User talk:Woodstone/Archive 4

Hard spaces

Woodstone, I just wanted to add to today's discussion over at Noetica's page, that your request that our proposal be accompanied by "hard-space-reversing" markup is not a killer for me, if you can get support for that. I'm just saying that I'm making a judgment call that the simplest possible, most bulletproof, obvious, omg-why-would-you-not-want-to-do-this kind of proposal would be the kind I'd prefer to make at bugzilla. But it's just a judgment call, and not a very important point to me. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 14:42, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

It's just that I have little confidence in "perfect" rules. Just an example: try to type in an excel cell "2 p", meaning two persons (or pieces). Microsoft will in its infinite wisdom convert this to "2:00 p.m.". This even happens if all your time settings are 24-hour style. Extremely annoying. So first of all I have doubts if automatic hard space insertion can be made robust enough and secondly I insist on stable overrride facilities (once overridden, it stays overridden). −Woodstone (talk) 15:33, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Quite reasonable, and I'm delighted that the nowiki code will make it happen. I'm sorry, I don't understand your objection about a link like PZL P.6...where are you saying Mediawiki would auto-insert the hard space? - Dan Dank55 (talk) 00:06, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Time Measurement and Standards Topics Template

Sorry if I stepped on any toes, but I was only removing "See Also" listings from where they duplicate links on the template. Many articles have excessively long See Also lists, that append without adequate explanation, and templates seek to address that.

Specifically regarding 12-hour clock and 24-hour clock articles, references to each are in the body of either article, making the See Alsos redundant, even without the Time Measurement Template. Also, in the 12-hour clock article, Comparison of the 12-hour and 24-hour clocks is linked twice in the article above, in appropriate places, and should probably not be in the See Also list a third time.

In any case, no page has been left unlinked where it was linked before. I'm very careful about that. Cheers. -- Yamara 16:04, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree that a link in the body of an article does not need to be repeated in the "see also" section. But a link in the template does not count. It is not visible on the page. The template buries it under an additional click that most people will not make. −Woodstone (talk) 21:40, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Joining Wikiproject Time

You seem to be very active on article that regard Time. Why don't you join WikiProject Time? You are formally invited, by me. Zginder ^{(talk) (Contrib)} 02:48, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Revert

Undiscussed change?[1] Have you read the talk page, which is running 100% in agreement? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:11, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

That exchange took a whole of two hours. That does not come anywhere near being long enough to have any reach under interested editors. In order to make content changes (not copyedit) to the MOS a few days woeuld be the very least. Furthermore the discussion is on the talk page of another page. −Woodstone (talk) 20:17, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Incorrect. You need to take some time to get better informed here. IN the meantime, please review WP:TALK and do not revert talk page entries of other editors.[2] No, a few days isn't needed, the change was only added in the last month while I was away, and it never enjoyed consensus. Please get up to speed before reverting. Thanks, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:26, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Sorry for accidentally reverting a talk page. Still, more discussion and time is needed before making content changes. How is it important if you were away? The world does not revolve around you. −Woodstone (talk) 20:30, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

No problem on the mistaken talk page revert. When MOS overkill is affecting FACs, I'll make a bold change. If you want to slow it down, fine, but that proposal didn't have consensus and I doubt it will survive. It's patently absurd and is what turns editors against MOS and discourages them from submitting articles to FAC. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:32, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Affricates in Help:IPA

Sorry, I didn't notice your revert before I added more tie-bars. What do you suggest we do about these affricates then? The whole point of them is that they are linked in some way (so there's a difference between tch and t+ch). With some of them we can use ligatures, but what about those where no ligature exists? --Kotniski (talk) 16:36, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

That particular page is meant for people without any knowledge of IPA and linguistics. It tries to avoid any linguistic terminology (such as ligature). It is not intended to be theoretically correct. The primary purpose is to give support for those who want to look up the meaning of IPA symbols in transcriptions given in articles. Therefore it is not positioned as a WP article, but as a help page. Aside from that, it is not at all unusual to leave out tie bars over composite symbols. Also, the tie bars display incorrecty in MS-IE (shifted left by one character). All of this taken together made us leave out the ties on purpose. −Woodstone (talk) 18:35, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Right, but it's because the page is intended for people "looking up the meaning of IPA symbols" that we should include all the symbols they might be looking up the meaning of. Even (particularly?) if those symbols display incorrectly. Suppose someone finds a [ts] with a tie-bar (even if displayed in a strange way), or a ts ligature, in an article. They come to Help:IPA to find out what it means - they need to be told. Maybe this could be done with notes** at the top of the "T" and "D" sections of the table, to avoid messing up the display too much. The present way of doing it is simply misleading, since it implies that e.g. [t] followed by [S] always represents an affricate. --Kotniski (talk) 09:15, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

 **I've now added such notes, so I think everything's OK now.--Kotniski (talk) 10:58, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

