Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Physics/Archive October 2007
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Pseudoscience may not be recognized as such
There are vast categories of pages on pseudoscientific topics. Many of these pages are recognized with "original research" or "lack of citation" tags. Unfortunately, these tags are also used on legitimate articles that actually are lacking citation. Is there a specific tag for denoting pseudoscience? If there isn't, I believe one should be created, as merely adding it to to the category "pseudoscience" may not alert readers. Beast of traal T C _ 21:33, 1 October 2007 (UTC)Beast of traal
- You could create a pseudoscience & fringe science sidebar... 132.205.44.5 22:29, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
- I think that would only serve to make the page look legitimate by lending it a look of officialism. I had in mind something similar to the spoiler warning. Like:
Beast of traal T C _ 02:42, 2 October 2007 (UTC)Beast of traal
- I think the {{disputed}} tag is what you're looking for. ScienceApologist 19:28, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
- The disputed tags don't exactly cover pseudoscience because there isn't a dispute over it. An article may not be technically inaccurate (eg "Antigravity is the hypothetical concept"), what I am worried about is that such articles can be mistaken for articles written about legitimate concepts (eg In astrophysics and cosmology, dark matter is hypothetical matter"). Beast of traal T C _ 22:37, 2 October 2007 (UTC)Beast of traal
- I see no need for such a tag, and I see lots of potential for it to be used in a POV way. Just describe the advocates of various viewpoints, and give readers credit for being able to sort it out. --Trovatore 22:42, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
- Any {{disputed}} tag can be used in a POV way. In addition, for example, the crop circles lends a little too much credibility to the insane explanations of their existence. This could be corrected simply by using a pseudoscience tag. (I know crop circles are not physics related, it was just an easy example). Beast of traal T C _ 23:04, 2 October 2007 (UTC)Beast of traal
- I do not know what procedure, whether debate or voting, is followed when proposing tags. If this is not the place to do it, I apologize. If it is, should it be formalized? Beast of traal T C _ 00:50, 3 October 2007 (UTC)Beast of traal
- Look, tags of the sort you're talking about are cleanup tags. They're intended to be temporary, until a problem is fixed; in the mean time they're intended to warn readers that the matter is being addressed.
- In the cases you're talking about, there is no problem to fix. If the articles say "this is what these people say, and this is what these other people say, and by the way the second group is the mainstream of the scientific community", well, that's all true, and that's all we need to say. It's far beyond our scope to put a tag of disapproval on such things. --Trovatore 00:57, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
- A pseudoscience tag would do just that- say that the mainstream says this in not reputable. It would just do it in such a way that readers do not have to hunt through the article to find out whether or not what is said is true. Beast of traal T C _ 01:34, 3 October 2007 (UTC)Beast of traal
- That's a very bad idea. This is not the old Soviet Union; we will not have official truth. Give the readers some credit. --Trovatore 01:38, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
I don't think we need a template. If the lead text is clear, the reader will understand. Also, we do have categories for pseudoscience articles. --Itub 08:30, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
- It's possible - in theory at least - to write very good articles on pseudoscience topics. The key would seem to be to identify good sources that discuss the relevant topic in a scholarly way. Itsmejudith 08:54, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
- I see your points. Thanks for allowing this discussion, I appreciate it. Beast of traal T C _ 11:33, 3 October 2007 (UTC)Beast of traal
Rename of solar power to solar energy?
