User talk:WillowW/Archive23

Ribonuclease inhibitor

Heya, i'm doing some work on the protein domains pages and i've come across the page you created on Ribonuclease_inhibitor. It all seems pretty good, but i'm having trouble tracking it down to a protein family on pfam or an entry on interpro. If you could help me out then we can get the page fitted with an infobox (Template:Infobox_protein_family). Cheers, Abergabe (talk) 10:24, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

That's one of my favourite proteins - so beautiful! This RNase inhibitor belongs to the family of leucine-rich repeats but forms a special subfamily, because it's an unusually long LRR and because it forms a ring (a "horseshoe"; see the picture at the top of this page) rather than part of a helix. Its InterPro number is IPR003590, and its Pfam number is PF00560, LRR_1. At UniProt, it goes by the number P13489, RINI_HUMAN. Thanks for taking it under your wing. :) Willow (talk) 11:24, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Ahhh cheers, you're a star. That's the last one on my list to file away as complete ^_^ Abergabe (talk) 13:59, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Welcome back User:WillowW! Things have been busy while you have been away. Remember the 600 or so articles you helped us create from Rfam articles. Well we recently found that over 1000 users had made over 7,600 edits to these and other RNA articles we link to. As you see our thoughts are now beginning to turn to proteins :) Alexbateman (talk) 09:29, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Thank you, Alex! :) That's exciting news about Rfam and even more about the proteins; are you incorporating Pfam? I'm a big fan of proteins. Is there a page where I can see how to help? I'd be happy to write more code if it would be helpful to you all. :) Willow (talk) 11:35, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

I think we learnt a huge amount from our experience with Rfam and Wikipedia and that will help us with progressing with Pfam. We are currently trawling wikipedia and identifying all the existing pages discussing protein families and domains, adding infoboxes and bringing existing ones up to date. We're also adding links to Wikipedia into Pfam. We'll be in touch when we get seriously thinking about creating new family pages as I'm sure we could use your help again. But I think there are a number of things we want to do before going along that route. Best wishes. Alexbateman (talk) 13:49, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, Alex! I'll be delighted to help out however I can and whenever you're ready. Willow (talk) 02:13, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

"Kepler problem in general relativity" modified

One of your master-pieces, Kepler problem in general relativity, was recently edited by NOrbeck (talk · contribs) in a way which seemed to me to be half-assed. He introduced the reduced mass of the two celestial bodies to avoid assuming that the small one has negligible mass, but did not completely rework the article to do so consistently throughout. JRSpriggs (talk) 00:10, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

Thank you so much for your kind words, JR! :) I'm still unable to see the article because of Wikipedia's database being down, but my impression is that the reduced mass approach won't work in general relativity. If the moving mass isn't infinitesimal, then it will contribute to the stress-energy tensor and thus alter the metric significantly. Aside from the technical difficulty of calculating that new metric, having more than one metric seems as though it would broaden the article's scope beyond what would be practical for a single article?

On the other hand, I believe that Einstein did solve the Kepler problem for two massive bodies in one of his final papers, showing that the constraint of the continuity of space-time curvature was equivalent to the more usual "geodesic path" equation for an infinitesimal test particle (see [1] and references therein). That must be one of the coolest results in general relativity. :) I was meaning to understand that equivalence more fully and incorporate it into the article before I brought it to FAC. Willow (talk) 03:20, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

OK, I can see the article again, but it will take me a while to go through the edits that have been made over the past two years...Talk to you soon! :) Willow (talk) 03:25, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for the link to the paper "ON THE MOTION OF PARTICLES IN GENERAL RELATIVITY THEORY" by Einstein and Infeld. JRSpriggs (talk) 09:14, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Aren't Einstein's papers great? So clear! :) It seems that I was mistaken - there's no exact solution for two massive bodies, only a set of iterative approximations that I believe is equivalent to the post-Newtonian expansion. I printed out a followup paper on the motion of two bodies by H. P. Robertson, who was interested in binary stars. I haven't worked through the calculation in detail, but it seems pretty certain that the reduced-mass approach is incorrect. I don't want to revert, however, until I'm certain. Willow (talk) 13:02, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes, Einstein was a very clear writer.

Given your interest in general relativity, you might want to consider joining the relativity task force at Wikipedia:WikiProject Physics/Taskforces/Relativity#Participation.

Let me welcome you back as the others below have done. JRSpriggs (talk) 21:14, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

You're back?

