User talk:Thomas Wright Sulcer

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! Roger Lohmann 17:53, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Welcome once more, Thomas! I saw the note you left for Roger and think that CZ:Introduction to CZ for Wikipedians may be a good place to start exploring the differences to Wikipedia. In case of further questions, you can usually ask anyone you see on Recent Changes. Cheers, --Daniel Mietchen 01:09, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks Daniel!--Thomas Wright Sulcer 12:41, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm not at all familiar with Wikipedia operationally, so I really can't answer, but Daniel's suggestion of starting with the Introduction to CZ for Wikipedians is a good one. Roger Lohmann 03:51, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks Roger!--Thomas Wright Sulcer 12:41, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Regarding your question on importing an article. If the article - as you write - is (almost) entirely written by you, it can be imported without WP credit, but you should leave an explaining note on the talk page. You can also import it first to a Sandbox of your user page, and later move it to its intended place. --Peter Schmitt 12:59, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks Peter!--Thomas Wright Sulcer 13:00, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Forgot to say: It is also useful to mention it in the edit summary. --Peter Schmitt 13:20, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Hello. So within a span of just 8 months you made significant contributions to 50~ articles? That's impressive. (Chunbum Park 18:08, 17 February 2010 (UTC))

Nipple of Knowledge

I don't think so. I'm glad to know you are an alumnus of U of R. The campus is nice, the professors are very demanding and competent, and food is tolerable at worst and usually quite decent. (Chunbum Park 18:44, 17 February 2010 (UTC))

When I was there, somebody had painted an elaborate, accurate large-sized (5'x10') dollar bill in one of the hallways. Is it still there? My dog used to swim in the Genesee River. My senior year they completed the Wilson Commons and the new building was a joy to be inside; but by now the structure is probably showing its age, right?--Thomas Wright Sulcer 18:48, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Also my friend Terry Gurnett is the head of women's soccer at U of R. I wrote a Wikipedia article about him. He's won over 400 games.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 18:49, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't think the dollar bill drawing is stilla round. Wilson Commons is still quite nice. I don't notice anything about it that's old. I'm sure there are more students of foreign and minority origin than when you were here. A phenomenon I've been noticing is that a lot of Asian students hang around by themselves and don't even associate much with their hallmates. I'm one of few Asians who mix in well. (Chunbum Park 21:39, 17 February 2010 (UTC))

Too bad that dollar bill was great -- one of the landmarks -- but it needed to be maintained and kept free of vandalism, so it probably succumbed. I'm a big believer in mixing as well; I married an Asian. And I'm part Asian myself -- Cauc-Asian. :) What are you studying at U of R?--Thomas Wright Sulcer 21:59, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Wow! Lots of good ideas.

Thanks Howard!--Thomas Wright Sulcer 14:18, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

First, I may have confused you regarding quotes in citations. While it's indeed a preference, not a rule, that substantive quotes should not be in footnotes, don't lose them completely. Indeed, most of the quotes I have seen in your imports are meaty and belong (at least paraphrased) in the main article. We tend not to have as much use of several cites in sequence, but, in some of the cases, the quote is what distinguishes the sources. You may be able both to add to the main article and to avoid the sequential quotes by moving the quoted material into main text.

My thinking about the quotes was developed from working with Wikipedia. There were so many readers/editors who could come along and change stuff I wrote in a jiffy, undoing my work, in essence rendering my contribution nil. So, how could I prevent this? References. I saw inline reference citations as a great tool where a reader could, with two mouse clicks, check the source. If other wikipedians were like a giant wind of change, the references were like tent pegs anchoring my stuff. And the quotes within a reference citation made their checking even easier, since they could hunt for the exact text in the article if they wanted; further, I could cut and paste the quote right in the citation itself. This was my purpose. Generally, it worked on non-controversial articles. But on highly controversial articles like WP's "terrorism", references didn't matter; there was a hard core of administrators who have a fixed view of what terrorism is and isn't, and reverted everything I did or even other well-meaning contributors did. It wasted my time. It was one of the major reasons I decided to quit Wikipedia.

