disambiguation)

Daniel, there already is a Power plant (disambiguation) page which I created in 2008 and which is much more all-encompassing. Do you believe that we need Coal-fired power plant (disambiguation) as well? Could we not simply add "Coal-fired power plant" to the 2008 DAB? I don't mind having both DABs but just wonder if we need them both. Milton Beychok 19:54, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

No, not needed. Fixed it, along with a general restructuring from Power plant (disambiguation) downwards. Please check. Thanks! --Daniel Mietchen 20:03, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Daniel, I like what you have done. Only one thing: the lemma article, Electric power plant, has this in it:

"Coal-fired power plant [r]: Please do not use this term in your topic list, because there is no single article for it. Please substitute a more precise term. See Coal-fired power plant (disambiguation) for a list of available, more precise, topics. Please add a new usage if needed."

Since Coal-fired power plant (disambiguation) will soon be speedily deleted (as you requested), then perhaps the last two sentences should read:

See the list of available, more precise, topics just below. Please add a new usage if needed. Milton Beychok 23:51, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

No. Once the disambiguation page is deleted, the definition will be transcluded instead of the note you quoted, just like in a normal lemma. Can you do the Related Articles for these other types? I am a bit on shaky ground there. Thanks! --Daniel Mietchen 23:58, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for telling me about using a capital D

Daniel, thanks very much for solving my dilemma with creating lemma articles. (:>) By the way, do you ever sleep? Milton Beychok 22:38, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Possibly yes. --Daniel Mietchen 22:58, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Ubuntu CZ Clone

I've left a comment on CZ Talk:Technical/How to set up a CZ clone on Ubuntu regarding your recent change to it. I'd appreciate your views, especially if I'm wrong! --Chris Key 20:02, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks

Hi Daniel,

Thanks for doing this [1] I was starting to wonder if that template would ever be used...but was hesitant to just do it myself for reasons which I suspect are obvious. BTW, you mention an overhaul of the "system" in the Vanadium Talk page. If you have specific suggestions (like adding Copernicium for instance) I'd be willing to listen...oh and thanks also for fixing the Vanadium spelling--David Yamakuchi 22:27, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Hi David, thanks for adding Cn. The overhaul I have in mind involves replacing your sets of single-item pages by one central metadata-like page for each element. This will require some template coding effort though, and I don't know when I will find time to work on that. If you see a way to do that, please go ahead (with a template named other than PTofE, and preferably on the test wiki). --Daniel Mietchen 01:38, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

Daniel, I don't want to be disagreeable, but I've already tried it. It makes sense to me (and apparently everyone else too) since it is simplest. However, it does not work! Perhaps you will think of a way.

Here's what I tried:

With all the properties of Iron in a single template, I found that even a simple Iron/Properties table could not be built with the "switch" method used for {{metadata}} without significant bloat.

Here's why:

When the melting point is needed, the server must "load" (into memory) the entire file... boiling point, density, atomic number, CAS#, etc., etc., etc., ...then "switch" through to the datum that is needed. If the next entry in the table is for boiling point lets say, now *all* the properties must be loaded again and sorted through! Then for density, etc. etc.

In mathematical/computer science/wiki terms, the "pre-expand size" grows at a rate of n squared, with n being the number of properties. This works OK for a SMALL number of properties. When I tried to build a simple table for Iron which has a lot of known properties, it blew up...fast. CZ actually limits the pre-expand size of templates such that the PTofE is not even possible. Just think of all the properties that would have to be "loaded" to build it! Every density; boiling point; melting point; triple point; etc., even if we just want to see the atomic numbers.