It still breaks the table flow. Woud you mind if I make it like a footnote, with a reference from every occurrence? −Woodstone (talk) 11:12, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure; I think it's an important enough point to have it right there in the table (remembering that a reader might be coming there looking for a particular symbol, possibly mis-displayed, and won't necessarily be drawn to the relevant footnotes). But try it as footnotes if you like and we can see how it looks. Another way of keeping the table flow would be to put the notes directly under the "D" and "T" cells instead of just before the affricate rows. --Kotniski (talk) 11:49, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Affricates again: general issues

Still on the same topic, but in general this time. I'm planning to add phonetic transcriptions to large numbers of articles on Polish towns. For the most part this shouldn't create too many problems, but I'm not sure what style to use for the affricates - tie-bars, ligatures, or nothing. Are there any guidelines on this anywhere? To achieve overall consistency for Polish tie-bars seem to be the only solution, since not all the combinations in question have ligatures available, and Polish distinguishes affricates from stop-fricative combinations (czy is not like trzy). So, how bad are the problems you report with the IE display? So bad as to be prohibitive on the use of tie-bars? If so, what do you suggest instead? In particular I'd like to develop some vaguely authoritative guideline on this, otherwise I foresee lots of edit disputes as others stick their oar in over transcriptions in individual articles. --Kotniski (talk) 17:11, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

In IE the tie bars are shifted to the left by one position, so in the examples here they are over a space and the d or t. In a longer word it would tie the wrong symbols.

• officially correct: "ax͡yb" gives ax͡yb; in IE the "ax" are tied
• work around for IE: "axy͡b" gives axy͡b; in IE the "xy" are tied

I just tried in Firefox 2 and it shows the same as IE. I remember trying it in an earlier version where it is different. Officially the tie bar should be entered between the two symbols to be tied. In my opinion we should not use wrong encoding because IE (even if still by far the most used browser) has it wrong. However encoding it right would cause incorrect display to the majority of readers. It is not worth the disturbance to enter tie bars. Using ligatures is self explanatory and can be done if available. Otherwise I would be for ignoring the difference between tied and untied pairs. There may be a phonetic difference in some cases, but not a very big one. People would almost surely still understand if they are exchanged. −Woodstone (talk) 19:20, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

How about when there's a no-width space before the tie character (x​͡y)? That works for me, using IE6 with the DejaVu Sans font installed. How does it come out in other browsers or without DejaVu?--Kotniski (talk) 12:31, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Image copyright problem with Image:Logchart.jpg

Image Copyright problem

Thank you for uploading Image:Logchart.jpg. However, it currently is missing information on its copyright status. Wikipedia takes copyright very seriously. It may be deleted soon, unless we can determine the license and the source of the image. If you know this information, then you can add a copyright tag to the image description page.

If you have any questions, please feel free to ask them at the media copyright questions page. Thanks again for your cooperation. NOTE: once you correct this, please remove the tag from the image's page. STBotI (talk) 21:29, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

earth

Hi Woodstone,

The problem I have with separate US & UK pronunciations is, why stop at that article? We'll start getting people adding alt. pronunciations to all of them, and what is a reader to make of it when they're incompatible, which they often will be (say due to s.o. who adds a alt. pronunciation but doesn't know the difference between ʊ and ʌ)? Or when there are three common pronunciations of a word -- are we now to make it six, three each for the US and UK? Better to nip it in the bud, in my not-very-humble opinion. kwami (talk) 21:52, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Excuse my butting in here, but is there any particular reason why "earth" needs to have its pronunciation shown? I'd have thought transcriptions were necessary only for words whose pronunciation is likely to cause problems (like foreign or strangely-spelt words).--Kotniski (talk) 12:31, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Some people might think it's pronounced /iərθ/ (similar to ear or beard). The spelling of English is very inconsistent, so I would advocate adding pronunciation to every word with the slightest chance of a wrong guess at pronunciation. −Woodstone (talk) 12:42, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

thank you so much

thank you for your recently contributed article of thailand about sex tourism and child sex in economy section, but i worry that your article is not related to the topic at all. Could you please contribute your article in the right place? There are many sex articles that you can be part of them in wiki. I hope you will enjoy to contribute and learn in that sections rather than post in the wrong section. Feel free to understand this situation with the right to protect a quality article to the public. Nat (talk) 03:03, 16 February 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Atichart (talk • contribs) 00:31, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

You are mistaken. I was the one that removed the part on child sex, on grounds that is is not an economic issue. The sex tourism as such is a non-negligeable contribution to the economy, not found in all countries, and deserves a sentence in the economy section. −Woodstone (talk) 12:04, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

misunderstand

so sorry for my misunderstand and thank you very much for your help. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Atichart (talk • contribs) 15:21, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

DMK

Sawasdee krap. Hope you are ok. Can you please comment on my question here? I am not trying to troll or cause commotion, but would just want to be fair on the encyclopedia. That is the reason why am not reverting your change into a dab page. Cheers :) Wiki San Roze ^†αLҝ 11:12, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