One other note: WP did a bad job (in my view) of teaching other editors how to create and use reference tools. As a result, new contributors to WP don't know how to reference, get reverted often, get frustrated, and leave.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 14:18, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

About moving quotes within citations into the body of the article. I'm a writer, not a great writer, but competent, and value simplicity and clarity. When I write on a difficult subject like Spinoza, I'm deliberately trying to bring along readers with me, and not lose them. Quotes, particularly if they have difficult unexplained concepts in them, slow down the reader, and risk alienating them, so I don't want too many quotes in the text regardless of whether they're relevant or not, particularly in the early stages. On the Spinoza article on WP, I had what I considered to be a great article (which is mostly imported to CZ here) which adhered to the basic concepts, but provided an intelligent introduction to a complex philosophy, suitable for beginners. What happened (if you see the "Philosophy of Spinoza" WP article now) is that a grad student (who CAN'T write well by any stretch) rewrote it with highly technical and difficult language, which even fellow Spinoza grad students might have trouble with. The article doesn't flow. It is intimidating. So, if this supposed philosophy "grad student" (as he claimed -- who really knows?) is writing in good faith to hopefully improve the article, he or she will find, in a few years, that NO STUDENTS want to study Spinoza's philosophy if they come across the intimidating Wikipedia article. If he or she ever becomes a professor, they'll have few, if any, students.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 14:18, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

For example, note 1 has quote XXX and note 2 has quote yyy. Where you now have statement [1][2], you might want statement. "For example, quote 1 [1] and quote 2 [2]."

Second, redlinks shouldn't be avoided, but we have different usages -- informal -- than Wikipedia. It's desirable to have a redlink as a suggestion that an article is reasonably needed. We don't wikilink dates, and we don't, for example, wikilink every journalist unless that journalist seems likely to merit an article.

Got it. Thanks. Redlinks when we want an article about it. My habit from Wikipedia was to avoid redlinks (there was dispute within the community about them) since it looked like an error (and focused attention on a weak spot in my contributions) and therefore weakened my material. But I can see them as useful prods for developing new content as well. I guess my policy here on CZ will be to continue to avoid them unless I myself plan to write a CZ article about them. Totally agree about not wikilinking dates also.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 14:18, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

In general, I find that your articles are on the long side, but also have many articles that can be extracted and both wikilinked in the main article and also through Related Articles subpages.

Yes, definitely long. I'm still not clear about how to break articles up into subpages. I figured out how to do this on WP; but not sure here how it works.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 14:18, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Citizenship

While we think about the scope of the article proper, I see immediate opportunities to create articles from biographical information that we really need in articles, such as Alexis de Toqueville and Juergen Habermas. Simply extracting the material there and writing an introductory lede would make a good developing article. Once you've created the article (I can help with metadata and links), click "what links here" on the left edge, and you'll see articles that address the person and perhaps have text that can be merged into the article.

OK, will consider for future projects, good ideas, thanx.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 14:18, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Handyman

The core of the article is the handyman business. The list of tasks could be a catalog subpage, with columns listing the task, the skilled trades, the tools (see tool/Related Articles), and materials. (tips Engineering Editor [hard]hat)

Agree about list of handyman projects as a subpage (or possibly removed altogether). WP didn't like lists; CZ policy is similar, is this right?--Thomas Wright Sulcer 14:18, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm personally interested in the business aspects, as I'm involved in setting up something of a handyman exchange here in a Cape Cod fishing village and summer resort -- we have widely skilled fishermen that can variously do handyman work in the offseason, or when, for example, fishing limits keep them ashore.

OK, my sense is it's becoming more dominated by franchise firms, but the prices for them are high. But firms like "Mr. Handyman" have been expanding (I used to work for them.)--Thomas Wright Sulcer 14:18, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

There's a loose idea of a "catalog", or annotated list. Another approach to list is the structure in a Related Articles subpage. It may be easier to show you than to explain it here. Shall we move Handyman to mainspace and continue converting there? --Howard C. Berkowitz 15:35, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes please go ahead and move it if you like. I'm unsure how to do things like metadata and Related Articles.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 19:21, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Wow, great Howard, thanks for getting the article ship shape. I'll try to find stuff to expand this topic.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 13:41, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Terrorism prevention

This, and other articles, need some organizational thought. You've opened work into the individual and community protection area.

In the broader area, do remember that while we are English-language, we try not to be U.S. specific. Changing to my Military Editor hat, I've had involvement with terrorism and counterterrorism since the 1960s, and a historical perspective well before that. One key to excellent articles in this area is to be sure we don't imply all terrorism is post-9/11 or Islamic or even targeted at the West. I personally believe it is essential to separate terrorism as a tactic from insurgency or other reasons to select terror as a tactic to carry out a grand strategy. Suicide attack isn't always terrorism -- it may be purely military, but there are gray areas. I'd be delighted to work with you here. Even though there is an Approved terrorism article, I think it's due for updating. --Howard C. Berkowitz 11:13, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

About the US focus of the article. You're exactly right. In my hunt for information, mostly US material came up (harder to find stuff about other nations, or maybe this is my fault since I'm an American?). I see the material there in the sandbox as stuff which you can use or not use if you like.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 14:18, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

