User talk:D. Matt Innis/Archive 5

D. Matt Innis

Current talk page

Archive 1, Archive 2, Archive 3, Archive 4, Archive 5, Archive 6, Archive 7, Archive 8, Archive 9, Archive 10

Fossilization

Do i really have to re-approve the article? As far as I can tell I have approved the article (in an earlier version) - I know that some people have removed that approval or changed its temporal date but surely it should now just go through? Really, what has been going on is additions to an approved article - we've just allowed it to take the form of ongoing edits when it really should have been edits to the approved draft template??

Lee R. Berger 11:32, 23 February 2008 (CST)

Good points, which are of course out of my purview. According to our current CZ:Approval Process rules, had the template remained on the page until the approval date, I would have been obligued to approve the version that was on the approval template that you had approved. But since Nereo removed it before that date, I never had that chance. Thus we are left unapproved. I think you still have a few options available to you, including approving the version that you orginally approved and approving the current version. But I technically can't approve it until an editor tells me. We can always look to tweak the rules through the Editorial Council and/or Proposal system, that way all the pros and cons can be weighed (i.e. some editors may have good reasons not to change it), but I can't make that decision. However, I will pass this by Larry, to make sure that I have interpreted things appropriately! Keep an eye on this page. D. Matt Innis 12:33, 23 February 2008 (CST)

If I understand the question right, it is this: if editor E approves version v1 of an article, and people make (we hope) good changes to v1, creating version v2, then does the E have to approve v2 separately, or is v2 automatically approved by E? I think the current rules state that E has to approve v2 separately. But we should make it as easy as possible for E to make this extra approval, when necessary. For example, we should send E a "tinyurl.com" version of the diff page for the v1-to-v2 edits. This needs to be generated automatically...the whole system needs to be automated.

We can do this, though: we can allow editors to issue a "blanket approvals," which if I'm not mistaken is what Lee wants to do. If an editor agrees, then his or her earlier approval "automatically carries over" to future versions of articles, on some condition. For example, if one editor explicitly approves an article, and two others have declared that their approvals are automatic, then it just takes that one editor's approval to approve the article. I think we could adopt such a rule, although we should put it in front of the Approval and Feedback group (which hasn't quite started up yet). --Larry Sanger 15:40, 25 February 2008 (CST)

Re your edits of approval process

Matt: Your edits help a lot, certainly 'adequate', to use your term. I tried some language tweaking for the really simple-minded, me as model. Check http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/CZ:Approval_Process#Instructions_for_finding_the_current_version_number to see if I made it worse. --Anthony.Sebastian 21:51, 25 February 2008 (CST)

I got a little confused about 'version number' vs. 'article URL', so assumed 'version number' embedded in 'URL'. --Anthony.Sebastian 21:51, 25 February 2008 (CST)

Please review Talk:Dog/draft

Matt: I nominated Dog/Draft for approval, as you know. Now Aleta Curry, a major author of the article, has added her name to the nomination. Not sure that kosher. Will check out my correspondence to her at http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Talk:Dog/Draft#Nomination_banner_up_for_Dog.2FDraft. Let me know what you think I should do next. Thanks.

BTW: Thanks for involving me in the approval process editing. And thanks for showing me how to archive my Talk page. --Anthony.Sebastian 14:23, 26 February 2008 (CST)

Archiving question

Matt: How would I go about archiving my personal sandbox: http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/User:Anthony.Sebastian/SebastianSandbox? --Anthony.Sebastian 14:45, 26 February 2008 (CST)

Thanks, Matt. Perhaps archiving only available for Talk pages?? --Anthony.Sebastian 20:32, 26 February 2008 (CST)

Interesting idea. Sad it did not work. I admire your perseverance. --Anthony.Sebastian 21:36, 26 February 2008 (CST)

Thanks! It's one of my better faults ;-) D. Matt Innis 21:38, 26 February 2008 (CST)

Articles about books

Matt, is there any policy about writing articles about books? In particlular, I am interested in technical books (physics, math, chemistry, engineering, etc. If writing such articles is not frowned upon, does CZ have a book article infobox such as the one that Wikipedia has? {{infobox book}}

Hi Milton, this depends. According to our current policies, the only things that you need to keep in mind when making such a decision is CZ:Maintainability and CZ:Neutrality Policy. Read those sections and see if you think your idea fits these descriptions, if so, you are welcome to go at it! As far as the infobox, as far as I know, there are no written rules concerning them. I've seen some workgroups working with some and other workgroups shying away from them, so it depends on the workgroup. I'd suggest finding editors and see what they want to do. Do take a look at the discussion on the Biology workgroup, it seems I do remember a discussion about copyrights on a WP infobox, but don't remember how it ended up. I know this is a little non-committal, but I wouldn't want to guide you improperly, so feel free to be bold and creative. Hope this helps! By the way, I think Robert has made some really good infoboxes! D. Matt Innis 19:57, 27 February 2008 (CST)

I'm not a rocket scientist like Milton, so I can't write about *his* kind of books, but I did write an article about a pretty good Matt Helm book called The Interlopers a while ago. No one raised any objections to it.... I also wrote an article about Mr. Calder and Mr. Behrens, two fictional characters who appeared in a couple of books. Ditto for Matt Helm, of course....Hayford Peirce 20:05, 27 February 2008 (CST)

Led Zeppelin/Catalogs

Matt, sorry to trouble you but would you be able to restore that page? I was going to add some information to it that I can't approriately fit elsewhere within the article. Thanks. Meg Ireland 00:18, 3 March 2008 (CST)

Thanks for all your help Matt. I appreciate it. Meg Ireland 16:41, 4 March 2008 (CST)

Catching up

Just noticed your comments about nicknames on the Life talk page. So if I edit my preferences I lose my talk link? That's a bummer. Was it removed to prevent outrageous signature or just came along with the upgrade? Chris Day (talk) 15:53, 3 March 2008 (CST)

I missed the policy change about talk links, too. Personally, I think the talk link should be mandatory in signatures. Anthony Argyriou 17:31, 3 March 2008 (CST)

Hi guys, Yes, Chris, that is exactly what will happen. I'm not sure when it changed. I know we were talking about getting rid of the nicknames because people were not using their real names, but it could have dissappeared with an upgrade as well. I agree that it is a pain to click on a name and then have to switch to the talk page. Maybe we can get the software to automatically add the 'Talk' to the end? -D. Matt Innis 08:51, 4 March 2008 (CST)

Or even just have the name link to the talk page. Chris Day (talk) 09:25, 4 March 2008 (CST)

NMR active elements

The dilemma here, as elsewhere, is that there are only two editors at CZ capable of approving articles about NMR, and unfortunately, Paul did a little work on this page. I had intended the article to just be a list or catalog, but then others chimed in with text. The only solution I see is to leave it unapproved, or I remove all text other than the actual table, which I did all myself. A third option I suppose is to email the chem and phys editors list and fish for others. The list of elements is easily verified on the external links given. David E. Volk 09:08, 4 March 2008 (CST)