IPA consistency

Hi Woodstone. I've tried formatting the IPA in List of albedo features on Mercury and Classical albedo features on Mars, but the author (RandomCritic) rejects this as 'incorrect'. (Several were straight from the OED or Random House, but in the past he's refused to accept those as sources.) He believes that the IPA should indicate a specific dialect, and that the Help:Pronunciation chart is spurious. He even refuses to use the {{IPA}} template, and seems to believe that he has ownership of these articles. I'd appreciate your comments. kwami (talk) 21:44, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

I have put the pages on my watchlist, to see how it evolves. They look ok as they are right now. −Woodstone (talk) 23:03, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

He's responded by nominating the key for deletion. kwami (talk) 19:06, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

I saw. It will survive. We will need to assemble some references. Should not be too difficult. −Woodstone (talk) 20:07, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

He's now changed to international IPA (with template IPA2). The ones I checked are ok in my view. Good compromise? −Woodstone (talk) 16:33, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

That's no change at all. (Cf. the net change over the last 5 months: [3].) He's always used the IPA, but as it is it corresponds to a specific dialect. That's why I added the {{globalize}} tag, which he rejected as "template abuse". Also, with Classical albedo features on Mars, he's deleted the pronunciations altogether. — kwami (talk) 19:06, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Alphabet links removed

G'day,

I noticed you removed some links from the Alphabet, and was wondering if you could explain your rationale. It seems to me that that both a pen and the vocabulary are intimately linked to the alphabet. The last particularly so since I'm in the process of refuting that the English alphabet is dissimilar to Latin alphabet, and has 26 letters. Cheers--mrg3105 (comms) ♠♥♦♣ 23:00, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

See talk:alphabet. −Woodstone (talk) 10:40, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

European union is not the same as the european community

Hello. I noticed that you edited the introduction to European Union. I'm sorry, but I don't really understand the sentence Currently in vigour is the treaty of maastricht, concluded in 1993. I know what you intended, because I am familiar with the article. But I think an outsider just happening upon the article would be completely confused by that statement. The question of whether the EU was founded in 1993 or 1957 has come up on the talk page. Strictly, the European union did not exist before 1993. Something else did exist and still exists, but the event in 1993 was not simply a name change. There is a separate article, talking about the European Community, which is what existed pre 1993, and which you dropped from mention in the introduction. Sandpiper (talk) 10:55, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Are you going to change the inception date when the next now approved and still to be ratified treaty comes into vigour? That an organisation progresses through different stages of integration and size, does not mean that it is totally reborn every time. It is common to see the treaty of Rome as the start of the EU (then under a different name). −Woodstone (talk) 11:02, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Ah, well, that was not the view of editors debating it at the time. There is hardly a sentence in the introduction which has not been heatedly argued over. What exactly would happen after Lisbon has yet to be decided. It is considered that Maastricht made a fundamental change apart from the name change. Whether lisbon makes a fundamental change or not is hotly contested, though so far generally only outside wiki as it hasn't happened yet. The argument made for mentioning maastricht in the second sentence was that it was more important and more correct to say the EU as such (and as distinct from the EC) started at that point, rather than mentioning the treaty of Rome and claiming it started 1957. This article describes the EU and how it works, not the EC and how it used to work pre-maastricht.

It has also been argued that the EU started in 1951 with the coal and steel union, which preceded the EC. The operation of the EC from the Rome treaty happens to have been carried forward more or less the same into the current EU, which is why it is still relevant to discuss what it said, rather than what the 1951 paris treaty provided for. However, the EC was built upon the 1951 foundation. So would you say it started then? (see [4]) Sandpiper (talk) 12:22, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

I would not object to saying it started in 1951, but only coal and steel is a rather limited subject. A real generic multinational organisation definitely started in 1957 (which has been in the first few sentences till very recently). For me, a name change, some rule changes and accession of more countries do not make a new entity. −Woodstone (talk) 13:57, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Can't say as I've checked it, but the note I read said the EC subsumed the coal and steel union. So rome was to paris, as maastricht was to rome. If you are making that argument about a rule and name change being negligible, then you would have to say the whole began at Paris. Of course this ignores all the other treaties in between, which while their effects may have been smaller, collectively might have had as big an effect. You would have to say that a real generic multinational organisation definitely started in 1957 (between the same countries as later expanded it to the EC).

According to the EC article, the treaty of Rome created the EEC. At the same time a separate treaty created euratom. Then in 1967 the three were merged to create the EC. So in fact, the EC only dates from 1967 and its oldest component part is ECSC from 1951. The EEC shared some of the same institutions created for the ECSC. When the paris treaty expired, its responsibilities were formally transferred as amendments to the treaty of Rome, but only after the fact, not having been part of it when it was originally written. Sandpiper (talk) 19:16, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

I think they used the same institutions, if wikipedia is to be believed, In 1967 the Merger Treaty was signed, which combined the institutions of the ECSC and Euratom into that of the EEC, they already shared a Parliamentary Assembly and Courts. Sandpiper (talk) 19:16, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

On their own website the EU shows as its history beginning in 1951. That might be the best source. −Woodstone (talk) 20:25, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Delimitnum

