User talk:David Yamakuchi

Welcome!

Welcome to the Citizendium! We hope you will contribute boldly and well. 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! Dan Nachbar 08:52, 29 December 2007 (CST)

Hi David

Regarding this, to get new content-area workgroups going, go to CZ:New Workgroup Requests. What's going to happen in the near future is that a whole bunch of new workgroups are going to be created all at once. There'll probably be a community-wide call, discussion, and then I think all the new ones that emerge are going to the editorial council for a vote. In the meantime, no need to let lack of a workgroup halt up work. Just pick something sorta close for now. Stephen Ewen 01:04, 31 December 2007 (CST)

See Special:Log/delete. CZ:Dance Workgroup might be a good part of a proposal for the workgroup, though. Stephen Ewen 01:21, 31 December 2007 (CST)

Hi Stephen,

Whoops!! I hope I didn't cause you too much trouble, I just hit the edit button and there I was adding a new workgroup :-) It all looked so easy until I found I had to make all the pages for it....then it was more of a :-{ Thanks for the guidance. --David Yamakuchi 01:29, 31 December 2007 (CST)

Not any problem at all. I put a plug in for your idea at CZ_Talk:Workgroups#Performing_Arts_section_for_workgroups. Stephen Ewen 01:33, 31 December 2007 (CST)

welcome to history

Welcome to the history workgroup--we really need your help. My daughter just signed up today for a course in fluid mechanics so maybe we'll be calling on help for that too! Richard Jensen 22:23, 6 January 2008 (CST)

Fluid Mechanics...ack! I just wanted to fill in the last couple missing Presidents with some blatently copied (albeit from public domain) material :-) Hey now that you mention it tho, my brakes have been a little spongy lately, maybe your daughter could help me!!!

But seriously, thanks for the note. I'm not great with history, but I got on a roll today and I'm still sorta having fun with it...--David Yamakuchi 22:48, 6 January 2008 (CST)

Calls for citations...

David: Just a heads up. I removed your citation needed template from the Lao Tse article. Larry is vehemently against ever using that or the fact template that you see at Wikipedia. This is based partly on the presumption that since we are vetted experts in our various fields, we know what we're talking about. I created one early on and it was summarily deleted within minutes, with a reprimand from several other editors...that's why you couldn't find it here.

As for that reference, it'll show up. I am compulsive about referencing, and you will rarely see me write something for which I cannot find some source. Blessings... --Michael J. Formica 06:38, 19 January 2008 (CST)

Michael: I did see the lack of a citation needed here, and I've never actually used one before _but_, the statement you made that Lao Tse was born in 604 B.C. is not really verifiable. While I will agree that you'll be able to find some references that says this is true, I will be able to find just as many references that say this is not. If you read the Stanford reference (and you might want to pack a lunnch for that BTW), you will find that there are more than one account of things.

Now, in terms of being vetted experts, and with all due respect to Mr. Sanger, my original entry was poo-poohed (sp?) for being a little wishy-washy in terms of the dates. I believe I said something like 600-200B.C., to which Larry responded "can't we do better?" The simple answer as I see it is NO! If we can't even be sure that the person existed, and there are conflicting accounts of the "real" history, my opinion is that is encumbent upon us as "experts" to present all sides of the story...which is at this point uncertain.

You sir, have stated as a fact something that was originally in the article as debated, _and_ removed my data that represents years of research on the subject. I am dissapointed. I will also point out that even though the data was immediately questioned by the Editor-In-Chief himself, it was not removed. We can't just go deleting things we don't like in articles. Consider the Holocaust entry, eh? The Talk page is used for that, and when that fails the Constables, I'm told, will be more than happy to assist.

That said, I am absolutely _not_ an expert on anything...except maybe my own experiences which I am attempting to selectively share so that we can all benefit from them. But what I can say with ceretainty is that (and since I believe _you_ were the one that added this article to the Religion workgroup, I'm sure you can understand) people can get kinda funny when you start misrepresenting their religion. Lao Tse is revered by many, and dismissed by many others. It's important that we try to consider everyone's opinion here, and not just the opinion that was taught at one particular school.