Couldn 't the table be a catalog? Which article? Chris Day (talk) 09:26, 4 March 2008 (CST)

David, I agree your options are workable (as well as Chris's). Certainly, the more eyes on the article the better, but not always necessary. I think that the important thing is that you end up with an article that everyone feels they can support. You are much more capable of knowing where each choice will bring the article, so I trust you will make the best decision. --D. Matt Innis 09:37, 4 March 2008 (CST)

NAMING: I have been torn by the name from the start, and have been leaning towards "Catalog of magnetic nuclei" or "Catalog of magnetic elements" as the most descriptive, preferring the first. I think I will go ahead and change it now :). I have also sent out an email to the physics and chemistry workgroups. David E. Volk 10:15, 4 March 2008 (CST)

See Anthony reply to your generous offer

Matt: see http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Talk:Life/Draft#Approval. At end of Talk page. --Anthony.Sebastian 16:39, 10 March 2008 (CDT)

Approval Prowess

Matt, thanks for your "Approval Prowess" and pushes. :) David E. Volk 08:41, 11 March 2008 (CDT)

That was fun

Yeah, it's not too hard (especially if you don't have overlapping edit history to deal with - that makes it a cast-iron bitch). Glad you managed that OK - cut-and-paste moves seem to be somewhat popular (someone else did one a couple of days ago) so you may get more practise.. :-( J. Noel Chiappa 22:16, 11 March 2008 (CDT)

Move Tallong, please

Per discussion on forum, we should only give location in the title if disambiguation needed. I actually agree with this, it'll make things much simpler. Accordingly, I'd like to move Tallong, New South Wales to Tallong.

However--

I went to Tallong and removed the redirect, which I apparently should not have done, because now the page has "history" and I cannot effect the move. Altogether too complicated, so I am hereby dumping it in someone else's lap--yours! Aren't ya glad? Don't ya just love me?

Also, there will be that whole how-to-move-subpages mess because I don't remember anyone actually changing things so that subpages move automatically? They don't, do they?

Bye now.

Aleta Curry 00:41, 13 March 2008 (CDT)

Hmmm, sounds interesting, I'll take a look. --D. Matt Innis 11:57, 13 March 2008 (CDT)

Okay, so basically it wouldn't let you move it because you are not alllowed to delete, right? I think I took care fo the article, though I do need to find an easier way to take care of moving the metadata templates. I'll let you fill it back out again :-) And yes, you know I love ya! --D. Matt Innis 12:12, 13 March 2008 (CDT)

Hey, I just figured out it is better to 'move' the metadata page first and then move the article! Make sure and move the metadata page first, otherwise it brings up that messy green box that asks you to create one. It should be sooo simple! We need a new one to try it on... got one? --D. Matt Innis 12:18, 13 March 2008 (CDT)

Can't think of one offhand, but I'm sure there is. The memory banks are soooo poor...let's see....Aleta Curry 16:55, 13 March 2008 (CDT)

more - subpages

So, I am perfectly willing to go in and move the subpages by cutting-and-pasting one by one.

Is that the way it should be done? Doesn't that leave a nasty hole where the subpages *used* to be?

Interestingly, the note in the main article (See the [debate guide] still links to Tallong, New South Wales/Debate Guide, which is where all the subpages live at present, BUT if you click on the main article tab from the subpages, you redirect to Tallong ta-da!

Aleta Curry 17:05, 13 March 2008 (CDT)

Please, don't ever use cut-n-paste to move any page! Not only does it chop up the history, but it's simpler/faste to use the "move" tab anyway! Alas, at the moment you have to move each sub-page individually (except the talk: page); I'm not sure how easy that would be to fix (long technical yammering elided).

The behaviour you mention is probably due to the redirect left at Tallong, New South Wales; you can see it here. (In such cases, the top of the page will have a little "(Redirected from XYZ)" just underneath the title, to let you know what happened. J. Noel Chiappa 17:23, 13 March 2008 (CDT)

And the reason the main article still linked to 'Debate Guide' was that that was 'hard-coded' in the source of the main article. I have fixed that, and moved all the other subpages for you, and tagged all the useless redirects (from the old subpages - not the one for the article itself) with {{speedydelete}}, 'cause we don't need 'em anymore. J. Noel Chiappa 18:33, 13 March 2008 (CDT)

If you do a move (see tab at top of page) the old page will be automatically redirected to the new page. This means no hole. I advise you move the subpages first including approval page. Then move the metadata page (it's important to change the pagename field to the exact new name) and finally the article page. At least I think this was the order that led to the least amount of confusion. Hopefully someone will code a script to do this automatically with one click ease. Chris Day (talk) 17:35, 13 March 2008 (CDT)

Chris, might be tricky; I'm not sure Special:MovePage can take all the necessary arguments (old and new name, etc) - although see this, so maybe someday it will. J. Noel Chiappa 18:33, 13 March 2008 (CDT)

I'm back. Thanks Chris and Noel for chiming in.

Yes, I'm pretty familiar with moving the old way--i.e. pre-subpages. It's the cluster that is doing me in.

I guess the only thing I would say as a layperson moving subpages one-by-one before moving anything else is the increased margin for error. Typing the name of the article incorrectly, putting a slash in the wrong place, upper/lower case inconsistency in long titles, that sort of thing. I can see 'new' subpages all over the d*d place!

Noel, thank for doing the moves this time round!

Aleta Curry 19:36, 13 March 2008 (CDT)

Whew, that was fun ;-) Sorry, Aleta, I forgot about the subpages, but it is good to see some real help show up! --D. Matt Innis 20:50, 13 March 2008 (CDT)

I could do even more with a janitor's mop! :-) Actually, maybe I should seriously suggest the addition of 'Janitors' as a class, along with Constables.