Hi
At the solar power page, rated as B-class for this project, we are talking about whether the page should be renamed solar energy. There are various views and more input would be appreciated. Clarifying for readers the distinction in physics theory between power and energy is one issue at stake. Another is which term best reflects everyday language usage of the concepts discussed in the article. Itsmejudith 08:52, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
spectroscopy Pictures
Deo here, i was learning about emission spectums in school so i went on wikipedia and looked up the stuff i was learning in class, which can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_spectroscopy, and i realized the pages are missing pictures so i thought it would make it cooler if a picture could be added. I'm not sure where to put the picture so ill leave it up to you people:
Neon
--Deo Favente 23:41, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
Merging
Both Physical phenomena and phenomena cover the same concept. Additionally, Observable universe and Hubble volume cover the same concept. I put tags on the later about a month ago, and am wondering what a follow up would be? Thanks Beast of traal T C _ 13:23, 8 October 2007 (UTC)Beast of traal
- I'm not convinced that "physical phenomenon" and "phenomenon" are coextensive -- that claim seems to take as granted that there are no non-physical phenomena. Certainly it would be possible to have a single phenomenon article that treats physical phenomena as a special case, but whether that's advisable or not is another question; the current "phenomenon" article seems to be mostly about the philosophical concept, and it's not clear that the content of the current physical phenomenon article fits comfortably there. --Trovatore 17:15, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
- I can assure you that there are no non-physical phenomena. Beast of traal T C _ 00:12, 9 October 2007 (UTC)Beast of traal
- I'm afraid I can't agree that your assurance settles the question for Wikipedia purposes (or for any other purposes for that matter, but that's not relevant to the current discussion). Wikipedia does not take a stand on whether physicalism is correct. See WP:NPOV. --Trovatore 00:56, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
- All phenomena are physical. They are. This has nothing to do with point of view. Beast of traal T C _ 01:17, 9 October 2007 (UTC)Beast of traal
- I'm afraid I can't agree that your assurance settles the question for Wikipedia purposes (or for any other purposes for that matter, but that's not relevant to the current discussion). Wikipedia does not take a stand on whether physicalism is correct. See WP:NPOV. --Trovatore 00:56, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
- I can assure you that there are no non-physical phenomena. Beast of traal T C _ 00:12, 9 October 2007 (UTC)Beast of traal
- Your claim boils down to "I'm right, and therefore consequences of the things that I believe are not POV, because they're correct". That's not going to cut it. --Trovatore 01:20, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
- No it doesn't. If something is observable, it must be physical. Concepts are not observable, and therefore not phenomena.Beast of traal T C _ 01:26, 9 October 2007 (UTC)Beast of traal
- Your claim boils down to "I'm right, and therefore consequences of the things that I believe are not POV, because they're correct". That's not going to cut it. --Trovatore 01:20, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
- You are arguing from a particular point of view that is by no means universal among reputable philosophers. Whether you are correct or not is beside the point, so please quit arguing that point; this is not the correct forum for it. Your assertion that it is not a point of view is completely unsupportable, blatantly false on its face. --Trovatore 01:34, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
- It is not a point of view. Phenomenon has a clear definition. The philosophical use has another. A separate page should be created for the use of the word in philosophy. By the way, I used the phrase "I can assure you" only as a figure of speech and did not mean to imply the conclusions you drew from it. Beast of traal T C _ 03:47, 9 October 2007 (UTC)Beast of traal
- Hm? The philosophical usage of "phenomenon" is the principal one. But anyway it doesn't seem to be different from the one you're using -- you say a phenomenon is something you observe (that is, perceive), which is essentially the same as the one from phenomenology, as I understand it. But you can't pretend it's definitional to say that what can be observed is necessarily physical. What if, for example, God speaks to me, and I hear? Surely that is a phenomenon, since I perceive (or even observe it), and this does not imply that God is physical. You may think that God does not exist and that therefore this cannot happen, but even if you're right about that, it is not by definition, nor is it non-controversial. --Trovatore 04:25, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
- No. A) The philosophical usage of "phenomenon" is not the principal one (new oxford american dictionary). B) I am using the first definition. C) If god is speaking to you, you are hearing the physical sound waves.Beast of traal T C _ 11:51, 9 October 2007 (UTC)Beast of traal