I'm going to copy this discussion over to the Talk page of the article in the hopes that we can avoid someone else having to go through this again.--David Yamakuchi 11:36, 19 January 2008 (CST)

Recommendation for templates

Consider using the "show preview" button when you make a slight change-- that way it won't flood the "Recent changes" page as much. Template:Codewink --Robert W King 10:45, 28 March 2008 (CDT)

Thanks, I usually _do_ use that for editing regular articles, but I don't in the case of a template.

Sorry about the long history page but "c'est la vie" as they say. Perhaps I will be able to find an admin willing to help me delete the mess once I've learned what I would like to know.--David Yamakuchi 12:28, 28 March 2008 (CDT)

Your version of the infobox

David, see Template_talk:Elem_Infobox_test1. I think it's possible that I may want to slide maybe one or two pieces of information into my original version, but I feel as they get more complex they only become more meaningless to the average person (who is really the target, anyway). --Robert W King 09:06, 31 March 2008 (CDT)

Of course, feel free to use what you like and I agree that it is too complex to use as it is. I like the idea that's going around about the subpage approach, but do believe (obvoiusly) that the infobox can have lots of useful info packed in a small area.--David Yamakuchi 14:32, 1 April 2008 (CDT)

The wikilinks seem like a good solution to implement until something more obvious but less crowded can be implemented. Good job though! Put it into the main Elem_infobox template. Also, I'm not sure that every criteria should be directed to the subpage table. Certainly there should be some very basic things listed, but sorting all the stuff like MSDS, complex properties, etc should definately go on a subpage. Maybe we can get Chris to create a new subpage type. If you can figure out the #IF logic required so that only elements of the table display when they are filled (including the title elements) that would be aces. --Robert W King 17:38, 3 April 2008 (CDT)

info box

What do you think of the recent changes I made? I think if the periodic table picture is designed specifically for this infobox, i.e. <200px it should look pretty good, rather than a shrunk down version. Let me know if there is anything you want put back the way it was previously?

As far as the element specific periodic tables are concerned we can write code that enters the right table automatically based on the element name. Something a long the lines of.

{{#ifexist:Image:Periodic table {{{elementname}}}.jpg| [[Image:Peridic table {{{elementname}}}.jpg|center|135px]]}}

Or what evenr the field name is for the element nane. Chris Day 13:00, 4 April 2008 (CDT)

switch/case is the thing you want there IMHO, but we need the .jpg's yet. Maybe if a few folks get to see the one you did for the template we might have some more to work with soon? I really like the way you got it to come out...thanks again. Now there was just one more thing...:-)--David Yamakuchi 01:36, 5 April 2008 (CDT)

Great work

David, great work on the template. It looks terriffic! --Robert W King 09:45, 8 April 2008 (CDT)

Duel identity

Hi David, I have really cut down the content in the ele template, hopefully nothing to damaging. Also, what is the logic of the duel identities, see the following elements for examples?:

{{#ifeq:{{{elSym}}}|Th|
{{!}}{{ele|{{#if:{{{elementColor|}}}|color={{{elementColor}}}|color=#828200}}|alphaOp=100|elOpacity=1|b=0|elSym={{{elSym}}}}}|
{{#ifeq:{{{elClass}}}|Transition Metal|
{{!}}{{ele|color=#ff00ff|alphaOp=60|elOpacity=.6|b=0}}|
{{#ifeq:{{{elClass}}}|Actinide|
{{!}}{{ele|color=#0000FF|alphaOp=60|elOpacity=.6|b=0}}|
{{!}}{{ele|color=#0000FF|alphaOp=10|elOpacity=.10|b=0}}
}}}}}}

{{#ifeq:{{{elSym}}}|La|
{{!}}{{ele|{{#if:{{{elementColor|}}}|color={{{elementColor}}}|color=#00ae00}}|alphaOp=60|elOpacity=.6|b=0|elSym={{{elSym}}}}}|
{{#ifeq:{{{elClass}}}|Transition Metal|
{{!}}{{ele|color=#ff00ff|alphaOp=60|elOpacity=.6|b=0}}|
{{#ifeq:{{{elClass}}}|Lanthanide|
{{!}}{{ele|color=#00ae00|alphaOp=10|elOpacity=.1|b=0}}|
{{!}}{{ele|color=#00ae00|alphaOp=10|elOpacity=.10|b=0}}
}}}}}}

In the above two cases why do you want the Th and La lighting up in the ff00ff colour when the element is one of the transition metals?