Aleta, glad to help. Trust me, none of us is happy that moving a cluster is such a lot of work, but for technical reasons it may not be easy to automate it - at least, unless we deploy more powerful tools. Chris has done absolute wonders with templates to get as much cluster stuff done as he has, but there are limits to what one can do with templates. J. Noel Chiappa 21:56, 13 March 2008 (CDT)

Oh, look, I'm not really complaining. It's way cool we can do this much! Aleta Curry 01:49, 14 March 2008 (CDT)

This is actually a very serious issue for CZ. I recently moved a few catalogs into subpages and it was a bit of a hassle. Imagine the task of moving a large cluster with many catalogs, timelines, bibliographies, galleries and so on. Pages are going to get lost. However, thinking about the programming job for making a 'move cluster' script it's daunting. The script would have to search the wiki for all the subpages in that cluster, then rename them all and it would have to do it perfect every time without omissions. I wouldn't try to hack the current move page script. I think it would need something done form scratch. It's a big job but it is one that we are going to have to do ASAP. Derek Harkness 06:15, 14 March 2008 (CDT)

The way to fix it is to somehow along with each subpage cluster (say on the metadata page) keep an "index" of all the current pages within the cluster, and then have a move script that will parse that index. Less searching that way. --Robert W King 09:29, 14 March 2008 (CDT)

I had suggested that earlier, as a way to avoid having to keep a global list of all the possible subpage types. This could be another reason to do it.. except that I'm not sure (see above) if you can move a page from inside a template. J. Noel Chiappa 10:12, 14 March 2008 (CDT)

It all comes down to the issue we need subpages in the hard-code (is that the right term)? Preferably with drop down menu choices for creating new subpages along with popups to give a quick explanation of their role. Chris Day (talk) 14:21, 14 March 2008 (CDT)

Is the searching for subpages a problem? The subpages template does the search quite easily as the names are predicable. The subsubpages are less predicatable but the first two strings are constant. The largest problem I envisage is moving a catalog article to a subsubpage location. The problem here is what to do with any content that may have been created in associated subpages. A move would not work, the content would have to be fused with the new clusters subpages. Chris Day (talk) 09:47, 14 March 2008 (CDT)

I was just responding to Derek. --Robert W King 09:51, 14 March 2008 (CDT)

Me too :) My indent was not clear. Chris Day (talk) 09:55, 14 March 2008 (CDT)

It's very simply: just indent one level from the post you're replying to. That way, if two people reply to the same post, it's obvious. Now, to put my theory into action... :-) ^*&*^$&# You all already know that obviously; sorry, all, I was up late, brain not fully engaged yet. J. Noel Chiappa 10:12, 14 March 2008 (CDT)

Are you saying we'd want to write it in PHP? I would definitely lean that way. How many people do we have who can hack PHP (and know MediaWiki internals), though? J. Noel Chiappa 10:12, 14 March 2008 (CDT)

RNA interference article?

This article RNA interference says to contact a constable, because there are no approving editors listed for this approved page. I see you did the approval earlier and might want to take a second look. David E. Volk 10:43, 14 March 2008 (CDT)

Good catch David! There might be more. Those articles were approved before the subpages were invented. The information is either on the Approval page or the Talk page of the article. Thank goodness this one had a well documented Approval page! --D. Matt Innis 10:57, 14 March 2008 (CDT)

Popups

Noel - yes, by my middle name. (I'm one of those poor souls who has been tortured by lazy programmers. I've often thought of legally changing my first name to "J" - just the single letter - so I can stick my thumb in the eye of bureacrats with forms that want "first name, middle initial".)

Popups (by which I take it you mean "hovers") - no, not yet. I did that "hidden notes" hack, and nobody seemed much interested, so I hadn't tried to investiagate the hovers yet. J. Noel Chiappa 12:30, 14 March 2008 (CDT)

Don't feel dissuaded; I've created tons of things and no one is quick to adopt them. Heck, we still aren't using subpages enough to their potential. --Robert W King 12:36, 14 March 2008 (CDT)

Oh, I'm not bummed out - even if it never gets used, I learned a lot. All I meant was 'with 17 zillion things I'm all trying do, with everything more important than everything else, I'm just gonna move that down the priority list a bit'. J. Noel Chiappa 14:12, 14 March 2008 (CDT)

Please finish the approval of Chemical engineering

Matt, the Chemical engineering article was nominated for approval on March 14 by David Volk and later seconded by Paul Wormer. The final approval date was March 21 (two days ago). Would you please be so kind as to finish the approval process and create the draft page? Thanks in advance, - Milton Beychok 14:01, 23 March 2008 (CDT)

Re: The Category:Chemical Engineering Workgroup

Matt, please read my response to your comment on my Talk page. Thanks, Milton Beychok 19:21, 23 March 2008 (CDT)

Can you delete my messed-up attempt to create a workgroup?

Matt, can you please delete Category:Chemical Engineering Workgroup which I attempted to create but could not finish?

It's no longer needed now that Chris Day has created a chemical engineering sub-workgroup. See here. - Milton Beychok 13:43, 24 March 2008 (CDT)

Matt, just a gentle reminder about deleting my abortive attempt to create the Category:Chemical Engineering Workgroup. And I promise almost never to use acronyms :>) Milton Beychok 18:40, 24 March 2008 (CDT)

I think I got them all Matt. Chris Day 19:05, 24 March 2008 (CDT)

Okay, no more movie breaks for me - looks like you guys never take one! --D. Matt Innis 21:16, 24 March 2008 (CDT)

ROTFL! On the offchance y'all don't know about this, Special:Allpages is useful for making sure've you've got all of a group of strays; in this case, looks like you did. J. Noel Chiappa 14:26, 25 March 2008 (CDT)

Alphabet soup

Huh? Where did I use Wiki-specific acronyms? Are you talking about "BTW"? That's just 'by the way', a common term across the entire e-communication world? Are those undesired too? J. Noel Chiappa 14:06, 24 March 2008 (CDT)

Keep in mind that some of the people that we are asking to participate here have never written anything online. There are some that we are suggesting that they just email us a Word document and we will mark it up into wiki language. The purpose of this rule (though far be it for me to understand why some rules are made), is to make them feel welcome and hopefully feel free to contribute. Do you remember the first time you saw BTW and wondered what it meant? Well, hopefully you see the logic there. Sorry if this caused you any undue concern, it was not meant to. --D. Matt Innis 15:41, 24 March 2008 (CDT)

No, no undue concern, but I was rather confused, because I couldn't work out what had caught your eye! I definitely understand and agree with the appeal not to use things like "NPOV", but it never crossed my mind that something so commonplace as "BTW" would be an issue. Guess I'd better not use any acronyms at all, even things like USAF or UK... :-) J. Noel Chiappa 15:48, 24 March 2008 (CDT)

I hadn't thought of that, but I suppose that there are those that have no idea what you are talking about with USAF. I do hope they know what UK means. Hopefully everyone is familiar with Norway :D --D. Matt Innis 16:09, 24 March 2008 (CDT)

Matt - your statement above would be a good addition to the "Don't spill alphabet soup" policy/guideline explanation. Anthony Argyriou 15:59, 24 March 2008 (CDT)

Good news, sometimes I confuse myself, so it is good to know that you guys follow the logic and the language. Anthony, if you think it will help, go ahead and put it in and feel free to change anything you like. --D. Matt Innis 16:07, 24 March 2008 (CDT)

GJ! NW! Grats. TTFN. --Robert W King 16:15, 24 March 2008 (CDT)

I'm thinking this must be graffiti! Robert, don't make me pull out my big gun :-D --D. Matt Innis 17:10, 24 March 2008 (CDT)

<pokerface=on> What does ":-D" mean? </pokerface> :-) J. Noel Chiappa 14:04, 25 March 2008 (CDT)

Given the context i assume it's some kind of threat, but your guess is as good as mine. Is " :-)" half a threat? Chris Day 18:47, 25 March 2008 (CDT)

This is a triple threat; :-D :-D :-D You've been warned! ;-D --D. Matt Innis 11:36, 26 March 2008 (CDT)

Is that worse than " :-D --D. "?

