User talk:Skittleys/Archive Oct 09

Spurious caps

I have moved Table of muscles of the human body: Torso to Table of muscles of the human body: torso. Please save me the trouble and put any future tables on the proper title from the start. — RHaworth (talk · contribs) 17:20, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

I have moved all the pages back to their original capitalised state. Please save me the trouble and read the guideline on naming conventions for long lists. — Skittleys (talk) 18:00, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

The guideline does not say anything explicitly about capitalisation. I shall wait to see if anyone comments here before entering into a revert war. — RHaworth (talk · contribs) 18:19, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

I suppose it's true that it is not explicitly stated. However, every single example provided uses capitals, as you just noted when you went and changed the guideline. I have reverted these again for the moment because controversial changes are not to be made to guidelines without FIRST establishing consensus. See also the last line of WP:PG#Content changes. Leaving the edits as-is would result in bias toward your opinion; while you can argue that leaving it as-is results in my own bias, that's true on some level, but it's also true that that's how it has been for over a year. — Skittleys (talk) 18:35, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Speedy deletion nomination of Table of muscles of the human body/End

A tag has been placed on Table of muscles of the human body/End requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section A3 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because it is an article with no content whatsoever, or whose contents consist only of external links, a "See also" section, book references, category tags, template tags, interwiki links, a rephrasing of the title, or an attempt to contact the subject of the article. Please see Wikipedia:Stub for our minimum information standards for short articles. Also please note that articles must be on notable subjects and should provide references to reliable sources that verify their content. You may wish to consider using a Wizard to help you create articles - see the Article Wizard.

If you think that this notice was placed here in error, you may contest the deletion by adding {{hangon}} to the top of the page that has been nominated for deletion (just below the existing speedy deletion or "db" tag), coupled with adding a note on the talk page explaining your position, but be aware that once tagged for speedy deletion, if the page meets the criterion it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself, but don't hesitate to add information to the page that would render it more in conformance with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. Lastly, please note that if the page does get deleted, you can contact one of these admins to request that they userfy the page or have a copy emailed to you. Eeekster (talk) 22:39, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

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stubs

When an article is tagged as a stub, this already indicates that the article has problems. Stubs are usually very short, not very clear, lack references, etc. So best practice is not to place other cleanup tags on articles while they are tagged as stubs. The problems will be fixed by whoever expands the article to get rid of the stub tag. — Carl (CBM · talk) 00:52, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

According to...what? Neither the stub guideline nor the cleanup recommendations say this. In fact, when I just went hunting, I found this on the cleanup templates page (emphasis mine):

If too many tags are put at the top of an article, the article can become eclipsed by the tags, especially with short or stub articles.

I also found this on the cleanup process page:

Some common types...advice on how to handle...

Request for expansion of an otherwise fine stub. Most requests of this sort can be moved to Wikipedia:Requests for expansion.

I would think there's an implication here that (a) stubs can be tagged with {{expand}}, and (b) there's such a thing as a "not-fine" stub.

A stub is explicitly defined as "an article containing only a few sentences of text which is too short to provide encyclopedic coverage of a subject, but not so short as to provide no useful information, and it should be capable of expansion." Nothing in that definition suggests that a stub can or can not have maintenance issues, or that stubs by their own nature don't have references, etc.

I've always thought that tagging stubs is a good idea because it directs more people to that page. I'm pretty sure that I learned that through the guidelines and editors.

So, please tell me where this "best practice" is ever described, let alone recommended! — Skittleys (talk) 01:14, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

The problem with tagging stubs is that essentially all of them can be tagged with expert attention needed, expansion needed, and cleanup needed. And a lot of them can be tagged as unreferenced. But adding all these tags to every stub does not help anything.

• The article itself is already tagged as a stub, which tells everyone it needs a lot of work
• The categories used by the templates are filled with too many articles for humans to make any headway with an exhaustive sweep. There are hundreds of thousands of articles with cleanup tags already, which have not drawn anybody's attention to fix them. So no additional editors are likely to be drawn to an article via cleanup tags, unless they already had that article on their watchlist.