{{#ifeq:{{{elSym}}}|Ge|
{{!}}{{ele|{{#if:{{{elementColor|}}}|color={{{elementColor}}}|color=#828200}}|alphaOp=100|elOpacity=1|b=0|elSym={{{elSym}}}}}|
{{#ifeq:{{{elClass}}}|Post-Transition Metal|
{{!}}{{ele|color=#0000FF|alphaOp=60|elOpacity=.6|b=0}}|
{{#ifeq:{{{elClass}}}|Metalloid|
{{!}}{{ele|color=#a5a5a5|alphaOp=60|elOpacity=.6|b=0}}|
{{!}}{{ele|color=#0000FF|alphaOp=10|elOpacity=.10|b=0}}
}}}}}}

{{#ifeq:{{{elSym}}}|As|
{{!}}{{ele|{{#if:{{{elementColor|}}}|color={{{elementColor}}}|color=#00ae00}}|alphaOp=60|elOpacity=.6|b=0|elSym={{{elSym}}}}}|
{{#ifeq:{{{elClass}}}|Non-Metal|
{{!}}{{ele|color=#00ae00|alphaOp=60|elOpacity=.6|b=0}}|
{{#ifeq:{{{elClass}}}|Metalloid|
{{!}}{{ele|color=#a5a5a5|alphaOp=60|elOpacity=.6|b=0}}|
{{!}}{{ele|color=#00ae00|alphaOp=10|elOpacity=.10|b=0}}
}}}}}}

{{#ifeq:{{{elSym}}}|Br|
{{!}}{{ele|{{#if:{{{elementColor|}}}|color={{{elementColor}}}|color=#ffae00}}|alphaOp=60|elOpacity=.6|b=0|elSym={{{elSym}}}}}|
{{#ifeq:{{{elClass}}}|Halogen|
{{!}}{{ele|color=#ffae00|alphaOp=60|elOpacity=.6|b=0}}|
{{#ifeq:{{{elClass}}}|Non-Metal|
{{!}}{{ele|color=#00ae00|alphaOp=60|elOpacity=.6|b=0}}|
{{!}}{{ele|color=#ffae00|alphaOp=10|elOpacity=.10|b=0}}
}}}}}}

It appears you want they to highlight differently depending on the element. But why would you want them to light up in two different circumstances and with two different colours? Chris Day 22:39, 8 April 2008 (CDT)

The idea was that if you called the template for say Br, you could declare it part of the Halogens (elClass=Halogens) from infobox and show those, or you could declare it a nonmetal (elClass=Non-Metal) and lite up those squares. Same for Lanthanides and actinides, which can be designated as those, transition metals, or rare earth metals along with Y and Sc.--David Yamakuchi 22:46, 8 April 2008 (CDT)

It just didn't make sense to me to light up the Non-Metals and _Not_ light up the halogens...the halogens are nonmetals...aren't they?--David Yamakuchi 22:48, 8 April 2008 (CDT)

Why use different colors? Couldn't they show up when defined as non-metals yet still be coloured as halolgens? Also doesn't no-metal in tnhis usage have a very deifinite meaning rather than the in a general sense? This is not rhetorical, I really don't know. Chris Day 22:56, 8 April 2008 (CDT)

When I looked at a bunch of different tables that's what I saw. Sometimes one way sometimes the other. Tables can't even agree on where the transition elements end. I think we might not be done with this one for a while. But what we can do for now is be ready with a mechanism that supports whatever classification system tomorrow brings...I think--David Yamakuchi 23:03, 8 April 2008 (CDT)

modify periodic style

I assume you are going to mess around with the style of the different cells. I think Robert is already thinking about colors. FYI, colors for each element can be defined at {{Elem_Infobox}}. The cell styles, including cell size, line thickness and color, as well as the opacity values, can be defined at {{Ele it}} for the black cell that marks the specific element‎, at {{Ele off}}‎ for those cells in the background of unrelated elements to the black one and at {{Ele on}} for cells that have related elements.