Ha Ha - you can't make it BLUE! But it is not as bad as :--D. Matt Innis 11:41, 26 March 2008 (CDT)

So is your nose that big in real life? Chris Day 11:48, 26 March 2008 (CDT)

Hey, that's not my NOSE! My nose looks like this :@D --D. Matt Innis 11:53, 26 March 2008 (CDT)

I apologise. All this time I thought your name was "Matt" but now I realise it's "Mutt". So that's a typo in your signature? Chris Day 11:55, 26 March 2008 (CDT)

Hehe, yup :@P

Need another delete, sorry

Hi Matt,

Noel noticed I unintentionally created a blue link to a non-existent article. Would you have a look at THIS 'ERE and delete African-American when you have a mo? Thanks. Aleta Curry 17:53, 25 March 2008 (CDT)

general systems theory

Hi Matt, I started a new article titled general systems theory but somehow it got lost and instead is redirected to systems theory, general. If there is any problem with that title Garenth said he would help me out. Can you please find it for me? Also, I have completed my initial edits in DNA Draft, can you start the re-approval process for me? Thank you Thomas Mandel 20:33, 28 March 2008 (CDT)

Hi Thomas, I found where your article was. Larry deleted it back in December and apparently emailed you a copy. I can undelete it, but it had some neutrality problems, right? Maybe it would be better to start on it on a new user page like User:Thomas Mandel/General systems theory while you work out some of the issues - such as what to name it! Let me know what you decide.

As far as DNA goes, you either need one uninvolved editor or three involved editors to agree to approve it. I would start with the ones that approved it initially, or go to the editor lists and have them take a look. Good luck! --D. Matt Innis 20:56, 28 March 2008 (CDT)

User errors

You didn't like my suggestion to put some useful message on Replace this text with article name and protect the page? J. Noel Chiappa 21:59, 28 March 2008 (CDT)

Actually I did like it, but I was trying to find out where it came from? Is this phrase left over from an old "Start article" page, or is there a place that says this somewhere as a default. --D. Matt Innis 00:45, 29 March 2008 (CDT)

Well, I just did a search of the Mediawiki:, Template: and CZ: namespaces and didn't find it, so I think you're right, it's probably from an old, and now-changed, thingy. If it pops up again, we can do it then. J. Noel Chiappa 10:51, 29 March 2008 (CDT)

Let's keep an eye on this one, too. --D. Matt Innis 10:13, 30 March 2008 (CDT)

Good point. Why don't you go ahead and protect Title goes here? J. Noel Chiappa 13:00, 30 March 2008 (CDT)

Done. --D. Matt Innis 13:57, 30 March 2008 (CDT)

Templates

Matt, that was subtle. For a while now I thought the template needed to be a little less obvious. It just encourages people to scan through the history looking for trouble. Chris Day 22:09, 3 April 2008 (CDT)

I agree we need to rethink. I am on thin ice, but sometimes it's worth the risk. --D. Matt Innis 22:14, 3 April 2008 (CDT)

Not very thin at all, IMO. In fact, I think you're heading away from the thin ice. I concur with the need for a more subtle mechanism. J. Noel Chiappa 00:04, 4 April 2008 (CDT)

Please have a look at my follow-up to the deleted articles by Gordan Feric

Matt, as a follow up to the deletion of the 4 redundant articles by Gordan Feric, I revised the first section (on the Carnot cyle) of his remaining Energy conversion article:

• Revised his 4 images in that section to make them smaller. That allows the images to be located to the right side of the page rather than in the center, so that text can flow down the left side of the page. The result is a shortening of the article length.
• Narrowed the excessive width of his 2 tables in that section so that they could be located side-by-side. The result is a further shortening of the article length.
• Revised his major equations from HTML format to the TeX format.
• Did some rewording.

On the talk page of the Energy conversion article and on Feric's user page, I documented the above revisions and gave him advice about using my revisions as a model for his revising the rest of the article. I would very much appreciate your reading my comments on the article Talk page and giving me your opinion on them. Regards, Milton Beychok 14:51, 6 April 2008 (CDT)

Milton, from an engineering perspective, I have to tell you that - though my father was a project engineer for Westinghouse's Gas turbine division at one point - that is all greek to me :-) However, from my constable perspective, I think you handled that very well and tactfully on the article talk page - which is all we can expect. Do take a look at your talk page, though. There are some comments there that are less than encouraging about our fellow contributor. Otherwise, I think you've got the right idea. --D. Matt Innis 20:40, 6 April 2008 (CDT)

Reverts?

No sure if things at Borderline personality disorder‎ have reached the point where a warning about reverts is needed, but you might want to keep an eye on it. J. Noel Chiappa 16:42, 7 April 2008 (CDT)

Thanks. --D. Matt Innis 21:00, 7 April 2008 (CDT)

Large deletes

Done. Thanks for the lecture. --Michael J. Formica 10:58, 8 April 2008 (CDT)

Thanks, and your welcome ;-) --D. Matt Innis 11:41, 8 April 2008 (CDT)

More cranky contributors

Talk:Uighur captives in Guantanamo is getting a little cranky; not over the line yet, but another one (sigh) you might want to keep an eye on. J. Noel Chiappa 15:27, 10 April 2008 (CDT)

It's on my list. So far so good. Richard and Martin are big boys and as editors know the ropes. As long as they keep the discussion on topic and keep personal issues out of it, they should reach a reasonable conclusion and I won't have to get involved. I applaud George for his good attitude while he probes these issues and forces the decisions, but will work to protect the integrity of his contributions as well. --D. Matt Innis 17:12, 10 April 2008 (CDT)

This person clearly doesn't get it... J. Noel Chiappa 19:35, 11 April 2008 (CDT)

Augustine of Hippo

Hey Matt- Would it be alright for me to just blank the article? I have looked over the entire edit history, and we really haven't done much work on it. I think that, in this case, we would be better served by a severe pruning than slight tweaking. Thanks for your time, either way. Brian P. Long 22:14, 11 April 2008 (CDT)

I have gone over the history for the Augustine page, and as far as I can tell, Citizens have only changed individual words in the article-- there aren't even any sentences or clauses completely written by Citizens. I'm not going to blank the article right off-- I think it would be prudent to wait until I have a reasonable substitute written-- but I just wanted to make sure it would be permissible for me to blank the article. Thanks, Brian P. Long 13:48, 12 April 2008 (CDT)

Sounds like a good plan. I'll back you up. --D. Matt Innis 13:55, 12 April 2008 (CDT)

Another history merge?