Thanks for proofchecking the delimitnum template Woodstone. Does your being the first to try it out indicate that you like what it has to offer (if the darn thing would work right)? Greg L (my talk) 02:55, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Absolutely; it is (would be) a great tool. Very clever how you keep it copy/pasteble. The resulting HTML is clear, but the template source is rather hard to reverse engineer. −Woodstone (talk) 13:15, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Check of a Thai word

Hello Woodstone,

I noticed that you know the Thai language. Someone has edited the Interlingua article, changing the Thai translation of Interlingua from ภาษาอินเตอร์ลิงกวา to ภาษาอินเทอร์ลิงกวา. He made the same change to the Thai article on Interlingua. Could you tell me if this is correct? Thank you for your help. Valerius (talk) 03:10, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

There is a small book, issued by the Thai government, describing preferred methods of transcription into Thai script for several languages. For English, it states that an initial "t" before a vowel is transcribed by "ท". The letter "ต" is only used for "t" in the "st". So if you consider the word "Interlingua" as an Enlish word, the newer version above is indeed correct. However for French or Italian words, the intial "t" is transcribed as "ต". The word Interlingua has a definite Italian ring, so if you consider it an Italian word, the former transcription is better. I do not know if Interlingua is ever used in Thailand, and if so, what the standard transcription is. The breakdown is as follows: ภ(ph)า(a)ษ(s)า(a) (=language) อิ(i)น(n)[เ]ท(t)อ (เ-อ=e)ร์(r)ลิ(li)ง(ng)ก(k)ว(w)า(a) −Woodstone (talk) 20:07, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

After reading your response, I realized that my question was a bit incorrect. The goal isn't to translate or transcribe a word into Thai, but to simply type the Thai word for Interlingua, which should be found already in Thai dictionaries. You can see here that the word for Interlingua is very similar in a variety of languages.

Thank you for your knowledgeable remarks. If you'd like to comment further, it would be most helpful, but if not, I can check a Thai dictionary at some point. For the time being, it looks like the change made is at least reasonable. Valerius (talk) 02:26, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

The problem is that this is essentially a foreign word, so there is no natural Thai spelling for it. Every dictionary will just transcribe it following their preferred method (or even just intuitively without method). Chances are that several variants will be found. Tonight I will check a few dictionaries. A better approach would be to check if there is something like an interlingua society in Thailand and use their spelling, but even that would be just how the founder chose to do it. −Woodstone (talk) 08:43, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

The page on ISO 639 in the Thai WP shows under "ina" the spelling ภาษาอินเตอร์ลิงกวา. −Woodstone (talk) 09:14, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

None of my dictionaries has the word "Interlingua". One of them shows transcribed versions of the words "intersection" and "international", both using a "ต" and no "ร์" and integral using "ท". Since the word is not really an English word, but more internationally oriented, I think the most correct transcription is with "ต": ภาษา อินเตอร์ลิงกวา. −Woodstone (talk) 22:50, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

About the "balanced formulation"

Regarding this edit here. The debate that we are currently engaged in on MOSNUM is about binary prefixes in articles that relate to the computing industry. Do you agree?

I would say articles relating to IT in general, including hardware, software, storage media, communications. Why this question? −Woodstone (talk) 22:38, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Bangkok Metro and Bangkok Skytrain

Why did you remove the links that I inserted into those articles? It is not my website (obviously) and was relevant to the articles. Might as well remove all non-official links from such articles if that is the case. Somebody in the WWW (talk) 15:13, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

A link should directly point to relevant public and stable information that has a certain credibility. Generally a personal website does not qualify. −Woodstone (talk) 18:43, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Can you provide me a link to the Wikipedia policy which prevents such links? I presume you will be very busy if you go around removing the thousands of such links in Wikipedia!! Somebody in the WWW (talk) 08:05, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Have a look at WP:SPS. −Woodstone (talk) 09:32, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

IPA templates

Hi,

Templates such as "pronounced-en" are rather long to type multiple times. Any way of making them shorter? kwami (talk) 09:03, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

No objection. But it would be nice to keep consistency. Like xxx-nn, where:

• xxx = either IPA or (a short form of) prounounced (could be pron if you like)
• nn = language (possibly compound like en-au)

Go ahead (and move IPAEng as well, since you are admin)

P.S. Do you have any suggestions for a better name for the irritating IPA2?

−Woodstone (talk) 09:16, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

"IPA-link", maybe? That's not very good either, though, and it's longer. kwami (talk) 09:34, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

How about IPA-all? (all symbols and languages), or IPA-full? (still manageable lengths) −Woodstone (talk)

"IPA-all" is good. I wouldn't know what "full" was supposed to mean. kwami (talk) 17:35, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Linguistic issues concerning the euro

I responded to you on the talk page and received no reply. There, I asked you several days ago to revert your changes on the basis that there did not appear to be consensus for them. Are you now claiming that there is consensus for the changes? If so, please tell me where. Joeldl (talk) 07:51, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

There is no need for consensus if only one person objects. Be bold is the guiding principle. I gave my answer already on the talk page. A word that is daily used in common speech is bound to behave differently than one describing some abstraction far away and hardly ever used by the common people. So the linguistic development is bound to be different. −Woodstone (talk) 08:02, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

If there is one person in favour of the changes and one person opposed, then there is no consensus for the changes. You were bold, and that was fine. But I disagreed with your changes and reverted them. Being bold does not mean you are exempt from seeking consensus when someone has raised objections, particularly in a situation where it is one editor's opinion against another's.