I can't believe it! How could I have missed this? It's so... heartening :) Fvasconcellos (t·c) 14:00, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Thank you so much, F! :) I'm glad to be contributing again, and everyone's warm messages of welcome make it all the more joyful. :) I missed you all as well. I especially appreciated your annual holiday greetings; it was sweet to be remembered. Willow (talk) 22:49, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

your idea WikiProject on "weaving" page

Hi,

I read about your idea of a WikiProject on Textile Arts. That's what I am dreaming of for years! Is anybody else interested? Did you get any comments? I would be very happy to start something. Greetings from Germany, Ackja1982 (talk) 18:24, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

Grüẞ Dich, Ach! Ich muss gestehen, ich kenn' mich gar nicht so gut mit dem Weben aus, obwohl ich schon einen Twill von einem Satin unterscheiden kann.  ;) Na, ja. Es freut mich, daẞ Du Dich für das Textile Arts WikiProject interessierst! Leider findet da kaum was statt; im Moment, sind wir alle zerstreut. ;) Ich habe einige Stricken– und Häkeln–artikel geschrieben und illustriert, aber das war ja vor etlichen Jahren. Aber ich wuerde mich freuen, wenn wir neues Leben in das WikiProject einflüstern könnten! Es macht immer Spaẞ wenn man zur zweit oder dritt (oder noch mehr) einen Artikel schreibt, und umgekehrt ist es immer etwas traurig wenn man ganz alleine arbeitet... Na, bis bald, Deine Willow (talk) 21:15, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

AfD nomination of List of 1974 Macropædia articles

An article that you have been involved in editing, List of 1974 Macropædia articles, has been listed for deletion. If you are interested in the deletion discussion, please participate by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of 1974 Macropædia articles (2nd nomination). Thank you.

Please contact me if you're unsure why you received this message. Everard Proudfoot (talk) 20:19, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

AfD nomination of List of 2007 Macropædia articles

An article that you have been involved in editing, List of 2007 Macropædia articles, has been listed for deletion. If you are interested in the deletion discussion, please participate by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of 2007 Macropædia articles. Thank you.

Please contact me if you're unsure why you received this message. Everard Proudfoot (talk) 20:23, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Invitation à la danse

Willow, it is so nice to see you around again. Truly. Still remember very well your math FA. Listen, I'm on logarithm. If you are interested, I could use some help in balancing the material and maintaining/establishing ;) general-audience-accessibility of the article. See you there, Jakob.scholbach (talk) 19:49, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Thank you, thank you, Jakob! I'm so grateful for your invitation to dance, and for your warm thoughts. I have fond memories of you, too, especially of your making that animation, your unflagging help on problem of Apollonius, and your wonderful work on the best. math. FA. ever. :) I'm away from home for a few days, so it might be hard for me to contribute now; but I'll be delighted to begin helping out in earnest on Thursday. :) Logarithm is such an important topic; "what's a logarithm?" seems to be the favourite first question of people curious about higher math. Hoping to contribute something, Willow (talk) 19:37, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Hi Jakob! :) I've spent a few hours studying the Logarithm article, reading its Talk and History pages, and generally meditating on it. To me, it seems the article will need serious work to bring it to FA, or even to GA; are you interested in doing that? If so, I'm in! :) But we need to prepare ourselves for a long road ahead. Please let me know what you think; warm hellos to you, Willow (talk) 03:06, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Great! Yes, GA was my first goal. (I will be out of town in September, though.) If we still have steam after earning the green plus, we might also try and go for FA. Jakob.scholbach (talk) 08:18, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

I'm slowly but steadily approaching GAC. Maybe next week or so. If you want to weigh in before GAC, fine, if not, fine too... Jakob.scholbach (talk) 20:12, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Hey, Jakob, thank you for waking me up! :) I've been rather busy in real life, but I'll go through the article tonight and perhaps invite Geometry guy to dance with me, too. :) I won't change the article directly (yet), but I'll write my suggestions on the article's Talk page and see if you like them. Willow (talk) 17:01, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

PS. I think the cognoscenti prefer GAN to GAC, which might stand for "Good article criteria". I don't imagine that anyone will mind, but it doesn't hurt to be extra-careful! :) Willow (talk) 17:11, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Cool.

P.S. O mea culpa. Errare humanum est. Damit bin ich mit meinem Latein am Ende. Always thought it is Good Article Candidacy... Jakob.scholbach (talk) 21:44, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

FYI, I nominated it for GA now. Jakob.scholbach (talk) 19:51, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

MfD nomination of User:WillowW/Universe

User:WillowW/Universe, a page you substantially contributed to, has been nominated for deletion. Your opinions on the matter are welcome; please participate in the discussion by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:WillowW/Universe and please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes (~~~~). You are free to edit the content of User:WillowW/Universe during the discussion but should not remove the miscellany for deletion template from the top of the page; such a removal will not end the deletion discussion. Thank you. :| TelCoNaSpVe :| 01:20, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

