User talk:David Finn

Welcome! Feel free to ask any questions. I will answer them where I find them, so I will reply here if you type here - if you are replying to something I wrote on your talkpage or an article talkpage, just reply there as I watchlist everything and it is much easier to hold one conversation in one place! And if your question is about unsourced additions I have made - well, I don't make unsourced edits. If an edit I make has no obvious source it is just that I haven't added the source yet - all my edits are based on verifiable sources which I can produce on request. Happy editing! David Finn 06:46, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Welcome!

Welcome to the Citizendium! We hope you will contribute boldly and well. Here are pointers for a quick start. You'll probably want to know how to get started as an author. Just look at CZ:Getting Started for other helpful "startup" links, and CZ:Home for the top menu of community pages. Be sure to stay abreast of events via the Citizendium-L (broadcast) mailing list (do join!) and the blog. Please also join the workgroup mailing list(s) that concern your particular interests. You can test out editing in the sandbox if you'd like. If you need help to get going, the forums is one option. That's also where we discuss policy and proposals. You can ask any constable for help, too. Me, for instance! Just put a note on their "talk" page. Again, welcome and have fun! Hayford Peirce 17:12, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Reason for Picatinny renaming

Pain pills, I think. Howard C. Berkowitz 22:32, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Ha! Oops, mustn't laugh at the pain of others. You do a phenomenal amount of article creation I have noticed, well done. David Finn 22:40, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Class names

I wasn't sure if you would follow the discussion on my user page; we should decide where to discuss which, I'm pleased to say, is a CZ: Military Workgroup matter. Briefly, I have used the hyphen format for ship class names, fairly comfortable that there is no standard, but finding that it's useful to have a clear visual distinction between class and lead ship so it's always unambiguous if we are speaking of Yamato-class or IJN Yamato. (Note: there is a redirect, with a separate short definition, of IJN Yamato to Yamato-class. There's no reason except resources not to have an article on each ship of the class, but redirects with definition are an interim solution.

As you'll see from Destroyer/Related Articles, this applies to many more classes than battleships. There are a tremendous number of class references in many articles, and I've tried to be consistent about the hyphen style. I'm willing to recommend it, as the only active Military Editor, as a CZ style subject to workgroup discussion.

Naming has been a continuing problem, not just for ships. There have been arguments raised "but this is most common in Google", by nonspecialist Citizens, about a variety of naming categories. For example, I created the Hezbollah article believing that transliteration, while not unique, is most common in professional literature. Hezb'Allah, Hezballah, Hizballah, and others are also plausible transliterations, and for which I certainly would have no argument against having redirects to the arbitrary article name. Correctly, in English, the organization is the Party of God, or at most, the Party of Allah. The others become authoritative only if we write and index in Arabic. Nevertheless, names have been a hot argument and often the only ones associated with Military articles.

I would be delighted both to have a Military style guide, and more Military participants both as Authors and Editors. David, I have quite a few articles that may be close to Approval-ready, but can't advance unless there are either three editors (in some cases History or Politics) or there's a non-author Military Editor.

Shall we move this to discussion under CZ: Military Workgroup? Howard C. Berkowitz 11:18, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

I am happy with your reasoning and your solution. Without a clear reason to do otherwise it seems best to just go with how things have been done, especially since there seems to be common use of both terms. Standardizing the process via the workgroup would be good, it would prevent any argument arising in the future should another contributor start changing things.

My Military contribution is likely to revolve around ships and vehicles, aircraft and equipment - technical matters, rather than anything controversial like politics, but I can afford to spend some time working on whatever else is necessary, and I am happy to continue discussion wherever it is most appropriate. Thanks for the reply. David Finn 14:39, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Great. Not too long ago, we were able to Approve several articles after I also received Editor status in History and Politics. Roger Lohmann and Russsell Jones and I did a number of three-editor approvals, more in the political area. I would be delighted to have more involvement in the technical area. The cruiser and destroyer articles, for example, are in decent shape, as are a number of specific battles.

There's a substantial amount about current technologies, which sound as if they are a bit outside your area of interest. Would you have any ideas about potential Editors for Military?

Stray question: As I've been revising various things about the Pacific Theater in WWII, I see a need for some articles hierarchically below the theater. Naming is a challenge and I really don't have strong preferences. Would you prefer:

• Philippines campaign (1941-1942), WWII resistance movements in the Philippines, and Phillipines campaign (1944-1945)
• Japanese occupation of the Philippines, WWII resistance movements in the Philippines, and U.S. Philippines counteroffensive

or something else? It's also an interesting question if the WWII resistance movement article should include postwar as well as wartime Hukbalahap activities.