Your answer on the talk page addresses the substance of why you think you are right (I also explained there why I thought I was right), but did not address the issue of consensus. The standard you are suggesting, that a single "bold" editor can make changes and a single editor in disagreement cannot revert them, does not make sense to me. Joeldl (talk) 08:23, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

You did not bring up a linguistically relevant objection. I see no way of reaching consensus when only two editors participate. −Woodstone (talk) 13:57, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Your opinion of the correctness of my arguments is beside the point when it comes to the question of how to handle disagreement. When there is no consensus, the status quo is maintained. Joeldl (talk) 00:51, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Template:Audio-pipe

Hello, I am writing here because it seems you are the author of Template:Audio-pipe, concerning which I recently raised a question at Village Pump that elicted no response at all, probably because few editors see a page that contains this template.

In a recent discussion with User talk: Kwamikagami, it was seen that Mr. Kwamikagami (and others) see the rendering of this template as containing a "speaker icon," whereas I only see a superscript (i) -- and no icon. The wikitext of the template contains: ⁽ⁱ⁾.

Note that the Help:IPA article specifically refers to this icon. Since you worked on this Template, I thought that you could clarify the matter. What must I do to see this icon in my browser (IE7)? Is this being caused by Cascading Style Sheets (something I have never understood)? Please let me know if you can resolve the matter. Morris K. (talk) 22:30, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Earth

Hey-

I'd be careful; you're bordering on a WP:3RR violation on Earth. There's no rush to implement any change, and leaving the page to reflect the clear previous consensus while waiting for any discussion to play out would be a good demonstration of good faith.

ASHill (talk | contribs) 14:03, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

You must be joking. You call a 4 to 3 vote a clear consensus? −Woodstone (talk) 20:32, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

revert on EU

Thanks for reverting my edit on EU. As you can see from my edit summary my intend, too, was to delete this nonsensical paragraph. unfortunately, due to some confusion, I had done just the opposite. Good you corrected that. Tomeasy (talk) 08:09, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

I had understood your intention. Probably somebody beat you to reversal and you invertently reverted his revert. It sometimes happens. −Woodstone (talk) 08:15, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Purplebox

IEC prefixes aren't anymore banned than they were in your previous vote. I've unstrucked the text that says bytes and bits should be used for disambiguation since they are not prone to revert-warring and I put a section who was there at the time of your previous vote in bullet form.Headbomb (ταλκ · κοντριβς) 05:44, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

The current version has a statement IEC prefixes are not to be used on Wikipedia except under the following circumstances (which are very limiting). This is a highly unusual form of censorship in a style guide. I think we could come to an agreement by only explicitly stating that disambiguation of KB, MB, GB should be done by showing powers of 10 or 2 (or 1000 and 1024 if you like). There is no need to add statements on when IEC prefixes can be used. −Woodstone (talk) 15:28, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

I am unable to edit any more on the MOSNUM talk page because I cannot load it in my browser (I think the page is just too big), so I will comment here instead, as you 2 are already discussing a related point. I am concerned about the text

• For sake of non-controversy—the IEC prefixes debate did span over many years—disambiguation should be done in bytes or bits, showing clearly the base that is meant, for example:

• with binary meaning: 3 MB (3×1024² bytes), 13 Gbit (13×1024³ bits).
• with decimal meaning: 3 MB (3×1000² bytes), 13 Gbit (13×1000³ bits).

I reworded it to remove the reference to IEC, which (seemed to) serve no useful purpose. Headbomb reverted my edit, claiming that the words do have a purpose. My point is that if those words serve a purpose, I cannot see what it could be, other than to imply exact numbers of bytes are preferred to IEC units. A couple of questions follow from that:

• To Headbomb: What is the purpose of the padding? Can the phrase be reworded to avoid the implied deprecation?
• To Woodstone: Do you share the concern?
• To both: which wording is more neutral?

Thunderbird2 (talk) 12:15, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

• I would prefer the most neutral wording, not mentioning IEC. I share your interpretation and concern. However, in order to achieve consensus, I am willing to accept mentioning the IEC as above, as long as there is no explicit deprecation. −Woodstone (talk) 20:14, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

• First, that section only says that you should disambiguate in bytes and bits, not that you can't ever use IEC units. As for the reason why you should disambiguate in bytes and bits it is because doing so in IEC prefixes will most probably cause revert wars. It's simply the wisest course of action. We all agree that disambiguation is perfectly acceptable in bytes and bits, but we don't all agree that doing so in IEC units is acceptable. Thus this avoid edit wars, and reflects consensus. Headbomb (ταλκ · κοντριβς) 13:55, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