- Exactly how do you know that, if God is speaking to you, you are hearing the physical sound waves? It's a supernatural event; you can't put any constraints on it at all, except possibly the ones that follow from pure logic. Perhaps you perceive the message directly in your soul, with no intermediary physical process whatsoever. --Trovatore 17:01, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
- Beacause you cannot hear things other than atmospheric vibrations. As to the bit about receiving messages "in your soul", I have no idea what you mean to say- unless you mean to reference schizophrenia. In this case there are known phenomena (see link) that cause the auditory hallucinations. This is not the place to promote your personal views about god/gods and their communication with people. I personally am not interested in the subject and would prefer not to discuss it. If no one has any rational objections to it, I will proceed to merge Physical phenomena and phenomena. If you want, Trovatore, I'll create a stub article on the philosophical use of phenomenon at phenomenon (philosophy) Beast of traal T C _ 22:58, 9 October 2007 (UTC)Beast of traal
- Exactly how do you know that, if God is speaking to you, you are hearing the physical sound waves? It's a supernatural event; you can't put any constraints on it at all, except possibly the ones that follow from pure logic. Perhaps you perceive the message directly in your soul, with no intermediary physical process whatsoever. --Trovatore 17:01, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
- No. A) The philosophical usage of "phenomenon" is not the principal one (new oxford american dictionary). B) I am using the first definition. C) If god is speaking to you, you are hearing the physical sound waves.Beast of traal T C _ 11:51, 9 October 2007 (UTC)Beast of traal
- Hm? The philosophical usage of "phenomenon" is the principal one. But anyway it doesn't seem to be different from the one you're using -- you say a phenomenon is something you observe (that is, perceive), which is essentially the same as the one from phenomenology, as I understand it. But you can't pretend it's definitional to say that what can be observed is necessarily physical. What if, for example, God speaks to me, and I hear? Surely that is a phenomenon, since I perceive (or even observe it), and this does not imply that God is physical. You may think that God does not exist and that therefore this cannot happen, but even if you're right about that, it is not by definition, nor is it non-controversial. --Trovatore 04:25, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
- This is also not the place to promote your personal beliefs about the non-existence of gods and their communication with people, which was my point all along. No, I do not agree with the merge as proposed. I will revert if you attempt it, and then we can argue about it on the talk page. --Trovatore 23:03, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
- However -- as I say, a merge of physical phenomenon into phenomenon would possibly be defensible, treating physical phenomena in one section of the article. The merged article could allude to the physicalist view that physical phenomena are the only ones there are, but must not take a position on whether that view is correct. I am not certain whether that is the best course of action, but I wouldn't fight it if written in an NPOV way. --Trovatore 23:34, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
- This is also not the place to promote your personal beliefs about the non-existence of gods and their communication with people, which was my point all along. No, I do not agree with the merge as proposed. I will revert if you attempt it, and then we can argue about it on the talk page. --Trovatore 23:03, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
You would have come to this conclusion much sooner if you had read what I have been saying. Thank you, I will now proceed to move the information to the correct pages. Beast of traal T C _ 23:58, 9 October 2007 (UTC)Beast of traal
Bogdanov Affair v2.0?
Please see Gabriel Oyibo. --Pjacobi 11:25, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
Proposed Frictional pressure drop merge
FYI, I am proposing the merge of a number of related pages into Frictional pressure drop Bluap 17:17, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
I have been updating this page, since I am researching this for personal stories. Anyhow, I did some major updates including separating the Aluminum cluster and added a Platinum cluster as well as other clusters. There is also a proposed 3D Periodic Table that I could not get any significant citation, ie.
- Beyond The Periodic Table, Computational Chemistry Portal, 2006.
But many site mention that the 3D table is becoming a reality and have pictures on one of the link in the External Link section. Just thought is someone could take a look and see if I made any significant errors. Thanks, Marasama 22:21, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
I'd be grateful if people could have a look at the Entropy (disambiguation) page, where I'm in a dispute.
It seems to me that that this previous version was a lot more helpful than the current edited one for users trying to find their way to the article they need.
In particular the older one
- Helpfully grouped articles around the main two scientific meanings -- information entropy and thermodynamic entropy
- Helpfully also contained links to the different Entropy categories
The latest edit -- removing Introduction to entropy from the page completely -- seems to me particularly user-unhelpful, verging on WP:POINT.