Do let me know about more of your interests. Howard C. Berkowitz 15:04, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Last question first - it would be nice if we had enough material to support an article about postwar resistance, then the WWII resistance movements article would only need a short reference to the postwar period accompanied by a link to the postwar article.

I looked up the Huks, it seems they were named for the fact that they were opposing the Japanese, but the 9 years of their postwar struggle was exclusively against their Western backed leaders, if I read it correctly. I think that at this point their motivation was no longer the same as their wartime motivation, so maybe too much of their postwar activity would be out of scope. I like the second style you present, it seems much more attractive.

I don't mind modern technologies so much, I have Jane's Fighting Ships 2005-2006 and Jane's Military Vehicles and Logistics 2006-2007 as well as a lot of other material about more recent defence procurements and the military balance in the world today, but my real interest is the period 1880-1920, really the golden age of motor vehicles, powered aeroplanes and modern ships and yachts. I am not an expert but I am good at legwork and sourcing - I use the opportunity to educate myself, and it should mean that my contributions are solidly sourced. David Finn 18:08, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Photo

Thanks for the encouraging words. This is what I posted to my talk page. Lighten up fellas. The name I submitted sure looked like a REAL name to me and let it go at that. It is a lovely photo that I used on my wikiHow account and decided to move over here. The photo came from Flickr and I liked it. Do YOU make time to share anything positive here, or are are you all sitting around waiting to "pounce" on the newbies? I did add the hyperlink showing where the image was found so anyone could search it out. Finally, I did some research and indeed this is a dying wiki. I wonder why... Mary Ash 16:53, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

My comments to Mary Ash about photos

Hi, David:

We haven't met before this ... and I want to explain to you about my comments to Mary Ash on how to upload images. If you will look at Talk:V-22 Osprey, you will find that about 5-6 days ago, I told Mary about pretty much the same sort of corrections that I had to make on another image she had uploaded. At that time I asked her to study what I had done and said it would be useful the next time she uploaded an image.

If you will also look at User Talk: Mary Ash, you will see that she thanked me for those comments about the photo of the V-22 Osprey.

Then, just a few days later, she evidently forgot or decided to ignore that exchange and made some of the same sort of mistakes again when she uploaded that photo on her user page .... and I then commented again about the corrections.

As Chris Key has pointed out, the upload wizard pages clearly states that we need real names for photos from places like Commons or Flickr. I have sometimes had to spend many hours trying to find real names for the images that I found in Commons and Flickr ... and in some cases had to wait days for responses to emails that I sent asking people to please give me their real names.

The summary that the upload wizard asks us ti fill out also clearly asks that we create a "credit line" and provides a link to the page for doing so. For example, that beautiful windmill picture which you have on your user page also needs to have a credit line and it only takes a few minutes to create.

I don't mean to be sarcastic in any way, but this isn't rocket science ... all it takes on Mary's part is the determination to read and to study a bit.

I hope that this clears the air somewhat. I am really not an ogre. Milton Beychok 18:16, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

I get your point, and thanks for the explanation. It seems that this particular user is taking a little longer than might be expected to adapt to new ideas. I must admit that I didn't see anything about a 'credit line' when I uploaded that photo, but then I do not know a lot about image uploading and erred on the side of caution by only using one of my own which I don't mind giving away - however, having been alerted to the fact, I certainly wouldn't make the same mistake twice. I guess not everyone works that way. Cheers. David Finn 23:31, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Windmill

David, you are living in the Netherlands, you produced a beautiful photo of a windmill and your user page says that you love history .... and we need an article titled Windmill. All we have now is a lemma article (that is a definition only article). Please write one for us. You might refer to the history section of the Wind turbine article for some help. How about it? Milton Beychok 00:02, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

I can certainly try!

I have been working on a cluster of articles, all connected to the development of transport around the end of the 19th century. I started with Reliance (yacht) and as you can see, it contains a lot of redlinks. It is my intention to write articles for all of those, but it is taking a lot of research to get the details right.

So Reliance is one extreme, and at the other end there is the 1903 America's Cup draft I have been working on, which I think may be too overly detailed, but that is why I started working on a draft page as I wanted something finished to present.

Because the articles are all linked, researching one provides information on many, and after a bit of a struggle with my first few articles I think the whole cluster will come pretty quick, as I will have a standard format then and be more versed in Citizendium code.