Hey, any chance you can indulge me, and merge the history of Guantanamo captive's uniforms/Catalogs into that ofGuantanamo captives' uniforms/Catalogs (delete the latter, move former there, undelete the latter, delete the tombstone redirect left at the former)?

If you're busy, it doesn't have to be a merge; I checked, and the content was the same (other than a minor format change), and there was no significant' history in the former, so it you want to just plain delete the former it's OK.

I really need to get with the program, and move on my suggestion of the creation of a class of users called "janitors" - and get myself made one ASAP, of course :-) - so I can just delete redirects, do history merges, etc without bothering you all! J. Noel Chiappa 12:13, 12 April 2008 (CDT)

Got it. That was an easy one. Surely you can come up with something harder than that! How did that happen anyway? --D. Matt Innis 14:01, 12 April 2008 (CDT)

You don't want to know about the hard ones, trust me! (Did enough of them on WP... some took hours.) No idea why it happened; it's easier to use the "move" tab than cut-and-paste anyway. J. Noel Chiappa 14:51, 12 April 2008 (CDT)

And speaking of merges...oops!

light bulb and lightbulb

Bad Robert for not redirecting variants better!

Bad Aleta for not searching for variants better!

Naughty CZ people, naughty! ...said Aleta Curry (talk) 19:55, 16 April 2008

ROTFL! Now you know why I create bazillions and bazillions of redirects... :-) J. Noel Chiappa 20:17, 16 April 2008 (CDT)

Lol, yeah, but now which one do we want??? --D. Matt Innis 22:28, 16 April 2008 (CDT)

Mine is obviously better, at light bulb. --Robert W King 22:30, 16 April 2008 (CDT)

Yeah, but my intro was better, and the article should actually live at lightbulb, which is a word in English. Ha! Aleta Curry 21:14, 19 April 2008 (CDT)

Deprotect, please

Hi, can you please unprotect Template:Checklist blank? It's no longer used in the current subpages system, and I want to use it in documentation, but it's out-of-date and I need to bring it up to date. J. Noel Chiappa 20:17, 16 April 2008 (CDT)

Got this one. -D. Matt Innis 22:24, 16 April 2008 (CDT)

Thanks! J. Noel Chiappa 22:53, 16 April 2008 (CDT)

Arck! I went to edit it, and it's still protected? J. Noel Chiappa 23:02, 16 April 2008 (CDT)

Hehe, April fool's :-D. Matt Innis 09:04, 17 April 2008 (CDT)

Joker! J. Noel Chiappa 13:25, 17 April 2008 (CDT)

Also Template:Checklist, please; want to mark that one as obsolete. J. Noel Chiappa 23:00, 16 April 2008 (CDT)

Dare to try this one? --D. Matt Innis 09:06, 17 April 2008 (CDT)

OK, they are both good to go now. Thanks! J. Noel Chiappa 13:25, 17 April 2008 (CDT)

What about CZ:The Big Cleanup? Can you please either i) mark it as obsolete, or ii) unprotect it so I can do so (and fix a few other things as well). Thanks! J. Noel Chiappa 15:50, 17 April 2008 (CDT)

Thanks!

Put the notice up there. Thanks for your help! --Brian R. Head 13:31, 17 April 2008 (CDT)

I've done it again. I didn't mean to, but I have. Move and mess up.

Okay, I completely forgot about the disastrous consequences of moving things.

From now on, I'm not moving anything, just putting a note at the talk page.

I moved Darwin's book to On the Origin of Species. I didn't think. I thought this was simple. I've created a mess. It's asking for a metadata page. It's already got a metadata page.

Metadata this, mate! Aleta Curry 21:17, 19 April 2008 (CDT)

Fixed. J. Noel Chiappa 21:27, 19 April 2008 (CDT)

Thanks. I just had a look at what you did. That's an awful lot of steps for one lil move. Aleta Curry 21:37, 19 April 2008 (CDT)

Yeah. Sigh. Eventually we'll get a MediaWiki extension written to do it all automatically, not manually. For now, sigh, it all has to be manual. (And the more subpages in the article, the more steps... :-( J. Noel Chiappa 21:43, 19 April 2008 (CDT)

Just remember - Metadata first! I think that saves a lot of headache. Don't stop trying though, practice makes perfect...  ;-) --D. Matt Innis 21:41, 19 April 2008 (CDT)

Approval due today for Compressibility factor (gases)

Matt: When you have a moment or two, would you take care of this approval? Thanks, Milton Beychok 14:21, 21 April 2008 (CDT)

Removed

It has always been there but was more for documentation on the approval page. There were a few of things that Daniel and Richard did wrong from my perspective, by the way, it's not their fault as the documentation for the process is non existent.

First, Richard should only add his name with three tildes (~~~) to the ToA editor field. Second, he should add the url for the article version he approves with its version number (similar to http://en.citizendium.org/wiki?title=Johannes_Diderik_van_der_Waals/Draft&oldid=100317893). The url for the up to date page (http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Johannes_Diderik_van_der_Waals) is not much use for documentation since it is changing all the time.

When Daniel removed the ToApprove template he should have moved Richard's ToApprove info to the articles approval page. The removed field functions on the approval page in the {{approval}} template, in this case to document that Daniel removed the ToApprove template; note that the {{approval}} template is a reddish color when the removed field is used to denote a failed approval.

Now the approval process starts all over again, this second time successful :) and then the constable, you in this case, updates the approval page with the second approval template. In general it should be rare to remove the ToApprove template rather than hash out differences in the "ToApprove window" (3-4 days or more at the discretion of the approving editor). In this recent example it was probably not needed as Daniel's changes got incorporated within Richards original timeframe and Richard was fine with the changes. The removal template will be much more important for documentation when there is no subsequent approval. Does this make any sense? I'd say we need to rethink this a little to make it more user friendly from the editors perspective AND your perspective. Chris Day 12:41, 29 April 2008 (CDT)

I must admit I'm not familiar with the fine details of the approval process, but to the extent the removed field documents who/when the change was made, isn't that duplicative of the history? So unless you need that data to be able to display it, could it become a simple y/n field?