Dear TelCo, I'm sorry for not being able to reply earlier; I was under the weather. That subpage was only a sandbox for notes and drafts for the Universe article, which I was improving as part of the The Core Contest in late 2007. I made quite a few edits then, so it's not surprising that people found my subpage notes out-of-date — I put the useful parts into the article itself! :) There wasn't anything left there that I intended to use again, so the subpage was quite rightly deleted. However, I have quite a few such sandboxes of notes and drafts, many of which I'm still intending to work on. If you would be so kind as to write me personally before you nominate them for deletion, I would be grateful — thanks! :) Willow (talk) 21:49, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

This is obviously a sandbox. Do you want me to restore it, Willow? --Moni3 (talk) 18:37, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

No, but thank you, Moni; I'm sure that nothing there was worth keeping. I'm touched by your offer, though, and it's very nice to see you here again. :) Willow (talk) 22:07, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Hi!

Barnsley fern construction

I just noticed you've been around recently. We've never "met" but I've missed you a ton! The place isn't the same without you. For no good reason, here is a picture of some Barnsley ferns. I hope you're well and that you'll keep stopping by from time to time. Don't let the nonsense get to you too much.

Your fan,

67.119.12.216 (talk)
22:24, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Hello 67 — that's very, very sweet of you; you cheered me up on a rainy day! :)

I'll be coming back to edit Wikipedia soon, and I hope to have the pleasure of talking more with you. I've been away because I wasn't feeling well for a few weeks, but I'm gradually recovering my strength and finding some time. I actually don't find this place nonsensical. I'm pretty patient with people, and I love the goal of helping to distill and preserve knowledge, and to transmit it unencumbered to people who love to learn. I've never left here for any reason related to Wikipedia.

Your beautiful image suggests that you're interested in mathematics? I've been toying with the idea of bringing some more math articles to FA. I know that Jakob.scholbach, whose kind acquaintance I warmly recommend to you, is interested in Logarithm, and there might be a few others in the wings, waiting to get their wings... :)

Thank you again, 67! Willow (talk) 19:38, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Hello

Hi Proteins, eh Willow?? How are you, what happened to the species bot idea? A new article that night interest you Coffee production in Papua New Guinea. I ought to do some more work on agriculture/deforestation some time but I've been very busy!! Perhaps you've seen User:Dr. Blofeld/DYK. I'm currently adding Antarctica PD articles though... Dr. Blofeld 13:58, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Hello again, your exalted Shininess! :) It's heartening to see you as wonderfully productive as ever. The species bot is dormant for the moment, for several reasons. I've become aware that there are better taxonomic resources than those at the National Center for Biotechnology Information, and in any event, I would need to recharge my database of taxonomic articles, which is three years out of date. Like you, I've been very busy in real life, and I'm afraid that my wiki-authoring slate is full for the moment with Émilie du Châtelet, angle trisection, and logarithm. But I'd be happy to review any articles for you; I have fond memories of reviewing your Deforestation in Brazil article. Thanks for your note and kind wishes, and best of luck with Antartica, Willow (talk) 16:08, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

My most recent GA is actually towards the other pole, Sisimiut. At present I'm concentrating on Antarctica stubs and Burmese settlements.♦ Dr. Blofeld 20:47, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

Hello from an SfN comrade

Hi! I thought that you had left Wikipedia! Welcome "back". I hope all is going well. Best, --Tryptofish (talk) 22:24, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Thank you, Tryptofish! I'm not quite back to editing fulltime, as you can see; but I should be shortly.

This might be a good time to acknowledge that I was the one responsible for writing the behemoth of the Action potential featured article. I can only plead that, at the time, there weren't any good supporting articles, so I had to include lots of background material that couldn't be found elsewhere on Wikipedia. Aside from its sprawling scope, the article was also criticized for its biophysical slant, which I concede is my training; but honestly, I'm not too embarrassed that I tried to give a visualizable molecular picture of what otherwise might seem like a mysterious phenomenon to lay-readers. Perhaps we and Looie496 might work together someday to bring it back to FA?

It's always good to hear from you. Take care, and good editing! :) Willow (talk) 22:02, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Good! I've been very active, but my to-do list seems to outgrow me exponentially. I've been keeping an eye on Action potential, as it's very much in my area of expertise, and it doesn't seem too biophysical to me (for whatever that's worth), but just too long in places. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:08, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

User page hall of fame

Willow,

I put your user page (and talk page) on the User page Hall of Fame. It's quite the work of art. D O N D E groovily Talk to me 04:05, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Thank you, Donde! I feel very honored to be listed side-by-side with the illuminaries at the Hall of Fame. I do like the simpler design of my present userpage; my older version was much too busy! :) You can thank Geometry guy for the hopeful candle. :) Willow (talk) 21:45, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

WikiProject Algae talk page tagging

Willow,

I see you were active and interested in algae articles, and that you created some useful categories and templates. I have asked a user with a project tagging bot to start tagging wikiproject algae articles. The conversation is here if you would like to comment, make suggestions. Thanks.