I'm sorry it's complicated and doesn't work the way folks want it to, but there it is. I wanted it to work. But it just doesn't with the current wikimedia software. If you can describe a way it will, I'll help.--David Yamakuchi 16:42, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

Whoops! I meant I tried it with Lead, not Iron [2]. And there was no test wiki when I was working on this in 2008.--David Yamakuchi 17:09, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation. I was concerned about pre-expansion size too, but hadn't tested it yet. This is an important point to consider. --Daniel Mietchen 20:38, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

minor Japanese note

"いらっしゃいませ" is more for welcoming customers to shops. "Citizendiumへようこそ。" is better. Thanks for the article suggestions. I will take a look. Richard Feicht 02:40, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

わかりました。十年間に　日本語を　話ませんでした。ありがとう。--Daniel Mietchen 07:53, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

Bot rights

As you may know, I am currently working on a proposal for the overhaul of the user rights systems. I see that you are currently listed as the contact for the draft Bot policy and would therefore like your opinion on which rights a bot would require. I will obviously be doing a lot of research into the issue myself, but would like your thoughts on it. --Chris Key 22:39, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

I'm afraid there is no general answer to this and would prefer bot accounts to be treated as other users and sorted into the categories (Editor, Template/Interface designer, Technical etc.) as anyone else, according to the actual needs (with the possible exception of the Housekeeping Bot, all bots are supposed to get their own task-specific account). So, in terms of your scheme, no need for a "bot" column. --Daniel Mietchen 23:04, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

That wouldn't work in the scheme I am proposing, as quite obviously no-one will ever elect a Bot to be a member of the EC for example! Therefore a Bot would only ever be a User and possibly a Interface Developer at a stretch. Also, bot's do require some rights such as 'bot' and 'markbotedits'. I will do some research into it... I'm sure that I can come up with a list or two of rights that most bots would need, and it can always be changed later. --Chris Key 23:12, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

You are right about the bot flag, which is enough to justify a separate group, and splitting things into what is currently sysop/ no sysop makes sense, with details to be discussed. The possibility to be hidden in Recent Changes could possibly also be useful for other groups (think Template or Interface). The argument about the elections misses the point, however, because bots could simply be made ineligible for those groups of user rights, just as Authors are ineligible for the Managing Editor, and everyone except Larry for Founder. By the way, I like the way you set up and structure the scheme — very convenient as a source for discussion and implementation. --Daniel Mietchen 01:14, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Template:Bot-created related article subpage

On Template:Bot-created related article subpage you said "This is a template I am currently testing. Documentation or speedydelete to follow in due course (and if I haven't done this within a week from now, please remind me — thanks!). Daniel Mietchen 10:59, 8 January 2010 (UTC)". Consider yourself reminded! --Chris Key 19:09, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the reminder. I added documentation. There are a couple of such not fully documented templates around, and I usually fill them in either immediately or when someone else stumbles upon them for the first time. If you start a new template, please use the inputboxes in CZ:Templates, which will preformat template and documentation according to CZ standards. --Daniel Mietchen 19:29, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

You're right. A quick search brings up these, many of them are yours. I am sure there are many more.

# Template:Okina

# Template:TlDoc/preload

# Template:Lemma-message

# Template:Lemma-title

# Template:Subst

# Template:Presentation

# Template:English spellings/Lists of common misspellings/Instructions

# Template:Search link

# Template:CategoryTOC extended

# Template:User competence biophysics

# Template:User competence language

# Template:User competence

# Template:Light gray

# Template:Subpages1

# Template:Ptcl1

# Template:Ptcl-message

# Template:Volkpages

# Template:R EZ

# Template:Cite CZ

--Chris Key 20:43, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Please join with me in urging Hayford not to resign

Daniel, see my plea to Hayford not to resign as Constable (on his Talk page). Please join me! Milton Beychok 19:59, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Nomination for approval Vapor-compression refrigeration

Daniel, would you please review Vapor-compression refrigeration and, if you think it worthy, nominate it for approval? Thanks, Milton Beychok 19:28, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

I will do what I can but this is way off my specialties, so it will take a while, and I still have Earth's atmosphere as well as supercooling and Water#Supercooling on my list. --Daniel Mietchen 19:35, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

Regarding the photo of the Three Gorges Dam in China

Daniel, I just received an email response from Eric Stollien (the real name of the photo's author) with permission to use the photo for non-commercial purposes. I have now corrected the photo's attribution credit line accordingly. Milton Beychok 16:21, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

MediaWiki extension: Collection

Daniel,

As you probably know, MediaWiki Foundation partnered with PediaPress to render PDF or print books comprising a collection of pages in a wiki. The extension is called 'Collection' (see http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Collection). WP has it installed. I myself would use it to make printed paperbacks of collections of CZ articles on specific topic domains for distribution to friends. What do you think?