But I'd be grateful for third party input on this, as maybe I'm too close to what's been edited before. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jheald (talk • contribs) 15:58, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
- I also like the old one better. I think Thumperward may be applying some of the conventions for simplicity in disambiguation pages too rigidly, and his argument that "'Useful' is not a criterion that dambig pages are judged" is not persuasive. Usefulness (for navigation) is the only reason for the existence of disambiguation pages! MOS:DP clearly says: "For every style suggestion above, there's some page which has a good reason to do something else. These guidelines are intended for consistency, but usefulness to the reader is the principal goal. So ignore these guidelines if you have a good reason." (Emphasis added.) However, as a compromise, since Thumperward doesn't seem to like the indented sublists for thermodynamics and information science, perhaps you could turn those two subareas into top-level lists, by replacing "In science and technology" as a heading with "In physical science" and "In information science", or something to that effect. --Itub 17:26, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
- I don't appreciate the WP:POINT allegation; what "point" am I trying to put across? That disambiguation pages should not randomly deviate from convention? And the previous version ignored disambiguation page convention to such an extend that it was arguably trying to be a WP:SUMMARY rather than a disambig. Those pages do not exist to "be useful" in any form other than to point users to the page they were actually looking for in a more helpful form than a context-free list of search results. Especially notable were the category links; Wikipedia is not dmoz, and one does not search the article namespace to get category results. Chris Cunningham 20:56, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
- Chris, the way you've edited this, by lumping together the articles variously related to thermodynamic entropy with those variously related to information entropy, removing the structured grouping that was there, actually makes it harder for people to find the page they were looking for. I fail to see how this is useful.
- A page on entropy (disambiguation) ought to disambiguate some of the different ways, and specific contexts, in which the word entropy is used. That's how you help people find what WP has called the article on the subject they are looking for. If you llok at those cats, you will find articles on a number of yet further particular entropies -- eg Conformational entropy, Loop entropy, Entropy of mixing, Tsallis entropy, etc -- that it is entirely appropriate for the dab to reference the caegories to help readers to find. Jheald 21:31, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
- Specific comments probably more appropriate at the article talkpage, to where I've copied the above. Jheald 22:06, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
Expert review: Radiation of sound
As part of the Notability wikiproject, I am trying to sort out whether Radiation of sound is notable enough for an own article. I would appreciate an expert opinion. For details, see the article's talk page. If you can spare some time, please add your comments there. Thanks! --B. Wolterding 16:46, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
Relativity Taskforce
I'd like to create a relativity taskforce as part of Wikiproject Physics. Some time ago, I created a relativity wikiproject proposal, but was encouraged by some editors to make this a taskforce of Wikiproject Physics. I have mulled over this and agree with their suggestion. I have a proposal, which will be renamed. I wanted the views of other editors before I embark on this. I'm also new to the business of creating taskforces so any help in this area will be much appreciated!. Thanks. MP (talk•contribs) 11:15, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
- How does this differ from the existing User:Mpatel/WikiProject Relativity which you created in October 2006? Its inactivity suggests a lack of sufficient interest to sustain any new taskforce. JRSpriggs 23:42, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
- There is no difference. The lack of interest - caused mainly due to the fact that it wasn't a part of Wikiproject Physics - was the main reason that editors made the suggestion that it should be a part of WP Physics (in particular, as a taskforce). Hence the reason for the stall. I don't know what their current position is, but personally I'd prefer to keep it is a Wikiproject rather than a taskforce. If nobody objects to this, I will add User:Mpatel/WikiProject Relativity - with a name change - to the WP Physics page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mpatel (talk • contribs) 12:14, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
WikiProject Fluid dynamics
Wikipedia:WikiProject Fluid dynamics is listed as inactive on the Physics WikiProject main page. Template:Inactive was added to the Fluid dynamics WikiProject in July 2005 and subsequently removed in January 2006 and currently is not affixed to the WikiProject. Should the inactive statement on the Physics main page be updated? (I am not a participant in either WikiProject) --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 00:59, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
Deletion sorting
I have added {{Topic|Physics}} to Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Science, suggesting that deletion notifications related to this WikiProject are appropriate to post there. Is this consistent with the wishes of the participants of this WikiProject? --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 01:01, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
Gamma ray burst 
This article was recently promoted to GA, and it's daughter article gamma ray burst progenators 
ran on the home page as a did you know? item. GRB is rated high importance by this WikiProject. Would anyone like to help with Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Gamma ray burst? - Jehochman Talk 04:01, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
Wikiproject relativity
I added Wikipedia:WikiProject Relativity to the WProject Physics page some days ago. Forgot to mention it. MP (talk•contribs) 16:48, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
Deriving the Schwarzschild solution
See Deriving the Schwarzschild solution (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views). Do we usually have articles on derivations, in this way? I thought it was considered a how-to. Cruftbane 20:49, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
- Personally I think some how-to's deriving all important equations approximating or predicting the behavior of physical phenomena are appropriate in Wikipedia. Any such articles that are voted for deletion by others disagreeing with my opinion of the scope of the Wikipedia project should definately be considered for transwiki to Wikibooks or Wikiversity. Definitely Wikiversity. Any clear derivation already encoded in the wiki version of html would definitely be a good starting point for seminars or discussion on the related concepts. The Wikibookeans may prefer to wait for a collection of derivations or an wiki book whose author finds the derivation useful inline. Lazyquasar 06:46, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
Change to Manual of Style on measurement systems
The section on choosing measurement systems has been changed from:
- In scientific articles, SI units are the main units of measure, unless there are compelling historical or pragmatic reasons not to use them (for example, Hubble's constant should be quoted in its most common unit of (km/s)/Mpc rather than its SI unit of s−1)
Into:
- In scientific articles, use the units employed in the current scientific literature on that topic. This will usually be SI, but not always. For example, natural units are often used: ångströms (or angstroms) are widely used in such fields as x-ray crystallography and structural chemistry, and Hubble's constant should be quoted in its most common unit of (km/s)/Mpc rather than its SI unit of s−1.