So when you add these tags to articles already marked as stubs, you create the situation that WP:CLEANUP wants to avoid when it says "Please do not insert tags that are too similar or redundant with each other." In most cases, cleanup tags are redundant with the stub tag. — Carl (CBM · talk) 01:26, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Again, the precise definition of stubs is "articles deemed too short to provide encyclopedic coverage of a subject". A stub tag tells people that an article doesn't yet have enough information to be suitable for an encyclopedia (interpreted from WP:STUB and User:Grutness/Croughton-London rule of stubs). That would deem most maintenance-related stubs NOT redundant with the stub tag. Furthermore, a stub tag is not a cleanup tag, and a stub is not automatically a page in need of cleanup for most issues. A stub can have references. A stub can have sections. A stub can have links. A stub can be formatted perfectly. By definition, the only problem with a "stub" is that it doesn't provide enough information. That doesn't precisely equate to "needs a lot of work" or "this page needs references". And this is perfectly demonstrated in the model stub article of the Version 1.0 Editorial Team: Geodia gibberosa. — Skittleys (talk) 01:50, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

The rule of thumb that I always use when adding or removing stub tags is whether the article still requires significant work to reach even a minimal level of acceptability. Many B-class articles are "too short to provide encyclopedic coverage", but they are not tagged as stubs. But when an article is tagged as a stub already, and has other problems, the best solution to those other problems is to actually turn the page into a (non-stub) article. Because the process of resolving the stub tag will resolve all the other cleanup issues with the stub, the cleanup tags are redundant. — Carl (CBM · talk) 01:59, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

If many B-class articles are "too short to provide encyclopedic coverage", then they are by definition not B-class. If a core topic is missing from an article, it's not encyclopedia. If an overview of the subject has been provided, it's encyclopedic. It doesn't have to (yet) cover material to the same depth or extent as an encyclopedia to be encyclopedic. I admit that I don't know where "encyclopedic coverage" is defined (though Encyclopedia helps), but the definition of a stub makes it pretty clear that that stub-ness is based on coverage and not formatting issues, wikilinks, and whatnot.

Also, resolving a stub tag absolutely will NOT resolve all the other cleanup issues. — Skittleys (talk) 02:19, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Right, so I'm the idiot who's been having this debate without actually going and seeing what edit of mine you changed. What you actually did makes sense; an unreferenced article is considered a stub (by WP:ASSESS, anyway). What you wrote on my talk page doesn't match up with the action you took. — Skittleys (talk) 02:24, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

I will try to remember to include a link next time; sorry. — Carl (CBM · talk) 02:30, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

R from systematic / technical name

Trying to track down alternatives for {{R from scientific name}}, I discovered your {{R from technical name}} and {{R from systematic name}}. (Not very widely used yet -- still just one redirect each -- but they are quite new.) I assume that the former would be appropriate for Egestion → Defecation and the latter for NGC 6543 →Cat's Eye Nebula. While "technical name" seems straight forward, I don't know if there is any special meaning to "systematic name". Would you agree that all the "NCG ####" redirects should be thusly tagged?

I see that you categorized Category:Redirects from scientific names with Category:Redirects from systematic names. Does that imply that it is a subcategory? -- ToE^T 09:54, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes, you chose the right tags for each of those examples. A systematic name is any name that has some sort of standard nomenclature system, like IUPAC for chemical compounds. So NGC falls under there. Scientific name is supposed to always refer to binomial nomenclature, but of course it doesn't sound that way (which is why I started making alternatives in the first place). Binomial nomenclature is a systematic naming scheme, which is why it's a subcategory under there. I'm in the midst of a project right now, but going and clarifying all those redirects some more is next on the list. :) — Skittleys (talk) 12:12, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

If you intend to have {{R from scientific name}} refer exclusively to biological binomial nomenclature you should make that clear at the template page as well as Wikipedia:Template messages/Redirect pages and any other applicable page.. because currently it does not state anywhere that "scientific name" should mean exclusively "binomial nomenclature", and in fact, it would be less confusing and restrictive if it was a more general definition of "scientific" to include any redirect titles that are simply 'scientific' as opposed to the common name. IMO "scientific" and "technical" should be merged, but making redirect templates more specific is a good thing too. -- œ^™ 03:17, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