About terrorism as not being Islamic, or targeted at the west. I agree. But the "terrorism prevention strategies" article definitely assumes this -- the reason why this is so is how the article was constructed. I spent about a week reading all the mainstream sources on terrorism prevention, and this is what resulted; so, regardless of my opinion or your opinion, the NY Times and Washington Post and the Economist all tend to think of terrorism as Islamic radicals post 9/11 shoe-bomber types. (I'm exaggerating for effect here). My sense of terrorism (if you read my pdf file Common Sense II) is much wider.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 14:18, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

About general strategy for the terrorism and terrorism-related articles. I think this whole subject area is one where we can SHINE relative to Wikipedia, since the WP articles have been fixed by a group of administrators with a rather narrow focus on what terrorism is, and are unlikely to change. So here's where you and I could do a superior job which illustrates how CZ is superior to WP. But, how to do this?--Thomas Wright Sulcer 14:18, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

And my tentative suggestions are these, but I'm interested in what your take is on this. Articles about definitions (eg "terrorism", "counterterrorism", "counterinsurgency") should be short but intensely packed with references, and focus ONLY on what the mainstream thinking is about what these definitions exactly are as best we can (or if there is substantial disagreement, to show concisely what this disagreement is). That is, we should stick to the subject, and keep each definition article short (with links to other terms) and focus on what mainstream publications and dictionaries views on the subject. Like, an article about "counterterrorism" should deal with the definition only, what the senses of it are, and avoid going into long discussions about specific counterterrorism strategies or policies in different countries, or whether it involves "tactics" or "strategy". In contrast, articles about preventing terrorism, acts of terrorism, theories about terrorism etc should be longer and can reflect differing viewpoints like your idea that "terrorism is a tactic" and related material. That's one way to organize it. But I'm wondering what you think. What will confound everybody here is when we all are working from different premises of what terrorism is, and it's easy to run around in circles.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 14:18, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Remember, first, that CZ doesn't necessarily require every statement to be referenced or come from an outside source, if the author has expertise in the subject. We encourage a loosely defined concept of "original synthesis", which puts facts and sourced information in context. If you look at the insurgency article, there are about 40 sources, of which 1 is from a news medium.

In general, for the Military workgroup, I discourage journalistic references, when they can be avoided. They can't be avoided for current events, but I try to use multiple sources, not all U.S., and supplement both with expertise and more authoritative sources as they become available. --Howard C. Berkowitz 15:26, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

OK.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 19:24, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Brewing your ideas

Lots of good stuff in there, Thomas. I suggest that you let them out one by one by dedicated posts on the forums. This will facilitate their discussion and help to put them in context of other discussions. Cheers, --Daniel Mietchen 14:08, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, Daniel! Will learn how to use these forums hopefully!--Thomas Wright Sulcer 14:25, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

I checked out the forums but there were so many. I was expecting some kind of way-station for tentative articles to go (for scrutiny by other editors) before going live, but I guess the forums are just ways to talk with others to try to generate interest in a topic, am I right?--Thomas Wright Sulcer 02:40, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes, the Forums are where we *talk* about articles in general, policy, technical stuff, the *occasional* article in particular if there is some special reason for doing so in a wider forum than its own Talk page (so that more Citizens will be aware of the discussion), and other miscellaneous chitchat. Just click on the "Show unread posts since last visit" at the upper left and after a week or so you will be 100% up-to-date with everything that is going on in the Forums. And don't hesitate to start your own new topics. Hayford Peirce 19:00, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

PS -- don't forget that you will have to *register again* at the Forums to become a participant there. It only takes a couple of moments but is not 100% intuitive -- please read the instructions carefully at the top of the page, including the exhortation to create a signature for yourself. Thanks! Hayford Peirce 19:04, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

OK thanks for advice. Will get into forums perhaps over the weekend. In general if I add articles which I think are worthy, well-researched, even if ported from WP -- if I go ahead and just add them, is this okay? Or is there some kind of clearinghouse procedure to get them approved first?--Thomas Wright Sulcer 19:20, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Just port them over by yourself and do, in general, what is being done to the ones that you already have brought over. Bringing articles over, and documenting them, is more of an art than an exact science. A couple of years ago I brought over *dozens* of articles, almost all of them versions that I myself had written 100% or close to it. On some, or most, of them, I put a WP template on the Talk page -- see: http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Talk:Bill_Johnston I think that the actual template itself has been slightly modified now, but it's useful to put it on the Talk page, along with any info that you might add to it. And, of course, in some cases, you will want to check off the "Content is from Wikipedia?" at the bottom of the edit page, just above the "Save page" button. Once again, this is an art, not a science. Hayford Peirce 20:21, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

hi

Hi Tom, i was just reading your user page. A lot of good thoughts. Much of this has been discussed before in the forums although I can't direct you to specific conversations. Many of these things are still up in the air too.