Comments on this change are welcome at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style#Units_of_measurement. Thank you Tim Vickers 18:15, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
- One editor is objecting strongly to this change, some feedback from people writing science articles would be very helpful. Tim Vickers 17:37, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
Sadi seems to have got into all kinds of trouble over at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#User:Sadi Carnot. I make no comment on this as I have no direct evidence myself. I have always found him to be a useful editor. Nevertheless, some project participants might want to get involved. I have only just got back from a wikibreak caused by a trip half way round the world, so I'm still jet-lagged. --Bduke 07:03, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
- As a consequence of this, three websites were blacklisted. Quite a lot of articles have links to one of these sites, and now that the links trigger the spam filter, the pages cannot be edited until the links are removed. I guess at least some of the articles will have to be reviewed and rewritten as well. If you feel like looking into this, you will find the pages in question here:
- /SvNH 05:00, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
- Most of the links are now simply being removed wholesale by the people who have made this ban, I think. If there is material that's worth keeping, it may be possible to get round the ban by linking to archive.org instead.
Using {{cite web}} used to evade the ban, too; though that loophole may since have been closed.Alternatively, since some of the material is copyright expired (eg extracts from the works of Clausius, etc), it could be moved to wikisource. - I always found rather strange Sadi's obsession with putting so much historical material in minute detail at the top of articles, where (IMO) it didn't at all help towards a good current understanding of the topic. (Compare 1911 Britannica, and (I think) WP's own science manual of style, which suggests to treat the detailed historical development at the end of the article). But I am sorry it has come to this. There's some discussion, and a possible ArbCom case, as to whether Sadi should have been warned and compulsorily mentored, rather than quite so readily banned outright. More (much too much more...) at WP:AN/I, as Bduke said. Jheald 09:26, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
- I was not involed in the banning, I just looked up the crosswiki spamming thing - which turned out not to be a crosswiki spamming thing after all. On meta it was agreed to blacklist the sites because they promote "bogus science" (User:A. B.), and personally I agree with that. Therefore I would not link to the archived version. The historical texts will sooner or later be available on other sites (Project Gutenberg, for instance). I also agree that user S C seems to have had a quite imbalanced view on the historical material, and I think there is actually quite a lot of work that has to be done going through his/her edits. /SvNH 12:12, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
- Most of the links are now simply being removed wholesale by the people who have made this ban, I think. If there is material that's worth keeping, it may be possible to get round the ban by linking to archive.org instead.
- I'm not very involved in the cases mentioned of Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents/Sadi Carnot, but on a quick readinmg they justify action. My main problem with him was more a formal one, as he tended to split articles into a huge number of smaller ones suggesting, that the topic has different meanings in different areas -- see all the Entropy articles. My most recent (July) contact was over the Zero point field article, which got somewhat better since Sadi's first version, thanks to User:Linas. Nevertheless I'd still prefer deletion (with some merging). --Pjacobi 13:11, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
My input in this discussion was that it was mostly a failure of the editors who did not notice anything or intervene. They noticed the unacceptable edits far too late and they are blaming Sadi for vandalism. But because of the way wikipedia works, a single editor cannot possibly have such much influence unless he is the only editor. Also, what Sadi did is certainly not vandalism. His views on certain issues are simply wrong, but he does believe in his own views. I don't think we can say that he was deliberately corrupting the contents of wikipedia. Banning Sadi will do little good. The editors of the biochemistry articles need to recruit more experts, otherwise this problem could repreat itself (in a different way) again.