If by that you mean clarifying the use of the redirection templates, that would be very welcome.WP:TMR is not nearly as useful as it could be. Whenever I look at it I alternate between wishing that it somewhere listed all such redirect without comment so I could scan a compact list, and wishing that it gave specific examples of best case and borderline use for every template it discusses. Many of the template pages themselves are in need of improvement. Looking at {{R from scientific name}} again, it does not provide a link to its own category page Category:Redirects from scientific names, unlike {{R from misspelling}}.

Of the 3086 redirects using {{R from scientific name}} (as of the sept 14 database dump) I identified 236 which used it improperly, which is why I was looking for alternatives to {{R from alternative name}}. I suppose that I am about to become an early adopter of your new templates. -- ToE^T 12:40, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

I've been making this: User:Skittleys/Redirect templates. It's not complete, but it does have all the ones from WP:TMR! — Skittleys (talk) 12:59, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Wow, that looks great. I particularly appreciate its grouping by function versus the purely alphebetical WP:TMR. Would you prefer proofreading remarks and comments here or at User talk:Skittleys/Redirect templates. -- ToE^T 01:17, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

There probably works best. :) — Skittleys (talk) 15:05, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

And another question related to Template:R to disambiguation page. I was in the process of removing the {{R to disambiguation page}} from some redirects where I understand it to be incorrectly placed when Amalthea questioned if I was doing the right thing. Could you please check out User talk:Thinking of England#R to disambiguation page and let me know? Thanks. -- ToE^T 15:20, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Hi Skittleys, I have a tangential question. Back in June Bkonrad created the redirect Template: R from disambiguation → Template:R to disambiguation page because there were already several redirects labeled with that nonexistent template. Given that most "to/from" template pairs are complements and not synonyms, I feel that this redirect tends to confuse more than help. When I asked him about it he said that he wouldn't oppose its removal, but I wanted to get another opinion before I took action. So, do you think that this redirect is at all worth keeping? I would, of course, fix the two dozen redirects that use it, and will periodically run a script that will scan for future uses. -- ToE^T 05:49, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm not entirely sure I understand what you mean by "most 'to/from' template pairs are complements and not synonyms" with regards to this template. Are you just referring to the fact that it's "disambiguation" instead of "disambiguation page"? I assume that by "complements" you mean something like {{R to other template}} and {{R from other template}}. Is that correct? Because that's how I'd view this one......so I'm confused! —Skittleys (talk) 15:31, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Right, as with {{R to systematic name}} and {{R from systematic name}} which complement one another and are not synonyms. Thus it seems a source of confusion to have a "from"-redirect target a "to"-template, that is Template:R from disambiguation → Template:R to disambiguation page (the missing extra "page" a red herring), just to provide an accidental link for the few users who mistype it. (Not as if there is enough confusion already about {{R to disambiguation page}}!). -- ToE^T 23:41, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Being careful with mathematical notation

In this edit, you're really not being careful enough either with the usage conventions or the content. Things like this:

$giraffes$ $\subseteq$ $animals\,$

should be written like this:

${\text{giraffes}}\subseteq {\text{animals}}\,$

This is indented by a preceding colon and uses \text. This incorrect alignment in the first example results from using three separate sets of <math> tags rather than only one. (You seem to have used separate sets rather than only one for the purpose of linking, but the links didn't work.) Where you wrote $\nsubseteq$ you appear to have meant $\subsetneq$. That second one means "is a subset but is not equal"; the first means "is not a subset".

It is not appropriate to say that $\subsetneq \,$ means x is a subset of y but not equal to y; rather one should say $x\subsetneq y\,$ means x is a subset of y but not equal to y.