Anyway, my point is that although my only article so far is Reliance (yacht), and that is just a stub, in fact there is a lot of work going on behind the scenes which will make it into the encyclopedia eventually. In the meantime I am more than happy to lend a hand where necessary. Even after 13 years of living in the Netherlands I can't say I know much about windmills, despite living on a piece of Holland that was sea until the windmills drained it, but I am certainly well placed to find out and I expect the investigation shall be interesting. Thanks for the suggestion! David Finn 08:21, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Your nautical input appreciated!

I've been up to several things, and it occurred to me that you might be a good sounding board. You may or may not be aware we have a fairly informal CZ:Subgroups mechanism that complements workgroups, typically for interdisciplinary subjects. I have been creating quite a few subgroups, with one idea being that their topic will appeal to some group from which we could recruit new Citizens -- an opportune time as the Charter becomes real.

Now, I've started in military areas, including CZ: United States Navy Subgroup and CZ: Royal Navy Subgroup. By no means are they complete, because it's cumbersome to add existing articles to subgroups -- I'm doing it as I can.

I think I've told you I work with marine electronics and computers, principally in commercial fishing although I do have experience with naval things. Some of my clients, as well as LinkedIn and other groups, deal with recreational boating all the way up to the superyachts. Other than navigation and safety, however, I know very little about yacht racing.

Should there be one or more subgroups to deal with the details of the non-naval things? I'm not sure if CZ: Marine navigation would be good, if we need something for water recreation, etc. For that matter, there's commercial shipping, minerals exploration, etc.

Does this give any ideas, either for article organization or for finding new Citizens? --Howard C. Berkowitz 12:31, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Some interesting points there. Trying to recruit Citizens from specific areas of interest would indeed be good, and having a 'home' for them to discuss their ideas might be just what is needed. I have started looking at the sailing subgroup, but I can already see a place for an 'America's Cup' subgroup. 'Commercial shipping' would be useful, a category dealing with cruiseships might also be useful - along with superyachts, as you have pointed out, cruiseships tend to contain the most up to date electronics and shipboard (commercial) systems.

Another area I am specifically interested in is that of sail powered training vessels held by Navies worldwide so maybe a 'Tall Ships' subsection would be useful as there are many people whose only experience of classic yachting is through witnessing one of the regattas involving similar vessels.

Especially for sailing related matters, I think the biggest barrier right now is that there are not enough articles to work on - a new Citizen, finding themselves inclined to join a sailing related subgroup, would find themselves obliged to write any of the articles that may represent their interest. It would be better if there were a cluster of sailing related articles for them to look at to see how Citizendium approaches the subject - also many people would prefer to work on an existing article at first, incrementaly, rather than diving right in to start their own.

That is basicaly where I came in, and to gauge the required style of content I have been looking all over Citizendium. What I can do is start a load of articles so that any sailing related subgroup has work in evidence - I have been concentrating more on getting a particular aspect of that as comprehensive as I can (example) but at the same time I should also create a lot of smaller articles that I, or others, can work on later. Thanks for the advice! David Finn 08:40, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

I have started CZ:Marine electronics Subgroup. CZ: Tall ships Subgroup makes sense as a small but enthusiastic group (History, Engineering and Military workgroups?)

We do need to disambiguate yacht, considering racing yachts and the sport, recreational yachts of medium size (I vaguely recall 28' as the minimum length), superyachts, etc. Rather to my surprise, I'm finding a significant superyacht community on some of my LinkedIn marine groups -- perhaps not surprising, as such people clearly have money.

Your comment about a cluster suggests you think that newbies would rather add to an article than create one? I really don't know, but I myself have been using the new Metadata form and, even though I understand subpages thoroughly, it could easily lower the learning curve.

Related Articles pages, even with red or definition-only entries, could give an idea of articles needed. Presumably, we want to let new users know about subgroups. Howard C. Berkowitz 12:41, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply - the tall ships are especially interesting to me, a lot of countries operate sail training ships to the old style, and many with great history.

Howard, I haven't written an article since leaving school. At 35 it's a steep learning curve, and it can be easier to begin by adding to someone elses work rather than starting from scratch. That also helps with learning the Citizendium style and I imagine that for many people it would be helpful to be able to begin like this.

I think you will have people who join with the idea of building an encyclopedia. We also want to entice people who are interested in specific subjects, so if they find a cluster of good but short Citizendium articles maybe they will be inclined to join, seeing a lot of small changes they can make, and this might lead to them being article creators.