Feel free to change anything I have done. I'm taking a back seat again for now. Chris Day 11:29, 9 April 2008 (CDT)

Catalog pages

• the catalog subpage is actually supposed to be the root for catalogues, e.g. Colors/Catalogs/Red. Also, these catalog pages need to be seriously organized in some way. I suggest we get David Volk involved. --Robert W King 19:57, 9 April 2008 (CDT)

If/when we implement that, the links in the infobox will need to change.--David Yamakuchi 00:00, 10 April 2008 (CDT)

Template Recursion

Hi, I was about to leave Chris Day a message and I saw your message to him. You might want to check out this help page on Meta, and also this. I also have a list of helpful template documentation pages on my User: page. J. Noel Chiappa 01:15, 14 April 2008 (CDT)

PS: Your comment about C: Templates have a lot of the look-and-feel of a programming language, but they aren't, so don't be misled. 'Calls' of templates aren't calls in the normal sense. All templates do is replace one (sub-)string with a different (sub-)string: in the evaluation of template(s), one string gets turned into another string, which usually then gets turned into another, and so on. Sometimes the order in which stuff gets done can be confusing; the fact that it's replacement means things can happen in odd (i.e. counter-intuitive, confusing, complex, and hard to understand) ways; e.g. whether the arguments get evaluated before the 'code' (e.g. conditionals). See Migration to the new preprocessor for examples of the kind of thing I'm talking about, where changes to the preprocessor changed what you get from certain 'odd' template syntax. J. Noel Chiappa 01:27, 14 April 2008 (CDT)

There's a "strings" package for MediaWiki, which we don't have installed yet. I seem to recall one one of those pages I have links to, people talking about ways to do some of the strings stuff without it, such as this. Does that Help:Advanced templates have any kludges that are applicable? J. Noel Chiappa 14:55, 14 April 2008 (CDT)

I tried some kind of {{#explode:}} template that I found in the MediaWiki docs. It claimed it would parse a string for me by a delimiter value I gave it, but the page just spit it back out at me in grey :-(--David Yamakuchi 19:49, 14 April 2008 (CDT)

#Explode is part of "strings". J. Noel Chiappa 10:56, 15 April 2008 (CDT)

Editorial Council loop

Haha! Good one. The problem is that Category:Editorial Council includes the template {{Editorial Council}}, which... adds the page which includes it to the category.... Category:Editorial Council. Whee! Where's Bertrand Russell when you need him? Alas, no simple way to fix this... other than remove the template. J. Noel Chiappa 22:30, 18 April 2008 (CDT)

Hi, I just saw your message on my User talk: page - the above was prompted by seeing you upload the image.

What's underlying this is that in MediaWiki, a category is two things: an internal list of pages which have that category tag on them (actually, it's just 'what links here' for the category page), and an actual page (of the form "Category:Foo"). When you ask for that 'page' to be displayed, it concatenates the actual page content with a nicely formatted listing of the pages which are in that category (i.e. link to it) and displays the whole works.

What's going on, basically, is that this AJAX thing (which I don't have on my computer) is trying to expand the tree-structure of the categories (which it does by chasing down pointers). Alas, the Category:Editorial Council category contains a link to.... itself - which of course drives a tree-walker berserk, because it doesn't expect a loop in the tree-structure. J. Noel Chiappa 22:44, 18 April 2008 (CDT)

Yeah, to fix it, you'd need to an an optional "nocat=" argument to {{community}} (and changes to that template not to include the category tag when it was set), and then you'd need to modify {{Editorial Council}} to accept and pass along a "notcat=" argument, and finally modify the call to {{Editorial Council}} in Category:Editorial Council to be {{Editorial Council|nocat=yes}}... all of which seemed like it was too much work to be worth bothering with when there's so much else to do! J. Noel Chiappa 23:32, 18 April 2008 (CDT)

That works too. I didn't know {{Community without category}} existed. J. Noel Chiappa 23:43, 18 April 2008 (CDT)

one source

I like the idea of one source for the physical properties and had been mulling such format. The only issue might be if so many calls cause the download to be slow or the page to be too big.