  I know you want to build a guideline on consensus. You have been through the archives, so you will know that there is a broad consensus view is that it is acceptable to disambiguate in exact numbers of bytes. If that is the consensus, then that is what the guideline should say (and not should). Thunderbird2 (talk) 14:15, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Could you please update your vote on the greenbox now that FCL has been split into the redbox (and also vote on the redbox)? Headbomb (ταλκ · κοντριβς) 14:59, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Maxwell's equations

FYI, I'm discussing your recent edit at Talk:Maxwell's equations. :-) --Steve (talk) 19:36, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

request for comment

Hello. I would appreciate your comments here and here. Thank you. Thunderbird2 (talk) 18:47, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Help:IPA for English

Hi. Can you be more specific than “table format was rather messed up?” I made some content changes, and the tables looked better in both Safari and Firefox on the Mac. —Michael Z. 2008-06-29 22:50 z

I'm using IE7. The right borders of both major vertical parts of the table are missing and they are pushed together to about 1 mm. I checked firefox and indeed, it does not happen there. However IE is still the dominant browser and it should look good there as minimum requirement. And by the way, putting the stress and (linguistically doubtful) syllabification at the top does not seem logical. −Woodstone (talk) 16:28, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

I agree, but I don't have ready access to several Windows machines, to test changes for MSIE 6 and 7's rendering bugs. I'll try again when I have an opportunity.

I thought the small syllabification and stress table would be better at the top, where it won't be overlooked at the end of a long table headed "consonants". What's doubtful? If the example is bad, please replace it with a better one.

Regards. —Michael Z. 2008-06-30 17:02 z

I've tried it again, setting the table spacing by their calculated width instead of by adding a margin. Hope this looks okay in MSIE. I've also used the syllabification example mentioned on the talk page. Regards. —Michael Z. 2008-06-30 17:38 z

Looks good now (after the left alignment added by kwami). Syllabification in English is more a matter of spelling than language. Did not object to inclusion but focus at the top. −Woodstone (talk) 20:23, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Thai numerals

Yes, that's better. Did you delete the orphaned images? Pawyilee (talk) 14:09, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Glad you like it. They had an ugly double underline as well in my browser. I cannot delete them (requires higher authority). And thanks for pointing out the relation of the tone marks to numerals. I never realised that. It makes them easier to remember. −Woodstone (talk) 15:33, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

I noticed the resemblance to 1, 2, 3 and 4 when learning to write Thai, but had to make my own chart of how they work to spell tonal sounds. It's confusing that the numbers 1-4 for tonal-sounds เสียงเอก เสียงโท เสียงตรี เสียงจัตวา have the same number-names as do the วรรณยุกต์ tonal markers, but only correspond with tonal-marker usage for middle-class live syllables.

MC dead syllables use only 2 & 3. High-class live syllables use only 1 & 2 and HC dead syllables none at all. Low-class consonants shift "key" down one tone, LC live syllables use only 1 & 2, and LC dead syllables use only 1 or none if the LC dead syllable's vowel is long. Too, absence of a tonal marker can spell ANY of the tonal sounds starting with สามัญ (ordinary, or what was called 'toneless' when I was a child learning to read aloud with expression in my native English), but also any of the tonal-sounds 1-4. Alphabetical order follows the spelling, not the sound. Believe me, I cannot remember the rules but can see them at a glance when I look at the chart I've drawn on the back flap of all my dictionaries. Meanwhile, back at Thai numerals, I have not figured out how to make a concise statement that tonal-marker and tonal-sound number, while having the same number-name, do not necessarily correspond to the same tonal sound! Pawyilee (talk) 03:42, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Request for mediation at MOSNUM

I have completed a request for cabal mediation here. Thunderbird2 (talk) 15:36, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Using ISO 8601 at en-wiki for the fact-template

You may be interested in this Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)#Change_DATE_from_monthname_year_to_year-month. Nsaa (talk) 07:09, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Using breaks

Thanks, I use MS IE and I program in HTML and I have never had a problem with it not working in MSIE and the only problems I have seen is when something is wong with the users software. I only do those changes if I am making other changes at the same time since some don't like or understand making those changes. There are 2 reasons I make those changes, the first is that using <br/> is almost always better than using <br> and because I and other users use AWB to make changes within wikipedia its easier to make those changes if we don't have to sort for breaks 5 or 6 different ways. I hope that helps but please let me know if you have any more questions.--Kumioko (talk) 20:18, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Serrac

Please read the link you have deleted from the article on Massage before you delete it again. As for myself, I am a Licensed US massage Therapist and have run a massage school for 12 years. The article on massage overall is deeply in need of corrections and of additions in several parts (such as the very poor definitions of the various strokes used in massage). I added the reference to the article I found specifically because it explains massage regulation in the US extremely well and is an issue so many of my students and graduate therapists are confused about. Please also note that the link to the "how to Massage" videos lead to a You Tube promotion for someone who sells videos on massage, yet I agree with them staying as they are of benefit in that they do provide decent information that is of benefit to those interested in the topic. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Serrac (talk • contribs) 20:42, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

I had of course checked the link, before removing it. Almost everything on it is commercial, bringing you to a shopping cart with most clicks. Even the name contains the revealing word "trading". Secondly regulation is a very local issue, of not much general interest to an international audience. The linked page "how to" at least has a good dose of general information. −Woodstone (talk) 21:06, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

National ties

Could you assist me in writing a compromise formulation? I don't see why you care strongly. You view dates in ISO, if I read correctly; and you don't deal with articles which are deeply chronological.