Again I think I can help by starting a few of those articles. The past month or so I have been frightfully busy but I shall gradually have more and more time to contribute over the coming weeks. Thank you for the discussion, and I am interested to know what you think of my comment at the Trident page. David Finn 16:18, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

I would appreciate your comments

David, I have just written a new article and the title will be Smog when I upload it into the article namespace. It is currently in my sandbox at User:Milton Beychok/Sandbox.

I know that you are probably not an expert on the subject. However, I would very much appreciate your review of it and giving me any comments, additions, deletions, typo corrections, or revisions you care to offer on my sandbox talk page. I am fairly sure that there must be some parts which could be better written from the viewpoint of clarity and understanding.

Thanks in advance, Milton Beychok 02:30, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

I took a look a few days ago (I check the 'recent changes' when I am at the computer, which alas hasn't been a great deal over the past week) and I will take another look now that it has evolved to see if I have any suggestions. Cheers. David Finn 07:32, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

ABDA command or Battle of the Java Sea?

Would you be interested in taking on either one, especially the latter? There is some material in cruiser. I suspect, however, knowledge of Dutch language and history would help in writing this. Howard C. Berkowitz 20:05, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

I'll take a look just now at what I can dig up. David Finn 06:18, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

One preliminary point - it looks like ABDA is more commonly referred to as the American-British-Dutch-Australian command (we have a few redlinks that have Australia-Britain-Dutch-American) David Finn 06:39, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Interestingly the Glossary of US Naval Abbreviations has ABDA as American-British-Dutch-Australian Command (1942) and ABDACOM as either Advanced Base Depot Area Command or American-British-Dutch-Australian Supreme Command (1942), so I am left wondering what the title of the article should be. I will open a working page for the content which can be moved to article space once it is ready and a title decided on. I know little about the subject, but it is interesting to me so I welcome the chance. David Finn 07:01, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

We might want to start Related Articles on the command and the battle; I'll do the latter if you like.

Circumstances may force the article name to be ABDA, if there is no definitive single explanation. You'll find, for example, that I chose to title an article MACV-SOG, because there was both an unclassified cover meaning (Military Assistance Command Vietnam, Studies and Observation Group), and a classified one (Military Operations Command Vietnam, Special Operations Group) Howard C. Berkowitz 20:04, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Sounds good, I will add some text to the draft tomorrow. This is another example of research slowing me down! I found Winston Churchills address to Parliament from January 1942 which helps explain why Britain had not prioritised the defense of South-East Asia, and then I realised I have the minutes of that debate already somewhere in my collection of Parliamentary papers, which started me reading some of the other debates around the same period... It's all leading somewhere! David Finn 21:53, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Ever do that science experiment where you add one crystal to a supersaturated solution and it all solidifies? You actually may be creating a lot of relationships for Related Articles pages on parliamentary issues. Howard C. Berkowitz 22:15, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Nope, most we ever did was burn a peanut. My science class wasn't very practical. I know what you mean though - I am extremely lucky to have such a diverse collection of books from the last 250 years and reading through them I often happen upon articles that illuminate some piece of history that I know little of. Slowly the points of illumination are spreading out and merging to fill in the gaps in my understanding. Or at least make some areas less dim than the rest. The whole process is exciting, a personal trail of discovery, which I believe is one of the assets of Citizendium work.

Right now I am working at changing my job, and the last few weeks have been full of interviews and job searches. It really hasn't afforded me the time I would like to add text to the encyclopedia, but is a temporary thing. Thanks for the encouragement.

On a separate note, the defining feature of Citizendium over anonymously built encyclopediae is the ability to use recognised experts who display their qualifications. Right now there are less contributors overall than we would like, but in the future we would hope to remedy that.

When an expert adds something to an article it is often 'unreferenced', the reference being the experts own understanding - they are citing themselves. That of course is the beauty of CZ, but let's imagine a popular article that attracts many contributors, both expert and non-expert. You have non-experts looking for sourced material and adding both material and source. Then you have the expert adding what they know is true but without a citation. In a popular article that can lead to the experts addition being removed as uncited.

A non-expert might find the uncited text. At this point they have to go through the page history to see exactly who added the text if they are to be thorough. If the uncited addition cannot be quickly found then they are left with a choice - leave perhaps the one uncited part of a fully cited article, or modify it to something they have a cite for, or perhaps post to the talkpage first and see if the person who added it can elaborate.