And yes, we very much need to simplify this process! J. Noel Chiappa 13:13, 29 April 2008 (CDT)

The removed field is not used in the metadata and should probably not appear there. It should only be used on the approval page with the {{approval}} template. The approval page represents a narrative of the process (sort of ) with the links of different version that are more handy than in the history of the metadata. More importantly, it offers the chance for approval notes. Maybe this is not worth the trouble? or at least needs streamlining. i think Matt is in a perfect position to judge what we actually need. Chris Day 13:18, 29 April 2008 (CDT)

I think everything works well from my perspective overall, so only tweaks are needed for me. There needs to be something that the removal= does that alerts everyone that the template is removed.. i.e. remove the template from the top of the page?? It seems to be very difficult for editors to figure out about the diff for the version that they are approving. I have explained this frequently to our same editors and this seems to evade them... I have just begun to use the now= time to figure out what the last version was that they read... can our template do that, too, so that is one less thing the editors have to remember how to do? Other than that, the mechanics are working well, I think Noel and others tend to make the actual instructions for the approval process harder than they actually are. It is basically just the two rules - individual or three editor approval. Everything else is fair play as long as you follow those two rules... --D. Matt Innis 13:34, 29 April 2008 (CDT)

Are you requesting the removed field stays in the metadata page and it activates a warning to all involved by switching the ToApprove to a Removed template? Do you think constables will be able to manage this whole process? The alternative is the editor removing the template then updates the approval page but that might be a pipe dream. Chris Day 13:40, 29 April 2008 (CDT)

the removed field stays in the metadata page and it activates a warning to all involved by switching the ToApprove to a Removed template - This looks like a good idea with one condition - the removed= is always visible but just left blank (like the other fields). I think we constables shoul dbe able to keep an eye on that. --D. Matt Innis 13:52, 29 April 2008 (CDT)

I think the basic concept is pretty simple and well-understood; when I said "simplify this process" I meant the mechanics. E.g. as you point out, editors seem to have a hard time grappling with the need to link to a particular version. J. Noel Chiappa 13:46, 29 April 2008 (CDT)

Yes, I think if we can solve the four tildes issue and the version issue, it will be easier for editors. --D. Matt Innis 13:52, 29 April 2008 (CDT)

CIO

Matt, can you please see Talk:CIO for the approved version? I request that the {{dambigbox}} template be re-added to the top, like it is in the draft. It should not affect the article content. --Robert W King 13:37, 29 April 2008 (CDT)

Robert, I don't see anything particularly wrong with adding back the disambuation template myself, but I would like to hear from the nominating editor... unless I can see somewhere where he had no problem with it earlier.. I'll take a look. --D. Matt Innis 14:28, 29 April 2008 (CDT)

van der Waals doesn't show up in Category:Approved_Articles

Johannes Diderik van der Waals doesn't show up in the workgroup approved categories either. Could that be because the approval notice was removed and then re-placed? --Joe Quick 16:35, 30 April 2008 (CDT)

Probably database lag. It's there now. J. Noel Chiappa 19:45, 30 April 2008 (CDT)

I don't see it? Am I missing something? --D. Matt Innis 21:17, 30 April 2008 (CDT)

Michael Faraday showed up immediately. I'm thinking it may have more to do with the size of the title? --D. Matt Innis 21:50, 30 April 2008 (CDT)

I'd say it is almost certainly lag in the system. Give it a day. Placing categories is very low on the servers priority list (I don't know the lingo here). This was something Zach set ap as CZ was getting very slow for editing and he wanted to get remove some of the load from the system. His name is in the Category:Physics_Workgroup so it cannot be due to the size of the name. Also note that the draft page is also listed and that should not be there, again, it will sort itself out. Chris Day 10:23, 1 May 2008 (CDT)

Ah, I meant 'when I looked at the article, it had the proper categories on it'. I didn't look at the category, to see if the category included the article. (The two things are not atomic, it seems.) The article title length would, I am pretty sure, not have anything to do with it.

I am not totally familiar with Mediawiki workings, but I think Chris' description is likely accurate (and the lingo you used is basically accurate, AFAIK). Time heals all linkages... (or at least, most of them :-) J. Noel Chiappa 16:59, 3 May 2008 (CDT)

Hmmm, I spoke to soon. I just looked, and it's not there. (Well, I did say "most of them"! :-) Let me look into this... J. Noel Chiappa 17:01, 3 May 2008 (CDT)

OK, I see no reason for this. (I even clicked through the category link on the bottom of the page, to make sure I was looking at the right cat - and it's not in the cat, although the article links there!) It looks like the software glitched, and didn't update some links table properly (perhaps related to a crash we had somewhere in there)? I'd make a tiny non-change to the article (e.g. add a " " to the end of a line), save it, and see if it pops up in Category:Approved_Articles as it should. If not, then we really have an issue. J. Noel Chiappa 17:10, 3 May 2008 (CDT)

Van der Waals

OK and thank you --Paul Wormer 12:31, 1 May 2008 (CDT)

Not sure what happened on HIPAA

(copied to my talk page)

I'm not sure what happened. Before I started writing the page, I had searched, but only on the full text of the law, not "HIPAA". When I created metadata, it was for "Health Insurance Portability and Access Act". IIRC, I did at least 2 saves on the lengthy material before getting an edit conflict.

This is only a guess, but I suspect someone else started creating an article under HIPAA while I was writing under the long title, so the edit conflict hit only when we both had created main article text. The metadata probably didn't conflict.

There is a style question here: should articles about laws be named with the short or long title? I'm inclined to do long title, and then a redirect for the well-known abbreviation.

Howard C. Berkowitz 20:08, 3 May 2008 (CDT)

Will answer on your talk page. --D. Matt Innis 20:14, 3 May 2008 (CDT)

Erroneous page

Hi, I think we already answered this, up above? I looked for it and couldn't find it, so it may have been from some older version of something. So feel free to delete it.

PS: Did you notice my recent comments above, about Johannes Diderik van der Waals? J. Noel Chiappa 22:21, 3 May 2008 (CDT)

Yes, I did see what you wrote and am still waiting to see if it appears..........nope...... ;-) --D. Matt Innis 06:43, 4 May 2008 (CDT)

Yes, I already concluded that! (When I said "my recent comments above", I was referring to the second set of comments I added to that section yesterday.) I was hoping you'd make a small non-edit to the article (e.g. adding a " "), because i) that might fix the busted links tables, and ii) I can't do it because it's protected. J. Noel Chiappa 08:38, 4 May 2008 (CDT)

Lol, when you said "I'd make a tiny change...", I thought you meant you :-) I'll try it. --D. Matt Innis 16:20, 4 May 2008 (CDT)

It worked! Good call... sorry for the delay ;-) --D. Matt Innis 16:24, 4 May 2008 (CDT)

"I would" NEQ "I will"! :-) And since it's protected, I assumed it was obvious that I couldn't do it! :-) But I'm glad that cleared it. The MediaWiki software does seem to have some little glitches like that it in - sometimes you get stuff in wierd states (like this one). Live and learn, huh? :-) J. Noel Chiappa 16:59, 4 May 2008 (CDT)

van der Waals yet again

Matt, a couple of days ago I noticed a somewhat annoying edit-error in the lede of the approved article Johannes_Diderik_van_der_Waals. I thought that it was fixed, but apparently I looked at the draft, because the error is still in the approved version (or maybe the approved version was inadvertently changed back again?). What do we do about it?--Paul Wormer 10:30, 4 May 2008 (CDT)

I left a message on the talk page. Basically, I'm waiting to hear from the approving editor. --D. Matt Innis 16:13, 4 May 2008 (CDT)

Deleted student article

People make contributions under a license that doesn't allow them to recant their contributions (q.v. Obama's church imbroglio). We might decide the content is useless, and junk it to start from scratch, or we might humour their request and junk it, but we have no obligation to remove it, as far as I know, right? I'm not sure what this person intended - maybe they blanked it because they assumed it was what we would have wanted them to do, or something. I restored the content because on a quick glance it seemed not totally worthless. J. Noel Chiappa 17:40, 5 May 2008 (CDT)

I agree 100% with everything above and appreciate your restoring the article. I think every case will be different and we even need to keep the student's privacy in mind in some instances. There are definitely issues that the Eduzendium staff needs to address. Meanwhile, I think we're on the right track. --D. Matt Innis 20:16, 5 May 2008 (CDT)

More about Clusters, or, "Moose is not necessarily a moose--in fact, it might be Enzo!"