My interest is not in either format; I would equally resist a date warrior from International to American; possibly more strongly, if he were an idiot American nationalist. Since both conventional formats are intelligible to everybody, although there are feelings of attachment, date warring does not improve communication; but it does annoy editors. On that ground, it is a net harm to the encyclopedia, and should be discouraged.Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:54, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

I see mostly ISO dates now, but if the delinking continues, that will no longer be true. To me, seeing U.S.A. style dates, units or spellings in typical European articles is jarring. I do not see any good reason to use the style of a single (ok, a few) countries to be used on artciles concerning mostly other countries. I can accept U.S.A. spellings and dates (but hardly units) in articles without any local binding. This is just my opinion.

Still, I think there might be a way forward in stating that spelling, units and dates should not be used in all combinations of styles. We could aim for two consistent styles:

• a U.S.A. centric style with color, May 5, foot
• an international style with colour, 5 May, metre

Each article would then select one of those based on locality binding.

What do you think: is it worth trying to pursue? −Woodstone (talk) 10:45, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

If this simply made the date format an aspect of the choice between British and American, it would be worth discussing.

But I don't think declaring that articles on third countries should use British English because they use meters can be a stable compromise; there is a wide-spread sentiment that articles on subjects having nothing to do with the English-speaking world should be left in whatever style they were written in. (See, for example, the long and repeated discussion of yoghourt. Americans are as likely to read that article (or Frederick II of Prussia) as citizens of the Commonwealth.) That's not how I happen to spell the word, but I join the majority in !voting to leave it alone. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:33, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

No objection to limiting to date/spelling and leave the units out. But still the most important point is to align to whatever the country uses as sequence of date elements. −Woodstone (talk) 15:49, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Kotniski has already expressly objected to the idea of mandating 27 August 2008 for Polish articles because Polish uses that format. I don't think that can become consensus, even among us at MOSNUM; I also think the idea harmful to the encyclopedia, as I said to begin with. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:04, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Kotniski objects to aligning to the sequence of Polish, but thinks a similar guideline as WP:ENGVAR should be applied. I still think it makes sense to include the date style in the spelling style. that would then be extended to read:

• Each article should consistently use the same conventions of spelling, and grammar, and date.

Connected to this I think it should also align to the variant of English most used in the bound country. I'm fairly sure there once was a clause like that, but cannot find it in the MOS history. −Woodstone (talk) 17:15, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

That would be a drastic change to ENGVAR, which says nothing about the variety of English most used in non-anglophone countries; it would provide material for endless, even more pointless, disputes about such countries as Germany, which used to teach British English but changed to (largely) teaching American English during the Cold War. It would be a disaster, and we are just as well without it. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:35, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

So how about just the most minimal link as above, only adding date to spelling and grammar? −Woodstone (talk) 18:11, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Just saying each article should be consistent? No problem, although we already assert that in the first section: WP:MOS#Consistency. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:52, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Not only that, also choose from a consistent set: spelling+grammar+date = either UK or US. −Woodstone (talk) 19:15, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

That's more doubtful; ss Tony points out, dating doesn't quite divide on a UK/US fracture. But I'd give it a weak oppose, not a protest; anybody who wanted to argue that Lafayette should use both American dating and American English will in any case be free to do so. One note, while we're on it: we shouldn't require consistency between text and notes: that would give editors the choice between not using citation templates and using ISO in the text, either of which would be bad. (I don't use the templates myself, but others should be able to.) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:07, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

That is to say, if other people agree, I can live with it; but it will be tricky to word. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 14:12, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

mdash, ndash, etc

Please supply an instance of where {{ndash}} is less appropriate than mdash. Thank you. Sardanaphalus (talk) 13:03, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

• Thanks for your reply. I'd say the both sets of instances look like they merit semicolons rather than dashes, but I've reinstated mdashes (actually, {{mdash}}es, in order to handle possible linewrapping). Sardanaphalus (talk) 23:04, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

mosnum goof

Thanks for fixing it! Tony (talk) 12:25, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Greg L

Hey. Are there still issues going on with Greg L from this RfC? Since it's been three months now I thought I'd ask, since I'm not really sure how to close it at this point. If there's still issues (you're the only certifier left who's actively editing, so i'm asking you) maybe it should go to arbcom, but if not then that works as well. Wizardman 15:51, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Greg L is still his old self, insulting people, stating he is the only one that can think straight, disregarding any opinions different from his and pushing through his opinions. I'm rather tired of his style and try to avoid him as much as possible. So yes: he is still a negative factor. −Woodstone (talk) 18:16, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Faraday's law and total time derivatives