In case of other controversial wikipedia articles there are a lot of editors who behave in a much worse way than Sadi did. They do not get banned unless they repeatedly violate 3RR or use sockpuppets or violate some of the core wikipedia rules repeatedly. POV editing using sources in a misleading way etc. is never seen as a valid reason to ban people.
Example: just consider the various wiki articles relating to global warming. Take a look at the way User:Iceage77 edits those articles. Then ask yourself what would have happened if editors likeUser:Iceage77 had free reign like Sadi apparently had :) If all such editors were banned by some new wiki policy, then wikipedia would no longer perceived to be a free encyclopedia that everyone could edit. So, while it would have been more convenient not to have such editors, on the long term the credibility of the articles would have suffered. People who are neutral or leaning toward the skeptical side on climate issues would have said that "skeptics are banned from editing, so we cannot trust that the contents represents the facts in a neutral way". The only people who are complaining now are the hard core skeptics like User:Iceage77 whose edits almost always get reverted. Count Iblis 14:02, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
- Just to clarify, Sadi Carnot is not banned, because User:Physchim62 proposed mentorship instead, and the consensus appears to have supported that solution. SC will be closely monitored if he returns, and if there are any further problems he will be blocked. Meanwhile, the articles still need to be checked. - Jehochman Talk 16:27, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
Edward Teller FAR
Edward Teller is currently being subjected to a Featured Article Review. If you want to contribute to this discussion, please do. Regards, Daimanta 20:28, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
Edward Teller has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:06, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
Proofs and derivations
What is the best way to present mathematical proofs and derivations in articles? Hooke's law uses Show/Hide boxes which seem quite neat but other articles do not. Is there any consensus or style guide on this? Thanks Andeggs 12:19, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
- The S matrix article mentioned below as needing cleanup was tagged for this reason: a large chunk of the article is a mathematical proof of LSZ reduction formula. --Starwed 19:25, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
There are only 7 articles left in Category:Cleanup from November 2005 and two them are physics articles which are unlikely to be fixed by the average editor. Can someone knowledgeable about physics look at these?--BirgitteSB 19:05, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
- I looked at S Matrix, and it seems like there are some pretty easy things to fix. Namely, the sections on the LSZ reduction formula and Wick's theorem don't really belong; the former has it's own article, while the latter probably should. In both cases, there is too much detail which doesn't belong in the article. --Starwed 19:29, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
Dealing with a vandal
I've got a general question about dealing with a vandal. There has been a continuous problem with vandalism with the theoretical physics article from people adding Gordon Freeman and other references to the game Half-Life to the article. This is probably going to happen forever, or at least until they stop making Half-Life games, but there is a particularly egregious editor, IMNTU, whose edit history indicates that vandalism(including some things way more offensive than this half-Life hoax) is about all he/she does on WP. This person has shown no good faith and I don't feel the need to assume it any longer; how do I get this joker banned? Joshua Davis 18:03, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
- The official way is to post on WP:AIV after the user has received a couple of warnings. Unofficially, any way which gets the attention of an administrator will do the job. As I happen to be one, I blocked the user for a week. Let me know if the vandalism continue when the block expired and I'll be happy apply another block. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 19:10, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
- Thanks, though I'm curious if there is a more permanent block/ban solution. Some of this user's edits leave no doubt that his/her intent is malicious. See for example his/her October 26th edit of Long Man where the entire page was replaced with a repeated racist epithet. I think the repeated goofy vandalism at theoretical physics that I described may not be bad enough for a permanent ban but patently offensive and racist edits should be a one-way ticket out of WP, no? To pursue this should I go ahead and post at WP:AIV? Joshua Davis 21:31, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
- The block is now indefinite. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 11:12, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
- Thank you both for your helpfulness. Joshua Davis 17:21, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
Conflict of Interest guideline change proposed
A discussion about changing the COI guideline to improve expert retention has begun at Wikipedia_talk:Conflict_of_interest#Scientists_and_Experts. Comments are welcome. - Jehochman Talk 15:31, 31 October 2007 (UTC)