To me that seems like an extra hurdle to adding to an article. But the thing is that the uncited parts are in fact cited, they are cited to our recognised experts - the only problem is that Citizendium does not make that readily clear. This is also a problem for the reader. If they find an uncited draft article they have no immediate way to know if it is uncited supposition by a non-expert, or cited text by an expert.

My question then is this - has anyone explored the possibility of having some kind of standardised citation that experts can use when making additions to articles in their field that shows up in the reflist as being authored by them and in the event of questions about the particular text to ask them about it? That way the core value of CZ would be maintained visually with contributors and readers alike knowing when a piece of text was added by our recognised experts.

I know we have approved articles. They seem to apply to the article as a whole, but a citation system would allow specific parts of an article to be "approved" in a way, at least as much as any other piece of text that has a citation. And I know that right now there are few articles that have such high participation to perhaps really need a remedy like this. But as a way to preserve the expert content that Citizendium wishes perhaps it is something to consider? David Finn 07:12, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Uncited parts

To answer what seems your core question: "is there a way to note when something uncited is an expert writing?", the simplest answer is "no." I will add, however, that there may be Editor Rulings on the Talk Page, in which an expert gives binding guidance on some controversial point. Perhaps we might explore footnoting expert opinions, linking to talk page discussion.

Another approach is to bring more meaning to the "developed" and "developing" levels of articles, which should imply there has been some expert review, but not to the level of Approval. Of course, such articles are not locked so the expert material could be altered and the alterations not caught.

Even more, we have the problem that we have no good way of denoting experts who have not gotten Editor status in the subject, perhaps because they only want to write, and sometimes because the subject does not cleanly map to a workgroup. I have no hesitation calling Sandy Harris an expert on cryptography, but he doesn't want to be an Editor. We have some very, very good cooks, but we've never had a satisfactory definition of what becoming a Food Editor requires. Several people, who may even be Computers Editors, have developed deep knowledge in a subject matter area to which they provide computing support, but they are not credentialed in that area -- although their professional records and their writing here may demonstrate it.

These are all questions that should be examined by the Editorial COuncil. I'm hoping Charter voting will start within a week, which will be one step closer to a new Council. Howard C. Berkowitz 20:22, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Naval abbreviations

Tread with care here; the U.S. Navy has strange habits. Admittedly, I was working in a Navy installation at the time, but I did a pause when I read "COMNAVSECGRUACTPACFLTDET 3" and it made sense ("Commander, Naval Security Group Activity, Pacific Fleet, Detachment 3") Howard C. Berkowitz 18:56, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Goodness. They should give them snazzy titles like "First Sea Lord", which I think is great and could have been used by Neptune himself. David Finn 19:04, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

User page bio

I am not trying to be difficult but I assumed the new charter allowed a user to design their user page as they saw fit as long as it was not defamatory. See:

Article 8

Citizens shall be considered Editors of their own user pages and subpages thereof, as long as content is not inflammatory or derogatory.

My removal of the bio is part of my user page and I assumed it was perfectly fine for me to edit my user page as I saw fit. Anyone is welcome to inquire about my biography but I am a privacy nut. I personally do not want my personal information listed on my user page. It's as simple as that. If I have broken a rule, then I will be happy to return my bio. I hope this answered your inquiry. Mary Ash 19:31, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Mary, just so you know. Deleting your bio from the user page did not really delete it. Anyone can click on the History tab of your user page and see what that page contained a week ago, two weeks ago, a month ago or whatever. Were you aware of that? Milton Beychok 00:26, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

Mary, we are all in the process of adapting to the new charter so there will be teething problems, but having a biography explaining who you are and your qualifications for being here was one of the fundamental things you had to do before joining this community, so I don't think the charter changes that.

Remember that while volunteerism does not come without it's responsibilities, no-one here is asked to do any more than what they agreed to when they joined. David Finn 07:31, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

As Ann Landers would say MYOB. The charter now states a user page is the sole responsibility of the user. That is part of the new charter. I am not sure why you have taken on the job of "net police" at CZ as you are not an admin or any other related position. You are a regular citizen just like me. FYI I am a strong believer in privacy and placing so much personal information on one Internet page is something I have never, ever done during my 15+ years of being on the Internet except at CZ. I'd be more than happy to share my resume with any established Citizen including you, if you have a need to know. The new charter is in place so I used the opportunity to edit my user page as I saw fit. Finally, at the request of Constable D. Matt Innis I have returned my bio until the final details are finished. As for now, the new charter allows a user to determine what's on their page.Mary Ash 15:37, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

Oh dear oh dear. Mary, Citizendium is all our business, it being a collaborative encyclopedia and all. I'm sorry if you still don't get that or don't wish to accept it.