Woodstone, regarding your suggestion to use a total time derivative in the differential form of Faraday's law of induction, such a form, exactly as you suggested was put on the main article of 'Faraday's law' a few months ago. It was removed because it was not backed up by any modern source. The only known source is equation (54) in Maxwell's 1861 paper. The rationale behind it is that the convective component of the total time derivative incorporates the E = vXB effect. See the conclusion at the end of appendix A, page 20 of http://www.wbabin.net/science/tombe.pdf 86.154.132.215 (talk) 21:36, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

There is a world beyond your specialist interests

Your claim that "by far" the main use of "RTGS" is in relation to Thai linguistics is patent nonsense. Not one of the items on the first five pages of google search results has anything to do with the Thai language. This is a typical example of how academics lose perspective on the realities of the wider world. Piccadilly (talk) 18:43, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Neither is your claim correct that ALL Google's first five pages are about the banking world. On the first page of 10, 2 references are about the "real time granular synthesizer" and 2 are about the plural of the unrelated RTG. So we all seem to have some blind spots. −Woodstone (talk) 21:42, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

atan2 in logarithm article

I suppose the whole section on complex logarithm cold be made simpler since there is a main reference. But as a general thing could you leave atan2 alone please. If you look in the complex number article it is used in the definition of polar form and also in the article you mentioned polar coordinates. arg() is there for the maths form, and using tan^-1(y/x) will just make things go wrong. It is used in maths packages like Mathemaica also beause is so useful. There is nothing wrong and 'unmathematical' with atan2 and it is very useful. Dmcq (talk)

I understand quite well why the arctangent is not the correct function to use. However "atan2" is a not a commonly used mathematical function. I also know there are several computer programming languages that have this function in their library. Using atan2 in a math article is fully unnecessary and makes a strange impression. The intention of the angle is much clearer explained by defining it as one that together with the radius yields back the coordinates by the cosine and sine functions. −Woodstone (talk) 17:39, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

The article is not solely for pure maths people, it is for a general audience including people who want to actually use the information. Defining a value by saying the conditions it must satisfy rather than giving a well defined function that just produces it is not very useful in applied mathematics. And arg is not as well defined as atan2 as it could be multivalued or map to [0, 2π) even if the principle value is conventionally (-π,π]. I really think that the complex number article for instance would be much worse if it did not include atan2. If you're really determined about removing references to it would you be happy with me raising a question on the Maths reference desk about what people think is best or how would you like to resolve the dispute? Dmcq (talk) 23:05, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

I am not against mentioning the atan2 function as a way to calculate the angle, but it should not appear in the definition. −Woodstone (talk) 20:44, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

IEC prefixes

You may wish to comment on this discussion at MOSNUM. Thunderbird2 (talk) 18:20, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Faraday's Law and the Lorentz Force

Woodstone, You recently asked this question,

Would it not be better to write: $\nabla \times \mathbf {E} =-{\frac {{\mbox{d}}\mathbf {B} }{{\mbox{d}}t}}$ ?(Woodstone (talk) 17:17, 8 September 2008 (UTC))

There is a textbook, 'J.A. Stratton, Electromagnetic Theory, (McGraw-Hill, New York, 1941). In 23, Chapter 5 is to be found a total time derivative version of Faraday's law. The justification is that the convective component is the curl of vXB. Stratton's words are “If by E we understand the total force per unit charge in a moving body, then curl E = −∂B / ∂t + curl (v × B) . Moreover, dB / dt = ∂B / ∂t + (v.grad)B , so that curl E = −dB / dt .“

This would suggest that Faraday's law is simply the curl of the Lorentz force.David Tombe (talk) 06:44, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

Thai numerals

I added many references to Thai_numerals#Alternate_numbers, from both the Online Royal Institute Dictionary and Sir Ralph Lilley Turner's A Comparative Dictionary of the Indo-Aryan Languages, but only one (from the ORID) appears under References. What did I do wrong? Pawyilee (talk) 14:35, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

There was a {{reflist}} before your references. Now corrected. −woodstone (talk) 15:20, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Thank you! Pawyilee (talk) 10:20, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Thai solar calendar

Your move of the Thai solar calendar weekday colours up into the table is a welcome improvement; but your comment was tedious. Pawyilee (talk) 18:38, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

I intended to say tedious list of weekdays. Someone spelled them all out. −woodstone (talk) 13:38, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

The someone was me, and I also tediously cross-linked the individual colors in the tedious list to the appropriate colour articles, where I made tedious references to Thai cultural usage. I see you that you think the links tedious, too. Still, the table now looks better than it did. AND, it is all un-referenced. Maybe you should jump on that. Pawyilee (talk) 18:22, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

It was User:Jerome Kohl (not you) who added the list I called tedious. It was User: Joe Kress (not me) who removed the links. Anyway, we seem to agree is the better for it. −woodstone (talk) 19:36, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Frankly, I'm often tedious and my work sometimes sorry, but yours is not. Pawyilee (talk) 01:57, 21 December 2008 (UTC)