Okay, first, I totally and completely love our clusters. That doesn't mean they're not without their problems.

1. Problem one: related articles vs. catalogs. I still don't have this down. There's now a problem because a change in the text at one of the clusters on the subpages means that one of the examples now points to an example of the wrong thing. It's in the Christmas cluster, something was moved from catalogs to related pages and I forget what. Now whichever CZ: subpage instruction page it was points to nothing, because it was moved. I'm typing all this because I hope it's going to help me remember what the deal was, or at least remember to bring this up to Noel, who seems to be the CZ subpage instruction wizard at the moment.

But anyway'

2. What I was really going to talk about was a new cluster. I'm planning to start one on Moose. No, not the big elk-like thing, Moose the dog actor who died recently. (Moose is best known as "Eddie" on Frasier.)

Here's the conundrum. Halfway through the Frasier series Moose's son Enzo was brought in (dogs age faster than we do and it was clear that Frasier was going to be long-lived, so they started training replacements). Enzo eventually took over the role completely and went on to star in My Dog Skip, based on the famous book (Moose was in that film too and is credited as 'Old Skip'. This is getting long-winded, but it's fun, no?)

• Anyway*, what do I do about Enzo? I ask because Moose is undoubtedly famous, but Enzo has credits and quotes in his own right. Over at that other wiki, a great brouhaha arose and the compromise was that Enzo (dog actor) would redirect to Moose (dog actor), which now looks silly if you ask me because it's now more than just a passing note. Still, it's a relatively short essay about Enzo, but I don't want to put him at Moose, because he's a different dog and according to his trainer he's an even superior performer.

Any ideas?

Aleta Curry 21:10, 5 May 2008 (CDT)

Sheez, that is a tough one! Okay, this is what I am thinking, but don't put any administrative weight on it - I carry no weight with decisions like this. What the two dogs have in common is "Eddie (on Frazier)", but Enzo and Moose are two different dogs and deserve articles of their own, don't they? So treat Eddie as the character with Enzo and Moose as the actors... does that make sense? Kinda like all those 007 agents in James Bond. --D. Matt Innis 21:20, 5 May 2008 (CDT)

Ha! Well, that would be my choice,too, but I wanted to head off trouble at the pass. I thought Eddie (Frasier) was a no-brainer. It was the Moose/Enzo as individuals thing that was giving me trouble. Quite as bad as that forum thread Hayford started about the stories. Aleta Curry 21:44, 5 May 2008 (CDT)

Lol, I'm not sure you've headed off any trouble! But, at least you know you're not the only one that thinks rationally! ;-) By the way, maybe Moose (dog actor) and Enzo (dog actor) are in order? --D. Matt Innis 22:08, 5 May 2008 (CDT)

Ah, yes, but you see, that was what started the trouble at that other place: whether there should be one article or two. Never mind. I'll just start and see what happens and take it from there. By the way, there's more trouble, see below. Aleta Curry 19:44, 6 May 2008 (CDT)

What the @#$%^ happened *now*??? and more importantly, what did I do to deserve it???

Okay, this is probably better for Chris or Noel, but I'm guessing they'll both make their way here eventually.

I just started New Year's Eve, and despite my better instincts, decided to give related pages and catalogs a go.

I don't see where I did anything other than what I usually do, but instead of saving a related page I got "New Year.27s Eve" and the declaration that now I needed a metadata page. I don't *want* a metadata page, I wanted the "related pages" page for "New Year's Eve" (which has content but still shows up as a red link).

What did I do to deserve this???

Aleta Curry 19:49, 6 May 2008 (CDT)

Chris fixed it. Aleta Curry 20:30, 6 May 2008 (CDT)

Hehehe, I suggest a red merlot and call me in the morning :-) Thank Goodness for Chris, huh. --D. Matt Innis 22:00, 6 May 2008 (CDT)

What is the policy on porting a CZ article to Wikipedia?

Matt, I just created a new article on Fluid catalytic cracking and am thinking of also posting it in Wikipedia. Is there a policy against doing that? - Milton Beychok 03:47, 9 May 2008 (CDT)

Hmm, Milton, I am not that familiar with copyright issues, but that is a very good question and I need to know the answer, too. I'll ask Larry. --D. Matt Innis 07:44, 9 May 2008 (CDT)

Amine gas treating and Merox appprovals today

Matt: I updated the Amine gas treating ToApprove article url and cluster url as you reminded me to do.

I also added the definition to the new definition subpage of Merox, but that did not change either the ToApprove article or cluster url ... so I didn't have to update them.

Are they both now okay for completion of the Approval process later today? - Milton Beychok 11:53, 12 May 2008 (CDT)

Regarding your last note on my Talk page, I left a message on David Volk's Talk page asking him to let you know that he agreed with my updating of the Approval version ... or what ever else is needed on this subject. Thanks, Milton Beychok 13:59, 12 May 2008 (CDT)

David has now posted his agreement on the Amine gas treating Talk page but he wants two capital letters removed. May I do that or will David then have to agree once more? - Milton Beychok 14:51, 12 May 2008 (CDT)

Matt, thanks for your help with these articles. We appreciate your contributions. David E. Volk 09:47, 13 May 2008 (CDT)

No problem David, I think the engineering workgroup is on a role! Anything I can do to help, just ask.. --D. Matt Innis 13:27, 13 May 2008 (CDT)

Another history merge

Hey, got another one for you: Talk:Pluto, Talk:Pluto (dwarf planet). And if you could delete Jupiter (planet)/Definition so I can move the old one, that would be a big help too. (Sigh, I really need to get moving and get the Janitor proposal done, and get myself appointed one, then I won't have to bother you! :-) J. Noel Chiappa 20:44, 23 May 2008 (CDT)

Let's ask Larry. D. Matt Innis 20:52, 23 May 2008 (CDT)

On second thought, let's get that proposal going. There are probably things that we need the community to decide, so we should probably get used to taking that course. I'll delete Jupiter now and take a look at Pluto next, so you can get started on Jupiter. D. Matt Innis 21:22, 23 May 2008 (CDT)

It's on my (lengthy, sigh) todo list.