You were the one who signed up to this encyclopedia. Volunteerism doesn't receive a free hand - anywhere. There were rules you had to agree to, the biography being one of them. If you felt that you didn't wish to share your biography, mistake one was joining Citizendium.

The new charter is in place, but you have misinterpreted it (as has been pointed out to you by others) which is why you were asked to restore your biography. You can 'shoot the messenger' if you like, but the biography is something that, so far, the community has stood behind, not just me. In future, to avoid wasting your own time at least, you might consider asking someone before you go re-interpreting the rules to your own liking. Have a nice day. David Finn 07:12, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

I did understand the charter as written. It clearly states a user is responsible for their user page and its content. I returned the bio until the kinks are worked out as I clearly pointed out the new charter missed addressing this issue. Please realize I do not mind constructive assistance but it seems the only time I read anything posted by you is when there is something negative. I will add I am sorry I lost my temper. I am human and it would have been nice to read something positive from you. Please accept my apology for being short. For the good of all, I would suggest you not communicate with me unless you have something good to share.Mary Ash 03:10, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Let's put things in perspective here - I did not even ask you to restore your biography, I asked you if you were going to restore your biography, and I did that to save you getting into (yet another) argument with the constables. Next thing you have a tantrum and post it across multiple talkpages, even starting a forum thread about it (thanks for letting me know you were discussing me in the forums by the way). I am most disappointed in your idea of community collaboration. This is not the first time you have reacted negatively to others pointing out what should be obvious to you, and not the first time you have sought to impose your view of what Citizendium should be over everyone elses views of what Citizendium is.

You ask for no communication unless there is "good to share" - but if you make mistakes and push the boundaries of tolerance then you are likely to perceive everything said to you negatively. That is your problem, not mine. But if that is how you want it, please take your own advice and do not post on this page for any reason in the future. Cheers. David Finn 05:42, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanx...but

Thanx for your encouragement to edit more on CZ...and I truly wish that I had the time to do so. However, I do not even have the time to do what is necessary for the homeopathy article. For the record, I am NOT "advocating" for homeopathy. I am trying to write an encycopedic style article that is referenced and reliable...and with as little mis-information as possible, despite the ongoing efforts of some editors to mis-characterize it. Dana Ullman 23:33, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Ok..... that comment is more than three weeks out of date. The world has moved on, and so has the encyclopedia. I'm sorry you weren't around to see it.

I actually think what I wrote on Matts page is more relevant now than it was then. This is an encyclopedia, not a homeopathy article. As I posted on the homeopathy talkpage, we were at this very same junction two years ago, and Larry Sanger (among others) suggested that the best thing for the encyclopedia might be to quarantine problem articles so they do not infect the encyclopedia proper.

I realise that homeopathy is important to you - but this is an encyclopedia. We don't have articles on very many very important subjects, yet half our resources are being ploughed into homeopathy. It simply isn't necessary.

You are a homeopathy editor, you work only on homeopathy, but until this encyclopedia is more general in it's coverage, I just don't know if that is necessary or advisable. The absolute best possible outcome from this situation is that the article on homeopathy gets slightly better. That's it. All this discussion and editing and all so that a few words in one article can be different than what they were a month ago. Meanwhile the encyclopedia is suffering for it.

In conclusion I would say that Citizendium has been toothless as far as this goes, but the new Council soon to be elected will not be. The time for discussing homeopathy is when they begin their work, and believe me that many folk here will want to discuss it with them. In the meantime, as I have suggested on the talkpage, and which has been a repeated suggestion from others over the last few years, we should have a moriorium on homeopathy edits - lock the page down til it's decided what to do with it. David Finn 08:51, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

UN

David, re the UN catalog, on my monitor the second columns seem to shift leftward as the letter sections descend. Do they align on your screen? If not, if they keep shifting, you may need to go less than 100% total and 50% each column. Nice contribution, the catalog. Anthony.Sebastian 07:30, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks very much. On my monitor the columns you have adjusted look perfect - the ones I did, without the %, were extremely random. I think I now understand about the spacing, so I should be able to adjust if they go out of line.

I originally made UN members a-m and UN members n-z but that didn't give me the opportunity to add the dates joined, although it is a handy personal reference for working on countries.

When I input all the countries I will leave you a message - if they don't align on your monitor I can shift the values a little.

Thanks again! David Finn 07:37, 13 October 2010 (UTC)