See also: http://pediapress.com/ Anthony.Sebastian 03:03, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

I like both the idea of PediaPress and of generally improving non-wiki output (which this extension seems to do fine for PDF). For the extension, please start a thread in the technical forum to see what others think. Thanks! --Daniel Mietchen 15:49, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

I started the topic: http://forum.citizendium.org/index.php/topic,3191.0.html  —Anthony.Sebastian 00:39, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your help with the Jonathan Gray application

Daniel, I just want to let you know that I appreciate your concern and help with the Jonathan Gray application. I am waiting for a final decision by Matt. If he says go ahead and approve the application and Jonathan can change his email address afterwards, I will approve Jonathan immediately and personally email him to let him know. The CZ software will probably send the approval confirmation to the incorrect pkfn.org address ... that's why I will personally notify him. Milton Beychok 17:59, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

Would appreciate your advice

Daniel, in 1992, our U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration promulgated the "Process Safety Management" (PSM) regulation which applies to so-called "Highly Hazardous Chemicals". I am quite familiar with it and plan to write an article about it.

However, many other countries have similar regulations, and I am *not* familiar with them. So my planned article will be highly U.S. centric (just as is the article about the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency).

My question is: should I entitle my article as (a) "Process Safety" and include a brief section mentioning the existence of similar regulations in other countries or (b) "Process Safety Management (United States)" and make no mention of regulations in other countries? What would you suggest I do? Milton Beychok 04:38, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

I suggest a two-layered approach: Put a brief general introduction into Process safety — or perhaps Process safety (chemistry) — and then use Process Safety Management (United States) for the US perspective, building on the former. --Daniel Mietchen 12:14, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

If I understand you correctly, you suggest two articles and I agree. I will write Process Safety Management (United States) first and then write the shorter and simpler Process Safety. Thanks, Milton Beychok 22:46, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Site maintainance notice

Hi Daniel. Wouldn't it be preferable to use the sitenotice/anonnotice feature to display the site maintainance notice? This will cause the notice to be invisible to non-Citizens, and would cause it to appear at the top of every page, rather than under the page title of articles. See the test wiki for what it would look like. --Chris Key 19:07, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Sure, that's better — go ahead! I simply can't edit in the Mediawiki namespace, so I did what I thought to be the next best thing, and didn't want to bother a Cop. --Daniel Mietchen 19:45, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Done --Chris Key 19:59, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! --Daniel Mietchen 20:23, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Bot request - jogging Category:Pages with too many expensive parser function calls

Daniel, please could you see my post on the forums at this link. My experience in programming Bots is precisely zero, so I could use the opinion (and perhaps programming skills if you have the time) of someone with an interest in this area. --Chris Key 17:12, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

I think

python add_text.py -cat:Pages_with_too_many_expensive_parser_function_calls -text:" " -summary:"Test edit:Category jog for [[:Category:Pages with too many expensive parser function calls]]."

will add a space at the end of each page in that category and should do the trick.

Can't test this right now, as I am traveling, but getting the permission to run this script will take time anyway — can you arrange for that? Will try to do the test edits when I get a stable internet connection, but this won't be before tomorrow night. --Daniel Mietchen 19:19, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks Daniel. I'll do what I can to get approval (pending successful test edits) by the time you have a stable connection. Safe travels. --Chris Key 19:50, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

We have permission from Dan Nessett to perform test edits on the test wiki only (not the live wiki). Once these are done we need to get further permission from Matt Innis. We must ensure that the bot only does a null edit, and then as long as me, you and Dan are satisfied I believe that Matt will give approval as he has already looked at the discussion (see his comments). --Chris Key 21:30, 4 June 2010 (UTC)