Sigh, I didn't even notice Pluto had been cut-and-paste moved, too, as well as its talk page. ... J. Noel Chiappa 21:52, 23 May 2008 (CDT)

You freaked me out when I saw the most recent version and I knew I hadn't done that yet! :-D D. Matt Innis 21:56, 23 May 2008 (CDT)

Sorry! I saw it hadn't been done yet, and didn't realize you just hadn't gotten to it yet!

Thanks muchly for taking care of them.

And have a good weekend (my oldest graduates from high school tomorrow, wow, time flies...) J. Noel Chiappa 22:22, 23 May 2008 (CDT)

No problem, still working the learning curve, so still a little slow. I see you caught the comment that I lost on the talk page... still not sure what happened there?? Don't feel bad, my youngest is a senior next year... D. Matt Innis 23:51, 23 May 2008 (CDT)

What happened was that there were two active talk pages, and comments were being made to both. So there was no single latest version; had to do a manual merge. J. Noel Chiappa 06:26, 24 May 2008 (CDT)

So all you did was click on that one edit that was left out to restore it? --D. Matt Innis 09:58, 24 May 2008 (CDT)

Nothing quite so simple (if I have correctly understood your question). A bit of explanation (if you already grasped this background, apologies in advance, but rather than go in circles because there's a piece missing, easiest to start at the beginning).

At the time of this 'cut-and-paste', identical copies of the basic text were left in two separate pages. People started to add comments to each, separately - i.e. a series of independent modifications were made to each copy (branch).

So what I had to do was identify the latest revision of each 'branch' (one of them was the version you had restored), and then, copy into one (manually) all the changes that had accumulated in the other branch. Luckily, there was very little - just the one thing, IIRC if I remember.

For an article page, I wouldn't normally bother - I'd just take one version, and be done with it. And if there were a lot of changes, I might not bother either - just leave a link to the last version of the other branch at the top of the talk page. But in this case, it was easy to 'merge' the two branches back together (in the text - you already did the history), so I did. J. Noel Chiappa 16:43, 24 May 2008 (CDT)

Speed for article rename?

Hi, I'm trying to help sort out the Javascript/JavaScript duplication. We need to have JavaScript deleted (it's the new, stubby dup) deleted so the original article (now at Javascript can be there (the correct name). We also need Template:JavaScript/Metadata zapped so its MD can come with it. Thanks! J. Noel Chiappa 19:22, 27 May 2008 (CDT)

Thanks! J. Noel Chiappa 19:35, 27 May 2008 (CDT)

My pleasure! --D. Matt Innis 19:45, 27 May 2008 (CDT)

Huh? Elizabeth II is just a redirect (both versions). There's no content that would require an editor. Or am I confused? J. Noel Chiappa 19:58, 2 June 2008 (CDT)

I might be confused. Is this the article name that is currently being debated at Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom?

Ah, not really. The debate started as a discussion about the article name, but it quickly morphed into a vehement debate over the used of the term 'British', in general.

Oddly enough, everyone seems to be mostly happy with Elizabeth II for the article name! However, I couldn't move it there because the redirect that's currently there was edited once, so I can't move the article over it. Hence the speedy request. If you look at the history of the page I requested be deleted, you'll see there are only three versions: the first two are redirects, and the third is my speedy. J. Noel Chiappa 20:23, 2 June 2008 (CDT)

I know you wouldn't be moving the page without knowing that it was okay with everyone - just because the extra work that is involved! The important thing is; are both Richard and Martin okay with the change in name? I must have missed it. D. Matt Innis 20:31, 2 June 2008 (CDT)

I've heard from Martin so I can go ahead with the delete. Sorry for the delay. --D. Matt Innis 06:57, 3 June 2008 (CDT)

Another history merge

Formation (ground military forces)‎ got cut-and-paste moved to Military formation (ground). When you find time (there's no rush), could you please merge them at Military formation (ground)? Thanks! J. Noel Chiappa 20:23, 2 June 2008 (CDT)

I'm getting faster, but make sure I'm still doing it right! D. Matt Innis 20:56, 2 June 2008 (CDT)

Will do. J. Noel Chiappa 21:44, 2 June 2008 (CDT)

Energy Conversion Analysis

Is there a reason you created and then blanked this article? If there is no need for it anymore, let me know and I will tag it with the speedydelete template. Thanks. -- Todd Coles 12:38, 20 April 2008 (CDT)

Todd: At this point, I would not like to discuss the specifics of the current status of the article. However, you observation is correct. As far as I am concerned, please do what you have to do with the page. If you are getting ready to delete the page, I would suggest to first check with Milton Beychok since he is the last person who contributed to the page. Thanks, Gordan Feric

Todd: I have no intention of working on Energy Conversion Analysis. The page and/or article is of no use to anyone at Citizendium. Therefore, when you get a chance, would you please drop the page! Thanks, Gordan Feric

Matt: Can you help me with my request to drop the Energy Conversion Analysis page from active Citizendium pages? Thanks, Gordan Feric

Elizabeth

Hey, yah, when I first saw the message I thought it was serious, had too much on my plate, figured 'I'll deal with it later', and hadn't gotten to it yet. More via email.. J. Noel Chiappa 14:24, 5 June 2008 (CDT)

Good! I waited as long as I could, then I thought.... hmmmm, I wonder if he thought I was serious!! D. Matt Innis 14:30, 5 June 2008 (CDT)

When I saw the message on my page, I did think there was an issue - but as soon as I saw how you'd modified the {speedy} message, I knew you were just being silly. Alas, at that point I was deep in the 5-hour struggle with the wireless (turned out to be a major, obvious bug in the software distributed with the card - they simply couldn't have tested it, morons) and had no energy to reply... J. Noel Chiappa 06:29, 6 June 2008 (CDT)

Ahh, it is good to know it even happens to computer experts! It is scary to think that the world is now being run by these things.... really scary ;-) D. Matt Innis 06:54, 6 June 2008 (CDT)

problem with the wireless? try replacing the cat whisker. Richard Jensen 07:18, 6 June 2008 (CDT)

What in heaven's name is a cat whisker? It sounds painful! D. Matt Innis 07:23, 6 June 2008 (CDT)

I use the complete skin of a black cat, myself - none of this monkeying around with half-measures like whiskers for me! J. Noel Chiappa 11:45, 6 June 2008 (CDT)

Yes, truly scary, isn't it? The problem is this stuff is a) some complicated, and b) usually it's a black box (i.e. no source code - you can't see what it's doing, etc). So all I can usually do, when looking into a problem, is basically what all the other mere mortals do - try different things and see if I can eventually stumble on something which works (which is what happened here). Not very efficient, sigh. J. Noel Chiappa 11:45, 6 June 2008 (CDT)