--KMLP (talk) 19:41, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Problems at Homothetic center

Greetings. Could you take a look at the Homothetic center article and its associated discussion. There appear to be problems with some of the material and you appear to be the principle author of that article. Your input would be appreciated. -- Tom N (tcncv) talk/contrib 02:15, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

More precisely, the result holds, but not all details in the proof. One remedy would involve replacing the proposed similar triangles with correct ones, also in the illustration. Do you think you could do that? JoergenB (talk) 15:47, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I'm sorry if I made a mistake in the proof, but I'll be happy to fix it. My only difficulty is that I'm having some difficulties in real life, and time is very scarce. I'm already miserable for not helping out Jakob.scholbach at Logarithm as I'd promised, so I'm very hesitant to make any promises I can't keep. :( I can only say that I'll do my best to correct the article in the coming week. As an aside, it's very nice that other people are looking at those articles; I had sort of given up hope that they were interesting. Thank you for alerting me to the problem, Willow (talk) 15:57, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Rather nice article! I must confess, however, that I probably hadn't discovered it if it hadn't been for the alert about the errors...

I started trying to modify your image, without really understanding the format; the result is found on the talk page of the article. JoergenB (talk) 16:59, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Great to see you back

Just noticed you over at RFA. Have an e-hug on me. - Dank (push to talk) 21:38, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

Yeay! You can't imagine how welcome that is. :) Willow (talk) 15:58, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm working mostly over at WP:SHIPS, drop in some time! - Dank (push to talk) 16:09, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

It's raining thanks spam!

• Please pardon the intrusion. This tin of thanks spam is offered to everyone who commented or !voted (Support, Oppose or Neutral) on my recent RfA. I appreciate the fact that you care enough about the encyclopedia and its community to participate in this forum.
• There are a host of processes that further need community support, including content review (WP:GAN, WP:PR, WP:FAC, and WP:FAR). You can also consider becoming a Wikipedia Ambassador. If you have the requisite experience and knowledge, consider running for admin yourself!
• If you have any further comments, input or questions, please do feel free to drop a line to me on my talk page. I am open to all discussion. Thanks • Ling.Nut (talk) 02:33, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:Article question

Template:Article question has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Thank you. Mhiji (talk) 12:19, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Main page appearance

Hello! This is a note to let the main editors of this article know that it will be appearing as the main page featured article on December 30, 2010. You can view the TFA blurb at Wikipedia:Today's featured article/December 30, 2010. If you think it is necessary to change the main date, you can request it with the featured article director, Raul654 (talk · contribs). If the previous blurb needs tweaking, you might change it—following the instructions of the suggested formatting. If this article needs any attention or maintenance, it would be preferable if that could be done before its appearance on the Main Page so Wikipedia doesn't look bad. :D Thanks! Tbh®tch^{Talk ©} Happy Holidays 04:59, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

The Laplace–Runge–Lenz vector is a vector used chiefly to describe the shape and orientation of the orbit of one astronomical body around another, such as a planet revolving around a sun. For two bodies interacting by Newtonian gravity, the LRL vector is a constant of motion, meaning that it is the same no matter where it is calculated on the orbit; equivalently, the LRL vector is said to be conserved. More generally, the LRL vector is conserved in all problems in which two bodies interact by a central force that varies as the inverse square of the distance between them; such problems are called Kepler problems. The hydrogen atom is a Kepler problem, since it comprises two charged particles interacting by Coulomb's law of electrostatics, another inverse square central force. The LRL vector was essential in the first quantum mechanical derivation of the spectrum of the hydrogen atom, before the development of the Schrödinger equation. The Laplace–Runge–Lenz vector is named after Pierre-Simon de Laplace, Carle Runge and Wilhelm Lenz. The LRL vector has been re-discovered several times and is also equivalent to the dimensionless eccentricity vector of celestial mechanics. Various generalizations of the LRL vector have been defined, which incorporate the effects of special relativity, electromagnetic fields and even different types of central forces. (more...)

Have you seen the Wikipedia Ambassador Program?

Hi Willow! Have you seen what's going on with the Wikipedia Ambassador Program, and specifically the role of Online Ambassador? Online Ambassadors serve as mentors for students who've been assigned to edit Wikipedia for courses, and I think you'd be great at it if you're interested.--Sage Ross - Online Facilitator, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 17:00, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Hi Sage! Yes, of course I'd be happy to help out, but regrettably it's not a very good time right now and I'm not sure whether I can commit to even 4 hours a week, as I was explaining recently to Cheryl. Let me get back to you in a few months? Don't give up on me, though, and feel free to pester me mercilessly after February. ;) Willow (talk) 18:39, 29 December 2010 (UTC)