The only potential clash that I see in your system, compared to what I had in mind, is the color scheme (I should add my ideas were still embryonic so i had not really formulated a specific plan to date). Yours is currently hardwired for solid/liquid/gas/synthetic. And this is good, however I also wanted to have it possible to use the same template and have the colour schemes variable for different properties. For example, metal/non metal/metalloid as one colour scheme. Another based on melting temp (possibly a blue to red range) or other variables such as density, electronegativity etc. I was envisaging each physical property can be represented as a catalog page with distinct colour schemes based on the range of the elemental property values. This would allow a quick visual for how the given physical property varies throughout the Periodic table. For one, this will allow trends to be more obvious.

In the long term I was thinking along the lines of co-opting the {{subpages2}} button system to toggle through the various catalogs. Toggling easily through the various catlogs to see the different property trends and element characterisations will be a useful tools for becoming familiar with the characteristics of the various elements.Chris Day 11:56, 21 April 2008 (CDT)

That color scheme switch is looking good. That should allow us a lot of different presentation variables. Chris Day 09:24, 23 April 2008 (CDT)

Article specific subpage

Check out cadmium and the Cadmium/MSDS subpage. The subpage is created by using tab1=MSDS in the metadata. We could also add tab2=Isotopes and one other tab3=?. This might be more intuitive than having all the chemical information in a Catalog subpage. I tweeked the {{Elem Infobox}} so the headers now link to the MSDS subpage. I plan to write this up as a proposal so we can get approval from the editorial council. I just want to get your feedback before I start on this. Chris Day 15:46, 24 April 2008 (CDT)

Project

I know you might be busy on other things, but I want to see if you're interested in helping with a project I've tasked myself with. I've also messaged Steve to see if he wants to join the effort. The project is somewhat described over at CZ_Talk:Workgroup_Weeks, see the "What else" section. Drop me a line if you think this is something you'd like to get involved in. --Robert W King 09:31, 25 April 2008 (CDT)

MSDS

It seems kind of silly to have the elem infobox on the MSDS page when it's also right on the main page, no? --Robert W King 11:47, 25 April 2008 (CDT)

David, is everything all right over there with the physical properties template? --Robert W King 14:10, 25 April 2008 (CDT)

Ok, just making sure, because you have some things like Template:/Physical Properties/Physical Properties‎; which is a little odd. --Robert W King 14:25, 25 April 2008 (CDT)

Physical properties

Hey, keeping the per-element physical properties in a template is a fabulous idea. One question, though; in {{Physical properties}}, why are you passing the element name in, as "|Material = <whatever"? Would't {BASEPAGENAME} or something give it to you? J. Noel Chiappa 20:38, 29 April 2008 (CDT)

It is not clear to me how easy it is to update the centrally stored values. It is important that they are as reliable as possible and: (i) people can make mistakes in entering them and (ii) values can change by better measurements. In both cases updating should be easily done by all. Further, definitions are not always as clearcut as you may think they are. There are different definitions (and scales) of electronegativity, for instance. Your template should clearly state which are the ones listed. --Paul Wormer 08:47, 1 May 2008 (CDT)

It's pretty easy to change them; anyone can just go to [[Template:<element>/Physical Properties‎]], e.g. Template:Lead/Physical Properties‎, and edit away. It is precisely to deal easily with typing errors, better values, etc that storing them in only one place is better. J. Noel Chiappa 16:26, 4 May 2008 (CDT)

I've been watching your progress although not following it in detail. I notice you have hit upon a problem that I had too. Some values are calculated to many significant figures and because we have no strings there is no way to automate rounding off the numbers. My solution was to do it manually, clearly not the way to go. Any news on whether strings will be added? Chris Day 11:29, 1 May 2008 (CDT)

Just so you know, the Isotpes page in Lead was an intentional misspelling. I was testing an error checking method to help us catch typos when people use the tab1-tab3 feature. You can change it back to Isotopes if it is causing a problem. Chris Day 11:35, 1 May 2008 (CDT)

Actually, I just went ahead and fixed it. So it is at its correct home now (Lead/Isotopes. Chris Day 11:47, 1 May 2008 (CDT)