Let me know if you need help with the mechanics of subpages etc. It is more complicated than wikipedia but hopefully it will evolve into a slightly less chaotic environment. Obviously it's still early days and everything is up for discussion. Chris Day 19:16, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks Chris will hopefully understand how to do this stuff.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 19:21, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Obviously the metadata is one big difference between CZ and WP. Each page and subpage has the {{Subpages}} template at the top and this interprets the information on the metadata page to give a navigation banner at the top of each page.

Another major difference from wikipedia is the lack of categories, except those that are added automatically for housekeeping purposes. Instead, we use the the Related Articles subpage. If these are filled out thoughtfully they will result in a powerful browsing/navigation tool. See the link for more on the mechanics and some basic information. Chris Day 19:42, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Tennis players

Hi, Thomas, I just saw that you started a sandbox with a WP import about tennis players. I don't know, of course, what your thoughts are with this, but I just wanted to say that we already have two very elaborate "catalogs', one called Tennis/Catalogs/Famous players and Tennis/Catalogs/World No. 1 male players. Larry was/is very strong on "catalogs", so that's how we classify a lot of things. The No. 1 stuff I bascially brought in from WP, where I had originated it in the first place. The Famous players catalog, however, was created here, with a lot input from the tech people.... Hayford Peirce 19:25, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Oh. Thanks for telling me Hayford. When I did a search on CZ for "Famous tennis players" (what Daniel suggested was one of the "key traffic driver" terms) I didn't get anything here. On WP, there were lists. So I figured this was a great way to outcompete WP. So I imported the male players to a sandbox. But you're saying it originated on CZ first by you, then got scooped by WP, and I just scooped it back? How marvelous! I'll check with you b4 doing anything more about this. I should check my watchlist more often. :)--Thomas Wright Sulcer 20:15, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

My recollection of the chronology is this: when I joined WP around 2003 or '04 some of us started a very bare-bones Famous tennis players list. For males, I guess. It was about like what it is at WP today, but was more just a plain list of names without much, if any, info about the players. Then when I came to CZ in May of '07 I decided to start a similar list again. I got it underway, a simple list, I think, but Larry intervened and said he wanted it to be a *catalog*. Then a couple of other people got involved and designed the template that we're using today. So you might say that its origins were an outgrowth of WP, but that it quickly changed to its own format, which owes nothing to WP at all. The other big catalog, for the No. 1 players, I invented at WP and was the primary author for a long time. When I moved to CZ, I brought it along with me, made a lot of changes in the text, but left the format just the same, or mostly so. Hayford Peirce 20:56, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Honoring contributors

I saw your thoughts about this on your User page and while it's a nice idea it's also one that people here at CZ have discussed, argued about, not quite fought about, for a *long* time now, with all sorts of *very* ingenious proposals made about *how* this could be done, but in the long run no one has ever figured out a way of doing it that would take into account all of the pros and cons on each side of the discussion. Somewhere in the Forums are lengthy threads devoted to this issue.... Hayford Peirce 02:46, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Yes, thanks Hayford for letting me know. I figured there had been discussion, that it was ongoing, and important, although the prospect of slogging through lengthy discussions does not seem particularly intriguing to me at this moment. I wonder if it's one of those things we just start by doing it, and hope it catches on?--Thomas Wright Sulcer 11:48, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

No, it's definitely not something that can just be done. First of all, it would absolutely contradict the whole basic philosophy of CZ as set forth in the beginning of the project. It *could* be done, eventually, but ONLY if the Charter-writing people rewrite the forthcoming Charter to allow it. And even then, they, or someone, would have to work out a feasible WAY of doing it. I'm not saying that three years from now there *won't* be signed articles of one sort or another, but right now it is simply a no-go situation. Hayford Peirce 16:55, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Too late, Hayford, I've already starting doing it. I'm a member of the Hayford Peirce fan club. I've ordered one of your books from Amazon. And the practice of honoring contributors is already being to catch on. By the time I'm done honoring you, you'll feel like a deity, which could seriously interfere with your constabulary roles (and possibly give you new powers to scroll through forums at hyperspeed). And who are these mysterious "charter-writing people" (sounds like creatures from a science fiction book.) Yes, I suppose we should wait and see what pathways they recommend, but wouldn't it be nice if they could figure out ways to make CZ work so it's read by more than 17 people (including uncles) on the planet? :) --Thomas Wright Sulcer 17:59, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

This man holding two lobsters is a WRITER who wrote a book which MOI is going to read, if only Amazon doesn't screw up the ordering and mailing.