Michael Hardy (talk) 19:09, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

You're definitely right for the most part, and thanks for letting me know! It's my first time using the math notation, so I didn't know what the proper convention was for indentation, nor did I know that those \text{} things existed. :-\ Looking at WP:MATH again, there should probably be some kind of section (or even a separate page) that explains a lot of the formatting issues, because right now it's absolutely lost in all the symbols and how to use them...yes, there's also MOS:MATH, but the whole \text section is buried at the bottom of everything and not covered under the "conventions" section. You're also definitely right about the set notation, and I can't believe I didn't pick up on that, given that the only reason I used the math notation instead of HTML was specifically for the "subset but not equal" symbols!

However, I did the separate math tags purposely to make those links work, like you guessed; they didn't work when I used I just enclosed everything in one set. However, you said "...but the links didn't work." What do you mean? They work for me, both in the version you referenced and the last version before you changed them, and in all of IE7, IE8 and Firefox 3.5. So, I have two questions now... (1) what are you referring to? and (2) is there a way to make wikilinks work without using numerous <math> tags? --Skittleys (talk) 20:36, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

One last thing: I'm reformatting the section you changed on the notation back into one sentence. The definition itself needed to be changed, but the formatting itself absolutely did not. It interrupts the flow of the article, it is not a formula (and therefore the guideline as stated in MOS:MATH#Using LaTeX markup doesn't apply), and the use of an inline explanation of a symbol is precedented in numerous math articles such as the FAs 1 − 2 + 3 − 4 + · · · and Laplace–Runge–Lenz vector. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Skittleys (talk • contribs)

For me the links didn't work at all. They didn't look like links. They were not clickable. Michael Hardy (talk) 16:30, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

That's very odd...what browser do you use? —Skittleys (talk) 09:44, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Mozilla Firefox. Let's try it here. This is copied and pasted from your edit to which I linked at the beginning of this thread:

$square$

What I see now is that this is clickable and works as a link, but it doesn't look like a link; it has no blue underscore.

At any rate, I don't think these links were really relevant to the topic, and using separate sets of math tags rather than just one was causing conspicuous misalignments. Michael Hardy (talk) 17:45, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

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Wikifying Stephano Sabetti article

Hello Skittleys! Thanks for your comments on the Wikification of the article on Stephano Sabetti. I have Wikified many names and terms in the article. If you think I need to add more, could you please note which terms? I must admit I am reluctant to Wikify any of Sabetti's terms, as I ran afoul of the administrators early on. They felt all the links and excess verbiage turned the article into an infomercial. As a result, the article is now drastically shortened. If it's okay, could you remove your post? Thanks much. I'm sorry I didn't post this on my page, but I couldn't seem to figure out how to execute the talkback properly. (LEMspare (talk) 12:00, 20 October 2009 (UTC))

R from Eponym

Hello! I just had a quick discussion with ToE with the suggestion of using {{R from Eponym}} and {{R to Eponym}} templates, which would be especially (but not exclusively) useful for medical terms as there are thousands of them.

I can see that you are doing a bit of work, hopefully creating a central discussion place for these things, and I would value your input.

I can come up with some suggestions for a template if you would like, and Get started! There are thousands lol :-/

Best Regards, Captain n00dle ^T/_C 20:17, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Captain-n00dle, I apologize for bouncing you all over the place, but as I keep whinging about the lack of a centralized discussion on redirect templates, I figured that I ought to do something about it, so I copied your question over to WT:RE#R from Eponym and will see if I can build up a general discussion there. Hope you don't mind. -- ToE^T 03:14, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Of course I don't mind! Its a good idea I have tried to leave a reply to your points ^_^

p.s. Sorry for spamming your talk page Skittleys! Regards, Captain n00dle ^T/_C 18:19, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

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Place Ville-Marie

Hi there,

I see on your user page that you live in Montreal. I am going to assume that you have heard of Place Ville-Marie in asking you this question. The reports of the number of floors in Place Ville-Marie vary from 43 to 46. Do you, with your Montreal expertise, know the actual number of floors in this structure, or could you possibly visit this building to find out? Thanks,

-Stuck in Edmonton 117Avenue (talk) 22:55, 28 October 2009 (UTC)