Having a list of the compounds on the /Physical Properties‎ metadata (as you currently do at Template:Lead/Physical Properties‎) is not good (it can cause pages which include that to render more slowly, as they have to parse, and ignore, all that stuff). But I suspect you have already worked this out, given the existence of Template:Lead/Compounds‎? J. Noel Chiappa 16:41, 4 May 2008 (CDT)

{{pressure}}

David, thanks a bunch for making that {{pressure}} template for me ... I really appreciate that. As for a units converter, there are dozens of such converters on the Internet and I am not sure that a Wiki version is needed. What bothers me about such converters is that it would take hours and hours to verify whether or not they contain errors. I don't like using "black boxes" blindly. For that reason, I am not sure that a Wiki version would be useful. Perhaps you could start a thread on the forums about your idea?

Now that the {{pressure}} template exists, do you have any ideas on how to broadcast the fact that it is available? - Milton Beychok 12:13, 12 May 2008 (CDT)

I would say that if you placed it in the first few places where you looked and said "hey, we need a {{pressure}} table here", that would be a good start. Folks who notice it there can then copy it easily.--David Yamakuchi 15:34, 12 May 2008 (CDT)

Listing subpages

Special:Prefixindex/YourPageName. :-) J. Noel Chiappa 14:53, 15 May 2008 (CDT)

New templates

Hi, don't forget, once you've put a new template into service, to add it to CZ:Templates (which is now much better organized, and somewhat updated). J. Noel Chiappa 14:13, 4 June 2008 (CDT)

Isotopes hackery

Hi, those templates were all so complex they made my head spin. If you could isolate/construct a simpler example that displayed the same behaviour I'd be more likely to be able to help.

You could also try asking Chris to see if he can help - he does a lot of that intricate stuff too. Do you know about Special:ExpandTemplates? J. Noel Chiappa 15:13, 4 June 2008 (CDT)

PS: Is there some reason that {{!!}} consists of two calls to {{!}}, and not just two 'pipe' characters? J. Noel Chiappa 15:13, 4 June 2008 (CDT)

I typed a long message, but on further reflection/investigation, I think it's all BS, so I'm holding it for now.

I found a minor syntax error in {{Props}}; you'd omitted the closing '}}' of the call to {{Properties}}.

Oddly enough, I had tried sticking {{Props|Material=Unobtanium}} into a window and hitting "Show preview", and I got basically the same output before and after I fixed that! Try it, and note the '}}' in the box with "Atomic Symbol".

To see why it may be happening, try sticking "{{Props|Material=Unobtanium}}" (without the "'s, of course) into Special:ExpandTemplates and look at the output. See the line with "|Atomic Symbol}}" on it? That could produce that "Atomic Symbol}}" box output, no?

I wonder if somehow either the preprocessor or parser is getting confused, and not evaluating the call to {{tl|Properties}? If so, don't ask me what happened to the box with "{{Properties" in it - or perhaps that got eaten somehow when {{Properties}} didn't evaluate properly?

Another possibility is that the parser and preprocessor are mstaking the "|" characters which are the argument separators for the arguments to {{Properties}} for the "|" characters which separate table elements? (The perils of 'operator overloading'...) That could be breaking the template invocation up into chunks, which might be causing the failure to evaluate {{Properties}} properly...

Anyway, a lot of guesses and confusion, but hopefully some of it will be useful. J. Noel Chiappa 20:13, 4 June 2008 (CDT)

PS: For more grins, try sticking:

 {{Properties
 |Atomic Number
 |Atomic Mass
 |Atomic Radius
 |Atomic Symbol}}

into Special:ExpandTemplates... But I don't think we're to that problem yet! I don't think {{Properties}} is even being called. J. Noel Chiappa 20:13, 4 June 2008 (CDT)

I was just messing around and I really don't see why properties is not called in that context. Properties itself works if the parameters are in the actual template but when transcluding the parameters it does not. But as you say, it works fine for IsoData so why not here? I'll think some more. Chris Day 03:45, 5 June 2008 (CDT)

Sorry for leaving it in a mess. It was late :) What a strange problem. There is no obvious reason why calling those parameters from a different page should break the properties template. Let me know if you figure something out. I'll keep thinking but nothing short of starting from scratch with a new approach has hit me yet. Chris Day 14:40, 5 June 2008 (CDT)

I solved the problem, but I'm unsure why it works. You need to have the table from {{Props}} within an argument. I placed it within an ifexist argument (are these called arguments?), with an option to creat the physical properties template if it does not already exist. i.e. similar to what you have in {{Isotopes}}.

I checked to see if removing the same ifexist argument from {{isotopes}} causes the {{IsoData}} template to fail in the same way, and it does. Maybe Noel will know why? For the record, this is reminiscent of the line break problem we had when directly transcluding definitions. That was why the {{def}} template had to be created, rather than transcluding the definition directly. Chris Day 15:32, 5 June 2008 (CDT)

That was the version of {{properties}} i was looking for, or at least similar to it. I'll let you carry on adding all the if: statements. Chris Day 15:59, 5 June 2008 (CDT)

I'll stop editing so there are coherent edits going on. Chris Day 16:21, 5 June 2008 (CDT)

There are some bugs with the old preprocessor, one of which you can see here, source here. For more, read this. I suspect this may be another one. Just living with it is the best we can do, sigh. Anyway, glad we finally got it working. Remember Special:ExpandTemplates for next time, hunh? J. Noel Chiappa 06:40, 6 June 2008 (CDT)

Properties storage

I just realised that you are using subpages such as Unobtanium/Atomic Mass for each different property. First, would it not be more appropriate at Unobtanium/Properties/Atomic Mass? Second, why not have all the properties on one page, similar to the switch you have for the isotopes, would that not be simpler? I'm not saying your plan is wrong, just interested to hear your thought process. Chris Day 07:11, 7 June 2008 (CDT)

Gotta agree with Chris on this one - put them all on one page, with a selector - unless there's a good reason for separate pages (which I can't off the top of my head see). J. Noel Chiappa 05:39, 8 June 2008 (CDT)

So just how big would the properties pages get? What pages do you envisage will be using this information? Obviously the elements pages will be using it but I assume yu have others in mind too? Chris Day 08:41, 8 June 2008 (CDT)

Never mind answering this. I remember now, it's for adding the info to the cells in a periodic table, such as atomic mass. My solution was to manually add the values as parameters for each cell. This had the added advantage that I could round to five significant figures (or less). Now if we had strings that might be a different matter but that is the only way I know how to do that at present. While i can see this might be a problem for a parameter that varies, such as population for a city, it should not be such an issue with periodic tables since the properties will not change in the future. Alternatively we why not just restrict the separate subpage (or subsubpage) entries for properties that might be used in such tables and just add the others directly to the Material/Properties subpage, or do you envisage using them all in this way on various pages? Chris Day 22:11, 8 June 2008 (CDT)

This just seems like a waste of computer resources to have separate pages as place holders for singles variables. There must be a more elegant way to do this. David might better spend time thinking of a solution to this problem before making all of these pages. Does CZ have any kind of look-up-tables at present, other than the live article count? Could something like that variable work? David E. Volk 08:36, 10 June 2008 (CDT)

It adds to the page count significantly, I agree. But it also reduces the load on the wiki engine to a minimum in the sense that it only has to retrieve the needed information, not all the properties to display just one.

Further, each specified number can come with a qualifying statement...(see Hydrogen/Elemental Class), and history...(see any of the entries that I fat-fingered on the first try.) --David Yamakuchi 12:49, 13 June 2008 (CDT)

property values

So for the really large values of atomic mass you are going to just use the rounded versions until strings is activated? The PTE looks great. Chris Day 17:35, 11 June 2008 (CDT)

Property values are still greatly inflated these days :-P --Larry Sanger 21:51, 11 June 2008 (CDT)

What is the reason for the density units in the current formatt (gpcm3nrt and gpcm3mp)? Is that commonly used now? Chris Day 21:04, 12 June 2008 (CDT)

Summary of what you're doing

Hi David, can you point me to a page that shows how all this data you're adding to the wiki is actually used?

I'm intrigued... --Larry Sanger 21:51, 11 June 2008 (CDT)